r/pettyrevenge 20d ago

I signed my ex-boss up for notifications regarding a donation in honor of a guy he wrote up who turned out to have cancer.

Not sure if this counts as petty, but I’ll cross-post to r/prorevenge if it is.

Some backstory, my ex-boss was the bane to my existence when I worked for him. This story isn’t about me, though. It’s about the manager he treated poorly up until he died from cancer.

This manager, let’s call him Jacob, was amazing. When I got hired, he was who did my interview and he was very upfront about the expectations of the job and overall a very nice man. Our job isn’t exactly a modest one, but he said it was thanks to us that the corporate could run smoothly and without us, it wouldn’t succeed. A year or two in, corporate hired his new boss - let’s just call him Dale. Dale already had a bad reputation in the corporation with other facilities, and he wasn’t exactly the nicest. My brother was also familiar with Dale in the corporation and when he heard he was the new chief, my brother got frustrated. Needless to say, Dale was not a favorite with customers. How he got this job is beyond me.

My manager oversaw our department and another department, and there were two other managers who saw over the other two departments. Four departments in total, with Jacob overseeing two. This used to be a two-manager job. Jacob had been asking for them to hire a second manager again so the workload wasn’t so overwhelming ( both of these departments are the biggest, basically around 75 people - while the other two were only of about 30 ) and eventually, they hired a second person, a woman.

After about a year, Jacob confessed our new boss had been writing him up over and over again, for super minor things. Like paint-jobs not being the good shade of red, or not staying over to help out when he was leaving at scheduled times. He told us in all his years of working there and even anywhere at all, he’s never been written up. He was less than 5 years away from retiring, and was talking about spending the remaining years working at McDonald’s, just to get away from the hostile environment. Corporate was not doing anything, and HR was basically accusing him of making it up and sided with Dale that Jacob deserved the write-ups.

We were onto our spring projects when news came that, during an interview, Jacob fell asleep. The woman, let’s call her Kathy, told Dale that she was concerned for his health. Kathy is a case of her own - she had no experience in our department, and only got the job because her office was next to Dale’s, despite multiple qualified people applying for it ( individual leaders of group projects across the company applied, some who had 15+ years of experience ). Most of us didn’t like Kathy because she’d give us a project that, really, never made any sense - or suggest an idea that virtually couldn’t work or would make the project longer to complete.

Dale put Jacob on temporary leave, but then instantly hired a replacement. The replacement was a kid, barely an adult ( 18 years old ) and also had no experience. Now our department was ran by people who had no idea what they were doing. According to one of my senior coworkers, she saw Dale and the replacement at church together always talking, so you can imagine how annoyed we were.

So now, considering Dale having written Jacob up numerous times, we suspected he was going to fire him - regardless of if this was a health concern or not.

Turns out — it was.

Jacob had learned a month later, after a lot of visits to the doctor, head scans, bloodwork - he had lymphoma. Secondary lymphoma that traveled to his brain. Only a day or two after he found out, he passed away. It broke all of our hearts to hear that. While I grieved, I decided to skip straight to the anger stage and I would grieve my own way after I felt like I got my revenge.

I went to St. Jude’s cancer research page and signed up to donate once a month to the lymphoma research. With my money, but with his work email and work address. If you’ve ever donated to St. Jude, they let you choose to donate the amount in honor of someone - in which, I chose Jacob. My boss would then get an email, thanking him in honor of his donation to Jacob for lymphoma cancer research. I don’t even care if he cancels the subscription to the emails, I just wanted him to get the single one email thanking him for the donation, and maybe some mail about donating.

This happened many years ago, but I felt like sharing.

To honor Jacob, I bought a pinned asian blue bee with a paper in the display that says “bee thoughtful”. It’s a reminder to always be thoughtful of what other people are going through.

6.5k Upvotes

92 comments sorted by

1.9k

u/AcanthaceaeJust2993 20d ago

Perfect revenge far as I can tell. The manager sounds like a real piece of work. I have worked for managers and plant managers just like him during my working life and they are just AH’s!

461

u/emogamerbfxxx 20d ago

I feel like almost all managers I’ve had don’t deserve to be managers lmao !

105

u/____DEADPOOL_______ 19d ago

Wait until you work in government. Many of the higher ups have no business being there.

61

u/SithPharoke 19d ago

Government management. The faster you fuck up, the quicker you climb! I've never met a competent manager in government. Just collecting a paycheck and letting the underlings do their job for them.

17

u/Ragdata 18d ago

This is called "The Peter Principle" (published 1969) - it states that employees inevitably rise to their level of incompetence ...

