I did once. I had recently received (unbeknownst to Boss) a better job offer elsewhere, and had turned it down - or, at least, I told them it would have to wait til after the new year, because I didn’t want to leave Boss in the lurch with the Christmas rush coming.
Boss called me into his office and gave me a bunch of crap for something that my predecessor had done badly. My annoyance level was pegged, and then he said something else insulting, I honestly don’t even remember what it was, but I just snapped. I told him that maybe if I’d had a time machine, I could have fixed the problem for him - since things that other people did, over a year ago, were pretty much beyond my control. And he’d be wishing he had that time machine himself mighty soon, because he was going to regret this conversation.
Then I picked up my stuff, clocked out, and left him utterly in the lurch. Called the company I’d interviewed with and asked if I could start right away. They had me on the schedule within three days.
The best part was a few weeks later, when Boss was informed by the corporate headquarters that his associate (me) had won a company-wide award (something akin to Employee of the Year) that involved a goodly sum of cash, and he had to give it to me himself, in front of all the employees at an awards ceremony.
He was pretty much obligated to invite me to the ceremony, give me a big fat check, and give a speech to all his employees about how great a job I’d done. I tried not to smirk too much.
Not my boss, but Friday I told off the volunteer coordinator at the shelter where I volunteer. She’d been doing a fairly lousy job, with a habit of only communicating with the volunteer when they’ve done something wrong or she needs more people to come in. She actually thanked me and I thought maybe things were going to get better. Then Saturday she fired two of our best volunteers, or whatever you call it when you tell the people you need most you don’t want their free labor any more.
This is a puzzler, and maybe unique to the animal shelter volunteer world. Our local shelter loses volunteers on a regular basis but they aren’t fired. They quit.
The shelter is constantly on the hunt for new people. They train them and then stop speaking to them, except to criticize. There is no acknowledgement of the work being done, no thanks or recognition given. It’s very strange to go in there, scrub cages, walk dogs and do loads of laundry, all in silence. Then you go home.
Turnover is high but most who leave don’t bother to say why or tell her off. They just stop showing up. I should mention she’s pursuing a masters degree in non-profit management.
Not directly. But this happened to me early in my radio career…
The small station had an AM and FM side. I worked for the FM; you got to the studio by walking down a narrow hall and going through a swinging door. I worked the 9 pm to 2 am shift, but had got to work a bit early that evening, so I was in the FM studio bullshitting with the DJ who had the shift before me.
As radio folk are wont to do, we were complaining about the idiotic management at the station…both the stupid policies they implemented and their general failings as human beings.
Management normally only being at the station during the day, I had no compunctions when the subject of the Program Director came up saying, “Yeah, that Jim Kelly*…what an asshole he is!”
At that precise moment, the swinging door banged open, and there stood Jim Kelly, who of course had heard it all!
I don’t remember exactly what happened next…I only know that I wrote a groveling letter of apology to him the next day, saying that I was just generally frustrated and wrongly took out my frustrations on him.
I must have waxed particularly eloquent, because I didn’t get fired.
The truth of the matter, though, is that Jim Kelly really WAS an asshole!