Schrödinger’s Supervisor: The Hilarious Case of Being Both In Charge and Not in Charge at Once
Have you ever been told you’re in charge—except when you’re not? Welcome to the world of “Schrödinger’s Manager,” where your authority exists in a quantum state, and every coworker is both your subordinate and not… until observed.
This is the wild, true story of a psychiatric emergency worker who found themselves the de facto boss—until it came time to actually boss anyone around. With a cast of crisis-shy colleagues, a supervisor who clocked in two hours late, and a director who wanted all the perks of confident leadership with none of the paperwork, it’s the kind of workplace drama that makes you laugh, cringe, and cheer for a little well-placed malicious compliance.
The Setup: Crisis Unit or Comedy Club?
Our protagonist, known on Reddit as u/Variable851, worked at a county psychiatric emergency services unit for eight years, back when paperwork was still penned by hand and “processes” often amounted to “use your best judgment.” The job was high-stakes—evaluating patients in jails, hospitals, or their homes, and starting the civil commitment process if needed. But the real drama? The staff themselves.
While most colleagues treated the job like a part-time book club—handling one or two cases, then spending the rest of their shift avoiding more work—OP thrived on action, regularly volunteering for extra cases and staying late to ensure no patient fell through the cracks. “I like to be busy and to keep moving, and I found downtime on the crisis unit to be torture,” OP wrote.
But here’s where things got delightfully dysfunctional: The evening supervisor, Allen, didn’t start his shift until 5:30pm (despite the shift beginning at 3pm). This meant that, for over two hours, there was no official supervisor on duty. Instead, the day supervisor, Danielle, would hand off the role to… whoever was unlucky enough to arrive first.
Unless, of course, OP was around. In that case, it was always their problem.
Schrödinger’s Manager: In Charge, Unless It’s Inconvenient
As OP described, “I was very much treated as a supervisor only when it was convenient.” If a tough clinical decision needed to be made, or someone had to argue with another facility, suddenly everyone agreed OP was the boss. But if a new case came in and OP tried to assign it to a staff member? Sorry, only the “real supervisor” could do that.
In the words of one commenter, u/SpleenBender, OP was the perfect “Schrödinger’s manager”—simultaneously in charge and not, depending on whether work needed to be done or avoided.
This created a theater of the absurd: cases sat untouched for hours, but when Allen finally arrived (often after a cozy nap in a chair, according to OP’s follow-up), he’d demand to know why nothing was done. Meanwhile, OP fielded calls from other departments and hospitals, who all assumed they were the one in charge. The staff’s strategy? Sit tight, wait for Allen, and let OP do all the heavy lifting—without the pay, title, or backup.
The Malicious Compliance Masterstroke
Fed up with being the unit’s unofficial scapegoat, OP finally took the problem to John, the unit director. John’s solution? Announce to the staff that OP “could assign cases to anyone [they] wanted.” No title, no written authority, just the world’s flimsiest verbal mandate—backed up by the promise that HR would side with staff if they refused.
So OP played along. When a particularly rough case came in—a patient who’d assaulted others, clearly in need of urgent attention—OP assigned the case to… themselves. Then walked out, leaving the rest of the staff to face the music when calls arrived demanding action. When they tried to call OP back for backup, the response was beautifully simple: “Ask Kris to do it. I won’t be back for a long time.”
The best punchline? When John called, OP explained, “You told everyone on the unit that I could assign cases to anyone I wanted, so I assigned it to me.” The case was resolved before Allen even walked in the door, and the lesson was clear: if you want someone to do the work, you have to give them the authority to make it happen.
Community Reactions: Applause, Facepalms, and War Stories
Reddit ate this story up, with one commenter, u/Super_Radio7457, asking the question on everyone’s mind: “Why on earth would a staff supervisor be allowed to show up 2 1/2 hours late every day for their shift?” OP clarified that Allen’s “flexed” schedule was a holdover from before they started—and that he often made up hours by “sleeping in a chair.”
Others, like u/55tany, recognized the classic workplace pitfall: “We train you to be lazy by rewarding the least amount of perceived work scenario. Sounds exhausting to deal with.” And OP himself summed it up perfectly in the comments: “I was not a supervisor in title, both in title and in pay rate, and the other staff knew that I did not have any authority to make them work.”
Perhaps the best summary came from u/SpleenBender: “Schrödinger’s manager.” It’s a term that should be immortalized in the HR lexicon.
For those who’ve worked in dysfunctional teams, this struck a chord—especially with those who’ve been the “expert” or “unofficial boss” with responsibility but no authority, as u/phaxmeone related in their own workplace war story. Or, as one comment thread wryly observed: “Stuff happened. The end.”
Lessons Learned (and Laughed At)
What’s the moral here? Authority without responsibility is a joke, but responsibility without authority is a nightmare. OP’s brilliant bit of malicious compliance forced management to finally put their money (or at least their HR policy) where their mouth was. After John made it clear that ignoring OP’s assignments would be considered insubordination, the staff got to work—sometimes with a little attitude, but always with a sense of who was really running the show.
So, next time you find yourself in a Schrödinger’s manager situation, remember OP’s story: Sometimes, the best way to get a broken system fixed is to let it break spectacularly in front of everyone.
What about you? Have you ever been “in charge, but not in charge”? Share your stories below—who knows, maybe your own workplace quantum paradox will be the next viral sensation!
Original Reddit Post: I'm either in charge or I'm not, so I made it so I was both