Here is yet another tale on why you should always do the bare minimum.
I worked in IT security for a large bank in the Midwest. My only job was assigning security access to user accounts when access was needed to certain apps. When I started the job, I was trained by a group of 6 guys who did the same work. They shared a 6 person cubicle together. These guys drove to work together and went to lunch together every day. I was never invited into their clique. But they were nice to me for the most part.
We'd get about 200 tickets per day for access requests. After a few weeks of working, I started to get to know some of the people who sent tickets to me requesting access. I started to understand why they needed their tickets done quickly. It was never a problem for me to complete the tickets. There wasn't much work to do. But these 6 guys who also had the same job as I seemed to take hours to complete tickets. It was no problem for me to single-handedly tackle 100 tickets a day.
One day I called in sick and when I came in the next day, the tickets spilled into the next day. I kicked up my pace and was able to clear the queue of tickets. After lunch, one of the 6 clique came over and complained that I had left no tickets for them to do. He was worried it would make them look bad. My attitude was pretty much “Tough stuff. You guys are slow!”.
This guy immediately went to our supervisor and complained. I thought he'd look like a dildo. I mean, who complains that somebody else is getting work done before them?
Well, I'm not sure how he spun it, but the next thing I knew I was taken off the security access team and sent to do a job nobody wanted to do. I was sent to be a Systems Monitor. It was was considered to be a demotion. I was to mindlessly watch screens filled with information about how systems were performing. When the monitoring software notified of a problem, I was supposed to open a ticket for somebody to fix it.
It was mindless work that almost drove me mad. Knowing a bit of scripting, I automated my job. The boss caught me reading a book on company time too many times and I was sent packing for good.
The 6 guys in the clique are still employed there and still do a piss-poor job from what I hear. The guy who complained about me is now the supervisor.