Entitled boss refuses to allow office employee to eat lunch inside after hours of doing outdoor landscaping work not included in their job description: ‘I was being treated unfairly’

Author image for Lana DeGaetano
Lana DeGaetano • "Show me to me please."
Apr 6, 2025 6:00 PM EDT

The minute your boss suggests you start doing work that isn't listed in your job description, you must be asking for additional compensation. You aren't getting paid to do a laundry list of items on top of your daily duties. Your day-to-day tasks are what's included in your contract, and any other duties must be given to you in writing with a pretty little dollar sign next to it.

What's worse than not receiving compensation for the extra work you're doing? Being treated like garbage after you've done the work. The employee in this next story is told to stay outside and eat under the hot sun after they spent the entire day doing landscaping work that, of course, is not listed in his job description. The employee should have requested some additional pay, but that's not the issue in this story. The entitled boss let the employees doing landscaping indoors eat inside, but because of a little dirt on the employee's shoes, they had to eat outside. So, the employee left. Scroll to read.

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  • The employee's boss has some audacity refusing to let their employee eat their lunch in the air conditioned office. The excuse? The custodial staff already cleaned the office floors. That seems a bit backward as there are still employees doing landscaping work in and outside of the building. Also, not the employee's problem. If they feel like it, they can “faint” and get worker's comp. Boss's move.

  • Cheezburger Image 10489751552
    via A. C. For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • "AITA for walking out of a work day because they wouldn’t let me eat inside"

    I work in an office that is relatively small, about 10 people total. About twice a year we do big cleanup days on both the inside and outside.
    via WrassleMan
  • In the name of being "frugal" my boss assigns the outside work to us instead of hiring a landscaping crew.
    via WrassleMan
  • I have prior landscaping experience and I made the mistake of letting them know that so I was assigned to a lot of the stuff outdoors. Everyone else stayed inside for a vast majority of the day.
    via WrassleMan
  • I had to climb up on the roof and clean the gutters Scrape a bunch of sediment deposit out of our lower parking lot with a shovel
    via WrasselMan
  • Take a wire wheel on an angle grinder and strip the paint off of an outside stairwell and prime it for painting Layout new pine straw and all of the outside shrub beds
    via WrassleMan
  • And a few other things. Naturally, over the course of the day I got dirty. It's part of working outside. I wasn't filthy, but I had some dust and dirt on my shoes.
    via WrassleMan
  • They ordered pizza for us and when I went to go inside our office manager stopped me and said that I couldn't come in because they had just got done cleaning the floors.
    via WrassleMan
  • Cheezburger Image 10489751808
    via Curated Lifestyle For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • I told them that I would happily sweep up and mop anything | tracked in and that I would really like to eat inside because it was hot outside and I hadn't gotten to cool off all day.
    via WrassleMan
  • She still refused, then my boss heard us talking and came over and we explained the situation. He agreed with our office. manager and told me that I would have to eat outside.
    via WrassleMan
  • I told them that I did not appreciate that I was asked to do some pretty gnarly labor and was now being denied entry because I was a little dirty. I then told them that I was going to leave for the day.
    via WrassleMan
  • My boss asked me not to go but still stood by the decision to not allow me inside. And I tried to explain to him that I felt like I was being treated unfairly but that seemed to fall on deaf ears.
    via WrassleMan
  • I ended up leaving and a couple hours later I got some messages from my coworkers that were upset with me because they ended up having to go out and finish up a couple of things I couldn't get to after lunch.
    via WrassleMan
  • AITA? Did I unfairly leave my coworkers in a bad spot? I can understand where they're coming from, but I really felt like I wasn't being treated correctly and I offered to clean up after myself if I made a mess.
    via WrassleMan
  • bohoprincess77 NTA your coworkers, boss, and office managers are all ah les.
    via bohoprincess77
  • Grimaldehyde You had to climb on the roof and clean the gutters? Do you have any idea who insures this company? Your boss better have some Workers Comp insurance, because it is only a matter of time before you or someone else gets hurt doing work that isn't in your job descriptions.
    via Grimaldehyde
  • Asleep_Community281 NTA. If you were the only one excluded from being inside that is majorly inappropriate. Do you have a HR department?
    via Asleep_Community281
  • MissM derpants They were idiots to wash the floor before everything else was finished. NTA
    via MissM**derpants
  • Limp_Pipe1113 Tell your coworkers, tough sh they had to finish your work, you were upset you got denied entry and didn't get a slice of pizza and they didn't seem to care about you so why should you care about them. Honestly you should start job searching.
    via Limp_Pipe1113
  • Wandering_aimlessly9 Nta. Inform your boss due to how the day played out you will not be doing outside work anymore. It's not in your job description or contract thus they can't enforce it.
    via Wandering_aimlessly9

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boss aita workplace-stories work stories AITAH bosses Professional At Work work coworkers entitled people karma workplace Horrible Bosses entitled reddit thread Reddit entitled people
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