People Tell Us The Most Compliant Revenge They've Done To Date
18. Can't Tell Me How Long The Order Is Going To Take? I'll Be Back... Later
“I was quite new to the hotel and very new to room service when this happened, so the chefs hadn’t gotten to know me yet.
I was waiting on an order (the only room service order), and the kitchen was not quiet. I wasn’t busy, but there were a few orders queued up for the restaurant. I had been waiting for the order for maybe 7-8 minutes and had picked a couple of quick, easy jobs to do while I waited.
Not wanting to start anything else in case I didn’t have time, I approached the Sous chef (Sateesh) at the window.
“How long for that order chef?”
“Screw off!”
Something about the way he said it didn’t cause me to instantly get angry. I was a bit confused and thought ‘maybe he thought I was rushing him?’ so I asked again differently.
“I’m just wondering how long I have before the order is ready?”
“I said screw off.”
Ok, now I’m livid.
You want me to screw off? No freaking bother, mate! I walked over to the room service station, grabbed the trolley, and went up to the 7th floor in search of dirty room service trays.
The building is shaped like a “U,” and the service elevator is smack dab in the middle of the U, so when checking the floors, you need to pick one direction and walk until near the end as there are little alcoves designed to hide the trays, so it looks less dirty (to an extent).
So you need to walk one side, double back round to the elevator, and repeat for the other side. There are about 85-97 rooms per floor, so it’s at least half a kilometer walked per floor. I walked all 6 floors that had rooms on them.
Ordinarily, I would grab 4-5 trays and pop back down to clear them off, but forget that noise; I pile about 10 trays precariously until it looks like Wile E.
Coyote’s latest attempt to catch road runner and take my Acme trolley back down.
I arrive back downstairs a good 30-40 minutes later and can hear the echoes of this chef screaming, “Room Service” half the hotel away. I stroll into the kitchen and walk towards the porter’s station to unload dirty dishes, and Sateesh finally spots me.
“Where the heck have you been? I’ve been calling you for 20 minutes!”
“I went to clear the floors.
I asked you, ‘How long?’ and you wouldn’t answer. I can’t stand around all day for one order; I’ve other crap to do! If I ask, and you tell me 10 minutes, I’ll be back in 9. If you tell me 2 minutes, I won’t even leave; I’ll find something here. But if you tell me to screw off, I’ll do whatever I deem to be urgent.”
Sateesh doesn’t answer.
I can see he’s not happy, but he’s thinking. The moment seems to drag on. Finally, he starts laughing. Didn’t expect that… He turns round to the chefs and says,
“This is freaking ruined. I need a new one straight away!”
Turns back to me and politely says:
“2 minutes.”
Not to push my luck, I unload the trays at breakneck speed and grab the new tray for this order and move to the window after 90 seconds.
The fallout? Sateesh is actually a great guy, and we got on like a house on fire after that.
He would always tell me how long, and we were actually the most efficient pairing. I have no idea why he was like that at the moment it happened, but he moved past it pretty quickly and was usually in a great mood. He would sing and dance when it was crazy busy to keep himself hyped up on adrenaline, and we had plenty of laughs before I moved on about 8 months later.”
17. You Want Guac? You'll Get It, But It Isn't Without A Cost
And, no, you can’t get a refund, Karen.
“I used to be a service manager at one of the biggest locations of a popular Mexican grill. I won’t say which, but guac was $1.95 extra and we were required to ask everyone if they were okay paying that price. One Sunday morning (our second busiest shift of the week), two of my line people called out, so we were struggling to get all of our prep done before opening at 11.
We are just wrapping up when in comes Karen 10 minutes before opening through the side door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY with 15 preteen girls in tow. My cook recognizes her as she regularly comes in during the dinner shift and is extremely cruel to all the Latino workers. Karen tells me they can order whatever they want, THROWS her credit card at me, and goes to sit down at a table and diddle on her phone.
Now I can’t ring up her order without her standing there because of the company rules and I am 30 weeks pregnant and just want to take my break. I prego waddled over to Karen’s table to try and inform her of that when she literally flicks her hand at me to dismiss me. Not only have I been at the store since 7 and done two different people’s jobs on top of my own, but I also have my son’s head grinding against my pelvic bones and kicking me.
I am in no mood.
