People Tell How They Succeeded In Getting Malicious Compliance Revenge
22. Mad That Your Friends Got In For Free? My Mistake, I'll Make Everyone Pay
“I used to work as a bouncer/doorman at a bar that charged a $2 cover on weekend nights. Everyone paid to get in with only one exception, party buses. We had an agreement with the different party bus operators that if they brought their groups to our bar they would get in for free.
(lively crowds are good for business)
So one night I’m working and a guy comes in with his girl and I tell him it’s 2 bucks a head. He grumbles about it and I give him the same line I tell anyone who complains: “A $2 cover is the cheapest thing you will buy here tonight, if you can’t afford it you might want to go somewhere else.” He doesn’t want to look cheap in front of his lady, so of course he pays.
A couple of minutes later he’s back saying he just talked to some people who didn’t have to pay and wants to know why he got singled out. I tell him about the party bus rule and say those people must have come in on a bus.
He motions toward some people sitting with his girl and tells me, “You didn’t charge my friends, and they didn’t come on a bus.” I recognized the people and when they came in I asked them if they were from the bus, and they had said yes.
So they lied to me. It happens and normally I wouldn’t worry about it.
I tell him, well it sounds like I made a mistake, I guess it’s their lucky night. (That’s my hint to him that he should let it go.) That’s not good enough for him.
He gets louder and keeps demanding I refund his $4 “to keep things fair”. I’ve had it with him. I tell him, “You’re right. It’s not fair. Let me fix it for you.” He smirks because he thinks he’s getting a refund, but he doesn’t realize all I’m giving is some sweet MC.
His smirk disappeared when I stepped away from the cash drawer and walked over to where his friends were sitting. In my most polite voice I said, “Hey, sorry to bother you guys, but there’s a $2 cover tonight and your friend here told me you didn’t pay.
I must have misheard you when I asked if you were with the party bus, but I need to collect the cover from you now.”
The looks of betrayal they gave him were priceless. I collected their covers, smiled, and loudly thanked him for being so honest. Then I walked back to my post and watched them proceed to rip him a new one.”
21. Dress For The Job We Want? It's Not Going To Be What You Expect
“I work for a family business with 30+ employees. This is a company that has friends and family members as top-tiered Management and often makes up rules whenever they felt like it.
When new employees join the company, they sign a basic employment contract stating the compensation, benefits, and work hours.
The company does not have a written code of conduct.
One particular manager is a friend of the President. Let’s call her Sally. Sally manages a team of 8 employees, including myself. We aren’t allowed to make small talk WHILE working and we are required to let her know when we start taking our breaks, and when we return from breaks.
Sally interjects whenever a team member is asking another team member questions because Sally is a micromanager.
Sally also makes us come to work early once a week for 30 minutes (unpaid) so that she can recap the previous week and often uses this time to tell us what we’re doing wrong.
She made it clear that this weekly meeting is mandatory.
During one meeting, she brought up expectations for continued employment at the workplace – no swearing, no talking bad about customers amongst ourselves, no personal phones on desks, no music during work hours, no talking to other departments unless it’s work-related, etc.
Then she brought up dress code. It’s important to note that we’ve never heard of a dress code at work and our jobs do not require face-to-face interactions with customers. Most of our dealings are via phone or e-mail. We may see a customer drop by once or twice a year.
Most of the team members wear hoodies/long-sleeved t-shirts with jeans or leggings. I usually wear a simple top with pants with my hair neatly blow-dried. Apparently, that’s not appropriate enough.
Sally said we should try to dress better and more professionally to keep up with the company’s image.
Her sell was “Dress not for the job you have, but the job you want.” She made us all sign a document citing the topic of discussion at the meeting.
You want us to dress for the job we want? Okay. A few of my colleagues and I decided to maliciously comply the following day.
I put my hair in a messy bun, wore my Costco leggings and my husband’s old t-shirt. That was my everyday look when I was unemployed.
Sally saw me when I walked through the door and asked why I was underdressed. I said “you asked us to dress for the job I want.
I want to go back to being a stay-at-home mom. I loved staying at home.”
She said “That’s not what I meant. I meant bigger aspirations and goals” as she looked at me with exasperation.
Shortly after, my other colleagues showed up one after the other – two wearing full workout gear and one wearing her Anime costume.
One guy wore a t-shirt with expletives.
The President noticed and asked us if Halloween came early and we told him what Sally said. I don’t know what happened but safe to say, there was no mention of any dress code since.”
20. Refuse To Open A Ticket? Then I Guess No Work Is Getting Done
“A few years ago I was an I.T. Analyst for an aerospace company in Toronto. There were three sites, and one analyst for each site. I was barely able to keep up with the workload for my site but managed. One day I found out that one analyst had given a month’s notice and had already quit.
The company did not replace him. I had to drive daily between cities to manage both sites. Shortly after, my boss was let go. And I was given a new boss who lived in another country.
The work piled up, and several employees at a time would have non-working computers because there was nobody to help them.
I had to stop supporting projects that I was involved in with other managers, like getting 20 computers for the factory floor. This was definitely going to blow up, and I needed to cover myself. I had a talk with the GM and explained that I’d get walk-ups, phone calls, texts, and emails because most of the employees refused to use the ticket system.
I’d even have employees coming up when I was on a call and try talking in my ear. The GM decided that all requests must come in the form of a ticket.
I adopted a no ticket = no work policy and enforced it on all employees and managers.
I also stopped answering texts and calls. I’d answer all email requests with “Please open a ticket.” Most managers refused, so I would just thank them for their time while they fumed off to file a complaint against me. A week went by with no copier on the main floor because everyone refused to open a ticket to request more ink.
Everyone had to walk downstairs to make their copies. A week went by with several lathes in the factory not working because everyone refused to open a ticket. Several computer-illiterate/lazy employees would now have to ask their coworkers for help because they refused to open a ticket, and now they’re behind on their work.
Sometimes a new employee would spend 2 or 3 days in the office with no laptop and no user account because the requests never came in the form of a ticket. Employees would go on business trips without laptops because they refused to open a ticket.
This went on for several months and I was able to partially manage both sites, but it was exhausting arguing with everyone every day. I’d get threatened by management all the time but nothing would ever come of it. I found out one day that the company wasn’t planning on replacing the employee who quit, so I had enough.
I spent a few weeks declining requests as usual, but when they came from a manager I’d add “and if you don’t like it, then fire me. Request denied.” Eventually, I decided my mental health was more valuable than the company, and when the last Analyst went on vacation I simply left my phone and laptop on my desk and stopped coming in for my shifts, 0 notice given.
A week later I get a call from HR, they found my wife’s # as an emergency contact and said I let them down and there was nobody to help. I replied with “Good, now you know how it feels”, and left it at that. Six months later the only analyst left tells me the company replaced my position with two, but they’re still in rough shape. All they had to do was replace an employee.”
19. File A Grievance Report If I Want A Better Grade? I'll Make Sure I Get Much More Than That
”At the strong recommendation of my twin Sarah and our Therapist, I decided to go to a local community college this year, and to say that the enrollment process was difficult would be a severe understatement. I’m not going to go into full detail but it was fairly hectic.
All of my Professors were nice and friendly except for my public-speaking professor. My uncle helped me work through the Disabilities Office and I eventually received my official MSI (Modified Student Identification). Basically, I show if Campus Security were to approach me or if I have business with any department of the college, they’ll make sure that the necessary steps are taken so that I can communicate with whoever I need to talk to (I’m mute).
Now, the list of accommodations I have is extensive but the primary ones I have that are needed to know are these:
- Exemption from assignments involving speaking or presenting work in front of the class.
- Family provided translator as long as they are cleared by the Disabilities Office (they are understaffed and can’t provide someone that can translate to sit with me in all my classes)
- Frequent breaks if I feel overwhelmed (due in large part to my anxiety with being near people I don’t know)
The second one isn’t really important and doesn’t have much to do with this but the first and third are very important.
Because I am mute, the exemption is a given and my Professors have been very understanding. But my Public Speaking Professor didn’t even bother to look at my accommodations when I presented my identification to him on the first day of class.
He spent the following week repeatedly threatening to have Sarah escorted off-campus by Security if she didn’t leave the classroom. Both of us tried to tell him that I needed her but he was adamant that he ‘doesn’t need to look up my accommodations’.
Professor gave all sorts of excuses for not looking them up. The most common excuse he gave was ‘I’m not required to look them up’ but things came to a boiling point after he gave me an F for not doing the first speech he gave.
Professor: you do realize that, if you were mute, you’d be deaf? The fact that we are having this so-called ‘conversation’ (I was writing down on a notepad for him to read) proves that you aren’t mute. So, my decision to give you an F for that assignment is justified.
Additionally, you will have to file a grievance report if you wish to dispute the grade and have it removed.
