#bestie i make $15 an hour i promise you i do not make those decisions

[shouts-into-the-void]

Retail is so fun, because customers will come in looking for an item that they bought ten years ago and then get mad at ME because the store no longer sells it

[prorevenge]

Have fun being stranded in the Philippines.

Please be patient, the buildup to this is intense and long but the resulting revenge has probably put me on the Devil's shortlist. (tl:dr at the end)

About 3 months before I finally quit, I was getting really pissed. Management was never in the office, the Owner couldn't make up his mind about anything, and so many people were quitting that I ended up being the only Programmer/Developer in an office of about 50 people... for a company that received 95% of its business from online sales. People started taking credit for my work and I decided to quit. Looked around for jobs, found one pretty quickly, and put in my two weeks notice with a nice little note that simply said something to the effect of "I hereby resign, effective blah blah blah".

Lo and behold the man who had in the last few days become my manager (we'll call him Frank) instead of idk maybe promoting the only programmer in the company to the head of the development department, begged me to stay, promised me a raise, and told me about their new project and how he wanted me to be involved.

Their plan was to open an outsourcing branch of the office in the Philippines as some sort of industrial web-development location and they needed someone to run the place. Being the only one in the company who'd lived in Asia before, they really felt like I was a necessity to this endeavor and Frank offered a lot to try to make me stay: Company-provided apartment in Manila, Company-paid-for round-trip flights back from Manila once every few months to see family, stuff like that.

I thought about it for a few days and when my two-weeks were about to end, I decided it was worth a shot. That's when the trouble started. Frank demanded that if I wanted to go through with it and get the raise, I needed to write up the proposal. Then HR confronted me about the proposal, saying there was no way they were going to pay for anything except my salary and eventually Frank convinced the Owner (his besty) to go through with it.

Second problem came up. We were set to leave almost immediately. Malaria is a thing, and there wasn't enough time during those next couple days to get shots or pills or anything like that. I didn't realize this till much later and luckily it was never a problem.

A few days before we were set to depart for Manila, Frank left early to go see his kids in LA. When it was time for me to leave, I, on a miserable day in February, anxious and fully prepared to leave the States behind me for a while, walked into the airport like a dumbass and found that he had also bought my ticket to leave from LA. I live in Texas... where the fucking company is. I spent the rest of the day talking to HR and trying to convince them it was his fault I wasn't already on my way out.

Next day, I finally left. Met Frank in Tokyo the day after that. While standing in line to board our flight to Manila, Frank leans over and says quietly under his breath that he had forgotten to get us Work Visas. It didn't dawn on me how terrible a mistake that was at the time.

When we got there, we checked into one of the major hotels in Manila and before I can even touch my head to the pillow, there's big meaty-fisted knocking on my hotel-room door. It's Frank. He wants to go out to see the town. 30 drinks, a midget-boxing match, two escorts, and some local food later and it's 6 AM. I tell Frank I'm going back to the Hotel. I catch a taxi and head back.

Now being the only programmer at this company, my duties didn't stop once I left the country. Being a small company full of less-than-intelligent people, none of them could figure out the time difference and constantly through the night were leaving me messages about stuff they needed done, messages that I couldn't ignore. For the next two days I programmed away, mentioned every three hours to them when they were awake that I needed sleep and couldn't be doing this the entire time I was there, and didn't see Frank one bit. Turns out he was partying literally nonstop.

Suddenly, meaty-fisted pounding on the door again. Frank had gotten a call from the Owner complaining that we weren't getting anything done like we had planned. Big surprise there. His primary goals upon getting there were to acquire an Apartment and an Office Space so obviously it was my priority too. We run all around the city for three weeks looking for places and while I'm looking for an Office, Frank finds an apartment. Doesn't matter that I was going to be the one living in it, it was his decision and I don't think he really even tried to judge the apartment appropriately. There was an incredible cockroach infestation, the water only worked partially, the AC didn't work at all (and Manila is not a place you'd want to live without AC), and the internet was pay-as-you-go 0.15mbps at 15 bucks every 3 days. Fine. I don't need internet. IT'S ONLY THE ONE THING THAT I NEED FOR ANY KIND OF HEAVY WEB DEVELOPMENT.

Frank left a few days later, leaving behind a girl he'd met at the club and wanted to fuck, but hired as our "Executive Assistant" (we'll call her Nancy). Nancy was the only thing about the entire time I was there that wasn't bad. After all, it was Nancy who asked me how long my visa lasted and therefore reminded me that my 30 days were almost up to be in the country legally. Tried getting ahold of Frank and got nothing. HR was no use. Had to pay for a flight out of the country for a mini-vacation to renew my visa out of pocket.

Of course, while Frank was there, he had been paying Nancy her salary, which was fantastic for pretty much anyone in the Philippines. When he left, he started getting sloppy... er... sloppier, and completely forgot to pay her, which of course he forgot to tell me. So, sitting on a beach on Okinawa, rum in hand, sun beating down upon my laptop while I furiously coded away the new system for our company's site, I get a phonecall from Frank. Seems innocent enough, except for the fact that it was an international call (one of the hundreds that he made to me while I was over there, despite my introducing him to Whatsapp) and he was furious that I had not paid Nancy and the business-licensure fees had not been paid ($10,000 out of my pocket, that he was supposed to pay).

