Telling a burned out, overworked, unhappy employee to smile is one of the fastest ways to make everything worse.

In this story, a woman working in an understaffed environmentalism department was already running on fumes every morning, rushing through setup and monitoring duties with no vehicles and not enough people, while her supervisors quietly congratulated themselves on the money they were saving.

But the worst part of all of it was her clueless coworkers who somehow expected her to forget about all of that and “smile more.”

One day, she finally couldn’t take it and said what was on her mind. It made her quite unpopular.

Keep reading for teh full story.

AITA For my reply the demand of “Smile”

I work in a specific field of environmentalism with a large crew of people, however my department is deliberately understaffed and lacks resources like vehicles.

A lot of our duties are set up and monitoring, so mornings and at the end of the day we are rushing to complete everything that needs to be done — and technically we are supposed to have this done before the rest of the crew can even enter certain areas.

Leadership is somewhere between negligent and just plain incompetent.

Our supervisors show no understanding of these limitations, or they don’t care.

I have heard from a coworker who attends supervisor meetings that they are so proud of how much money they save on our department.

So I’m leaning toward they don’t care.

The coworkers are even worse, so the worker finally snaps.

I am really busy during these times and keep getting told by all my coworkers to “smile,” and even when I’m not in a particularly bad mood, it turns my mood sour.

I had enough one day and accidentally said “screw off” — now they won’t stop saying I’m never in a good mood.

I know I’ve got a bad case of RBF, but why do I have to smile?

This just seems like a massive overstep.

I don’t work in customer service — it’s not in my job description.

I get really tired of being told to do something for them when I really don’t feel like it or want to do it, and it’s not part of the job.

I know I kind of am the AH for telling them to screw off, but am I wrong for not smiling at my coworkers more?

She’s there to earn a living, not to entertain anyone.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who took a new dress code policy to a whole new level.

What did Reddit think?

Why not just start creeping everyone out?

This reader picks up on even more pressing issues.

Smiles aren’t always friendly.

No one likes to be bossed around, especially about their bodily functions.

Her affect went beyond just a “bad mood.”

It was the natural result of being over-busy, understaffed, and under-resourced in a department that her own supervisors were quietly celebrating for how little it cost them.

Any reasonable person would see that her eventual blowup was a long time coming.

She was rushing through critical morning tasks alone, without enough vehicles, without enough people, and somehow the feedback she kept getting was that her face was the problem.

Happiness can’t be performed, especially in a toxic workplace.