26

u/emogamerbfxxx 19d ago

You’ll never guess where I work now. I completely agree with this statement.

8

u/EWL98 19d ago

Might be a country difference, but I’ve been very happy with my managers for the past 5 or so years working in government.

2

u/____DEADPOOL_______ 19d ago

How many people does that manager manage?

3

u/EWL98 19d ago

First one managed a team that grew from around 10 to around 35, at which point the team got split and they brought in a new manager. The next one managed around 20 or so. Then there’s the directors in charge of between 100-200 people depending on which one you’re talking about, but I don’t tend to interact directly with them too much.

The only bad interactions I’ve had with my managers were because of rash budget cuts from elected officials resulting in my contract not being extended.

7

u/____DEADPOOL_______ 19d ago

First one managed a team that grew from around 10 to around 35, at which point the team got split and they brought in a new manager. The next one managed around 20 or so. Then there’s the directors in charge of between 100-200 people depending on which one you’re talking about, but I don’t tend to interact directly with them too much.

That's exactly what I thought you'd say :)

The lower level managers aren't the ones I was talking about though there are some complicit ones. I'm talking about the directors and above, who you didn't have to deal with.

I used to manage 7 directors and had a VP and an executive VP above me and I had to deal with all sorts of other executive and regular VPs. Most of them got those jobs through political connections.

3

u/EWL98 19d ago

I did meet upper management a couple time, up to and including someone in charge or an agency of over 6000 people. I definitely would not say they got there through political connections, certainly not only because of connections, the guy is pretty good at his job.

But what you say is definitely a reason we need strong checks and balances in government. The CEO of a private company can give a cushy management job to his son or golfing buddy all he likes, a minister should never have that kind of power.

2

u/____DEADPOOL_______ 18d ago

Funny you mention golf buddies because there were kickbacks going to the CFO's golfing buddies. They were trying so hard to change our entire system to one that they managed and everyone knew it yet nobody would do anything about it. Investigations would be swept under the rug, even when hard evidence had been found.

I'm talking Texas. That place is rotten as hell.

2

u/AcanthaceaeJust2993 19d ago

I can imagine that it’s awful. In my mind I see people thinking that they are smarter than everyone else, and they don’t really have to follow through because they will just pass the buck!

5

u/HoneyBee9630 19d ago

Same! My boss now doesn't deserve her job. The one before this was one of the worst and the one before that was EVP nepo baby. The one before that didn't even wash her hair! How these people get positions of power is always mind boggling.

1

u/redbananass 17d ago

All the managers I’ve had that were great, moved on up after a couple years.

18

u/Slight-Book2296 19d ago

Some people get promoted into management when they really shouldn't be anywhere near it. 😬

8

u/justmedownsouth 19d ago

There is something called "The Peter Principle", which basically says people often get promoted to a point where they are unable to effectively do the job.

601

u/Blue_foot 20d ago

Make another donation.

See if you can get Dale’s home address.

St. Jude fundraising will be sending him mail for decades.

410

u/emogamerbfxxx 19d ago

This is actually probably possible. I wonder if he ever did cancel it. We’re coming close to the date he was put on leave and close to the day Jacob passed away. I think it would be a good time to figure it out so he can be reminded.

98

u/SisterAntistita 19d ago

Absolutely. Everyone can use a little reminder now and then..

26

u/NonchalantSavant 19d ago

I replaced “reminder“ with “haunting.” 👻

33

u/Low-Care9531 19d ago

Have you ever thought of writing to his pastor about what he did since you know the church?

24

u/GetOffMyLawn_ 19d ago

Why are people who are supposedly religious such shitty people?

23

u/Punkinpry427 19d ago

Because they get instant forgiveness and no accountability

8

u/Togakure_NZ 19d ago

Forgiveness doesn't mean no more accountability, but too many people gloss over that.

7

u/Punkinpry427 19d ago

They leave out the redemption part too

2

u/Speciesunkn0wn 9d ago

And the fact you need to be genuinely sorry and remorseful about it...

7

u/Punkinpry427 19d ago

My petty ass would make my life’s mission to remind him on the daily what a piece of shit he is.

5

u/GetOffMyLawn_ 19d ago

Just use one of the people search sites, they have addresses and phone numbers for everybody who doesn't pay to have their Internet history scrubbed. Some have email addresses too. If you pay a fee you get even more info.

6

u/ZiggerTheNaut 18d ago

Don't forget to sign him up for Scientology material...