When I try to tell her again, she looks at me with what I can only describe as seething contempt and says, “What part of ‘they can get whatever they want,’ did you not understand? I don’t care what you charge me as long as I get a receipt. Don’t interrupt me again or I’ll get your fat butt fired.” Now I never cry, but that almost got me.
Motherhood is awesome, but pregnancy suuucks. I finally manage to pick my jaw off the ground and stammer, “Alright, ma’am, I’ll ring up whatever they want and bring you a receipt.”
The girls were really nice and most of them ordered double meat and they all got bottled water and chips and guac. Every. Last. One. My cashier and I are just vibrating with glee as we ring them up and watch the bill climb to like $250.
I brought the bill to Karen and was pretty excited when she didn’t immediately check it. I made my own food and told the cook to come to get me when the show starts.
I’m halfway done eating when I see him waving to the camera, howling with laughter, so I head up. Karen is foaming at the mouth SCREAMING for the manager, and when she sees that that manager is me, she literally grinds her teeth and slaps her receipt on the table.
She manages to choke out the word “refund.” The girls have all pretty much finished their food, so I inform her that I won’t be doing that because I would lose my job for giving away that much critical inventory (meat, guac, cheese) for free. Then I gently remind her that she told me twice that they could get anything as long as she got a receipt.
She just keeps demanding a refund and calling me stupid and fat (again, pregnant). At this point, her screaming is holding up the very long line, and customers are shouting at her to just leave. That’s when she pushed me. Really hard.
My cashier caught me, so I didn’t fall down, but two of our regulars, who are police, see it and immediately cuff her. In this state, any use of physical force against a pregnant woman is classified as aggravated battery or something like that.
I felt bad for the kids and I was fine, so I kept telling them I didn’t want to press charges, but they said that at that point, it didn’t matter because the woman had done it in front of on-duty officers, so she got detained. They had to call the kids’ parents to come to get them because she was their CHURCH’S YOUTH LEADER and get statements.
My GM came in and let me go home with a full day’s pay. She tried to take the case to trial, but they had video and like twenty witness statements, so she ended up taking a couple of years probation or something. All because I did exactly what she told me to.”
16. Talk To Big Boss? Sure Will
“This malicious compliance was done by my mother who was partially clueless I think as to why she was doing it, but it was fun regardless.
I am from India, and hence, my birth certificate was in the local language and not in English. We never thought twice about it until fast forward to when I was applying to higher education outside of India. This required us to get an English birth certificate.
Easy enough or so we thought.
So my name is an English name and uses ‘ch’ pronounced as ‘chandelier.’ So the office translated my name to ‘sh’ instead of ‘ch.’ Now all my other documents have my correct spelling and so this was not acceptable and so we went back to talk to them, and they basically refused that it made no sense, and they could only give me the cert with ‘sh.’ My father made many bureaucratic trips to make them understand this, but they refused to budge.
My grandpa then scheduled a meeting with their boss to explain how my name is a legit name internationally, and the spelling we were requesting is the standard spelling for my name (eg- Ashley is typically universally standard spelling as compared to Ashleigh or something). He also gave examples of words like Chevrolet, chandelier, and cycle where the letter c is pronounced as sh and k both.
Nope, he refused to budge. We made another meeting with them under my mom’s name to sort of approach this as a fresh case in case they had a grudge against us.
Here’s the actual malicious compliance beginning: me and my mom headed to the office and followed the normal process to get the English birth certificate, and nope, they recognized my name and refused to change it.
My mom went to their boss and was like, let’s approach this with a solution-oriented approach. What would we need to do to achieve this request? He scoffed and said we would need to talk to the Municipal Commissioner for this. The malicious compliance is basically the boss of the boss of the boss. He manages pretty much everything and is such a high-up post that “common citizens” would never think to talk to him.
My mom thanked him, left the office, and walked into the other building to schedule an appointment.
We had to explain this to his secretary and were eventually allowed in his fancy office. My mom explained the situation to him, and he was baffled and confused as to why we were refused such a trivial thing. He called the “Boss” and said, “This is regarding ch…’s birth certificate, and I wanted to know, SIR, why are we refusing them an English birth certificate? We can give them whatever spelling they request.” He said it should be done by tomorrow, and my mom thanked him and walked out.
The next day, we had a brand new birth certificate with my correct name. I don’t know if my mom did them malicious compliance out of annoyance, or she just didn’t realize how high up the Municipal Commissioner really is. I think it was a little of both, but watching him make that call was one of the more satisfying moments of my life.
