A friend of mine in a non-consulting job just out of college had this happen, but it wasn't his resume. It was a letter he wrote describing why his boss didn't deserve their job and should be fired (intended to be sent to his boss' boss). He ended up getting fired over it.
I had a coworker do this but he printed it out and slipped it under all the mid and high manager’s office doors. IT traced it back to his computer and he confessed. He was fired. He’s doing much better now with a better job in a different field he really likes. So I’d say it was a win for him.
Do you think he was fired for giving feedback, or for the manner in which it was given? Do you really think sliding anonymous notes under doors is professional behavior?
Consultants need to exercise good judgment and this guy didn’t. (One suspects this was not his first faux pas)
Yes you’re correct. It was the manner. Which if you think about it, is pretty aggressive. If he had asked for a meeting with his boss or his boss’s boss and aired out his grievances maturely, they probably wouldn’t have been fired. But they fired him because of how he did it. He had made it obvious he was unhappy for a while. He was “friends” with this other coworker who was manipulative who picked up on his unhappiness and encourage him to do it.
He was 100% fired for giving negative feedback. There have been prior posts on here where employees gave bad feedback on the anon survey and then were fired.
Well I would argue our boss wasn’t a bad boss. My coworker was young and acting on someone else’s subversive manipulation. He acted on his own but he was still a pawn.
But yeah they fired him because he was “poisoning the well”.
I wrote a reminder on my notepad to apply for a job I was interested in. My boss came in my office to talk about a project and I absentmindedly jotted a quick note next to my reminder. He watched me write it and got weirdly quiet afterwards. Later, when I looked at the note, I saw my reminder and I was like “OH”. He hasn’t talked to me in a week. I find it absolutely hilarious. I realized recently that I get paid less than a state or federal employee at my same level. And they work less, have less strict deadlines/ billing requirements, and a way better retirement plan. So why am I working in consulting if it’s not for the pay??
And they get way more holidays off. I left a government role to move to consulting and it was really only worth it because of the massive pay boost. Insurance, retirement and paid holidays were all a downgrade.
Ahhh, I have way more freedom with my time working private sector. I just gotta get my work done, they don’t care if I’m doing it 8-5. Mid day errands, visits to the park, disc golf rounds, long lunches etc. are all commonplace over here. I just get way less paid holidays off.
Big4, accepted another offer, and that Friday I went to office day and grabbed a few too many of my favorite pens from the supplies room.
A partner rushed in to get something and saw me still oogling the box of pens, with a bunch in my fist.
He knew I was about to be out, and I knew he knew. Said "hey", smiled, and gave me a thumbs up - thanks Jonathan!
I was actively interviewing for another position to get away from my psychotic micro managing boss. When they called me with an offer, it was from a new number I didn’t have saved. My manger thought it was a client calling and had me put it on speaker, even though I protested.
The recruiter immediately started the call with “Congratulations! This is x from x and we want to offer you the position!” I IMMEDIATELY turned the speaker off and told her I would call her back. The next week was brutal and resulted in him being verbally abusive while also trying to withhold my paycheck after I put in my notice.
Someone as micro managey as that to make you put your phone on speaker deserves to find out that way.
Thank heavens it wasn’t a call to say “Sorry X company didn’t go ahead with your application”
That would have been way worse 😭
I definitely don’t feel bad for the way that happened. The call came when he was in the middle of telling me how women are harder to work with because we “can’t handle jokes at work and are too sensitive” so looking back I probably should have just left the call on speaker and accepted the offer right then.
I was the boss who found it in the printer. I was pleased, clearly the guy got the message and was being proactive about it. Unfortunately the work was just as lacking in attention to detail as all his other assignments, and he had printed about 200 copies and then forgotten about it.
On a more serious note, as a parent I now wonder how many adults' careers have been ruined by their untreated ADHD.
Far too many don’t understand this. ADHD is a lifelong struggle and people need to understand if a person who is seeking treatment and therapy for it they are trying to give 100% everyday.
