We all know food waste is bad…

But in this story, a manager’s zero waste policy makes zero sense.

Let’s get the scoop.

Stop wasting ingredients!

Years ago I worked as a laborer in a food production company.

Kind of a mom and pop size production/distribution facility.

We made all types of foods and sauces.

One of the more mundane steps to a particular sauce was opening and emptying large cans of tomato sauce into a large mixer.

Sauce in large quantities is kinda gross. Is there gross misjudgment here too?

Pretty simple, just open, pour and toss the can.

One of the higher ups decided we were wasting a lot of the sauce by not thoroughly cleaning out each can.

We’re talking probably 20-30 oz of tomato sauce per batch which was probably around 2-3% waste.

I get it, every cent counts.

Pinching and scraping pennies… how will management “solve this?”

The problem was, the solution they came up with was to use these rubber spatulas to clean out the extra sauce from these metal cans.

It didn’t take a scientist to see that this would not work out well with the cans being sharp and cutting into the rubber, leading to rubber going into the sauce.

I tried voicing concerns but was shut down.

I assume they just thought we were lazy and didn’t want the extra work.

Squash the tomato and the dissent. Wonder if OP will make their voice heard or see red…

So we do as we are told and start cleaning the cans thoroughly.

Sure enough, about 10 cans in we notice our spatulas missing large chunks of rubber.

I hand one of the spatulas to my supervisor and he takes it to his boss.

On cue, he comes back about 2 minutes later and says don’t worry about scooping out the cans anymore.

That was my first taste of, ‘maybe being a manager doesn’t mean you have all the answers’.

The manager isn’t always right.

Let’s see what the comments say.

One person says, incroyable!

Someone else is like, wait, what?!

Somebody else points out that at least these manager admitted they were wrong.

One user has tips for a better mousetrap.

Another person says the best bosses aren’t bossy.

You say tomato, I say bad idea.

Stop and think about it for a minute.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.