I had a boss once who made a HUGE deal about me having a drink at my desk and walking around the office with it.
Guess what?
NO ONE ELSE CARED OR EVER EVEN NOTICED.
It was so ridiculous!
So I can sympathize with the worker who wrote this story on Reddit…check out what they had to say!
Can’t take my drink at my desk? OK I’ll take more breaks then.
“I work in a hardware store , kinda like Home Depot but smaller , in Belgium.
I’m in charge of electricity products , lights and appliances , kitchen modeling (we also make kitchen cabinets ) and plumbing when my co-worker isn’t working (3 days a week as our schedule don’t overlap frequently) .
They had a desk bottle, like many of us do…
I have kept an habit of having my bottle of coke or other soda at my desk , hidden from view (we have a small desk with a computer to manage orders , inventory and googling parts we may not be familiar with ) . So I drink from my bottle when needed, and if a customer needs me, I’ll put it away mid sip and come back after helping him to finish my sip.
Recently , our manager told us to not have any drink or food at our desk because it’s not a good image of the store (because you know , what will happen if the customers discover that we are humans and need to drink to live right ? ) .
The manager just had to butt in.
I didn’t follow this instruction at first because my desk is at the opposite side of the store compared to the lunchroom and I don’t want to walk there every 20/30 minutes just to drink.
2 days ago the manager noticed I was heading to my desk with my bottle in my hand and said I had to put it in the lunchroom and go whenever I had to drink to take a break and drink .
And it cost them!
So I did just that , instead of losing 10 seconds to drink like I was doing for the past 2 years , I now take 2 minutes to walk to the lunch room , take a 5 minutes break to drink and relax and again 2 minutes to go back to my area every 20/30 minutes .
I’m already looking for another job because I can’t take the micromanagement anymore. This is not the only dumb rule that he enforced , I could fill an entire book .
Other rules are : do not print quotes , instead write the reference to the quote on a little piece of paper that the customer can give to the cashier , arrive 10 minutes early so you can be at your desk at 8h30 instead of coming in at 8h25 but not paid for that time , if something is broken and need to be taken out of the inventory you have to ask him if you can do it (even for a light bulb ) , any inventory has to go by him but if he is busy you lose an hour just trying to inventory 10 items ,…
This job was cool until I got this boss, honestly.”
Here’s what people had to say about this.
This person shared what they would do.
Another individual said they would’ve done the same thing.
This individual had a lot to say.
This Reddit user said the new manager has to go.
And one person said they need to keep track of EVERYTHING.
Some people just can’t get out of their own way.
This story is a perfect example of that!