'Purchaser had one job....JUST ONE!': Product purchaser gets reamed by the CEO after doubting a diligent employee, afterwards the little guy gets a promotion

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    Posted by u/momito-chan 21 hours ago "You have enough parts!" "No, we don't." M OC I'm not sure, if this counts as malicious compliance, but it isn't revenge, because there was no such intent. This is my husbands story. (Henceforth referred to as 'hubby")
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    Hubby works for a smallish company that makes medical equipment in the production department. It's important to note that that there are multiple teams in the production department divided by product type produced. Each team has a supervisor and the entire production department is overseen by the production manager.
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    One day hubby and his coworkers are building a particular product(hereafter called Product A) and realise they don't have enough clamps. Hubby goes to the Head purchaser and tells him: "We're running low on clamps. Please order some."
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    Head purchaser checks the database and goes: "According to database you have 1000 clamps, though." Hubby: "No, we don't. We looked everywhere. There are none." Head purchaser: "Then look again. You probably didn't see them." And with that he dismissed hubby from his office.
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    Hubby and his supervisor looked everywhere, but there were none, though the other team had 200 clamps as emergency stock. It felt like either the warehouse screwed up or the numbers in the database were incorrect.
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    Hubby then wrote an email to the head purchaser CCing hubby's supervisor, the production manager and the CEO, that the production urgently needs clamps and to please order them. He didn't mention the emergency stock of the other team.
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    Head purchaser was angry about the email, stomped into the production hall beelining towards hubby and said something to the effect of: "How could you humiliate me like that? I'll show what it's like to be really humiliated!"
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    He then looked for the clamps himself, found the emergency stock of the other team and told hubby: "See? There are the clamps. Just use these and resume the production!"
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    Head purchaser then retreated to his office to write an email to hubby CCing the same people as hubby, included a screenshot of the database page for clamps and stated basically what he told hubby about there being clamps, but more politely.
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    Hubby saw the email and when heading to the other teams hall to get 100 of the 200 clamps to resume the production for the time being, stopped by the CEOS office to merely explain the situation to him and point out that the numbers in the database are wrong using the very screenshot the head purchaser sent as an example.
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    CEO tore the head purchaser a new one for not ordering the clamps immediately. The guy responsible for keeping the numbers of the database up-to-date happened to be on vacation at the time but got reamed by the CEO as well when he returned.
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    Cherry on top: CEO gave hubby's supervisor permission to directly contact the supplier and establish a routine for regular deliveries. Head purchaser was hopping mad about it, but hubby just told him, that they had CEOs permission to do that and he couldn't do anything about it.
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    Mrchameleon_dec 21 hr. ago Nice! Purchaser Vote had one job....JUST ONE! Reply Share RealFakeLlama 20 hr. ago Well, bisnesses keep telling us it is cheaper to cut out the middleman... that manager might be fearing for his job now, its aparently cheaper (save a purchaser salary) and easier to bypass him
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    the ZombieKat 19 hr. ago well a purcheser position usualy involves more than ordering curently stocked items from established supplyers.
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    i work in a warehouse. the purchacing department is definatly needed. yeh, i am capable of 90% of their job, and my boss could probably do the rest. but we dont have time to do it.
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    androshalforc1 19 hr. ago Regardless of if you have more parts or not. Deal with the immediate problem: order more it sounds like you are going to use them anyway. Then figure out what happened to the missing ones. Is the inventory out? are there other teams hoarding reserve stock? Were they Counted incorrectly? Were they Defective and not removed from inventory?
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    momito-chan OP 19 hr. ago I didn't mention it, because it was irrelevant to the story in my eyes, but according to hubby the database guy is also drawing up and inputting blueprints for the products and with that how many of which parts are needed for what product, but he was lagging behind on that, thus a bunch of the blueprints in the database are obsolete. This in turn made the purchaser order wrong amounts of parts for a while. Database guy has since been told to fix that mess yesterday.
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    Squidking1000 · 20 hr. ago Later conversation with purchaser: "what would you say you do around here?". Vote Reply Share solitonsnap 19 hr. ago HE'S A PEOPLE PERSON. ...
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    Frankjc3rd 19 hr. ago This reminds me of a saying that it's attributed to bird watching of all things; when the bird and the book disagree believe the bird. What this means is the bird is the clamps you don't have and the book is the inventory list that is wrong.
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    zephen_just_zephen · 19 hr. ago Smart CEO clamped down on that behavior real quick. ✩ Vote Reply Share Agreeable-League-366 14 hr. ago I see what you did there.
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    Geminii 27 20 hr. ago If the head purchaser didn't want to be mad, he shouldn't have been incompetent.
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    HyperSpaceSurfer - 20 hr. ago What sort of idiot blindly trusts inventory numbers? They're eternally a 0, or few, away from being way wrong.
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    Machiavvelli3060 21 hr. ago It feels ironic that he owned the head purchaser. Vote Reply Share CoderJoe1 21 hr. ago The head purchaser is a real Karen.
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    Foolish-Pleasure99 - 20 hr. ago This insn't the purchaser's fault -- his records said "don't buy". Hubby's first stop should have been to get the inventory record corrected, then onform the buyer of the just identified shortage. Would have expected zero pushback!
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    Perfect-Scene9541 13 hr. ago Purchaser's job got pinched. Reply Share Vote MomOfMoe 11 hr. ago I am absolutely wild about your husband. I'm glad this came out well for him and his team.

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