My New Mba Boss Canceled My Pentagon Trip “no More Luxury Vacations On The Company Dime” I Calmly…

Chapter 1: The Old Guard and the New Efficiency

My new MBA boss canceled my Pentagon trip. “No more luxury vacations on the company dime.” I calmly closed my binder and replied: “Okay, but the DoD doesn’t give second chances.”

When the $150,000 daily penalties hit his desk, the panic emails started. Sup Reddit, the new boss called me a dinosaur in front of the whole company and said my job was basically a paid vacation. So I let him run things his way and watched him dig his own grave.

Name’s Gary, 49, male; grab some popcorn, this is going to be intense. My alarm went off at 4:00 a.m., and I was already awake. Too much riding on contract renewal season to actually sleep.

Checked on Adam first; kid’s eight, and sleeps like a rock. Backpack was by the door. Colleen handles mornings, but I make sure the important stuff’s handled.

I’m a senior field operations director for Ridgeline Power Systems. We’re a blue-collar outfit that keeps military installations running. Generators, transfer switches, load testing, emergency call-outs.

Two months ago, we had a generator array fail at Whiteman during a severe thunderstorm. A lightning strike cascaded through the backup grid. My crew had 53 minutes to restore emergency power to a facility I can’t name.

That’s the job. You either know your business, or people start asking uncomfortable questions. I’ve been doing this for 26 years.

Started as a wrench turner right out of the Army, crawling through mechanical rooms, learning how diesel generators breathe. Worked my way up to crew lead, then supervisor, then operations manager. Now I’m the guy who keeps us legal across 14 military installations in four states.

The kitchen light was already on when I came downstairs. Colleen was at the table with her reading glasses on, surrounded by paperwork. I recognized the blue folder immediately; guardianship documents.

Our court review was five weeks out. “Needs updated employment verification and insurance confirmation by the 18th.” The attorney’s office called, she said without looking up. “Also wants bank statements showing household stability.”

I’ll get Rhonda in HR to send the employment letter tomorrow. Insurance cards are in the filing cabinet, and the home evaluation visit is scheduled for the week after. Social worker wants to walk through the house, see Adam’s room, and talk to both of us separately.

I poured coffee into my thermos and sat down across from her. We’d been raising Adam for three and a half years now, ever since my son Noah’s life fell apart. It started with painkillers after a warehouse accident and escalated when the prescriptions dried up.

He lost his apartment, lost his job, and lost custody of Adam after his second arrest when the cops found him passed out in a parking lot with the kid sitting in the back seat for six hours. The state gave us emergency custody first, then temporary guardianship when Noah skipped his treatment program. Then we filed for permanent guardianship when it became obvious he wasn’t getting better; he was getting worse.

“We’ll handle it,” I said. My phone buzzed on the counter; a text from Noah, the first contact in two months. “Need to talk about my son. Serious. Call me back.”

His son? Like he was claiming ownership of a car he’d left to rust in someone else’s driveway. Nothing good ever came from Noah’s 4:00 a.m. messages.

Usually, it meant he was still up from the night before, scheming. Whatever angle he was working could wait until I wasn’t walking into the most critical meeting of the fiscal year. I slid the phone into my pocket without responding.

Got to the office by 6:00 a.m. and set up in the main conference room with my binders. Color-coded tabs; red for urgent deadlines. Some people think physical documentation is prehistoric.

Those people have never watched a contract worth eight figures hang in the balance while someone frantically searches a digital filing system that 17 different employees have organized over the years. Vince showed up around 6:30. Senior field tech, been with Ridgeline almost as long as I have.

Built like a refrigerator with a beard, Vince could tell you the exact torque settings for every transfer switch we’d serviced in the last 15 years. More importantly, he had the same paranoia I did about documentation. We’d both learned the hard way that paperwork was the difference between survival and unemployment.

“Heard the new efficiency genius is presenting today,” Vince said, dropping into the chair next to me. “Word around the shop is he’s got slides.”

Slides are never good. Slides with clip art? Sandra in purchasing saw them yesterday; little cartoon scissors cutting dollar signs.

That’s really never good. The DC trip was the annual base access credential renewal. It’s in person; originals on the table, no exceptions.

No renewal means no base access, and we can’t legally work on 14 installations. It’s been that way since before I started, and every year some genius asks if we could modernize the process. The answer was always the same.

People filtered in around 8:00; department heads, supervisors, crew chiefs. Then Trenton Marlo walked in. Trenton doesn’t walk, he glides.

He’s got that business school energy you see in guys who’ve studied organizational psychology but never actually fixed anything with their hands. He’s 34, wears slim-fit suits, and carries a presentation clicker like it’s a magic wand. New Director of Operational Excellence, hired 12 weeks ago to optimize our cost structure.

The first thing Trenton did when he arrived was redesign the breakroom coffee station to be more ergonomically efficient. Second thing was commissioning a study on our paperclip usage. The man had priorities.

I’d prepared a presentation for this meeting. Charts showing the renewal timeline, cost breakdown for the DC trip, and a risk matrix explaining exactly what happens if we miss the deadline. Twenty-six years of institutional knowledge distilled into 45 minutes.

I never got to open my binder. Trenton clicked his little wand, and the projector hummed to life. Big letters splashed across the screen: Strategic Cost Optimization.

Clip art scissors, dollar signs getting trimmed. Under that, an aggressive red font: Legacy Travel and Hospitality Programs. “I’ve been conducting a comprehensive analysis of our expenditure patterns,” Trenton announced, strutting around the front of the room.

“The findings are frankly concerning. We have senior personnel treating compliance functions as personal travel opportunities. Multi-day excursions to Washington that cost more than the median monthly salary at this company. We’re hemorrhaging resources on what amounts to government-subsidized tourism.”

The room went dead quiet. That heavy silence when everyone knows somebody’s about to get publicly gutted. Vince shifted in his seat next to me.