A lot of people who have worked office jobs know: there’s hours worked, and hours wasted.

In this story, an employee quits and tells the company… joke’s on them.

Let’s ask John.

Ask John

I’ve been working for a company that started out small and grew steadily over time, but unfortunately, the way they run things never really kept pace with that growth.

Infrastructure is key. But, question: Who’s John?

When I first joined several years ago, I quickly noticed how outdated and inefficient many of the processes were.

Right from the start, I pointed out the urgent need to automate repetitive tasks to save time and reduce errors.

For example, instead of using straightforward payment solutions like PayPal or similar services, the company insisted on manually calling customers to follow up on payments.

Will this company get with the times?

After a few months of insisting, they finally agreed to use PayPal, and voilà — fewer errors and more orders.

It was time-consuming and frankly unnecessary in today’s digital world.

On top of that, they were using multiple software tools that didn’t communicate with each other at all, which meant we had to pay an employee simply to re-enter data that the client had already submitted elsewhere.

Classic corporate nonsense. What’s OP to do?

This duplication of effort was not only a waste of resources but also a source of avoidable mistakes.

We were a small team with limited time and energy, and it made no sense to spend so much of it on tedious manual tasks that any computer could easily handle faster and more accurately.

I was constantly pushing for improvements, but change just didn’t happen.

Every time I raised the issue, the answer was always the same: “Ask John,” the IT guy.

Ah finally, John’s identity is revealed. But what does he think?

John didn’t really care, and the company’s attitude was basically, “We’ve always done it this way, so why change now?”

Utter indifference, cool.

Over the years, all my requests were ignored or dismissed with excuses that it wasn’t possible.

The truth is, nobody wanted to put in the effort to rethink how things were done—they preferred sticking to the status quo rather than disrupt their routines.

Classic foible of human nature. Where’s the MC come in?

Fast forward five years, and I finally decided to quit. That’s when it became clear that the processes everyone assumed were automated were actually being done manually—by me.

Oh boy.

Suddenly, my boss sent me a message:
“Can you document all the processes you handle so someone else can take over?”

My answer was simple:
“Ask John.”

Brilliant reply. George Costanza would be proud.

What do the comments have to say?

One poster says, touché.

Another was dying to fill in the blank.

This poster wants an epilogue.

Someone else is like, cool story, bro, but wrong sub.

Another poster has a cheeky reply.

Don’t know what to say to this post? Ask John!

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.