“Fire Me, I Dare You”: True Stories of Defying the Boss and Winning

Threats Don’t Work

I was a summer teacher at one of those Korean SAT prep schools that hired U.S College students for a summer, and then promptly worked them to death (although, I will admit the pay was pretty good). We taught 8.30 am thru 5.30 pm with an hour’s lunch but had homework to grade every evening, prep work, etc. Well, they were mainly focused on teaching English, but I was a math and physics major, so they had me teaching SAT math and college prep physics. No problem.

Then they decided since I studied physics, I should also teach their chemistry class. I tried to tell them I didn’t know much about chemistry, but they insisted. So I worked my a** off, refreshing myself on all of the stuff before I taught it, while still teaching another Math and Physics class.

One day in the middle of this I got legitimately sick. I called in the night before, per the rules, and told them I couldn’t come in. I took one day off, sleeping in my apartment, and then dragged myself in the next day. When I show up, they pull me aside and say “So how do you plan on making up the time for the classes you’ve missed?” “Excuse me?” “Well, we didn’t have anyone to teach your classes, so all the kids are behind now. You have to make up the time. We figured you could just extend your morning class an hour for the first week (aka- teach over lunch) and your afternoon class could then start an hour early for the next week.” “Why didn’t you have a sub teach my class?” Then they screwed up, they said “We don’t have a sub.”

“Well then, no, I’m not going to skip my lunch because of your guy’s poor planning.”

“We’ll fire you, and then you won’t get your plane ticket reimbursed” they replied.

“Go ahead. First, I followed the rules and gave you notice I was going to be out. Second, you just told me you don’t have a sub for my classes. That means if I leave, you’re going to lose all of those students that I’m teaching. That will cost you a lot more than the planet ticket will cost me.”

When Push Comes to Shove

The husband was having his gallbladder taken out and was having complications before surgery. I needed to leave early from work for about two hours and my boss threw a fit stating I couldn’t leave. I told her I had 300 hours of sick time I can use for myself and my husband and if she wanted to push I’d take all of it at once. Leaving no one but her to do my job. She said she’d fire me if I tried. I just looked at her and said I have to go ill send you my doctor’s note.

I wasn’t fired. I was actually awarded that year for job performance.

reddituser

Takeout Troubles

When I was a senior in high school I took takeout orders at a Chinese restaurant. For Thanksgiving week, my family and I planned a trip to visit my sister who was studying overseas. This made me need a full holiday week off work. I told my boss like 2 months in advance and reminded her a month before. She said cool and it was fine. We get the November schedule, and I’m scheduled for 3 shifts that week. I confronted my boss, and she just told me I better be there or find cover. I got coverage for one, but I couldn’t for the others. Now I wasn’t gonna cut my international vacation short because I couldn’t get coverage at my minimum-wage job. It’s also important to note that the reason I couldn’t get coverage was that no one else knew how to do that job. So before I left I went in and basically said I’m not gonna be here, no one will cover me, and I won’t have service till I get back. Sorry. And I had no idea what they were gonna say. I figured if I got fired w/e, I could find another job, but I knew they weren’t gonna do it cause they were already short on employees, and the turnover rate was ridiculous. All I got was a “don’t do it again” which I did and I never got fired, I left a year later cause I went to college.

lunarlandscapes

One Employee’s Ultimatum

Worked a job where I was the only one who knows how to take apart, clean, fix, and put all the equipment back together and do the weekly and monthly maintenance.

Had a boss tell me one day that I was doing a poor job and not doing enough and that anyone could do it. If I didn’t step up I would be fired or else as they had manuals for each piece of equipment.

So that night I took apart all the equipment (weekly and monthly stuff too), cleaned them, and then just left it apart for them to figure out that morning. Then I turned off my phone after getting home for the entire day as I had the day off.

