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Antiwork

You’re useless; train your replacement before you go

This story was told to me by a friend with permission to post on here. My friend was going to college part time while working full time for a small business in payroll and HR. Handled bills and paid out invoices and pay stubs from what I understand. At the start of quarantine, one of his coworkers quit, so their job duties got moved to him. He did so for more than a year, and then at the end of the year evaluations, he asked for a bonus and a raise to compensate for the extra work he’s been doing and will potentially continue doing since they didn’t hire a replacement. He got turned down for the amount that he requested. Instead they gave him a raise of $500 per YEAR. That’s about $0.25 an hour. Then his boss started to micromanage his work and berating him. Subtly implying he…


This story was told to me by a friend with permission to post on here.

My friend was going to college part time while working full time for a small business in payroll and HR. Handled bills and paid out invoices and pay stubs from what I understand.

At the start of quarantine, one of his coworkers quit, so their job duties got moved to him. He did so for more than a year, and then at the end of the year evaluations, he asked for a bonus and a raise to compensate for the extra work he’s been doing and will potentially continue doing since they didn’t hire a replacement. He got turned down for the amount that he requested. Instead they gave him a raise of $500 per YEAR. That’s about $0.25 an hour.

Then his boss started to micromanage his work and berating him. Subtly implying he should quit since he’s so useless. And telling his coworkers that he (the boss) thinks he (my friend) should just quit.

As his friend, I advised him to gather evidence to potentially file for something with the labor board. We also discussed NOT quitting because his boss was probably looking to skip out on unemployment by not firing him. So we told him to slack off enough to not get fired, but not put in the same level of effort.

Meanwhile, his mental health has been suffering. He’s been dealing with anxiety attacks – worried about failing school, getting fired and not being able to find a job, and the obvious pandemic stress. But luckily, he managed to pull through it all, and graduated with a job offer from a larger company at double the pay.

He handed in his two weeks notice, and all of a sudden the boss is like “do you think you can work part time on nights and weekends until we get your replacement trained?” I told him to say “sure! Not a problem. Based on my new salary, my hourly compensation would be at least X. But since I’ll be basically a consultant and contractor for you, I’d expect a greater compensation to account for taxes, insurance and other fees.” He ended up opting to not do it at all because he decided the F you was more important than the money.

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