Why mess with a good thing?

Those are words to live by, my friends!

And it’s especially true when it comes to work and productivity.

But the new boss in this story from Reddit didn’t get the memo…

Take a look at what happened.

New Boss…….sigh. Didn’t last long!

“I worked for a company that repaired ships and had a dock/main office facility that was located about 30 minutes drive from the main city where most staff lived.

Our normal office/workshop hours were standard 7:30 to 4 pm. After the ships were “fixed” at this facility they were sailed south, a further 40 minutes drive by car.

When this occurred staff would clock in at 7:30 at their normal dockyard office and then pick up tools/equipment for the day and drive their own car with work gear the additional 40 minutes south.

The routine worked just fine.

Going home was the reverse, leave southern facility at 3:20 pm and arrive back at original facility at 4 pm for clock-off. Also returning company tools etc from the days work. This was an accepted practice that every one was happy with it.

New Manager comes along. Says “why are all you people clocking on/off at the main office when you should be starting and finishing at the southern facility 7:30 and 4 pm respectively”.

So next day all staff then drive directly past the office and arrive at the southern facility for 7:30 start. They then have to get tools/equipment for the days work back at the main office.

So they then grab one of the site trucks at 7:30am then drive back up to the office (40 minutes)(past where they had just come in their own car) and return (another 40 minutes) and then start work with the days equipment at 8:50am.

As there are only 2 site trucks between 20 staff, some workers never get an available truck to get their gear for the day – lots of standing around waiting for equipment and tools. To make things even worse – the reverse had to happen at the end of the day.

What an idiot!

All equipment needed to be returned to our office each night – so the 1 hour 20 minute return trip also needed to occur so that we could finish at 4pm onsite – as he instructed. This meant equipment needed to start travelling by 2:40pm (to get up and back for 4 pm clock-off).

This was not a very productive initiative from the new boss and once he started this nonsense the malicious compliance by all staff basically saw him move/be moved on from this position within 6 months – because work completion rates dropped by over 50%.

By gosh it was funny when he tried to rescind his directive. We were all having none of it, as we were never obligated to carry company owner equipment in our personal vehicles – we just did this in good faith.”

Let’s see what Reddit users said about this.

One reader spoke up.

Another individual was a big fan of this story.

This Reddit user chimed in.

Another reader spoke up.

And this Reddit user has some questions…

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

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.