Just following orders, boss…

If a story has that phrase in it, you know it’s gonna be good…and you know there will be some serious malicious compliance going on!

Check out what this person did when they were only following directions from their manager…

“We’re going to have to throw them away”.

“In the late 1990s, I volunteered at a small private school. They had little money for “extras” like computers. Or computer teachers.

I don’t know much about computers but I knew how to plug them in and I know how to put one together…if you gave me all the parts. So naturally, I got asked to be the director of the “computer lab”.

It had two very old computers. And naturally, it was a volunteer job. I had very little money and a lot of time. They knew that I wanted a job. They told me that after I “build it up”, they would put a salary in the budget.

They were getting screwed over.

I taught classes the difference between the components, some file structure, some BASIC, some DOS, and how rebooting your computer usually solves whatever problems you have. The concept of “drivers”. The thing is, the director of the school didn’t like fundraising. So my salary never got added to the budget.

And the director often kept himself busy doing other things. Useless things. One sunny morning he finds me and tells me to wish him luck. “If today goes right, we’re going to have a huge computer lab!” He comes back from his meeting with a huge smile. “I did it! I convinced a bank to donate to us their old computers!”

Ok. Great.

More work for them…

Now I have to set up and maintain 50 new (for us) computers. I can’t wait. The computers got delivered the next week All terminals. These were Bank Computers. I had no idea how to get them running. They didn’t have hard drives. Or operating systems.

The keyboard and mouse ports were different. They were not the standard ps/2 (at the time). I think they somehow connected to a server, which did not get donated. Their monitors only did text. No graphics. They were useless to us. We needed something to run America Online. Encarta. Maybe Sim City. You know, educational stuff.

I had no idea how to get these to work. I tried asking the director, telling him that the 50 computers were useful…He got super annoyed.

“I’m sure they can be helpful in some way. They must be worth something. Figure it out…because if you can’t we’re going to have to throw them away.”

You asked for it!

He thought he was threatening me. He did not think I’d throw out 50 computers.

After all, he worked hard to get them.

I did not hesitate at all. My next class, I had screwdrivers for everyone.

We disassembled everything. If it had a screw we unscrewed it.

The class figured out what each piece was. And then the class activity was to take the pieces to the dumpster.

By the end of the day, there was nothing left.

The next day the director asked me where the computers were.

“Oh, you were right! They were very useful. The students took them apart, learned all about the different components, and then threw them out. Just like you said we should!”

His face turned all sorts of colors. And he stormed out.

What I didn’t tell him… is that I saved the RAM from the garbage. I mean, after all, it was in the garbage. Right?

And sold them on the online classifieds (Remember Yahoo Classifieds?) for $20 apiece.

There were two in each computer….so I got $2,000.

I guess they were useful after all.”

Check out what folks had to say on Reddit.

This person shared their thoughts.

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This Reddit user shared their thoughts.

Another reader chimed in.

This Reddit user had a lot to say.

What a waste…

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.