Tuesday, August 22, 2023

[We put it] right between two of the bases in the baseball field': Engineer told to blindly obey boss's orders, obliges, obstructing client's baseball infield


There are those managers out there who think that they know everything, refusing to listen to anything their workers tell them to advise the decision-making process and blindly following the corporate narrative or their own uninformed decisions to their downfall and folly. Workers placed in these situations might try to fix the mistakes of their superiors, repeatedly shielding their bosses from any blowback or repercussions for these decisions and even reinforcing their incorrect perception that their way is the right way. After extended periods of doing this with no thanks—and even reprimand—the workers will reach the point where they're no longer prepared to put in the effort to cover their bosses' behinds. Meaning the next time a decision is forced through, the results will be catastrophic. 

Even if you know nothing about baseball, it's probably easy for you to picture why having a utility box installed directly in the middle of the field—especially right between second and third base—is a bad idea. It's not hard to imagine why such a thing happening might be a little disruptive to the use of the field and the flow of the game. It's the kind of thing you would just deal with when playing backyard baseball as a kid, accepting that any inconveniently placed tree or obstacle was just a part of the game at hand. However, while baseball fields and stadiums have always naturally varied, with unique outfield dimensions and quirks, when playing an organized game on a proper field, these variations should be limited, with the infield especially being one of the most constant aspects of the game. 

So, when a group of engineers that you hired come along and stick a utility box between second and third base, you might not be all that pleased about your field's new infield feature. 

Of course, this all came about when this engineer grew tired of his boss repeatedly refusing to listen to his more well-informed reason, insisting instead that the engineer blindly follow whatever order he was given. So, the engineer did exactly what his boss told them to, giving the client this disastrous result.

See the engineer's account of events, originally shared with Reddit, below—along with reactions from the original thread where it was posted.

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