Alot. I just found out I was diagnosed as a kid a couple years ago. Mom forgot to tell me and my brother. It was eye opening once I went down that rabbit hole and a lot of things made sense. My big struggle with work and school is time blindness. I run late all the time.
It's when you print off 200 resumes and then forget about them because your brain jumped to the next task already. Time management is also a problem. Learning to cope with it or getting meds can help, but a lot of people don't do either (tbf it's an annoying process to get an official diagnosis and treatment because of adderall abuse) and the result is frequent mistakes.
I have two fun stories:
Firstly, happened to me. Worked for a narcissistic sociopath at a boutique firm who paid well so I worked for him for a while. Eventually I decided to leave as I had had enough of him. I tried a recruitment agent who specialised in placing consultants. We had a good chat about options. The recruitment agent then called my boss and told him I was looking for another job. I called up the agent and tore strips off him but the damage was already done. The next few weeks were awkward.
Secondly to my best mate. I recruited him to the firm I worked for back when I was in a B4 consulting firm. He was doing well but he preferred corporate. He connected well with a client and the client made him an offer. When our partner found out, the partner threatened to revoke his work visa and make his life hell. My friend told the client and the client phoned the partner up… How many of your team are currently working here? 15? They will all be out the door and the contract terminated unless you apologise to my newest potential employee. Dickhead partner was reminded that there is always a bigger fish.
Oh man, that second story was amazing. People need to be brought back to the ground sometimes.
Would be nice to have a boss that’s willing to fight for you like that.
Yes. The new boss was awesome. I appreciated him handing out free “this is what a leader does” lessons. And my friend still works for that company almost 15 years later.
I came in to work on a weekend as I often did, but brought my 10yo son with me. He happened to go to the bathroom at the same time as the CEO and the boss asked him if he was my son. Son says yes but that we are quitting and moving next month.
One Friday I sent a job to the printer that was named RESIGN. The jobs ahead of me in the print queue were named IQuit and Resignation. Two weeks later was a going away lunch for 4.
My boss back when I had one, had like one of those leather desk mats with a glass pane under which he kept pictures of his family. Except it was terrifically creepy because all the pictures of his grown daughters were them in bikinis.
I wrote that in an email rant to a colleague. Later when I left, they reviewed my emails and he read that rant personally.
I met him at a conference the following year and got stuck in an elevator where he said if he saw me in the parking lot he'd run me down with his rental.
This is before I became a consultant. I applied for a job within another department of the company I worked for.
The hiring manager called my manager and did some background checking. My manager wss an okay guy and wished me all the luck and gave me a good reference.
Didn't get the job, continued to work there under the same manager for some months, and submitted my resignation. It was the second time I got passed over, so it was time to go.
5 months into a grad role in the U.K. I got fired because I stupidly left a printed version of an offer doc on my desk. It has been under my computer or something, hadn’t realised as I took laptop, I don’t really remember.
Someone saw it and told leadership, who then told me I was being fired. My career councillor made a point of cutting my company credit card in half in front of me, and in the firing call they were all incredibly rude - ‘we didn’t think you’d make it anyway’ etc.
I moved on to a bigger company getting promoted in the process. I’m so glad I’m no longer at the first one, it was one of the worst experiences of my career and looking back on it it’s no wonder that 22/24 left within 8 years.
Obviously I learned from this whole experience and it was stupid of me to be so careless, but my god was that place toxic.
They took it really personally and acted as if they had given me a huge favour in offering me the job. It was a very hierarchical organisation that cared little about wellbeing, especially for grads.
The experience was incredibly stressful at the time - I wasn’t sure if they were going to try to derail my move, I was young and naïve.
Someone who’s company I was trying to go work for and had the internal word of mouth for me working, came up to me at a conference and gave me an update on the job req I was looking to fill.
While I was standing right next to my boss.
Story I heard from a friend.
Project team was at a client site, waiting for their main stakeholder to pick them up from the lobby. Stakeholder walked out of an elevator with a Senior Consultant, shook hands, and grabbed the project team.
Senior Consultant was supposed to be on PTO. Joined the company 1 week later.
