rSlash - r/Maliciouscompliance My Boss Fired Me, So I Ruined Her Business!

Episode Date: June 9, 2021

r/Maliciouscompliance OP is one of the most valuable employees in his company. He delivers a premium product to the company's clients and gets rave reviews. When a new boss takes over the company, she... immediately begins cutting costs by reducing the quality of the product and laying off employees. Eventually, the big boss puts her crosshairs on OP and fires him. You want me gone, boss? Sure thing! Hope your company can succeed without its most valuable employee! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Haircare meets high fashion. A Vedas holiday collaboration with Couture Fashion Designer Iris Von Herpen is now available for you. A gift collection inspired by our planet. Every gift is a celebration of artistry and nature, featuring high performance, 100% vegan, hair, body and self-care gift sets. Discover Gives of Luxury at eveta.com Welcome to R-Slash, a podcast where I read the best post from across Reddit.
Starting point is 00:00:33 Today's subreddit is R-Slash malicious compliance where OP destroys his toxic boss' company. Our next Reddit post is from Niclo2K. I worked for a company for 14 years. I loved working there for 12 of those 14 years. There were two main parts of the job. The first part was the sales side of things. This happened away from the office at the customer's location. This involved quite a bit of driving and on a couple of occasions flying abroad to work
Starting point is 00:01:00 face to face with the customers to deliver a high quality product. We weren't the cheapest, but we did have the superior product. And I was our best employee when it came to delivering that product. I consistently got rave reviews from customers from my personal style when it came to delivering their product and executing the customer's vision. I got a huge amount of repeat business and I got a lot of new business through word of mouth with customers recommending the company based on their experiences with me. The second part of my job was the office side. This was my weaker side.
Starting point is 00:01:31 I hated cold calling potential customers with numbers I found in the phone book. When it came to answering the phone and speaking to potential customers who initiated contact with us, I was fine. But I wasn't great at making cold calls. This was really the only not great part of my job. So when I was in the office, I wasn't asked to make any calls, and said I prepared the product, designed new product, and trained new staff members. I was also just a problem solver, filling out whenever and wherever, filling in for sick
Starting point is 00:01:58 employees when I could. I liked the owner and I liked the manager. I liked all the staff who were around me. All in all, it was a great job that I was really good at and that I took pride in. The company had been doing so well that the owner had slowly expanded over the 12 years since I started working for the company. I joined about 3 months after he started, so I'd been a part of this expansion. I worked out of my nearest office, but often traveled to other areas to train their staff.
Starting point is 00:02:24 I was also loaned out to other companies to help train their staff. At one point, I was a guest lecturer at a university teaching medical students how to deliver complicated explanations to people who don't have the base knowledge that you yourself do. After 12 years on the job, I had a decent salary. Not massive, but I was happy. Then the owner decided to sell off part of the company. He was selling the area where my local office was.
Starting point is 00:02:49 He told me that he would love for me to remain his employee, but I would need to work from a different office. This would either require me to move or at minimum quadruple my daily commute. The other option was to remain working for my current office, but with a new boss. I chose the second option. Before the new owner bought the company, she worked alongside the staff for a couple of weeks to see how we operated. This was before any of us knew that she was about to buy the company.
Starting point is 00:03:15 As far as we knew, she was just another employee and she was shadowing us to learn. She came with me on assignments in the field and she saw my abilities. When the sale was announced and we were informed that she was a new owner, everyone was surprised. She made some sweeping staff changes. The manager left to start her own business since a new owner was also going to be a manager. A lot of staff were let go. The secretary, myself, and a couple of newer hires were kept on. The new hires had the lowest wages and were hourly not salary.
Starting point is 00:03:45 Anyone who had climbed up to a decent level in the company was let go. While technically this was a new company for the customers, it was the same old business. The company still had the same brand name. The only real difference was that there was a new owner and the registered business name was now different. As far as the customers were concerned, nothing had changed. My job for the first few months after this sale was to train up the remaining staff to replace the more experienced staff members who had been let go. I recommended a couple of new hires who I had experienced working with in the past. I was open and honest with the owner and let her know that one of these employees was my close friend and the other was my girlfriend. Both were more than qualified for the work and both were happy to join.
Starting point is 00:04:25 The owner interviewed them both than hired them since we need a new staff. Over the next two years, the business started to fail. The reason was simple. The new owner tried to maximize profits by increasing prices while decreasing the quality of the product. For new customers, this wasn't noticeable. They just thought that we were expensive and the product wasn't the best. But for old customers who had been with us for over 10 years, they immediately noticed. They were being charged more and were receiving lower quality. So the owner doubled down and increased prices again. 95% of our old customers left us. New customers almost never became repeat customers. Complaint skyrocketed.
Starting point is 00:05:09 While all this was going on, our staff turnover rate was ridiculous. People left after a few months when they realized the minimum wage they were being paid wasn't worth it. Under the old owner, the average hourly wage for new employees was around 2.5 times the minimum wage.
