Automotive product planning employee gets promoted and boss fired by booking wheels and tires as checked luggage when boss tries to blame him for a misdelivered shipment of wheels for a photoshoot: 'He had no one else to blame'

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Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Dec 11, 2025 9:00 PM EST

There is nothing more satisfying than reflecting something intended for you back onto the instigator.

Some of us probably first experienced this when we were playing Pokémon as kids and successfully pulled off a Mirror Coat or Counter and reversed damage back onto our opponent. But let's be honest, most of us were probably too busy employing "damage move only" strategies to realize the usefulness of such moves. 

That rush of satisfaction when a poorly planned trap backfires and you're able to activate one of your own is extremely gratifying, but outside of video games, card games, and other games of chance, you'll seldom get the chance to enact one of the well-executed reversals. Even if the opportunity was there, you won't realize it until days later, in the shower, when you're replaying events in your head. 

Now, also important to realize here that in business, there is the company's "logistics," and then there is logic itself. You might be mistaken and think that the two would meet up, but there are all kinds of reasons. Implementing a process or policy for another reason can often have shortsighted effects and unintended consequences in other areas of the business. If these aren't reviewed and amended on a case-by-case basis and instead applied rigidly, you'll end up with situations where what you're being asked to do just doesn't make any sense at all.

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  • An expensive black car with new wheels is posed for a photoshoot
    via LOGAN WEAVER | @LGNWVR

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

  • Take for instance, an often occurring example where you're banned from flying into or out of the closest airport for company trips because it's more expensive, so you instead have to take a taxi/Uber to a less expensive airport, but the cost of the taxi balloons it in cost to the point where the time wasted and the cost of the Uber make it overall more expensive than just going to the closer.

    I'm sure you, reading this, already have your own experiences of these sorts of silly experiences popping into your head; these things just sort of happen. Well, this employee had such an experience when his boss, who had been repeatedly trying to pin mistakes on him and generally scapegoat him for things that weren't his fault, gave him a shortsighted demand that he get a shipment of wheels and tires that was meant to end up at an international location for a photoshoot to its location. He booked the cargo as costly checked oversize luggage on his flight to the location, which had knock-on consequences that would contribute to his boss's firing some months later.

  • "MC on boss lead to new job and him being fired"

    Nearly 30 years ago I worked for the US National Sales company for a major automotive brand. I was in product planning working on the launch of new model vehicles but was junior level at the time. My boss was a real hard ass on things and was the type that when he did something wrong then it was someone else's fault or if it was a good thing that happened, he would take all the credit.
    via D90man
  • One Friday he dumped in my lap that a shipment of wheels and tires had to be sent to Europe for following Monday as part of a photoshoot. This was the same trip that he had previously denied my travel request to support the event. Also, he knew about these wheels and tires a week or more prior and I think he was trying to make me look bad by dumping
    via D90man
  • it on me last minute. When i asked him about how I was supposed to get these packed and shipped for arrival in 2-days he told me to just get it done and not to bother him with the detail. Further, he wanted the wheels and tires back ASAP after the photoshoot. Trigger MC on this.
    via D90man
  • So I booked a flight to Europe and took the wheels and tires as over-sized luggage. I then rented a van, collected the wheels and tires, and took them to the photoshoot. I took care of business, hung around for the next two days and then took the wheels and tires back with me on return flight on Tuesday morning.
    via D90man
  • Cheezburger Image 10583720704
    via D90man
  • his plan? Shortly after this I was offered the role of as Vehicle Manager in Corporate Communications group which I gladly took, even though my boss tried to prevent it. My former boss was let go about 4 months later. Apparently, he had no one else to blame for his mess ups.
    via D90man
  • DeadMoneyDrew I'm betting that the cost of flying yourself plus the wheels and equipment as oversized luggage wasn't that much more expensive than shipping the equipment overnight. Next day air is freaking expensive and for good reason.
    via D90man
  • OP D90man Nope I looked into this and the costs were more. Remember I would have had to get a shipping company to then pick up the cargo and then drive it an hour or so to the photoshoot. I would have then had to do the same arrangement to have wheels and tires returned. So it was far less expensive this way
    via D90man
  • tsian The only thing that could have made this better is if there were only first-class tickets left.
    via D90man
  • OP D90man yeah but I felt at the time it would have been pushing it. I still had to have my boss approve my expense report.
    via D90man
  • Geminii27 And each wheel had to have its own seat.
    via D90man
  • OP D90man Lol - too funny
    via D90man
  • NeolithicOrkney This little vindictive man (the boss, "little" indicating brain size) must have had a very unhappy life if he felt such a need to want to bring someone down who made HIM look good. People like this only look good to themselves, not to anyone else.
    via D90man
  • OP D90man Yep he was a real piece of low life.
    via D90man
  • farting_contest He made you look so bad that without you as cover he got fired in 4 months. But, the company also promoted you because of a weekend event even though they presumably had piles of negative reports about you. I am unconvinced.
    via D90man
  • OP D90man I did not clarify that I knew all the execs already as they were from the US sales company. My boss at the time had policy that no one on his team could talk to any of the execs. So he wanted to control all information flow up the chain. So there was longer history here. They knew that my boss denied my trip over to support which they could not understand. So he was already under review for all his BS.
    via D90man
  • Coder Joe1 He screwed up wheel bad.
    via D90man
  • maybelying It's expensive if you use a courier company, but some airlines have a cargo division that will take goods and get them on the next available passenger flight that has enough room in the cargo hold for a pretty reasonable price. At a previous job, we used Air Canada when we needed same day shipments within Canada. It was pretty cheap compared to other options, but part of that is because the main drawback is that you would have to arrange delivery to and pick up from the cargo terminal
    via D90man
  • Wolverine-7509 Exactly. Less risk. Personal handling/oversight. A+
    via D90man
  • LMA 1954 Computer stuff. Hardware shipping from France, software Dev team in US. 1st customer ship date looming - 6 customers in initial order. But documentation (manuals) are not ready in France. Manuals can be locally printed in US. Someone going to France cannot take multiple copies of manuals as Customs will not allow. 6 members of Dev team flew to France, each one carrying a full "personal" set of the manuals - which were conveniently left there to ship with the product, and we had our cele
    via D90man
  • TheFluffiestRedditor I know several people who have traveled like this with hard drives and computers. Sometimes hand delivered is the best option
    via D90man

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