Some bosses just like to get off on the fumes of their own red pen. They thrive on tearing your work to shreds over the most meaningless, “ticky tack” details, convinced that only they know the one true path to corporate perfection. It’s a frustrating, unwinnable game.
Finding the one true weapon to defeat them is the holy grail of the working world . One employee stumbled upon this ultimate cheat code and decided to set a trap, armed with his boss’s own mediocrity. Revenge is a dish served ice-cold on a plate of their own making.
More info: Reddit
A micromanaging boss is a workplace nightmare, but finding a way to get payback might be the sweetest reward of all
Woman in glasses expressing frustration in office setting after boss calls report basically unreadable
One man was facing an impossible boss who tore apart his reports for the most meaningless reasons
Boss calls a report basically unreadable and is left dumbstruck upon learning it is her own document.
Text excerpt describing a former employee’s negative experience with a boss and unreadable report at State Street Bank.
Text excerpt about a team tackling financial problems with high SVP visibility, highlighting workplace deception by a boss.
Text about compiling reports and dealing with a boss who harshly criticizes unreadable reports from her own team.
Man in glasses and blue shirt reviewing a report in a modern office, reacting to an unreadable boss report.
Fed up, the employee found his boss’s old work on the network and copied her format verbatim
Text excerpt showing a boss repeatedly criticizing a report as unreadable due to formatting and wording issues.
Screenshot of a report excerpt describing how using another person’s format made a report basically unreadable.
Text excerpt about a boss calling a report basically unreadable and her reaction upon realizing it was her own work.
Text showing an employee explaining to her boss that the report used the same formatting and language as her own past work.
Boss and employee discussing a report in office, boss reacts surprised after calling the report basically unreadable.
She didn’t recognize her own work and continued to be even more critical about the “new” format than before
Text excerpt showing a boss calling a report basically unreadable then shocked to learn it is her own report.
Text excerpt from a report described as basically unreadable by a boss, highlighting confusion over document handling.
Text excerpt about a cat and mouse game involving a boss calling a report unreadable and the confusion that follows.
Text on white background stating I was able to quit a few months later representing boss calls a report basically unreadable reaction.
He then revealed that the report was an exact copy of her own work, and she was at a loss for words for the first time ever
Like many before him, one man found himself in a corporate hellhole working for a horrible boss named Paula. His job, which was sold to him as a complex financial operations role, was actually just compiling reports while Paula kept him in the dark and fed him nonsense. Week after week, she would rip his reports to shreds over the most meaningless details like format and verbiage, basically anything but the actual numbers.
One fateful day, while digging through the network files, he stumbled upon a goldmine in the form of a folder of Paula’s own old work from a similar project. A glorious, petty, and brilliant idea was born. He meticulously reformatted his next report to be an exact, verbatim replica of her own past work, changing only the relevant numbers. He then walked it into her office, sat back, and waited for the fireworks.
Paula, right on cue, absolutely lost it. She called his new format “worse than before” and “basically unreadable,” ranting for what seemed like an eternity. After she had thoroughly exhausted her thesaurus of insults, he calmly revealed his trap. He told her he had simply copied her own format, verbatim, from a few years ago, and even handed her printouts to compare.
The effect was instantaneous and glorious. She was left with a “dumbstruck look on her face,” and when he cheekily asked if he should go back to his old format, she just signed off on it, defeated. For the rest of his time there, he continued this hilarious “cat-and-mouse game,” using her own templates against her, a brilliant rebellion against the worst boss he’d ever had.
Person typing on laptop keyboard with coffee cup and smartphone nearby, illustrating report review by boss.
His plan is what we in the business of revenge call “malicious compliance.” Indeed explains that this is the act of following a person’s instructions to the absolute letter, knowing that doing so will result in a negative outcome for them. He used her format and thus technically followed her implied standard, brilliantly exposing her hypocrisy and the fact that her criticisms were just about her need to criticize.
Paula was nothing but a power-hungry boss. Research on workplace dynamics shows that these types of managers derive satisfaction from asserting their authority and controlling their subordinates. Her constant criticism was a way to maintain dominance and keep her employee in a state of constant self-doubt. Her furious reaction to her own work revealed that her critiques were never objective to begin with.
Scientists have finally figured out why revenge feels oh-so-sweet. According to a study on the subject, retaliating against someone who has wronged you activates the reward centers in the brain, creating a sense of pleasure and justice. His game was about reclaiming a sense of agency and fairness in a situation where he felt powerless, a feeling that is clearly still rewarding him 19 years later.
His tactic was a brilliant and low-risk way to handle an impossible boss. Instead of a direct, career-endangering confrontation, he used the company’s own records and his boss’s own work as an unassailable weapon. With a little bit of cunning planning, this fed-up employee proved with irrefutable evidence that her management style was based on hypocrisy, not quality. Long live the king of revenge!
The internet erupted in applause for his perfectly executed act of revenge, wishing his boss a terrible day, wherever she might be
Screenshot of a comment thread where a boss calls a report basically unreadable and reacts surprised to it being her own.
Screenshot of an online comment about a boss calling a report basically unreadable before realizing it’s her own work.
Text post describing a worker exposing how their boss called a report unreadable then took credit for it.
Text post showing a retail worker describing closing duties and management inspections in a work report.
Screenshot of an online comment praising a well-done report after a boss calls it basically unreadable.
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