While being efficient at work is always a good idea, it’s also important to know your limits.

That’s the big lesson in today’s story.

A manager is actually the one who needs to learn this lesson, and the teenage girl working for her is just the one to prove this point!

Let’s see how the story plays out…

Need me to be MORE efficient? Okay, here’s £100 worth of damage!

I got my first job when I was 16, dodgy family run business, paid less than minimum wage but whatever.

Anyway, there was one manager there who was the definition of “middle aged women hate the younger female coworkers.”

Let’s call her “Smudge” (her mascara application was dreadful).

Smudge was very passive aggressive.

Smudge was one of those people who gave you the most harsh, vicious critiques but with a huge smile on her face.

She wrote the book on passive aggressiveness and for some reason she was CONSTANTLY on my case.

Even though I’d go above and beyond in my role for this company.

(for reference, i worked in an area where i just collected and cleaned dishes which had to be transported upstairs, restocked stuff etc).

Smudge tried to push her past the tray’s limits.

Anyway, this one shift there was a huge rush and I had to run around collecting dirty dishes.

The trays were so flimsy it felt like i was piling stuff on cling film.

So i couldn’t stack as much as Smudge wanted me to (even though i was still way over stacking dishes).

“My Name you need to be way more efficient and stack the cups and plates way more than this, this is just lazy” and pointed to my tray that was about to give way in my tiny 16 year old girl arms.

Cue the malicious compliance…

No problem!

I got a new clean tray and went to the downstairs section which was still heaving with dishes even though I’d made several trips already.

But orders are orders!

I piled 2 stacks of 10 ceramic plates, 4 thick round mugs, 4 tall slender mugs, and 7 tiny espresso mugs.

The tray honestly felt like it was gonna break but efficiency is key so i used all my strength to lift it up and began walking up the stairs (littered in rubbish because nobody did their jobs).

I can practically hear the crash!

What do you know?

I trip on a wet wipe and couldn’t hold the weight of the tray so all of those dishes fell and 10 plates smashed, 7 mugs got chipped but I had to keep pushing up the stairs because EFFICIENCY.

Told Smudge what happened and she panics and asks “Why did you stack that many???”

“I was doing what you said”.

Next day there was a meeting about not pushing past your limits.

Knowing your limits is important.

Smudge apparently learned that lesson the hard way.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story…

I hope Smudge learned her lesson.

This reader is thinking of Cinderella.

Women need to be better to other women.

This reader had a coworker like Smudge.

Hopefully the job got better after that meeting.

It wasn’t an auspicious beginning.

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.