It’s funny how control tends to backfire.

So, what would you do if your new boss told you that you were not allowed to talk to anyone from outside your company without permission and were faced with an auditor?

Would you go ahead and talk to the auditor? Or would you show him that you’re not allowed?

In the following story, a repair technician faces this decision and goes with the latter.

Here’s what happened.

Under supervised

Back when I was working in an FAA facility doing repair and overhaul, we had a boss who wanted to control everything.

This boss came to us from the production side and did not understand why we were reactive in our work versus being scheduled like production.

Repair and Overhaul is just that: we repair or overhaul parts that come back from the field. We cannot schedule it until the customer lets us know it is broken, and we say, send it in, type of thing. Not the point, not the compliance, but giving you a little of how the mindset is.

The boss said he was not allowed to answer.

Anyway, about a month after said boss comes in, we have a customer representative who is talking to engineering regarding the product I was working on.

The customer had a question regarding a specific failure we continued to see, and wanted to talk to the technician (me) about it.

So, the engineer brings the customer to me, and I answer the customer rep’s question. Should be easy, right? Wrong!

The boss says I did not have the authority to answer the question and that the customer should have been brought to him or Quality Assurance (QA).

He made a smart choice.

The next morning, the boss stands up and reiterates to the entire group that no one is to talk to anyone not a part of our company without either the boss or QA present for the conversation.

I asked for this in writing, and got an email within minutes after the stand-up.

Fast forward about a month, and I am not talking to anyone without the boss or QA, and we have an ISO 9001 audit. The audit is scheduled, and somehow, when the auditor is on the repair floor, no one is around but me, so naturally, I get audited. Should be easy, right?

Given no other choice, he told the auditor the truth.

Auditor asks me what I am doing. I reply that I am not allowed to talk with personnel who do not belong to my company without my boss or QA present.

Auditor asks me if I know who they are (I do, they introduced themselves as they came up to me). I let them know I have been given instructions and cannot talk to them.

They ask me to show them the instructions. I had sent the email to the printer as soon as I knew I was going to be audited, so I asked the auditor to please wait one minute and went and got the email.

His boss probably regretted the decision.

The auditor thanks me and leaves.

The next morning at stand-up, the boss comes in with the regional management. The boss apologizes to us technicians and lets us know we are allowed to talk to people from outside the company without the boss or QA.

I raise my hand, and the boss says, “Email has already been sent.’

Later, I found out from the boss’s aide that the boss was put on PIP (personnel improvement program) for this.

Eek! He must’ve felt pretty dumb after that.

Let’s see how the people over at Reddit feel about what the manager did.

Here are thoughts from a QM.

So true… most of the time, anyway.

This is an interesting point.

According to this person, you have to watch repair stations.

He just followed the rules, so the boss deserved whatever punishment he got.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.