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    27-year-old employee gets micromanaged by incompetent boss, spends a year becoming invaluable to the company, then quits and gets his boss fired: ‘Don’t try me.'

    Author image for Elna McHilderson
    Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
    Apr 9, 2026 4:00 PM EDT

    It doesn't matter what age you are; there is always a chance you could end up having an incompetent boss who blames every little thing wrong on you. That's just the risk we take joining the workforce. The young professional, however, decided to teach his incompetent boss a lesson. 

    How did he do that, you ask? Well, he locked in, and right when he became invaluable, he quit. The company was already standing on weak knees, so he made sure to quit when they needed him the most. When they asked him why he was quitting during his exit interview, he blamed it all on his incompetent boss. So guess what? His boss was fired a couple of months later. 

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    • Casually dressed professional typing on their laptop computer on their lap
      via Unsplash+ (charlesdeluvio)

      Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.
      Casually dressed professional typing on their laptop computer on their lap.

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    • "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes: Micromanager edition"

      About two years ago, I was 27 and coasting at a company where I had the job down to a science.
      via TheModelBuilder
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    • I was in total cruise control, mostly because my team of 50+yo dudes would take 15 hours to finish a PowerPoint that took me 15 minutes and therefore weren't alarmed if it took me a full day to make 5 slides.
      via TheModelBuilder
    • So I spent most of my days browsing Reddit, collected my paycheck, and enjoyed my stress- free life while they all thought I was working as hard as they were.
      via TheModelBuilder
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    • The turning point was a meeting where my boss spent 90 minutes scolding me over tiny, insignificant "errors" he'd put into a bulleted list.
      via TheModelBuilder
    • He didn't even complain about me "not doing enough". He just decided to be a pain in the bat.
      via TheModelBuilder
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    • To name a few of the points: An excel file where he had all my "clocking" hours logged in, and basically went over certain days where I left "a few minutes early" despite the fact I had a "hour-less" contract.* An email he sent me for which he never got an answer (minor minor subject) that he physically printed out and handed me during the interview* The fact I went home directly after coming back from a mission abroad on a Friday afternoon instead of passing by the office which is like an hour
      via TheModelBuilder
    • the list goes on* It was pathetic. The company was already in a financial hole with a total hiring freeze, and instead of being glad he had competent staff, he decided to treat me like a child.
      via TheModelBuilder
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    • That was the day I decided to become the most "important" person in the department just so I could watch it crumble when I left.
      via TheModelBuilder
    • I spent the next few months making myself a single point of failure. I volunteered for two massive projects and became the only person trained to use a very specific piece of equipment after the previous specialist quit.
      via TheModelBuilder
    • swapped my "extensive" Reddit time for one or two extra hour of work a day.
      via TheModelBuilder
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    • I waited for about a year until the department was pretty much dependent on me, and then I gave my resignation.
      via TheModelBuilder
    • During the exit interview, I told HR and management that the "unbearable pressure" and "extreme workload" from my boss had burned me out, especially since I wasn't being compensated for all the extra responsibilities.
      via TheModelBuilder
    • It worked like a charm. Because the company was already struggling and I was the only one who knew how to run the equipment, the department hit a wall.
      via TheModelBuilder
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    • My boss was fired two months later. Don't try me b edit: Some people believe I was doing "nothing" and just getting paid.
      via TheModelBuilder
    • The reality is that I completed all the tasks I was assigned, always in time and doing the best I could do for each.
      via TheModelBuilder
    • simply did those task much much faster than my boss & coworkers expected me to.
      via TheModelBuilder
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    • The company never had any complaint about my job, and quite frankly, do you believe a company would keep a guy that would literally do nothing...
      via TheModelBuilder
    • People would have started to see projects weren't delivered, requirements unmet, task not done. I would have got fired in an instant.
      via TheModelBuilder
    • Young well-dressed professional business man smiling and pointing fingers to his laptop computer
      via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

      Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.
      Young well-dressed professional business man smiling and pointing fingers to his laptop computer.

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    • Weaponized… competence?? Interesting. Feels a little like too much extra work for my plots to be petty, but hey, whatever works for you! And boy, did this work. Luckily, my job is to scroll through Reddit all day, so I wouldn't find myself in this boat. But, still, the tale of this employee going from bored, to annoyed, to so useful the company could hardly function without him, is simply chef's kiss!

      Does this employee sound like maybe he was slacking off and not doing his job? Look, it's not his fault that the rest of his team couldn't keep up and that he finished his duties earlier on. In fact, it would've been way better if he were allowed to leave early and live his life, or get a second job to live that grind life. But companies don't like to do that because they like to be the only ones to control you… 

      Either way, ultimately, he quit out of boredom and his boss getting fired a couple of months after him was the cherry on top!

    • Jacgaur Why would you quit if the job was so easy?
      via TheModelBuilder
    • OP TheModelBuilder I got bored after a while to be honest, and when I started searching somewhere else the salaries where just double what I earned. So might as well work more but get double the pay! Aslo relocation :)
      via TheModelBuilder
    • NarrativeScorpion >and not working He was working. He was completing his assigned tasks. Just because his assigned tasks didn't take him very long, doesn't mean he wasn't working.
      via TheModelBuilder
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    • OP TheModelBuilder Thanks for pointing this out... some of the people seem to believe I turned up, did nothing and got a paycheck lol. I just completed all my tasks in half the time they expected me too which "bought" me free time
      via TheModelBuilder
    • Endless Birthday Based on the story, of which the PowerPoint was an example, OP... Had all that extra time because he knew how to use technology. His older colleagues couldn't work as quickly & efficiently. OP had extra time because he got all his work done in significantly less time.
      via TheModelBuilder
    • OP TheModelBuilder Exactly! My manager was an even older dude, the kind of person who gets 5x your salary but can't turn a Word file into a PDF without assistance. As most of my tasks where primarily "computing" based, they massively overevaluated the time it would take me to do those. So if it took me 3 days to make a powerpoint (that I made in 2 hours and complete my task) no one batted an eye.
      via TheModelBuilder
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    • Adarie-Glitterwings "People don't quit bad jobs, they quit bad managers." If I was being called out for non-issues like OP, doesn't matter how 'easy' the job, I aint staying.
      via TheModelBuilder
    • OP TheModelBuilder That's pretty much the case here, but I wanted him to leave too :)
      via TheModelBuilder
    • fresh-dork not to nitpick, but this is a long con that nuked your boss' job and possibly the department. feels a bit past petty.
      via TheModelBuilder
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    • OP TheModelBuilder They tried to fuck around on the most minor and insignificant detail when i was actually doing all the job they asked me for. So yeah... fuck around and find out :)
      via TheModelBuilder
    • vanGenne Malicious competence? That's a new one
      via TheModelBuilder

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