Keeping old equipment running can be tricky, especially when it hasn’t been used in months and starts breaking down the moment it’s turned on.

But what if your boss demanded higher efficiency and blamed your team for not maintaining the machines properly, even after you explained the issues?

Would you keep patching things up to save time?

Or would you follow orders and let the costs pile up?

In the following story, a group of technicians find themselves dealing with this exact scenario.

Here’s what they did.

Petty revenge by doing your job to the letter

I work in the technical department of a fairly large company.

We deal in repackaging stuff. (Imported goods mainly)

So what frequently happens is that other companies hire us to process their “in less than optimal condition” products.

The other week, we had to do a small run, and the office decided to use an old machine to run it through.

This machine, however, had been stationary for about 8-9 months.

For those who don’t know, stationary machines tend to deteriorate despite maintenance.

There is no substitute for actual production.

So what happened is one air hose after the other started breaking.

The technicians tried to keep the process moving, but management was not happy.

Because we are chronically understaffed, the week technicians patch everything up to get it running as fast as possible, and the weekend technicians fix it properly.

(This has to do with the contract the sales dept. made concerning who pays what type of technical interventions. Be it our office or the client)

The office, on the other hand, didn’t understand why the machine wasn’t being more efficient and told us off for not doing a proper job of maintaining it.

A machine that has been at a standstill for over 8 months doesn’t just work perfectly on day one?

Shocking, I know.

So in an unseen act of comradery, we no longer just patch things, we take the full time to replace everything.

Meaning efficiency took a nosedive, the cost shot up like a rocket, and the small profit that was forecasted has turned into a 4-digit loss … so far.

Wow! So much for thinking they know more.

Let’s check out how the readers over at Reddit relate to this story.

They didn’t like this person’s response.

Great point.

This person learned not to go above and beyond.

Yikes! This company isn’t doing too well.

It serves the company right. The people in charge should keep a better eye on the P&L and make changes when needed.

Apparently, they’re not doing that.

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.