Also, I submitted my passport, driver license, school certs as documents for my correct spelling, and they were all in English.”
15. Teacher Refuses To Follow My IEP, So I Accommodate Myself In Another Way
“This was a few years ago; I was a senior in high school. At the time, an 18-year-old male, I was smart and was very nihilistic due to my past. For a little context, I have an IEP at my school that allowed me to use my phone for music therapy since I was diagnosed with severe depression, anxiety, Asperger’s syndrome, and PTSD. By law, teachers have to follow without questions or overruling, and if anyone tried to stop me, they could get fined, fired, etc.
IEP’s are no joke for a reason.
In my senior year, the old principal resigned and we got Sargent Jerk in his place. Starting out, he changed absolutely everything and was very strict with it. I’m assuming to assert dominance to show he’s no pushover. One of the biggest changes was a zero-tolerance to digital devices in or out of the classroom. That included everything from phones, Bluetooth earbuds/headphones, smartwatches, etc.
Teachers loved it until they figured out that it also applied to them, so they said screw it and didn’t enforce it.
Though, trying to listen to music in between classrooms was tricky.
I had a lot of the same teachers from the year before, so they knew my story and I was a good student but I had a sense of humor and hard-headed and they knew I could find a loophole in anything to get my way or prove my point.
It all starts with a very bad Monday morning.
I was on edge as I always was at that school and decided to listen to some hard-hitting brutal metal (it’s therapeutic).
I got stopped by Sargent Jerk and this is what took place:
Principal: Are you new here?
Me: No? Why??
Principal: Ah, okay. Give me your phone now.
Me: I can’t. I have in my paper-
Principal: I don’t care. According to the handbook, no MP3 players, phones, any digital devices at all. I’m a man of my word, so HAND. IT. OVER.
At this point, I can feel my anxiety rising, my hands were shaking, and my eyes were getting warm and watery, and I couldn’t breathe.
I needed to get out of there quickly before I burst. The office was far from where my emergency anxiety meds were nd I knew I wasn’t going to make it, so I tried walking to the bathroom till the principal yelled, “Hey!” and forcefully grabbed my shoulder like a Karen.
So as an irrational reaction, I turned and right hooked him. He went down to the ground and everyone was laughing and going wild about it, so I just booked it and ran.
Thankfully, my favorite teacher Mr. Place managed to catch me and embrace me to calm down.
After being sent to the nurse’s office, there were a few cops, Mr. Place, my mom, and the principal.
I was questioned on exactly what happened and after hearing my side, Mr. Place’s side, and the camera footage, everyone sided with me and my mom went ballistic because she busted her butt to get me comfortable in school and she had her a few altercations with teachers harassing me.
Unsurprisingly, I got a week-long suspension, but I wasn’t punished at home. I decided to follow his rules but with my own little twist.
I studied the student handbook front to cover and went for a quick gander in the basement of my house to find my dad’s things from the ’80s and ’90s. Dad and I share a lot of interests and he got me into all types of heavy metal and punk from a young age, so he passed this stuff down to me.
After digging around, I was able to find his Walkman (cassette player) and a bunch of cassette tapes.
I took my favorites of all time: Kill ‘em All by Metallica, Vulgar Display of Power by Pantera, Korn’s first album, 40oz to Freedom, and Self Title album by Sublime, and lastly, Tomb of the Mutilated by Cannibal Corpse. It was a hard choice, but I didn’t want them to crack in my pocket.
The first day I was back in school. I was the talk of the school because I “laid out the principal.” I’m embarrassed and felt bad about it, but it was in the past.
I saw Sargent Jerk by my first class (Mr. Place’s class), so I stepped to the side and popped in a cassette tape. Walking back, Sargent Jerk smirked and told me to step over to have a talk.
Principal: Looks like a week didn’t give you enough time to think. Come with me.
Me: I’m sorry? I’m not breaking any rules.
Principal: Boy, don’t make me out to be stupid. You obviously have your phone and listening to music. Last time I checked, my policy is still in effect.
Me: Right, so technically, I’m following your policy of no digital devices.
Principal: Fine then. You want to play smart? Prove it then.
I proceeded to pull out the Walkman and some of the cassettes.
He looked very confused.
