Source: Reddit
About 15 years ago I worked in a large hospital for kids in the maintenance department. Our manager, let’s call her Karen, was a major b*tch. No one on our team liked her and we outwardly showed no respect for her after her constant harassment towards us in the 2 years she worked there. She would call us on the maintenence radios and be rude or tell the guys they were being incompetent. It was beyond micromanagement but also rude on top of it. She expected the maintenance guys to come do work at her house for free. Or would tell some of the hospital vendors she would guarantee the hospital contract if they did work at her house for cheap. She used to brag about this to me. Karen and I were the only women in our department of about 25 people.
I was a mouthy 20 something year old and didn’t care for her attitude and regularly would say “yeah, sure, whatever” when she asked me to do things. I would do what she asked because it was my job but I would have made a noncommittal remark like that. One time she asked me to come to her house and help her pull down dead trees in her backyard since she was having a pool installed. I said no, mainly cause I wouldnt do it for someone I liked let alone her and pretty soon after she started treating me even worse than she did before. She had been trying to get me in trouble since then. Such as CCing her buddy in HR on emails to me asking for status on projects that I was working on and wanted my replies in writing.
Fast forward 6 months later. Me and one of the maintenance guys were chatting in the office and I was 5 months pregnant with my first baby. She asked me to do something, I don’t remember what, and I said “Yeah. Whatever, sure. I’ll do that in a few mins.” And I turn back around to talk to my coworker. She is standing behind me and I hear her whisper “I wish I could slap the sh*t out of you.” I can see my coworker saw her say it too and I made no comment but I was shocked. I acted like I didn’t hear her though. She left the office a min later to do something.
I get up and walk down the hall to employee health dept cause I am fuming and my heart was racing. Pissed. Also 5 months pregnant. The EH nurse has me lay down for a bit, take my vitals, and write up a formal report. An hour later, send me back to my desk as ok to continue working.
When I log back in I see an email from Karen, with HR cc’d asking where I had been for the last hour as she called the office phone a bunch of times and had abandoned my desk.
So I emailed her back..”I apologize for being away from my desk. When you said you’d ‘like to slap the sh*t out of me’ I was so upset I had to be calmed down and have mine and my baby’s vitals checked at Employee health and they were concerned about my hostile working environment and wanted me to stay there for the full hour.” I made sure I BCC’d her buddy in HR and ALL of HR, her boss and his boss to make sure everyone saw it.
I was summoned to HR about 30 mins later. I knew Karen hadn’t seen my reply yet, this was the early 2000s and her computer was down in the office near me. They had me go home for the day and put me on admin leave for 3 extra days. I came back to the office to see her desk had been emptied out and we never saw her again.
Those guys in maintenance threw me the best baby shower ever 3 months later.
