In big companies, bad ideas don’t fail quietly, they snowball.

So when an inexperienced manager let herself get taken advantage of by a manipulative colleague, one veteran employee predicted the chaos but was brushed off.

So he decided to jump ship to another department and let the boss learn her own lesson.

Keep reading for the full story.

Not My Department

Once upon a time I was part of the Orders department. Our primary role was to enter orders.

We didn’t enter all the orders, just most of them. The rest were entered by the Call Center.

As common with these stories, we get a new manager, promoted from the Call Center, who is inexperienced and gullible. Let’s call her Patsy.

Soon some untrustworthy people start getting in Patsy’s ear.

The Call Center manager, Weasel, sees his opportunity, swoops in, and fast-talks Patsy into making the Orders department responsible for all orders with a “these orders aren’t really the Call Center’s department.”

I can’t say I disagree with him, but neither Patsy nor Weasel realized the sheer logistical difficulty caused by suddenly dropping all this extra work on the Orders department.

I complain to Patsy, telling her this is a bad idea.

But the damage is already done.

Unfortunately, Patsy still thinks like and has a loyalty to the Call Center and her former boss, Weasel.

But the Call Center and the Orders department have entirely different cultures.

The departments couldn’t be more different.

The Call Center sees lots of turnover, with people rarely staying more than a couple years. The Orders department sees very little turnover, with some people staying a decade or longer.

Also, the required Call Center skill set is smaller than the Orders department.

Patsy grows tired of the complaints and gets tough with him.

Patsy doesn’t realize I’m a senior team member and, coming from a group that experiences rapid turnover, tells me, “It’s not the Call Center’s job to enter orders. If you can’t handle it you should find a new job.”

Challenge accepted!

This employee knows a lot more than Patsy and he’s about to use that to his advantage.

Now, I’ve been with the Orders department about three times longer than Patsy has been with the entire company.

The Call Center has been pulling this kind of garbage on the Orders department for years and I can anticipate the approaching crap storm.

This is a major coup for the Call Center compared to most of the shenanigans they’ve got up to in the past.

So he starts eyeing a new position.

So, I quietly let HR know that I’m interested in a position in the Call Center.

With Patsy’s promotion I know there’s at least one opening, and like I said, the Call Center has a high turnover rate.

Things aren’t going too well in the Orders department.

Two weeks later I have a new job in the Call Center and the fecal matter is starting to fly in the Orders department.

And it’s not as bad as I thought it would be, it’s worse.

Patsy is being fully taken advantage of.

Beyond the bulk of extra orders, over the past two weeks Patsy has been making “improvements” to Orders department processes at the suggestion of Weasel and other department heads, who’ve decided to take advantage of the naïve Patsy.

Add in the fact that the Orders department is starting to hemorrhage senior team members who have also seen the writing on the wall.

This only adds more stress to Patsy’s plate.

Now Patsy has to unexpectedly fill a bunch of vacancies for a department that had a history of a low turnover rate.

She doesn’t know the job so she doesn’t know who to hire.

The remaining senior members can’t help because she won’t listen to them and they’re too busy being overwhelmed and burned out by all the extra work they have to do to cover the missing team members and they don’t have the time to train the new people.

The excessive turnover continues.

The new hires come in but they don’t stay because the Orders department only looks like an entry-level position, so even more turnover and more senior team members leaving when they’ve had enough.

Meanwhile, I now have it easy over in the Call Center.

Things are much better in this department.

I’m full-time working from home now with a better shift and, unlike my colleagues in the Orders department, I’m no longer considered an essential worker, so there’s a lot less stress for me.

The skill set needed for the Call Center is both smaller and simpler than the Orders department and I already had most of it from my time with the company.

I’m underworked because all the orders that the Call Center were previously responsible for are being passed to the Orders department.

The Call Center turnover rate has dropped so we’re actually overstaffed.

Oh, and I got a nice raise to boot.

I’m the Call Center’s new unofficial expert on how the orders are processed.

Weasel finally begins to understand the gravity of his mistake.

Weasel, now my current boss, is getting worried.

His protégé, Patsy, is failing hard.

He was the one leading the charge to “improve” the Orders department, so he can’t back down without looking stupid.

The Call Center and the Orders department work closely so upper management is “encouraging” him to pitch in and help out.

Patsy is waking up too.

Patsy has begun to realize how Weasel has screwed her over, so she is refusing to make any changes to the Orders department unless she comes up with them.

She’s willing to accept Weasel’s help on her terms.

So, Weasel has started asking us to shoulder the burden and help process orders.

This is, unsurprisingly, not met with enthusiasm.

This really isn’t a good deal.

No one wants to do extra work for no extra pay.

As well, the Call Center team isn’t trained on how to process the more complicated and esoteric orders.

The Orders department is down to two remaining senior team members who have that knowledge.

That puts this employee in an even better position.

Oh, and there’s me.

I can process the easy orders the Call Center was doing and quickly.

And I have the skill set to crush the complicated and weird orders.

And Weasel knows that I actually enjoyed working in the Orders department.

“So, whattaya say, Squid, can you help out?” Weasel asks, insincerity dripping from his words.

I ponder his request. “Well, Weasel, I think you’re right. Being in the Call Center now, entering orders is not really my department, anymore.”

He tried to help Patsy at every turn, but she didn’t want to hear it.

What did Reddit think?

This commenter doesn’t think Patsy is going to make it much longer.

This employee has quite a bit of leverage for another big raise.

This employee could probably do a much better job than Patsy.

Why not check out of work altogether?

The orders team got the chaos, and he got the promotion.

If you’re told to move on, sometimes the smartest move is exactly that.

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.