Some managers are so focused on rules that they miss when something is actually working.

What would you do if you were following direct orders, only to get scolded for it when it was clearly helping your store?

Would you apologize and move on?

Or would you fight for your cause?

In the following story, one overnight stocker finds himself in this very situation and opts for the latter.

Here’s what happened.

Halloween Candy

So I used to work overnight at a grocery store (think similar to Walmart), stocking shelves.

We were supposed to follow planograms, which would basically just tell you where things were supposed to go on the shelves to keep all the stores uniform.

Like every year, we started receiving large amounts of Halloween candy.

Instead of putting it in the normal candy aisle, we had a seasonal section where it would go.

No problem, but it wouldn’t fit.

And it wouldn’t fit up in the steel where we would keep overfill product.

My manager and I looked in the candy aisle and saw it was pretty wiped out, without any of the usual items to stock.

So he told me to just put the Halloween candy in there and make it look nice.

For the next couple of nights, I noticed it was selling really well.

It didn’t take long for the store manager to change his mind.

On day three or four, the store director came in early and pulled me aside and basically berated me for stocking things outside of the planogram and not following procedure.

I tried to explain, but he didn’t want to listen.

Fine, cue malicious compliance.

My manager and I spent two hours removing everything that didn’t belong in the aisle and rearranging it.

There were probably 10-15 missing products that just left an empty spot on the shelves.

It looked terrible.

We took all the extra candy and just parked it in the back since there was nowhere to put it.

Oh, well, not our problem.

Came in the next night, and he had written a note saying ‘please fill in all holes in candy aisle.’

My manager wrote back ‘Sorry, can’t. No product in store according to Planogram’

Came in the next night, and the day, people had put all the candy back where I had it in the aisles.

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The store manager never complained about the way we stocked again for the next year I worked there.

Wow! He should’ve at least listened to his reasoning.

Let’s check out what the folks over at Reddit have to say about this.

This probably would’ve backfired.

So true!

Too funny!

Here’s a good point.

The manager should’ve listened.

Had he given his employee the time of day, he would have seen why they put the candy away like that.

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.