'I won't sign, come back later': Deputy project manager rejects requests and ignores emails, costs company $250k

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Aug 12, 2023 11:00 AM EDT

Working in logistics is an underappreciated job — this person's work wasn't appreciated until everything started going off the rails. 

When roles switch around in a company, things around bound to slip between the cracks. Especially when there are bosses like this guy, the deputy project manager on an Australian pipeline project. As he stepped in to replace the regular project manager, he didn't quite know who was responsible for which tasks. The OP of this story writes that their regular project manager trusted them to place orders, a task that was "quite time consuming," with a lengthy processing time. While the OP anticipated this delay, the deputy didn't know about it. At least the OP caught the mistakes in their paper trail of emails! 

As one commenter joked, as a boss, you should be nervous when you notice an employee who starts requesting everything in writing. If they're clearly making a paper trail, wouldn't you start to wonder why? It just goes to show that some bosses care very little about the job, and just push their work onto the people below them. 

Check out the entire story below, which was celebrated by commenters (and a few people even added their own stories of workplace compliance). 

After that, this young employee got to fire a person before he could even complete training at his new workplace — because he didn't want her to teach him how to do his job. 

Advertisement
  • 01
    Font - "No I won't approve that order, we don't need them for another 4 months" M TL;DR: deputy project manager denies my request to order 14 tonnes of materials and costs the company $250k in air frieght Edit: BB is Big Boss, boss of the pipelines for the mother company and MB is my boss who was never around and just let me do my thing. Sorry, I thought I put that in the story.
    via u/deleted
  • 02
    Font - This one just popped into my head yesterday but is from 2013. Kinda long. Back then, I was working on one of the bigger pipeline projects in Australia, I don't want to say the companies involved but most people in the industry, especially the people that worked on it, would know it when I say the nickname for it was Mountains of Cash Just Vanish. My job was to place orders for consumables, I would place an average of somewhere around $1 mil/AUD of orders every 4 weeks so not a huge amount
    via u/deleted
  • 03
    Font - The process was I fill out a request for materials form and have it signed off by the project manager (PM), he was a no nonsense guy and he was aware that I knew what I was doing and trusted me so sort of let me go about my business and never really questioned anything that looked legit at first glance, when he was away his underling would come in and fill in as Deputy Project Manager (DPM), this guy would question every little thing to the point I would not buy anything that wasn't urgen
    via u/deleted
  • 04
    Font - Anyway, one of my jobs I was designated, was to place the next order for welding rods. Due to the amount we would buy and the process of how we had to buy them involved us needing to buy from the all same batch with all sorts of certificates for quality purposes so we would have to buy them directly from the manufacturer in the United States. This process was quite time consuming and was a 4 month process from filling out the request through to delivery of goods.
    via u/deleted
  • 05
    Font - The time came to kick off the order process, PM was away for several weeks for whatever reason and DPM was in his place. I fill out the materials request form and take it to DPM for approval, the order was for 14 tonnes of welding rods with a 7 figure total amount and the conversation went like this:
    via u/deleted
  • 06
    Font - Me: Hi DPM, this is for the next batch of rods, can you sign off on this so we can get the order on the next ship out of the States so it gets here on time? DPM: Wow! That's way too much at this time, we don't need them for 4 months, come back then. Me: We need to order these now or it's going to cost $250,000 in air freight so they get here on time if we order them later. DPM: No, I won't sign, come back later. Me: OK, see you later.
    via u/deleted
  • 07
    Font - So me knowing how this is going to play out in 3 months when PM gets back, get straight back to my office and email DPM and say exactly what I said in his office to establish a paper-trail to cover my ate. I repeated this 2 times more until the cutoff for shipping.
    via u/deleted
  • 08
    Font - Sure enough, 3 months later I have this to deal with: MB: Hi Scusi, Where's the welding rods you were asked to order? BB: This is unacceptable, your negligence will hold up the entire job and costs us millions in down time.
    via u/deleted
  • 09
    Font - Me: Hi MB and BB, I was told not to order them by DPM, here is the copy of the emails I sent to DPM on (date 1), (date 2) and (date 3). He rejected my request for the materials in his office and he never replied to my requests for approval over email. I can order them now at an extra cost of $250k for air freight and they'll be here in around 10 days but I need someone to OK it. BB: Yes go ahead and order them air freight and bring me the paperwork to sign. DPM, I'll be down to see you in
    via u/deleted
  • 10
    Font - SweetHamSc mHam. In logistics, if you do things right no one ever notices you doing anything at all.
    via u/SweetHamSc*mHam
  • 11
    Font - SilverStar9192 Same thing happens in my company regularly. In fact it was so frequent that our main freight forwarder came to us and said, "hey you guys are shipping so much air freight that we can offer you much better rates if you sign this contract agreeeing to a minimum spend per year" (or something similar). Of course no one approved that, because "we don't use air freight except for very rare exceptions and that will never happen again." Of course, guess what, this year's air freigh
    via u/SilverStar9192
  • 12
    Font - _perpetual_student_. I'll have to compliment BB for not reaming DPM right then and there, but waiting to do so in a more private setting.
    via u/_perpetual_student_
  • 13
    Font - Ulgarth132 A good boss for sure. Follows the classic rule of: Praise publicly, criticize privately.
    via u/Ulgarth132
  • 14
    Font - EagleCatchingFish I had a similar, but way smaller stakes story. I had to plan three corporate training/customer engagement events across North America. My boss was an executive, and I couldn't get get him to approve a start date to work on it. And he was incredibly cheap. And he was really picky about food. And he didn't know where he wanted the events. And,
    via u/EagleCatchingFish
  • 15
    Font - he wanted support from other groups in the company, but he didn't know who. All of that resulted in my having to plan these three events, start to finish within 3 months of their kickoff date. I would constantly ask for feedback and guidance and he wouldn't give it. Mainly because he didn't know what he wanted. But he knew what he didn't want: whatever it was I was planning.
    via u/EagleCatchingFish
  • 16
    Font - It was a shambles. I did really well, considering the roadblocks he constantly threw in my way, but it ended up looking kind of slapdash, and I got reamed for it. After the whole thing was complete, he wouldn't approve the invoice with one of my vendors, and kept telling me to negotiate a lower price, because it ended up being higher than the quote... Except I had no leverage, because the services had already been rendered.
    via u/EagleCatchingFish
  • 17
    Font - Ghost-Fairy This is one of my biggest pet peeves about working, in general. I'm good at my job, I know it inside and out. I know not just what to do, but how and why I do it that way instead of this way. Yet every few months someone (that makes more money for less work) will blow through and want to stick their nose in every facet of what we're doing and then ask a million questions about "why this instead of that" - to which the answer is usual some form of "because it won't work . that
    via u/Ghost-Fairy
  • 18
    Font - I don't even mind that they don't know though, as much as I mind the micromanagement. You don't have any problems with me or my area or the work that's done. Why are you even here??
    via u/Ghost-Fairy
  • 19
    Font - Knight_thrasher DPM deserves whatever he got
    via u/Knight_thrasher
  • 20
    Font - [deleted] There should be a course for middle managers that teaches them that alarms bells should be going off once one of their subordinates starts laying a verifiable paper trailer after they have been denied something.
    via u/deleted

Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.

Tags

supplies welding manager expenses malicious compliance email malicious-compliance-reddit australia emails project order airplanes paper trail ignoring ignore rejection big boss
Scroll Down For The Next Article