Me: See, sir, you said no DIGITAL devices. What I have right here is a Walkman with the original wired headphones. Since cassettes are analog, and you never said anything about no analog devices, I’m within my full right to jam out on this in and out of the classroom.
Sargent Jerk gets red in his face and starts stumbling over his words to rebuttal.
Me: I mean, you say you’re a man of your word, so how cowardly would you look if you let a teenager get to you and update the handbook? I see no harm with this; it abides with your rules.
Sargent Jerk grunts then walked to the neighboring class as I exhale in relief and I start to feel my anxiety go down. I walk in and nod to Mr. Place. He closes the door and makes sure that Sargent Jerk isn’t nearby and just busts out laughing.
I’d say I stood my ground on that one.”
14. Don't Say I Didn't Warn You About My Fainting Episode
“This happened in the summer of 2018. I had a summer job doing graveyard maintenance.
So mowing the grass, cleaning gravestones, planting and watering flowers, and clipping hedges. We use a motorized hedge saw for efficiency and speed. P.S. I got the job since my parents know the boss. Since they also work for her.
This particular day it was a blistering 32C in the sunlight. I was suffering more than my on-site manager.
I went through probably 4 liters of water in three hours and I was still feeling nauseated.
I asked my manager if I could take an extra break because of the heat.
He denied and told me to go clip the hedges. I tried explaining to him that I struggle with the heat and that in 32C I could not work efficiently thanks to this. He didn’t care and just handed me the equipment.
This included a shoulder cross strap, a helmet with earmuffs, steel-tipped boots, and the 8kg machine.
I was feeling that I wasn’t going to last long in the sunlight. I was already dehydrated and was pushing myself too much.
So I asked him if it couldn’t wait until a less sunny day. He ignored me. And told me to get to work.
I just replied with a “lol, okay.” I worked for probably a solid half hour before I blacked out.
I woke up in an ambulance around an hour later. With my boss sitting next to me checking if I was alright.
She told me that I had been found by a stranger between a couple of gravestones out cold, with a revving machine in my hands.
I was in such bad shape that I was rushed to the hospital and put on intensive care. (I couldn’t move and had severe dehydration.) So I was put on drips for 2 days in order for me to recover. I recovered slowly and was moved to cleaning duty inside. My manager was fired for endangering me and not heeding what I said.”
13. Come In On A High Horse? You Won't Enjoy The Outcome Of Your Actions
You’ll regret your behavior, sir.
“I’ve worked for a call center for about 10 years, worked my way up to management level. We’ve always been given a lot of autonomy to handle issues within our departments, so long as we document everything and follow established guidelines (no making up rules, no firing someone for breaking a rule that you let slide for someone else, etc.).
I’ve always prided myself on being a good manager and having a low turnover rate, I try to take care of my people and give chance after chance for someone to make necessary corrections, but unfortunately, I do have to terminate employment somewhat regularly.
About three months ago, my center got a new manager, Harry. Harry had plenty of call center management experience and looked great on paper, he had big ideas and wanted to help create a more positive and fun culture in the office.
I’m all for it! The job is draining, especially for the reps on the phones, so anything we can do to boost morale is a huge plus in my book.
Straight off the bat, Harry was a bit standoffish to me. I chalked it up to shyness, kept about my business, and figured we’d warm up as we got to know each other. I was incorrect.
It may be important to note that, while the office was without a senior manager, a lot of those responsibilities fell to me.
I was the most senior and most tenured manager at the site, but I didn’t want the site manager position on a permanent basis.
Before Harry got there, any issues that needed to be handled – maintenance requests, facilities issues, DOL requests, a “higher up” who needs to step in to assist another manager with an employee incident, you name it – fell to me. I was more than happy to step back and let Harry take the reins, but of course, made myself available to assist during the transition.
One thing my reps will tell you, I am strict but I am fair. If you mess up, I’m going to tell you and coach you on how to fix it, but I’m not going to be breathing down your neck. I enforce the same rules for everyone. If you’re having a bad day, you can come to talk to me about it. If your car breaks down and you’re screwed on transport, I’ll adjust your schedule and try to help you figure something out.
I truly understand that I can’t do my job if I don’t have reps who are willing to come to work and do theirs, so I try very hard to support them in any (appropriate) way possible.
On Harry’s second or third week, we had a rep who had been an NCNS (no call, no show) for about five days. Our company policy allows two before termination; because I knew of this reps situation, I held off on the term and tried to reach out to make sure everything was okay.
