<prompt> Human: This all happened 3 years ago, but I still think about it to this day.I worked for a corn milling company in a lab setting from 2010 thru 2012. Well something happened in early 2012 where we had just changed out all of our manufacturing equipment and computer systems. Huge overhaul. When we started making corn starch and corn syrup again with the new equipment, we ran into tons of problems and were unable to make good product for our largest customer for almost 3 months. This was obviously a big deal, so everything was being looked at--including the lab where I was at, even though we just test to see what the specs are, we arent involved in the actual manufacture end of things. During this closer examination of all departments, the guy in charge of checking out the lab came in and acted like a huge ass. He would literally yell at everyone, including his fiencee who was a lab chemist like me. Dude seemed super unstable. Well anyway, during one of his tirades he actually threatened my job, saying If Narfu187 wants to keep his job, hed better learn to do what I say. At no point was I refusing to do anything he said or was even putting up resistance for any of what he was telling me to do, so it was totally out of left field as well as totally out of line. After going home to sleep on it, I decided to bring it up to HR.Bad idea. Word somehow got out that I had reported him to HR, so now everyone in the lab knew. He also went from announcing to the whole lab that he can fire me to simply telling me in 1 on 1 situations that he controls whether I keep my job or not. This harassment included things like putting a notebook in my personal locker full of notes for the other bench in the lab--basically threatening a demotion, in summary. He also had a poor grasp on our procedures, so he would tell me to do something that went against what the procedure clearly said. If I brought it up to him, hed simply go back to threatening my job. It wasnt soon after I had reported him to HR that I suddenly got put on a Performance Improvement Plan PIP. Suddenly I wasnt a top performer at my job, I was actually terrible at it to the point of being a lost cause. Now my thought was just to keep doing my job the way I had been since I knew I was great at it, but this dude would find ANYTHING to bring up, so at the end of each week Id have a list of things that I was doing wrong. These would all be things that were ticky-tacky at best. After a while it became clear that I wouldnt be able to dig myself out of this.Then one day something big happened. I got an e-mail asking for ideas for reducing the amount of off-spec syrup wed always produce when starting up production. Wed start up after a shut down about once a week during the summer months, so this was a big deal. I thought about it for a bit and came up with a great idea. I told the guy in charge of production that I had an idea to not only reduce, but completely eliminate off-spec product. He was skeptical, but allowed me to try it. So a couple days later I got my chance, and sure as shit it worked. I did it again the next week too, just for good measure. This saved the company over 500,000 annually, so it was a pretty big deal. It really got a lot of people talking good things about me, which was a very welcome change after having nothing but angry barbs thrown my way.Heres where I think I fucked up. My boss asked if I could send an e-mail explaining how I did it. I thought sure, no problem Im always here to help. So I sent a long set of detailed instructions explaining exactly how I did it, not thinking twice about it. A week later, I was fired.Something that has been gnawing at me ever since is whether I should have used that information as leverage somehow. What if I had never sent that e-mail? What if I explained to my boss that the only way Id tell them how I did it is if I got job security in writing? Im not sure how it would all work, but is this something that people do? How should I have handled it?  <response>: I dont believe this really has anything to do with personal finance.If you posted on rlegaladvice, Im pretty sure theyd tell you they had every right to fire you.Right after youd been fired, it may have been worth talking to HR or the company boss, pointing out the benefit youd given them. But now, 3 years later? Its time to let go and move on. Try rmeditation or rstoicism. Hopefully youre happier in your new job. 