It’s often a good idea to let people do their jobs without interfering because chances are, they probably know what they’re doing!

This guy shares his experience working as a janitor in a school. The lunch lady complained about the way he was doing his job, but she had no idea how bad it would get if he took her advice.

Check out the full story!

Complain about how I do my job? Cool, let’s see how things go when I do it your way

I work as a school janitor.

Half my day is spent in the lunch room emptying the trash cans and sweeping up.

At most schools, you get 15+ minutes in between each lunch period to do all the cleaning.

At my school, I get less than 2 minutes, if I’m lucky.

He knew his way around cleaning bins!

Normally, if a trash can isn’t full, I just dump one can into another, and then tie off THAT bag when it gets full. It’s a lot faster than having to replace every bag every time, AND it saves a ton of bags.

I also sweep up around the tables, and, if I see a big mess under a table, I ask the kids to move their feet and sweep that up to.

I do it this way because it’s the only way to keep up and keep things clean.

He knew what worked and what didn’t!

If I pulled every bag every time instead of dumping one can into another, not only would I run out of bags halfway through the week, but it would also take way longer.

If I only swept under tables when there was no kids sitting there, I would literally never have an opportunity to sweep under tables.

Enter the lunch ladies.

This is where it gets interesting!

Most of them are nice but there’s this one older one who is just a miserable human being. She yells at everyone including the kids, and is just always angry about something.

Earlier this week, she yelled at me for dumping one trash can into another instead of pulling the bag. Why she chose today to do this, I don’t know, since I’d been doing this every day for the past 3+ years.

I know how to do my job and didn’t ask her opinion, so I just ignored her, didn’t say anything, and kept doing what I was doing.

UH OH!

Fast forward an hour or two, and I’m getting a call from my district boss that there was a complaint filed against me.

The lunch ladies are saying they don’t like that I dump cans instead of pulling bags, and they don’t like that I sweep under the kids feet.

My boss tells me just stick to cleaning in between lunch periods.

He wasn’t going to let it slide!

I try to explain that that’s literally a period of less than 2 minutes and isn’t even a fifth of the amount of time I’d need to do it that way.

He says just do it anyway to keep the lunch ladies happy.

He’s a good dude, but he’s just trying to squash complaints and keep them from going further.

He says from now on, I’m ONLY to empty trash or sweep the floors in between lunches, where there’s not students in the cafeteria, and also I’m to pull the bags every time.

No more dumping cans.

He knew what he had to do!

Cue malicious compliance.

Starting then, I ONLY cleaned in between lunches when there was no kids.

Of course, this is literally like a knife and a half, so I only had time to get to half the trash cans. And since I was replacing every bag instead of dumping cans, each can took longer.

I didn’t even have time to sweep AT ALL.

The trash cans I couldn’t get to would fill up and overflow, and the kids don’t care and just keep piling trash on top.

Things started falling apart!

The floor got more and more covered in trash, since I didn’t have time to sweep at all.

I did this for the rest of the week.

The same bad lunch lady tried to scream at me to go empty the trash when I was standing there on Tuesday.

But I explained “I was told by my boss that you guys didn’t like me sweeping or emptying trash around the kids, so now I’m only allowed to do that when the cafeteria is empty. Id love to go get that trash can, but there’s kids eating lunch right now so I’m not allowed.”

She tried to argue but I just told her I’m following direct and explicit orders from my boss. There was nothing she could do.

He knew how to shut them up!

When the final lunch ended, I cleaned as much as I could before 2pm and then stopped, as that was my lunch time and the union REQUIRES that we take our lunches at our allotted times.

It’s non-optional and zero tolerance for deviation.

And after my lunch, I have to go clean classrooms since school is out, and classrooms take priority over the cafeteria.

Finally the cherry on top!

End result?

The cafeteria never got fully cleaned.

When the lunch ladies came in Monday and found it still half filthy, they went through the roof and complained to my boss.

He called me in and I explained that I was just follow orders, and the lunch ladies were the ones who asked I do things this way.

Suffice it to say, I was told to go back to doing it however I thought was best.

You wanna stick your nose in my business and tell me how to do my job? See how that turns out.

He got really petty with it!

Oh, and also since then, I spent the rest of the week calling THEM out on all the things they were doing wrong. Previously I just kept my mouth shut and minded my business, but now? Now we’re doing this the way you wanted.

Door propped open because its incredibly hot in the kitchen and you need the air flow? Sorry! That’s a security issue, doors CANNOT be propped open.

Greasy wax paper in the cardboard recycling? Sorry, that can’t go in there!

Normally I’d just grab it as I see it, but now? I waited till the end of the day and then tell them.

They had to pick it all out by hand.

You guys like having the radio playing in the kitchen? Sorry, not allowed! Shut it down.

Why couldn’t the lunch ladies just mind their own business?

Let’s find out what the Reddit community thinks about this story.

This user has an interesting tongue twister for this story.

That’s right! This user thinks the school needs to change their lunch schedules.

That’s right! This user thinks this guy was brilliant for getting back at them.

This user loved the janitors at their school!

This user shares lovely advice from their mom.

The lunch ladies should’ve kept their mouths shut.

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.