Lots of employers have contracts that are meant to keep workers in their place.

Sometimes their selfishness blows up right in their faces when the workers stand up for themselves.

See how this worker got himself out of a toxic workplace while thoroughly enjoying the process.

Do not want me to work my notice? Ok, I will not work during my notice!

I was working in an organization that was super toxic. So much so that we were a revolving door: most employees stayed only for a few months.

To counter this, our management put a 3 months’ notice into everyone’s contract including the existing employees (it’s not strictly illegal where this happened, but very unusual).

Working there wasn’t so bad for a while.

I believe the idea behind that was to make it harder for the employees to find a job outside as potential employers didn’t usually want to wait for 3 months.

This didn’t work as most people simply quit and waited for a month or two before starting their job hunt.

I was there for almost 4 years. I needed the money, so I put up with whatever abusive nonsense was thrown at me.

My boss was a guy we’ll call Vince. He was not particularly good, but he sometimes respected that I was the most tenured grunt in this organization.

After about 2 years, I had doing a LOT of additional work in addition to my official responsibilities, primarily because I was the only one who knew how to do those (everyone else had already left).

Unfortunately, the situation is about to become so much worse.

Enter “Rajesh” (also not actual name). Rajesh was poached from a somewhat infamous company and was literally flown in from a different continent.

He was brought in to “Strategically improve” our division. This was quite strange given that our division generated most profits.

Within months, Rajesh made the environment even more toxic.

He pulled Vince’s team under him and got Vince fired, and he actively encouraged us grunts to spy on each other.

Rajesh also had it out for me from day one (even today, I don’t know why). He started making my life much harder than the others.

This culminated in him taking me aside and telling me that I was not pulling my weight.

That was the last straw, so he got ready to quit.

At this point I was doing quite well in the organization + I have been doing a LOT of additional work critical to our business since only I knew certain systems and processes.

So I was quite angry.

Fortunately I was able to find a job that was willing to wait the 3 months.

So it was my turn to take Rajesh aside and tell him I quit. Boy Rajesh was ticked! He went from denial to negotiation before acceptance.

Thus I was serving my notice and working away like an honest bee.

At this point I was called in by HR and told that Rajesh wanted me gone.

The insane part was that they wanted me TO PAY THE COMPANY for the 2.5 months shortfall in notice!!

But he didn’t panic and made a plan.

I obviously refused, then went back and checked the contract.

Turns out that a notice of less than 3 months could only happen through mutual consent, and the initiating party (company if they wanted me gone sooner, or me if I wanted to leave earlier) had to compensate the other party for the shortfall.

The next day, I stopped doing almost all of my work. I logged in and logged out my hours and did nothing.

Since no one else understood the details of what I did, I knew it would be very hard for Rajesh or HR to prove that I was doing any of this on purpose.

Then I sat back with my popcorn.

Soon there was a complete meltdown all around.

He refused to give into the pressure to help them.

Rajesh would pull me into meetings and scream and try to bully me.

I would say nothing but smirk to his face.

Next they tried to have someone else learn the additional work I used to do from me so that they could do what I did.

I claimed I didn’t really remember any of the processes, so obviously there could be no handover.

Rajesh could do nothing as none of this had been my responsibility or part of my contract, since the leadership had been only too happy to see me do this for free.

They tried other tactics on him, to no avail.

Soon my workplace turned into a dumpster fire. HR/Rajesh smartened up and offered to buy out my notice if I cooperated and helped transition my work.

I refused.

Then, to twist the knife further, I started having meetings with fellow grunts and indirectly encouraging them to leave as well.

HR tried to get me to leave twice more, but I ended up serving the full 3 months.

Here is what people are talking about.

Now those folks think A.I. will fix that. Good luck!

Dark, but satisfying.

Who says you need a reference from your boss?

Well, if it was a good company it wouldn’t just be one person.

Good!

Onward and upward!

But leave some destruction in your wake.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.