Sometimes employees stop following policies for a reason.

This warehouse employee worked in a place where people stopped following an outdated closing checklist because half the tasks no longer applied. Everything worked fine until a new manager called him out in front of everyone and insisted everyone follow the checklist as written, with no shortcuts.

So on his next shift, the employee did exactly that.

By the time he was done with the list, nearly an hour had passed.

Read on to see what the manager did next.

Manager said to follow the checklist exactly, so I did. Every single line.

I used to work in a small warehouse where we had a daily closing checklist that, honestly, no one took too seriously.

It was one of those things that had clearly been written years ago and never updated, so most of us just did the important parts and went home.

Recently, we got a new manager who was very big on “accountability” and kept saying we needed to follow procedures exactly as written, no shortcuts.

He called me out in front of everyone one day for skipping a few steps that didn’t really apply anymore, which was kinda embarrassing, ngl.

While he finished the list, he left people waiting to leave.

So the next shift, I decided, alright, I will follow it exactly.

The checklist had things like “inspect all emergency exits,” which meant I had to walk across the entire building and check doors that are basically never used.

There was also a step about “testing backup lighting,” which involved turning off the main lights in sections and waiting to see if the backups kicked in. This whole process took way longer than usual, and since I was doing it properly, I couldn’t help the rest of the team finish up faster like I normally would.

People were stuck waiting around because certain tasks depend on others being done first.

His manager seemed annoyed.

By the time I finished everything, we were almost an hour past closing time.

The manager was still there and asked why it took so long, so I showed him the checklist and pointed out that I followed every step exactly like he told us to.

He looked pretty annoyed, but didn’t really have anything to say without contradicting himself. After that, the checklist mysteriously got “updated” the next week, and suddenly we were allowed to skip half those steps again.

Some coworkers said I was being petty, but I just did what I was told, right?

Too funny! Next time, he’ll be careful what he asks for.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who reported her manager to HR after being forced to work 24-hours straight.

Let’s see if the people over at Reddit would’ve done the same thing.

As this reader explains, checking emergency exists is important.

Here’s someone who has a question about the emergency exits.

For this firefighter, checking those items is a good thing.

Yes. Yes, it is.

Some workplace rules exist for a good reason, especially when safety checks are involved.

The problem is that old systems stop working when nobody updates them or thinks realistically about how long they actually take.

And expecting one employee to handle every single task alone while everyone else waits around clearly was not working either. From now on, they should divide and conquer the list so no one has to check everything alone.

If an emergency ever happens, everyone will be thankful for this.