Boss’ Ultimatum Backfires When Employee Chooses To Quit, Chases Her Screaming
Interview With Author
It is baffling to think that bosses who yell at employees, manipulate them with ultimatums, and use “we’re a family” sort of rhetoric believe that their employee management methods are actually a smart business decision. They aren’t.
Luckily, we have people who have mastered the art of malicious compliance and take bosses up on their offers to choose between things that are undoubtedly good as opposed to working a dead-end job in a toxic environment.
Bosses should be careful with what they say—even more so if it gives a choice between the bad and the no-brainer
Image credits: Tima Miroshnichenko (not the actual photo)
And when offered a choice between a rinky-dink job and a future through education, this Redditor chose malicious compliance
Image credits: Anna Shvets (not the actual photo)
Image credits: August de Richelieu (not the actual photo)
Image credits: SpotlightDesire
Not only did the boss lose a crucial employee, but the Redditor herself ended up in a much better situation just a week later
Image credits: cottonbro studio (not the actual photo)
The story goes that Redditor u/SpotlightDesire worked for a niche entertainment company as a spotlight operator. It wasn’t the best of jobs, but it was a job. Necessary evil, ya know.
At one point, OP developed health issues and had to take a break from working for two months. On top of that, there were also some complications that set OP back an extra week. And besides work, OP also had graduate school to tend to.
This all culminated in OP being so sick that she had to take some strong meds. Strong enough to knock her out and hence not be able to call in sick. While OP does agree that it was her bad, this is where the boss crossed the line.
In a nutshell, the manager called her in, gave her the talk about doing a no-show, during which he essentially threw out an ultimatum: it’s either this job, or OP’s studies. Spoiler: she quit. Practically on the spot.
And quitting wouldn’t have been complete without the boss having a meltdown near OP’s car at the end of the day. But quitting turned out for the best, though, as OP found a job that pays double her former wage and it was a real stagehand job this time around, so good for her!
Bored Panda reached out to the Redditor to talk more about the story
Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual photo)
OP explained that she always thought the story was a bit wild. And, if you ask me, that’s the perfect kind of story to tell online.
“[The boss was always toxic with his employees]. That’s part of why there was such a high turnover rate, especially for this particular job,” elaborated OP. “We’d work 8-12 hour days without an official break, off the clock and allowed to do what we wanted.”
And, it seems that not much has changed. OP explained that from what she knows from her former coworkers, the boss only got worse. The company was, however, slowly unionizing.
There was also another piece of silver lining—when OP left, most of her coworkers were sympathetic about the situation. There was one employee who thought quitting without notice was nuts, but history shows us that it’s not the worst, nor the wrong thing to do given the context.
In fact, there was room left for extra maliciously compliant shenanigans, and that was “I could have stripped down to my bra and underwear and thrown the entire costume to him.”
Folks praised the woman for sticking it to the man and sent 3.2K upvotes her way
Image credits: Davis Sánchez (not the actual photo)
The story started drawing people’s attention soon after it was posted. The show of support and praise for OP was immense. In fact, OP herself was very active in the comment section, upbeat about her choice of education over work.
Despite having seen it all, some are still baffled by how bosses still pull off this type of conduct, thinking they can achieve something. Even more so when the ultimatum is essentially choose between a pile of dung and intellectual prosperity, plus prospective future.
Others shared stories of similar employers. Like signing up to do part-time work as a trumpeter at a restaurant and ending up doing 35 hours of work per week on top of another full time job.
Or this other time when a person had GREs the night before and Mr. Bossman decided to have them stay late. They didn’t stay—they left a bit later than their time, but earlier than corporately expected and got a write-up. They quit a few weeks later.
Before we finish up, though, one tiny thing: going back to school when the labor market is in the gutter or just to develop as a human being is always a good idea. Sure, it requires some prep and planning (sometimes lasting months), but the skills you develop, the networking you do and, if you enjoy studying, the studying you’ll do will all turn out only for the better. So do it!
But if you can’t be bothered to neither work nor study, Bored Panda is a great place to do anything but those two things. So, make sure you share your thoughts in the comment section below and slap that upvote button.
Folks commended the Redditor for her malicious compliance and shared their own stories
During the summer between my junior and senior years of undergrad I had the opportunity to spend a month in rural Alaska for free. I was working for $9.25 an hour at the time and my boss absolutely could not comprehend that I would choose a literal once in a lifetime experience over stocking shelves.
I'm reminded of when, as a grocery cashier in the US, I had the misfortune to have three major surgeries within six months. My bosses were resentful that *gasp* I actually took advantage of the paid medical leave they offered as a carrot to potential employees, and that I had the unmitigated gall to get my neurosurgeon to write a note insisting I have a chair to sit on at my register. We had a come-to-jesus meeting where I thought they were only gonna try to convince me to stay, and forget all this silliness about needing a chair, my legal rights, etc. Instead, they decided to terminate me for "poor customer service" (you'd think they could've figured that out before 8.5 years had gone by...). If it'd simply been a meeting where they'd tried to convince me to stay, I would've laughed in their face and told them I was leaving anyway, so even though they said "You're fired" before I said "I quit," I consider it a mutual parting of the ways. I don't miss that job.
During the summer between my junior and senior years of undergrad I had the opportunity to spend a month in rural Alaska for free. I was working for $9.25 an hour at the time and my boss absolutely could not comprehend that I would choose a literal once in a lifetime experience over stocking shelves.
I'm reminded of when, as a grocery cashier in the US, I had the misfortune to have three major surgeries within six months. My bosses were resentful that *gasp* I actually took advantage of the paid medical leave they offered as a carrot to potential employees, and that I had the unmitigated gall to get my neurosurgeon to write a note insisting I have a chair to sit on at my register. We had a come-to-jesus meeting where I thought they were only gonna try to convince me to stay, and forget all this silliness about needing a chair, my legal rights, etc. Instead, they decided to terminate me for "poor customer service" (you'd think they could've figured that out before 8.5 years had gone by...). If it'd simply been a meeting where they'd tried to convince me to stay, I would've laughed in their face and told them I was leaving anyway, so even though they said "You're fired" before I said "I quit," I consider it a mutual parting of the ways. I don't miss that job.
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