Age comes before beauty… and new management.

In this story, a veteran employee complied with new management… to their chagrin.

Let’s see what happened when this old timer got in right on time.

You will come in when this Warehouse opens!

I used to work in a warehouse and one day we got a new Floor Manager.

He had this grand idea that he was going to make an already functional supply warehouse work even better.

It is important to note that all of our deliveries were sent out on time, received on time, no workplace accidents other than the occasional stubbed toe or splinter from a wooden box.

Sounds like a tight ship. Is it about to spring a leak?

This place ran about as smoothly and efficient as possible but it wasn’t good enough for the New Manager.

He made it a point to check on everyone, getting into things that weren’t his business and things he didn’t know about.

One of his biggest things was making sure that everyone was at work on time.

Punctuality is important but something tells me this guy takes it too far.

We didn’t have a time clock, we just wrote down when we got in and when we left.

The New Manager insisted that a punch card system would work much better for us, but the owners weren’t willing to invest in that.

So, New Manager would spend every morning watching everyone come through the front door.

We had maybe fifty people who worked there, so he made sure to count who came in and when.

Anyone who walked in the door past 8:05 am got written up.

That is when he met the Old Guy.

Yeah, Old Guy is not gonna take kindly to this whippersnapper I bet.

Old Guy had been with the company pretty much since it opened.

He knew everything and everyone there.

Great guy and everyone liked him.

On the second or third day of New Manager watching everyone come in, he sees Old Guy walking in the front doors at 8:15.

New Manager rips into Old Guy telling him that he was late, that it was unacceptable, and that he was getting written up.

There it is. But how will this backfire on New Guy?

He is yelling in the middle of the warehouse where everyone can see and hear him. Old Guy tries to explain, but gets told to shut up.

New Manager tops this all off with an order. “This warehouse opens at eight am sharp every day, five days a week. And I expect you at that door at eight am to begin your shift. You will be here when the warehouse opens! Is that understood?”

Old Guy just kinda smiles, takes the paperwork, and apologies stating that he would be in tomorrow at eight am just as he was told.

Well that smile is definitely hiding something, right?

The smug look on the New Manager’s face was picture perfect.

He was certain that he had just fixed the biggest flaw in the company.

The next day at eight am sharp, Old Guy walked through the door and simply made sure that he was seen.

Then he went off into the warehouse.

That day was a nightmare.

Orders were backed up. Trucks were waiting on paperwork.

New Manager is almost in tears because of the chaos.

Uh, something tells me Old Guy is behind this?

The Owner comes in and starts trying to make sense of the situation with New Manager, and they track the paperwork issue back to Old Guy. New Manager is upset, but Owner is concerned and asked Old Guy if everything is okay?

Old Guy just tries to hide his embarrassment saying that New Manager wrote him up the day before and he was told that he had to come in at eight am.

Not at four am like he always did to get all the orders and paperwork ready for the day.

The day before when he walked in the door, he had been coming in from a break.

Oh boy. Will New Guy be able to save face?

New Manager tried to backpedal, saying he didn’t know, that it was Old Guy’s fault. Owner knew better.

After that, the New Manager wasn’t working at the warehouse anymore, or for the company.

He went off to become a New Manager for someplace else.

Thankfully, Old Guy knew what was going to happen and had most of the paperwork done for the day already so we weren’t too behind when the smoke cleared.

Nope. He’s outta there. And Old Guy is still going strong, I bet.

I made this as a comment to a different post. Felt it deserved a full story.

Enjoy.

A toast to the old guard!

What do our comments say about this one?

One person loves it.

Someone else says there’s a reason systems exist, New Managers!

Another user is like, the wheel already got invented once!

One poster thinks Old Guy did a solid job.

Here we go: Old Guy getting the legend status he deserves.

Who says an Old Guy can’t play new tricks?

You never mess with the Old Guy at work.

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.