(To be quite honest, we rarely actually term at 2; we usually give at least 3 before the term is processed, sometimes because it takes us until the third day to catch it.) Unfortunately, we weren’t able to make contact. I knew he was physically safe and healthy because some of his friends worked there and told me he was just not answering us. I assumed that he had found another position and just not bothered to tell us – not an uncommon occurrence, sad to say.
I processed the termination as job abandonment on day 5 of NCNS. Day 6, the rep turns up and is surprised and angry that he can’t log in. I’d let Harry know about the situation from day 3, and alerted him as soon as the rep came in on day 6. I pulled the rep into Harry’s office and asked him if everything was okay, and why he hadn’t been at work or called us in about a week.
The following is a paraphrased conversation that we had:
Me: We haven’t heard from you since X, and you haven’t been to work since Y. Because our policy assumes job abandonment after two no call no shows, we’ve actually processed a termination for you.
Rep: I was busy.
Me: I understand that things happen, and I’m glad to know you’re doing okay, but it’s your responsibility to contact us if you’re going to miss work.
We even tried contacting you a few times before processing the term but never heard back.
Rep: I got your message, I was busy. I’m here now.
Me: I understand, but again, we have to follow the procedure. We had no way of knowing whether you intended to return because you never contacted us. Your employment has been terminated, I have [termination paperwork, including signed handbook acknowledgment with NCNS policy highlighted and signed attendance policy] available for you.
Rep: Wow, y’all stupid. I was obviously coming back. Let me just go log into my phone before I say something out of pocket, I’m done with this conversation.
Me: Unfortunately you can’t log into your phone, as you are no longer employed here. Here is your [paperwork].
From there, the rep got loud and started cursing; I remained calm and kept repeating that he was no longer employed and needed to leave.
During this entire conversation, Harry said not ONE WORD. I eventually got the rep to leave, and as soon as he was out of the building, Harry asked to speak with me.
Harry: OP, the way you handled that was extremely unprofessional. You should have let him back. Now he’s going to talk badly about us and we’ll have a horrible reputation.
Me: … I’m sorry? I’m confused, I followed the policy.
I gave him the opportunity to show us he contacted us, he said he never did. We’re supposed to term after two, I gave him five.
Harry: But he came back. If this is the way you were running the center before me, no wonder your turnover rate is so high. You can’t run people off.
Y’all, I was HEATED. First of all, I was running the site BY MYSELF for three months.
It’s 500 people. Secondly, I fail to see how someone else disappearing for 5 days and then not being allowed back constitutes me “running them off.” Thirdly, our turnover rate was lower at that point in time than it had been in over a year!
I said, “Alright, I’m not sure how this situation is me running someone off, but fine. Please let me know which policies you’d like me to enforce and which ones I should ignore,” and walked out.
Probably not the smartest move, but I needed to get out of that room.
I took a quick break to control my temper and went back to my computer. Sitting on top of my inbox was a message from Harry to all management:
“EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY: All employee terminations must be cleared through Harry Lastname. Any manager who terminates the employment of a representative without proper authorization will face disciplinary action.
This includes termination for job abandonment. Any write-ups must be performed with senior management as witness.”
Cool.
Cool cool cool. I got you, Harry. Cue malicious compliance.
I had a stack of attendance write-ups on my desk that I had been planning to perform with another “junior” manager. I sent an email to Harry and requested 60 minutes of his time to witness writeups with me (I have 108 employees in my department, about 20 needed to be written up).
He asked for the documentation, which I provided. He then sent me an email that said, “These are not authorized. Request denied.”
Awesome. I moved on with my day.
Now, Harry gets a bonus if all departments meet billable hours each month. (I’m not supposed to know this, but being at the company for so long, I hear a lot of things I shouldn’t because they forget I’m not an executive team member.) It’s my job as the manager of my department to ensure we meet those hours.
What’s the best way to ensure we meet billable hours? Hold people accountable for their attendance.
What’s the best way to hold people accountable for their attendance? Write them up for their excessive infractions, terminate the ones who refuse to resolve the issues, and replace with a new class. Harry just took that power away from me.
We missed billable hours in September. In the first week of October, I requested another hour of Harry’s time to review attendance with the reps and perform writeups.
He denied it again. Our attendance was atrocious at this point, as reps knew there would be no consequences for missing work.
