Many companies need to have workers traveling around the region every day to get the work done, which can be time consuming and costly.

What would you do if your job was to travel around the area like this, but then your company changed their policy so that you would be getting paid a lot less for the work?

That is what happened to the forklift mechanic in this story, so he made sure to follow the new policy perfectly.

Let’s see how it all worked out.

Company changes paid travel policy to save money, we “follow” it, costing them more

So for my old job, I was a forklift mechanic.

I started off in our shop (bad driving record kept me from starting in a service van).

I had been looking to buy a house, and once my boss got wind of it, he said “hey you should move out west so we have a van out there.”

We had several large customers 2-3 hours from our shop that were being serviced by techs that would drive out and back each day.

This sounds like a great opportunity.

So, I obliged, bought a house right in the middle of them all, getting a company van, and saving them lots of money paying techs to drive each way while also getting to move out of the city and live in the sticks.

We had techs scattered throughout the several hundred square mile territory of our branch.

The original travel policy was setup so we gave up a half hour to the first customer, and the last half hour of the day as well.

Normally we’d all try to start and end close to our house so it wasn’t a big deal, and occasionally take a longer trip if need be for the whole day.

One customer was an all day job.

One of our biggest customers was an hour drive each way, so I’d spend 12 hours there.

Including unpaid lunch, travel to and from the customer, I’d get paid for 13 hours while being gone for 15.5 hours.

Getting 12 hours of on-site work before the move, our company would pay someone 2.5 hours each way and put an extra 140 miles on their service van to do so.

Having techs spread out was efficient.

They would occasionally send someone out with a parts restock and to help knock out some work while they were here and they’d drive straight out and work the whole day, then drive back home at night.

Oh, this will work out well.

Well some bean counter decided they were paying too much money for “commute” time.

They changed it to 45 minutes given up in the morning, and zero pay in the afternoon.

For most techs, it didn’t change much, but for the handful of us that were the most remote, it meant we’d lose 5-10 hours of pay each week.

It caused an outrage, but of course the company said “too bad”.

So here’s where we started “complying”.

Just doing what I’m told boss.

I had a customer that was 15 minutes away to the north, they had a lots of trucks that required monthly service for whatever dumb reason they decided to pick that interval.

Most of them were backup units that only moved if they were in the way or when I serviced them.

So, I’d start my day there, do the 45 minute check on a truck that was in the same spot it was last time I checked it, then drove back past my house to the customer, on the clock, wasting a solid half hour of the day driving extra, and then repeat in the afternoon.

We all did this, and our efficiency dropped.

Now instead of changing the rule to not suck, they started writing us up.

And management will act like they have no idea why people are quitting.

Eventually we all started quitting.

I pursued my side hobby and turned it into a business.

Ended up renting a shop next to the biggest customer we had out here and got to see TWO vans parked there almost every day, from the main branch.

I laughed knowing how much they were wasting sending them both out almost daily.

Several of my old customers would see me around town and say “man I wish you hadn’t quit, we’re switching companies now cuz the new tech sucks”.

Good job bean counters!

Sometimes things that make sense on paper do not actually work out that well in real life, and the bean counters should have realized this.

Let’s see what the people in the comments on Reddit have to say about it.

Absolutely.

This type of thing is way too common.

Make it make sense.

Utter fools.

And they will keep pretending that they are saving money.

The system wasn’t broken, so why did they try to fix it?

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.