They say people don’t leave jobs. They leave bad managers.

The worker in this story did better than leaving. See how he made life better for everyone who had to deal with his manager.

Manager bullies me for several months until I finally quit. I made sure to get him fired.

I’d been without a job for a while, looking for a better paying job than I had before and I found one at a camera security company that was looking to hire someone for the service desk.

I went for an interview and got a call back later that day. If I wanted the job it was mine.

My new manager was ex army. He REALLY didn’t like having people disagree with or going against him. A thing I was very unaware of when I took the job.

His ugly side was horrible.

For 2/3 months everything was going well. The manager was cordial and seemed to really enjoy having me there. I worked my butt off every day, as the software we were working with was unknown to me, so I studied a lot and even went oversea to another country to follow a course and succeeded on my exams.

However, after that period my grandpa, who was like a second father to me, suddenly was hospitalized after a brain bleed.  He was found in the shower. He had collapsed after he pressed his panic button.

This all happened on a Wednesday. The family came together in the hospital several times to show support and see grandpa. However, on Friday afternoon, 3pm I was called up by my father (my grandpa’s son) while I was at work and he explained to me that grandpa unfortunately passed away.

I was in tears on the phone and in utter shock. It took me a while to calm down.

I went to my manager and explained what just happened and that I’m going home to be with my family. However, that day there was an event. The company was doing a charity event and this charity was going to be public news. They already announced the amount of people participating and it would look bad if they were a person down. It was basically just for good PR.

So he refused to let me go. I told him that by law he cannot deny me as my contract states I can take a day for a death in the family and that I was leaving now.

This was the turning point. He went from a nice manager to a manager from hell. Suddenly everything I did was wrong. I was told he couldn’t believe I was in this line of work for 6 years and be this bad at my job; he cussed me out and ridiculed me in front of my colleagues and even clients.

This all continued for several months and severely began to impact my mental health. I had a talk with my parents and my fiancée (at the time still my girlfriend, I’d ask her to marry me in December 2016). They basically told me that this was not okay, that I didn’t have to take this and that I should give them my 2 weeks’ notice.

I agreed. The following day I went to HR and explained why I was leaving the company and that I couldn’t stand the idea of working even a single day more with that excuse of a human being.

Then a light appeared at the end of the tunnel.

HR showed interest in my wellbeing and even more importantly in what I was claiming about my manager. They had received more complaints about him, but nobody had proof of his wrongdoings. So, they asked me if I had proof. I told them I’d be looking for a new job, but I’d gladly fit in the time to collect all I could.

For the next 2 weeks I collected everything. Memos, emails, voice recordings (when on the phone the calls are automatically recorded and the dumb jerk was stupid enough to cuss me out while I was on the phone, lucky me).

Also lucky was that my colleagues at the desk had my back this entire time. They’d been trying to cheer me up, said I was doing fine work and that they also didn’t understand this man’s behavior. So, when I came by and asked if they’d mind signing a document that everything I stated in the paperwork was the truth, they gladly did.

I had one last talk with HR and him at the same time the last day I was there. Before he even walked in, I told the HR person who was mediating: “He’s going to walk in, say what he wants to say and I’ll be quiet and listen. When he’s done, I’ll explain my side and he’s going to interrupt me, tell you I’m lying and talk about completely none related subject matter to drag the conversation another direction.”

She looked surprised at my comment, but had no time to respond as Mr. Army Man walked in and began his spiel. Exactly as I stated he’d blurt his side out and once I tried to talk he’d consistently interrupt me and tried to pick fights.

Justice prevailed!

Eventually I got up, told HR “I told you so. Here’s the documents you’ve been asking for.” I placed a file folder with dozens of emails, plenty of memos and a USB containing 3 phone conversations and even video footage of him yelling at me, in both voice and video recordings you could easily hear him cuss me out.

I gave the manager a big bright smile, who was smirking victoriously and said to him: “I don’t think you’ll be smirking like that for long. Enjoy your little victory.”

His smirk disappeared into a confused scowl, but I slammed the door on him before he could respond and left the building. It felt like a humongous amount of stress fell off my shoulders. Within a month, I was back to my old self.

Two months later I was working at a new job and out of curiosity I checked my ex-manager’s LinkedIn: “Unemployed.”

I called one of my old colleagues to ask what exactly went down. My proof opened Pandora’s Box. He was being disrespectful to the female staff, insulted the older staff and on multiple occasions was less than cordial with our external hires.

His efforts were gratifying.

None of these complaints were acted upon because it was his word against theirs and there was no proof.

However, by providing overwhelming proof of his gross behavior towards me made all other complaints now to be taken as fact.

He was promptly fired less than a month after I left and they refused to provide him with any form of reference. In a field like his, references mean a lot. So not getting one from a company you worked at for nearly a year is a huge red flag.

It’s now 2020, 4 years have passed and according to LinkedIn he’s still not working in his field.

I’ll gladly admit that I felt rather wickedly satisfied and still do whenever I happen to think about it.

Here is what people are saying.

Definitely. I’m glad!

It’s helpful for sure.

I wouldn’t even call that revenge. It’s justice.

Aw how sweet.

A hothead like him would probably love to be associated with the army.

He had it coming.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.