Ignore the Rule, Ignore the Boss! Employee Gets Fed Up with Fickle-Minded, Over-Demanding Boss
Micro-managers are among the worst people to have in the workplace!
They feel like God, omniscient, omnipotent. They see everything you do and find fault with everything they see. They also think that they have the power to determine the fate of those workers under their authority.
This employee, along with his co-workers, had to struggle to keep his sanity in the workplace where they were being watched by their boss like a hawk always ready to pounce on prey.
This story, posted by u/MrSatterday45 on Reddit’s r/Malicious Compliance, starts with: “I work as a package handler for a large hub facility of a well known shipping company, spending my days loading residential delivery trucks. The packages come with special barcodes on the side, as well as small spot labels that allow someone to see the address and which truck they go on. We used to have small scanners that would scan the barcodes in order to ensure we didn’t put the packages on the wrong trucks or get a package that didn’t belong, as sometimes the labels could be lost or a package could get the wrong spot label. The trucks were even fitted with small doorside sensors, so if you scan a package and try to walk into a truck where it doesn’t belong, the scanner would start to whine.”
Meanwhile, the problem started with their former supervisor, Alen, who was obsessed with micromanagement. Every work at their department must be done the “right” way, his way, in spite of the fact that the company’s trucks were already equipped with the necessary technology. He also had the habit of comparing workers’ records on a group chat to commend the so-called good performers and shame the poor ones.
OP continued his story with the following words: “So, one day, I’m working on belt as usual, and my scanner suddenly decided to screw up on me, as they tend to do if smacked or if the battery comes loose. I go to Alen and ask him if he could help me fix it or give me a new one to use. Instead, he takes it and tells me to keep loading my trucks without the scanner and just use the labels on the packages. This isn’t really allowed, and instead, I chose to stack the packages in front of the trucks so I can scan them once I get a new scanner. Alen eventually comes down and tells me to just load them into the trucks normally and to stop stacking. Frustrating, but I shrug and do it to try and avoid any real conflict.”
What happened next? Alen humiliated him on the group chat, claiming he was the poorest performer with many misloads because he didn’t scan the packages. Of course, OP was infuriated. He told him to ignore the rule, then he made it appear that it was OP’s fault.
And so, when a similar problem occurred with OP’s scanner malfunctioning, he brought the problem again to Alen, who was then mentoring a trainee. According to his post, “The trainee tries to settle the situation and tell me to keep just keep stacking and they’ll get a scanner right away but is interrupted by Alen telling me once again to load my trucks, this time louder. I flatly respond no, and thus it goes back and forth like this for nearly half a minute before I eventually tell him to get it to me in writing, because I’m not getting fired over this. Remember, we are not supposed to load a package without scanning it and can indeed get in trouble if they can prove we did it intentionally. This seems to get him even madder, and he eventually tries to pull the head supervisor card. He asks me if I would like him to go get the head supervisor to try and intimidate me, I guess. I wasn’t able to chuckle in my anger and just told him to go ahead and get him.”
Alen and his companion stormed off. After a while, it was the trainee who returned with a new scanner for OP and an apology. OP said he never saw Alen again, even during his final week in the company. To OP’s huge relief, of course.
And so, what advice he can give to supervisors? “Please just let us do our freakin’ jobs.”
The post has more than 11k votes on Reddit!
