'They ended up giving me a raise': Company moves management overseas to streamline operations, ends up destroying productivity until they rehire the local manager they demoted

Author image for Isabella Penn
Isabella Penn
Oct 11, 2025 5:00 PM EDT

Some corporate decisions sound like they were made by people who've never worked a day in their lives. This retired programmer shared how his company decided to streamline operations by consolidating U.S. and U.K. programming departments by putting all management overseas. The plan was to let the U.K. bosses oversee the U.S. programmers remotely. What could possibly go wrong with a six-hour time difference?

For a while, the U.S. team still came to him with questions. After all, he was the former manager and actually awake during their workday. But when the U.K. managers complained that the Americans weren't coming to them, he was ordered to stop helping.

So he did exactly that.

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  • The U.S. team flooded their new bosses’ inboxes with questions that couldn’t be answered until the next morning. Deadlines slipped, projects stalled, and frustration mounted on both sides of the ocean. 

    Within weeks, the same higher-ups who dismissed his warnings were begging him to take his management role back. Sometimes malicious compliance doesn’t just prove your point — it gets you a bigger paycheck too.

  • Cheezburger Image 10563098112
    via krakenimages For Unsplash+

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.


     

  • "OK, I won't answer my old staff's questions and help them..."

    Before I retired I was manager and programmer in a department located in the US. I would program, manage, assign projects, create timelines, answer questions that my staff had, etc.
    via blueboy714
  • The company I worked for decided to consolidate the US and UK programming departments and the new boss decided have only managers in the UK oversee the programmers in the US.
    via blueboy714
  • This meant that I was only supposed to keep programming (I had the most experience among all the US/UK programmers) and no longer needed to do the management side of things (but I still got the same pay I used to).
    via blueboy714
  • Due to a 6 hour time difference between the US and UK that meant that there were only 2 or 3 hours each day that we overlapped.
    via blueboy714
  • This left the rest of the day for my old staff to either wait until the next day to ask their new boss or come to me and I could answer immediately.
    via blueboy714
  • The latter made more sense so they could keep working - but eventually the UK managers complained to US/UK boss that the US staff wasn't coming to them to help and were still coming to me which the UK - managers were having a conniption about.
    via blueboy714
  • My boss told me to stop helping my old staff when they asked me questions and that they needed to ask their new manager.
    via blueboy714
  • So it was time for malicious compliance... I went back to only programming and when my old staff came and asked me questions (usually in the afternoons US time since the UK was done for the day).
    via blueboy714
  • I told them I was told to no longer help them and they should ask their new UK manager the next day or send their UK boss an email with their question.
    via blueboy714
  • I told them it was time for malicious compliance - since the US programmers knew exactly what would happen.
    via blueboy714
  • So my old team started deluging their UK bosses with questions, problems, etc. and then had to wait until the next day or 2 to get answer.
    via blueboy714
  • Within 2 weeks the US team was missing deadlines, etc. and the UK managers had to answer for why their team was missing deadlines.
    via blueboy714
  • After a couple more weeks my boss and the UK managers came to the realization that due to the 6 hour time different there should be manager in the US (which is exactly what I told them weeks ago).
    via blueboy714
  • Finally my boss asked me if would like to be a manager again and I told her I was happy just programming and didn't need the other work.
    via blueboy714
  • They ended up giving me a raise in order to get me go back to managing the US programmers.
    via blueboy714
  • DOL 58662831K 12 la bentle F59149938 F 6 for batte f SAVEMAVY 3124807 D WASHINGTON.D.C 1392 WASHINGTON EDERAL RESER ITED STATES 038607515 E 11 NITED STATES OF AMERICA F 50088469 WASHINGTON, DC. ELLONLAH GEO VIEGE WASHIN UNITE RICA ONE TE WASHINGTON DC. L85040200 N AMERICA A 5 FEDERAL RES) THE UNITED STATE THIS WOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE 30 E 95597674 E 5 Ros bemutates Ri 7 G UNITED STATES OT C 88969823 G 7 lost G 88969823 FEDER DOLLAR THE UNITED S WASHINGTON DC. 7 MER
    via Alexander Grey For Unsplash+
  • revchewie Holding out and getting the raise is the chef's kiss!
    via revchewie
  • vaisatriani Managers never seem to realize what will happen when people need to wait for an answer to something from coworkers on the other side of the world.
    via vaisatriani
  • Gonpostlscott NICE! Gotta love when the newbies take over, knowing. better than anyone else, and screwing up processes that didn't need to be changed! At least you got a raise out of it!
    via Gonpostlscott

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