November 15, 2025 at 10:35 pm

A Meat Packing Plant Supervisor Had To Deal With A New Boss Who Tried To Do Things His Way And It Blew Up In His Face

by Matthew Gilligan

workers in a meat packing plant

Shutterstock/Reddit

It’s never a good thing when someone waltzes into a new work environment and tries to change everything…

Especially when things are chugging along just fine…

But it happened in this story from Reddit’s “Malicious Compliance” page!

Take a look at what went down.

Zero OT? You got it.

“Years ago I worked in a meat packing plant as a supervisor. It had its ups and downs, but overall it’s was good. Until a new production manager was hired. We’ll call him Bob.

Bob didn’t come from the floor, or even leadership. He had an engineering background. Whatever, I’ll try to keep an open mind. Well my mind was only open for about four and a half minutes.

Uh oh…

First day, first time meeting, he declares he’s going to “right the ship.” Sure thing boss, right that ship that is already sailing in the right direction.

He declares that going forward there will be no more OT.

He states we are ******* away money with the amount of OT we pay. I asked for clarification “what about vacation coverage? Sick calls? Etc. He replies “No OT! No exceptions!”

Sure thing, boss man.

Now I should point out, the department is work in is massive. My direct team at that time was 70 people. There were other rooms that other supervisors looked after for a total of 220 employees.

Bob was clueless about this stuff.

Now I’m assuming all of you reading this are infinitely smarter than Bob and have figured out that with a team that size, we don’t just get one sick call, we averaged seven per day.

Vacations? 10% of the workforce was our cut off. Usually we hovered at 12 people a day. Not to mention leaves of absence, people leaving early etc.

So, on Friday I went to Bob one last time. I let him know that we are going to be short 19 people next week and ask once more for him to approve OT. I got a flat no in response. I considered going above him, but I figured letting the guy drown would be better.

Bob asked for it!

I didn’t ask for OT. Employees were coming up to me “boss, are you sure there’s no OT next week?” Yes I’m sure Bob wants it that way.

Come next week. Two production lines aren’t running. Bob comes to me upset demanding to know why two of the lines aren’t running? Is it mechanical downtime? No Bob, I have no one to run the line.

He stammers something about staffing appropriately and having better planning. “I asked you multiple times to approve OT, you said no each time. I was just following your direction”.

Cue the angry storm off. with him yelling “get some ******* people in here!”

Anyways, I then have to call people at home and schedule OT for the rest of the week because Bob sunk our ship instead of righting it.

Ouch…

I couldn’t staff those two lines that day. For those wondering, not running those two lines that day lost the company $120,000 dollars (no I’m not exaggerating).

Bob gets a strip torn off him by his boss, a guy I’ve known at that time for 10 years. He came and spoke to me about it outside (we both smoke) “what the **** was he thinking? I thought engineers were supposed to be smart?”

I choked on my smoke laughing.

Bob lasted about three months.”

Check out what folks had to say about this on Reddit.

This person spoke up.

Screenshot 2025 10 29 at 1.37.15 PM A Meat Packing Plant Supervisor Had To Deal With A New Boss Who Tried To Do Things His Way And It Blew Up In His Face

Another individual shared their thoughts.

Screenshot 2025 10 29 at 1.37.22 PM A Meat Packing Plant Supervisor Had To Deal With A New Boss Who Tried To Do Things His Way And It Blew Up In His Face

This Reddit user spoke up.

Screenshot 2025 10 29 at 1.37.44 PM A Meat Packing Plant Supervisor Had To Deal With A New Boss Who Tried To Do Things His Way And It Blew Up In His Face

Another individual weighed in.

Screenshot 2025 10 29 at 1.38.02 PM A Meat Packing Plant Supervisor Had To Deal With A New Boss Who Tried To Do Things His Way And It Blew Up In His Face

And this reader had a lot to say.

Screenshot 2025 10 29 at 1.38.16 PM A Meat Packing Plant Supervisor Had To Deal With A New Boss Who Tried To Do Things His Way And It Blew Up In His Face

This guy had no idea what he was doing!

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.