In October, we missed billable hours AND didn’t meet some of our contractually-obligated service levels, so my company had to give a credit on the bill.
Enter November. I request another attendance write-up meeting, I am again denied. I send an email with the reps that have not shown up for work for 5+ days (some of them more than 10 days) and request to terminate them so a new class can be added; I am denied.
At this point, the last week of November, our executive team is up in arms and wants to know why we’ve failed for the last two months and projected to fail this month. Harry has a meeting with them about how management (read: me) is creating a hostile environment and morale in the center is low. I am unaware of this meeting until I get an email setting up a call with our CEO and my direct executive manager (not Harry) to discuss my department.
Remember, I’ve been here 10 years. These people have known me since I was a teenager and know my work ethic and standards.
CEO: OP, what’s going on down there? You guys have been missing numbers left and right. That’s not you.
Me: I agree. We’re having a major issue with attendance and haven’t been able to fix it. It’s affecting our staffing levels.
Exec: What do you mean? You’ve been at a steady 108 since September.
Are you scheduling correctly? Are you checking reports to adjust?
Me: Our official headcount is 108, but in reality, we’re only at 84, with 10 of those reps working 20 hours or fewer each week.
CEO: What?! How is that possible?!
Exec: What do you mean? Why haven’t you asked for an attrition class?
Me: I have been following the new policy that all terminations or new class requests must be approved by Harry.
He has not given me approval for either.
Exec: … new policy?
Me: Yes, I can forward you the notification we received. I’ve requested terminations and classes so that we can report the true headcount and fix the service level issues, but I haven’t gotten any requests approved.
CEO: Please forward the notification and any communication immediately. We’ll follow up with you shortly.
I forwarded the email from Harry, and every time I’ve requested write-up meetings, termination approval, or new hire classes and gotten denied.
The exec called me a short while later and asked me to give her a full rundown; she said she would take care of it.
The next morning, all managers – about 20 of us, including the executive team – were invited to a mandatory meeting.
We were told in no uncertain terms that any policy changes would come directly from the CEO, and that effective immediately we all had the authority to write up and terminate employees as appropriate.
I was given the authority to request an attrition class immediately. Harry was asked (in front of all of us) to remain on the line with the executives while the rest of us got off. A short while later, the managers received emails that our bonus policy was changing; we would each be receiving bonuses based on meeting billable hours.
Remember that bonus Harry was getting? Yeah, they took it away from him and gave it to us.
Guess who made billable hours for December? EVERY SINGLE DEPARTMENT. Turns out, when you let people do their jobs and give them an incentive for doing it well, they care about the work they’re doing.”
12. Won't Pick Up A Smelly Fridge? No Worries, I'll Bring It To You
“Just some background before we get to the real story… Everyone’s college experience is different, but my freshman year was unique because the university was located in the heart of a city and didn’t have a typical campus layout. Instead, the university rented out some very old apartment buildings to use for housing. The rooms were all studio layout with beds and small kitchens that included a stove and medium-sized refrigerator since the school didn’t provide meals.
The refrigerator is where the true story begins.
My roommate and I were returning from winter break which lasted about 3 full weeks, and when we entered our room for the first time since leaving, we were greeted with a horrible smell of rotting meat. Apparently, early on in the break, the nearly empty apartment building lost power, and our old refrigerator couldn’t handle the surge to kick back on once the power was back and essentially died out.
Unfortunately for us, the only thing that was in our fridge were some beers, condiments, and some frozen meat in the freezer which my roommate had purchased. Obviously, no one was to blame for the incident, and we contacted maintenance to put in a request for the refrigerator to be removed and a new one brought in. Easy enough. We cleaned out the fridge the best we could and patiently waited for it to be replaced.
A few days go by, and we are still living with this nasty smelly refrigerator without any updates on when it would be replaced. My roommate contacts maintenance, and they explain they are aware of the situation and will fix it soon. We think this is understandable; it’s a large building, and a lot goes on. Days continue to go by and still no maintenance. We contact them again and are greeted with a hostile, “We have a lot of requests; we’ll get to it.” Needless to say, they were in no rush to get to it.
2 more weeks go by, and the smell has maintained its full strength.
