TLDR: Try to force someone to take on additional responsibilities without a pay bump and fire him for “refusing” – week later computer virus crashes plant and 2 weeks later fired worker gets job making 15k more
Don’t know if this belongs here, but it felt amazing to watch them crash and burn.
Not me, but my husband (let’s call him Tyler) last year. Company in the auto part manufacturing business (German home office) hired him to work as an IT specialist onsite. He would also be required occasionally to travel to another site a few states away to support them in “closing operations” (the IT guy there found a better opportunity and since they were “closing it down”, they never hired a replacement).
After a year of shitshow operations to get the sites cleaned up, COVID and forced vacation time “to prevent furloughs”, and more than one Plant Manager quitting, a new project popped up that was not IT related but would require IT support during some parts. The new Plant Manager, via email, advised that Tyler would be the Project Manager and lead the effort on this new project.
The project had an initial 12 month startup and then would repeat every 3-5 years. Tyler advised that he’d gladly take on the Project Manager Role as a Project Manager, at the industry standard Project Manager Salary since it was not IT related – OR they could hire one/contract one for the initial 12 months and recontract one every 3-5 years.
The Plant Manager reached out to Germany to get more details on the amount of extra time it would take for Tyler to manage this project in addition to his current position. The Plant Manager advised Tyler that per Germany the first 6 months would take up 6 hours a week and the last 6 months could be up to 16 hours a week. They felt he could offload some of his IT work for the last 6 months and still take it on.
Together, Tyler and I calculated up the amount of time this project would require during the initial phase (12 months) and then every 3-5 years after that. We then compared that cost to Project Manager salary and Tyler believed that a 10% bump was fair (less than 10k, saving them well over 90k – the cost of hiring a Project Manager).
He went back to the Plant Manager and advised he agreed he could do the work in addition to his IT position, but would need at least a 10% pay bump because the first 6 months he’d just have to work over and every 3-5 years after that. The Plant Manager, dead face, told him no and asked if he was refusing the additional duties assigned to him per his position outline. Tyler advised that his job duties as assigned related to IT were not being declined, he would support the IT portion of the project only until they could come to a mutual agreement on Project Management and pay.
Within the hour they escorted him out of the building for “refusing duties as assigned” and “irreparable broken trust”. Within one week the plant was hit by malware that shut the whole operation down for weeks (and it’s still not functioning well). 2 weeks later, Tyler landed a job making 15k more supporting one site.
I wonder how that project is going though