He also went on to explain that it would be ‘pointless’ since I was already failing, apparently, due to ‘repeated disruptions’ of class by leaving and coming back (I was going into the hallway where Sarah waited because I was getting overwhelmed by him repeatedly calling me out in class and flat out telling me to contribute or ‘get out of his class’).
It was because of that reason that I went a little further while filing the grievance. You see, there were several extra boxes that allowed me to write additional notes if there were multiple disputes. They basically wanted you to go into as much detail as possible.
So, I filled out several of those boxes detailing everything from threatening to call Campus Security to having Sarah escorted off campus to the grades he had given me being avoidable if he took some time to check my accommodations.
It took three days before I got the email notification for the meeting with the Dean of the Art Department, Jane.
When we showed up to the office, Professor was sitting in the waiting area. I didn’t pay much attention to him but Sarah told me that his smug smile disappeared when I showed one of the secretaries my MSI and the secretary asked for one of his co-workers to come check me in after entering my id number into his computer.
The secretary helped me begin printing out some paperwork (I later learned that it was my student file) and took them into Janes’s office.
Not even four minutes later, Jane calls for Professor to come into her office. We aren’t sure what they talked about but after we were called in, Jane told Professor that he owed me an apology which he grudgingly gave.
All of the bad grades for that class were dropped and Professor was told that the Campus Guidance Counselor would be paying our class a visit to talk about how his actions are not accepted on campus. We later came to find out that he ended up losing his job on account of student discrimination. Apparently, I’m not the only student he’s been doing this to.”
18. Break The Rules And Expect Us To Cover For You? Not A Chance
“Whilst I was at university I worked in our Student’s Hall, basically a two-story bar that was subsidized by the government. Because of the subsidy, it was the cheapest place in town, so we would get a couple of locals come in, to prevent this we were supposed to check everyone had a student ID, but no one minded as the locals were usually polite and handled their booze better than most students.
My Manager who was a local himself would encourage locals to come and would either discourage ID checks or simply not inform new staff of the situation.
He would often steal from the bar and would give free drinks to his mates.
One night he had a bunch of his buddies in town come in and had a drinking session at the bar’s expense (paid for maybe 1/5 drinks) til way past closing and beyond our license. This resulted in the police being called for a noise complaint and his boss (Hall’s head) finding out.
To cover his butt he claimed that the group were locals that we, the bar staff had happily allowed to stay, and then fudged the accounting for the night to make up for the free drinks.
Because of this, he himself demanded we check every student ID, and the head took away some of our employee perks.
The Sunday after this all went down the pool tournament guys come in, these guys rotate which bar they go to every week between a list of maybe 6 that have enough pool tables and lounge space. I personally had served them a half dozen times.
They make their way over to the bar and the first guy is well into his 40s.
Me: “Hey man, before I can serve you I have to see your student ID.”
He chuckled and said something along the lines of “Do I look like a student?” And proceeded to order.
Me: “Look I’m sorry but I’ve been told that if you haven’t got a student ID I can’t serve you.”
He started to realize I wasn’t just messing with him and looked to the other member of staff, who reiterated the point.
Him: “Are you serious? We’ve been coming here for years.”
Me: “Yeah, sorry (manager’s name) is cracking down on the only students rule. I can grab my supervisor for you if you want.”
My supervisor was also a student and explained the situation, said he was sorry for the inconvenience and that if they had any complaints, to call the head, my manager’s boss and even gave out a couple of his cards that were in the office.
The pool guys left, which meant no one was really in the building so we ended up closing early.
The next morning I awoke to my manager screaming down the phone at me, but it was my day off so I hung up and didn’t go to work (as a customer) til past noon.
When I did my coworkers couldn’t wait to tell me what had happened.
My manager had come in and had a shouting match with my supervisor in front of everyone grabbing a morning coffee. The head had indeed received some complaints and scheduled a meeting with the manager that morning.
Not wanting to face it alone he took my supervisor with him, I imagine intending to throw him under the bus as much as possible.
The head was livid, A) because all these 40-something men had called to complain on his personal number on a Sunday, B) because these 40-something men, by their own admission had been coming for years at the invite of the manager, whom they knew well.
My manager tried to save face and claim they were associated with the university, that they were in fact lectures.
That it was the bar staff’s failing to check for student ID all this time and then, turned on my supervisor saying he’d given them a bad reputation, cost them by turning them away and closing early as well as laying bare every other mistake he had ever made.
My supervisor explained that it was never explained to staff that customers had to be students, as the manager actively encouraged locals to come in, that even lectures get a form of student ID, and explained to the head about the manager’s drinking with his mates and the dodgy accounting he’d do.
This led to the CCTV being checked. When the head saw that it was in fact the manager and his mates, that the bar staff rarely put anything through the tills at his request, suspended him on the spot. He then said the accounts would need to be audited and that he would likely be terminated and even prosecuted.
After a surreal couple of weeks, we got our perks back, they hired a new manager and eventually, they installed locks on the doors that could only be opened with a student ID. No idea what happened to the old manager, but by no means a loss.”
17. Don't Call Your Dog Fat? Luckily, I Know Plenty Of Other Words To Describe Him
“It was many years ago now that I was a locum veterinarian in a small suburban veterinary clinic.
For the most part, the clients were a pleasure to work with, were receptive to the advice and instructions given to them by the staff in regards to their pets, and it generally made my time working there a placid experience.
Every rare once in a while though a client’s account would be flagged as “non-compliant”. This usually meant a client who didn’t follow medication instructions, post-operative procedures, scheduled rechecks, general health advice, and so forth, usually resulting in cases not progressing as well as they should have.
Of course, some of these clients would also complain about said poor outcome, and the fault was, of course, never theirs.
Enter one particular Ms. Noncom.
Since I was only a part-time locum, working every other weekend at the time at this particular clinic, I seldom saw a client more than once unless they specifically requested to see me again.
As such, I had never met Ms. Noncom before, but plastered at the top of her file was the dreaded “non-compliant”. Ms. Noncom owned a Jack Russell terrier that had an extensive history with the clinic, and as I browsed the history of the patient prior to the consultation to familiarize myself with them, it was painfully obvious that Jack was far too fat to be healthy.
In fact, there was enough of Jack to make another Jack, with some Jack to spare.
Jack was due for his annual shot and check-up, and so I asked them to enter the consultation room. Which they did at a leisurely pace due to the fact that Jack was barely able to keep up with Ms.
Noncom, who was herself not particularly fast due to her own bodily dimensions. It was somewhat apparent why Jack was struggling with weight issues when his own owner was apparently having the same difficulties.
Typically in a situation like this, I would be as careful as could be not to offend the owner or make any assumptions about their current bodily state, as it’s common for large owners to likewise have large pets, and suggestions have to be made appropriately without blatantly putting too much blame on the owner.
However, my desire to be tactful went straight out the window when Ms. Noncom, with a sour expression on her face (which also appeared to have the remnants of a candy bar smeared on one cheek), heaved her panting Jack onto the table and greeted me with an irritable, “Jack needs his needles, and don’t tell me my dog is fat!”
Very well.
Jack was only five years old, far too young to be the size he was (though no pet of any age should ever be as fat as he was), and his history had revealed a host of maladies that resulted from his size.
Abrasive skin damage on his chest and belly from dragging on the ground. Skin fold dermatitis. Recurrent yeast infections of his ear canals that were squeezed shut by a neck that was no longer a neck, but merely a globular extension of his thorax.
Degenerative joint disease. Upper airway disease. The list went on.
Now unfortunately, one shortcoming of the clinic I worked at was the senior veterinarian there who owned the practice was a very senior fellow indeed who had long lost his passion for the job and seemed to be content to just let things slide with the more difficult clients, treating the patients symptomatically rather than addressing the underlying problem.
I decided that now was the time to assert my new blood.
I have a habit that as I gather the history of the patient from the last time they were seen, I dictate it to myself as I type it into the history of the file.
This gives the client a chance to correct anything I may have misheard, or add something they remember as I repeat it. And thus I did with Jack, complying with Ms. Noncom’s desire that I do not tell her that her dog was fat.
“The patient at presentation of the consultation is morbidly obese and at weigh-in is half a kilo heavier than at last consultation, presenting with moderate to severe dyspnea likely complicated by excess adipose tissue deposition in and around the thorax.” I looked up from my typing.
“How much are you feeding Jack these days?”
Ms. Noncom shot me a poisonous look, but perhaps because she hadn’t met me before and thought perhaps I hadn’t quite heard her entering remark, responded, “He’s getting two meals a day what you recommended last time I was here.
Should all be in your records there.”
It certainly was. The amount recommended should have been fine to encourage weight loss even in the face of limited exercise. So I forged on with my history writing. “Patient is consuming recommended diet but has failed to shed any excess body mass since last seen 5 months ago.”
Another sideways glance from Ms.
