For some managers, the only thing they hate worse than a job poorly done is being contradicted by a subordinate.

When a stubborn retail manager ignored their employee’s advice and demanded they stack their shirts sky high, they were forced to watch those piles tumble, along with the store’s profits.

Read on for the full story!

You want all the shirts stacked on the edge of the table? Sure thing boss.

So I work at a clothing store on the sales floor. My job is basically to interact with customers to help them get what they’re looking for and also fold, organize, and store clothes.

During my shift, there was this table that was just PACKED with clothes, with piles that went super tall.

So I decided to start with that table.

They noticed a problem, so they found a clever solution that could work.

As I was working, I noticed that there was a shelf under the table that was empty.

Those shelves are normally used as storage for excess. My plan was to make normal piles and then store the excess on those shelves.

They followed store protocol to the best of their abilities.

Some of the rules for how things should look say that you only need 2 or 3 items of each size per pile and to sort them from biggest size at the bottom to smallest at the top.

There’s also an unwritten rule where, if the pile ends up small, you add more until it reaches the bottom of the price sign.

So I did that — I made piles that reached the bottom of the sign and then stored the rest.

But apparently, this wasn’t good enough for the manager.

As I was starting to store the excess, one of the managers passed by and asked what I was doing.

I explained what I was doing, and he didn’t like it. He told me to put everything on the table.

The employee tried their best to push back, but their advice fell on deaf ears.

I explained why that was a bad idea: it could make it harder for customers to find their size and easier for them to accidentally make a mess.

But he didn’t care and just told me to put everything back.

So, against their better judgment, the employee did what the manager asked.

So I did, and I just stacked them. The piles ended up being very tall. I’m 6’2″, and some of the piles reached my chest.

That’s what the boss wanted, so I finished and went away to do something else.

Our store also has a baby/toddler area, so parents sometimes bring their kids to shop.

But then, disaster struck.

After I had left that table to work on something else, a father stood next to the table to wait for his wife, and he had his kid on his shoulder.

I don’t remember why — maybe it was to burp the baby or calm it down — but as the father was swinging from side to side to soothe the baby, he accidentally hit the side of the table.

Some of the piles on that side fell down behind the father. And as if it was a sign from the universe to show I had the right idea, just as the father was turning around to see what had happened, the baby puked.

The fallout was pretty intense.

Because of the momentum, the puke covered a lot of the shirts that were now on the floor.

We had no choice but to throw away those dirty clothes. There were a lot of them.

And the incident had pretty big consequences for the store — and the manager whose idea it was to stack the shirts.

It got expensive because each shirt cost like 10 bucks, and there were easily 10-15, maybe 20 shirts on the floor. So we lost a couple hundred dollars there.

The worst part? The first manager, who told me to stack them, tried to pass the blame onto me. But I explain what happened to another manager and they put the blame back on that first manager and him pay for the damages.

What did Reddit think?

This commenter can’t comprehend how a manager could treat his employee so poorly.

Surely a more equitable system for damages could be put into place.

According to this redditor, the manager’s actions weren’t only wrong — they were also against the law.

Shouldn’t the person who made the damage (or rather, their parents) cover the loss?

As the shirts toppled and the losses piled up, it became clear that inflexibility is an expensive trait.

Turns out, the boss doesn’t always know best!

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.