The service industry has seen plenty of bad bosses, but this one took it to a new level.

When a sick employee was punished for throwing up on the job, karma showed up in the most surprising way when a secret shopper turned the tables on his cruel boss.

You’ll want to read on for this one.

The time when a stomach virus got me a promotion.

I had caught a bad stomach virus one year when I was still a retail drone at a now-closed movie store. About every 10–15 minutes, I would throw up and soil myself.

He tried to take the day off, but his boss wouldn’t have it.

So I called in for my shift seven hours before it started since I was working the second shift that day. I left a voicemail for my Boss saying I couldn’t come in.

Boss called back and left a voicemail telling me I either worked that day or I was fired.

Soon, suffering through it became his only choice.

I called and pleaded my case—no budge. Seeing as rent was due, the car payment was due, and if I was fired, I wouldn’t have been able to pay either, I was forced to come in.

His boss proceeded to not be understanding at all of his condition.

After ten minutes, I had to run to the bathroom to puke, and since I had to leave the register to do this, my boss wasn’t happy and wrote me up for abandoning my post.

She told me if it happened again, I was going to be let go.

She put a trash can next to me and said to use it if I felt sick. So, not wanting to be homeless the next month, I did what I was told.

Finally, the boss had enough of his inefficiency.

After about the seventh time I dry-heaved into the trash can, my face was very pale. Boss came out and told me to go home—I was fired.

I went home and panicked about how I would make rent, etc.

But the story wasn’t over yet.

The next day, the district manager (DM) called me and asked how I was feeling. I told him better than the day before but not 100%.

He told me okay and asked if he could see me tomorrow if I was feeling well.

Nothing else to do, I said yes.

The next day, I went in to meet him, and my now old boss was there too. I was thinking this was an exit interview.

So he shared his side of the story.

DM asked me what happened. I told him I called in seven hours before and was told I would be fired if I didn’t come in to work.

Boss, of course, denied it, saying I was welcome to take an unpaid day off.

But the employee had receipts.

I then played the voicemail my ex-boss left me. She was angry after hearing it. I was asked to go out of the room for a few minutes.

After ten minutes, I saw my ex-boss walk out of the store, visibly upset, tears in her eyes.

DM called me in and filled me in.

Turns out, someone had been watching the whole thing unfold.

It seems that the night she fired me, there was a secret shopper in line. The shopper noted how nice I was despite being obviously too sick to work.

When the shopper saw me get fired for being too sick to work in front of a line of customers, she was outraged.

After I left, she told off the manager and asked for the DM’s number, which the Boss refused to give at first, then gave her the wrong number.

But this was no match for the secret shopper.

Since the shopper was a secret shopper and knew the correct number to begin with, she called the DM that night and told him what went down.

DM then pulled the security tape of that night and confirmed the boss handing me the trash can and the part about letting me go.

Luckily, this is where things really started turning around for him.

He told me that he asked for my side of the story just for record purposes, and I had my job back.

As compensation, he put two days of PTO on my paycheck for that week.

Best of all, he made one of the shift leads the new store manager and gave me the shift lead spot, which bumped my pay up by two bucks an hour at the time.

Sounds like everything worked out how it was supposed to in the end!

What did Reddit make of all this?

This commenter is glad this awful manager finally got what she deserved.

This user can hardly believe a manager would behave this way.

Some people just shouldn’t be managers.

In this case, the secret shopper really saved the day.

He came in thinking he’d lose his job, but he left with a raise and a new title.

The same job that nearly broke him ended up rewarding him in the end!

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.