Starting point is 00:05:24 This made people care about their jobs and want to keep them. My girlfriend quit and my friend remained, but he was looking for something new. Then I got a phone call. The owner needed me to come to her office. This was unexpected. I had just finished working on location with a customer. My next customer was in two and a half hours. It was a half hour drive away. The office was over an hour away from both locations. If I drove back to the office, I would have about five minutes in the office before leaving. My mileage was paid above my regular salary, so I was saving the company money by doing this. The manager didn't care. She needed me to return to the office, so I did.
Starting point is 00:06:06 I arrived back at the office, and the owner handed me a letter. The letter informed me of a disciplinary meeting to take place in a couple of days, and I could bring along a witness if I so desired. This completely surprised me because I was her best employee. I read through a list of complaints about my performance and I started working on my defense. At the meeting, I declined to have a witness. Instead, I decided to record the audio of the entire meeting on my phone without informing her, where I lived, this is legal, and I didn't need consent. The boss's witness was her friend who she'd met at yoga and hired for an office
Starting point is 00:06:41 role, firing the secretary who had been there long before the takeover. Every point that my boss raised, I could counter. They ranged from the week. You were unavailable to work for a week in August. I booked a week's holiday so I could attend my cousins wedding on the other side of the country and turn it into a week long vacation. To the pathetic. You were late for work on the twelfth of May. Is that the day that my car broke down and I called the office to let you know? I don't know. I do. Here's the receipt from the garage dated May twelfth. And finally to downright lies.
Starting point is 00:07:15 Basically, she accused me of gross misconduct for breaking health and safety laws in the way that I was delivering a product for a customer. I hadn't broken any health and safety laws. I knew exactly what I was doing since, as I've mentioned already, I've been doing this for 14 years at this point. She had watched me work on multiple occasions and had never mentioned it before
Starting point is 00:07:35 because it wasn't an issue. She even had me train staff on my very specific delivery method because it wasn't an issue. She finished her list by telling me that she doesn't want to lose me, but she can't justify keeping such a poor employee at my current salary. I had two choices. I could either sign a zero-hours contract and work for minimum wage,
Starting point is 00:07:55 or she could fire me with two weeks notice. I counter that she would have to give me 12 weeks notice. Since my contract guaranteed me 1 weeks notice for every year of employment up to a maximum of 12, she argued that I'd only been her employee for 2 years. I informed her that, with how the business take overhead run, it counts as continuous employment. I quoted the exact law and code that backed me up. She asked for a 30 minute break in the meeting so I can think about the offer. Then she went to call her lawyer. When she came back, she informed me that since she was firing me for gross misconduct, she didn't have to give me any notice at all. If I wanted to remain
Starting point is 00:08:35 and move through the zero hours contract, I could do that today. But if I didn't, then she would have to fire me. But because she was so nice, she would give me the two weeks notice. I asked for a couple of hours to go home and think about this, and she let me. Why do I love getting my last minute gift at shoppers drug mart? Well, lots of stores, many open late, great selection of gifts, and let's not forget the PC optimum points. I get gifts for them and points for me, and so can you. Go to shoppers, exclusions apply.
Starting point is 00:09:08 These side marios all you can eat is all you can maja soup, salad, and garlic home. I knew the reason that she wanted me to remain for at least two weeks was because during that time, one of our few remaining bigger customers were set to have a product delivery from us. And they would only work with me. The owner had tried sending other staff in my place on several occasions, and each time there had been serious problems. It wasn't the staff's fault, it was just a very difficult delivery for a very specific customer which needed to be perfect. As a result, this customer would only deal with me. I called the
Starting point is 00:09:45 office and spoke to the owner. I declined her offer of a 0 hours contract and said that I would be leaving. She then said that she was giving me my 2 weeks notice. I declined her offer of 2 weeks notice. I informed her that if I was being fired for gross misconduct, then surely I can't be relied upon to safely deliver the product. Therefore, it would be best for everyone involved if I didn't return to work. She panicked and said that she needed me for those two weeks. I famed ignorance and let her know that I was just thinking about what's best for the
Starting point is 00:10:18 company. After all, you can't have unsafe staff delivering your product to your customers. However, if she wanted to rethink that GrossMconduct accusation, then I would work my 12 weeks notice. Those were her options, zero weeks, or 12. She chose 12. For those 12 weeks, I worked the same way that I had for 14 years. I didn't coast, I didn't slack, I didn't badmouth the company on my way out. I continued to drain the new staff. I continued to deliver the product in my own personal
Starting point is 00:10:49 exceptional way. I also got in touch with a lawyer who was a specialist in employment law. For those 12 weeks, the owner barely spoke to me. She resented the fact that I knew my legal rights and didn't believe her lies. She hated the fact that I could defend myself. She was petty. She accidentally dropped my mug in the kitchen, breaking it. Most petty of all, she paid for every member of the staff in the office to have a spa day, except me. I was asked to work my day off to answer the phones while everyone else was getting pampered. Nobody else knew that I hadn't been invited until they arrived at the spa and I wasn't there. But here's the thing, I'm a big fat bearded guy.
