New Corporate VP fires crucial team members, engineers maliciously comply with new policies, leading to financial mess: 'All the [employees] who were let go were rehired'

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Mar 18, 2025 8:00 AM EDT

Sometimes, one has no choice but to follow a flawed policy at work. Perhaps you've tried to explain to your new boss that what they think will be more efficient will actually be more costly in the grand scheme of things. If you attempted to explain this in logical terms, you were probably met with resistance. Your new boss might have even told you to trust them when, of course, they seem to have no interest in trusting your judgment.

Let this story serve as yet another reminder that while we don't want to always resort to malicious compliance to prove a point, there are time when it is the only option. Keep scrolling below for this tale of an engineering team's friction with their new VP. 

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    Cheezburger Image 10481521664
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • This new VP clearly had too much confidence, given his wild insistence that the buyers on his engineering team were examples of excess workers that could be let go to cut down on costs. Of course, the other engineers on the team knew that this would be a mistake, but the message was not heard by the stubborn VP. So, you can imagine what happened next, but first, here is a little background on the workings of this department.

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    So, for those who are unaware, companies usually have engineering staff talk with engineering of parts suppliers, detail down the specifications and whatnot, and then the list
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    goes to the purchasing department or the purchasing folks of that particular engineering department.
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    This is because engineers don't want to involve themselves with 30/60/90 days due, terms and conditions of sale, validity of quotes, remember the correct quote PDFs because they have hundreds of them, and working
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    with finance department to understand what is the best for the overall financial health. Also, in fairly large companies, you have buyers dedicated for each vendor or buyers dedicated to certain products, like
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    pneumatics, electrical, heavy duty construction, mechanical components, made to order parts etc. And the buyers themselves have internal pathways and routes so that each required
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    product finds themselves with the correct buyer, because the engineers are and to lower their workload they will more often than not, dump all the parts on a single buyer.
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    A new VP comes in, sees 'Buyers' as bloat, fat to be trimmed, and makes a decision.
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    He lays off 8 buyers in that engineering department which makes whole factory material handling systems. Systems that handle nearly all the materials moving through multi hundred thousand square footage, from
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    raw materials warehouses and yards to finished goods sections. We had to order the stuff ourselves. Before we did though, 3 senior staff engineers ask that to be sent in a department wide email. VP does so.
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    And now, starts then compliance. Vendors ask what due terms do you want? Not aware of how deep you have to go, engineers ask for the best price. Due in 15 days after delivery. Sure, let's do that.
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    Turns out, that vendor usually was on a net 90 day due, because paying off in the next quarter would be more sensible.
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    What department do you want me to bill it to? Of course mine, because I'm ordering it. (Engineers blissfully unaware, the billing happens by sales department as it gets easier to finally do profitability analysis
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    since whichever sales department got the contract, pays for the parts too). Turns out our department didn't have a single process or work route to get bills and pay them.
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    Now, by the time we get to the bottom of the purchasing list, the offered quotes have expired, so we get back to vendor sales teams, and get a new quote and wait, doing nothing much until we get quotes and then order stuff.
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    End of quarter, department finances are a total massive f ed up mess. 8 figure mess. CFO is red faced, steaming from her ears, trying to find out what is going on.
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    Engineers: Oh! The best price was net due 15 days, so I selected that. Well, I was ordering it, so the bill should come to us. Why would other department pay for the stuff that I'm asking for?
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    CFO: Who asked you to do the ordering yourself? This is not your job. Everyone shows her the email. End of day, VP walked out, to be never seen again.
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    All the buyers who were let go, were rehired, and all of them negotiated a pay increase of $6.5/hr.
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    TLDR; VP not realizing importance of buyers who were paid $38.5/he lays them off, giving their responsibilities to engineers who made $60-90/hr,
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    who didn't have the knowledge of workflow and actual work to be done. Engineers did a good job from their POV, costing the company tens of millions, and VP off, company hires back the laid off buyers at a higher wage.
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    Cheezburger Image 10481521920
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • The best part of this story, of course, is that after the VP was let go, all of the crucial team members who had been unjustly fired were brought back on and given justified raises. We all know that this kind of righteous correction almost never happens in the corporate workspace, so when it does, we have to applaud the efforts of the decent employees involved. 

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    mellonians This is why I as an engineer I can order whatever parts I like and the finance people sort out pricing. I never get to see a bill. On the rare
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    occasion I need to procure something I establish that the firm can supply it and I email parts and say "buy me this, I want it delivered here".
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    jtsage Well--well look. I already told you: I deal with the god customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the h l is wrong with you people?
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    CoderJoe1 Manglement at it's finest.
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getting fired workplace-stories fired work stories toxic-workplace job malicious compliance fired story work company workplace malicious compliance toxic-work-environment
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