Noncon, and this time her cheeks flushed a little.
I proceeded with the physical exam of the patient, and with each problem I noted as a result of his being overweight, I used a different synonym. Hefty, rotund, enlarged, bloated, and a variety of other fat-but-not-fat words were used as I typed up the findings, and in my peripheral vision, I could see Ms.
Noncom’s complexion slowly turn from pink, to tomato, to beetroot. It was when I reached the point of Jack carrying a lot of weight to the opera that she exploded.
“HOW DARE YOU! I TOLD YOU NOT TO TELL ME HE’S FAT THERE’S NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT SO STOP TELLING ME!”
I mustered my most pained look I could manage.
“But ma’am, I never once used the word you explicitly told me not to use. And as for there being nothing that can be done, the history states you’ve refused testing to determine if he has thyroid, adrenal, or other disease that may be complicating his weight loss.
This really isn’t in his best interests. If money is an issue, we do have payment plans that can help spread out the cost of such testing…”
I didn’t get to finish, as Ms. Noncom scooped Jack off the table, berating me and the entire staff of the clinic as she rumbled her person out of the clinic as fast as she could, and swearing that my boss would hear about this.
No sooner had the door shut I heard the nursing staff burst out giggling, and my boss poked his head out of the adjoining consult room where I’m sure he’d heard the entire exchange.
He simply sighed, shrugged, and said, “Well, I didn’t hear you say the word ‘fat’ once,” before closing the door.
I later learned that Ms. Noncom had returned the following week when I was not present, and not only got Jack his shot after complaining to my boss, but also conceded to having blood work done, which revealed an under-active thyroid. Jack was subsequently started on thyroid supplementation, and by the following year was a much healthier and appropriate weight.”
16. Demand They Pay Back What They "Stole" From You? You Won't Be Happy When They Comply
“So my husband, whom we shall call Craig, works as a supervisor for a parking company at an airport. He told me this tale.
As well as storing cars securely while customers fly out to other places, Craig’s work also offers a wash service and valet service.
Additionally they service 4 different terminals and have 3 different car parks including an undercover car park for their customers’ vehicles. So it goes without saying that customers’ cars are sometimes moved ie, from a car park into the wash bay, between terminals depending on where a customer is leaving from or returning to, or to drop a customer off at the terminal or to pick them up.
This means that a small amount of fuel is used up in the process. Most customers understand this, but not Susan.
No, Susan (not her real name obviously) made a complaint that after picking up her car she discovered that 5kms of her car’s estimated range had been used.
Estimated range tells you the approximate distance the car can travel on the current level of fuel and isn’t always 100% accurate. Even if it was, 5kms isn’t unreasonable when considering Susan’s dropoff, travel between terminals to park the car, travel to their wash area, and travel to pick her up.
But Susan wants to be compensated for the 5kms of fuel that they “stole” from her.
After coming up with an idea, Craig talks to the owner. Craig says they should calculate how many kms is in a full tank on Susan’s make of car, and then calculate exactly how many liters of fuel 5kms would be at current fuel prices.
They do so and find it comes to a cost of .30, maybe .40 cents.
So Craig’s boss calls Susan and tells her they’re very sorry and will refund the cost of the fuel used directly to her credit card.
Susan is smug as a pug until she finds out that the amount is 30-odd cents.
She’s even less pleased with the fee of $2.00 for the transaction from using her credit card. (Don’t ask me why, but Craig’s company’s card machines charge for credit transactions under a certain amount.)
Anyway, Susan’s complaint ended up costing HER $1.70, and the best thing? She couldn’t argue, because Craig and his boss did exactly what she asked.
EDIT for clarity: Craig’s company charges $2 for transactions on Amex or Diners cards which the woman was aware of as she paid for her booking using one of those cards. There are also big signs in their offices about this surcharge. This applies to any transactions for these cards including refunds. I guess she just forgot when she accepted the refund.”
15. Not Satisfied With My Work Performance? I'm Just Doing Exactly What I Was Told
“For some back story, I work in a place where no kids are allowed. It’s essentially an adult “gaming experience”. These places usually are owned by a large group of people usually related. And I can’t specify what kind of place I work at since it’s against my policy and I’m paranoid.
I clean up after messes. I don’t mind it, I get paid well to sweep up popcorn, clean toilets, and dump ashtrays. Where I live it’s a good chunk of change to bring home just to clean.
A few weeks ago I was sweeping the floor as I had already cleaned most everything.
I have one headphone in (as is allowed by the company) and just focusing on my job. I am hard of hearing so I put the headphone in the ear that barely works anyway. I can still hear the music somewhat and still listen if someone is talking to me so I’ve never had a problem before.
While sweeping I admit the first time I was a little close to a customer.
Customer: “Ma’am, don’t sweep near my feet. I don’t like that.”
Me in my best customer service voice: “I’m so sorry, I will work on keeping my distance next time.”
She doesn’t reply so I just assume she’s very into her game.
I start going around the other side and sweep up a big pile of ash another customer left. Just minding my business and ready for my first break already. Note this time if she tried to kick out or point her toes she wouldn’t even be able to brush the broom even a little (which she did try to do).
Customer: “I just told you not to do that.”
Me: “I’m so sorry I thought I was far enough away this time.”
Customer: “You lazy workers make me so darn mad.”
I’m in a bit of shock as I’ve never had a customer talk to me this way in my current position.
I actually get called over to clean up while a customer is at a game because they think it brings them luck. I don’t want to rock the boat anymore so I just say sorry again and leave it be. I make my way to the other side of the building and start cleaning there.
I always think it’s cute when some people see me sweeping and they raise their feet to let me get under them. It reminds me of when my mom used to vacuum and we would raise our feet so she could get under us.
I consider it very polite that they do this.
After doing my rounds and cleaning I keep a smile on my face as there are a lot of customers on this day and they find me most approachable as I am one of the only females on the floor.
It’s very normal for them to search out one of us to help them with stuff. Why they do this I have no idea. The upset customer sees me continue sweeping and smiling and it drives her insane. I hear her literally yelling at the store manager for a few minutes and I get called over after the customer storms out.
Manager: “I just had a complaint that you were sweeping too close to a customer. We’re going to pull camera footage and most likely give you a point.”
Me: “I admit I was close the first time, but I can even show you exactly where I was the second time.
I wasn’t even close enough to touch.”
Manager: “Well she is married to a wealthy man here and they own several businesses. And she has family on the council.”
At this point, the store manager is looking at me like I should know who this woman is.
I’m new to the area and don’t know many of the members from around where I work, but I also know this is a bad sign. Others have been fired for less for upsetting a council member’s family member. The system is very corrupt tbh but there’s nothing anyone can do.
Manager: “From now on you don’t clean near any customers at all. I’ll draw up your point sheet and get started on it for you to sign.”
I am livid at this point, but just nod and go to clean the bathrooms.
I have never received a point or customer complaint in the five months I had been working there, and now suddenly my job is in jeopardy for doing my job. After the footage is reviewed they admit I wasn’t too close but point me enough that I have to really watch my back or I will get fired because “Your voice was super condescending”.
Compliance mode activated.
I required a copy of my write-up as it has the exact reasons why I was pointed and I can cover my butt. There’s even a comment section where the manager can write off what they have told me to do to fix my behavior.
She added that I forced overtime by clocking in early and late and “She just stands there and time steals without working those hours.” I stop coming in early and start refusing to stay late. She also states I am going out of my job description and to no longer do anything that isn’t specified in the handbook for my job.
I circle this part heavily. While it’s not in my job description to help customers or get them refreshments I do it anyway.
Now I have a few days where I am the only cleaning person at work because we are a small business.
It’s not bad and I love those days as they go by faster. These days are also some of the days we are packed with customers. I’m honestly surprised this only took a few weeks before they tried to point me again.
Because of where the gaming machines are set up there are long stretches of the floor I am no longer allowed to touch. There are trash cans near a few of the most popular games so I can’t even change the trash.
It doesn’t take long for ashtrays and trash to overflow. The floor is absolutely covered in popcorn, food, ash, and soda spills. Per my store manager, I can’t touch any of it because it is near a customer at all times.
I keep myself busy throughout this time doing things I normally don’t have time for. I’m wiping walls down, cleaning every single window, scrubbing the floorboards, and even managed to get to a few vents and get the dust out of them.
Not once was I near a customer.
They start to complain as the other employees that are supposed to get them popcorn and soda while they game don’t do rounds on the floor as often as my job allows me to. Since I am not allowed to clean near the customers I have no reason to go near them and I don’t help out.
Now I let my compliance slide for a little bit when it comes to the elderly customers that can’t get around so much. A few of the ones who know I’m hard of hearing will even sign to me across the store to get my attention and I go over to help.
And a few of them have asked me why I’m acting so weird. Little did I know, most of them had family on the council as well.
