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Whether you are a manager or an employee, listening to feedback is an important way to improve your performance.

What would you do if you had a manager who would get really upset if anyone tried to give him any feedback on his management style?

That is the situation that the worker in this story was in, so he just kept his head down and never shared his opinion with his boss. Later, when he no longer reported to the guy, his old manager asked him for feedback after getting in trouble.

While the manager thought he would get positive feedback since this worker never complained, that was not the case. The worker really let him have it and told him exactly how he felt.

Egoistic asshole manager gets brutal feedback

At my old job, I had a manager (let’s call him M) who was very egoistic.

Managers who can’t take feedback are the worst.

He sucked as a manager, always absent, and was terrible at taking feedback. Yet, every quarter, he would call us into a meeting asking for feedback.

But the minute we mentioned anything negative, he would get super defensive. He was also pretty discriminating towards some of the team members and often had fights with them or nitpicking on silly mistakes like correcting their typos in mails (ugh so childish!).

Sometimes, keeping your head down is the best option.

Particularly, M loved to nitpick mistakes in any mail or communication P sent (P is a female team member).

Anyway, I kept my head low while in M’s team and never got on his bad side. In fact I was the only one in the Team who did not have bad blood with him.

Things are finally coming to a head.

After 2 years, I moved to a different team. Over time, only P remained in M’s team, and the toxic bossing continued. Finally, it reached a tipping point and P lodged a complaint against M.

Meetings happened and M lied low for a few weeks, and then again another fight occurred. P once more lodged a complaint, and this time action took place. Both P and M were put under a different manager, and M was no longer managing P. P was pretty happy, and M was obviously unhappy but did not quit job.

Finally, he seems to actually want feedback.

Btw M’s desk is beside mine at office. One fine day, he turns to me and asks if I am busy. I say no, and ask what’s up. He slowly asks me if I have any feedback for him, on how was his performance when he was my manager and are there any areas of improvement.

I guess the complaints made him question his approach, and since I was his best team member, he thought he will receive kind feedback.

He has his attention now.

Nah! I jumped on this opportunity. I no longer report to him, so I have no reason to hold back or mince my words. I started with “M, I think your biggest drawback is that you become defensive when anyone gives you feedback.”

Lmao, this means now whatever I say to him, he can’t defend himself 😂 I spent the next 10 minutes telling him how petty he is and how he nitpicks or blames others when things don’t go well, of course, all of this in polite corporate speak.

Honestly, kudos to him for seeming to want to improve.

He listened to me in silence, nodded a thank you at the end, turned back to his screen, and stayed silent all day. Lmao I was beaming ear to ear; he just made my entire week.

I made sure to tell my old teammates about this and we all had a great laugh, especially the part where I shut off his defence with the first sentence.

Everyone seems to be doing better now.

It’s probably his first time even listening to a whole feedback 😝

A few months later, M moved to another job. P stayed and got 2 promotions in 2 years.

This revenge may have really helped him to improve his management techniques. While it was undoubtedly satisfying to say, it really does seem like it helped the guy.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about this interaction.

Leading with positive comments can be helpful.

This person thought it was a good story.

Very funny comment.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a customer who tried to skip the checkout line but didn’t get their way.

It was a happy ending.

He couldn’t deny the feedback now, but will he actually listen? This story is a great example of how important it is to really listen to others, whether they are above or below you.

I just hope that in his new job, he will take that feedback to heart and work to do a better job.