When a new boss shows up at a company, there can be some friction between the boss and the employees.

In today’s story, the employees try to ignore the boss’s wishes, but that doesn’t go so well.

Let’s see how it all plays out…

“Only Plow When I Tell You To.”

Brad works for the county road department running a maintainer tractor for the dirt roads. It’s basically a big tractor with a blade to scrape the roads. It also can double as a snow plow when needed.

A few years ago the county road supervisor (Brad’s boss) retired. The new guy wasn’t from around the area, but he worked in a similar situation before. His name is Andy.

Andy sadly got off on the wrong foot with the road guys.

This was a big change for the road guys.

They were used to going to the roads they thought needed the most work. The old boss let them because they were on those roads every day, most of them even lived near them.

Andy wasn’t used to running things that way. He chewed out a few guys for going out without permission, citing budget cuts and that there wasn’t enough money to fuel up their trucks and tractors and they needed to work out when to work and where.

Most of the guys understood that. The county board took advantage of a new guy and it was going to be a lean year. They stepped back.

Then winter came.

Winter changed everything.

Most of the maintainer guys prepped their trucks and tractors to help out the plows. They always had because there were a lot of roads, too many for the number of plows the county had.

The first snow that hit was pretty light. An inch or so, but the plows and the road guys got it cleaned up very quickly.

When they came back in Andy was furious.

Andy realized they weren’t in agreement.

He thought he had made it clear that the could not go out to work wherever they thought they were needed. He yelled at all of them for it.

All of them were very taken aback when he said, “Only go out and plow if I tell you to go out and plow.”

They met up outside and agreed to follow those directions to the letter. They took off any snow plow attachments they had and waited.

The next time it snowed, the road guys complied with Andy’s wishes.

The next week it snowed again.

This time it was much more: nearly two feet of snow, and Brad sat at home and waited. He knew by 5 AM calls would start coming into Andy’s office complaining about the roads.

Our own driveway was completely impassable, but Brad had already called and explained the situation and we just enjoyed a day off.

It only took until 9 for Andy to call up Brad. He hadn’t been the first Andy had called either.

Andy changed his mind.

“I know your plow stuff isn’t on, but go ahead and get it attached and get out there when you can. Do whatever roads you usually do, I trust your guy’s judgement. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

And Brad got to work. It was after rush hour when he was done, but the roads were clear.

Andy realized he’d made a mistake.

The meeting was actually quite pleasant.

Andy apologized for how he acted and promised that he would get more money to get the roads into shape somehow.

He even thanked them for being up and out so quickly after he called them.

They apologized for acting like they knew everything and said he was right to try and reign them in a little.

Brad still loves his job, still plows and keeps the roads looking good. He says that from them on if Andy was yelling at you, you deserved it.

All’s well that ends well, right?

Let’s see what folks on Reddit had to say…

This reader thought the story was going to end differently.

Another reader found the story “refreshing.”

This person loved the way the story played out.

Another reader loved the story as well.

This person is holding out hope for at least some retaliation.

A boss and employees can learn from each other? Who knew!?

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.