'I stopped putting in the maintenance requests': Worker reprimanded for going above and beyond, does less and is rewarded

Author image for Brad Dickson
Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Oct 20, 2023 9:00 AM EDT

It's always perplexing when your superiors demand that you do less work, stop thinking for yourself, and just mindlessly follow your contracted tasks like a mindless drone. The fact is, you're making them all look bad, and while they appreciate your efforts, if they let you carry on being exceptional, you'll put everyone else out of a job. As we've scrawled on the pages of Fail Blog a thousand times before, too many bosses and employers prioritize the ability to follow orders without thinking over aptitude, intelligence, and actual experience.

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  • This story is no different. This EHS professional was pressed into a challenging situation when they were criticized in their performance review for going above and beyond. They countered by demanding a clear job description that explicitly laid out their responsibilities. Once they received it, they followed those responsibilities as closely as possible, which did not include the maintenance requests that they had been previously submitting. Their strict compliance earned them a high score on their next review but as they were no longer submitting maintenance requests for the rest of the team, the overall audit average was diminished greatly.

  • 01
    Font - Posted by u/Historical_Emu_4225 4 hours ago Stop being nice and helpful. Do your job as directed!! MOC Work as an EHS person for a manufacturing and repair company. I deal with osha inspections, chemical management and spill reporting. I do a lot of walk around and fix a lot of issues. Floor signs, door signs, blocked panels, trash and other safety issues. I put in service request for them to be fixed. Due to
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  • 02
    Font - being sick I got behind on my tasks. Not by much but enough I had to slow down to get them done, work a little over time. Had a doctor's note for breathing issues and that I won't be at 100% for a while. Well, had my review for my position. "Being to nice, helping outside of my position, not finishing jobs as directed" I needed to "do my job as directed" my raise and bonus was not given this year for that. Okay, so I requested a job description and tasks. When I had them in an email. I sa
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  • 03
    Font - Three months down the line we have our big audit. My side of EHS of the department was given a 95 of 100. Very good score. I was docked 5 on the issue with chemical management. We had three drums get misplaced for about a month. This is a huge facility, 4 different buildings at 400 to 500 thousand square feet. So I took my issues and went about my day. (They have some points system for the audit.)
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  • 04
    Font - One week later we had a meeting about the audit. Rest of EHS ended up with a 79 to 82 for the audit. They had 19 floor and wall signs that had been damaged, 10 blocked panels, two mislabeled waste bins, 3 waste bins without labels and many more. In my company you have two main groups. Green Badge full time and Yellow Badge Contractors. I am contracted and have been the past 6 years. The ones in charge of the inspections that had issues are full
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  • 05
    Font - employees. They noticed I stopped putting in the maintenance requests to have stuff fixed. I ended up telling them that I had my review and was told "Being to nice, helpful and to do my job as directed" I gave the head of the department, his company manager and the other rep that had come in the emails. My direct boss tried to say he did not mean that but the emails showed what I was to do.
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  • 06
    Font - I was taken aside with my direct boss and the main EHS department bosses and my contracted company rep. Talked to about expanding my scope of work to back to reporting and maintenance requests. I said if my bonus and raise from last year are given and an adequate raise for my new responsibilities are given. Then I would consider it. They complied with my request and gave me more on my bonus because of getting the highest score on the audit. The EHS team I work for at my facility is 9 peop
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  • 07
    Font - Coolbeanschilly 4 hr. ago At least the management learned from their mistake this time. Reply Share Vote LateralThinker13 - 3 hr. ago Shockingly, and all too rare. Reply Share Vote just2quixotic 1 hr. ago I bet the audit score impacted some one else's bonus. That is why management learned from this. Vote Reply Share
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  • 08
    Font - FigEquivalent7200 - 4 hr. ago This was refreshing. Good work! Vote Reply Share
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  • 09
    Font - __wildwing__ Here, here!!! Don't f around with OSHA. Nice outcome. Vote ● 4 hr. ago Reply Share PepperAnn1inaMillion 2 hr. ago . Happy cake day :) Vote It's "hear, hear" by the way, because you're telling people to listen up to what someone's saying. ●●● Reply Share ●●●
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  • 10
    Font - FairyFountain. 3 hr. ago This was beautiful, pure bliss reading this! You did good! :D Reply Share Vote
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  • 11
    Font - Fat_Head_Carl. 2 hr. ago The old "give them enough rope to hang themselves with" tactic...works every time. Vote Reply Share
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  • 12
    Font - dRaidon 2 hr. ago I hope that raise was retroactive. Reply Share Vote ●●●
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  • 13
    Font - StellarPhenom420 3 hr. ago ● I wish there was more explanation of what your job duties were vs. what job duties you were doing outside. A bit confusing to catch what you weren't doing, you skipped all that bit. I assume it was a nice bit of malicious compliance tho... just wish we could've gone along for the ride... Vote Reply Share
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  • 14
    Font - Historical_Emu_4225 OP 3 hr. ago I deal with all the chemicals. Drum ordering, delivery, storage, SDS management and movement of chemicals for use. I do three weekly OSHA building inspections, one monthly OSHA inspection then some reports. I deal with and report if they have a spill of chemicals, machine spill or vehicle spill. Reporting on clean up, root analysis of the spill and corrective actions to prevent or reduce them. Vote Reply Share
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  • 15
    Font - YOLOSwag42069Nice 1 hr. ago. edited 1 hr. ago If you're in the US, it sounds like you're misclassified as a contractor. Vote Reply Share zephen_just_zephen 36 min. ago I didn't get that impression. OP strongly implied ("contracted company rep") that he was contracting through a firm. Which is often W2-based rather than 1099-based. Vote Reply Share
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  • 16
    Font - Interesting-Month-56 3 hr. ago It's great to see someone using their contract and mandates to get full calue out of an employer. Great outcome, and now you've clearly established your value! Reply Share Vote
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