Boss blocked his promotion to keep stealing credit for his work — so he stepped back and watched the company implode over 6 months

When bosses take credit for employees' work, it can leave them feeling undervalued and defeated. A similar thing happened to one employee who goes by u/vagueambiguousname on Reddit. They were hired by a tech start-up company as a manager to create a contracts department. Since their boss was on the opposite side of the country, they barely spoke. A year into the job, their department was doing extremely well, and they were rewarded with a vacation to the Bahamas. However, when they came back, everything went downhill. So far, the post has garnered 15,000 upvotes and 143 comments.

A nefarious reason behind 'no raise'

After the vacation, the author asked their boss for a raise matching a Director's level but was denied. The boss thought they were just not there yet. Instead of being discouraged, the author asked the boss for a list of things they could do to become a Director. When they got the list, they realized they were already carrying out most of the responsibilities. Only then did the boss shamelessly admit that he did not want to give them the position because he wouldn't be able to take credit for their work. The author's friends suggested they leave the job or keep quiet; instead of doing either of these, they opted for malicious compliance. They apologized to their boss for "overstepping" and printed a list of manager responsibilities and began following them strictly, not doing more.

Everything goes south

Ever since the author began sticking to the responsibilities of a manager, the company has started missing its sales targets. The product team complained that the boss was going to "destroy their budget and product rollout" due to a certain agreement he signed. The boss unknowingly let the sales department manipulate contracts, and almost allowed the VP to "artificially inflate sales numbers" until the author intervened. It got so bad that the controller, the CFO, and even the CEO had to come in. The author, on the other hand, had more free time. They started studying, getting certifications, and left work early to go to the gym. A month later, the boss gave them a 7% bonus, a silent way of begging them to take back the director's responsibilities, but they did not budge. 6 months after the bonus, the author took 10 days off and was laid off. Fast forward three months, and the author got a new job with a 35% salary increase. They were happy about it, but still bummed out about other people taking credit for their work at their ex-company.

Most common 'boss behavior'

BambooHR surveyed more than 1,000 U.S. workers to understand what they consider "bad boss behaviors." The number one behavior on the list was bosses taking credit for their employees' work. The second was bosses who don't trust or empower their employees. The third bad behavior was bosses not caring if their employees are overworked. The study also found that younger employees were more tolerant of managers taking credit for their work. 57% of employees between the ages of 18 and 29 thought their boss taking credit for their work is "unacceptable." However, 77% of employees between the ages of 60 and 77 thought it was "totally unacceptable" when bosses took credit for their work. The author's age was not revealed in the post, but instead of accepting their boss behavior, they chose malicious compliance.

Reddit's unanimous response

People obviously sided with the author in the comment section. Many commented that they had gone through almost the exact same situation. u/ihearhistoryrhyming wrote, "Excellent! I like this. You didn’t even tell on him. Just got your ducks in a row, and sailed on." u/dannybau87 added, "I've learned the hard way that you need to stay in your lane and let things fail if you're not being paid for it."

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