A company can only run smoothly when the right people are doing the work, but that doesn’t mean the higher-ups always notice.

What would you do if your best worker was being micromanaged despite their dedication?

Would you push back against the unfair scrutiny?

Or would you let the numbers speak for themselves?

In the following story, one manager witnesses this scenario play out in real-time.

Here’s what happened.

As a new manager, my boss told me to start keeping a stricter leash on my subordinates. Okay.

A few years ago, I was a maintenance manager for a rental company.

We had about 700 units (apartments and houses) and only 5 full-time workers.

It was only sustainable because we had one tradesman (Bob) who would work without any complaints, fixing clogged toilets, not working heat, and anything else that he was in contact with.

When I became manager, my boss wanted me to monitor Bob’s actual work times because all the boss saw was that Bob was 5-10 minutes late every day.

He wouldn’t accept that he was working 50+ hours a week.

We agreed on a punch-in clock to solve this problem.

Now, I was in maintenance before with Bob.

He was a mule but worked more and harder.

I knew if we monitored his hours, it would be far more than before.

In the first week with the clock Bobs check had 40 some hours, the boss felt vindicated and gloated that we would probably save around my yearly bonus now.

It turns out the clock actually helped Bob.

Fast forward to the end of my position there, and Bob had gone 30 weeks in a row with 50+ hours, effectively turning the 75,000$ job into a 125000$ job.

Bob had built up 4 weeks sick days and 3 weeks vacation.

He knew I was leaving (I like tools not paperwork) and wanted to book off all this time before I left, I submitted the requests and HR approved them.

On my last day there and the beginning of Bob’s vacation, he announced he was submitting his resignation, and today was his last day.

My boss made me take him to the office and convince him to stay.

We ended up grabbing our coats and going out for a beer.

I found out later that they had to hire 2 people to replace Bob, and the boss was not getting an extension on his contract.

Wow! Sounds like the company was better off before.

Let’s see what the readers over at Reddit have to say about upper-level management.

Some companies never do.

So true!

According to this comment, there are two types of employees: Bobs and Nicks.

This Bob really hurt the company using its own policy.

This is just another example of a boss putting a foot in his mouth.

But at least this time, it helped an employee get the compensation he deserved, so well done!

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.