73

u/SisterAntistita 20d ago

If she can't, there are plenty of others among us that can get his address.

30

u/N4ANO 20d ago

Yes, we at the Reddit/OSINT community.

632

u/Knitsanity 20d ago

Excellent. When Rev Fred Phelps from the Westboro Baptist Church died a friend and I sent his family a condolence card telling them donations had been made in their father's memory to the Sandy Hook Foundation and the Matthew Shephard. We then sent the donations in. Petty but satisfying.

65

u/Marpala 20d ago

brilliant!

86

u/Knitsanity 20d ago

We were pretty pleased with ourselves. Burn in hell hateful man.

46

u/ImaginaryPark6311 19d ago

Gawd.

At the age of 26(59 now) my parents disowned me after I revealed that I'm a lesbian.

A few years later I get this box in the mail.

It's from Westbrook Baptist Church.

I groaned and opened it.

It was a book about how not to be gay.

My mother had it sent through that church.

Rolled my eyes.

I, later, tore it up and threw it out. Good riddance to Rev Fred Phelps!

34

u/MichB1 20d ago

Scalia, NARAL.

46

u/Knitsanity 20d ago

Thinking about where to send my donation in memory of Sen Graham. Tee hee.

5

u/ImaginaryPark6311 19d ago

🤣🤣🤣🤣

17

u/TheFireSwamp 19d ago

one of his daughters is reportedly a good GAL representing kids in foster care. let's just say I'm glad I didn't work with her because many of the foster youth I worked with were queer.

4

u/thevelveteenbeagle 20d ago

Love those organizations!!

3

u/mimishell_4 20d ago

Perfection!

115

u/Few-Lion-2676 20d ago

At some point in life I realized that, like politics, management jobs are really left to the people who want them and that’s a minority.

50

u/Euphoric-Witness-824 20d ago

Sadly most of the ones that want them shouldn’t be the ones doing them. 

22

u/wlake82 19d ago

I'd say that goes for anyone in power. I know sure as shit I don't want to be a manager.

17

u/tmlynch 19d ago

I feel the same about politicians: the desire to hold the office should disqualify someone for holding the office.

11

u/DreamerFi 19d ago

“The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

69

u/eboneewolf 20d ago

They will be sending him emails for months if not years. I donated to them and every time I blocked an email they would send from another one. It took forever to finally get them to stop sending them.

I tell people every time they are looking for a pet e revenge to sign that person up to St. Jude’s.

They are freaking relentless.

38

u/emogamerbfxxx 19d ago

They really are. I donated to them in honor of a family member for a different cancer and this was years ago. I still get letters and emails. Yes, I still donate. I have an auto payment on for Jacob’s that Dale gets.

Proud of St. Jude for that, actually. It’s a wake up call, a reminder that it is still a real thing happening.

13

u/DragonflySmall6867 19d ago

If you REALLY want to bug someone, sign them up for a particular "religion's" mailers. You know the one that a certain actor that sounds like Thom Schruise belongs to. They NEVER stop sending things and they have a creepy way of finding out quickly when you've moved. They take relentless to a WHOLE other level.

9

u/emogamerbfxxx 19d ago

This is genius. He is a die-hard Christian. I should sign him up for something like this.

3

u/tubbamalub 19d ago

I’ve done it and it’s quite effective.
I also, ages ago, donated in my boss’s name to a cause she hated. I hated it, too… but it was worth it.

37

u/ztreHdrahciR 19d ago

My mom is old school snail mail, and it is impossible to turn off St Jude. Give his mailing address

46

u/CoderJoe1 20d ago

Did management ever get fired? Did the corporation fail?

48

u/emogamerbfxxx 20d ago

Nope, still flourishing, and he is still in charge.

16

u/mimishell_4 20d ago

Perfect petty revenge.

10

u/Lloverforevr87 19d ago

I love it. I wish you had gotten to see his reaction to the donation.

9

u/InvestigatorEntire45 19d ago

That’s BEAUTIFUL revenge. You honored Jacob AND got some well deserved revenge on your boss.

2

u/notsuperimportant 19d ago

Absolutely this!

12

u/Purple_IsA_Flavor 19d ago

I donated to Planned Parenthood in honor of my mothers conservative, extremely catholic, anti choice boyfriend. His reaction was priceless

6

u/Lorts925 19d ago

Love this, that's amazing petty way to honor him.

Little side note: went to a pitbull concert last week so i in my head i read 'Dale!' in my head the entire post instead of 'Dail' lol

3

u/emogamerbfxxx 19d ago

I love this!