When I turned it back on the next day I saw that I had initially received angry texts ordering me to return and put everything back together. This lasted an hour. Then texts saying I risked being fired. Then texts begging me to return. Then more texts try to compromise with OT. Then an apology before nothing else for the rest of the day other than that the head boss wanted to see me as soon as I came in the next day.

Came in the next day and over half the stuff was still not put together and what had been put together was put together haphazardly and would need to be taken out again and then put back in correctly. Was immediately asked to be seen by my boss and their boss to explain myself the moment I was seen entering.

Once in the office, I told them that if they weren’t there to apologise then just fire me then and there or drop it and let me put all the stuff back together. They looked at each other and then told me that I could get back to work.

Boss never called me lazy again.

Sardorim

A Burger or a Steak?

For the past few years, I’ve worked at one of the “nicer” restaurants in my small beach town. I’m one of the only servers there who cares about doing good and I’m the only one who doesn’t take a smoke break every 15 minutes. This past summer a new, very illegal, rule was implemented that if we messed up an order in any way we would be liable to pay for that messed up food. I usually didn’t have a problem with mess ups so I didn’t bring up the legality of this matter since I make good money and don’t want to start fires in places that don’t concern me. That was until I rang in a ‘Cherry Glazed Burger’ instead of a ‘Cherry Glazed Steak’ (each stylized CGB and CGS in our sh*tty computer system) I fixed this with the kitchen, but not before they had already started the burger. I told my manager and she just gave me a disappointed and told me that the rules are the rules. I then dived into both federal and state workers’ rights codes and told her she would never see me again if I found any money out of my tips at the end of the night. Never had a problem fixing an order again.

Dispersed and Dismissed

Worked at a municipality department. One day the programmers update the work PCs and block pretty much everything and anything.No internet at all, with no authorization for installing anything, all games were removed from Windows, and they even removed the calculator function for some reason.

Then the supervisors started moving coworkers around and my entire team was dispersed across a gigantic building, for no reason. We were the top team in terms of results, the supervisors simply hated our guts for some reason.

So me and one of the coworkers try to device some way to have communication without having to travel for five minutes each time (across the building and down a floor) just to get to each other’s desk and ask a simple yes or no question.

We do this during our lunch break. Our supervisor butts in and asks what we’re doing. We explain we’re trying to save time and maximize communication and results. The supervisor (who doesn’t like us anyway) says we should get back to work and quit trying to communicate through unauthorized means.

Okay. We simply stop trying to install Messenger on our phones.

One day later the supervisor is looking for my co-worker. I don’t know where he is. I say so.

“Well then contact him through your messenger program”
“The one you told us to quit installing?”
“Yes”
“We gave up on that, on your orders.”

She tried to get me fired for “refusing to obey basic orders.” I explained the situation to her superior, and he let me get back to work and told me to ignore her from then on. I moved to a better post a few months later because she made my life unbearable from that day on, and I finally went and told the upper floor they’ll either move me elsewhere or I quit.

Epic Resignation

As I was studying in Paris, I also worked night shifts in a hotel near the Hôtel de Ville district. I worked from 8 pm to 8 am several nights in a row. The hotel was very busy as it was a very touristic area so getting 4 hours of sleep over the total 4-5 nights was usual. It happened several times a week that the hotel manager simply forgot to relieve me in the morning, so I’d be falling asleep on the counter as they came 2 or 3 hours late. When I politely remarked that I’m tired and that they were late again, he’d simply laugh it off and say “I guess we forgot about you”

Finally, I decided to pass a job interview for some other work, that essentially happened during the day, so I’d finally sleep my nights. When I found out that they accepted me in that new job, I waited until my shift should’ve started that Friday evening and phoned the manager waiting for me to relieve him at the desk.

– Oh hello, I just called to say that I got a new job from next Monday, so I’m not coming tonight, nor ever.

– What do you…but you can’t… why didn’t you say something sooner?

– I guess I forgot about you 🙂

Extreme Outburst Pays Off

I was in the military and was trying to take my vacation time before I lost the days. They denied my requests 4 different times and I hadn’t had a day off in 3 months and I was working 12-16 hours shifts most days. I was beyond done.