One of the women who’s there every day even laughs and tells me she would do exactly what I’m doing.
At the end of the week, I’m called in by one of the best Managers we have. He’s just an hourly manager so he doesn’t have a stick up his rear. He just tells me to be careful and cover my butt.
The second week rolls around and I’m running out of extra cleaning to do. Everything is very dusted down every day, the walls are spotless, windows clean, and the bathrooms are just perfect. I’m honestly proud of what I have achieved in this time.
The morning cleaning crew has been complaining day in and out. Even though they show up three hours before opening cleaning the filthy store in the morning isn’t really in the time allotted for them. The grass starts to get overgrown, the lot is filthy, the break room is a mess, and the floor is starting to stain from spills being left all night long.
One of the daytime cleaning supervisors asked me what’s wrong because my normally spotless floor is so filthy in the morning, but once I explain what has happened he is more upset I’m one shot from being fired than anything else.
My job isn’t easy but I get paid well so I don’t call in and show up early to help the morning guys out a lot because they have a lot more to do than I do.
Finally comes the day my store manager shows back up and she’s livid.
I’m cleaning the soda machine when she pulls me into the office to give me another write-up. It’s not enough to fire me. In fact, it’s half a point away from me being fired. She had my direct manager all the way from the main office and the big boss over all of us in the room with her.
I let them go through their spiel about how disappointed they are in me, and how my job is very easy to do. They can’t believe I’ve been wasting my time on “useless” cleaning. Apparently, it’s my fault a few of the gaming machines are down for repairs as I didn’t clean up soda spills fast enough and the liquid got directly into the machine.
Sooo many customers complained they didn’t have someone they could call to cater to them. I get yelled at for not “serving excellent customer service” to them. The big boss even states the fact he wants me fired right now but my direct manager has saved my butt.
He reminds me that we live in an “at-will state” and I can be fired for farting the wrong way at this point.
After they’re done shredding me to pieces and I’m near tears I whip out the original point sheet and slide it to them.
I open my handbook and turn to my job description page and slide that over as well. I quietly say that per the handbook I’m not allowed to hand customers ANYTHING because I have the wrong job code for it. I have just been doing what I’ve been told and staying away from the customers, they can even check the cameras.
They get quiet. My direct manager gets livid. He tells me to take the day off and that I will get paid for it. Unfortunately for them, it’s a day I work by myself. Fortunately for me, it’s before my days off so I get three days off in a row.
When I get back I’m told my points have been wiped and I’m back to zero. I’m supposed to disregard any write-ups I have received and do what I normally do. I essentially get told that I have free rein of the floor to clean it how I see fit.
While I have been happy with the result of my actions I feel bad that my store manager was demoted to hourly. I unfortunately see her a lot more now and she pointedly takes pictures of messes before I can get to them.
I’m already planning on putting in my two weeks as an old boss offered me my job back plus my original raises. It’s a dollar pay cut but I’ll be the acting manager a lot of the time, and to me, that’s worth it. My direct manager offered me a raise to keep me but I no longer want to work somewhere so toxic. I know I’m lucky that I can find jobs fast, but I’m gonna miss the sweet paycheck and benefits.”
14. Can't Get Him Fired? I'll Just Have To Make Him Want To Quit
“This developed over a decade. A place that was once truly fun to work at and easy to earn a bit of extra overtime became a dog-eat-dog struggle to survive. The low-level peons like me were split between those who felt disenfranchised and hated by the management, those that were basically looking for an escape route, and that group of snakes who would smile to your face and act sympathetic to your situation before sneaking away to inform the managers of anything they had learned which might have value.
We were in a specific area of the business that was isolated and slowly being replaced by technology, so from over a thousand in our building it dropped to just around 250 when I left. Most of this was done through voluntary redundancy but the managers were given the incentive to fire as many as possible to save money on VR, and since manager jobs were also slowly being cut they were desperate to fire as many as possible but most were incapable of following procedure.
Mike was that intelligent and brutal kind of manager who like the others had been promoted into the position, but knowing he wouldn’t get trained officially took it upon himself to become competent. The man had gotten dozens of people fired directly and more indirectly by helping less competent managers follow the correct procedure.
A certain quantity of work at a certain level of quality was required, which everyone met. Yet they had a bottom and top 10 list and if you were on the bottom 10 list your job was on the line regardless if you met the basic requirements.
Since there was always a bottom 10 by definition, there were always 10 people on the firing line. This might be vague but it has to be.
Mike’s team was a sort of clearing house for the bottom 10, we were shifted between shifts and teams for various reasons but what I quickly learned is that somehow the shift’s bottom 10 were all on Mike’s team.
Now my performance was consistently in the top 10 so I was safe on that count but my attendance was low due to health issues and my attitude was really bad. I also learned that the rest of the team was made up of people who weren’t low in performance but had low attendance and attitude problems just like me, and we had all been on the chopping block by managers who failed to follow procedure.
In short, Mike was the executioner of the workforce, the most vulnerable to being fired were shifted around to his team so he could succeed where the others had failed. Sooner or later my time came, my health caused a series of absences while I had hospitalizations and Mike pounced into action.
In the space of a year, he made 7 attempts to fire me, and each time I involved HR who stepped in and protected me.
I approached HR to make a case that what was happening was wrong, not just to me but to everyone.
I made the case that the situation of Mike being the executioner created a hostile work environment and the fact that I had gotten his attempts to fire me thrown out proved that he was not only hostile but was actively toxic.
That it was against the law to discriminate on age/disability and a myriad of other arguments.
I was told that there was nothing they could do, Mike was untouchable and had the full support of the upper management in our building because he was saving a lot of funds in voluntary redundancy payouts by firing the vulnerable.
Legally there might be a case but it would have to go through a court system and not through HR unless I had an example of him being hostile and abusive.
The person I spoke to was very sympathetic and he suggested I look into some things related to job opportunities that were coming up, he mentioned that many of them were managerial positions because a new type of roaming manager had been introduced.
These were very needed and weren’t getting much interest, think substitute teacher where a manager gets sent all around the country at the drop of a hat.
It didn’t occur to me instantly but weeks later as I sat at work listening to Mike talk about his family it clicked into place and my plan began to take form.
Instead of making a complaint I gave a glowing review and had several others do the same. If we couldn’t get the man fired for his actions, we could get him promoted to a job that he couldn’t take.
The managers in our area were not even being considered for transfers because they lacked the training and qualifications to be managers anywhere else, our reviews might just push him over the line into getting a promotion, and since roaming managers were being sought the two should dovetail nicely.
We didn’t give the reviews to our management but directly higher up the food chain, way above anyone that ever dealt with our area of the business. Each of us mentioned that Mike had done an amazing job at sorting out problems etc, had great managerial skills, and had in-depth knowledge of procedure.
Then we sat back and waited, a few months went by with nothing happening and I thought the attempt had failed but then we came in to Mike losing his mind, he was shouting at the shift manager (his boss) about how he wasn’t being given a choice.
Turns out the higher management had gotten our reviews, looked into his record, and decided he was a perfect fit for the roaming manager position and since they were in the process of getting rid of managers in our area they insisted that Mike be pushed into it.
Mike had of course tried to refuse the promotion as was his right, but the higher management had made it a choice to accept the promotion or be demoted back to peon. Mike had a family and couldn’t just uproot them whenever the company needed him elsewhere, and a demotion with a pay cut back into the workforce of people who despised him and that were slowly being culled was just as bad.
So he asked for voluntary redundancy instead and was accepted. His last day he went berserk shouting and swearing about how badly the company had treated him after “all he had done”, I was unfortunately absent for it but got a play-by-play and loved every second of it.
Since I was told explicitly that I couldn’t get him punished or fired, I got him a promotion he couldn’t accept instead.”
13. I Can't Leave Until I Shovel All The Snow? I'll Make Sure It's Spotless
“This wasn’t me doing the malicious compliance, nor the request, but the middle man who witnessed this gloriousness. I worked for a movie theatre company in a state that snows every winter. We had a contract with a snow shoveling company but my boss refused to use it because the costs of each removal had a possibility of hurting his yearly bonus by a couple of percent points (like $300 max out of $20,000).
“Only if it snows more than six inches” he would say every time.
Unfortunately, this meant that one of the ushers would have to shovel snow on the sidewalk. Since it’s a safety hazard to block the emergency exit doors of a theatre it meant you had to shovel a path around the entire building and for each exit door.
Ultimately due to the size it’s about a quarter mile around the building. No one likes doing it because it’s cold and shoveling a simple one shovel-length path can take two hours.
During a snowy Christmas week (the busiest week for movie theaters of the year, imagine Black Friday shopping for two weeks straight) it had snowed just under six inches.
