Not all bosses are bad news, but there are sure a lot of people who share negative stories about their bosses and managers.

In today’s story, an employee tells us about his former boss who applies for a job at a company where the employee is now in management.

The tables are turned, and the employee is able to get revenge during the interview process of his former boss.

Let’s see how the story unfolds…

A (horrible) former boss applied for a position on the company I was working.

I worked on a BIG IT company about 11 years ago (on a spanish speaking country, that’s why my story-writing might be a little confusing).

One of my best achievements on that position was to have the whole team back to the office and with a better attitude (as the evaluation, themself and the area manager mentioned).

The former boss was promoted to another position, still related to this group, but with a slightly different scope.

He gives an example of what it was like working with his former boss.

He was the kind of person that wanted to get well with everyone just to be shown as a the salvation of the world, but not really checking commits and how the things were done even without really concerning who’s toe he was stepping on.

As an example: on the same day, at the same time he booked for the same technical requirement on 2 different and distant places and when I got the second request (couple of hours later that same day), I asked how I was going to do it, that he has to confirm with me as I was supposed to coordinate these tasks.

He said something like “it’s your job to do what I ask you to do”.

…I last less than a year over there.

The former boss applied for a position at a company where he was now a manager.

About 6 years later, I was on a management position on a different company, and there was a vacancy for some technical team leadership.

I didn’t knew he was applying until I got invited to interview the 3 final candidates.

He was one of the list.

I found it when I got the resume of the 3 candidates, and had a devilish internal pleasuring satisfaction for this opportunity.

He was the second on the shift, and I was with the general manager (GM) of the company speaking with the candidates.

He interviewed his former boss.

I took his printed resume, and wrote down the following comment for the GM: “I worked with this guy, I would not recommend him at all”.

He got the paper, and looked at me with big eyes without saying a word.

I start the interview as soon as he entered, recognizing me and smiling like we were friends from many years.

I greet him and invited to take sit, explained to him what the position was requiring and as one of these requirements, he would need to speak english, as our counterpart is located in another (non-spanish) speaking country.

So I ask him in english, checking his resume: “for the GM here with us, it shows here you work on (that other company 6 years ago), what were your achievements there, and why you left that position.”

The former boss didn’t have a chance of working at this company.

He starts babbling and speaking with horrible pace about what he did, literally without a proper pronunciation and hard to understand, that he was in charge of a whole area, he made the team grow stronger and he was responsible for the success of the company… things I knew never happened.

I told him that I kept in touch with many team members, including his peers, and I was aware of some “slightly” different situations.

I ask him (in spanish) about some management (soft skills) questions, and he answered awkwardly showing he didn’t fit the position at all.

Right before that last question and my smiling, he should have noticed that he wouldn’t be chosen.

My boss wrote down on the resume (-) which means no for this or any other position.

Me, I just said “it was a pleasure to meet you”… which really was.

It would definitely provide a sense of satisfaction to prevent a former boss you didn’t like from getting a job.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story…

This reader loves his phrasing.

Another reader commented on the same phrase.

This reader shared a similar situation.

Another reader would’ve called the former boss out on the impossible situations he created in the past.

This person points out how who you know and what they think of you can make a big difference in life.

His former boss should’ve known he wasn’t going to get the job as soon as he recognized the person interviewing him.

What did he think was going to happen?

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.