October 31, 2026 at 10:48 am

A Company Fired the Manager Running Its Instagram Account—And Forgot She Still Held the Master Credentials

by Jayne Elliott

young woman working from home

Shutterstock

Companies need to realize that if they fire someone who has access to certain company accounts, they need to make sure they remove this access or change the passwords after the employee leaves the company.

In this story, one employee was fired pretty unfairly, and she decides to get revenge in a sneaky way that could negatively impact the company.

Her former boss probably doesn’t even realize it’s happening.

Let’s read all about it.

Boss replaced me with unpaid labor, so I wrecked what I was working on for the company.

My job was running a company’s Instagram account (content creation and planning, influencer outreach, responding to DMs and comments, etc.)

A little over 2 weeks ago, the company decided to replace me with my boss’ 15 year old niece and give her “volunteer hours” instead of paying me.

I didn’t even get any notification from my boss that I was getting fired, and only found out about this after seeing my boss tell her niece that she’d be replacing me in a DM sent from the company Instagram.

Here’s some context about Instagram.

They may have fired me, but I can still access the account.

For those who don’t know, engagement rate determines everything on Instagram. Posts with higher engagement get shown higher in people’s feeds and explore pages, and posts with high engagement get shown in the “top posts” section of hashtags the photo was tagged with, among other things.

So I’ve been going to the account and quietly removing 5-10 followers per day.

The revenge seems to be working.

With little to no new followers each day and the number of active followers dropping due to both my actions and people legitimately unfollowing by themselves, the engagement rate has gone from a little above average for a small account (6-7%) to almost nothing (<1%).

They also got hit with a takedown notice after boss’ niece stole an influencer’s pictures and tried to pass it off as her own on the company account.

Good luck recovering!

Hopefully, she can find a better job where her work is appreciated.

Let’s see how Reddit responded.

This person likes how she’s getting revenge.

2026 10 29 at 1.02.25 PM A Company Fired the Manager Running Its Instagram Account—And Forgot She Still Held the Master Credentials

Another person rants about how companies feel about social media.

2026 10 29 at 1.02.53 PM A Company Fired the Manager Running Its Instagram Account—And Forgot She Still Held the Master Credentials

This person has a prediction.

2026 10 29 at 1.03.05 PM A Company Fired the Manager Running Its Instagram Account—And Forgot She Still Held the Master Credentials

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who alerted their manager after seeing a customer sign the wrong name on a credit card slip.

Another person offers a word of caution.

2026 10 29 at 1.03.31 PM A Company Fired the Manager Running Its Instagram Account—And Forgot She Still Held the Master Credentials

It has to hurt to have your job replaced by a teenager who’s not even getting paid. Can the boss really expect his niece to do as good a job?

Her revenge is clever. I wonder how long it will take before they realize they need to remove her access from the Instagram account.

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Jayne Elliott | Contributing Writer, Life & Drama

Jayne Elliott is a contributing writer and editor for TwistedSifter specializing in human interest stories, internet culture, and family dynamics. With over 12 years of editorial experience in digital publishing, Jayne excels at analyzing complex online communities and transforming viral social debates into thoughtful, highly engaging narratives.

Rather than simply aggregating internet drama, Jayne brings a sharp, empathetic editorial eye to everyday dilemmas. She has a unique talent for unpacking the nuances of pop culture and online conflicts, providing readers with relatable, well-researched commentary.

Based in California, Jayne spends her free time outside the newsroom exploring theme parks with her family or beach-combing along the coast.

Follow Jayne's adventures and connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.