Here is a new word common in the UK, a ‘jobsworth’. Wikipedia offers a complete definition…
A jobsworth is a person who uses his or her job description in a deliberately un-cooperative way, or who seemingly delights in acting in an obstructive or unhelpful manner. Their underlying and completely inflexible attitude to any given situation is that “the rules are the rules are the rules”. [Wikipedia]
Over the years, I’ve met many officials who seem to qualify as this. In fact, we even had one employee who sometimes exemplified this attitude. Ultimately, it cost her a job because she remained inflexible instead of trying new things,… we just didn’t need the original set of services we hired her for, and she didn’t want to learn anything new.
So, next time you find yourself with this attitude, check yourself, and make sure you don’t end up in the same way, I do it myself when I find myself being unusually stubborn (and I can be STUBBORN!).