My job is to be an operations coordinator in a medium-sized manufacturing company. As part of my role, I order all materials, replacement parts, office supplies, and anything else that may be required to keep the departments running smoothly.
For years we had a very basic system. Department managers may approve any purchase amount less than $500. Higher level approval was required for anything above that.
This process was fast, efficient, and had minimal problems. We then had a new director, Greg.
Greg was the kind of manager that thought that there was nothing he couldn't solve by adding more control. In his first month, he stated that there are too many people who have purchasing power and costs should be monitored.
His solution?
All purchases had to go through him, and he would need to sign all purchases, no matter how much they cost.
A $5 pack of pens? Greg's signature.
A $20 computer mouse?
Greg's signature.
A $50 maintenance supply order!
Greg's signature.
Several heads of departments mentioned that it would be a huge slowdown, but Greg was adamant that this would not happen.
If the process were followed properly, there wouldn't be any delays," he said.So I went through the process exactly. So I did exactly the procedure.
The first few days were ok. After that it was a shock to discover the truth.
Small purchases were constantly required to be authorized by the employees. All requests were required to be printed, filled, and sent in to Greg's office.
Often he was at meetings.He was also on calls at times. At times, he was not in the building. Whenever this occurred, requests just kept coming in.
I would go to his office dozens of times a day by the 2nd week.
Greg, I need your signature!
"Greg, replacement filters are needed for maintenance.
“Greg, there is a need for printer toner in accounting.
Greg: “Oh, packaging labels are required for shipping.”
He initially signed all the papers without saying anything.
After that, he began to get aggravated.
One afternoon he gave a deep sigh and stated, "Can these wait till the end of the day?"
I told him that we were waiting for approval from some departments, so they cannot move on.
After all, that's what I was doing; I was just following his policy.
Two days later when the maintenance department tried to replace the tools that broke, it was too late because the purchase request was on Greg's desk for almost six hours while he was in meetings.
Production slowed down.
Then there were no more labels, as the order for $30 had not been approved.
However, then accounting didn't have the ability to print invoices because they were waiting for toner.Managers started complaining. Employees started complaining. Even delays were faced by customers.
Greg called a meeting that was going to be held on the spur of the moment.He used a lot of it to explain to everyone that they had to be more organized.Finally, one manager of a department asked a simple question.
How many times a day is it taking you to have to sign off on everything you're buying?
Silence reigned in the room. Nobody answered.
They have no need to.The stack of papers on Greg's desk spoke for us. A new e-mail message arrived the next Monday.
As of this date, department managers will be able to approve purchases of less than $500.
The policy was short-lived, only surviving for a month.
Some of my co-workers later teased me that I should have told Greg what the ramifications would be.
However, several managers pointed out that we had told him many times before the policy was implemented. He just didn't heed.
AITA for sticking to my boss's purchase approval policy as it was worded, despite this showing how impractical that policy was?
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