We were extremely busy and my boss demanded to take one of our much-needed ushers to go shovel snow (I was an assistant manager). When we asked if the company could come out instead of us doing it we were told no, to which one of my co-workers (we’ll call him Dan) said he would do it.
An hour later after he had gone outside one by one my boss pulled each usher in and wrote them up for “refusing to shovel snow”. When Dan came back in the other ushers complained to him about it. Dan asked our boss why and our boss said that it was because no one wanted to shovel all of the snow, and if Dan didn’t shovel all of the snow he would get written up as well.
This all happened at the beginning of my shift, around 5 pm.
Cue the malicious compliance. What my boss didn’t realize was that it was the last day of the payroll period. Being Christmas week Dan had already accumulated 40 hours of work earlier in the day.
My boss left right after telling Dan to make sure ALL of the snow was removed. We worked the rest of the shift and everyone assumed Dan had finished and left.
It’s 3 am now and we go to punch out for the week but can’t because there is a shift that hasn’t been approved yet.
Someone is still working and is at 12 hours of overtime. It’s Dan. I go out to investigate since it should only be myself and my manager. As I walk outside I see Dan coming back in, smiling the biggest grin on his face, and the most dry, un-snowed path I’ve ever seen in my life.
It looked like two pictures cut together; there was not a spec or snow on the entire front path of the theatre. Dan spent ten hours outside making sure that he removed ALL the snow from the walkway. We had a good laugh, clocked off, and left.
We didn’t hear anything until later that week when I was called into the office and had to write out a statement as to why I let Dan work twelve hours of overtime. He had this smug look on his face like he had “beaten” us.
He was not too pleased when he found out that all of our statements included him saying the phrase “remove all the snow” and that he refused to call the snow plow company. My boss was transferred to another theatre soon after.”
12. Don't Touch Anything On The Boat? Hope You Like The Smell Of Rotting Fish
“I recently started working at a boatyard/marina, and this story belongs to the owner. We’ll call him Joe.
Joe is a hard-working salt-of-the-earth type of guy. Treat him right and he’d give you the shirt off his back, but he doesn’t take crap from anyone.
Evidently, a few years ago, one of the boat owners declared bankruptcy. Joe had a lien on the boat for unpaid repairs, so the boat was hauled out of the water and stored on-site while the legal mess was sorted out.
Now, Joe tried to explain to the bank representative that there were some things that needed to be taken care of prior to long-term storage. Evidently, the rep was a bit of a jerk and didn’t listen to Joe. He just kept saying that nothing was to be touched or removed from the boat until the bank evaluated it.
Fine.
So Joe hauled the boat to the far corner of the lot, and let it sit all summer while the bank sorted things out. It sat in the sun for months before the bank came to take a look.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, this was a commercial fishing boat.
Evidently, the forfeiture of the boat was rather abrupt, so the boat was still stocked when it was hauled out of the water.
It was stocked with fish bait. Specifically, three half-full barrels of fish bait. Sealed barrels of fish bait that had been sitting in the sun for months.
Needless to say, Joe didn’t bother warning the adjusters when they showed up. They insisted on inspecting everything personally, after all, and they weren’t interested in his opinion.
I don’t know the full aftermath, but evidently, not long after the inspection began, the smell of rotting fish became so strong that it was nearly overpowering the office half a mile away.
Joe got his money with no further bullcrap from the bank.”
11. I Have To Come In Even Though I'm Sick? Bad Idea, But Sure Thing!
“So this happened to me a while ago (2014ish) when I worked at a fast food restaurant in the UK with a redheaded clown as a mascot as well as for some of the managers there.
Now being an eating establishment hygiene is very important as you can imagine.
The policy when I started there and as far as I am aware is the same to this day (maybe even more strict) was that if you were sick you had to have 48 hours off from the time you call in sick to ensure that you are better for returning to work so you don’t poison the customers.
Makes sense right? I’m ill, I’m handling food, I’m going to get others sick.
I’m not feeling great at all this shift, I was feeling a little off in the morning but thought I might be able to get better by the evening when my shift is.
Over the day I started to get a cough, fever, runny and blocked nose, headache, you know full-on cold. The policy also states that if you are going to call in sick it should be no later than 2 hours before your shift starts, fair enough.
It gets to 2 hours before my small 4-hour shift and I feel dreadful so I call up the manager on the shift that day.
Me: “Hi Manager, it’s OP (cough) I feel awful I shouldn’t be working today (sniff).”
Manager: “You can’t be sick we need you in today.”
Me: “I really am not well, I am coughing and my nose is running everywhere (Deep heavy cough).”
Manager: “I have already had 3 people call in sick for today so you need to be here, see you in a couple of hours.” (Hangs up)
So here I am dripping with sweat looking like death could take me at any moment so with a small smirk on my face I think “Okay guess I’m going to work tonight”.
I proceed to get ready, get in the car, and drive to work.
Now there is no backdoor for employees to slip into at this place so we have to use the main entrance and walk through the dining area to go into the back of the kitchen.
So step 1: Make sure I am seen by as many people as possible looking like something out of a horror movie. I shamble through the front door making sure to have a fit of coughing while in my uniform so all the customers can see I am unwell.
I make sure to wave and say hi to my colleagues on the counter in the huskiest voice I have before wandering through to the door that leads to the kitchen.
(At this point I would like to say that I was in fact very sick that day and I should not have been working but I wanted to teach my boss a lesson so I might have exaggerated my symptoms just a little bit to make sure the point stuck.)
I make it to the break room where 2 of my crew mates are and immediately both ask if I’m feeling alright, I tell them no but I have a point to prove which is why I’m here.
I check the rota in the break room and bingo! I’m on the register, front of house, everyone can see me, this is perfect for step 2: ensure each person I serve questions if I’m fit to work. I wander through the kitchen to the register and start working.
My first customer places an order and they look a little wary. I get them their food, they go and sit down to start eating. My boss has seen this exchange and you can see the gears turning in his head, “Can’t be having a zombie serving food….
I know let’s put them in the kitchen where they can’t be seen”. I get told to swap with a person who is working grill, so yes I am no longer seen by anyone but they have moved me from working with wrapped food which I couldn’t contaminate to working with creating the food from scratch.
Great idea there boss! (FYI I never intentionally poisoned someone’s food, I was trying to be very good and stepped out of the kitchen every time I needed to cough and blow my nose, washed my hands, and then got back to it).
I have been working for an hour or so now still 3 to go and by this point I’m feeling light-headed and unable to focus on what I am doing, I’m not exaggerating anymore I am not good at all, it’s not very busy so I’m just trying to keep myself on my feet.
In walks the night manager who happens to be the acting store manager too.
Night Manager: “Evening OP!”
Me: Grunts and sniffs
Night Manager: “Are you feeling alright?”
Me: Slowly shakes head.
Night Manager: “Why didn’t you call in sick?”
Me: “I did, I was told that others had already called in sick so I had to be here.”
She looks around at the pretty empty restaurant and plenty of staff, including the manager who had me come in, sitting in the dining area pretending to look busy while being on his phone.
Night Manager: “Clock out, go home, get better, and don’t worry about your shifts for the next 2 days”
I nod and just before I go to get my stuff I see her storm to the manager in the break area before dragging him into the office.
I go back to work after a couple of days like I was told feeling 100%. I am greeted by the Night Manager who checks on me which I’m grateful for. I start to work and get caught up on the workplace gossip. Turns out the Manager who made me work that day was given a right bollocking that night and he “turned in his resignation the next day” or so the rumor goes.”
10. Force Us To Follow A Dress Code? I'll Follow It To The Letter
“Our junior high dress code was a pain. Most teachers didn’t care so long as kids weren’t distracting. The principal of the junior high, however, insisted on enforcing every single rule.
A friend of mine wore a long sleeve shirt under a tank top.
The principal insisted she couldn’t wear the tank top because tank tops were against the dress code. But she couldn’t take off the tank top because her shirt was slightly see-through, another violation. Instead of allowing her to simply wear the tank over her long sleeve shirt, she sent her home.
I decided this wouldn’t stand.
I studied every rule in the dress code to prove how stupid it was. I started off small and worked my way up.
No open toed sandals. – This one was easy. I wore open-toed high heels. Nothing in the rules against high heels, and the open-toed rule only applied to sandals the way it was written.
Shirts must be tucked into pants. Belts must be worn through belt loops. – Knocked out two here by wearing a skirt. Skirts, or at least the one I wore, had no belt loops and weren’t considered pants so I was not required to tuck in anything or wear a stupid belt.
Backpacks must be plain colored with no pins/excessive accessories. – I picked up a briefcase from a resale shop and slapped it with every sticker I could find. Any random logo or inspirational sticker I had laying around got slapped on it.
Technically, a briefcase isn’t a backpack.
No costumes allowed. (I verified this, my school considered a costume to be anything only worn for a certain period of time or for a certain reason. If you wore it all day, it was an outfit, not a costume.) – I abused this one so badly.
