Imagine working for a family business where everyone in charge is part of the same family. If you noticed a big problem with one of the machines, what would you do if your supervisor didn’t believe you?

In this story, one employee was in this situation, and the stubborn supervisor learned the truth the hard way.

But that wasn’t the end of the drama!

Let’s see how the story plays out.

I don’t know how to use my machine? Okay.

It was my first job out of high school. I was hired as a trainee in a large engine reconditioning company.

It was one of those family run businesses that started in the backyard and grew to the point where they might have been making millions, but they were likely spending just as much.

All the family members worked there in all the top positions, so you were never going to move up the ladder.

He was really good at his job.

I was stationed at an old milling machine. No computer, no smart tech.

You mounted a cylinder head in the bay. You manually dragged the milling head over. Visually lowered it until it made contact, then raised it up a 100th of a millimetre. Turned the mill on and manually wound the head across the part you will mill.

I got pretty good at using this mill.

The average heads milled per day was around 21. In one day I’d sometimes do 50.

His coworker knew how to work smarter and not harder.

But luckily the worker in the station next to me caught on and when I was about to report my days worth of work, he said “21”.

I was still young and dumb. So I proudly said 50!

He corrected me. “21… Tomorrow you pretend to work”.

Light bulb moment that I always remember to this day. I’m in my 40’s now.

So, from then on I’d work hard one day, and have an easy day the next.

But then, there was a big problem.

One day the mill needed serious maintenance. The company was so tight that they didn’t regularly maintain any of the machines. They waited until they needed repairs.

I wrote down the issue I had and mentioned that this mill was not operational. At any random moment, the mill would jump and the head would drop about a millimetre. The diamond tips would gouge the cylinder head and most of the tips would snap.

Expensive.

There was another expensive problem.

Instead of being told thanks for reporting it. We’ll get it fixed right away, they told me off for being abusive to the machine. That I didn’t know how to use it correctly.

Normally when something like this happened, and it happened a lot, they would demote you to the acid wash or the camshaft bearing resurfacer (the worst job in the company).

But instead they sent me to the new laser guided computerised mill. Which was also out of order but had been waiting for the tech to come and resolve the issue.

The guide probe that was used when you initially put a new part in there was malfunctioning. The machine would sense the part, and instead of stopping, resetting and then sense the part again at a higher resolution, it would smash the probe into the part and break the tip. Costing lots of money.

The supervisor clearly saw the problem.

I tried to tell the supervisor that the machine he was sending me to was out of order. But he shut me up before I even opened my mouth.

He jumped on the old mill and made me stick around to show me how to do it properly.

The mill couldn’t have messed up at any better moment. About 30% into the job, the head dropped a few centimetres, not millimetres. Smashed into the head, the head went flying off the otherwise pretty solid mounts (scary moment).

Being an old mill, you could run this without the guard door shut. Which the supervisor did.

Wow! This is serious!

I went to say to please shut the door. But he shut me up again.

Fine. I stood well away.

Guess which direction the cylinder head went flying? Right at him.

Hit him in the chest, winded him, knocked him to the floor and I immediately called an ambulance.

He was rushed off to hospital and returned to work with some broken ribs.

The saga continues…

It didn’t end there though.

He blamed me for everything upon returning to work and said he hoped I continued working on the other mill.

I was stationed at the acid wash by another supervisor (another family member). A big box with a cage. We dumped parts into it. And back out. Simple. Menial. Perfect. Nothing could really go wrong.

This supervisor seems determined to learn the hard way!

I went to say the other mill was broken too. And I tried to remind him that the probes kept snapping.

He wanted none of it. Once again showing me how to use the fancy mill. He instructed me to lift the cylinder into the mill and mount it. He programmed the mill for that model head. Closed the door, and pressed start.

The probe came down and kept going. Shattering into the head. He swore so hard he hurt his ribs.

Time for another role.

“Do you want me to go back to the acid wash now until this is fixed?”

I got sent to the area where we removed head studs. Better than the wash. We used blow torches.

I guess he didn’t want to be told what to do.

Wow! This sounds like a really annoying company to work for. You’d think the supervisor would learn his lesson and believe his employees, especially after getting hurt so badly.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

They’re not.

This is true!

It’s definitely a toxic work environment!

One person rants about family businesses.

It’s revenge that takes care of itself.

That sounds like an awful place to work.

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.