Do you ever fantasize about quitting your job and wreaking havoc on the company with an elaborate revenge scheme?
Well, one Redditor claims he cost his job $40 million after he quit, but the story is very twisty. Basically, not paying your employees a fair wage can really mess up a company.
The Redditor explained that they got an IT job working for a factory in the southern US. It was a very small farming town of about 3,000 people, and the OP had to move to that town when taking the job.
“When I took the job, it was a contract position for 29k per year and the intention was to hire me full time directly to the company within one year. My co-worker was full time with the company and was making 93k per year. For roughly 3 years it was just us 2 IT guys supporting 2 factories. Then all of the sudden they give us a 3rd location to support and at this time I was hired on full time with the company for a salary of 31k per year…my co-worker still made over 90k.”
“Around this same time of getting extra workload + getting hired full time – my boss retired, my co-worker got promoted to the regional manager and turned into my new boss which left me being the only IT guy to support 3 factories.”
“I averaged 16 hour days 7 days a week for over a year. I worked literally every single weekend, every holiday (thanksgiving, christmas, new years, 4th of july…every…single…holiday), every anniversary, every birthday of mine my wife and my kids was missed because I was working. I was on call 24/7 for 3 different locations by myself for over a year. There were no bonuses at this company unless you’re management.”
“This went on for a little over a year and I told my boss I needed my salary to match his old salary before his promotion (90k per year), or I was leaving. This seemed fair to me considering I was making 1/3 of his old salary and I had 3x the workload he had. We discussed my raise several times over the course of a month and finally he comes back to me with a pay raise of $800 annually….a pay raise of $66 per MONTH before taxes.he said that was the most the company could possibly afford. This is a multinational company with a presence in over 20 countries and profit earnings of roughly 4 billion profit per year.”
“Fast forward 3 months, I’ve found another job that doubled my salary with a tiny fraction of the workload, I turn in my 2 week notice and my boss and HR freaks out because there are zero IT people in this tiny farming community and it took them 6 months just to find me when they hired me. So they start doing every single little thing that they can to make my work and personal life as miserable as possible for the last 2 weeks – including writing me up saying I was a disgruntle employee because I had turned in my 2 week notice. This was a right to work state which means workers have little rights and there are no unions.”
“The way these IT systems were set up required 100% uptime, if a printer, workstation or network switch went down for more than 90 minutes….the company lost $218,000 per MINUTE until connectivity was restored. On my last week of work my boss was in Costa Rica with his new girlfriend and one of the 3 sites had an issue, there was no IT within the company except me and my boss that had any possible way to work on the problem and I had just turned in my phone and computer about 12 hours prior. My personal phone and email and social media DM’s was blowing up from msgs from everyone at that site trying to get me to go back into my old office, get my old company computer and phone and log in to fix it for free at 2 AM even though I technically didn’t even work for the company anymore because nobody could get in touch with my boss in Costa Rica.”
“Incredibly unlucky timing for my previous employer. I sat awake in bed for hours just watching my phone / email blow up in the middle of the night and I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard in my life. It was the most glorious karma I could have ever asked for and it was basically instant karma too which is rare.”
Redditors were gobsmacked by the entire situation.
“I will never understand the mindset of making an essential employee’s life harder because they’re leaving. They should have been treating you like a king in order to pull as much knowledge and skill as possible to bridge the gaping hole you were leaving. They deserved to crumble and hopefully your coworker got demoted too,” said HashTagJustSayings.
“For some reason, companies have forgotten that IT is an incredibly skilled job that literally no one without the training can perform. Even with the training AND good documentation, it can take weeks or months to slide into a role and fully grasp the ins-and-outs of it. When I quit my last job, they gave my position – sole IT person – over to a family friend who had radio operator experience in the National Guard and ‘knew how to connect things’ in technology. I believe they spent more on MSP support and his salary in the first three months than I made in a year. All the guy could really do is call for help.I’m not an advocate of holding your employers over a barrel, but I do advocate jumping the hell off the boat and letting it sink if they can’t respect you,” said Rackminster.
Another Redditor creatively summed up the situation: “‘We can’t afford to pay you what you’re worth.’ ‘Oh you piece of shit, you’re leaving? Getting paid more to do less? How about we make your remaining time miserable.’ ‘Why won’t you help us in our desperate time of need?’ F*ck them, I’m happy for you bud,” said jpbarry77.
Others couldn’t believe that the story was real.
“The story is bullsh*t, that’s how. There’s two ways it’s not bullsh*t, either the company is run by legitimate smooth brains, or OP is a superhuman smooth brain. 112 hours a week for a year? And $218,000 per minute? Maybe OP is a legitimate workhorse with no brain, and maybe the company is ran by people who don’t understand you could theoretically hire 6 OP’s and make sure the system would never go down. At that kind of money hitting a bad red light when you’re trying to go get the system back up would cost the company half a million dollars. Is it possible someone involved is a potato and has just managed to goof their way through life? Sure. Is it more likely to be outrage porn? Yes,” said Battlegoat123.
“Honestly, I get the anti-work movement but this story is either fake or you’re an absolute push over,” said mb2793.
Whether or not the story is fake, I think we can agree that working conditions all over need to improve.
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