Do you remember your first job? It was probably some minimum wage hourly gig with a possibly horrible boss and hopefully coworkers who were your friends.

In today’s story, one woman recounts a tale from her first job at a family owned restaurant. The manager literally pushed her past her limits, but complying was the only way to get the manager to leave her alone.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

Need me to be MORE efficient? Okay, here’s £100 worth of damage!

I got my first job when I was 16, dodgy family run business, paid less than minimum wage but whatever.

Anyway, there was one manager there who was the definition of “middle aged women hate the younger female coworkers”.

Let’s call her “Smudge” (her mascara application was dreadful).

Here’s some more info about Smudge.

Smudge was one of those people who gave you the most harsh, vicious critiques but with a huge smile on her face.

She wrote the book on passive aggressiveness and for some reason she was CONSTANTLY on my case.

Even though I’d go above and beyond in my role for this horrible company. (for reference, i worked in an area where i just collected and cleaned dishes which had to be transported upstairs, restocked stuff etc).

Smudge didn’t like how she was stacking the dishes on her tray.

Anyway, this one shift there was a huge rush and I had to run around collecting dirty dishes.

The trays were so flimsy it felt like i was piling stuff on cling film. So i couldn’t stack as much as Smudge wanted me to (even though i was still way over stacking dishes).

“My Name you need to be way more efficient and stack the cups and plates way more than this, this is just lazy” and pointed to my tray that was about to give way in my tiny 16 year old girl arms.

She did exactly what Smudge told her to do.

No problem!

I got a new clean tray and went to the downstairs section which was still heaving with dishes even though I’d made several trips already.

But orders are orders!

I piled 2 stacks of 10 ceramic plates, 4 thick round mugs, 4 tall slender mugs, and 7 tiny espresso mugs.

The inevitable happened.

The tray honestly felt like it was gonna break but efficiency is key so i used all my strength to lift it up and began walking up the stairs (littered in rubbish because nobody did their jobs).

What do you know?

I trip on a wet wipe and couldn’t hold the weight of the tray so alll of those dishes fell and 10 plates smashed, 7 mugs got chipped but I had to keep pushing up the stairs because EFFICIENCY.

Time for the rules to change!

Told Smudge what happened and she panics and asks “Why did you stack that many???”

“I was doing what you said”.

Next day there was a meeting about not pushing past your limits.

Seriously, Smudge was expecting way too much! It’s better to take more trips than to take more than you can safely carry!

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

I picture Cinderella too.

It’s sad but often true.

This person does NOT approve of the malicious compliance.

Yes, the name for her manager is perfect!

Her manager pushed her too far.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.