As competitive as I am, I often give my 101% at work.

I go the extra mile and make sure that my contributions to the company are significant.

This employee has also been giving her best, but her manager thinks she isn’t capable of doing anything outside her job description.

Thus, that’s exactly what she did.

Read her story below.

Boss says I don’t know anything yet, so I do the absolute bare minimum

Some background: I started my first full-time office job at a corporate America h*** hole a week after college.

It was an industry I hadn’t worked in before, and I needed to be licensed.

The company that hired me, we’ll call them Smith Inc., paid for my licensing fees, study materials, classes, etc. for me to become licensed.

The total cost was about $500. It was a sweet deal.

The company was very supportive.

They gave me approximately 90 days (paid) to study a textbook and pass an online course.

I didn’t have to do any work for the company, but simply study and pass the licensing exam. It was pretty easy and I passed on my first try.

Even her coworkers were friendly and helpful.

My boss, let’s call her Mary, was super excited that I passed, and I began training under an associate level coworker who had just been promoted from the position I was in.

The coworker, Jen, was super great and helpful. She began training me on two simple tasks that I could do.

The only rule was if the client had a question, specifically about their contract, I would ask Jen or forward it to my team-lead.

So when she received a contract-related question from a client, this was what she did…

Well, I ended up getting an email from a client about their contract, and I video called Jen to ask how to handle it.

She walked me through it as I shared my screen with her.

I wrote the email back to the client exactly how she told me, and she read the email before sending.

A month goes by and everything is great. I’m learning and getting more comfortable.

But one unusual day at work…

Then, I get a really nasty email from Mary.

She CC’s my whole team into the email, going on and on about how I cannot answer contract questions and how she’s gone over this with me before (she hadn’t, Jen was the one who told me I can’t answer contract questions).

She tried telling Mary what really transpired.

Both Jen and I try to explain what happened, and that Jen was the one who wrote the email. I just typed what Jen said, and sent it from my email since the client emailed me and not Jen.

Mary then calls the team up in a video call and goes on about how I don’t know anything, that I just started, and I really don’t know how this industry works, and that answering contract questions is out of my job description.

She responded with just one word and just did what was expected of her.

It went on for about 5 minutes.

I say “Okay,” and get off the call crying.

The next day, out of pure pettiness, I simply do the absolute bare minimum.

I don’t know anything, right, Mary?

I still complete all my tasks and everything that’s required of me.

Anything more advanced that I would normally try to learn with Jen’s help? Nope.

I just forwarded it to our team lead, and said, “Sorry, Mary said I can’t do anything outside of my job description!”

Mary was obviously displeased, but, hey, it gave her peace of mind.

Work was much less stressful after I decided to listen to Mary. And what many others told me before, don’t do anything outside of your job description!

Also, Mary later fired me for being a whistleblower when I reported the company to the health authority for violating COVID protocols.

I sleep better at night knowing how much money Mary wasted on training me.

Would you have done the same? Let’s see what other people have to say.

This commenter thinks the firing was unfair.

Was there a miscommunication? Whose fault was it really?

This person advises her to seek help from a lawyer, instead of listening to commenters.

I also wonder how Mary got her position in the first place.

This commenter thinks that she should have endured the work and the company to gain better experience.

When it comes to work, take nothing personal.

When they say something bad about you, do whatever it takes to prove them wrong.

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.