Sometimes the safest move at work is doing exactly what you’re told, even when it makes no sense.

One project lead was disciplined by HR for ignoring a process document she’d never approved, so she complied with it down to the last step.

Everything unraveled from there.

Keep reading for the full story!

You want me to follow the wrong instructions for doing my job? OK! Let’s see how this ends.

This is about 20 years ago. I joined a project and developed the job role, created the processes, and even built some software tools.

For about 18 months, I worked on the project in that role. The company then decided to send in a group of process engineers to document everything so they would have very clear “how-to” instructions.

In theory, this was a great idea, but in practice…

The idea was that if I got hit by a bus tomorrow, the company could easily recover. A very sensible move.

For about a week, I was shadowed by a process engineer as he documented everything I did. This included interviews and reviews, all standard stuff.

I expected to have something to review and approve, but nothing ever came.

Some time later, I was given a role review with an interview at the end. It did not go well.

It turns out, there was quite a disconnect between what was written and what was actually performed.

I was told that I was failing to do my job properly and was placed under RA (remedial action). The issue was that I was not following the PI (Process Instruction) on how to do my job.

I read the PI, and it completely failed to capture how I actually did the job. This was the first time I had ever seen it.

Turns out, she had been completely cut out of the process without her knowledge.

It had been approved, authorized, and issued without me seeing it at all.

In order to get out of the remedial action, I followed the PI to the letter.

The problem only got bigger and bigger.

By the end of the month, things had gotten serious. My downstream customers were receiving the wrong data, incomplete data, or no data at all.

Their dependencies were incomplete, which caused problems for their downstream teams as well. The entire data flow was either wrong or completely stopped.

Leadership soon noticed and called her into their office.

I was called in for a “chat” by one of the directors. I explained that I had followed the PI to the letter, as instructed, because of the RA.

The PI was wrong, but I had not been included in the approval loop. RAs are serious, because failure leads to disciplinary action or even termination.

He hit the roof, the **** hit the fan, and an investigation was started.

Soon, the trail led them back to the process engineers themselves.

It turned out that the Process team had grown tired of people rejecting PIs for their own jobs as inaccurate, so they simply cut them out of the approval loop.

This allowed the Process Engineering lead to hit all his targets and receive his performance bonus.

Finally, justice was served.

The result was that my RA order was removed from my HR file. I reviewed and fixed the PI for my job.

The Process Engineering lead was disciplined and placed on his own RA. He left shortly after.

Rumor has it that he had to repay the performance bonus as well.

Bad instructions don’t survive long in the real world.

What did Reddit have to say?

When doing this type of job, it helps to know everyone.

There’s not much some employees wouldn’t do for higher pay.

It was clear this lead engineer just wanted to take the easy way out.

More work might get done if bonuses were issued only to people who really deserved them.

Using the power of malicious compliance, this project lead was finally able to do her job correctly again.

Bad work will only get you so far.

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