Efficiency matters in the workplace.

This man was working in a small food production company, and when he raised concerns that a new process wasn’t gonna work, he was quickly shut down.

Read the full story below to find out more.

Stop wasting ingredients!

Years ago, I worked as a laborer in a food production company.

It was kind of a mom-and-pop size production/distribution facility.

We made all types of foods and sauces.

One of the more mundane steps for a particular sauce was opening and emptying large cans of tomato sauce into a large mixer.

Pretty simple: just open, pour, and toss the can.

This man and his coworkers were asked to use rubber spatulas to clean out the sauce from each can.

One of the higher-ups decided we were wasting a lot of the sauce by not thoroughly cleaning out each can.

We’re talking probably 20 to 30 ounces of tomato sauce per batch, which was probably around 2 to 3% waste.

I get it, every cent counts.

The problem was the solution they came up with: use rubber spatulas to clean out the extra sauce from the metal cans.

He tried to raise concerns about some pieces of rubber going into the sauce, but he was dismissed.

It didn’t take a scientist to see that this would not work well, with the cans being sharp and cutting into the rubber.

This led to pieces of rubber going into the sauce.

I tried voicing concerns but was shut down.

I assume they just thought we were lazy and didn’t want the extra work.

So he handed one of the spatulas with a missing chunk of rubber to his supervisor.

So, we did as we were told and started cleaning the cans thoroughly.

Sure enough, about ten cans in, we noticed our spatulas were missing large chunks of rubber.

I handed one of the spatulas to my supervisor and he took it to his boss.

On cue, he came back about two minutes later and said, “Don’t worry about scooping out the cans anymore.”

That was my first taste of, “Maybe being a manager doesn’t mean you have all the answers.”

Let’s check out the comments of other people on this story.

This user shares their personal thoughts.

This one makes a valid point.

Ugh. Yes, indeed.

Here’s a practical solution from this person.

Finally, guess they learned it the hard way, says this one.

The manager’s way isn’t always the right way.

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.