There are two types of employees.

One type of employee does only the bare minimum.

The other type of employee goes above and beyond.

Unfortunately, sometimes without realizing it managers turn employees who try to go above and beyond into employees who do the bare minimum.

In today’s story, one employee wanted to fix a big problem, but the manager got upset and demanded that the employee only do as told.

Let’s see how this all blows up in the manager’s face!

Don’t fix a problem that will cost the store a lot of money? You got it!

I was working in the fitting rooms on a Sunday morning at about 11.45, when it was still relatively quiet (usually it gets really busy from 12pm onwards).

Though the store manager had given me a rail of last season’s clothes to mark down, I still had to keep the fitting rooms tidy and free of returns.

(and was starting on the back foot because the person who’d been in there on Saturday night had left a whole trolley of stuff I had to sort out and hang up before I could put it away).

So I was focusing more on the returns but any time I had to go back in and answer the phones, I’d do another section of markdowns on the rail.

He went to fix another problem.

Just after I’d put some footwear returns away and was heading back to the fitting room, I noticed a pretty significant problem in the footwear section.

I took 2-3 steps towards it to go to fix it, only to be accosted by the store manager coming around the corner.

Store Manager: RabidRathian! What are you doing?

She wouldn’t let him answer the question.

Me: I just finished putting some returns away, and I just-

Store Manager: Have you finished those markdowns I asked you to do?

Me: Not yet, but I-

Store Manager: Well get back in there and do it!

She did as told.

Me: I’m going to but I just need to-

Store Manager: No, you don’t “just need” to do anything except the job I’m paying you for. Now get back in there, do those mark downs and stop wasting time wandering around out here.

Me: … Okay. *goes back to fitting rooms*

Over the next half hour or so, I could hear the store manager being paged to go to the front registers a LOT.

This might usually happen once a shift, if that, but from what I could hear over the PA system, she was having to go up there every 5 minutes.

Now the manager has another problem.

At 12.30 she comes storming into the fitting rooms.

Store Manager: Who was working stock in footwear?

Me: I don’t know.

Store Manager: Well, find out. They put out some new boots but didn’t take the price down for the thongs that were there before [side note to non-Australians; when I say thongs I’m talking about the rubber footwear worn in summer, not the skimpy underwear], so I’ve just had to let nearly all those pairs of $50 boots go through for $12!

OP explains the situation.

Me: Oh, yeah.

Store Manager: What do you mean, “Oh, yeah?”

Me: I saw that the price was wrong earlier.

Store Manager: Well why didn’t you fix it?!

Me: I tried to, and I tried to tell you it was wrong, but you told me to stop wasting time and get back in the fitting rooms.

She doubts that the manager learned her lesson.

Store Manager: *slowly goes redder than Barnaby Joyce*

No real fallout for me, but apparently the footwear stock worker got torn a new one when they came back from their break.

I’d like to say the store manager learned from her mistake – the problem could have been identified and fixed a lot earlier (and therefore a lot more cheaply before 10-15 customers took advantage of the price screw up) if she hadn’t decided to go on a power trip – but anyone who has worked with managers like that knows she learned absolutely nothing.

At least she didn’t suffer any fallout for the problem.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person explains how the manager could’ve handled the situation better.

Another person worked for a similar manager.

This person comments on the meanings for the word “thong.”

This customer got a great deal due to a similar error.

That was a costly mistake!

The manager should definitely have listened.

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.