A lot of managers make really stupid rules in the name of productivity. But it’s usually counter productive.

Sometimes you can’t get away with not following these rules. See how this worker avoided them.

Don’t assume I am a crook

This happened a few years back, when I was between jobs, a mini-recession was underway, and I wanted a who-cares job in a high-energy environment.

I ended up managing a food stand at the local NHL hockey arena.

He had to manage some disgusting things, too.

In the stand there was myself (Stand Lead), one head cashier, a cook, a runner, and a number of cashiers.

This company started from the position that all their employees were crooks – sorry to be so blunt, but that was their reality.

It was not an unfounded position – refilling beer cups and pocketing the cash from the sale was not a rare practice.

I had two of my cashiers fired after secret shoppers caught them.

The trick was to do this with non-inventory items.

At the start and end of a night I counted everything: Beer cups, the cardboard triangles on which pizza was served, popcorn bags, bags of potato chips, etc. Bulk items could not be counted: Popcorn, draft beer, nacho chips, etc.

At the end of the night we garbaged the bulk items that cannot be carried over to the next night: Cooked hot dogs, pizza sliced, popcorn, etc.

This meant they got some unofficial perks.

We may have wolfed down a few items. “We’re closed, I’m going to toss these three leftover slices in the bin, anyone want one?”

I recorded the waste (three slices), but they may not have all made it into the garbage.

Apparently some suit envisioned that stands might loading up with extra food from the delivery folks, or cooking extra hot dogs.

Manglement got all riled up about us eating the garbage and sent a memo that all waste was to be boxed up and carried down to the warehouse.

So we did as told. After counting the waste, into the box went a random assortment of pizza slices, hot dogs, and popcorn. It wasn’t put in neatly.

There was always lots of popcorn. Manglement probably didn’t care about the popcorn, but the directive was vague so they got it anyway.

The box was stuffed with popcorn.

They weren’t the only team who noted how stupid the order was.

If the warehouse ever did anything with what was in that box, it would be a fermenting fly-infested mess by the time they got around to opening the boxes.

At the after-work beer party the directive was discussed, none of the stand leads liked the assumptions made regarding our integrity, and they adopted the practice.

A month or two later I had reason to chat with the warehouse on another topic and I asked them what they did with all the food waste that was brought down.

Answer: We toss it right into the dumpster, we’re not digging through that mess.

“You never go in and count anything?”

So they all made work easier for each other.

Nah, the suits tried to make us, but we refused.

We already have full time jobs and they wouldn’t hire anyone whose job description was to dig through garbage.

It’s just the suits trying to intimidate us.

I resumed binning my waste and not lugging anything down to the warehouse. Nobody noticed.

I passed the word. Neither we, nor the warehouse, told management. The empty suits never noticed.

Here is what folks are talking about.

Definitely! It’s not just about unions.

We have similar things in Canada.

It’s a darn shame.

Ouch!

Even a lot of non profit organizations are like this.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.