Some managers think they know everything.

This employee kept telling the store manager that the IT system is not reliable in counting inventory, but the manager refused to listen. So he found a way to satisfy the manager at the expense of the company.

Read the full story below.

No, the stock take must agree with the system, look again.

Years ago, I worked for an office supplies chain store. It was an okay job for a student on the weekend.

The store manager would occasionally ask us to do a stock take. It involved going around with a hand scanner and making sure that what we had in the store agreed with what the computer system said we did.

Unfortunately, we had a lot of theft in the store. So frequently, there were missing items, lots of them.

The IT system was also a complete mess, so we would frequently find items that the system said we didn’t have.

The store manager was of the firm belief that there was no theft and that the stock system was completely infallible.

If you went up to him and said, “Hey SM, the system reckons we’ve got 37 of these 19″ CRT monitors. I found 3. I think there’s an issue,” He’s brush it off and say we weren’t looking hard enough and that we’re not leaving the store until the hand scanner agrees with the stock system.

This employee and other staff manipulated the stock to agree with the system.

Cue malicious compliance.

We would scan the same monitor multiple times until we had 37 of them.

If we found something that the stock system said we didn’t have, it either got hidden behind the stacks of office paper, on top of one of the offices, or more frequently, it would end up inside the paper and card compactor.

We made sure that the hand scanners would always agree with the stock system, and we got to leave the store on time.

A few years later, I found out that the store manager had been fired by the company because they did an external audit of the store.

They found a stock system that said there were thousands of items that weren’t there, and that the stock takes must have been falsified.

That ought to teach the manager to listen to his staff.

Other people are piping up in the comments.

This one has something to say.

Another person shares a similar story.

This is a possibility.

Here’s a funny take on it.

Another user chimes in.

Two wrongs don’t make a right.

If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.