‘She was bad for the company culture and was a nasty person in general.’ They Decided to Get Epic Revenge on a Manager That Made Their Life a Living Hell at Work

“I was desperate to join a new job after my husband and I were both laid off last year. When I was offered a new role, I knew it would be a step down from what I was doing but the manager and the team seemed great, and that part has not changed. However, since my manager Gary* was so busy, he basically offloaded me to another manager Jane*.

I was supposed to be the connection point between my team and Jane, but it quickly became Jane micromanaging me. She would ask me to work through lunch, move/cancel vacation days, call at 11pm on weekends, and order me around on phone calls.

She also made nasty comments about my weight and said I was big for my race. The list of personal slights so long that it filled 3 pages. I would talk back to her and she did not like that, and that provoked her more.

I only stayed because we needed to pay the bills. Finally, I had a mental breakdown on a Friday afternoon, after she yelled at me for something trivial about scheduling a meeting without including someone from her team who I didn’t know about.

I was dealing with a family tragedy and couldn’t take it anymore. I told Gary about the situation with Jane and he was sympathetic and not at all surprised considering half her team quit. He immediately offered to move me to a different team under him. I was thrilled.

Well, turns out going to the new team didn’t help. Jane continued to order me around from afar. When I ignored her emails, she came to my desk one day and started loudly talking about how I am not qualified for this role. Gary overheard and finally told her off, but the verbal abuse did not stop.

After 2 months there, I abruptly wrote my resignation letter and stapled the list of Jane’s offensive comments, and CC’ed everyone. Gary offered a bunch of accommodations to try to keep me, but seeing how she was still provoking from afar, I said the only way for me to stay would be for her to go and he did not have authority to let her go.

Her manager was in a different country and despite several HR complaints from at least 5 people, nothing was done. So I left, loudly and without shame, telling everyone exactly why I was leaving.

Times were very bad for 3 months. There were nights we would eat slices of bread just so we could pay the mortgage and emergency expenses from a health crisis and a funeral. Even after he found a job, we were still catching up on bills and still are. I spent months applying to 5-10 roles per day, sometimes over 20.

Last month, I saw a public memo about a bigshot from a former company joining the company I just left. I used to work with this guy closely and texted him a “congrats, let me know if you need any insights on the new place.” We had a quick call where I told him some ins and outs, where I thought they could innovate. After this call, he asked me to join the team as his Chief of Staff. I accepted.

Imagine Jane’s shock when we had our 1st all-hands call. All the VPs and above were asked to welcome the new bigshot in a giant conference room. In bigshot’s speech, he breezed over that I’ll be his Chief of Staff, along with a few key names. I now sat 2 levels above Jane and apparently, within the 3 months I was not there, the other half of her team turned over.

Every single person left. Gary was excited for me and said all nice things. However, Jane took the classless route and sent bigshot an email about how I’m an unqualified idiot, that I used to work for her, how I tried to get her fired, and that she suspects I lied to get ahead. She didn’t even try to be fake nice. Bigshot forwarded me her email and asked what this was about.

I was so nervous and excited! Little did Jane know, I was a director at bigshot’s competitor company and was already a level above her, so 2 levels isn’t a big leap, and I worked with him for 5 years.

I had an hour call with bigshot and told him she was bad for the company culture and was a nasty person in general, but the evidence he needed was Gary confirming that her whole team has turned over, my prior resignation letter which was still sitting on my desktop when I logged in upon return, and a few other nasty emails she sent her recent staff, which they were happy to share with us.

Bigshot fired Jane on Friday.”