I was teaching some new guys part of the tasks for one job. Everything was fine, I went somewhere else in the hangar to do something else on the plane. This Quality Assurance guy that everyone knew was a pain came in. I did my stuff good and he never bothered me so I didn’t pay him any attention. He started talking to one of the new dudes.

He then asked to talk to me and pulled me aside. He then asked me if I hadn’t told the new guy about some super obscure caution about water under a grate in the hangar floor. Something that had nothing to do with our job so it didn’t matter, he was just being a pain.

I was over the job and him so I told him, “Listen Sergent QA, I’ve been denied my leave 4 separate times and I’ve been working for 3 months straight, so if you have a problem with the way I taught them write me up I don’t give a f*** and you can stuff it up your a** too. Tell my boss I said that.”

It was a little extreme but I was pushed to the point. When I went back in I knew I was in deep because the guy walked out of my shop head’s office and I got called right in. When I went in there, the shop head said, “I heard what happened out there, submit the days you want to take leave right now and ill approve it for you. ” Then told me I could leave. That’s all I heard about it I was shocked.

reddituser

Unexpected Promotion

Had a big staff meeting to plan for the upcoming year about holidays and such so we could have the appropriately trained people on site to cover the guys that would be away. In the meeting, I say to the owner “So do you want us to email you or the schedule about this directly? He says both, so I say ok I’ll email it in but I will be gone for 2 weeks, and I tell him the date. He says that it’s approved but emailed it In. So I email it to him, the schedular, and my foreman at the time.

My holidays come and on the last day I send my foreman a message, the usual, where are we, how has it gone, where’s my company truck, who do I need to pick up tomorrow, the whole 9 yards.

He fires back with, you didn’t tell me you were taking days off, I’m gonna suspend you without pay for 2 weeks.

Well as you imagine that didn’t go well, I politely told him he could go f*ck himself and that I had the emails and he was in the room when we discussed the exact dates I would be gone, and that his lack of planning wasn’t my fault at all. So I phoned the owner, who I had happened to work for 7 years at this point, being the second longest employed person there, and told him that the 3 of us would be having a meeting in the morning to sort it out

So I write up my resignation and take it with me, along with my company phone, credit card and keys to the meeting where the owner proceeds to fire the foreman after about 5 minutes, and gives me the job as foreman for the crew. Thanked me for bringing it to his attention as it had happened before and as being the most knowledgeable person about our product and equipment he gave me the job which I had for the next 5 years till I destroyed my back and had to move on.

Personal Junk

My boss once told me that I have to come into the office the next day, which was a PUBLIC HOLIDAY because we needed to clear out the office storage unit. He said that we can’t afford to take time out of work days for that task.

So I begrudgingly agreed and showed up the next day. When I opened the storage unit it was crammed full of stuff… full of the boss’s PERSONAL STUFF. I’m talking boxes full of his old clothes, childhood toys, school projects and textbooks, gardening tools, furniture, sports and gym equipment, construction materials, paintings, etc. TVs.

I was so mad that I quit on the spot.

Workers Need Sleep Too

My usual job was 3 am-noon and I was sleeping from 5 pm – 1 am. A split shift meant working 4:30 am-8 am and coming back to 7 pm-11:30 pm. (If I remember right.)

I had been working a series of split shifts and the wacky sleep schedule was really getting to me. I was told I would only need to do it three days in a row, but then it became four days…and then finally I went to sleep after the 4th shift, got woken up by my boss calling me and telling me I would have to work one more split shift. I told him “No” and that I would come in for my usual schedule. He started to argue with me and asked me why it was a big deal especially since I had worked it almost every day this week, so why not work one more? When I explained I was having issues with sleep and that I wouldn’t come in he was like, “But it’s your job! I am scheduling you for another split shift.” And I just yelled at him, “Then I don’t need this job!”

