Sometimes you chase the money so hard, you don’t notice the bloodthirsty boot of life coming for your face. Only after you’ve got a huge cartoon-ish boot print on your forehead, do you realize that you’ve been made a fool of. 

More often than not, that “boot of life” – just like Jean-Paul Sartre said about hell – is other people. They’ll cheat you, lie, make false promises, abuse you in any way possible, just for a smidge more in their already draconian wallet. We’ll get our hands dirty and talk about one of these situations today.

More info: Reddit

People are becoming more and more distrustful of their employers, and it’s no wonder why, when things like this happen

Image credits: Huseyn Kamaladdin (not the actual photo)

The poster took to r/antiwork to share why you shouldn’t overwork yourself for some nebulous and far-off “promotion”

Image credits: Inevitable_Homework

Image credits: Ketut Subiyanto (not the actual photo)

After their previous manager quit, one worker stepped up and did her job for over 1.5 years, hoping that this would be his way to a managerial position

Image credits: Inevitable_Homework

When the guy was just about burned out and understood he wouldn’t be promoted, he finally stood up for himself and just quit

Image credits: Inevitable_Homework

When they wanted to then pile the work of 3 people on the poster of the story, he also noped out of there, sending the managers into a panic

It seems as if management didn’t even need to do anything to get this guy to burn himself out. Not even the classic dangled carrot you see again and again. Perhaps there was some kind of loose verbal agreement with upper management which would make this entire thing ever worse, but we can’t know that for sure.

To be fair to the guy, it’s only logical that if someone quits, a worker with equivalent experience could replace them, especially if they’ve got the motivation. I’d draw the line at overtime on weekends – there are some things that are worth more than any money (cue the hustle mentality crypto big-earners all collectively moaning).

For some, overtime is a line in the sand, which can quickly be forgotten about when you believe that a little bit of effort will earn you a much cushier position and then you can have all the weekends you want. Forever. That’s the hope, at least.

It’s beyond me how the guy lasted for an entire 1.5 years of this, though, especially if it’s been affecting him so much that his coworker, the poster, has noticed it.

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A lot of the time, if you seek out suggestions on what to do in these cases online, people will write “oh, tell your boss how you feel, consider improving yourself, get more feedback…”

Let me stop you right there. Don’t do any of these things, although they may sound like the “professional” thing to do.

Image credits: bfi Business Furniture Inc. (not the actual photo)

Inc. business magazine tells it like it is and has some good nuggets of advice for when you don’t get that promised promotion.

When you’re turned down for a promotion that was agreed upon in the past, you should do three things all at once. 

For a start, begin to understand that management has been lying to you all of this time and you did exactly what they wanted. You overworked yourself, you gave it your all, burned out and they didn’t need to pay a single penny more for all that effort. Thus, if you held up your end of the bargain and they can just flagrantly break it like that, it shows more or less the kind of people they are.

Next, be candid with your boss – point out the fact that they’ve passed you over for promotion, although you had agreed for it to materialize by that point. You can also explain that you will not be taking up that position’s responsibilities, seeing as you aren’t being paid for them, nor are you going to be anytime soon.

Finally, no matter their responses to any of this, start looking for a new job. You really don’t want to put up with a workplace that can brazenly lie to you and exploit you for their own gain. Plus, this aggravating experience will likely have taught you to get any agreement about a raise or whatever in writing, so make sure you do that before you get burned again.

We reached out to a commenter on the story who experienced a really similar story and had some good insights on what to avoid when looking for a job

Now, you may know what to do when it happens, but let’s talk about the things you should look out for so you don’t end up in this situation in the first place. 

For that, Bored Panda reached out to Waytooboredforthis, who shared his own story of a similar vein. A manager resigned, so Waytoobored was covering for a few months, until upper management hired some random guy who didn’t know a thing about the job and would have to ask him about every single little thing. 

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The useless guy got fired only a couple weeks after Waytooboredforthis quit – not a big surprise. 

 To corroborate this experience, I think this sentence by him sums it up best, told to me after I was surprised at his candidness:

“You work at dive bars, you get experience in being candid about the modern experience of work as you watch people numb themselves to the drudgery of an existence antithetical to the one they were promised. Nothing like passing out to a fifth of whiskey to help you forget you work at a sharpie factory.”

For a start, we asked him why jobs choose to promote seemingly dumb people and Waytoobored replied that it’s not “dumb” people that get promoted, but rather pliable ones. He continues by saying that “most management knows in the back of their lizard brain that they are powerless in the greater scheme of a company,” which explains why they want people who will glibly comply with everything and won’t disturb the status quo. This goes all the way up the ladder till you get to the person who actually has control, but they are pretty much insulated from any such concerns and delegate most of their work.

Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual photo)h

As for red flags that scream “leave!”, Waytooboredforthis shares the following. 

If they’ve got some sort of foosball table, dartboard or similar, but you’re not a salaried employee, you are unlikely to use it. 

If they’re moving an operation from a higher cost of living area to a lower (especially into the south) they’re saying that while they may not be able to offshore you legally, they’re happy to finally pay you less.

Team cohesion is used as a tool to guilt you into staying so your work won’t be offloaded to coworkers, using your own empathy against you. 

A huge one is if there’s a leadership board and they’re trying to make you think of customers as nothing but a number, rather than human beings. The commenter points to the time when they got reprimanded for not collecting from a woman who had multiple homicides happen in the apartment above her, with one body landing in her patio.

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Our interview guest wraps up with an amazing quote which is just too good to paraphrase: “And finally, if they’re willing to fire you before they call in a wellness check on unexplained absence, your bloated corpse will be found because Hooters finally did call in one, and you died not knowing you worked for a corporation that thinks of you as nothing but a cog to be worn out, that you sold your most limited resource, time, for $12 an hour.”

OP’s story got over 10k upvotes and in the 300+ comments, many shared their own experiences, just like Waytooboredforthis. Share your own experiences, management lies and red flags in the comments below!

The commenters laughed at the foolishness of management for losing out on good employees, all while sharing stories of their own

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