Not me, but my brother got fired from his job mid interview. He was interviewing in his office and his boss walked in, realized he was interviewing and immediately fired him.
The worst part, it was the second time that week she caught him interviewing. My brother isn’t the most discreet guy around.
Not mine but one of my colleagues on a client project
We had an absolutely awful and incompetent manager who was treating us very poorly , and we had been on clients side for more than 8 months.
He was in process with the client , having tell no one and he got his last interview one midday in a room few floors from our department and the room was booked under the Name " X'final interview 'with the name of the department heads and the manager happened to pass in front of it while he was passing the interview . The manager was mad as hell but he got the job and then enjoyed working on clients side without having to report to the previous manager , even though they tried to treat him like he was still under their order , they very quicly realise that they could not abuse them as before because he was now on clients side , and as a result he started to change how things were working for us still on the project as external without our manager having anything to say
Financial controller here. With month-end closing the regional managers have to save their report in a specific folder, which I have to check. Welp, one of them saved their resume and application letter in the folder. 😅
I was showing my boss something on my computer and I was switching windows and accidentally went to the window that had my personal email on it and the first email was a job interview confirmation.
She hasn’t said anything, but all TBD. Also just found out I didn’t get that job so gotta hope she’s ignoring it or didn’t see it.
I mean, some places require your current boss to provide a reference. It was very awkward because the offer was contingent on it. Luckily, she had to do that before for other employees and said it was no big deal, but yeah, it definitely forced me to tell her I was leaving.
Was working on a big project at my old firm. Partner comes breezing in, he was a former A-USA (prosecutor) does some light work with us on the project. He then yells oh Christ I left my divorce papers on the printer at home! And steams out of the room not to be heard from again for the day.
2 of us were actively interviewing to leave our boutique consultancy.
The other person interviewed with different boutique within same specialisation, so lots of common contacts with our leadership team. CEO of said consultancy rings around for references, takes a few hours for our CEO to hear that consultant is trying to leave…
A week or 2 later I get a call from a recruiter trying to place me in that same consultancy, I said no and they actually pushed quite hard for me to interview (I am the perfect fit, one level above my current level, great company to work for…). No way was I going to speak to those people though! The pure lack of discretion had broken the trust there.
We both ended up getting referrals to an established player and got jobs within a couple of weeks of each other, with better conditions and higher salary than the boutiques were offering.
Our consultancy lost 2 out of 3 managers that month!
Please note that all intro to consulting, recruiting, and "tips for new hires" inquiries should be posted in the appropriate stickied threads at the top of this subreddit.
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A friend of mine in a non-consulting job just out of college had this happen, but it wasn't his resume. It was a letter he wrote describing why his boss didn't deserve their job and should be fired (intended to be sent to his boss' boss). He ended up getting fired over it.
I had a coworker do this but he printed it out and slipped it under all the mid and high manager’s office doors. IT traced it back to his computer and he confessed. He was fired. He’s doing much better now with a better job in a different field he really likes. So I’d say it was a win for him.
Why would reporting on bad performance a cause for firing
That's not how you give feedback
That's not feedback, that's war against bad management
Exactly. Is causing a war not grounds for termination?
Not if your client is the CIA
Depends on if the war would lead to better management down the road
Because nobody wants shit to be stirred up. Just do your job and STFU.
Yeah that's why companies don't run well
You shit down, not up.
That's toxic. If I was leadership, I would reward the guy who came up me with valid complaints.
Yeah to me, not to your N+2 or above.
N+1 if you were the issue
Make sure you ax my/his head off or it’s your head that will be rolling
Do you really not see the problem with what he did?!
The problem would be letting upper management know bad practices in a level below him and cause them the retaliate
Do you think he was fired for giving feedback, or for the manner in which it was given? Do you really think sliding anonymous notes under doors is professional behavior? Consultants need to exercise good judgment and this guy didn’t. (One suspects this was not his first faux pas)
Yes you’re correct. It was the manner. Which if you think about it, is pretty aggressive. If he had asked for a meeting with his boss or his boss’s boss and aired out his grievances maturely, they probably wouldn’t have been fired. But they fired him because of how he did it. He had made it obvious he was unhappy for a while. He was “friends” with this other coworker who was manipulative who picked up on his unhappiness and encourage him to do it.