He started apologizing and that he would let me get some sleep. I hung up.

I went to work the next morning for my usual split and everyone there was surprised to see me. My boss had told everyone he thought I might not show up at all and wasn’t sure if I had quit. I worked my usual shift, my boss came in at 8 am and began apologizing right away when he saw me. Then he said, “If working a split was so hard on you, you could have told me no!” I just turned and went to lunch.

Enough is Enough

Worked for an online marketing firm doing SEO reports and optimization. This was my first job so I didn’t understand the concept of start working slowly so you have room to improve. Well, I was working at 100% and doing well. One week, my girlfriend of 4 years broke up with me and I was taking it roughly. I was kinda scatterbrained and slowed down a little bit. I told my boss this and he was like “Okay, we’ll try not to stay like this for long”.

So 3 days go by and I’m better and working 100% again. So like a week later he calls me in and says “I need you to do almost all of your co-worker’s work because you’re better at it than he is and he’s gonna do something else now”. “Sure, I’ll do my best but I can’t make any promises I’ll get it all done”.

So am now working two people’s jobs in the time of one. I finish 1 and 3/4 of the work and then get called into his office. He’s claiming I “f*cked him over” and I “slowed down for too long “. So I say “Fire me then. I’m tired of doing all this extra sh*t and I promise you need me.”

Well, I got fired.

Two weeks later, he calls me up and asks me to come back. Says he can’t do all of the work. I tell him “Good, maybe you won’t treat your employees like sh*t next time”.

Went out of business about a month later.

THENATHE

Dad’s Boss Move

Not me but my dad.

So he was delivering catering to an office one day and the receptionist obviously f*cked up. She was yelling at him in front of her bosses saying that he was too late (on time with proof) and that the order was wrong when it wasn’t. She was making such a big issue of it and then said she was going to report him to his manager and get him fired.

So my dad said see if I care and gave her the number. she called and my dad picked up because he is not the manager but the owner. Everyone in that room was laughing at her.

Mary vs. Andy

I worked at a Cheeburger Cheeburger for 5 years out of high school while I got my degree. I started as a dishwasher and by year 3 was the shift leader and working the grill on rushes on Sat/Sun. During the holiday season(right now), we would do 9-11k days for a 25-table restaurant which meant we always had a line out the door.

For our shifts, we would generally have four people working. One on the grill, one on the fryer, one doing the bun setup and one dropping buns to toast. On this particular night, I had the three dumbest people at the restaurant. These people were restaurant lifers who just didn’t have a good work ethic.

Fast forward to about 7 pm, the height of the rush. I have at least 15 tickets on the grill with at least 10 hanging on the ticket machine. We were always told to keep tickets to 15 minutes. I may not have been 100%, but I would say 80% of those tickets went out on time and CORRECTLY. The 3 potatoes I am with are helping, but not keeping up. As the grill guy, I need to constantly turn around and start making buns to help them keep up.

Now I LOVE the owners of this place. They were kind to me and continue to help if I ever need a recommendation for anything. The manager on staff at the time however was a 55-year-old woman who seemed upset at herself at the fact shes managing a small restaurant. Sorry Mary(name changed), I didn’t make your life choices.

Mary then proceeds to storm back to the line and scream in my face “THE LAST TWO TICKETS WERE 18 MINUTES ANDY, GET IT TOGETHER OR GO HOME”

I look her back and say “I’m doing the best I can with what I got Mary”. She responds and says “Well your best isn’t good enough”.

Oh. Okay. Guess we’re doing it this way then.

I look her square in her stupid face and say “If you can do better, go ahead. I bet you can’t though”. And I stood there and stared at her. It felt like an hour, but someone else on shift said it was about 15 seconds of us just staring at each other, as the kitchen slowly goes to sh*t around us.

Mary said nothing and walked away. Never heard another word about it and worked there for another 2 years.

Fighting For The Right

Worked at a cancer nonprofit.

Hired a lady who knew about us because her kid had cancer.

