Unfortunately, I have never achieved revenge on unfair, inadequate managers or employers. Take this thread as a documented warning that lying, unscrupulous and criminal managers and employers exist. I can tell you a story of unfair treatment by a major international corporation in 1971.

At that time IBM UK First Line Managers were similar to ‘Foremen’ in other UK industries but they believed that the title of ‘Manager’ made them superior, typical American hype! Often ex army Sergeants or naval Chief Petty Officers, they expected their orders to be obeyed even though their subordinates were superior, intelligent, qualified engineers.

Employed by ‘IBM UK’ in 1969 at a fair remuneration, after two years I moved to their ‘Prestige Havant Plant’ on the south coast. Their system of ‘Annual Appraisal’ consisted of being set goals to achieve and rating according to your performance against those goals. At my first ‘Appraisal’ I had exceed my goals by 500% but I had a new manager who claimed that the ‘Bar had been set too low’ and I was inadequate.

His hatred for me had several sources:
1/ Before he was my manager he would police arrivals and I was often five or ten minutes late for the 8am day shift. I gave up my time to hand over to the 16:00 evening shift and was always early for my 16:00 evening shift.
2/ On one occasion he called his small department of a dozen engineers together to propose an ‘improved way of working’. After his first sentence I raised my hand to comment, he treated us as if we we schoolchildren rather than experienced engineers. He said, “Alan, I will take questions at the end”! He continued with his ridiculous plan and at the end of his ten minute speech I advised him that his proposal was ridiculous and totally unworkable. From then on he invited me into his office to obtain my approval for any change that he proposed.
3/ Obviously, I was discouraged by my lack of advancement and applied for and obtained a better position within the company. He then made it difficult for me to leave his department. I argued that not only did I have the best quality and productivity over the three departments but also spent time supporting other engineers and pointed out that any manager worth his money should be measuring those quantities.
4/ He came back with “Your colleagues support your claims in respect of support and you do have the best productivity and quality record but you are not worth £2,000 per annum”. I said “That’s why I am moving to a job that pays £2,500 pa with good shift and standby pay and excellent prospects for advancement”.
5/ After months of delay, a representative from ‘HR’ said “Alan, you got that job through your own efforts. I am sorry that you had to suffer.

The engineers in my department that were most successful sucked up to management or discussed common interests with them such as ‘Caravanning’.

Poor UK Management has resulted in the literal destruction of the huge ‘Spango Valley’, Greenock IBM Factory and the demise of the previously ‘prestige’ ‘Havant Plant’!

Disgruntled ex IBM UK employee. Excellent employee benefits (better than Union rates). Extremely generous ‘redundancy payments’ and ‘early retirement’ with free support from first class financial advisers. The American government destroyed one of their most successful industries worldwide.

Had I a bad word to say about IBM I would be pleased by their demise but they were the amongst the best employers in the world!