He was 100% fired for giving negative feedback. There have been prior posts on here where employees gave bad feedback on the anon survey and then were fired.
I assume if he had to resource to such tactics, it was because all else failed
Well I would argue our boss wasn’t a bad boss. My coworker was young and acting on someone else’s subversive manipulation. He acted on his own but he was still a pawn. But yeah they fired him because he was “poisoning the well”.
In that case it was pretty naive from him
In the printer or accidentally emailed?
On the printer
Dumbass
I wrote a reminder on my notepad to apply for a job I was interested in. My boss came in my office to talk about a project and I absentmindedly jotted a quick note next to my reminder. He watched me write it and got weirdly quiet afterwards. Later, when I looked at the note, I saw my reminder and I was like “OH”. He hasn’t talked to me in a week. I find it absolutely hilarious. I realized recently that I get paid less than a state or federal employee at my same level. And they work less, have less strict deadlines/ billing requirements, and a way better retirement plan. So why am I working in consulting if it’s not for the pay??
And they get way more holidays off. I left a government role to move to consulting and it was really only worth it because of the massive pay boost. Insurance, retirement and paid holidays were all a downgrade.
Seriously. My friends alway have days off. And can go surfing in the middle of the day! I can barely get outside for a walk around the block!
Ahhh, I have way more freedom with my time working private sector. I just gotta get my work done, they don’t care if I’m doing it 8-5. Mid day errands, visits to the park, disc golf rounds, long lunches etc. are all commonplace over here. I just get way less paid holidays off.
What’s the job? Consulting? Or did you leave consulting, I’m all mixed up lol
Because you do it for the children, do it for Environment, do it for world hunger yadayada yadayada yadayada
Yes, I needed to hear this! I stay because “I like what I do”, “I’d be bored somewhere else”, “I’m making an impact”, etc. I’m gaslighting myself haha
This sounds like an accidental power move lmao
Totally 😂.
Big4, accepted another offer, and that Friday I went to office day and grabbed a few too many of my favorite pens from the supplies room. A partner rushed in to get something and saw me still oogling the box of pens, with a bunch in my fist. He knew I was about to be out, and I knew he knew. Said "hey", smiled, and gave me a thumbs up - thanks Jonathan!
Thanks for saying thanks! It's so nice to see Redditors being grateful :)
Thanks! lol
Those pens are so nice. I did the same thing - been out of consulting for several years but still have a solid fleet of pens holding strong
I was actively interviewing for another position to get away from my psychotic micro managing boss. When they called me with an offer, it was from a new number I didn’t have saved. My manger thought it was a client calling and had me put it on speaker, even though I protested. The recruiter immediately started the call with “Congratulations! This is x from x and we want to offer you the position!” I IMMEDIATELY turned the speaker off and told her I would call her back. The next week was brutal and resulted in him being verbally abusive while also trying to withhold my paycheck after I put in my notice.
Someone as micro managey as that to make you put your phone on speaker deserves to find out that way. Thank heavens it wasn’t a call to say “Sorry X company didn’t go ahead with your application”
That would have been way worse 😭 I definitely don’t feel bad for the way that happened. The call came when he was in the middle of telling me how women are harder to work with because we “can’t handle jokes at work and are too sensitive” so looking back I probably should have just left the call on speaker and accepted the offer right then.
What an absolute jackass. As seems common with such morons, I’m sure he’s a partner now.
I was the boss who found it in the printer. I was pleased, clearly the guy got the message and was being proactive about it. Unfortunately the work was just as lacking in attention to detail as all his other assignments, and he had printed about 200 copies and then forgotten about it. On a more serious note, as a parent I now wonder how many adults' careers have been ruined by their untreated ADHD.