The boss wanted me to fire her because she had to come in late or leave early to take her kid to chemo.

I refused. The boss said she’d fire me if I didn’t. I told her she could go right ahead. Our CEO said no way.

SplendidTit

From Grill to Glory

I was working at McDonalds and I had this manager that hated me for some reason. We’ll call her Hailey because that is her real name.

So one shift I am on the grill as I usually am when Hailey comes back and orders me to make salads. I do as I am told and go into the cooler and get out the sack of salad ingredients and the plastic salad containers. I begin working on the first salad when Hailey pops up and tells me to go on my 10-minute break. She says she’ll take over here. So I go.

10 minutes later I get back from the break room to find all the salads completed and up in the salad cooler up front. So I go back to the grill.

About 30 minutes later Hailey loudly calls me into the office. I come in and she says “Zushiba when you made the salads today, you didn’t put the date or time on them, that is a clear violation of our procedures so I am writing you up“.

I look at her thinking this is a joke. But she is dead serious. In front of the other manager who was sitting in the office at the time, I realized “I give zero f*cks about this job” so I say “Hailey, you made those salads, you are the one who didn’t put the time and dates on them not me, I am not signing that“

And with that, I got up and went back to the grill. I heard nothing for the rest of my shift from Hailey. The other manager on duty said nothing either. My shift ends and I go up front and clock out. I round the counter and go to leave when Hailey stops me.

“Zushiba, stop, we need to have a talk about your attitude today please come back to the office.” In front of customers the other manager and the rest of the staff I reply from the other side of the counter “Hailey did you just see me clock out?” she answers “Yes” in her best trying to be an important McDonald’s manager voice. So I say “Good, once I clock out I am on my time, I get to spend my time however I please, and I don’t care to discuss anything with you on my time. I work tomorrow morning at 6:00 with you. When I clock in I’ll be on your time and we can talk in the office as long as you would like. But for now, I’m leaving“

And I left. The look of shock on her and everyone else’s faces was f*cking adrenaline fuel. I felt great! I almost skipped the whole way home. I fully expected to be fired in the morning but Hailey was nowhere to be seen. Instead, another manager was on duty whom I got along with great. And incidentally hated Hailey as well. She pulled me aside early in my shift and said she heard about how well I’ve been doing from other managers who were on duty yesterday and wanted to give me free lunch today!

I never did hear about that write-up ever again and I rarely heard from Hailey even when we were scheduled together.

Couldn’t Care Less

Was at the hospital and had to go to court due to serious domestic issues. I had a sociopathic manager that called me, trying to guilt trip me by saying,

“Come into work or else, do you think it’s worth my time to train you while you make excuses blah blah blah”

The last thing he said was, “Do you want to keep this job or not?”

It was a crappy overworked and underpaid job, so I laughed and before I hung up said, “Not really”

The Battle For Priorities

My wife needs an invasive operation; not life-threatening but she will need help for at least two weeks afterwards with getting around, getting fed, etc. The day I find out when I tell the department head “I’m going to be out starting on DATE [one week from now] for two weeks while my wife recovers from OPERATION. I’ll take it as sick time.”

The department head apparently loses his sh*t on my fantastical boss for this and orders him to try to talk me out of taking two weeks on short notice. My boss drops a meeting into my calendar the next day; not unusual except there’s no topic listed; this makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

We plop down and he lays it out. CIO is furious I’m taking two weeks off ‘with such short notice’, and the bossman asks if I actually need two weeks. At least he looks embarrassed by the situation he’s been dropped in the middle of; not that it matters. I’m f*cking furious.

I tell my boss, “This is NOT a negotiation. My wife is going in for surgery and I am taking two weeks to care for her. The only question I’ll entertain is whether I’m getting paid for those two weeks and whether I’ll have a job when I’m scheduled to come back.”

