Workplace drama often starts when people try to delegate responsibilities that were never theirs to give away in the first place.

So when a newly hired training director was told by the front desk lady that ordering supplies was suddenly in his job description, they decided to confirm the fine print with their boss.

Soon after, the front desk lady got a much needed attitude adjustment.

You’ll want to keep reading for this one

Learn my job responsibilities? Ok.

I started a new job a few weeks ago, and after printing a lot of things, we finally ran out of paper in the printer.

I went to the shelf of random supplies and could not find printer paper, so I asked my supervisor about it.

She told me to go get some from the front desk lady.

He thought nothing of it, until the front desk lady freaked out on him.

Obviously, this seemed like it would be a simple task, but as soon as I asked the front desk lady for paper, she got snippy.

Front desk lady: “Isn’t it YOUR job to order supplies? Why haven’t you ordered more paper?”

Me: “I was told to get it from you. No one has said anything about ordering supplies or trained me in anything like that.”

The front desk lady had some very firm words for him.

Front desk lady: “You need to learn your job, because this isn’t my job and I’m not going to do yours for you. You need to talk to your supervisor about your role so you can learn how to do your own job and order some yourself. I’ll give you two packs of paper, but that’s it.”

Being Midwestern, I smiled and thanked her.

Then I did exactly as she instructed: asked my boss how to order supplies.

The boss made it clear the front desk lady had no idea what she was talking about.

My boss, being director of training of a massive organization, was very confused by my question because it made no sense.

We don’t order supplies.

Heck, just refilling the paper in the printer was going out of my way to be helpful.

Still wanting to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, he politely probed his boss further.

I told her that the front desk lady told me it was in my job description, and I, being new, wanted to confirm that.

After all, I’m in charge of a LOT of things.

Luckily, the boss had his back and exposed a troubling pattern in the front desk lady’s behavior.

My boss decided to confirm this by printing my job description and going to the front desk lady and having a chat with her.

Apparently, this isn’t the first time someone had to have a chat with her about this, because she’s done this to others before.

Basically, she passed on this work to new workers in entry-level positions.

Unfortunately for her, she mistook me for one of those new people, not realizing what my position is and who my boss is.

The front desk lady soon got a much-needed reality check.

A colleague told me that my boss kindly informed the front desk lady about not only my job duties, but hers as well.

No one else orders supplies aside from front desk staff; that is one of HER jobs.

After all, she’s the one with access to all of this.

She has a storage room FULL of supplies, and if ANY employee needs supplies, she is to give it to them without comment and do her job.

Soon it became clear the front desk lady had gotten the message loud and clear.

For the rest of the day, the front desk lady avoided eye contact with me, and now I can get supplies from her whenever I need.

Hopefully, she’s learned how to do her job and will stop telling other people how to do theirs.

If not, I’ll make sure all new and current employees know what her job is in trainings.

This front desk lady was definitely projecting.

Reddit is sure to get a kick out of this one.

Why not rub their newfound authority right in this rude lady’s face?

Hopefully this lady won’t be as much trouble after her little attitude adjustment.

This commenter lets everyone in on a little psychology lesson.

This kind of behavior seems to be fairly common.

When you’re bold enough to tell someone else to learn their role, you’d better be ready to review yours as well.

The training director walked away with two packs of paper and a quiet victory.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.