After 5 years working for a large German construction company designing their management systems and running their safety department, whilst the company grew to nearly 5 times their size when I joined, I had the temerity to ask for an assistant to help with the massively increased workload. After a lot of arguing they agreed to take someone on and was informed discretely by our office manager that the Managing Director (MD) intended that I train up this new manager with the intention that they were to fire me and replace me with this man after I had trained him into the company systems.

I immediately found another position with a 20% uplift in my wages and tendered my resignation and left 4 weeks later, 3 weeks after the new manager started, leaving everything in place and up to date before leaving.

6 weeks after leaving, I received a call from one of the other Directors who informed me that the MD had upset the new Manager by demanding he cover all the work I used to do on his own or he would find someone else who would.

This new manager then proceeded to delete all company management systems on all PC’s and server backups before resigning and walking out the door.

The director then asked me if I would consider returning and reinstate/rebuild the company systems back to the previous standards as the 3 subsequent managers they had employed had all walked out within days if not hours due to the MD’s unreasonable demands.

I politely declined and told him I was quite happy where I was and that I could never work with their MD again. I subsequently heard it cost them tens of thousands of pounds to sort the mess out and the MD was asked to take early retirement!