Once a week I dressed up as a lawyer, a clown, a hippie, a Shakespearean actor, a superhero, a cameraman, etc. complete of course with as many accessories as I could handle. So long as I never took them off (this made gym class interesting), they weren’t considered part of a costume.
I ended up letting kids pick out what I would dress as each week.
No crazy hairstyles. – Kept my hair natural colors, and kept the styles as something that was at least popular at one point. Beehive took forever but was the most satisfying.
Bonus points if I could find pictures of adults who were still wearing their hair like that currently.
Shirts are not allowed to have logos or print, only patterns and consistent designs. – Consistent designs was my loophole here. No print, fine, but consistent print made specifically to look like a design? At this point, the principal was going mad and she didn’t let this one slide.
She insisted I change, which I expected.
Gym shorts must reach students’ knees or as long as their fingertips. – Guess whose fingertips reach about three below her butt? Me! I went from wearing a shirt that said bite me all over it, to an outfit that included short shorts.
But my shorts were still longer than my fingers. I even offered to change back into my other clothes.
At this point in the year, we were almost done with school. Other kids were following my lead, and we were driving the principal mad.
I decided to kick it up a bit further. I attacked what should have been the most basic rules.
No sunglasses. – Rose-colored glasses aren’t considered sunglasses because you can easily see through them. Still, the principal jerked them off my face and insisted I wouldn’t get them back until the end of the day.
No tank tops. – I wore a dress with spaghetti straps. It wasn’t a shirt, so I wasn’t breaking a rule.
Belts must be plain with no dangerous materials. – Plain it must be, so plain I went. I wore a shoestring as a belt.
I wore a braided yarn string as a belt. I even wore a spandex band sewn to my pants as a belt.
No crocs. – Crocs are not the only rubber shoe my friends. I found every off-brand Crocs I could get a hold of.
Finally, at the end of the year, I wore one of my most outrageous outfits. I wore a see-through dress (think bathing suit cover-up) over leggings and a shirt that barely classified as a t-shirt. I wore shoes with a four-inch cork heel.
I had on fake glasses (no lenses) and a four-inch wide headband. I wore bangles up to my elbows and anklets on each foot. I had a box to carry my books in that was decorated with blinking battery-powered fairy lights.
I walked right up to the principal and gave her a smile.
Kids paused to see what would happen. I waited to see what she would say. We’d had this conversation all year. She would point out the rule I ‘broke’ and I would prove how I didn’t.
She sighed.
Principal: Fine, but if even one teacher says you’re distracting to the class, you change clothes.
We shook on it. Only thing I had to ditch was most of the bangles. They kept clanging while I wrote.
In the end, I ended up getting the dress code rewritten and amended and the principal implemented a new procedure where dress code violations were not sent home, they were noted and students had to wear a piece of duct tape indicating the specific violation.
(If you forgot a belt, you put a piece of tape on a belt loop.) Kids only started to get in trouble after three dress code violations in the same week. Since she lightened up on the dress code and how harshly it was punished, she stopped having trouble with kids breaking it all the time. It worked out for everyone.”
9. Can't Keep My Remote Access? Guess I'll Be Bugging You A Lot Then
“As with a lot of people during these times, I have been working from home. I also recently purchased a new home and the internet where I work is not as reliable as my previous place (rural satellite internet vs city cable).
This mainly comes into play because I also started a new role at the start of the year supporting our company’s Amazon sales team. I was a salesperson for a few years, but have an analytical background and have worked in marketing, so I was a good fit for this role.
It was also a new role that my boss specifically requested the budgeting and payroll for in order to have me take the role as I also pride myself on being a problem solver. If there is an issue, it bugs the heck out of me and I will do my best to get it resolved.
If it keeps coming up, I try to figure out why and work to improve the workflow to make it better. For a growing company, I was what my boss needed. Sales experience, marketing experience, data and analytical background. Pretty much a one-stop shop for a 2nd in charge to help alleviate all the work he has been having to handle almost single-handedly as we have grown and Amazon has become our biggest customer.
This all comes into play as recently Amazon has been having to get updated safety and compliance documentation for EVERYTHING on their site. In any given year prior to this, we would get maybe 20-40 requests in a year. We submitted everything for new products as they were set up, but haven’t had to actively maintain the documents.
Once they were submitted, we were good. Well, this year due to some lawsuits, Amazon is requiring updated forms for EVERYTHING. Ok. We were originally given 3 months to have 600+ items done. Ok. Big job, boss handed it to me, I worked with our compliance manager, managed to hit the deadline.
Job done. No. They wanted updated forms for discontinued products. Ok, they have no inventory and we don’t either, but whatever. Three weeks for this deadline, managed to make it. Ok, done. No. Some of the documents were outdated (of course, we last produced these over a decade ago) and they wanted updated forms.
No products to test, told them so. Ok, done. No. Their upper management spoke to our upper management and we found out we were specifically a point of issue for them. We are not the biggest company in our field by a long shot, so the fact that upper management at Amazon noticed us is a deal.
Ok, 3 days to hit the next deadline. Nearly killed myself, but made it. Done. No….That brings us to now.
With all this, you may be thinking that the malicious compliance was against Amazon, but it wasn’t. They are just trying to cover their butt, so I get it.
It sucks as I have other projects during this time of the year, but whatever. No, the malicious compliance comes into play with a new co-worker of ours.
As we have grown, we have been getting more experienced people into director and VP roles who come from outside our company.
Cool, we are attracting highly qualified people who know their stuff. Great. Also of note, our company compliance manager just turned in his notice as he sort of grew into his role, but it was never his intention to do this for a decade plus.
Good guy, genuinely like him. It was clear that he was getting overwhelmed and as time went on, the organization system he was using for files in our shared databases was getting outdated. I have had to get to the point that I had to go find the files/answers I needed without asking him as he was taking longer and longer to respond since other companies were needing these types of files/answers besides just Amazon.
Ok, I am a problem solver, I can do this.
The rural internet thing comes into play as the deadlines got shorter. Currently, we are not allowed into our building without giving our health compliance people a 24-hour notice. Some of these requests I don’t know what I need until late at night.
I realized our office Wi-Fi reaches the parking lot, so I would go late at night and sit in my car to download the files I need. Perfect go around. Due to various personal reasons, I can only really do this at night.
So, during the day, I have to rely on my questionable internet connection to connect to the system I need to look up some various info.
Ok, on to the malicious compliance. Our new ops director is in the process of preparing to sunset our current operations software that is a decade past when it should have been replaced.
We are planning to go live with our new, cloud-based ops software at the start of the year. I have checked it out and it will be great once it is there. However, I still need to use the old software.
If I sit in the parking lot, I can access it as “on-site” with no issue and it works great, but I can’t sit out in my car for 8 hours nor can I do it in the middle of the day.
So, during the day, I have to remote access it and it is janky and slow as all get out. For context, the entire time it has taken me to type this has been as long as it has taken for a single click in the system to show the next prompt.
Ok, it literally just showed the next one for context.
So, ops director is limiting the remote access as we are preparing to sunset the system. He sent out an e-mail to tell everyone. Ok, I let him know my situation and that I need to keep the remote access or I will have to bug the compliance manager non-stop and he is already overwhelmed.
Not long after his reply that I will just have to manage through is when the compliance manager turned in his notice. So, ops director is next in line for me to have to reach out to. I again asked that he keep me with remote access or this will be a huge time suck for him and he has better things to do.
Nope, just going to have to bug him. I warned him that as these deadlines are getting closer, it will be a lot and the requests come in at all hours of the day. He said it will be no big issue.
Compliance manager left last week. I tried to keep it to e-mails at first, but then I had to start using IM. Then I had to Zoom call him. Then it got to the point it was late at night and I had to text.
Not only just the initial requests, but depending on what he found, I would have to reply for a follow-up question. I went back and counted it. In 7 days, I e-mailed him 58 times with multiple requests in each e-mail, Zoom called him 36 times, IM’d him 212 times, and texted him 148 times between 7 PM and 6 AM on Saturday and Sunday evenings/mornings.
I received an e-mail earlier this morning that they are restoring my remote access and will keep it active through the launch of the replacement system.”
8. Write An Essay About How Cracking Your Knuckles Is Bad? Evidence Would Suggest Otherwise
“I was reminiscing after I made a poor nurse shudder after cracking my knuckles at my doctor’s appointment. It reminded me of a funny story with my mom.
My mom absolutely loathed whenever I cracked my knuckles around her. I can’t help myself, it’s a bad habit and once I start I have to do all of them.
She would constantly yell for me to stop. She would tell me it’s bad for me and that I’m gonna get arthritis from doing that.
One day at home I started making my fingers into rice crispy treats; snap, crackle, pop. Mom had enough and snapped herself.
