Having a bad manager is often a one-two punch: their subordinates not only feel miserable at work, but also carry that misery back home, and eventually, the compounding stress starts to seriously damage their well-being.

Unfortunately, Reddit user taintedCH knows this far too well. They had such a toxic boss that it cast a huge shadow over their quality of life. After a while, taintedCH got sick and tired of having to eat at their desk and being criticized for taking bathroom breaks, so they decided to quit.

However, the higher-ups made sure to make their employee’s last days at the company even worse than before.

This worker’s boss was so toxic, they would organize termination talks just to show who has the power

Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual photo)

And when the employee finally decided to quit, they tried to cause as much harm as they could

Image credits: Campaign Creators

Image credits: taintedCH

A 2018 Udemy study discovered that nearly half of workers surveyed had quit because of a bad manager, and almost two-thirds believed their manager lacked proper managerial training.

However, even then, leaving a job puts you in an awkward situation. At the end of the day, your decision upsets the status quo and workload for everyone. Ideally, we’d like to hear our manager respond to our departure with unconditional support and encourate us with words like: “I’m very happy for you.”

But according to Nihar Chhaya, who is an executive coach to senior leaders at global companies, and Dorie Clark, a marketing strategist and keynote speaker who also teaches at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, many employees, even if they know quitting is the right thing to do, feel trepidation around telling their boss — and especially how to handle it if they respond in a negative way.

“Depending on their emotional state at the time of your conversation, your manager may become immediately upset, or even furious that you are resigning,” Chhaya and Clark wrote in Harvard Business Review. “They may feel a sense of betrayal, as well as anxiety about how they will manage the workload without you. Those who don’t know how to manage their temper may feel triggered by your news and lash out at you. ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this after how I’ve supported you!’ they might say.”

“Oftentimes, this is a temporary stress reaction, and with a little time, they’ll cool down. You want to be gracious and give them space to process the new development and reassure them that you aren’t leaving them in the lurch. ‘I know this is a surprise,’ you could say. ‘I want you to know how grateful I am for your support and encouragement. The new position was an opportunity I felt I couldn’t pass up, but I want you to know I intend to do everything in my power to make this transition as seamless as possible.'”

But as we can see from taintedCH’s story, sometimes the rage doesn’t subside, and bosses even shame or guilt trip their departing employees.

“One of the hardest maneuvers to resist is when your manager makes you feel guilty about your decision,” Chhaya and Clark said. “One of our coaching clients, upon his resignation, was told by his manager, ‘Do you know how many times I protected you?’ She went on to enumerate the lengths to which she’d gone to shield him from organizational peril. Especially if you have a close relationship to your manager, you may already be feeling bad — so hearing guilt-inducing stories from them may drive the dagger in further. ‘I know how much you’ve supported me,’ you could say. ‘I truly appreciate everything you’ve done for me. It wasn’t an easy decision to reach, but I truly feel it’s the right time for me to move on and I’ll always be grateful for our work together.'”

It’s important to remember that your resignation conversation isn’t the time to debate past performance or to try to change someone’s mind about you. If someone threatens you, they’ve actually done you a favor by letting you know that they are not an ally and you made the correct decision.

People supported the original poster (OP) for standing up for themselves, and some shared similar stories of their own

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