Two weeks approved, immediately. I was there for another year before I left for a much better gig, and cited CIO’s sh*tty behavior on this and other topics as the reason.

reddituser

Quick Thinking

I worked at KFC for four years (high school job), I was a supervisor and the young me at the time thought it was cool to have and didn’t care about the money. Coming into year four I started to wonder why I don’t get paid any more than minimum wage for being a godd*mn supervisor.

One day I knew the district manager was coming in to visit so I decided to ask him why I don’t get paid more. The dude starts making a bunch of excuses and starts lying (thinking I was a dumb high school kid). One of his lies ended up being “You wear earrings to work and don’t tuck in your shirt so that’s why you haven’t gotten your raise” Also said this: You’re not actually a manager, you need the training to do online.”

So I said, okay I’d love to do that training then (I’ve been a manager for 2 years at this point).

Buddy says “You’re not technically a manager”

So I said “Okay good to know, when customers ask to speak to the manager, I’m just gonna say we don’t have one here”

He starts getting really nervous and ends up leaving the store.

Guess who got their raise the next week. 🙂

The Tuna Standoff

I took my 1-hour lunch break at an old job. When I came back, I noticed a very strong tuna smell coming from my desk area. I really don’t like tuna and my coworkers know that. I didn’t think much of it because I didn’t eat any tuna and figured maybe someone ate some nearby.

10 or so minutes go by and the smell is still lingering very close to my desk. I look in my trash can underneath my desk and there is a can of open tuna spread all around my trash can. I look around and my boss is just dying laughing. You should know that I HATE him, he was such an a**h*le. So I say “F*ck it”.

I take the tuna can and walk towards him and his office. He tells me that I should go toss it in the trash in the kitchen. No way that’s happening. I go into his office and I dump the whole can in his trash in front of 10 or so coworkers and everyone goes quiet. I was so fed up at that point that I didn’t even care about the consequences. I walk out and go back to my seat.

I get a message later in the day from him saying to come into his office. He lectures me for 15 or so minutes about me undermining his authority and being disrespectful. Doesn’t ever mention that he shouldn’t have done it in the first place or apologize for his actions.

I quit a couple of months later because the environment was so toxic and moved into a better position at another company, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget about Bill and the tuna incident.

A Lesson In Leadership

I work at a small family business that has a high turnover rate for entry positions. The managers have tempers that tend to scare people away so they are constantly short-staffed.

One day my boss yelled at me for making a “mistake” (he literally yelled at everyone in the office every day of the week for making “mistakes”) and after he was done unloading all the stresses of his life on me he calmed down and tried to help me understand my shortcomings through a lesson.

He told me: “Glutenfreeloader, say you hire a landscaper to mow your lawn. And say after you pay him for a finished job you find out that he missed an entire section of your lawn. What would you do? You would go yell at him for not doing his job, right?”

I said, “No, I would explain to him what he did wrong and if he didn’t fix it I would hire someone else to do the job.”

He didn’t know what to say and I walked back to my desk. That was 3 months ago and I sit at the same desk while I look for another job.

Clash Of The Titans

I worked in a factory where I had every intention of having a nice long career.

Until the new General Manager was hired. To say we didn’t get along would be an insane understatement.

However, I was VERY good at my job, and without exaggeration, could fill every position in the plant from receiving, through production, to shipping and billing. (Remember, I intended to make a career here).

Well, our shift’s production and quality had been nosediving for a couple of months, and at review time, I didn’t get even a cost of living raise. I took it with good graces and doubled down on MY job, and record-keeping for our production records.

After another 30 days had passed, our numbers had been improving, so I gathered up the numbers and requested a meeting with the GM.

He flipped out when I pulled the records from my bag and started screaming at me that he knew exactly where the problem was on our shift. At the end of the screaming match he said, “Do you think this plant will shut down if you leave!!?”

To which I replied, “No! But it just might if YOU stay!!!”

And then slammed his own office door in his face.

I worked there for another 7 months, refusing any hours but my own shift, until I found another career path and left of my own volition.