Manager trying to sabotage employee didn't realize she was leaving a paper trail behind

In a world that's constantly competing to excel, we are inevitably faced with office politics and unreasonable expectations from our bosses. However, some have the knack to be cautious and find the right solution to tackle a toxic workplace. One such employee, u/powderedtoastsupreme shared on Reddit about their hilarious way of getting back at their manager who was trying to mess with their career. When the employee's job as a writer and editor was at stake, they made sure to drag their manager down with them and the internet was amused.

Working for a large media company, the writer was dedicated to the "sports" department and was happy with their job for a year and a half. But when a new manager was appointed, things got more stressful. Before this manager's tenure, the company updated its style guide, a reference document about formatting, only once or twice a year. "After she came on, it was being updated at least once a week, if not multiple times a week. It legitimately became an obsession for her," the employee mentioned. Though the employees kept up with the manager's annoying obsession, they realized that she "didn’t have the faintest idea what she was doing," because there were several "glaring errors." 

At one point, the manager's unreasonable expectations led to people being reprimanded for not following the style guide she had updated too often. When it was the writer's turn to have a one-on-one talk, what the manager pointed out left them perplexed. "To my horror, however, it appeared my new writing manager didn’t understand basic grammar," the employee said. Turns out, the manager wanted the writer to use the terms, "mens football" and "womens football" instead of using it in the possessive form like, "men's," or "women's." Despite the writer explaining that "mens" was not a grammatically accurate word, the manager wanted them to implement the changes. So, the employee decided to maliciously comply with her demands.

"Realizing her idiocy could cost me my job, I made a simple request. 'Could you please email me the exact style guide rule you’re referencing and how exactly you’d like me to implement it, with examples of where I messed up?'" the writer noted. In a witty attempt, the employee got all the demands and style guide changes that the manager imposed documented. When they were fired six months later, they handed over all these paper trails along with pieces of evidence of the manager passing on their work to other employees. "Turned out, that my little folder sparked a full investigation by HR and after interviewing other coworkers in the department, they realized she had done all of it to have grounds to fire people within the department she didn’t like," they added. Thanks to the prompt documentation by the employee, the manager was fired three months after they lost the job.

People in the comments could relate a lot to the employee's story. "Bad managers are one thing. The complete dimwits that hire them are on another level," said u/Tallguy71. "I’m a tech writer and my skin crawled when I read 'mens basketball.' Your boss was beyond ignorant. She was evil. Glad you found a new gig that you enjoy," remarked u/PEKU1954. "Your manager fell foul of one of the golden rules: If someone demands something in writing, you are making a mistake that will come back to bite you," pointed out u/DoctorOctagonapus.

This article originally appeared 4 months ago.