Saw TRP in Action at my Job; I Buy it Now

Started browsing this sub a while back. I thought a lot of the theory was interesting, made mental notes, and was on the lookout for confirmation in daily life. I found it some three months ago.

I am not an "alpha". I'll be the first to admit that. I'm active, fit, successful, but when it comes to straight out pissing contests, I generally lose. "Winning through sheer confidence and aggression" has never been my MO and likely never will be. Indirect confrontation is where I tend to thrive.

I got promoted about a year ago to more or less running the inventory and data analysis for my employer's global operations. Essentially a stand-in for our VP of operations specifically when it comes to inventory management and analytics anywhere outside of our home office. That means Hong Kong, Germany, Oceania, and other smaller outfits' inventory programs answer to me. The other 40% of my job is doing what I've always done: Inventory analytics for my product category in our domestic market.

Everything was going really well. I brought Germany, Hong Kong, and the rest of our global inventory into order (it was a shit show, everything is fine now). But it was tough to make people see the value I created in the home office because they didn't "see" me doing it. Numbers can only say so much to people who don't work with numbers for a living. Then about four months ago I find out that our VP hired a new analyst to focus "on e-tail". Totally blindsided, didn't even know they were interviewing. What makes it more problematic is that a lot of the forecasting I do is for e-tail. So whoever comes in is at least partially going to be absorbing some responsibilities from me. Still, not the end of the world because I have a ton of shit to do and am working on transitioning to a more global role.

But then I actually meet the guy. Total fucking Chad. Tall, incredibly sexy, built, cool, collected. You name it. I am immediately threatened, but force myself to reserve judgment because I have a tendency to snap judge people. My coworker, another analyst, tells me she despised him the second she met him. I even cautioned her to wait to judge him because I've been the new guy before and I know it can suck.

He has not been there three weeks, doesn't even know how to navigate our ERP and forecasting system properly before he starts talking about how he's going to "elevate" the forecasting. Big fan of that word, "elevate". He starts going through my forecasts and changing them. For those of you who are not familiar with being an analyst, changing an analyst's forecasts is akin to "fixing" a table that another carpenter made. It's essentially you telling them you don't think they're good at their job. And if you do it, you had better be fucking right.

My coworker and I are perhaps the only two people at our company that understand statistics on a fundamental level. She and I looked at the forecast adjustments he had made on my items and, just by glancing at them, immediately knew this kid was a fucking idiot.

The problem was, he presented himself so well and was such an alpha etc. that everyone else loved him. The men were buddy buddy with him almost immediately (he was so good at talking about sportsball) and every woman in our department save my friend were throwing themselves at him. I thought these were rational people. NOPE. The second a hot guy shows up, they go weak in the knees and forget me immediately. My friend told me that he had tried to talk shit about me to her, not knowing that we were super tight (We get drinks like every weekend and recently became business partners in our side venture. I was at her grandson's christening.). So it was obvious that this son of a bitch was gunning for me. Which was unfortunate because he was pretty hot and fun to look at.

He talked about his kids and wife to anyone who would listen, but I didn't care. I knew I had to get rid of him even if it meant putting his kids in the bread lines. So I started using logic and my knowledge of statistics to explain in our meetings why his ideas were wrong. Big fucking mistake. He just interrupted me and made stupid jokes at my expense and everyone laughed at me (particularly the women) because they don't understand the statistics or the numbers. They're morons. They don't get when the numbers are explained to them. They need to see it. It didn't matter that I was 100% correct, right? He would just try to make me look like an ass and a nerd.

The only way to get rid of him was to let him fail spectacularly and publicly in a way that he couldn't blame on anybody else. So I stopped reviewing his forecasts, knowing that it would cause us to be out of stock for some of our largest customers. I put in vacation time for three weeks about three months in advance, knowing almost exactly to the day when we would be out of stock, because unlike him I'm actually good at what I do.

I went to France and had two and a half glorious weeks with a guy there whom I am very attracted to. We saw the sights around Marseilles. All the while knowing that the clock was ticking. And then, on a Thursday, it exploded.

We were out of stock on thirteen of our largest moving items. Customers were calling to complain. Shit was hitting the fan. Who changed the forecasts to be so low? Oh, it was Chad. No matter, we'll have the other analyst fix them. Oh, she's out sick with a sudden and inexplicable illness? (She was actually at Six Flags, I believe; I had given her a heads up the day before) I guess we'll have to call that nerd we laughed at back early on his vacation to fix Chad's mess. His ticket isn't scheduled for another four days? Fuck, I guess the company has to fly him back here at our own expense because he needs to be here today! There are only first class seats available on such short notice? That's pricey. And we need to pay him for his vacation time.

I came in like a bat out of Hell, made a huge show of having to stay late to "fix this mess". I didn't point any fingers. His name was all over the forecast adjustments, so I didn't have to. He meekly offered to help me at one point. I asked him "Don't you think you've helped enough already?"

Before I went home at about 9PM that night, I sent the owner of the company an email detailing, in dollars and cents, how much this fuck-up had cost him. At the end of the next week, he was gone, all the while talking about his wife and kids. Wife and kids, wife and kids. You know who cared now? Fucking nobody, that's who. They smiled and wished him luck and got away from his desk as quickly as they could, the women included. Typical. Fits right in with women avoiding injured males. He was damaged goods now.

Not only was I still here, but I had been given a bonus for my efforts plus being compensated for my vacation time. Turns out you totally can put a price on another person, and in this case the price was a hair under two grand. So in a sense, I owe Chad a thank you because getting him fired helped me fund my retirement slightly sooner while keeping me in vodka and blow.

Chad taught me valuable lessons: Don't tolerate for a second someone moving in your turf. Don't trust people to be rational. And I taught Chad a very valuable lesson too: At the end of the day, money talks, you stupid cunt. Welcome to the jungle, I hope your wife and kids have to go on SNAP, fuck you and the used Camaro you rode in on.

I now absolutely buy TRP, hook, line, and sinker. I never thought all the people in this department were my friends, per se, but I thought they at least trusted my judgment. But no. The only person who saw value in what I did was the only other person who also did it for a living and was basically my best friend, so she shouldn't count. The second an "alpha" showed up, all bets were off and I was chopped liver. Great lessons all around.