Being a good manager means far, far more than just bossing others around and feeling high and mighty. It’s about leadership, support, empathy, and knowing how to truly motivate your staff to go the extra mile. However, good bosses are few and rare in between.

Redditor u/Dio_bean recently went viral on the r/MaliciousCompliance online group after sharing how his manager demanded that he deep clean the back of the restaurant and avoid going to the front at all costs. Well, he decided to follow the orders to the letter, but this backfired for the manager. Big time! Scroll down for the full story.

Bored Panda got in touch with the author of the post, redditor u/Dio_bean, and he was kind enough to answer our questions. Scroll down for our full interview with him.

A good manager is a good leader who knows how to motivate their employees. Unfortunately, they’re quite rare

Image credits: friends_stock (not the actual photo)

A restaurant worker shared how he decided to teach his boss a lesson by following his orders to the letter

Image credits: star5112 (not the actual photo)

Image credits: peus80 (not the actual photo)

The employee later updated his post with some additional thoughts

Image credits: Dio_bean

“I believe people enjoyed me sticking up for myself and not being afraid to do more work just to get my point across”

We were interested to get u/Dio_bean’s opinion on why he thinks his story made such a big splash on Reddit. “I believe my story had a huge response on the subreddit due to the fact that many people have experienced the same type of behavior from their bosses and or managers,” he told Bored Panda.

“Most people on the comments wish they could do the same thing I did at their current jobs because of how poorly they are being treated, or how awful their bosses can be, so I believe people enjoyed me sticking up for myself and not being afraid to do more work just to get my point across.”

According to the author of the post, most of the managers that he’s had in the past have actually been either decent or great. “To be a great manager, you have to not be a manager but a leader. A lot of people that are in positions of power usually don’t like to do much work and just bark orders,” he pointed out.

“But the few people that are leaders are the kindest and most hard-working people you’ll ever meet and that is because they get on your level, and work with you not against you.”

Bored Panda was also interested to hear about the redditor’s dreams and professional ambitions. “I want to be able to reach an airline job at Southwest. I know it’s going to be challenging, but with a lot of effort I know I can make it there,” he shared with us.

“The main thing about flight school is that most people think it’s a lot harder than it is. It can be accomplished by having great learning skills and applying yourself to the training that is being presented to you,” u/Dio_bean said.

“Lastly, I’ve always wanted to reach the stars as a child. Space and physics have always fascinated me, but I knew I could never be an astronaut, so I found another passion that I could now achieve, which was being a pilot. It surprised me how many regulations you have to follow as a pilot, but it made me love it because there as so many new things you can learn that you would’ve never even thought of. I love being a pilot and I will never stop flying until the day I die.”

The manager soon learned that he would have to approach things very differently from now on

The 20-year-old redditor wrote loud and clear that the moral of his story is “don’t think you are better than someone that has nothing to lose.” He thought that the restaurant manager was acting very smugly and thought that he was better than the OP.

That’s why he decided to teach him a lesson. And he could afford to play things a bit riskier than most employees. As the redditor said, “I looked at this man with a stare of a 20-year-old that has no bills to pay.”

So when his boss told him to deep clean the back of the restaurant (something that wasn’t even in his job description!) and avoid going to the front where he usually works, u/Dio_bean maliciously complied with the order. He took his sweet time cleaning the back. In fact, he took so long that the manager practically begged him to help out in the front. Which he refused to do because he was following the initial cleaning request to the letter and really putting in a ton of care.

“Fast forward to 2 mins before my shift ends my knees, legs, and fingers are all aching from cleaning,” he said. Then, the redditor clocked out and snubbed the manager who was trying to talk to him.

Now, obviously, not everyone can play as fast and loose with their jobs as u/Dio_bean has been doing. He pointed out that he doesn’t have many bills to pay and he’s also applying for other jobs. However, someone who has more responsibilities, a family to look after, and debt to pay off would probably be forced to be a bit more diplomatic in how they deal with their boss. Especially if they don’t have many alternatives to work elsewhere.

Healthy boundaries and proper communication at work are undervalued

Don’t get us wrong, there definitely need to be healthy boundaries between you and your coworkers and managers: you have to enforce them when you’re being treated unfairly or being dehumanized.

However, how you enforce these boundaries makes all the difference. You won’t win many friends if you’re being overly-aggressive or disrespectful. Playing things tactfully and diplomatically can turn the entire situation to your advantage, even when you don’t think your manager deserves politeness. Having a friendly and honest conversation with your boss might be just what’s needed to clear the air and move forward. You can air out a few issues and you can try to reach some sort of compromise.

Try to think about things from your boss’ perspective as well: they value employees who are problem-solvers. So instead of just whining and complaining about how unfair things are, offer them specific solutions or viable alternatives. If you want things to change for the better at work, you need to know what a great workplace would actually look like.

For instance, if your manager constantly looks down on you or changes their mind all the time, you need to communicate to them that you value stability and respect. Nobody’s perfect. Nobody’s a mind-reader. Those tough, uncomfortable conversations need to happen.

Not caring about your job might be an early sign of burnout

Obviously, if your manager is a bully, demeans you, and doesn’t change their approach no matter how many times you bring up their behavior, then there’s a major problem. In that case, have a frank chat with their boss or the owner of the company. Get an HR representative involved. If all of that fails, consider jumping ship and looking for another, less toxic place to work at. If you face actual discrimination or harassment, however, you may want to consider seeking legal advice.

Some employees stop caring about doing well at work and their career prospects because they are completely exhausted and burned out. Some of the early warning signs of burnout include dreading going to work, productivity decreasing, daydreaming about working someplace else, and feeling stressed, frustrated, low-energy, and fatigued. If that’s the case, you might need to massively change your lifestyle habits and consider what changes at work could reenergize and motivate you.

The author of the post shared some more information while responding to his readers

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