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You’d think someone in management would understand how the job actually works.

That’s what these car rental employees thought until one new policy turned their entire workday upside down.

Everyone knew it was a bad idea from the start.

But instead of arguing with the regional manager, they decided to let him see the problem for himself.

As expected, it didn’t take long for things to fall apart. Soon the employees, the cleaners, and even the customers were feeling it.

Read on to see how they finally got everything back on track.

Clueless Regional Manager has Great Idea

I worked at a newer car rental company at a major international airport in the Midwest. I worked in the car return lane.

The majority of my time was spent checking in customers and making sure they hadn’t messed up the cars. We’d make sure the keys were in the cars and then write some information on the windows for the cleaners, who were constantly taking cars.

I came back from a weekend and found the regional manager had rolled in. He was a nice guy but was all about saving money and had no clue what was going on. He had fired two of the actual managers for dubious reasons, so he would fly in every other week to help run the place.

To prevent them from losing the keys, the manager came up with an idea.

Either the cleaners had lost one too many keys (which happens because the company has a fleet of 600+ cars), or one of the other branches did things differently.

Anyway, he had decided that to prevent the loss of keys and, supposedly, theft, we (the return agents) were to have the keys on us at ALL TIMES.

Everyone at the branch immediately opposed this idea.

Us return agents did a LOT of tasks besides checking in customers. We helped with luggage, moved cars, did quality checks, updated the computer system, etc.

Immediately, the new policy began causing problems.

When my coworker told me this, I was miffed and said, “That’s stupid. I’m not doing that.”

He shrugged his shoulders maliciously but carelessly and said, “I know. Just do it and watch what happens.”

I quickly picked up on the collective frustration of everyone and realized no one was complaining. Everyone had just decided to maliciously comply.

It was a nightmare.

By this point, the frustration was affecting everyone from the employees to the customers.

The cleaners were constantly having to come find us and describe which car they wanted, and we’d have to get the key off a massive carabiner, taking needed time from both us and the cleaners.

I also made sure to be extra slow and inconvenienced at the thought of having to find a key for a cleaner. “Oh, do I have the key you guys have been looking for the past five minutes? I’m sorry, let me take a slow walk back to the return lane. Oh, that isn’t the right key? Oops.”

The return lane quickly became an unorganized mess of cars and started overflowing out of the lot. Customers were extra stressed because they couldn’t leave, as the lot was jammed up. Shuttles couldn’t come in to pick people up. The cleaners were yelling at us and running all over the place.

According to the manager, it was hard, but they’d get the hang of it.

But we just shrugged our shoulders at the cleaners and said this wasn’t our fault and that they should complain to management.

A few customers observed the chaos, and my coworker and I were like, “Oh yeah, this is kinda normal, you know.”

I think at one point that day someone radioed and said, “Just leave the keys in the car for the rest of the day.”

But the next day, we were again instructed to take the keys, and the regional manager acknowledged that change was hard but that this would be the new policy. So, again, we complied.

The system lasted a few more days.

The cleaners hated their lives, and I’m sure they complained.

Things were like this for a few more days. Then the regional manager left for the week.

I came in the next day, and I was not surprised to find that the keys were back in the cars.

Finally, they moved back to the older system.

I checked with my coworker, and he confirmed that we were back on the old, efficient system.

The manager in training had approved it.

When the regional manager came back the following week, he didn’t mention anything about reverting to our old, efficient ways.

Wow! It’s amazing that he couldn’t see how that was going to play out from the start.

Let’s see what the readers over at Reddit have to say about it.

Well, it’s true most of the time.

Yes! Or Kim’s Convenience.

It seems so.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who gets revenge on his company after they fire him and try to steal his custom program.

Agree! Understanding why it exists in the first place is very important.

This is exactly why managers need to think policies through before putting them in place.

The people doing the job every day usually know where the problems are. So, instead of making changes from the top down, it makes a whole lot more sense to do it the other way.

Or, at the very least, if something sounds like a good idea, try it on a small scale before rolling it out to everyone. If you do it that way, you can fix problems before they turn into this kind of mess.

The good thing for these employees is that it didn’t take long for things to go back to normal.