“I want you to write a 2-page essay about cracking your fingers including about arthritis. No more than double space, 12-point font, and all of that. I don’t want you trying anything funny.”
… Well of course I’m going to try something funny.
We wouldn’t be here if I didn’t… so cue that malicious compliance.
I sat at the computer and pulled open Google and typed in “How cracking your fingers does not cause arthritis”. Turned out that was correct. I had plenty of sources including one guy who cracked his knuckles regularly on one hand and not at all on the other.
The other hand got arthritis and the cracking hand did not. I included that, a few other truthful things like it does cause loss of grip but ultimately it was about how it helped prevent arthritis in the long term.
She took the essay without a word, skimmed it, and called it good to my surprise.
Couldn’t believe I got away with it.
But
I also remember that it got brought up in a conversation in my adult years before cancer claimed her.
Mom: what did I tell you about cracking your knuckles? I had you write an essay on that and everything!
Me: you….
didn’t read that did you?
Mom: what makes you think that?
Me smiling like a fox in a hen house: cause I wrote it on how it prevents arthritis.
Mom with surprise Pikachu face: no you didn’t!
Me: Cited sources and everything!
Mom: you brat!
Me: Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!
I loved my mom.”
7. Go Home And Change Or I Can't Come Back To Work? I Think I'll Just Go Home And Stay There
“The summer after my senior year in high school, I worked collecting shopping carts at a grocery store. I lived on the coast so it was hot as heck during the summers. It was one of those “uppity” grocery chains so we had a pretty strict dress code (white long-sleeve dress shirt, tucked into khaki dress slacks).
But because I worked outside for a good portion of the day, management let me wear khaki shorts and a short sleeve button-up. All was fine until towards the end of the summer, we got a new general manager who was much stricter on policy than the old one had been.
When I came in for my first shift with the new manager, he called me into his office. This is (vaguely) how our conversation went, from what I can remember.
Manager: There have been some changes. Your uniform is clearly lacking in several areas and I’ll need you to correct it.
We’ll need you to go home and change into pants and the provided long-sleeve button-up.
Me: (thinking he had mistaken me for someone who works inside) Actually sir, I collect carts so I’m allowed to wear shorts.
Manager: Son, I said what I said.
Either you adhere to the dress code or you go home.
Me: So I don’t have a choice but to wear pants, in 90+ degree heat in the height of summer?
Manager: That is the policy. And being smart with me is not getting us off on the right foot.
Me: Alright then, I’m going home.
Manager: Good. Thank you for your understanding.
I walked out of his office fully understanding that he expected me to actually come back. But his ultimatum was to either wear pants or not come to work, so I chose the latter.
I was going away to college in a couple of weeks so I chose not to heavily sweat 6 hours a day for $7.25 an hour.
I was at home about an hour later, chilling, talking to my friends on Xbox 360 party chat and I got a call from my manager, furious.
He was asking me why the heck I was taking so long, that we were swamped and desperately needed a cart collector. I told him I wasn’t coming back. Of course he didn’t take this well. He told me to get back there right then or I would be fired, which I responded with “Well, I thought that was the idea”.
He was absolutely dumbfounded. He hadn’t expected me to call his bluff on something he considered to be so inconsequential (because he wasn’t the one outside pushing carts in the heat). He tried to talk me into coming back but I told him he gave me two options, and I had chosen option 2.
I never went back to work. I found out that the cart collectors were only made to wear pants for a few days after that until the new manager relented and let them wear shorts. I never got a call with an apology from him but I didn’t care, I enjoyed the time off before going to college.”
6. Get Out By Midnight? Okay, But I Won't Be Done Cleaning Up
“So once upon a time, I was living in a (not legal) basement apartment of an old Hungarian woman’s house. I was poor, the place was cheaper than what was around, so I took it.
How bad could it be?
She. Was. Horrific.
At first, she was an okay landlady, but then things started to turn. First I noticed that things were off when I got home from work. Ever get that feeling someone was in your room? That.
So I asked her if she’d been in there and she denied it.
Then I set up a camera and caught her on camera. Asked her again and she denied it, saying she’s never gone into my apartment without telling me. Then I showed her the video and she got mad at ME.
I worked nights.
One time she came in during the daytime and I was there. In bed, under the sheets. I woke up when she came in and asked if I could help her, she said no and left.
After that she would call me “lazy boy” when she saw me, assuming I didn’t work since it was at night.
Things kept getting worse. She’d sometimes shut off the water when she thought I was using too much or when I refused to share my wifi password with her other tenant.
Finally, one night I had some friends over for a birthday.
There were six of us total, it was around 11 pm, and trust me when I say, we were not being loud at all. Literally just hanging around the coffee table eating cheesecake talking and laughing.
She came into my apartment and started yelling that I was having a loud party with too many people in the middle of the night! She actually came and grabbed my shirt telling me everyone had to leave.
Oh heck no. That was it.
So I pushed her off of me and the police were called.
That Monday, she left a really poorly written eviction notice on my door.. seriously, handwritten. Telling me to be out by Saturday by midnight.
Here’s the MC.
By 11:59 pm that Saturday, I had all my stuff in the U-haul. My friends and I were just working on bagging up the trash and other stuff for the dump, when she came in and yelled at me that it was past midnight.
No problem. I got up and left. Leaving a huge pile of junk in the bedroom and storage room. Easily 2 pickup trucks worth of crap I wasn’t taking.
She actually called my father, who was my emergency contact on my application to tell me it cost her $400 to haul it all away and that I owed her. He blocked the number.
THE END.”
5. Get In The Truck Or Go Back Inside? Yeah, I'm Not Going Anywhere With You
“Summer of 2002, 5th grade for me.
Split Visitation sucks, but it was manageable during the school year because Parent 1 could drop me at school and then Parent 2 could pick me up afterward without the drama of having to see each other devolve into a shouting match.
It was also no secret that I absolutely hated my father, but I was also absolutely terrified of him and he knew the latter part and used it to his advantage. Basically, everything he made me do/say/act was through fear of him.
Without the buffer of school, split visitation in the summer was awful. I’m not sure if it was a product of how much my parents grew to hate each other, or some sick twisted joke that made a judge laugh, but part of the custody agreement is that my parent would walk me out to whichever parent was doing the picking up, which basically forced face to face confrontations every time the schedule demanded that I be shuffled from one house to another.
One summer day, here comes my father’s big truck pulling into a guest spot and my mother walks me out. I don’t know if something had happened between them over the phone, but my mom was in some type of mood and just letting my father have it, while he sat there with the truck door open.
However, she was in my way and I knew not to push past people (not that I even wanted to go with him so any amount of time I wasn’t sitting down in his truck meant a couple more seconds of freedom).
They have it out for a couple of minutes with my father’s truck idling, him demanding I get in the truck, my mother saying no because she knows that as soon as I’m in the truck, he can drive away. I’m absolutely terrified at this point because he’s getting more and more angry that I’m not listening to him, but I can’t get in the truck because my mother is standing in the way.
What am I gonna do? Interrupt? Are you insane?
Finally, after what seemed to drag on for ages, my father explodes and utters the ultimatum: “EITHER GET IN THE CAR OR GO BACK INSIDE!”
Inside? He’s giving me an option? FREEDOM. I picked up my backpack and scurried back inside the house as quickly as my legs would take me, diving into my room and closing the door.
It wouldn’t be until later that my mother told me he was shocked, absolutely flabbergasted, that I hadn’t gotten in the truck with him, who I hated, to go to a house I also hated, and that he had thought I would’ve chosen to get in the truck.
From what she said, after I had gotten back inside the house, he sat there for a moment, said nothing, threw the truck in reverse, and left. He didn’t come back the whole weekend for me, so I got 2 weekends with my mom.
There’s a sequel to this story where he tried to take my mother back to court over not getting his weekend and I had to appear and relay the same story. I remember the “mediator” (because judges didn’t hear family cases back then) rubbing his temples and letting us go because “You gave him the option, what did you think he was gonna do?””
4. We Can Give Each Other Perfect Scores? I'm All For It
“I just remembered the awesome malicious compliance on a group project for my business degree at Polytech about 9 years ago. Please forgive my memory, it was my 2nd semester and I’ve since gone on to complete post-grad.
The paper was Business Computing.
It was a compulsory paper for Business students (think accounting, marketing, and management majors) and the Information Technology students, which was an entirely different degree, but both had this same core entry-level paper. I’d tried to get cross-credit for this paper based on my skills and programming qualification, but no joy.
We were put into teams of 5. I found my notebook and it says we had to deliver a presentation, website, social media profiles, write a research report and back that up with a spreadsheet containing charts. Yeah. Basic crap.
This assignment is worth 20% of our final grade and another 5% was writing a reflection on what working as a group taught us.
