Everyone who’s ever been trained for a job knows that there’s the way things are supposed to be done, and the way that the employees actually do it!

And while some of these rules are important, sometimes it’s best to just let your workers do what works best for them, or give them a little room to breathe and enjoy themselves.

But when this user was trying to go above and beyond by making the groceries he got for people extra fancy, his boss demanded he stop his special service and follow the rules exactly.

But things didn’t work out as she had hoped! Check it out!

By The Book

Twenty plus years ago I was working at a commissary (think grocery store) on an army post.

I worked in the produce department and one our duties was to make fruit and vegetable trays for customers one order.

I started out making them pretty much like everyone else. Celery in this spot, cherry tomatoes here, broccoli like so.

One day and officer’s wife asked if I could make a vegetable tray but she wanted it a bit fancier. I love to cook and wow people with my knife skills.

I slided things thin and layered them and pretty so I had something that looked like it belonged on a wedding buffet.

And when other people saw his culinary skills, they wanted some fancy veggies for themselves!

Of course other people saw it and they wanted something similar. So I became the veggie and fruit tray guy.

My supervisor and I didn’t get along very well.

I would stop what I was doing and take a customer to the products they were trying to find or I’d go in search if I didn’t know where exactly, especially after a reset.

For some reason my supervisor didn’t like it.

She didn’t see it as going above and beyond, she saw it as abandoning my duties.

So his fun-hating supervisor banned from making any more special trays for the customers!

Anyways one day she told me that I couldn’t make the trays anymore unless I followed the book which she handed me.

No more fancy trays because “it took too long”. It took me the same amount of time as anyone else making a regular tray.

I cracked open the book on my break and I smiled. Y

ou want by the book? You get by the book.

The next tray I made took four hours. My boss almost went berserk.

But he told her he was only following the same book that she had insisted so heavily on!

I told her that with each, individual fruit or vegetable I had to wash, sanitize and rinse them separately because that was what the book says.

With eight different fruits or vegetables I had to spend about half an hour filling and draining the sink each time as to not cause cross contamination.

I transferred to a different section shortly after that.

If you’re going to antagonize one of your subordinates into following the rules exactly, shouldn’t you at least know what rules you’re asking him to follow?

Reddit said it sounded like this supervisor just really had it out for him.

Others said that if there’s one person you don’t want to annoy, its the wife of someone who has power over your job!

And this story reminded this user of a literal fight he got into about following food-safety rules in the dairy department.

Finally, this user realized that some of the book’s rules were a little less than logical, to say the least…

Don’t you hate when people do EXACTLY what you ask?

I know there are a lot of bosses on Reddit who do!

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.