Forklift driver at 1.4-million-square-foot factory strictly follows strict no-phones rule by shutting his off, sending managers on a wild goose chase every shift as their own policy backfires: ‘I received like 30 calls a day that were left unanswered’

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Etai Eshet • Editor
May 2, 2025 9:00 AM EDT

Management loves nothing more than imposing sweeping new rules destined to create chaos, and nothing screams progress like banning phones in a factory sprawling across 1.4 million square feet. Enter one "compliant" forklift driver, whose only crime is using his phone to stay reachable while shuttling supplies and keeping production afloat. 

The bosses, in a fit of anti-technology nostalgia, decide the world will spin smoother if every worker goes cold turkey on their mobiles. Productivity, they imagine, will skyrocket. What actually happens is any chance of finding the guy who keeps the wheels turning evaporates entirely.

The forklift driver returns with a glorious act of malicious compliance, the phone goes off the moment the shift begins. The only calls getting answered are calls accompanied by sandwich breaks.

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  • This obviously leaves managers to transform from overseers to amateur detectives, wandering an industrial wasteland in search of a single human needle in a warehouse haystack. Each missed call, numbering in the dozens daily, serves as a tribute to workplace logic gone wild, proving that in the absence of communication multiplies managerial frustration. as all the great plans, all the memos, all the formal complaints in the world can’t teleport a driver to the right place at the right time when the tech designed to help is collecting dust on a charger.

  • Cheezburger Image 10499923456
    via pixelfit

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

  • This happened some months ago, and i remebered it while reading some ot the posts here.
    via eugebra
  • So, i'm a forklift driver in a factory that produces chemical products for building and construction, adhesives, sealants, cement, etc...
    via eugebra
  • my job basically consist in providing the workers with everything they need to continue production. my department produces adhesives and my shift has
    via eugebra
  • NO PHONE ZONE
    via Magenta
  • circa 20 people, so i'm constantly moving back and forth between the warehouse, the department and everywhere else we stock the materials.
    via eugebra
  • In the time this happened, our managers started to pressure us on the use of phones, which many people did use a lot, and some were really
    via eugebra
  • exxagerating with it. i used it in the slow moments, or while i was waiting for something, obviously not while driving, and i had to
    via eugebra
  • keep it near me because the bosses needed to reach for me while i was away from the department for various tasks.
    via eugebra
  • Cheezburger Image 10499924224
    via SHOTPRIME

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

  • They really became very strict on the use of phones, and a guy got even a formal complaint for it (3) compaints in a single year gets you fired).
    via eugebra
  • Malicious compliance: i simply shut off the phone at the start of the shift and only turned it on while on break.
    via eugebra
  • Now, i didn't specify how BIG my workplace is, it's 1,4million square feet, and sometime it took me even
    via eugebra
  • sometime it took me even 10 minutes to go where i needed to go and come back and i received like 30 calls a day that were simply
    via eugebra
  • left unanswered. my managers were going mad but they couldn't do sh because they imposed the rule.
    via eugebra
  • EDIT since i saw them mentioned. They provided us with walkie-takies, but the obviously needed to be charged, and since we are
    via eugebra
  • working on 3 rotating shifts, they were never fully charged and d d after an hour.
    via eugebra
  • dtmpower They should be providing a communication or radio solution for their staff.
    via dtmpower
  • yParticle Amazing how many companies want things both ways. No personal devices but we require you to be reachable and to use multifactor authentication...
    via yParticle
  • oldguycomingthrough I worked on one construction site that did similar. It was an absolutely massive project so phones were a necessity. I got pulled in about I my phone use (we had a massive snitch on the job) so I showed them my call log. Every single call during work hours was from a foreman, supervisor or engineer. I didn't know why I was being called in so didn't delete anything from the call log.
    via oldguycomingthrough
  • Next day we had a tool box talk regarding phone use and site managers told their underlings they're not to use their phones on site to call us. It was one massive clusterf from there on in. Needless to say that it didn't last long.
    via oldguycomingthrough
  • Majestic-Major22 Agreed, I work in a large turkey processing facility, also as a forklift operator, and everyone that needs to communicate with others carriers a walkie radio with multiple channels for different departments.
    via Majestic-Major22
  • Cruxwright With a 5 min drive out on a forklift, would a walkie-talkie even work? H_|| think you'd need to go CB radios at those distances. If they really wanted you to use a phone on shift they could have bought some old school flip phones and had a cheap plan for them. Hand them out to the drivers start of the shift based on route or something.
    via Cruxwright

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management boss workplace-stories hr toxic-workplace manager bosses work PTO managers supervisor workplace Horrible Bosses work-life balance
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