Employee gets reprimanded over an email he sent defining the boundaries of his job description, but maybe he didn't do it with the best words: 'All I said was “Please don’t do this” and why.'

María Cetra • Writer

Jun 19, 2026 7:15 AM EDT

To present your boundaries is a great thing to do to avoid uncomfortable situations, but maybe you should be mindful of how you communicate them.

Is really common to hear phrases like "that makes me anxious" or "I need some space". The fact that we hear them more and more is actually a good thing. Nowadays, people are starting to feel more comfortable defining their limits to avoid miscommunications and uncomfortable situations. The idea that we can verbally express when something is not great for us is valuable. It makes our relationship work better and our friendship last longer. But, as with everything, it has a bad side.

This placement of boundaries has gone out of hand, not only in what the people are expecting others to understand but in the way it gets communicated. There is some kind of entitlement where some people start to believe that just because they don't like something, they have the authority to explain their limits with no manners or with a condescending tone. Is as if they have forgotten that people do not read their minds and that just because you don't like what someone is doing or how they are treating you, it doesn't mean you have the privilege to talk to them in an arrogant tone.

In the case of this Reddit story, even though the user is explaining a very valid point in which he is defining what his job description consists of, he does it in a way that sounds entitled and arrogant. Instead of coming as a friendly reminder or even a formal complaint, it comes across as bossy and condescending. So, the problem with his argument isn't the complaint he made, is actually the horrible tone he took, making the readers of his email feel uncomfortable. Which takes me to my original point: the problem of placing boundaries is not the boundaries themselves, but the fact that most people have the habit of doing it in a not-so-friendly way.

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