Some managers get a little too obsessed with control, even when there’s nothing to control.

What would you do if your boss suddenly took away your access to supplies for no real reason, then insisted on micromanaging every little task you did?

Would you suck it up and go along with it?

Or would you make their life miserable until they returned your access?

In the following story, one bartender deals with this exact scenario and chooses the latter.

Here’s what she did.

Can you unlock the cooler for me?

I’m a bartender in a corporate restaurant.

We have our own section of the walk-in, which is caged off and locked, for beer, fruit, mixers, wine, etc.

We’ve always kept it locked, and the bartenders keep the keys behind the bar.

We recently got a new manager who decided, seemingly without reason, to take the key away and insisted that we not only ask to have it unlocked, but also have her follow us into the cooler to watch what we’re taking.

When I say without reason, there’s been no discrepancy as far as inventory and no signs of theft, so I can’t think of a single reason to have changed the system besides her being a control freak.

It’s also super annoying to need a manager to open the cage because we pull from it multiple times a shift and are frequently in a rush to do so.

It didn’t take long for the policy to change again.

So, picture this: it’s a Monday.

Just got through a busy weekend.

Everything needs restocked, right?

Our new favorite manager was also leading the shift.

I needed to stock beer and wine, cut fruit, make mixers, everything.

So, following protocol, I asked her to unlock the cage and follow me in.

That is what she wanted us to do, after all.

Except I did my tasks one at a time—first beer (which took multiple trips, and she locked the cage in between every one).

Then, wine 15 minutes later. Each mixer, one by one, after that, probably every 5 minutes.

Then the fruit, grabbing one fruit at a time, of course.

First oranges.

Then, limes 10 minutes later.

Lemons, 10 minutes after that.

Oh, and then more lemons, because we need wedges and wheels.

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Imagine my surprise when the keys were back behind the bar the next morning.

Wow! That was super quick!

Let’s see how the folks over at Reddit feel about this story.

Here’s a great point.

This is so true.

This may have overdone it.

She did follow directions nicely.

Just the right amount of maliciousness!

Luckily, the manager was a quick learner, too.

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.