Isn’t it fun when we see annoying people get a taste of their own medicine?
This goes double for managers who don’t even realize how irritating they are until their actions come home to roost.
This man puts his boss in his place by following directions to the letter.
Check out the full story.
Turned Regional Managers over-enforced compliance malicious
Setting:
Back around 2010 I was working for a chain auto parts store while going to school. O… O… O… I shouldn’t tell you which one.
Background:
They had some work rules that were non-negotiable.
We had a Regional Manager, let’s call him Bob, that would come by now and again and among other things work on enforcing internal policies.
He’d also make sure to pick up a few customer calls while on premise and deal with them as I suppose a show of comradery.
One of the policies we had was “Never Say No”, the premise being that if a customer wanted something, you make it happen.
He was great at work…
Generally, I had a pretty good feel on both internal and external resources; we had our warehouses, “special order” outside supplier networks, local vendors, a local WalMart, even our competition that I was authorized to buy from, mark up, then sell to customers if that’s what they wanted.
(saving a potential future edit, I was always very transparent when I thought it was a dumb call and gave options to customers).
Basically, an auto shop could ask us to bring them Tacos and we would make it happen.
I’m a car guy myself and can generally find whatever part is in question if I really need to.
Setup:
There were some bumps here and there.
Bob is in store one day and hears me tell a customer that we’re far from the best option for getting whatever part it was, or just flat out probably couldn’t make it happen, I don’t know.
I sure wish now I could remember the details.
Call ends, I get a lecture on “Never Say No” even though the request was truly beyond feasibility, even having a good grasp on what we can provide.
Malicious Compliance:
He decides to get back at the boss.
Some time later, Bob is back in the store.
He picks up a call, listens to a customers request and is a little baffled because it’s for something very odd.
He turns to me as he knows that if we can get it, I’ll figure out a way “Hey, Zealous, can we get X?” Without even thinking I respond right back “Sure Bob, absolutely!”.
What happened next shocked Bob!
He takes customers info, hangs up, then asks me where we can source said item. I tell him flat out “Heck if I know, Bob! Never say no!”
Fallout:
His jaw hits the floor, full surprised Pikachu, forced into stunned silence.
Sadly again, this is almost 15 years ago and I don’t remember the details.
Bob learned his lesson!
I do know I never got any verbal or written warning resulting from it, and he never pestered me about the “Never Say No” policy again.
Customer wise, we could never get whatever was requested in the first place, so they may have gotten a glimmer of false hope before the call back, I see that now, didn’t in my instinctual reaction at the time.
That’s an interesting turn of events!
This man proved his boss how it’s okay to let some customers go!
Let’s find out what the Reddit community thinks about this story.
That’s right! A raise would have justified this policy.
This person is one of the competitors.
That sounds reasonable. This person has their sources figured out.
Exactly! This boss deserved that.
This user knows that this silly story was a good one.
Who doesn’t want to prove their boss wrong?
No one!
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.