If you were hired to do a specific job, would you stick to doing exactly the job as described, or would you ever consider doing just a little bit more?

You’d think going above and beyond at work would make you look good and possibly even impress the bosses, but that’s not what the employee in this story encountered!

Let’s find out what happened when he did more than he was told to do.

“You’re only here to count.”

I work at a place where we pack fruit.

There are about 20 robots that fill boxes with fruit, and there’s one position in charge of checking that each robot puts the correct amount of fruit in each box.

To explain it a bit more, we basically have to check all day that the robots are doing a good job, making sure each box has the right amount of fruit and keeping track of which robot packed it.

(Hope that makes sense.)

Obviously, since it’s heavy machinery, sometimes the robots damage the fruit.

So when I’m checking a box, it’s possible to find fruit that’s been cut in half or otherwise damaged.

When I first started, I was assigned to that checking position.

This employee went above and beyond.

It’s pretty simple, count the fruit in each box and return it to the export line.

But whenever I found damaged fruit, I used to write it down in a section of the control log called “comments”, noting how many damaged ones I found.

I also started reporting it to a woman from the quality team.

She didn’t like that.

She kept telling me that it wasn’t my job (which is technically true), but I thought it was important to say something when the damage was a lot.

He realized he was doing extra work.

One day, all the robots started sending out fruit that was cut into multiple pieces (no idea how).

So I went to report it again.

And this woman confronted me and said: “Your job is only to count. Count, count, count, and count. That’s it.”

She said it in a very rude tone and sent me back to the station.

Of course I thought: “She’s totally right.”

So instead of getting upset, whenever I found damaged fruit, I just counted it like a normal one, closed the box, and sent it down the export line.

That’s how I spent the whole day, just counting, nothing else.

Eventually, another team noticed the damaged fruit.

Until the export inspection team noticed there was a lot of damaged fruit already packed and ready to go.

The quality managers came to talk to me and asked why I hadn’t reported it.

I just pointed to the woman and said: “She told me my job was only to count, count, and count. So that’s all I did.”

And I shrugged.

She started giving me hateful looks while the managers told her that this position does need to report damaged fruit and packaging issues.

This sounds like a better position.

At the end of the day, they moved me to another area (a much better one, where I now do quality too), and this woman can’t help but glare at me every time she sees me.

Wasn’t I just doing what I was told? Just counting?

Yes, he just did what he was told, nothing more, nothing less.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This is funny!

Yes, she needed to be put in her place!

I think she was just bad at her job.

This person calls the woman a “terrible person.”

Sometimes counting means more than just counting.

But only if your boss says so.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.