A new job comes with a learning curve, but navigating office politics may be among the hardest lessons to master.

When one micromanager decided to make an example of one employee who dared to make a mistake, the employee decided to give quiet quitting a try.

Read on for the full story.

Boss says I don’t know anything yet so I do the absolute bare minimum.

I started my first full-time office job at a corporate America nightmare a week after college.

It was an industry I hadn’t worked in before, and I needed to be licensed.

To the company’s credit, they had a pretty generous training program.

The company that hired me, we’ll call them Smith Inc., paid for my licensing fees, study materials, classes, etc., for me to become licensed.

The total cost was about $500.

It was a sweet deal.

They gave me approximately 90 days (paid) to study a textbook and pass an online course.

I didn’t have to do any work for the company, simply study and pass the licensing exam.

It was pretty easy, and I passed on my first try.

Their relationship with their new boss got off to a great start.

My boss, let’s call her Mary, was super excited that I passed, and I began training under an associate-level coworker who had just been promoted from the position I was in.

The coworker, Jen, was super great and helpful.

She began training me on two simple tasks that I could do.

The only rule was that if the client had a question specifically about their contract, I would ask Jen or forward it to my team lead.

The employee did their best to contribute to the team.

Well, I ended up getting an email from a client about their contract, and I video-called Jen to ask how to handle it.

She walked me through it as I shared my screen with her.

I wrote the email back to the client exactly how she told me, and she read the email before I sent it.

A month goes by, and everything is great.

I’m learning and getting more comfortable.

But it turns out, their boss isn’t so happy about their proactive attitude.

Then I get a really nasty email from Mary.

She CCs my whole team into the email, going on and on about how I cannot answer contract questions and how she’s gone over this with me before (she hadn’t—Jen was the one who told me I can’t answer contract questions).

The employee tries to defend themselves, but the boss isn’t having any of it.

Both Jen and I try to explain what happened and that Jen was the one who wrote the email — I just typed what Jen said and sent it from my email since the client emailed me and not Jen.

The boss continued to berate her employee long after she had already gotten her point across.

Mary then calls the team up in a video call and goes on about how I don’t know anything, I just started, and I really don’t know how this industry works.

She says that answering contract questions is out of my job description.

It went on for about five minutes. I say, “Okay,” and get off the call crying.

So this employee really took the boss’ words to heart.

The next day, out of pure pettiness, I simply do the absolute bare minimum.

I don’t know anything, right, Mary?

I still complete all my tasks and everything that’s required of me.

Productivity plummeted.

Anything more advanced that I would normally try to learn with Jen’s help?

Nope.

I just forward it to our team lead and say, “Sorry, Mary said I can’t do anything outside of my job description!”

Work was much less stressful after I decided to listen to Mary (and what many others told me before) — don’t do anything outside of your job description!

Their time at this company didn’t have a happy ending, but at least they got to stick it to the boss one last time.

Also, Mary later fired me for being a whistleblower when I reported the company to the health authority for violating COVID protocols.

I sleep better at night knowing how much money Mary wasted on training me.

Mary thought she was putting an “underperforming” employee in their place, but all she really did was hurt herself.

Reddit is sure to have some strong opinions on this one.

Mary’s behavior is raising some major legal red flags.

While rules may be in place for a reason, the method in which they’re enforced still matters.

This ex-employee may actually have somewhat of a case against Mary’s injustices.

Regardless of your tenure at work, no one deserves to be mistreated.

Turns out, the only thing more expensive than training a new hire is wasting that training entirely.

Mary’s bad management came with a $500 lesson.

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.