11 Employers Who Take Pettiness to the Next Level
By Mustafa GatollariMar. 29 2021, Updated 4:51 p.m. ET
It's kind of insane how petty some people can be, even if that insanity is commonplace these days. One almost expects pettiness when it comes to the dissolution of a relationship: whether it's intentionally changing your Netflix account information or making passive-aggressive social media posts about you. The same can happen with best friends, just ask Mudasir about this classic meme.
While one would accept this kind of emotionally-charged trifling behavior, in the workplace we'd think it would be less common. But that isn't the case at all.
Like this Auto Shop that was dealing with a former employee who was adamant about receiving his last paycheck.
A-OK Walker Luxury Autoworks has worked on Ford Mustang convertibles for Trouble With the Curve and has been working on high-end and rare cars for years. However most recently they've been accused of paying a former employee with a wheelbarrow of pennies, 91,500 of them to be exact.
The New York Times reported that A OK gave Andres Flaten his final paycheck in thousands of coins smeared in what is presumably transmission fluid. He was a manager at the autobody shop and asked for the $915 that the business owed him. On a Mid-March day he received a wheelbarrow packed with greasy pennies.
His girlfriend, Olivia Oxley posted a clip of the mound of pennies on Instagram. In one of the videos she dips her hand into the pile of coins and her fingers are covered in a shiny substance. She posted about the ill-treatment Andres reportedly endured as an employee of the automotive shop.
She wrote:
"My boyfriend's last paycheck delivered at the end of the driveway in pennies....at 8pm on a Friday. His last day was in November."
She continued: "First things first when he quit he gave a written resignation letter complete with a two weeks notice. After Miles Walker of AOK Walker auto works continued to be the a**hole he is and make a normal workday hell, making unnecessary comments about my boyfriend's daughter and just be an all-around d**k, that 2 weeks turned into 5 days."
"My boyfriend respectfully delivered his uniforms washed and in a box comeplete with another letter as to why he was leaving early. Fast forward 3 months and he was refusing to send out the last paycheck claiming damages to the shop. Once the word “lawyer” was introduced, this is what he did."
"1. We can’t even get all the pennies up because they’re covered in some type of oil.
2. Who the hell knows how were going to get them out of the driveway, up into the car, out of the car again, and into a bank or coin star. And that’s if we can even do that because they’re covered in oil."
"I’m not sure what’s worse...the fact that this man is so miserable he can’t accept an employee leaving because he’s the biggest a**hole I’ve seriously ever met, or the fact that he went through THAT much effort to get $915 worth of HEAVYYY pennies just to say ‘f**k you’. I mean....couldn’t he have just pissed on the check or something?....."
"MILES WALKER @ AOK WALKER AUTOWORKS in peachtree city.
PLEASE SHARE WITH ANYONE. Bring him down. No one like that deserves to have successful business."
Tons of people posted their sympathies in response to Olivia's Instagram upload.
For the most part, folks seemed sympathetic. Yelp reviewers flocked to the Auto Body's shop page in order to bomb it with negative comments and 1-star reviews. It currently sits at a 1.5 out of 5, however, it seems that Yelp has posted an "unusual activity" alert in order to notify folks that A OK has been the subject of some recent ire that doesn't directly reflect the quality of service the business may or may not provide prospective clients.
It seems like A OK may have gotten their inspiration in paying Andreas with pennies in a wheelbarrow from this one individual who got their car towed and was angry about having to pay the fine in order to get their automobile back.
So they decided to pay them using the same method, and uploaded the whole thing on YouTube.
Here's the thing: as inconvenient as it is, businesses and individuals cannot reject viable forms of legal tender, and that includes paying someone in pennies. However, there is a coin shortage due to COVID, so they may want to bring that up if they wanted to dispute the form of payment they received legally.
This isn't the first time an employer acted petty to their workers, however and there are Redditors with some harrowing tales of dealing with some less-than-ideal bosses.
Refusing a hug.
"Supervisor asked me for a hug, I declined, she said she refused to have anyone unhappy on shift and told me I should go home." - Underhaul.
Quoting a reality TV show when firing an employee.
"My bosses gave everyone a copy of the schedule that had all the names of the workers. We were told to choose three people who we thought should be laid off. I gave them back the list and told them that they didn't hire me to make those types of decisions for them. Two days later as I was coming into work I was stopped at the door by one of the owners, he told me that "Survivor council has convened, and that I had been voted off the island. Yeah, your fired." I had worked there for over a year, and to be dismissed like it was a f*cking game was pretty ridiculous." - jlbecks.
Limited liability.
"Was working for a small business and was repeatedly asked to use my own personal car to make deliveries and pick up supplies. I eventually told the owner that I didn't feel comfortable using my personal vehicle for company work. My statement was polite and voiced my concerns of only having liability insurance on it and having to pay for all the gas on my own too. The owner was like, how many miles did you drive yesterday? Maybe 3? Here's 75 cents. That's average mileage pay. And he drops 3 quarters into my hand." - bumpty.
Jesus works here.
"My previous job my boss told me that I needed to go to church, and they were concerned because no one ever saw me say grace when eating lunch in my cubicle. She and others in the office would constantly nag me about Christian stuff, it got so bad that I would avoid conversations with many folks there because it always lead to Jesus. They ended up firing me for petty reasons and I've lawyered up." - drkush.
Breakfast's the most important meal of the day.
"I had a nurse supervisor who would take advantage of my being a nice person but having me pick up her breakfast every day in the cafeteria, since I was going over there for myself. Every day. She was lazy and I was being taken advantage off. So one day I decided I wasn't going to do. When she came to bring me her money I politely told her that I wasn't buying that morning. It turned into an argument to the point of where SHE CRIED and I said, fine, gimme your money, whatever, I'll go get your breakfast. She walked away. Later, I was called into the Director's office and she said I should have just got the breakfast for her. WTH?" - taralegal.
"Dear Diary..."
"I found a private diary of personal gripes about me that my manager wrote up. Then locked in the filing cabinet. Not work related sh*t either. Just things I did that bugged her. It was rough because It was a tiny pet food store and it would just be the two of us sitting there. with no customers for hours. And then I realize all the time she's spending in the bathroom, it her writing sh*t about me. When I thought about it, she was even doing it sitting on bags of dog food next to me. I couldn't believe it.I eventually told her I knew about them and she was red paint pink in the face." - drexalparks.
Bring it down a notch.
"I had a boss tell me that I was working too hard and making her favorite employee look bad... wut?" - priseambolina.
Stop wearing ties.
"My boss told me to stop wearing ties because it made me look too professional. I owned maybe three ties. I now own about 50, and made sure to cycle them appropriately.
Now I wear whatever the hell tie I want. I don't even like ties." - XavierMendel.
Paper clip.
"I got called into my bosses office for putting the paper clip too close to the top of the center of the piece of paper. No one ever told me I had to keep it directly in the center. Apparently this is a very important rule." - [User Deleted]
The font affront.
"My old boss used to get furious at me because when I needed to enlarge text in MS word for a small print job (maybe ten envelopes, each with someones first and last name on them) i had to do each day, I would type the text, highlight it, and then change the font size. He demanded that I change the font size before I started typing and threatened to write me up if I didn't." - herestoshuttingup.
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