Some bosses hear a problem, dismiss it, and then act surprised when the problem gets bigger.

When an IT worker tried to warn his boss that spreading him across three departments would cause a major backlog, he was told to stop thinking and “just do his job.”

But when the issue finally spiraled out of control, his boss finally understood what he was trying to say all along.

Keep reading for the full story.

Boss told me, to stop thinking and do my job, sure thing

So I work in a relatively small company that does data erasing and recycling of IT equipment.

I was the first man hired on the ground, and I am now, two years later, the “go-to guy” if my own boss is out of office.

He’s effectively the second in command, which can be a lot of pressure.

Which is to say — anything wrong with the program my boss wrote, anything wrong with a computer, or someone not knowing what or how to proceed with anything, you go to me.

For some time it had been left up to me to decide where I was mostly needed if we didn’t have anything that needed to go out of the store (ordered shipment that was to be packed and a delivery ordered), and it was up to myself to set up working hours.

I usually did 9-5, with overtime later or on Saturdays, and there was balance in the universe.

But then came some big changes at the company.

Then, a good two months ago, part of the company was finally sold.

We lost access to the old mother company and their resources (tech support and general support staff that had knowledge I never knew existed), and with them some contracts that really hurt.

Oh well — I was doing my job (in my mind quite well, but I am also very biased) and tried keeping us up to date.

Then the company started seeing the real problems come in.

But I slowly realized that having to do three different things meant we got more and more behind in my main section (data erasing).

And if I pushed there to keep up to date, the location where units are cleaned and graded for future reselling was behind — aka the position I was not at wasn’t doing too hot.

All the while we had a guy (doing very well) registering new units that needed to be erased or at the very least tested, so we had an issue.

So when he tried to let his boss know, the boss was entirely unhelpful.

I contacted my boss, first to inform him that we had an issue, and that our weekly output wouldn’t match what we had expected initially if I was to start helping with the other sections.

He looked at me tiredly and just told me to do my best and focus on “my” position, while sighing. (Again, I cover everything, but I am hired to make sure units get erased.)

Things went from bad to worse.

I started putting out units, and what is meant to be a 24-hour (max 48-hour) wait after being erased before they are started in the next section quickly got out of hand.

We are talking about 100 units on hold after a few days — this is bad.

I started being told by my boss that the line was backed up and he wanted me to do something about it starting next Monday.

I said sure thing.

His boss seemed to severely underestimate the issue at hand.

Now everyone knows that if you move someone from one position to another, he clearly can’t function in both, right?

Wrong.

My boss seemed to expect me to have arms like Mr. Fantastic, because he started complaining to me the following week that we were not erasing enough units.

I tried to explain the issue, but I don’t know if he was having a rough day or was stressed out of his mind, but I was met with the oh-so-famous “don’t think, just do your job.”

So that’s exactly what this employee did, for better or worse.

Okay then — I mean, are you sure? If you give me an order I will follow it, and this job, while nice, isn’t paying me enough to warrant carrying the whole operation.

The last two weeks (I am writing this on Saturday, 11/12/2021) I have been focusing only on erasing.

This led many other issues to go by the wayside.

If we had people out sick that meant other locations had issues — not my problem. I focused on my station.

If the boss was seemingly busy with something important — well, sorry coworker, I think you need to either talk with the boss or send him a message.

If I was told to prep an outgoing delivery and order its shipment, I would write a confirmation email and not start until I had it in writing that I was to leave my station to do so.

This actually caused my boss to scratch his head, as I had never done this before.

Finally, the boss started to wake up.

Friday the 10th of December, my boss called me over and asked if everything was well.

I asked why, and he told me that while we were erasing enough units, our line was super backed up, and asked me if I hadn’t noticed.

Of course I had — I was standing right next to it.

They were now further behind than ever before, so the employee reminds the boss what he had told him.

Apparently we had units that were about three weeks overdue in the system, as they hadn’t moved from when my station gave them the “clear.” And we had about 1,100 units (mostly laptops) waiting to be cleaned and erased.

Why had I not done anything about it?

I just said, “Well… I was told to do my job.”

He made the surprised Pikachu face.

So the boss came forward with a solution.

I could see he was getting annoyed, and he told me to go back to work so he could “think about a solution.”

After about 30 minutes he came over to me and my main coworker and told us that on Monday we would have to really make an effort and get something done with the units down there.

But the employee doesn’t think this is going to do the trick.

My coworker, whom I trained, has never had to do that section.

He will be able to manage, especially if we both go down there, but he will be slow and ineffective — and it will just remove the output in our main section.

If I go down there, I will only be able to keep the boat afloat, so to speak, as I won’t outpace my coworker (nature of the station), and he won’t produce enough. So we are caught in a sort of ouroboros loop.

I have been and continue to be in compliance with my boss’s work orders, and I will continue to be so until he apologizes and gives me the autonomy back to fix his mistake.

Clearly not everyone is built for a leadership role.

What did Reddit think?

Sometimes there’s no reasoning with a boss this bad.

This user encourages this employee to keep pressing on.

This commenter can relate all too well to this IT worker’s plight.

This employee stopped thinking right on cue, and everything fell apart shortly after!

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.