CEO Appoints A Recent Grad To Oversee Long Time Employees, So Workers Get Sweet Revenge By Taking 60% Of Their Business

Unfortunately, it’s all too common these days for employers to not treat their employees like family – or even particularly well in some cases.

OP and his closest colleague had worked hard for their company, had helped expand the customer base, and did a lot of travelling. They had worked out a system that helped them tackle all of their responsibilities as streamlined as possible.

I was a general troubleshooter for my company. My job involved a lot of travelling to different clients we support. My area of work is Ontario, Canada (where I am based out of) and some of the nearby States in the United States (New York, massachusetts, Vermont, Pennsylvania.)

I did most of my travelling by car since my schedule can change quite quickly and flying can become very expensive.

I had one colleague who is technically my subordinate but we have a very good working relationship and would often handle calls independently of each other only checking in by phone once a week and in person once a month / when necessary.

Then one day they were summoned to the main office for a meeting, only to find out that half of their territory was being taken over by a young college grad.

A little over a year ago I get an email calling me to the head office in New York City for a meeting with the CEO and the board of directors regarding my job. I check with my colleague and he got the same email. So we make our travel plans and meet in New York City the following week.

We have dinner together the night before our meeting and can’t figure out between us what the issue is about (it’s rare to get summoned to head office and more rare for things to be so vague).

When we go into the meeting the next day we are informed that the company is dividing our department between the US and Canada and that there would be a new person to deal with the US clients and we were to restrict ourselves to Canada.

Both my colleague and I were a little shocked at this since neither of us has even heard this was being discussed.

I asked who the new person for the US was and we then learned that it was a new hire that the CEO had taken a special interest in.

Trying to be of good spirit I offered to train the new person. (There are many realities of the job that are not in the job description). CEO accepted and then brought in the new hire.

In walks a young lady who looks about 23 years old and wears an expression that she knows everything. She sits at the table and immediately makes it very clear that she wants nothing to do with us.

Through the meeting, they learned that she was meant to be their direct supervisor, but a member of the board but the kibosh on that. They did have to agree to “stay out of her way,” though.

CEO – Bob, New Hire – Karen, My Colleague – Jim.

Bob: Welcome Karen, we have just informed OP and Jim about the change in structure and they are willing to give you the support you need to get yourself started.

Karen and Bob both look at me.

Me: Glad to have you aboard Karen, I think both Jim and I have a lot of experience to share with you and we are happy to do so, perhaps it would be better in a separate meeting so we don’t take the board’s time.

Karen: Thank you all. I have a lot of ideas about how I can streamline our department and new policies I can introduce that should save the company a lot of money in expenses.

I’m very confused at this point. Karen is speaking as though she is my supervisor and that is distinctly not what Bob spoke to us about. I can see some of the board members giving strange looks at this as well.

Me: Bob perhaps I misunderstood the new roles here. Would you please clarify?

Bob: Sure, Karen is the new head of your department and both you and Jim will answer directly to her.

Board member: That isn’t what we discussed or approved as a board. We weren’t fully convinced of dividing the department but this is completely against what we discussed.

Karen: What did you discuss then?

Board Member: That your department would be divided between the US and Canada. OP and Jim would remain north of the border and you would run the US.

Karen: That’s not what I was told but I can work with that. As long as these two stay out of my way. (Indicating me and Jim)

So, they did exactly that, even when she was struggling and even when their boss called asking them to take the other territory back over.

Jim and I are both shocked and insulted to be spoken of in this manner. We are both very good at our jobs and before today have never seen this woman in our lives.

Bob: That settles it, OP, effective immediately, you and Jim are to have nothing to do with Karen. Do not interfere with her work at all. You are both to restrict yourselves to working within Canada only.

With that he ended the meeting and left the room with Karen close behind him. Jim and I sat there stunned for a moment and some of the board members came up to us to express their shock and sympathies about this. I had enough presence of mind to ask if we would get a written directive of this change and was assured we would. Sure enough both Jim and I got emails with the new directive from Bob by the end of the day.

So after sending an email to all our US based clients advising them of the change and giving them the contact information of Karen, Jim and I made our way back to Toronto and reorganized ourselves for working within Ontario only. This meant much less travelling for us so it gave us more room to breathe.

Within a week I was getting complaints from our US based clients that Karen was not answering emails and missing appointments. I forwarded these emails to Karen and copied the entire board including Bob.

Another week later I get a phone call from Karen who sounds frantic but will not admit she needs help. She makes pleasant conversation and then asks how I would handle a particular type of situation. I tell her I’m really not interested in discussing work as that might be seen as interfering in her work.

Later that evening I get a call from Jim telling me he had the same conversation with Karen and handled it the same way.

By the end of that month I get a call from Bob asking if I will take over the entire department again. I politely tell him no since I didn’t want to interfere with Karen and her role.

Instead, they started a consulting business of their own, and many clients followed them right over.

For the next 3 months I’m getting emails and phone calls from US clients asking if they can have me back as their contact. This confirms an idea that had been in my head.

Jim and I had actually grown our client base in Ontario since restricting ourselves here. So I had lunch with Jim one day and asked him if he wanted to go into businesses with me as partners starting our own consulting firm.

We couldn’t provide everything our current company provided but we could provide a high degree of professionalism for our specific field and it seemed we had a ready made client base. By the end of the lunch he was on board and we started the necessary steps to get ourselves setup.

As soon as we were clear we both submitted our resignations with explanations of why. The next time clients contacted us we told them we no longer worked for the company. When they asked if we still worked in the field we told them we had established our own firm and what services we offered.

A month later we had 60% of our US clients on board, and since the former company had no Canadian support at all, we had 80% of the Canadian clients. Within 2 months we had 80% of the US and 90% of the Canadian clients.

Now they’re fat and happy and their ex boss, ex company, and ex coworker (briefly) are at varying degrees of loose ends.

In the year since that time our new company has grown enough that we have hired 7 new consultants. Jim and I find ourselves doing more office work than road work, and a lot of client courting.

Our old company has had to stop offering the in person troubleshooting (what our department did) and Bob was fired by the board. No idea what happened to Karen.

Does Reddit think OP was wrong for poaching clients? I’m curious to hear!

This person thinks OP did a great job staying cool under pressure.

And this commenter thinks they’re lucky for not having a non-compete clause.

Sadly, this doesn’t seem like a rare story.

It’s definitely not good for morale.

One bad egg cost this company a lot of money.

This guy really made the best of a bad situation.

Congrats to him for coming up smelling like a rose!