Business owners have to learn that there are limits to what they can ask their staff to do. They can’t go bossing everyone around however they want or changing job descriptions at the drop of a hat—their actions have consequences. And sometimes those consequences involve people quitting for better prospects elsewhere.

Redditor u/ineedatinylama recently went viral on the r/MaliciousCompliance and r/antiwork subreddits after spilling the tea about an incident back in 2008 when she was working as a cashier at the local grocery store. Her boss decided that she should also double as a cleaner at the butcher shop, something that she absolutely refused to do. Her decision to enforce healthy boundaries indirectly cost the owner $30,000 and he even tried to get her arrested. Read on for the full story.

Bored Panda reached out to the author of the story, redditor u/ineedatinylama, and she was kind enough to share some more context. You’ll find our full interview with the OP as you scroll down.

Respecting your employees can go a long way. Meanwhile, having a disrespectful attitude can soon leave you short-staffed

Image credits: halfpoint (not the actual photo)

A former cashier shared how her old boss suddenly decided that she should work as a cleaner as well. Things quickly took a turn for the dramatic

Image credits: Kenny Eliason (not the actual photo)

Image credits: ineedatinylama

“My story is a tiny victory against a tyrannical owner”

The OP noted that this particular job had been a secondary source of income at the time, to pay for some sports activities for her children. “I did not need this job to survive. There were two other cashiers that depended on this job: one to help feed their family, the other for college expenses. They could not say ‘no’ to the owner adding this duty, and that is just disgusting.”

“I believe many people who have or had low-paying jobs are treated with disrespect from their employers,” the post author, u/ineedatinylama, told Bored Panda why her story resonated with so many internet users. According to her, many people have very negative attitudes toward retail employees.

“Even though these jobs are vital to their business, employees are not paid a decent wage. Even the public treats retail workers as uneducated, non-feeling drones that can be abused at a whim. The air of superiority of owners and CEOs whose very livelihood depends on the ‘lowly clerk’ is thick and smothering. My story is a tiny victory against a tyrannical owner,” she said.

We were curious as to why the store owner hadn’t hired another cleaner. “The previous cleaner was a ‘rendered employee,’ basically an individual contracted to clean the butcher area, and they paid him in cash,” the OP explained, adding that the owners may have taken advantage of the previous cleaner, who had substance abuse problems and was ready to work hard for very little cash.

“After he quit, the owners could not find anyone else to do the work for the price they wanted to pay. They figured they could just order the cashiers to do the work, and we would do it,” she said.

Bored Panda wanted to know how the redditor reacted when she got a phone call from the screaming business owner. “It made me laugh,” she told Bored Panda. “The owner threatened me with arrest because he fired me, and I left the business. Then, accusing me of being an accomplice to looting because of his superiority.”

The OP shared her thoughts with us on what it is that makes a great boss. In their experience, they’re someone who will back up their employees against irate customers, will listen, and use common sense to solve a problem “rather than following arbitrary policies and handbooks.” They’ll also treat every issue individually, and they’ll be able and willing to do every job at their business, “including cleaning bathrooms.”

Image credits: RDNE Stock project (not the actual photo)

After the store got robbed, the owner tried to pin the blame on the cashier, but things worked out differently

The OP’s story got over 35.5k upvotes on the r/MaliciousCompliance subreddit just a day after being shared. Meanwhile, the post also got 21.8k upvotes on r/antiwork two days after it was posted. Internet users loved that the author had stood her ground. Meanwhile, the store owner’s financial loss sounded a lot like justice had been served.

The boss said that the redditor should consider herself fired if she didn’t start cleaning the butcher shop in between ringing up customers, something that she wasn’t hired to do. So the OP maliciously complied with the demand: she took her things and left, quitting and being fired at the same time.

However, the boss had simply assumed that he’d browbeaten her into taking on the cleaner’s duties as well. The store got robbed and the criminals took $30,000. The owner tried to pin the blame on the OP by calling the police to have her arrested, however, she quickly resolved the issue by explaining what happened and with the help of the security cam footage.

Bad bosses tend to share the same negative traits

Respect in the workplace is paramount. And it’s not just the workers who have to act politely around their superiors. No, it’s a two-way street. So if you want your staff to stay on mission and give it their all, you need to ensure that you treat them with dignity. They are earning you profit, after all—they keep the company going. A recent survey done by Glassdoor found that being disrespectful was the most common bad boss trait in the UK: a jaw-dropping 43% of respondents said so. Meanwhile, 34% voted for bosses with a negative attitude and 23% couldn’t stand lazy managers.

Other top negative traits that bad bosses have in common include micromanagement, impatience, and a lack of empathy. Forbes writes that employees feel inspired by leaders who understand them and listen to them. On the flip side, a lack of empathy leads to low productivity and a high employee turnover rate.

Meanwhile, other low-quality managers will avoid leading by example, will focus on blaming someone instated of looking for solutions to problems, and will treat their staff as pawns in their own ambitions to rise high(er) in the company.

Image credits: energepic.com (not the actual photo)

Some of the worst managers will make false promises and are unable to control their emotions

Other bad boss traits include taking credit for other people’s work, a total lack of focus (nobody likes a flip-flopper), acting entitled, having little (or no) self-awareness, and executing all of their coworkers to act exactly like them.

“Good bosses identify people’s strengths and put them in a position to use those strengths. Great bosses also have empathy and emotional intelligence about what people care about, instead of projecting what they care about onto their employees. A great boss wants to elevate employees to achieve their maximum potential while respecting what they care about,” Dan Golden from Be Found Online told Forbes.

Meanwhile, leadership and management expert Brigette Hyacinth stresses on LinkedIn that bad bosses will lose their cool when things go wrong, will overwork their employees, and will make false promises. Incompetence, picking favorites, and setting up people to fail are also signs that you may be dealing with a toxic ‘leader.’

Image credits: Fikri Rasyid (not the actual photo)

The author of the post had some additional info to share in the comments

Here’s how some internet users reacted to the workplace drama and the store owner’s behavior

Some readers even had similar stories to share

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