I’ll circle back to that. Half of the assignment grade was not on our content or delivery. It was based on us having 30 or so marks to hand out to other team members based on their perceived performance. A maximum of 10 marks (or 10% of your final grade) could be given to another team member.
I think. The marks and the rules are a bit hazy, but what we did, isn’t hazy at all.
Sure enough like any group project, three of us did all the work and two didn’t even front, not even for the final deliverable of the presentation.
Pity. If they had made our practice beforehand, they could have wised up to our plan. The two others and I worked out we could all award each other 10 points and the two project freeloaders whatever was left. But there was nothing to say we had to give them points….
So we didn’t.
So sure enough, we all patted ourselves on the back, nailed the deliverables, and scored full marks on the assignment. The other two didn’t even manage a passing grade and had to retake the paper the next semester. I didn’t see those two students around after that.
Remember that reflection? I wrote in mine about how the system could be rigged and people could get grades for doing nothing if they hadn’t wised up to the system. That as a team, we voted strategically. Full marks.
The absolute kicker – I finished the paper with a final grade of 99.5% and took out the top student award, along with the $500 top student prize.
So stick that Mr. Dean of Business School who said I didn’t know enough about computers to get a cross credit. You now had to pay me $500. It was the second argument that year he had “lost” to me.”
3. Want Me To Get More Involved? I'll Put On Quite The Show
“So a bit of backstory, I’m working from home and my job is mainly call based working in the advice sector in the UK. There are quality audits on your calls and I consistently get ‘well dones’ and ‘excellent client experience’, my line manager and Quality Management Team struggle to find things to pull me up on.
Unfortunately, we’ve had a lot of new staff due to the need for advice being more pronounced with the current ‘unpleasantness’, as our Tory overlords and betters would have us call it. Some people are not doing very well on their calls so that means more training, yay!
For everyone.
Meaning me, as well.
Snark-o-meter settings updated to ‘FULL ON’ as soon as I heard this.
I had the obligatory moan at my line manager in our monthly one-to-one meeting, you know the stroppy teenager one.
“Why am I having to do this when my calls are ok? Why can’t you just train the ones who need it? Why do you HATE me and WANT me to dieeeeeee! This is SO unfair! I HATE YOU!”
So along comes the training…..
This training is being done over video and chat. So there’s the usual ‘hellos’ at the start, introduce yourself, and then the first activity. I say who I am to my colleagues of 8 years because they may have forgotten me and interact but not to Trainer’s levels.
Trainer: “OP have you got anything more to add?”
Me: “Nope pretty much it.”
Trainer: “I’m sure you can add more I’ve heard you have a lot of experience in this area.”
Me: “And that’s why I am taking a backseat. I could probably answer a lot of the questions and that wouldn’t help my colleagues.”
Did I mention that our training was about vulnerable customers, etc? I have experience of it through jobs I have had in the past.
Trainer: (her grin is getting more pronounced at this point): “I think that your experience would help your colleagues.”
So I describe one of the situations I once dealt with and the aftermath, something you wouldn’t deal with on the phone, and I can see some of my colleagues visibly wilt as I continue so I draw it to a close with…
“Is that enough experience?”
A message appears from Line Manager 2 in my chat window “Behave!”
Trainer moves us on then to the next activity by “putting a pin in it” so I give a few anecdotes and I am volunteered to feed back to the group what we spoke about in the last activity.
I do what I need by reading from my notes and I think give a factual and succinct response.
And lo! Trainer then says, in front of the group, the magic phrases.
“Come on OP be more involved or I will have to speak to your line manager.”
“And try to be more upbeat, other groups did role plays and new reports to give their feedback”
Okey-dokey pig in a pokey, think I.
For each activity after that, I demanded to give feedback each time. I then proceeded to give each report through the medium of poetry and rap.
Because discussing hardship always sounds better to a funky rap right?
I was only allowed to do 3 before I was asked to let someone else do it.
I would love to give my rap here however it includes my company’s name so best not. All my colleagues did say it was really funny and it stopped Trainer from being so upbeat.
Remember if they ask you to be more involved go for it!”
2. Won't Take Credit? Luckily, I Have Just The Solution
“This happened about 20 years ago.
I lived about 40 miles away from my office and did the daily commute. Several people at the office did the same thing. I usually worked 7-4 just so I could skip the bulk of rush hour traffic.
I don’t remember exactly how or what happened, but basically after work one day my minivan decided to quit working. Best I can remember it was acting weird, some kind of transmission problem and just quit going. Luckily this happened between my office and the interstate ramp.
Everything else with the van was fine, no engine problems, etc. It was only about 5 years old at that time and I never had any trouble with it.
I deduced it was a transmission problem. Everything runs fine, it just decided to not go anywhere when put in gear.
Picked a transmission shop out of the phone book that was not too far away and had it towed up there.
Waited around while they took a look at it and said ya they could fix it.
Don’t remember the exact quote but it was probably somewhere around $800-$1000 for the job.
Ok. I don’t have that much in the bank, but that’s what credit cards are for. They’ve got the van, I’m stuck, what else am I going to do?
They wouldn’t take me 40 miles home, but they would give me a ride locally.
I had them drop me at a motel near my office so I could at least walk to work the next day.
I got a ride home with a guy from work the next day, and then carpool a day or so until the van was fixed.
Couple of days after I drop it off, the shop calls and I go to pick up the van after work, shop owner gets in the car with me while I give it a test drive. It goes, but Yuck. Making noise, still not right.
So I tell him to try again. This is getting to be a hassle. Another day, another carpool.
Next day, get the call, come pick it up. OK, drives fine, no noise. Sounds like he got it fixed. Pull out the credit card and the owner is like “We don’t take credit cards.
Cash or check only.” Well, I don’t have my checkbook with me. I don’t say I don’t have the cash.
Ring the office and catch a ride home again with one of the guys working late.
Malicious compliance part:
I don’t have the money to pay the shop, but I do have my latest credit card bill.
The one with the little checks attached to the bottom of it.
I just fill out one of those checks, take it to the guy the next day, he accepts it and I get my van back.
Here’s the fun part. I get a call from the guy later and he’s telling me the bank won’t cash the check, they tell him it’s from a credit card company and he can only deposit it.
But he doesn’t want to do that because he’s overdrawn at the bank. Asks me again if I have cash, and I told him I already gave him a check. He’s complaining to me he’s overdrawn at the bank and they’ll take that out of his deposit.
Not my problem dude.
Sweet revenge for all the hassle.”
1. Won't Give Me A Promotion And Tell Me To Just Do My Job? Say Goodbye To All The Extra Effort I Put In
“I work at a tech company and my official job is fairly simple and I find that I have free time decently often.
My unofficial extra jobs used to be monitoring the morale level in the office and doing things to bring up said morale, tech support on the computers in the office so IT doesn’t have to deal with it, mostly because I’m faster than they are at getting things going again, assuming the problem isn’t hardware related, and often enough helping out other departments when I have the time.
A promotion comes up, I apply for it. The boss gives it to someone who had only been hired a few months ago. I was annoyed by this because I had been working there for much longer and my evaluations are always glowing.
Another promotion comes up, I get denied again in favor of another person who has only been there for a few months. 3 more promotions come and go and my boss always gives the new people the promotions.
At this point, several people who have been hired around the same time I have all quit seeking opportunities elsewhere, and many of the people who got promoted ALSO quit because they used their promotion to get a better job elsewhere.
Also, the boss likes to send an email with a nonsense canned denial letter with some official “reason” as to why you were not selected.
I eventually decide to confront my boss about it, so I just bluntly ask, “What am I doing wrong? Why are people who have been recently hired getting promotions over me?” The boss couldn’t answer.
He stumbles and stutters for about two minutes, like the sniveling pencil neck he is, eventually just blurts out, “Look, you don’t have much experience in dealing with people below you and I really need you to just do your job.”
Alright.
As you wish.
Now any time someone asks me if I can get their computer/monitor/printer/etc working properly again, I tell them to ask tech support. My biweekly delivery of homemade confections has come to an end, and I no longer lift a finger to help other departments, even when I DO have the extra time.
Tech Support can take a surprisingly long time to get around to our department. Something I could have done in 10 minutes, it will take them an hour or more. It’s also a 3-person department in a fairly large office building.
My boss pulls me into his office and asks me if I have a problem. I told him I don’t have a problem. He then reminds me of all the things that I used to do that I suddenly don’t do anymore, then makes the mistake of asking me why I suddenly stopped.
I told him that none of those were part of my job description and that I only did those things as a courtesy, but since he told me to just do my job and strongly hinted that I am to go no further in the company, I am going to just do what is part of my official job description from now on.
He went from having a crap-eating smirk on his face, ready to tear into me for my sudden change in demeanor to realizing that he can’t say a darn thing because he knows that he can’t order me to do anything outside of my official job description and that he screwed himself and his entire department over by basically telling me to shut up and get back to work.”
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