Employee Took Revenge on a Manager by Steering Customers Away From the Business — Then Got Reported for Costing Thousands in Sales

Photo credit: AI-generated image created using ChatGPT. Illustrative only.

One crew member on a Nordic tourist cruise says they hit a breaking point after months of what they describe as open favoritism, grueling hours, and managers who brushed off serious complaints. Instead of filing one more internal report, they say they started quietly steering customers toward brutally honest feedback—specifically, the kind of ratings the company begged passengers not to leave.

In the original post, the worker describes a workplace where staff were pressured to chase five-star reviews for a small commission, then punished when management suspected someone was doing the opposite. The employee says the revenge campaign ended with a confrontation by phone and an apparent end to their job.

It wasn’t one bad day—it was the way the job was run

The employee says they worked as part of a cruise crew and hostess team for a tourist-focused company in the Nordics. From their perspective, the atmosphere wasn’t just stressful—it was “very toxic,” with managers operating as if normal rules didn’t apply.

One early example: the manager allegedly threatened to deduct money from workers’ salaries if anyone forgot to turn on an alarm. The employee says the staff hadn’t even been taught how to set it, and when they pointed out that wage deductions were illegal where they lived, the manager fired back with, “does that mean that you are going to leave the window open?!”

They also describe being scheduled for shifts that sometimes ran past 12 hours a day, often outdoors in the sun, with what they say were inadequate breaks and no proper sun protection. The employee claims the company limited breaks to 30 minutes even though, in their view, local labor laws required more.

Favoritism made the long shifts feel even worse

The worker says the hardest part wasn’t just the physical grind—it was watching different rules apply to different people. They claim the manager allowed her friends at the company to take much longer breaks, sometimes over an hour, while others had to cover.

The employee says this favoritism affected scheduling too, with tougher shifts falling on those outside the manager’s preferred group, while friends got the easier assignments. In the post, the worker describes the dynamic using a nickname coworkers allegedly used for it, tying it to the manager’s background and the nationality of her friends on staff.

Then there was the way leadership used the crew, according to the employee. They claim the CEO had the captain and crew pick him up late at night from a random location after he had been partying, then drive him and his friends to another party—effectively turning working staff into personal transportation. The employee says there was no thanks, no bonus, and no relief afterward, despite management saying the company “doesn’t have the resources to pay extra.”

A harassment complaint was brushed off, and the worker says it changed everything

The post also includes a claim that a colleague reported being sexually harassed by another employee, and that managers responded by laughing it off. The employee says the managers told the colleague it was “because you are too pretty!” and then insulted her behind her back, calling her “a Pick-Up girl.”

For the worker telling the story, this wasn’t just another example of bad leadership—it was a sign that escalating concerns through normal channels wouldn’t lead anywhere. They say they tried to address issues “directly and professionally” with management anyway, but instead of listening, the manager shouted, “Do you think i am stupid!”

After that conversation, the employee says they were effectively iced out through scheduling. When the August schedule came out, they claim they were assigned around 50 hours total for the entire month—a sharp reduction that read to them like punishment.

The company pushed five-star reviews, so the worker pushed the opposite

Reviews were a constant pressure point, according to the employee. They say workers were expected to walk around the city and actively ask tourists to leave five-star reviews that included the worker’s name. The incentive was small—about €5 per review—but the expectation sounded relentless.

The employee also suggests customers weren’t always eager to play along. They wrote that many people didn’t want to leave a glowing review and might have sensed there were problems behind the scenes.

That’s where the revenge plan came in. The employee says they began asking customers to leave “honest” reviews—specifically encouraging 0- or 1-star ratings—and to include managers’ names. It wasn’t framed as a one-time outburst. The post reads like a deliberate attempt to hit the company in the one place management openly valued: public ratings tied to staff performance.

Eventually, they say, management figured out what was happening. The employee claims that “a few days ago they realized that it was me,” and the response was immediate: fury, followed by a confrontation.

The confrontation came by phone—and the job appeared to end on the spot

The worker says their manager confronted them by phone rather than in person. They connect that choice to another moment of alleged favoritism: the manager went to lunch with a group of her friends while only two people—one of them the employee—were left working.

During the call, the manager asked if the worker was behind the negative reviews. The employee says they denied it and pushed back, telling the manager they weren’t tolerating “toxic Management” or being blamed for things they hadn’t done.

At that point, the employee told the manager they didn’t feel okay and wanted to go home. They describe the emotional mix as complicated—feeling “dirty but good at the same time.” They said goodbye to colleagues, and later received a message instructing them to return their uniform because they had missed working hours.

The employee says they don’t want to go back themselves and plan to send a friend to return the uniform instead. The post also suggests they had hoped legal warnings might force the company to behave differently, but concluded management was used to “getting away with it.”

Readers zoomed in on proof, labor complaints, and the risk of retaliation

Even without a full comment thread included in the source material, the worker’s story points to the kind of reactions these posts typically draw: people tend to focus on what can be documented and reported, not just what feels satisfying in the moment.

The employee’s claims touch on wage deductions, break-time rules, scheduling retaliation, and the handling of harassment complaints—areas where written schedules, messages about uniforms and missed hours, and any internal communications can matter later. And while the worker framed the review tactic as “honest” feedback, they also admitted it was revenge, which creates its own risk if a company decides to accuse an employee of deliberately harming sales.

That practical tension is what makes this kind of workplace blowup so messy. When management controls schedules and assignments, even a small act—like a different script with customers—can escalate into allegations of sabotage, lost revenue, and misconduct.

For now, the employee appears to be out of the job and focused on walking away, not repairing the relationship. They even floated the idea of others supporting them by leaving low-star ratings, though they were unsure whether sharing links and managers’ names publicly would be allowed. Either way, the fight moved from the break room to the review page—and the worker’s final message made it clear they saw the fallout as a lesson in what not to do if you’re in charge.