After nearly three decades in railroad operations, this manager thought he had seen every flavor of bad decision making. Tight budgets. Unrealistic timelines.
Office executives trying to optimize work they had never actually watched happen. Still, even with 27 years of hard-earned experience, nothing quite prepared him for the week an MBA decided to “fix” night work with a spreadsheet.
The logic sounded clean on paper. Stop paying a handful of workers for unavoidable downtime. Standardize shift changes. Reduce overtime. I
n reality, the railroad is a web of crafts, unions, safety rules, and dependencies that do not bend for metrics. When one person ignores that reality, the cost is not theoretical. It is measured in hours, crews, and dollars.
Here’s The Original Post:
How the Plan Fell Apart
The work required coordination between track crews and signal crews, each governed by different unions and rules. Track crews could work nights. Signal crews could not have a dedicated night shift. When signal workers stayed late, they had to be sent home and paid to rest once they hit certain limits.
The existing workaround was messy but functional. Some downtime. Some overtime. Jobs still moved forward.
Corporate decided that was unacceptable.
Instead, management ordered a mid-shift handoff. Evening crews would stay late. Day crews would come in early. No more “wasted” paid rest. On paper, it saved a few hundred dollars a night.
The manager immediately raised concerns. Overtime could not be forced without emergencies. Not all workers were qualified for all tasks.
Half the vehicles had been cut years earlier, making smooth handoffs impossible. Most critically, when signal crews were absent, track crews had to stop working entirely for safety reasons.
All objections were noted. All were ignored.
So the manager stepped aside and let the plan run.
Night one, work stopped at 1 a.m. The relief crew arrived after 4. By the time they were set up, there was no time left to safely complete anything. Track crews packed up.
Night two was marginally better. A little progress. Still mostly lost time.
Nights three and four were worse due to heavy rain. Long drives. No work completed after the handoff.
By Monday morning, only about 30 percent of the planned work was done. A six-week job was now projected to be more than 15 weeks behind and wildly over budget.
When Metrics Met Reality
At the morning meeting, the MBA launched into a polished speech about key metrics, percent spent versus percent complete, and efficiency erosion. Then he pointed the finger at the manager, accusing him of collusion and intentional slowdown.
The response was calm. The manager produced the previous week’s meeting minutes and asked a simple question. Did he still want the mid-shift change?
The answer was yes. The solution, apparently, was to make reality move faster.
For the next three weeks, nothing improved. Work crawled. Crews waited. Money burned quietly.
Then the MBA showed up on site one night.
He arrived just in time to watch the night signal crew leave. He watched the track crews shut down equipment and gather to smoke and joke, knowing they were about to be paid for hours of waiting. Furious, he screamed at them to get back to work.
They refused. They knew the rules. They knew the risks. And they knew exactly who had created this situation.
When the manager arrived, he interrupted the tirade and calmly reminded the MBA of the specific safety rule forbidding that work without signal clearance. He explained the consequences for anyone who violated it. Thirty witnesses. Union protections. Serious discipline.
The MBA turned purple, stormed off, and drove away.
Two weeks later, he was no longer in charge of estimates.
The Cost of Being “Right”
The final tally was brutal. Just over $940,000 wasted in six weeks.
But technically, the plan worked. It saved about $700 a night in avoided downtime pay.
This was not malicious compliance. No one broke rules. No one dragged their feet. Everyone simply followed instructions exactly as given.
And reality did the rest.
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
Most commenters zeroed in on the same theme. Penny wise and pound foolish.
Many shared similar stories from railroads, factories, healthcare, and telecom, where metrics replaced judgment and experience.
![[Reddit User] − Whenever he tries to give you an order, just ask him "oh, so you want me to waste another million dollars? "](https://dailyhighlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/wp-editor-1765616707408-62.webp "MBA Saves $700 a Night, Burns Nearly $1 Million by Ignoring Everyone Who Actually Knows the Job")
Others joked that the MBA had earned a permanent nickname, something involving “million dollars.”
A few pointed out the bitter irony that the only lesson learned was likely blaming unions instead of leadership.
This story sticks because it is familiar. Skilled people warning of consequences. Management hearing them. Management ignoring them. And then acting shocked when the consequences arrive on schedule.
The railroad did not fail because of unions or weather or lazy workers. It failed because someone believed credentials mattered more than experience.
Sometimes the most expensive lessons are the ones taught gently, over time, with no gloating at all. Just invoices.
So was this stubborn bureaucracy getting what it deserved, or a cautionary tale every technical industry keeps relearning the hard way?
