It’s always annoying when you get contradictory instructions from a customer or a boss. Like Gumby being pulled in two directions at once.

In this story, that’s exactly what happens.

How will our brave soul deal with these multiple commitments? Let’s find out.

Customer just got tangoed

I leave some days at 5 am to get to an important customer at 9, so I can perform scheduled work.

Then I leave by 1 to get home at a reasonable time it suits me fine, as I get hidden benefits from it.

Suddenly two weekly important meetings that used to be later are now rescheduled because a senior player can’t attend the later time.

How will it play out?

Suddenly they wanted to stage important unmissable meetings at 8:30 or 9:30, it alternates, very confusing.

I explained to my immediate supervisor and was told under no certain terms to attend, hum okay then…

First week, it went belly up as I had zero signal and phone blew up once signal returned.

Standby for solution…

Cue compliance.

So now I have attend the meeting at home. I can’t guarantee I have signal, but I have to attend the darn meeting.

I don’t tell them I won’t be helping this customer, as they don’t ask. And by the time the meeting is finished, my travel time means I wouldn’t get to the customer in their scheduled time.

The important customer calls the office as no one’s there. The company scrambles to get someone to cover me.

Is OP gonna catch flack for this one?

This always screws things up because instead of 4 hours downtime they have 24-48 as things go wrong incredibly fast because I’m not there to keep on top of stuff.

Things hit the fan, phone blows up lol. Office meeting scheduled blah blah blah.

I’m told I don’t have to attend the meeting after being chewed out in front of other people in an office meeting.

Can’t imagine OP is gonna like it.

Now I’m the kind of person who doesn’t take kindly to being berated in front of other people for no reason especially if it’s not my making.

I’m salaried, with zero overtime, so I calmly ask him what my start and finish time is.

He starts to berate me when his expression changes, as it suddenly dawns on him what’s going to happen in the next 30 seconds.

Time to get some more people up to speed….fast!

They are now rushing to train new people. Well I say train – I have decades of experience the other guys don’t.

They have zero, in fact, zero.

They have been winging it because I’ve helped them at every stage. Which I’m no longer in a position to do, as I’m always in an area with no signal.

I make sure of that. Bubbles are your friend.

It’s not really a job you can train someone to do.

It also negates the fact that diagnostics is a skill you either have it or you don’t, it can’t be trained into someone.

It must be learned over time, especially in my field, that’s why certain people can do and others don’t.

I now never leave at five but at 8:30, my start time for every job.

Sounds like OP got the sweet end of this deal, if I’m reading this right.

They are meticulous with time, so with travel and lunch so one job takes just enough time that another urgent one can’t be squeezed into my finite hours unless it benefits me.

I train the bare minimum now into my particular field and can see the cracks already. Performance compensation across the whole team was terrible this year so I’m holding out.

Refusing the hotel upgrades, even the first class travel for now I’m squeezing until I can squeeze no more customers are screaming.

Let’s see how long it takes them to snap.

Oh, for everyone to snap. Sounds like things are tense in this workplace, for sure.

What do the comments on Reddit say?

One person says, upvote with reservations.

Another person says, language barrier, my friend.

Another person suggests running diagnostics on this post.

This user is like, common sense is not that common.

It takes more than two to tango at this office job.

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.