Starting point is 00:11:30 I have no interest in a spa day. If she had offered it to me, I would have thanked her and declined the offer. But by pointedly excluding me, she was making herself look terrible. For the last two weeks, I was training up my friend to basically take over for me. At the end of the 12 weeks, my final day came around. The owner had nothing planned. Not even so much as a card after 14 years, even though it was only two for her. The office manager
Starting point is 00:11:56 who had become my friend got me some presents, but he had to give them to me when the boss was gone for fear of reprisals. The day after my final day, two things happened. The first was that my friend who I had been training up to replace me, quit. He was on a zero hours contract, so he wasn't required to give notice. He was unhappy with her treatment of me, and was unhappy that she expected him to do my previously salary job for minimum wage. My friend didn't inform me of his plans to leave, and I only learned of it when he knocked on my door in the middle of the day when he should have been at work
Starting point is 00:12:28 to let me know. The second thing that happened was the owner received a letter informing her that I was bringing legal proceedings against her for unfair dismissal. I had arranged this with my lawyer to be delivered the day after my final day. According to the office assistant, she went pale and started crying before leaving the office to call her lawyer. She refuted my claim for unfair dismissal and said that it was gross misconduct. She tried to come up with more reasons for firing me, but the truth was that the company was making less money because of her business practices, and I was the highest and only salary employee. I had evidence that I was a great employee.
Starting point is 00:13:06 I had evidence that she asked me to move to a zero hours contract. She initially tried to deny this, since the gross conduct fabrication makes no sense if she wanted me to stay. But once my lawyer provided her lawyer with the transcript of the entire meeting, along with a copy of the recording, she knew that she was screwed. Still, she let the case drag on for over a year. I think she hoped the legal fees would cause me to drop the case. Little did she know, my lawyer was working on a no-win, no-fe basis, while hers wasn't. She ended up settling out of court. The aftermath. The office assistant
Starting point is 00:13:42 would become my friend quit a couple of months after I left. She hated how I was treated and didn't feel safe working for such an untrustworthy boss. Several former customers contacted me personally to inquire why I was no longer with that company. Apparently, the owner was telling them that I just up in quits. I informed them that I'd been fired for cost-cutting reasons. So they moved their business elsewhere. Several of them even offered me jobs. One of them even went so far as to offer me a part-time job and pay for me to attend college to earn a degree that was required for them to hire me full time.
Starting point is 00:14:17 This was a lovely offer, but they were one of the customers who were a bit too far away to commute, and I wasn't ready to move. In the end, I found a new job in a different industry where a lot of my skills transferred over. I'm currently earning more than I was, working fewer hours and for better owners. The old company is floundering. COVID left a new owner desperate for cash. She canceled orders, but she refused to refund customers' money, citing an act of God-cloths
Starting point is 00:14:45 in the contracts. The business's Facebook and Google reviews have taint most of the staff left. The business is still afloat, but barely. Man, OP, your boss is an idiot. Hasn't she ever heard of, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. My guess as to what happened here is that she fell so far in debt by purchasing the business that she was desperate to make money quickly. So she kept cutting costs and cutting costs and cutting costs hoping to put more money in her pocket.
Starting point is 00:15:13 But instead, she just ended up ruining the one thing to get savor from this hole that she dug for herself. O.P., I've predicted bankruptcy in your boss' future. Our next reddit post is from WolfPeter. Last year I went to my uncle's house for Thanksgiving. I cooked the turkey the day before and put it into the fridge before going to sleep on their couch. I woke up to their young kids screaming in my face to make him chicken nuggets at 4am in
Starting point is 00:15:38 the morning. They never make their kid behave or punish him for anything he does. So I just ignored him and went back to sleep after he decided to go scream in his parents that he wanted chicken nuggets. Cut to 9 a.m. and everyone is getting everything ready for the day. Cooking is beginning for the dishes that need a few hours in the oven. They didn't buy a turkey, they asked me to buy one, and I decided to cook at the day before and thought that we could toss it in the oven an hour before the time to eat a rive so
Starting point is 00:16:03 it would be warm. However, their kids started randomly coming up behind me and screaming as loudly as he could into my ear. I asked his parents to make him stop, seeing as how I prefer my hearing intact, and I don't like anyone just screaming in my ear for no good reason. I was told by my uncle, word for word, it's our house. If you don't like it, leave. They were shocked when I actually did exactly that. I opened the fridge, took my turkey out, got my car, and drove away. Not one minute after leaving, I was getting spammed by calls, asking, begging, or threatening me to come back with the only turkey for Thanksgiving. When I got home, I called my uncle back and told him, you told me to leave if I didn't like it, so I left.
Starting point is 00:16:49 Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, then I hung up and blocked this number. OP, you could say that you quit that family cold turkey. That was our slash malicious compliance, and if you like this content then you can subscribe to my channel for $4.99 a month. Your subscription will go directly towards supporting me and it'll unlock bonus episodes.

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