A social media user has claimed that after discovering his ex-employers were still using work that he created, he chose to delete everything.
Taking to Reddit's 'antiwork' subreddit, a guy with the handle 'This_Manner_256' shared their story of revenge after learning that the company that fired them years ago was still relying on their work.
The Redditor captioned the now-viral post: "I just deleted thousands of hours of work from my old job".
They start their thread by providing the backstory to the former employer, writing: "About 3 years ago I used to work as a videographer doing social media content for a 7 figure company. I was paid roughly just better than minimum wage and was cranking out (at one point) 50 videos a day.
"I was freelancing and was on a loose contract. I was desperate for the money."
Describing the office as "an incredibly bitter and snide place" and bashing the higher-ups, the Redditor explained that one day he attempted to earn a pay rise by explaining to his managers the positive impact his videos were having on the company.
The videographer writes: "I showed them graphs of interactions and direct links to sales on the website via my content [...] I compared my ideal salary to others in the industry and made a big deal about how it would still be less than I should be paid however I still wanted to continue working for them."
However, despite the pitch, the Redditor revealed: "I was fired hours later for, and I s**t you not, not 'pulling my weight' as well as not having the desired effect they wanted on social media."
Angry and unemployed, the Redditor reveals that they spent months struggling to find another job.
Years later, however, they had their shot at revenge, as they write:
"Today (years later) whilst browsing a very old Google drive account, I found that said company was still using a folder I created and owned.
"They were mostly active in the files containing templates, adjustment layers, presets, and even video that I all created. Over 18 people were actively using it daily to continue with their social media campaigns. This was a cloud service that I was paying monthly for as I wanted extra space for my work.
"This is my drive and my work. I own it. So I copied the file as a local version for myself and then deleted the online version."
They concluded the post saying: "Tomorrow they will wake up with none of their video assets (including things they were working on). F**k them."
(In an update, the Redditor explained that they removed access for all users, to prevent them from restoring the files.)
The post was insanely popular with the Reddit community, amassing over 169,000 upvotes and more than 13,000 comments.
One fan of the post wrote: "Been on this sub for a while but this is possibly the best thing I’ve read. You really f***ed them here. I hope this hits them severely hard. Good job OP, if everyone acted like this we’d have no need for this sub."
This really is one of those stories that has such a sweet ending, you almost wish you pulled it off yourself!