Many of us have been in a workplace with unreasonable policies and bosses stuck in old school ways of doing things.

What would you do if you had a boss like this? Would you accept it, or would you find a way to prove there was a better way.

In this story, one boss is too unwilling to change… or track it.

Let’s see how this error gets corrected.

We don’t use track changes here!

When I started working with a particular company, my boss, Wallace, absolutely hated using track changes, and he didn’t allow anyone to use them.

“We DO NOT use track changes here!!!” He told me proudly on my first day.

This meant that we had to type and print everything, go next to him on his desk, and he would correct our work using any medium which was within reach: pencil, blue ink, purple ink, coal, a squid, whatever.

This lead to infinite asterisks, up arrows, down arrows, speech bubbles, etc etc.

And countless misunderstandings and mistakes which wasted everyone’s time and basically frustrated everyone.

Hm what could make Wallace the Time Waster see the light?

Some people raised it to higher ups but to no avail.

I tried to convince him twice to use track changes by listing all the benefits etc.

On the third try he snapped at me and shouted at me in front of everyone: “DIDN’T I TELL YOU THAT WE DON’T USE TRACK CHANGES HERE!!!!”

Whoa there, Wally! Maybe this public outburst gonna backfire…

I remained standing up and loudly and calmly apologised in front of everyone and agreed with him that track changes are unnecessary and I will never ever ever use them again.

Then, I picked up my faintest and messiest pen, and scribbled my answers, comments, and suggestions in reply to his feedback with something as close to a lovechild between wingdings and hieroglyphics as possible.

On a 50 page urgent document.

Using asterisks and PTOs, and everything I could think of.

That’s a weird looking baby. Wonder if Wallace got the message.

I left the document on his desk while he was in a meeting and cheerfully went home.

The next morning we found an email from Wallace, timed at 10:30pm, requesting us to start using track changes immediately.

At the end of that day, following my coworkers’ treatment, I understood why superheroes join the Avengers.

Work hero!

What do the comments on Reddit think?

This person says, sometimes we all need changes.

Someone else says, Wallaces are everywhere.

Another commenter is baffled that anyone would not see the benefits of track changes.

One commenter says, taste of their own medicine is the way to go.

Another user says, there are many shades of Wallace.

Sometimes, people just need an impetus to make (track) changes.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.