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Antiwork

Went to a company for a new role they created but none of the managers wanted

So this happened to me about 6 years ago. I was recommended by a good friend to a company who was creating a new role. Basically they had a bunch of plants all over the country and abroad and all services were being contracted directly by each plant. The VP of operations wanted to channel all contracts through one person (me) so that based on the volume of the services required the company would get better rates and reduce administrative costs. So I come on board and begin the process of unifying the contracting/tendering process and get push back from all the plant managers. They were all on kick backs from the vendors so they didn’t want to relinquish their control over contracts (first red flag). VP still insisted I keep going and he even told me to review ALL current contracts to see if we could get better rates.…


So this happened to me about 6 years ago. I was recommended by a good friend to a company who was creating a new role. Basically they had a bunch of plants all over the country and abroad and all services were being contracted directly by each plant. The VP of operations wanted to channel all contracts through one person (me) so that based on the volume of the services required the company would get better rates and reduce administrative costs.

So I come on board and begin the process of unifying the contracting/tendering process and get push back from all the plant managers. They were all on kick backs from the vendors so they didn’t want to relinquish their control over contracts (first red flag).

VP still insisted I keep going and he even told me to review ALL current contracts to see if we could get better rates. One of the contracts belong to a vendor whose manager was the VP’s sister in law (second red flag). Turns out when I went for bids I found they were charging double what the others vendors charged. I went to my direct boss and told her so. She begins telling me I made a mistake. I tell her I didn’t and showed her the math. Knowing how things work in my home country I knew my job was in the line so I told her I hadn’t made anything official and that we should talk with the VP informally to see how he wanted to proceed as I needed the job.

At first she was reluctant but she finally agreed. I was completely frank with the VP and told him that I personally didn’t care if his company charged more (I knew he was getting money from the deal) I just wanted to know what he wanted to do as there wasn’t any paper trail yet and we could fix it still I just needed to know what to do. He said that I made a mistake and that he would go over the math as he had personally calculated the costs for said contract.

Long story short they began giving me the cold shoulder and suspended all contracts because they were cutting down costs. They began giving me tasks that I wasn’t hired to do thinking they could get me to quit. I didn’t so they just didn’t renew my contract.

Later I learned that the company is like game of thrones and they’re all fighting for power and kick backs. The VP original intention was to take away the contracts from the plant managers so he could get all the kick backs. The guy’s salary was literally 10x mine. The kicker was I was willing to work with them however they wanted to do things they just didn’t want to. Luckily I’m in a much better place but that was one of the most toxic environments I’ve worked in my life.

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