Entering the big, wide world of employment for the first time can be daunting but also exciting. No matter how long you studied for, you’ll definitely still be learning some things on the job. For one employee, it wasn’t a matter of technical skills, but rather a valuable lesson in why you should never allow a company to take advantage of you.

The media designer was excited when she landed her first job in the industry. She embraced each task with the utmost enthusiasm. And even spent thousands, out of her own pocket, to buy equipment for company usage. When her boss suddenly let her go in favour of a fresh college graduate, he wasn’t expecting his actions to backfire the way they did. Bored Panda reached out to the former employee, and she agreed to share some exclusive developments with us.

Audiovisual equipment doesn’t come cheap but there are certain things you absolutely must have if you work in the industry

Image credits: Kaboompics.com / pexels (not the actual photo)

Your company will usually provide the tools you need, but this woman’s boss expected her to spend thousands on expensive equipment

Image credits: AlphaTradeZone / pexels (not the actual photo)

Image credits: everybodys-therapist

Being “let go” turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the employee

The woman told Bored Panda she posted her experience on the internet because she felt people would appreciate her “little act of malicious compliance.” But also because she “learned a lot of valuable lessons” from the incident. She was let go many years ago, but the former employee told us she was reminded of the experience while going through a “closet full of equipment the other day.”

She added that she was happy to be interviewed by Bored Panda because sharing her story might help someone else in a similar situation. We asked where life has taken her since she was unceremoniously escorted out of the building. “After that company let me go I started doing a lot of freelance work. It helped that I had all of the equipment I could possibly need,” she said.

She revealed that she hadn’t finished college before taking up the job, and that her previous company often threw it in her face. “I happened to get the job and work my way up organically,” she told us. “So I went back to school to finish my degree not long after they let me go. I don’t think I needed it necessarily, but now I have experience, equipment, and a little paper that says some professors think I know what I’m doing.”

It turns out college wasn’t the only place she learned something that benefited her career

Image credits: cottonbro studio / pexels (not the actual photo)

“The biggest lesson I learned is never to do things with the expectation of someone being grateful or appreciative. Don’t expect a thank you,” she said of the experience. The employee added that she now approaches work differently.

“Everything I do at work that is above and beyond the basics should be something that I want to do for me, and not something that I think I should do because they’ll appreciate it,” she told Bored Panda. “A lot of what I did when I worked there was thinking ‘if I get this equipment, we can do this, and they’ll appreciate that’. It’s a people pleasing mentality that I’ve been trying to shake.”

She said many people didn’t understand why she’d let things get that far. “The fact is that I was really young and it was my first job in my dream field. I loved that job,” she reiterated. “Overall I think people appreciated my little story. It’s been years since it happened, so I didn’t mind the comments. If it was fresh, I’m sure that seeing the comments would have been an entirely different story.”

The woman didn’t hold back when asked what she’d say to her former boss if given the chance 

Image credits: Jonathan Borba / pexels (not the actual photo)

“If I could share a message with my former boss, I’d probably start with a big F**k You!” she said boldly. “I know I needed the reality check to realize how terrible I was being treated.” The former employee revealed that there had been serious trouble brewing long before she was let go. And in retrospect she now realizes just how “toxic” the environment was.

“I mean, after I reported some extreme sexual harassment, my boss solved the problem by locking me in my office when the man was in the building. It was a very toxic work environment. So yeah, I needed the reality check, but I would never thank him for it,” she declared.

She added that she went above and beyond in her responsibilities because she really loved her job and her team. But she detailed how, whenever she asked for something for her team, management would say “we’ll think about it”. She came to realize it was a roundabout way of saying “no.” So she would make magic happen on her own. Which basically translates into her spending more of her own money, for the benefit of the company.

“It was never giant things either, it was just smaller things that over time added up. ‘Hey boss, some of our radios are broken, we need to get at least two new ones.’ or ‘Hey boss, the router in the AV booth is down. We’ll need a new one before the next event’.”

“My boss was RICH rich. This was merely a side project for him”

The employee said she spent her own money on equipment because she didn’t want to let her colleagues down. “I felt responsible for my team as their boss, and the way not having things impacted them,” she told us, adding that she realized “that never should have been part of my job.”

The woman claimed her boss was loaded and the company was merely a “pet project” for him. “There’s no reason he couldn’t help us with those things, other than that he knew that if he didn’t I would eventually cave and do it for him,” she said. Her parting words to Bored Panda were no less harsh than her earlier thoughts about her boss:

“Because of all that, I’d tell him ‘F**k you. I’m doing it without you AND despite you. You didn’t deserve me or us.”

“I was young, dumb, doing a job I loved”: The woman explained in the comments why she’d allowed the company to take advantage of her

“The company was a pile of dung”: People shared their views and didn’t hold back

Netizens shared their own stories of satisfying malicious compliance

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