I was done. I snapped back at him and he and I fought over the phone for a few minutes: him making excuses, me blaming him for the conditions I was working in, our lack of business-licensure, work-visas, and office space. He settled down and congratulated me on standing up for myself. What a dick. He had continually pissed me off since he became my manager, constantly berated me, literally picked me up and hung me over the edge of the railing at the top of the highest skyscraper in Manila as a fucking joke, and called me gay in front of every beautiful woman in Manila that we met. Blaming ME for YOUR FUCKING MISTAKES?? Sorry, it still gets me mad.

I made two more phone calls that afternoon. The first was to Nancy to ask her what was up. She was crying because she knew that he was going to yell at me for his mistake but she didn't have a choice because she'd spent her first salary on running water for her family's home. I told her I wasn't mad at her, but explained very well and full that I was not going to be taking Frank's shit any more. The second call I made was to HR to find out if I was going to be able to fly home if I quit, not just if I was fired.

My few days on Okinawa came to an end and I flew back to Manila where I was picked up by Nancy. She was so apologetic it was extremely hard to be any kind of angry with her. I told her how much I hated Frank and what I intended to do and while she was making pretty good money off the whole thing, she hated Frank so much more than the money so we forged a mini-Frank-revenge-party. She invited me to her friend's birthday the next day and we went, drank a ton, took a cab, and before we even reached my apartment she started kissing me.

Step One Completed: steal the girl.

After I had been back in Manila maybe a week, I got another international call from Frank saying that the rest of the company was pissed off that I had been to Okinawa and I suppose (despite the fact that they could have easily checked to see if I was doing work by going to our fucking website and looking at the changes that were made every day) that it looked like I wasn't doing anything. I lied, said I had been doing nothing, that I had spent the entire time drinking at bonfires on the beach. He got mad, told me he was going to write me up. Go for it, bro. That pissed him off so he told me he was planning on returning to Manila shortly to get everything in order.

Step Two Completed: get Frank back to Manila.

About a week later he flew in, stayed at the fancy hotel again, and scheduled a meeting with me at his favorite restaurant in Manila (to be fair though, it's Havana Cafe, in Greenbelt and it's amazing). Nancy and I were pretty much living together at this point so we had to time out when she would leave versus when I would leave so that it looked like we had started in separate locations. We showed up and Frank proceeded to tell us that he was very upset with the way we were conducting business. 3 hours later and he had successfully insulted everything he knew about me, my principles, Nancy's innocence, and with one final blow to my experiences. He told me that he understood why I was having so much trouble with business, that it was because I wasn't used to moving across the planet. Yeah no, no idea about that, no idea what living in different countries since I was eleven is like.

He went back to his apartment and, feeling charitable, offered me the chance to go back to the States to see family and give myself a chance to relax and get away from all this "foreign" stuff for a while. Thanks Frank.

Step Three Complete: Get back to the States.

I told Nancy goodbye, flew back to Texas and vegged at my mom's house for a week and a half before HR called me to say that although Frank had given me two weeks vacation, I was only eligible for one week... but they could let me stay out of work for no pay for the rest of the week if I wanted. So, I very calmly but furiously ended the call, opened up my laptop, deleted all the progress I had made for the company's website for the last few weeks and never uploaded, and started my notice:

"EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, I QUIT. WANNA KNOW WHY?"

and then went on to explain in vivid and exorbitant detail a two-page notice with everything that had happened with Frank and the business in Manila including but not limited to:

how Frank wasted company funds on plane tickets that were never used

how I was made to pay out of my pocket on more than one occasion for flights to renew my visa, business-licensure fees, apartment rent, international calls and internet

how Frank regularly spent company money on hookers, alcohol, club entry fees, expensive food, etc...

that he had hired our "executive assistant" to basically be his in-house prostitute

how Frank had missed multiple payments, salaries for Nancy, and had never in the entire time I was there acquired an Office

inciting to actually separate the Manila branch from the main company and sell our services to them for profit.

and so much more than I can remember right now

Here comes the good part. Last I'd heard, Frank was fired and lost his work-visa for the States (since he was Australian), managed to convince the Owner of the company to let him open the office anyway, lost that contract because (since he didn't know a goddamn thing about programming) he hired people who knew nothing about web-development, lost the business in the Philippines, married a Philippine hooker, had a heart-attack, and has been traveling around without a home relying on airbnb bookings.

Step Four Complete: ruin Frank's life?

I feel bad about the Heart-attack, not that I caused it. He had a way of eating that Doctors wouldn't dare call "unhealthy" for the reason that it is too soft a word. I on the other hand loved Manila, loved the Philippines, loved getting to go back to Okinawa, and have been in constant contact with Nancy ever since. We're actually planning on getting married soon so, it wasn't a total waste.

Only problem is trying to explain all this to future employers.

Thanks for reading, I'll see you all in Hell.

TL;DR Boss-man made my job, managing an outsourcing office in the Philippines, a living hell. So, I ruined his life.

(source) (story by babynecro)