It’s a bummer when you try to do a good job and you try to do the right thing at your job, and the folks who give the directions are totally clueless.

But, if you’re just a lowly worker, all you can really do is follow orders, right?

In today’s story, a security guard talked about what happened when one of their workers wasn’t pulling his weight.

Let’s take a look!

Security guard not at post. Told to cover and write a report. OK.

“A few years back I worked as a field supervisor for a security company.

I drove patrol at night and had several accounts that I was required to check on and write a report for each night. In addition to this I would check on standing guards at their assigned properties to make sure they were ok; not sleeping and to provide anything they might need.

They were really busy…

I was given a workload that was nearly impossible to keep up with each night and was always in a hurry.

To deal with this I would call a guard as I approached a property that was standing and have them meet me at an assigned location on property. There was one guard who always seemed to take forever to show up for the meeting.

Usually, I had to wait up to 30 minutes for the guard to arrive. He always explained that he was busy when I called him. I noted this in my patrol reports to management to explain why I spent half an hour at a property I was not monitoring. I never received any feedback on this.

So, I began showing up at this property unannounced and would search for the guard to see what he was doing.

This guy was definitely not on top of his work.

After several times of not finding the guard on property and always finding the property in almost chaos; nothing locked up, huge pool parties after hours, cars lining the fire lanes, etc., I had a meeting with management to explain the situation.

The manager was upset that I would even suggest that the guard was not there. I was told that if I found something that needed to be addressed when I arrived, then just take care of it myself and write a report for the property.

If you say so!

The next night I arrived and as usual could not find the guard. I conducted a full patrol of the property, shut down the usual pool party, locked all the facilities and tagged the fire lane violations.

I then wrote a report explaining the problems encountered and why I was handling them. I did this every night for a week.

The security company lost the account plus five others that were managed by the same property management.

Subsequently I was fired for doing the job I was told to do.”

Reddit users shared their thoughts.

This person chimed in.

Another individual had a lot to say.

This Reddit user shared their thoughts.

Another individual spoke up.

And this person weighed in.

They were told to comply with the company rules, and they did it maliciously!

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.