Imagine working as a custodian in an office building. If you saw paperwork on the floor near a trash can but not in the trash can, would you throw it away or assume it’s important and put it somewhere safe?

In this story, one custodian and his manager disagree about the answer to this question, but his manager learns the hard way that her opinion is wrong.

Let’s read the whole story.

All items on floor are trash? Have fun rooting through the dumpster!

I’m a custodian for an office building. I clean bathrooms, take out trash, vacuum, etc. I clean in the morning before the office opens.

When collecting trash, I’d occasionally find some loose papers under/behind desks, beside the trashcan, or otherwise on the floor.

Since I’m not sure if these papers are trash that missed the can or important documents that fell on the floor by accident, I pick them up and put them on the corner of the nearest desk for the workers to either file them away or toss them.

Better safe than sorry.

The custodian decided to listen to his manager.

However, the manager did not like this habit.

She came in early one morning, expressing disgust that “trash is being placed on people’s desks.” (obviously I never put actual trash like food wrappers or crumpled papers on desks).

I explained my reasoning for my habit and expressed that I didn’t want to risk tossing something important.

My manager told me that everything on the floor is trash and the workers aren’t such immature slobs to drop important documents on the floor.

I agreed and said I’d never do it again.

But apparently there are exceptions to the rule.

Flash forward several weeks.

My manager came in early again and expressed concerns because a filing cabinet had tipped over the day and despite picking up the papers, they were still missing a few important documents. She asked if I’d seen them.

I reminded her that since “everything on the floor is trash”, the documents were probably thrown away.

She was irate, saying “but this was an exception since a filing cabinet fell over.”

I asked her how I was supposed to know that when I’m not there during the day and was otherwise not informed to look out for these documents.

The manager realized her mistake.

That’s when the situation dawned in this woman’s eyes that she was her fault. She stumbled through some excuses before demanding I go to the dumpster and find the papers.

I told her that the office was opening in fifteen minutes and I still had work to do.

She stormed off and said she’d start looking in the dumpster.

While I cleaned, I knew I’d face her again before leaving (my car is parked by the dumpster), so I thought of what to say to her as the final nail in the coffin.

He came up with the perfect comeback.

Sure enough, when I finished my work and walked out, the manager and a few other wokers who’d arrived were rooting through the dumpster. When the manager spotted me, she demanded I come help.

I delivered my prepared line: “ma’am, my job description is to take out trash. Your job description is to ensure the safety and confidentiality of your clients’ files.”

I walked away to (in my head) a cartoon-esk villain scream of outraged failure from my manager.

A few hours later and I got a text saying there will now be a special inbox shelf for me to place any papers found the floor for the workers to go through.

Sometimes managers have to learn the hard way why their ideas are flawed.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person knows how helpful janitors can be.

Another office worker had to dig through a dumpster.

Another person shares their favorite part of the story.

This person loves the custodian’s comeback.

Sometimes, learning the hard way is the only way to learn.

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.