Boiler room worker earns double overtime for his entire department when his clueless manager insists he participate in a fire drill: ‘It cost them a day's production'

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Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Nov 23, 2024 7:00 AM EST

The only way to teach a clueless manager a lesson is to hit 'em where it hurts–Productivity numbers!

This boiler room employee certainly knew how to get his manager's undivided attention after costing the factory a full day of production and an entire department's double overtime wages. 

Remember doing fire drills in elementary school? Exactly, it was a long time ago because most adults understand the gravity of a building fire, elegantly following the exit signs to safety in the event of an emergency. At this point in our lives, it's neatly engrained in the back of our subconscious–which is why a fire drill in the workplace feels entirely trivial. But for a boiler room employee, a fire drill means a lot more than taking 15 minutes out of your work day to stand outside at your 'emergency location,' it means shutting down a behemoth of a machine that'll cost the company a lot more than a few minutes of productivity. 

But did his micromanaging boss care to consult him before running a mandatory fire drill? Nope. 

Keep scrolling to enjoy the malicious compliance that earned this guy and his whole department a fat paycheck and an 'I told you so' moment.

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  • 01
    Cheezburger Image 10432105984
    via Handsome Bob

    This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 02
    Treat the fire drill as if was real. My great uncle passed away at 97 and I heard this great story of malicious compliance at his memorial service today. Σ
    via Naige2020
  • 03
    He worked for over 50 years at the same confectionery factory and for most of that time he was a boiler room attendant. This was just after WW2 and at the time most of the machines and processes were powered by steam, even the heating. The steam was generated by massive boilers and
    via Naige2020
  • 04
    it was his job to monitor the boilers to make sure nothing went wrong. These boilers could potentially explode, causing great damage. By law the boiler had to be attended at all times and there were shifts that watched them around the clock, even when the factory was closed. They took so long
    via Naige2020
  • 05
    to heat up that it was easier and cheaper to leave them running at night. After about ten years of no incidents the company hired a leading hand who would also act as the Safety Officer. He had been a sergeant in the army and he took his job quite seriously,
    via Naige2020
  • 06
    being quite the disciplinarian. He instituted a mulititude of new procedures, some warranted, some just to establish control. The first time he wanted to conduct a fire drill, he went around telling the staff that when they heard the alarm they had to exit the building in an orderly fashion. He
    via Naige2020
  • 07
    got to the boiler room and it was my great uncle on duty that day. He informed him he would not be able to evacuate with everyone else and had to stay with the boiler. The Safety Officer didn't give him time to explain why, he just bluntly informed him that he was to treat the fire drill as if it was a real fire, no exceptions.
    via Naige2020
  • 08
    When the fire bell finally rang, my uncle did exactly what he was told to do. He turned off the gas to the boilers, vented all the built up steam, purged the water an joined everyone outside. At the evacuation point they were doing a head count when the Production Manager spotted my uncle
    via Naige2020
  • 09
    and immediately approached him and asked what he was doing away from the boiler. He said he was participating in the Fire Drill as instructed but not to worry as he had shut the boiler down completely. The colour immediately drained from the managers face.
    via Naige2020
  • 10
    He was asked how long it would take to bring the boilers back online. Apparently it would take hours alone just to fill the boilers with water and heat them up. The big issue was that because they had done an emergency purge they were required to inspect every pipe, joint and connection for damage before to make sure it was
    via Naige2020
  • 11
    safe to start to reheat. The other boiler men were called in and they got paid double time to work through the night to get the boiler ready for the next day. Production Staff all got sent home but still got paid for the day as it wasn't their fault the factory couldn't run. It cost them a days production as well. Safety Officer did keep his job but for the next 40 years the boiler staff were all exempt from fire drills.
    via Naige2020
  • 12
    djg3117 I work in a production environment and when we have a fire drill I am told that when the sirens go off I am the only person who is to stay in the building and do my job.
    via djg3117
  • 13
    I have a big fancy E-Stop button that will shut everything down if there is a real emergency, but thankfully I've never had to use it. If I were to hit that button, it would take at least half a day to get everything running again.
    via djg3117
  • 14
    HelpDaren We've had a fire drill at my previous workplace where a few newly appointed fire marshals (they weren't really, more like an evacuation officers, but the company called them that...) were the first one to get out of the building as "it's only a drill, no one will di ...".
    via HelpDaren
  • 15
    Little did they know that management were actually testing if they can fulfill their roles properly even if it's a drill, and when it became apparent that they are, in fact, not able to, they were really surprised that management was mad at them.
    via HelpDaren
  • 16
    I am a certified fire marshal at a warehouse now, and I know the names and locations of every single key personnel at work, even if I never met them, whom I have to speak to Every Single Time if we're planning a drill, because they are the ones either can't leave their jobs or have specific evacuation protocols in place.
    via HelpDaren
  • 17
    For example, there is one guy at our transport department I MUST speak to before a drill, because his job includes closing down the loading bays in case of a real fire to stop the fire spreading out of the building into the timber yard, but by smashing the emergency button in his office, all the gates just drop
    via HelpDaren
  • 18
    down at the same time immediately which can lead to massive damage of everything and everyone in their way, and in the gates too. Also, by emergency locking the gates, maintenance department has to manually open all of them, inspect the damage, and re-install the emergency pins which they can only do with a cherry picker. Last time it took them 2 days to go around the 50+ bays one by one...
    via HelpDaren
  • 19
    Horror_Bus_2555 That's why you do one for boiler room separately and just a walk through of what to do.
    via Horror_Bus_2555
  • 20
    Alexis_J_M Top 1% Commenter Probably a better policy would be to have the boiler operators participate in one drill a year, to validate the equipment and processes, with scheduled production downtime following. But yes, "treat all drills as real" needs to have practical exemptions. Well done!
    via Alexis_J_M

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boss worker employee manager job malicious compliance boiler work coworkers working ceo employees supervisor workplace fire drill boiler room Reddit company coworker business
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