'Completing a night's work... was arrogant? Ok, fine': Railroad boss demands employee "play nice" by agreeing to nonsensical plan, employee decides to underperform

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jul 10, 2024 11:00 AM EDT

Imagine being the person who's the first into the office and last out, yet your boss still isn't happy with your work. That's the rather irritating situation that u/Disastrous-Glove4889 found themself in at their railroad job. They were there to work on a project installing new lightbulbs into train signals, updating them from halogen bulbs to LEDs. Unfortunately, they were working with the boss from h-e-double hockey sticks who was apparently "universally hated." 

With a reputation like that, what else do you even need to know? If the reputation preceding your boss is one where coworkers tell you in hushed tones how terrible they always are, it's a good sign to head to your next gig. It seems like there's at least one person like this at any given company, since for whatever reason, these people seem to thrive in business environments. 

You can check out this worker's full story down below. Next, speaking of bad bosses, this person wasted two full days thanks to some unhelpful instructions, saying, "That would require Mr. Micro-Management to do some actual work." 

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  • 01
    Cheezburger Image 10371641600
    via Wilhelm Gunkel on Unsplash
  • 02
    Not allowed to use my initiative? Work is cancelled then
    via u/Disastrous-Glove4889
  • 03
    This happened a few years back but I got reminded of the guy involved again recently and it all came flooding back. I had been given a new project at work which was to install a new type of LED bulb in train signals in place of the old halogen ones. The guy I was doing the project with we will call P (short for ). This guy was universally hated, I had never heard of him before but I asked what he was
    via u/Disastrous-Glove4889
  • 04
    like and the first words out of the mouths of anybody who had any dealings with him were "He's a or other more "C" based words. Honestly I've never known somebody to not have one person like them at any level of the company. Also he had no actual authority over me, it was his project and I was the person actually performing/supervising the work, but anything I did under his say so was done with mere
    via u/Disastrous-Glove4889
  • 05
    courtesy, if anything I was actually a grade above him. jobwise. However my boss told me to play nice because I was new to the supervisor role. I got given a spreadsheet of all the signals that needed the bulbs changed and worked out the staff, the materials and the best course of action to do the work. It was a job, you had to change brackets, lamp holders, wiring
    via u/Disastrous-Glove4889
  • 06
    and nuts/bolts with tools that weren't fit for purpose, usually in the wind or rain and up a 20ft ladder around live electrical equipment (you could isolate some circuits but usually not all of them in a signal head). Also I was consistently the last person at work, including my bosses bosses, dealing with all this for no extra thanks, and no chance of extra pay either (salaried worker).
    via u/Disastrous-Glove4889
  • 07
    After doing the job for a while I got an e-mail from P saying he had planned which signals to change for each shift from now on and I was not allowed to stray from the plan. The plan was dumb, instead of doing signals in a straight line it was 2 in this area, 2 at this area 5 miles away, 3 here, just terribly put together. I told him this was stupid as and we needed to do them all in a line and for maybe the first time in his life he
    via u/Disastrous-Glove4889
  • 08
    saw sense and relented. He then made a new plan with them all in a row which he said I HAD to follow. What he failed to realise because he was incompetent was the railway has engineering works in specified areas where other works cannot take place in them for safety reasons. The very next shift what he has listed us to do cannot be done, we cannot access the area, if we did we
    via u/Disastrous-Glove4889
  • 09
    would very much get fired. So I looked at the spreadsheet, found an area we could work and worked there. This infuriated P and I was told via e-mail to follow his plan to the letter and to stop being so arrogant. Completing a nights work instead of literally doing nothing was arrogant? Ok fine. Malicious Compliance activated.
    via u/Disastrous-Glove4889
  • 10
    The next couple of nights went okay but then another specified area showed up we couldn't work in. This time we just didn't do the work and I reported back as such because we can't "deviate from the plan". This happened multiple times a week. Radio silence from P.
    via u/Disastrous-Glove4889
  • 11
    At some point P's boss comes out with us to see our work because she hasn't seen this type of work before and we get along great, honestly. This was planned in advance, she wasn't keeping an eye on us because we had started to underperform. We get about half of the work done and then start packing up to leave, she asks why, I tell her because the next signals are in an area for planned engineering works and we can't go in there.
    via u/Disastrous-Glove4889
  • 12
    She's okay with that; as I said if we went in there we would probably be out of a job, or we could be killed (trains moving, high voltage equipment left on etc). But she then asks why we can't go to another location and work there. I show her the plan and tell her how we are supposed to adhere to it at all costs. She asks why and I ask her if she's seen P's e-mail. She had not but said she would chase it up during the day.
    via u/Disastrous-Glove4889
  • 13
    I get a very prickly e-mail from P during the day asking why I only completed half the work, and he had even checked to see what time I had been on track till to tell me I still had 2 hours I could of worked, he cc'ed his boss and my boss into the e-mail. He thought he had me because he was correct, there was 2 hours left before we had to get off track in the section we completed the work. But the cancelled engineering hours in the area for
    via u/Disastrous-Glove4889
  • 14
    all the other assets made the rest of the work impossible. I was slightly taken aback by this though because while there is a way to check what time people get off track, nobody ever uses it because it is such an underhanded thing to do and creates massive distrust with everybody. He is the only person in nearly 20 years at this company I've known to have done it.
    via u/Disastrous-Glove4889
  • 15
    His manager then called us all into a meeting, before anybody else could speak she told P the reason half the work was done was because the equipment further along on his plan was in a specified area we are not permitted to work in regardless of what his stupid hindrance of a plan says. She said he should of looked at what areas we could work at before a shift instead of spending that time spying on the staff for what time they get off
    via u/Disastrous-Glove4889
  • 16
    track. Her numbers had me working at 40% above what was expected for the shift when I was in charge and less than half of what I should be doing when he was making us follow his plan. P tries to talk back but she says and I quote "Shut your stupid mouth before you say anything else useless". I love this woman lol. I then get sent out while she talks to P and my boss in private.
    via u/Disastrous-Glove4889
  • 17
    The fallout was the project getting taken off of P, him being moved on from that role to never have a position with any kind of authority again, she gave my staff and I a much better project to work on with more overtime (voluntary), a better person to liaise with and the mental image of P looking like a scolded puppy.
    via u/Disastrous-Glove4889
  • 18
    Ipenap Remember kids: always get instructions in writing first.
    via u/Ipenap
  • 19
    desertrock62 I would watch any movie with this sequence of scenes.
    via u/desertrock62
  • 20
    ProfessionalAd1933 OP please tell the great supervisor that we appreciate her! Or just me, if nobody else is comfortable joining in. But yeah, she's great. Glad P got their comeuppance.
    via u/ProfessionalAd1933
  • 21
    bruhhzman Glad P being knocked down a notch or three
    via u/bruhhzman
  • 22
    Totentanz1980 One of the stupidest things anyone can say is "follow the plan no matter what, or else." It just shows that they have no awareness of how things work.
    via u/Totentanz1980
  • 23
    rhunter1980 CY A: Cover Your in EVERY way possible. Especially in writing with the in charge of the incoming fubar signature on record. Also make back ups of all communications to a thumb drive or personal email in case they have friends in IT who can purge said documents, seen it done in other MC posts.
    via u/rhunter1980

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boss workplace-stories jobs job malicious compliance bosses work coworkers malicious-compliance-reddit workplace malicious compliance reddit railroad lights email lighting incompetence light train
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