In corporate life, sometimes the smartest idea in the room gets dismissed by the loudest voice.

When an engineer’s practical solution was brushed off as “out of his lane,” he decided to stay quiet and let the numbers prove his point.

Keep reading for the full story!

Stay In Your Lane

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss how we were going to recover from a major problem on the manufacturing line that had reduced production throughput to about 50%.

I was not on the production team. I was there to stay informed as the design engineering lead for the project.

The problem was software in certain older assembly units in half of the production lines. The best-estimate projection from the manufacturing director was that patch, test, and functional confirmation of these units would take a week to ten days.

So this employee piped up with what he thought was a smart idea.

I suggested that we should contact the manufacturer of the newer, functioning units and find out how quickly they could deliver and install replacements for every problem assembler on the lines.

Yes, I know — it was a very expensive suggestion.

But the guy in charge didn’t seem to think so.

The VP running the meeting simply told me to “Stay in your lane. You don’t know anything about the real work done around here.”

In reality, this couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Having worked elsewhere for nearly a decade in manufacturing prior to transitioning to design engineering and the role at this company, I actually knew all about the “real work” being done.

I also knew that the projection of about seven to ten days for a firmware fix for those machines was nothing more than a very deep pile of male bovine excrement.

By my rough calculations, it would take at least three weeks to complete unit replacement and get the throughput rate back up to a marginally acceptable level.

Regardless, this engineer decided to take the VP’s rude advice.

I stayed in my lane. I kept my lips zipped for the remainder of the meeting. I told my director afterwards that the production team had it under control and that I was no longer needed.

Following an email discussion thread cc’ed to everyone at the meeting and my director that included my “ridiculous” suggestion and my “humble” acknowledgment that I really should stay in my lane, I moved on to a new project.

Unsurprisingly, the bosses soon learned they should have taken his suggestion.

Three weeks later, after multiple failed attempts to update the old assemblers, the work to replace them all with new units began.

Three weeks after that, production was hovering at about 75% and finally reached 95% after an additional two weeks.

Grapevine (heard, but no way to substantiate): the manufacturing director was the scapegoat and was let go. The VP’s yearly bonus was impacted due to a $450k shortfall in revenue.

I continued to stay zip-lipped during all production meetings, discussions, email threads, etc., until I left the company a year later.

I stayed in my lane.

Why would you ever bother speaking up when your feedback is routinely dismissed?

Redditors chime in with their thoughts.

Does this VP know nothing about professional tact?

Things usually go from bad to worse when leadership refuses to listen to their employees.

This commenter thinks it’s usually an ego thing with the higher-ups.

Not all ideas are going to be good ones, but they at least deserve a place to be heard.

This engineer didn’t even need to say “I told you so.” The missed deadlines and lost revenue did it for him!

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.