Manager's April Fool's Day prank backfires as employee refuses to return to work

April Fool's Day is in a couple of weeks and as usual, people will be trying to pull out the best pranks on each other. Among these pranks, some are hilarious, but some do backfire. And that's what happened with this manager. In a Reddit post by u/--Savathun--, he shared that one day his boss told him that he was fired as soon as he reached work, and he then "laughed and walked off." So, the employee shut down his station and packed his stuff, and "even destroyed my client list (mine was the largest in the branch)," he wrote.

After he reached home, about three hours later, he got a call from his boss asking about his whereabouts and that he can't find him in the office. He told him, "You fired me. Why the hell would I be at work?" That's when his boss informed him that it was an April Fool's joke and to return to the office immediately. The employee refused and told him he would file a complaint with HR and take "unemployment for a few months."

He then wrote, "He lost his shit, and I just hung up on him. It's not f**k**g funny, and I'm taking a vacation/riding the wrongful termination train. He has called me 10 times, and I think HR is calling me now." Later, the Reddit user made several new edits to the post and clarified that he kept a physical copy of the client list and destroyed the digital, on-site copy. He added that some other employees also left the organization because of his boss.

In a follow-up post, the man shared that after having some time to cool off and talking with HR, some other team leads, and a lawyer, he came to know that his boss "Micheal is losing his position in the company, and has been put on leave." "He's being replaced by somebody from my team, the other people he ran off are coming back and getting a raise for staying," he wrote.

However, he was shifted to another team and given a raise of 5.15 dollars and 4 bonus weeks of vacation. He wrote, "The team I am getting I will also be secondary lead on, and is a team I've been trying to get onto for 3 years (much better bonuses and clientele). So I get a promotion and a raise. The new boss is far less of a hassle, and she is a lot more laid back. She went to great effort to get me to join the team she knew I wanted onto today and yesterday and gave me a lot more than I wanted."

That's not all. He also shared that his former boss was fired from the organization and apparently has a "history of issues, but he got his severance." "My coworkers from the previous team look to have collectively complained and used it as leverage for raises. I think they will get em too," he said. He also added later in the post that Michael had a series of issues and some "may have been harassment claims in the past." "The guy wasn't fired because of me, but because of just the damage he did to the team in 1 day, and a history of issues," he clarified.

He concluded the post by saying, "It's weird how fast this all turned around, but I think I'll be in a better place for it financially. Some of the advice I got from here helped a bit, and I wanted y'all to know that. I'll drop a few updates, I'm still doing some coordinating and stuff atm. Looks like I'll be taking my old client list with me, and merging it with a starter client list they want to give me when I move into the new seat."

The post has more than 90k upvotes on Reddit. Many on the platform could understand how the prank made him feel. u/OblongAndKneeless shared, "My wife's boss tried that 'joke' last year on a whole room full of people. Some of them started crying. It was horrible." u/[deleted] wrote, "This is an epic failure on a boss's end and ultimately a win for both the company and the workers, especially you. Congrats on holding your ground! I'm glad your company sounds like they dealt with the actual issue(s) appropriately and swiftly."