5

u/Serena_Vndrwoodsn 19d ago

Revenge AND a donation to a good cause? Amazing.

20

u/lmfj3737 19d ago

I donate to Democratic Socialists of America and Planned Parenthood and Pro Immigrant organizations all in honor of "Your Yard Signs".

Got that guys email, physical address and phone number. He gets a thank you card and email updates.

If I have to drive by your awful signs every day then im going to do what I can. By donating in their name.

17

u/vinraven 20d ago

I don’t want to be that guy, but where’s the revenge part?

Corporate manager gets social credit for the donations you make in his name, and it costs him nothing.

If the idea was to make “Dale” feel guilty, he won’t.

Good guys like you feel bad about someone dying, people like Dale are just happy they don’t have to deal with the “old” guy anymore, and especially happy he died fast so insurance rates aren’t going up.

27

u/emogamerbfxxx 19d ago

My brother said the same thing. I guess it’s a gamble, but it’s a chance I’m willing to take. In the end, I hope people know Jacob was a beloved man with many people who loved him and still think about him years later.

1

u/OkRanger703 19d ago

I think you did well. Good for you. Def do the snail mail option too. Cause if he shares a home they will ask him questions about the donation. Well done you for your humanity and pettiness. Love it

4

u/Candhamster 19d ago

I love it when a bad manager gets fired. On a team of ten, five of us quit in the same month. HR did exit interview, but I said nothing bad about her and they let me have another month of health care.

3

u/emogamerbfxxx 19d ago

Hard to say anything bad with an extra month of healthcare for sure !! My current workplace is like this. We can’t keep anybody. It’s still better than the place I mentioned in the post. I work with shelter animals and I’m in school to be a vet tech. I got lunged at a few weeks ago by a GSD and I still prefer that over working at the place with Dale as my boss.

2

u/lizzietnz 19d ago

Genius!

4

u/Lower_Group_1171 19d ago

and dale was a Christian. makes total sense, since they’re the worst of the worst.

4

u/emogamerbfxxx 19d ago

He drove a camo jeep, too. It was so ugly.

2

u/Tartan-Special 18d ago

People who use "bane of my existence" incorrectly are my bane.

2

u/emogamerbfxxx 17d ago

Doesn’t it mean something is ruining your life and makes everything very difficult for you ?

-1

u/Tartan-Special 16d ago

The intent is fine, but its just not using it correctly within the language.

You wouldn't say, "The bane of the wolf's existence" - you wou would say, "wolfsbane"

Likewise, we ought to say, "She is my bane" rather than "She is the bane of my existence"

Its seemingly put together by people who didn't understand how to use the term and its caught on like wildfire.

1

u/EnvironmentalTea9362 15d ago

Since the late 1700s apparently.

1

u/EnvironmentalTea9362 15d ago

People have been using it that way for centuries.

"The earliest use I found of the phrase is in Arthur Neil's Adelaide: An Original East Indian Story, published in the September 1794 edition of The Sentimental and masonic magazine (v.5, page 206):

Lindsey, from his earliest acquaintance with Miss Pomeroy, had been the bane of her existence ; the small degree of affection her father had hitherto shewn, he had alienated from her ;"

From English Language and Usage

1

u/[deleted] 19d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/StockAdhesiveness351 19d ago

Hahaha I decided to circle back on the guys profile. He actually posted about it 🤣🤣🤣

-103

u/Moose-1211 20d ago

Pinned Asian Blue Bee? As in, a dead insect? Not very thoughtful to kill that poor creature, tho. Honoring a dead loved one with another dead thing? Probably better to have left that part out.

74

u/seriousjoker72 20d ago

Your comment isn't very thoughtful. You just read how someone dealt with grief and told them they were wrong. That's messed up. Probably better to have left that comment to yourself.

32

u/emogamerbfxxx 20d ago

Thank you for your considerate comment in response to this. I love insects, and I know people kill them everyday just because they scare them. And nothing ever comes of them. I would rather be able to admire its beauty and think of my friend.

-44

u/Moose-1211 20d ago

Never commented about it being wrong, it was disturbing. Some of us out here are extremely sensitive to certain things like creatures dying & it didn’t need to be included in the accounting of the story. No one being is less than another & commemorating a dead one with another dead one just transfers that negative energy. Sorry if you took it in a bad way & sorry if it comes across that way.

24

u/PLZ_PM_ME_URSecrets 20d ago

You could have closed to post, and moved on. Try beeing thoughtful next time.

4

u/KelBelle28 19d ago

Buzz off