We’ve all been in a situation where someone is in a position of power that shouldn’t be there, such as a manger who doesn’t really understand the job or the industry.

Read how one Redditor’s boss lacked the experience to make the best call for his team and the industry at large.

Let’s read all the details.

Don’t want my advice? Then suffer the consequences

So this story involves a railway, and the collective agreement that we railroaders operate under.

I’ll try to simplify it since some terms are industry specific.

This happened a few years ago.

But this is a tale worth reading…

My crew and I were called for work on a train leaving east from the port.

While doing our paperwork at the start of the day, I noticed, through our live train tracking system, that a westbound train was about 30 minutes travel time out from the yard, but only had one hour left on their federal hours of service…which absolutely can not be exceeded.

They also had 12,000 feet of traffic to yard which, alone, takes 1-2 hours to compete.

Luckily, this worker had a plan in mind.

As soon as I realized this, I called the local manager (called a TM).

Now, I had 13 years seniority at that point. The manager had spent 6 months as a trainee railroader before switching to management…total seniority, maybe one year.

I suggested that he “swing” us to a Rescue ticket in the payroll system, and we would go out immediately and help that train.

Normally, this would entitle us to a 2 hour off-duty spacing between tickets and up to 8 hours rest if we wanted it, but we offered to decline that to help the other crew.

But the boss wasn’t interested in this at all.

He immediately declined and confidently explained that the crew was just fine and they would be setting half their train out enroute at a storage track.

That move takes even longer than yarding in the port, due to track clearances and stuff needed to allow the moves.

So, I just shrugged, hung up the phone and continued with my paperwork.

It turned out, that even if they had the time on their clock, that track had unreported cars in it!

That’s when things got crazy…

So, the TM frantically tells them to make a run for the port.

During this time, we had gone out and started working on building our own train.

We talk to the inbound crew and agree to help them land the first cut of cars and secure their tailed cut before their federal 12th (required by law).

So, there we sat…the inbound crew landed half their train before houring out…and left 6,000 feet of train blocking the only piece of rail in or out of the entire port terminal.

They were given new instructions.

TM then calls us on the radio and the conversation went like this:

TM: Hello Crew, I need you to go down and pull that second cut in to clear the rail.

Crew: OK, and then we taxi home?

TM: No, no…you get back on your own train.

But the crew had to set him straight.

Crew: No… We only handle one train per ticket, and this ticket terminates at our home terminal, so if we handle their train, we taxi home on pay. You could cancel us and put us on a Rescue Turn ticket like we originally suggested…but if we do it on this ticket, we go home.

TM: OK, you’re cancelled and called on a Turn.

Crew: So you’re saying we’re cancelled?

TM: Yes

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Crew: OK, since we are cancelled after working we are all taking 8 hours rest, and we are the only crew in the terminal to do this work.

TM: Wait, what?!?

Crew: So are we cancelled, or is there a taxi coming after we yard that train.

TM: Yard the train.

So, the crew scored a sweet deal.

Funny thing is, it was a beautiful summer day.

If he had just taken my suggestion, we would have yarded their train and jumped back on ours, making 2 tickets worth of pay, but saving the railroad a lot of headache.

Instead, we yarded half a train and got paid to play on our phones in a 4.5 hour taxi ride for the same rate of pay as we would have gotten on the 10 hour train trip home.

What does Reddit think? Could this manager have avoided this train trauma?

Let’s read the comments below to find out.

Some readers craved the real tea.

Others had stories of their own.

And many were amazed at what all workplaces seem to have in common.

Hopefully, this situation gave this manager a little more experience under his belt!

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.