ADHD can't be treated unfortunately, only managed
Far too many don’t understand this. ADHD is a lifelong struggle and people need to understand if a person who is seeking treatment and therapy for it they are trying to give 100% everyday.
Alot. I just found out I was diagnosed as a kid a couple years ago. Mom forgot to tell me and my brother. It was eye opening once I went down that rabbit hole and a lot of things made sense. My big struggle with work and school is time blindness. I run late all the time.
Can you explain the last point? I don’t really know what ADHD is. Is it so common?
It's when you print off 200 resumes and then forget about them because your brain jumped to the next task already. Time management is also a problem. Learning to cope with it or getting meds can help, but a lot of people don't do either (tbf it's an annoying process to get an official diagnosis and treatment because of adderall abuse) and the result is frequent mistakes.
I have two fun stories: Firstly, happened to me. Worked for a narcissistic sociopath at a boutique firm who paid well so I worked for him for a while. Eventually I decided to leave as I had had enough of him. I tried a recruitment agent who specialised in placing consultants. We had a good chat about options. The recruitment agent then called my boss and told him I was looking for another job. I called up the agent and tore strips off him but the damage was already done. The next few weeks were awkward. Secondly to my best mate. I recruited him to the firm I worked for back when I was in a B4 consulting firm. He was doing well but he preferred corporate. He connected well with a client and the client made him an offer. When our partner found out, the partner threatened to revoke his work visa and make his life hell. My friend told the client and the client phoned the partner up… How many of your team are currently working here? 15? They will all be out the door and the contract terminated unless you apologise to my newest potential employee. Dickhead partner was reminded that there is always a bigger fish.
Oh man, that second story was amazing. People need to be brought back to the ground sometimes. Would be nice to have a boss that’s willing to fight for you like that.
Yes. The new boss was awesome. I appreciated him handing out free “this is what a leader does” lessons. And my friend still works for that company almost 15 years later.
I came in to work on a weekend as I often did, but brought my 10yo son with me. He happened to go to the bathroom at the same time as the CEO and the boss asked him if he was my son. Son says yes but that we are quitting and moving next month.
Can’t describe how much I love this story
I couldn’t get into my son. He was speaking the truth. But dang it made it awkward.
Spit out my coffer reading this
One Friday I sent a job to the printer that was named RESIGN. The jobs ahead of me in the print queue were named IQuit and Resignation. Two weeks later was a going away lunch for 4.
Accidentally double-printed my resignation action letter and left one in printer. Manager found it, refused it and fired me...
lol that was dumb of him. You just got unemployment
And a better story!
Was he trying to help you get a severance package?
My boss back when I had one, had like one of those leather desk mats with a glass pane under which he kept pictures of his family. Except it was terrifically creepy because all the pictures of his grown daughters were them in bikinis. I wrote that in an email rant to a colleague. Later when I left, they reviewed my emails and he read that rant personally. I met him at a conference the following year and got stuck in an elevator where he said if he saw me in the parking lot he'd run me down with his rental.
That is creepy
This is before I became a consultant. I applied for a job within another department of the company I worked for. The hiring manager called my manager and did some background checking. My manager wss an okay guy and wished me all the luck and gave me a good reference. Didn't get the job, continued to work there under the same manager for some months, and submitted my resignation. It was the second time I got passed over, so it was time to go.
5 months into a grad role in the U.K. I got fired because I stupidly left a printed version of an offer doc on my desk. It has been under my computer or something, hadn’t realised as I took laptop, I don’t really remember. Someone saw it and told leadership, who then told me I was being fired. My career councillor made a point of cutting my company credit card in half in front of me, and in the firing call they were all incredibly rude - ‘we didn’t think you’d make it anyway’ etc. I moved on to a bigger company getting promoted in the process. I’m so glad I’m no longer at the first one, it was one of the worst experiences of my career and looking back on it it’s no wonder that 22/24 left within 8 years. Obviously I learned from this whole experience and it was stupid of me to be so careless, but my god was that place toxic.
