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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/HowLongWasIGone on 2026-04-06 20:42:24+00:00.
I've been an SDR (sales development rep) at a mid-size B2B tech company for about 14 months. The job itself is fine, I run LinkedIn outreach campaigns, cold calls, and email sequences. The problem is my manager.
This guy has been on a power trip since the day I started. He tracks our screen time, logs when we go to the bathroom (not kidding - he has a spreadsheet for it we call the spreadSHIT) expects us to be online by 8:30am even though our hours officially start at 9, and has denied every single PTO request I had submitted in the last 6 months, every single one. His reason is always that we're in a critical growth period which apparently is EVERY period.
We're a team of 4 SDRs and he pays us entry-level wages while expecting senior output. Two of us have brought up compensation and both times he said we should prove we deserve more first. Corporate BS speak for "no and stop asking”. Meanwhile he takes credit for our numbers in every leadership meeting. We hit 140% of quota last quarter and his exact words to our VP were - II've been coaching the team really hard this quarter and it's paying off. The man hasn't taught us a single thing, bruv.
Yesterday I was sitting at my desk at like 2pm trying to launch a new outreach campaign. If you've ever set up LinkedIn automation campaigns you know how much focus this takes - I use Expandi for most of our outreach and MeetAlfred for a couple of smaller campaigns and when you're configuring the targeting filters, writing the sequence messages, setting up the conditional logic for follow-ups, checking the team dashboard to make sure nobody else is already working the same accounts, and making sure you dont accidentally send the wrong list to the wrong audience, you really need to concentrate. One wrong filter and you send 300 messages to completely irrelevant people or worse, you hit the same prospects twice from different campaigns and look like a fullblown spam operation.
So I'm deep in this, staring at my sequence builder, double-checking my Sales Navigator filters against my exclusion lists, and my manager walks up to my desk. Doesn't say hi, don't wait for me to finish what I'm doing. Just goes: "Your activity numbers from yesterday were below the team average. I need you to explain why."
Yesterday I had spent 3 hours on a custom research project that HE asked me to do. For a target account that HE flagged as priority. I literally have the Slack message where he told me to drop everything and focus on it.
I told him that. Calmly. He goes that it's not an excuse and how we still need to hit our daily minimums (and here I was thinking we were going above and beyond). Something in my brain just broke. 14 months of this. 14 months of being micromanaged, underpaid, gaslit about my performance, denied time off, and having my work stolen in front of leadership. Mow he's standing at my desk telling me that the project HE assigned me is MY fault for doing.
I dont even fully remember what I said him word for word but it was a tirade that went like this, kinda - "the reason my numbers were low is cuz I was doing the project you yourself personally assigned me, which I can pull up right this moment. The reason morale on this team is in the shitter is because of shit like this that you keep pulling. You treat us like children, you take credit for everything we do, you deny every vacation request, and you pay us like interns while expecting us to carry your whole company. Nah, actin like you do. If you want to write me up for yesterday, go ahead, but at least be honest about why the numbers will then be low."
I said this at my desk and most everyone on the team heard it. He went completely red and just said how we'll discuss all this in private and walked away. I sat there for some minutes trying to figure out if I should start packing my desk. Then I saved my campaign draft (priorities, I guess) and went out to sit in my car.
He hasn't said anything since, absolute nada. My coworkers have been texting me like I'm some kind of folk hero which is nice but I'm also terrified that HR is going to call me in tomorrow morning. One of the other SDRs told me she's been wanting to say the same thing for months so at least there's solidarity on the team… but who knows how things are gonna pan out when push comes to shove.
The ironic part is the campaign I was building when he interrupted me. I finished it this morning and it already got 3 positive replies. So maybe he should have just let me work instead of being a hissy passive aggressive bitch.
TL;DR: After 14 months of a micromanaging, credit stealing and PTO denying boss, he interrupted me mid campaign to lecture me about activity numbers that were low because of a project HE himself assigned. I snapped and called him out in front of the entire office. No word from HR, I’m feeling great and fearful at the same time