Oftentimes when managements get changed, things get tricky because everyone somehow become new to their old job!

Check out how this guy found his way around an annoying manager!

You want me to resign? Well, good luck without me!

For the last 10 years I’ve been working from home as automation engineer for a relatively small company what produced custom-built industrial gas treatment units (industrial chillers, compressors stations, that sort of thing).

He explains how his job works…

My job was to write algorithms for PLCs, design HMI, and setting up data transfer for customers SCADA systems. Basically I was the person who told machines what to do.

I was getting significant below market pay for such position, but with only 4-5 project per year and each taking me 2-3 weeks to complete, I wasn’t arguing, since I was getting paid for mostly doing nothing and I was fortunate enough to have considerable passive income thanks to lucky investments of my inheritance.

This is where things get bad!

Everything was great until couple years ago, when owner decided to retire and sold the company. So here comes new management with new policies.

In my country every worker entitled to at least 4 weeks of paid vacation time per year all unspent vacation is rolled other to the next year, but you have to take at least 2 uninterrupted weeks per year, so if you only take your mandatory vacation, you accumulate 14 additional days per year.

Given how much free time I actually had I rarely used more than mandatory 2 weeks per year, always making sure what there be no commissioning or maintenance planned during my vacation (During these events I would remotely access maintenance engineer’s laptop to make necessary adjustments to the algorithms, so everything works perfectly in real working conditions).

UH OH…

But one of the first policies new management implemented was schedule based vacations. So now I had to decide when I take my 2 weeks at the start of the year. I chose first weeks of April.

In early March I get a call from manager of the development team who asks me to come on a quick 3 day work trip to help maintenance engineer switch plc and upload new project.

Apparently thanks to new maintenance team manager a lot of maintenance engineers quit and they are short stuffed and the only one they can send atm is bad with computer.

He had to do a lot of convincing for this one!

“Where isn’t much for me to do, since we had identical station going through the same plc switch month prior, so I’ll just fly there, chill, until electrical panel is rewired, new plc is installed, when I just upload new project to plc and fly home” – I thought for myself and agreed to go.

Apparently maintenance engineer not only bad with computers, but also knows nothing about electrical work, so I had to do everything myself which I am not actually qualified to do, but at this point I don’t want to disappoint client, who turned out to be a bunch of really nice people, so after a week and with only 3 burned down fuses I finished.

After returning home I inform my manager what I am not going to any more business trips since I don’t get paid enough to also do maintenance engineer’s work.

It goes on and on!

First say of my vacation comes and I get another call. Despite my poor judgment I decided to answer:

Hey, we need to to go on another business trip starting next Monday, it will just take a week, it for this project

I’m not familiar with that project, it was done while I was on paternity leave (in my country either parent can take paternity/maternity leave up to 3 years and after first 6 months my wife asked me to switch).

Yeah, we had to contract a specialist to do that project while you are on leave, I’ll send it to you along with documentation right away. disconnects

That’s INSANE!

I check received project and it is huge – 7 PLC’s, 6 HMI panels, everything has to work as a single system, and project is a total mess, nothing would work, you just has to do everything from scratch, will probably take me close to a month to finish.

And that is with doing everything from comfort of my own home where I am more productive. So I call back:

Yeah, I looked at this project and that’s a mess, it’s not in the working condition and no way to finish it in a week. I’ll do what I can do, but as I said last time, I’m doing it remotely, as always, I won’t go on another business trip, especially now, I have to many things planned for the next few weeks, I can’t go.

But reception on site is terrible, you won’t be able to access it remotely. And we already missed all deadlines on this project, client is angry and we are looking at huge fines.

CEO is breathing down my neck, we need it fixed yesterday.

He knew he had to find his way around this!

Then I’ll email maintenance engineer project with changes each evening once he is in hotel with decent reception and he can email me list of things what need fixing, it’s not the first time we done it that way.

Ok, I hear you, I’ll have to speak with CEO about.

About 15 minutes later I get another call.

CEO said what if you don’t want to go, you should just write a resignation letter.

Hmmm, I am the only employee who knows how to do my job, but yeah, sure, I’ll send my resignation letter right away.

He had his loopholes!

I was thinking about not doing it so they had to terminate me and pay me termination compensation, but when I decided to be petty in a different way – in my country you had to give at least 2 weeks notice, unless both parties agree to shorter notice. So I write my letter and set my resignation day as 14th of April which is 2 weeks.

Shortly after it gets approved. Did is done. And I get another call a bit later:

So, will you be able to finish this project before you leave?

-I won’t be able to do any work on that project before I leave.

-What? Why? You still have 2 weeks and we really need it done.

-Well, you see, I am on vacation right now, last day of my vacation will me April 13th and I am resigning on 14th.

And the cherry on top!

Fallout: I recently got a message from ex colleague I have friendly relationship with apparently they are in deep trouble right now, deadlines were missed, fines rolled in and company’s accounts have been frozen.

They even were unable to pay salaries for the last 2 months. They are probably toast and if thing go that way they’ll have to file bankruptcy.

Don’t worry, people will get paid in the end. In my country salary depts have the highest priority when bankrupt business sell their assets.

Downside? I still haven’t received my compensation for my 120 saved vacation days.

WELP! He knew what he was doing with this one!

How come the new management didn’t see this coming?

Let’s find out what folks on Reddit think about this one.

This user knows this guy deserves to enjoy the chaos he left behind him!

This automation engineer also has an interesting story to add.

This user has no idea why management wouldn’t fix issues like these.

Exactly! This user wishes they lived in a country with better laws for the labor.

This user knows the CEO has a big ego issue.

Someone’s being really clever here!

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.