Employee rewarded with promotion after overcoming micromanaging boss' absurd working conditions

Some jobs can be excruciating to work at. The work and hours also tend to be quite large, which can really exhaust an individual. What makes the situation even worse, is when employers act inconsiderately towards hardworking employees. u/Ars-Torok had a very interesting story to share about how they stood up to a toxic boss after he treated them poorly despite doing a lot of work.

The individual provides a very elaborate backstory about how they managed to join an elite team at their company that fixed a variety of problems. They describe the team to be highly specialized and have a lot of authority in each department. They initially worked at the company's call center and managed to impress Todd, the boss of this elite team, and secured a spot as a "specialist of Third Party Integration." They write, "My focus is the connection between our product, and whatever weird stuff your company wants to use."

They shared that they were paid hourly previously, but would become a salaried employee once they were officially promoted. The employer informed the individual that they would have a trial period of one month to prove themselves at the new job. So, they would continue to be paid on an hourly basis, at a higher rate. They would also get their title changed and could start working on the new responsibilities of the job.

Soon enough, a "needy" client called the individual and laid out a set of work that needed to be done and it required a specialist. They informed Todd that they were ready to take up the job at hand. Todd left for vacation, which left the individual working under Steve who happened to be the individual's former boss. The individual begins working on the client's demands overnight and ends up doing twelve-hour shifts. Thankfully, they were compensated with amazing overtime pay.

Time goes by and the individual soon finds out that the initial few batches of work that they did had a 40% failure rate. They explain this, saying, "This is due to scripts provided to both the client and me by the various third-party companies used by the stores, including their music, food delivery, and credit card processors." It was pretty evident that the individual was not to blame here and they moved ahead with the project. 

Their ex-boss, Steve, did not like the way things were going and demanded that the individual show up at a meeting that the company had with the client. The individual explains how they were not able to get proper sleep having worked for 12 hours a day and living an hour away from work. Despite this, Steve is adamant that the individual shows up at the meeting to "account" for their failures. The individual tried to reason with Steve that they were technically still on probation, but he did not want to hear it.

The individual then decided to fix things by clocking in at 10 p.m. the day before the meeting. They discovered that their previous work was functioning because of a fix from the third-party back end. Everything ends up working perfectly and the individual is informed that they do not have to attend the meeting. They wait around the office and go into the meeting, shocking everyone except Steve. They write, " I calmly take my place and wait for the meeting to start, stating that I was asked to be here."

The meeting begins and the individual is commended for all their hard work. Steve reluctantly agreed that they were a good fit for the project. He tried to undercut the individual by saying that they should probably bring in someone with more experience to make the final changes. The individual replies that they would not want to waste their co-worker's time and would get it done themselves.

By the end of the second day, the individual had spent a staggering 36 hours at work, surviving solely on caffeine. They headed home after receiving a confirmation call from a technician and managed to get some "heavenly sleep." The individual wakes up to an email from their HR department asking them to come in on a day off. 

The head of HR informs the individual during the meeting that they were caught sleeping on the job when they were in fact waiting for the technician's call after a brutal 36-hour shift. They politely told HR about the entire situation and how they were still on a trial period and expected to be paid for all the overtime. Their boss, Todd, returned from vacation and "tore Steve a new definition of duties."

Steve basically would not have any control over Todd's team while he was gone, instead, they would directly report to the CEO. They conclude, saying, "The project was completed without much incident. And I passed my probation with flying colors." In a subsequent edit to the original post, the individual mentioned that Steve would be fired many months later because of a similar situation.