Starring in The Boss doesn’t mean Melissa McCarthy knows anything about managing people. Spending 20 years working her way up the ladder in the film industry, running her own production company, On The Day, and launching a clothing line (Seven7) does. The comedian’s a B-O-S-S, and in the May issue of Glamour — the first with new editor-in-chief Samantha Barry at the helm, following its redesign — she gets real about money, success, and fighting for yourself.

The interview’s loaded with standout moments, peppered with McCarthy’s quips (when negotiating, she calls her hands the “fists of justice,” and they almost become their own character in her stories). One, however, really stood out to me, just because it’s so outside the realm of the typical “follow your bliss!” messaging you always hear in career Q&As. It’s blunt, and it’s the type of advice that’s easy to overlook: If you pay people, they should really work for you.

“I give pretty strong advice to my costars, like … ‘Don’t confuse someone working for you with them doing you a favor,’” McCarthy told the magazine. “You show up and do your job; it should be the same with agents, managers, the tax guy. Jennifer Coolidge, who is one of the funniest creatures on the planet and the reason I got my first job in a movie, taught me, ‘The second they stop working for you, fire them.’”

That sounds really harsh at first, doesn’t it? But when I think of all the times I couch a request in a “please” or a “sorry,” or I soften my wording to avoid offending someone, I realize how often I’m acting like someone doing the very basics of their job is doing me some tremendous favor. No, this is work! That’s why we’re paid to do it! It’s not always fun and games, and I shouldn’t need to baby you for it. Does that mean I’m going to be a total jerk? No. It’s simply a helpful reminder that I don’t have to rationalize away checked-out behavior, or be grateful for someone doing the bare minimum and complaining about it.

McCarthy elaborates: “Don’t think, I don’t want to be a bitch, I don’t want to cause trouble. If you paid for a bottle of water and then that person told you to just take off, you’d say, ‘Give me my water. I paid for it.’” Touché.

Cue “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” because you don’t have to, and you shouldn’t.