When Your Boss Demands $4, Hand Them a 70-Hour Workweek Instead: A Polish Tale of Petty Revenge
Picture this: You’re a college student working weekends at a family-run hotel-restaurant in Poland, juggling reservations, seating guests, and keeping the cash register balanced. It’s summer break, your coworker is off on vacation, and suddenly, your boss wants you to cough up 17 Polish zloty (about $4) for a minor cash shortfall. What do you do? If you’re Redditor u/Warku55, you don’t just pay up, you hand your boss a full week of 12-hour shifts—by quitting on the spot.
This is the story of how standing your ground over four bucks led to a delicious slice of petty revenge, a week of managerial misery, and a viral hit on r/PettyRevenge.
Let’s set the scene: Our hero, a part-time receptionist/waiter, worked at a “lower end of the high-end” Polish hotel-restaurant, where the air thickened every time Big Amy—the matriarch and original owner—walked through the door. Her daughter, Amy, ran the show day-to-day, bringing, as the OP puts it, all the charm and fairness you’d expect from a family business where “management positions are based on merit and not family connections.” (As one commenter, u/dicemechanic, aptly noted, the Polish sense of sarcasm is alive and well.)
Handling cash is part and parcel of the job, and minor imbalances happened. At big retailers, as OP explained, nobody blinked at a few zloty missing—they chalked it up to human error. But at Amy’s establishment, a 17PLN ($4) shortfall was enough to trigger a managerial meltdown. Big Amy demanded the money back, and when OP pointed out that neither the contract nor common sense required employees to cover tiny mistakes, Amy doubled down on the drama. “No one ever behaved like that here before,” she protested, insisting that overages went to the business, but shortages were an employee’s problem.
It’s a classic double standard, one that many Redditors recognized from their own experience. “They didn't care if they ended up with more money in the instances where OP accidentally charged more. They only cared when they ‘lost’ money,” wrote u/lyramoon31, highlighting a universal truth about bad bosses: profits are theirs, mistakes are yours.
The standoff quickly escalated. Amy threatened to amend the contract retroactively and kept pressing for the cash. But OP, buoyed by the knowledge that quitting would leave Amy with nobody to cover 70 hours of front-desk mayhem, stood firm—and even offered to forgo the standard two-week notice period. In an act of managerial self-own, Amy accepted, snatching defeat from the jaws of a four-dollar victory.
Reddit’s verdict? Chef’s kiss. “You really said ‘you want $4? Here’s a week of full shifts’—that’s beautiful,” celebrated u/meowpowchow. u/Dougally summed it up: “Forcing your arsehole entitled little boss to work at the front desk…and as a waiter (roles way beneath her entitledness) with no-one to take over is petty revenge. Arsehole little boss was too stupid to realise that decisions have consequences.”
Others chimed in with similar tales of managerial pettiness and the sweet satisfaction of walking away. u/2ndbreakfastfan recalled being falsely accused of stealing $10 at a fast-food gig, only for the math-challenged manager to fumble the register totals repeatedly. “He just got more and more angry. I left that job shortly after that experience. Life is too short to work for hostile managers.” Amen.
Some offered practical advice—u/MikeSchwab63 suggested that in Poland, as in many countries, trying to force employees to pay for register imbalances can be illegal, and “constructive termination” can lead to compensation for lost wages. Others, like u/CaptainBaoBao, lamented how even in the land of Solidarity, worker protections can be surprisingly lax.
But the most resonant theme? The power of standing up for yourself—especially when you have a safety net. While OP admitted to a privileged position (parents supporting college is mandatory in Poland if they can afford it), their boldness inspired coworkers and commenters alike. “I’m proud of you, not only sticking it to Amy, but for sticking up for yourself, and spreading the seeds for a union!” cheered u/CartoonistExisting30. OP even tried to plant those seeds, noting in a comment that union density in Poland is a mere 10%, lower than the US.
Humor wasn’t lost in the shuffle. The original post is laced with dry wit (“If I stole I wouldn’t steal just a one time fee of below my hourly compensation. I have some dignity.”), earning praise from u/Expert_Slip7543 and reminding us that sometimes the best revenge is making your boss do your job—with a side of sarcasm.
So what happened next? OP doesn’t know for sure if Amy survived her week on the front lines, but as they wryly observed, even if she hired someone new, she’d still need to train them herself—ensuring at least another week of managerial purgatory. As u/Custard_Little put it, “That’s the kind of confirmation that makes these stories chef’s kiss perfect.”
In the end, this isn’t just a story about four bucks and a bad boss. It’s a rallying cry for workers everywhere: Know your rights, stand your ground, and don’t be afraid to walk when the math just doesn’t add up. Sometimes, the smallest acts of resistance can hand your boss a workload worth far more than loose change.
What about you? Ever walked out on a petty boss, or gotten sweet revenge over a few dollars? Tell us your story in the comments below—because if there’s one thing this tale proves, it’s that karma can be paid back in 70-hour installments.
Original Reddit Post: My boss was an asshole and wanted me to give back cash counter imbalance of $4, so I made her work full shifts for a week.