After 3 years of being in a highly toxic work environment with manipulative and gaslighting superiors, I finally got my dream job and put in notice at my current job. On a team of 10 people, I am the fifth person to quit the team in the past 6 months because everyone is treated disrespectfully.
My manager is an expert manipulator, and has tried to manipulate everyone who has quit into staying. I told her I was giving my notice, she was actually very supportive and understanding at first. Then she asked how long I’m staying, I told her 1 week and she started sweating. She started saying “oh no..!!!” repeatedly while looking at her computer screen. “You can’t give us two weeks?” I said nope. She continued to frantically look at her computer screen and saying “oh no, oh god…this stinks…” for a good 30 seconds, waiting for me to cave. I told her I’ll do whatever they need this week to make it as smooth a transition as possible and walked away.
5 minutes later, she came up to my desk, got right in my face, and whispered very sternly, “I just talked to the owner. The industry standard is two weeks.”
I said “I’m not doing that. Sorry.”
She stared at me for a good 15 seconds. Defeated, she finally said “okay.” And walked away.
In that moment she knew she could no longer manipulate me, and it feels so damn good.