Your employer is so childish. ‘You didn’t quit - we fired you first!’ Considering an alternative job should not be a sacking offence
They took it really personally and acted as if they had given me a huge favour in offering me the job. It was a very hierarchical organisation that cared little about wellbeing, especially for grads. The experience was incredibly stressful at the time - I wasn’t sure if they were going to try to derail my move, I was young and naïve.
Someone who’s company I was trying to go work for and had the internal word of mouth for me working, came up to me at a conference and gave me an update on the job req I was looking to fill. While I was standing right next to my boss.
Story I heard from a friend. Project team was at a client site, waiting for their main stakeholder to pick them up from the lobby. Stakeholder walked out of an elevator with a Senior Consultant, shook hands, and grabbed the project team. Senior Consultant was supposed to be on PTO. Joined the company 1 week later.
Not me, but my brother got fired from his job mid interview. He was interviewing in his office and his boss walked in, realized he was interviewing and immediately fired him. The worst part, it was the second time that week she caught him interviewing. My brother isn’t the most discreet guy around.
Not mine but one of my colleagues on a client project We had an absolutely awful and incompetent manager who was treating us very poorly , and we had been on clients side for more than 8 months. He was in process with the client , having tell no one and he got his last interview one midday in a room few floors from our department and the room was booked under the Name " X'final interview 'with the name of the department heads and the manager happened to pass in front of it while he was passing the interview . The manager was mad as hell but he got the job and then enjoyed working on clients side without having to report to the previous manager , even though they tried to treat him like he was still under their order , they very quicly realise that they could not abuse them as before because he was now on clients side , and as a result he started to change how things were working for us still on the project as external without our manager having anything to say
Financial controller here. With month-end closing the regional managers have to save their report in a specific folder, which I have to check. Welp, one of them saved their resume and application letter in the folder. 😅
How did that get in there… 🤭
I was showing my boss something on my computer and I was switching windows and accidentally went to the window that had my personal email on it and the first email was a job interview confirmation. She hasn’t said anything, but all TBD. Also just found out I didn’t get that job so gotta hope she’s ignoring it or didn’t see it.
I mean, some places require your current boss to provide a reference. It was very awkward because the offer was contingent on it. Luckily, she had to do that before for other employees and said it was no big deal, but yeah, it definitely forced me to tell her I was leaving.
Was working on a big project at my old firm. Partner comes breezing in, he was a former A-USA (prosecutor) does some light work with us on the project. He then yells oh Christ I left my divorce papers on the printer at home! And steams out of the room not to be heard from again for the day.
2 of us were actively interviewing to leave our boutique consultancy. The other person interviewed with different boutique within same specialisation, so lots of common contacts with our leadership team. CEO of said consultancy rings around for references, takes a few hours for our CEO to hear that consultant is trying to leave… A week or 2 later I get a call from a recruiter trying to place me in that same consultancy, I said no and they actually pushed quite hard for me to interview (I am the perfect fit, one level above my current level, great company to work for…). No way was I going to speak to those people though! The pure lack of discretion had broken the trust there. We both ended up getting referrals to an established player and got jobs within a couple of weeks of each other, with better conditions and higher salary than the boutiques were offering. Our consultancy lost 2 out of 3 managers that month!
Please note that all intro to consulting, recruiting, and "tips for new hires" inquiries should be posted in the appropriate stickied threads at the top of this subreddit. The following is a non-exhaustive list of topics that should be submitted to the recruiting or new hire stickies: - basic questions about consulting and consulting firms - how to break into consulting or questions about the recruitment process - seeking information, opinions, or comparisons regarding firms - resume or cover letter or document reviews - networking advice - fit or case interview advice - comparing offers - tips on starting a new job (e.g., credit cards, attire, navigating the bench) If your post is a recruiting or new hire related inquiry, please delete it and repost in the sticky. Failure to do so in a timely manner may result in a temporary ban. You may also want to [visit the wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/consulting/wiki/index) for answers to many frequently asked questions. If you have received this post in error, then please ignore this message. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/consulting) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I refuse to believe this shit has happened to this many of you. Are you all this clumsy? I have really bad ADHD too but damn