My roommate has given up and started staying in another room with some friends. All of our additional requests are ignored, and our calls are met with an answering machine. After a final attempt to contact them with no response, I sat and stared at the empty refrigerator and had an epiphany. Maintenance was clearly too busy to help, so I figured I would do them a favor and relocate the fridge for them…
I opened our door and dragged the clumsy, smelly hunk of metal and plastic out to the middle of the hallway, directly in front of the elevators.
Every single student or visitor would be greeted by the lovely aroma we had been living with for nearly 3 weeks. It didn’t take very long for the complaints to pile up, and the refrigerator was gone by the end of the day. Our new refrigerator was delivered the following morning, and our future requests were handled promptly. Sadly, the smell lingered in the halls for a while and in my memory forever.”
Another User Comments:
“While living in on-post housing in Fairbanks, Alaska, I had more and more trouble breathing as it got colder and colder.
I failed a pulmonary lung function test at one point, and they prescribed an inhaler. Kinda scary.
Turns out, our government-issued washer was so infested with mold that we’d just been soaking our clothes in it for the six months we were there. The amount of bleach was killing it. We tried, maintenance tried… no success. Meanwhile, I was hauling clothes to the laundromat, and it was insanely expensive.
Ugh. We demanded that they switch it out for a new one. I mean, sure, you could take it apart and soak the parts in bleach, but it was -35 outside at the time.
We got stonewalled in a similar fashion. On my last call, I explained that the washer was leaving the house on Tuesday whether they picked it from the upstairs laundry room or picked up its mangled remains after I rolled it down the stairs and left it in the front yard. Either way, I was getting the machine out of the residence.
A new washer showed up on Tuesday. The old one left. No more problems, and my lung function eventually recovered, but I’m much more reactive to mold now.” fieryprincess907
11. We Need ANOTHER Sales Person? Um, Okay
“So I work in sales for a family-owned business, a large family-owned business but nonetheless owned by one family.
I’ve been with this business for quite some time. Many years in fact.
Now it’s important to describe my pay plan, obviously, I don’t want to give too much info as I don’t want the company identified.
The pay plan is a base salary + commission + accelerators for going over the objective.
The company is divided into Regions which is overseen by a Senior VP, and those regions are divided into markets that are overseen by a VP, and the markets are divided into teams which are overseen by a manager, and then within those teams you got territories which are assigned to sales reps.
Sales objectives are decided by the big boys at the top and those objectives are then cut into smaller chunks and handed down the line.
I have worked my way up and got one of the best markets a sales rep can have in my company. The reason for this is because my territory (which I call a market) is geographically isolated from other parts of our company and has about enough business for 1.5 Sales People…problem being it’s awfully hard to hire half a person.
So I get the benefit of getting an objective that’s quite easy to meet and which naturally results in me making a very healthy living and I’m quite happy with this arrangement.
Also, our employment contract with the company which is also our commission agreement clearly states (and has for many years) that our sales objective rises and falls based upon the number of salespeople in our market. So if we hire a salesperson, that salesperson takes a little bit of the objective away from everyone else, if a salesperson quits until that roll is fulfilled objective goes up for everyone.
Also, we get bonuses for going over the objective, and at the biggest bonus mark, we double our commissions.
Now the owner of my company apparently told his son if his son wants to run this company one day, his son needs to successfully work all the support level jobs for at least 6 months (that’s on the admin side) and be successful at each level of the sales side for 2 yrs each.
If the son is successful at that, the reigns and control of the company will be given to the son.
Start January 1st of 2019 the son becomes my sales manager for his 1st of 2 yrs as a sales manager. Early in the year, he sits down with me and basically asks me what I expect to do for business. I tell him I’ll most likely finish at around 130-140% of the objective for the year.
He tells me he thinks he can double the sales if he hires a new salesperson. I explain to him that I don’t see how that’d be possible and that if he hired a salesperson sure the company might sell a bit more product, but they will also be paying an additional salary and will end up paying more out in commission…far more then what it would be worth.
He tells me that’s none of my concern and that if I can’t commit to doubling my sales (which is a ridiculous ask considering I’ve grown this market a great deal already) that he’s going put in another sales rep. I tell him that’s his decision to make but he should consult with the VP first to see if that’s a wise move.
Obviously since you’re reading this we can all guess what happened…he hired another salesperson to give me a bit of competition.
I promptly ensured my objective was cut in half. If this “smart” ivy league educated sliver spoon child is going make my life a bit more difficult then I’m going get paid more.
Shortly after all this went down in the month of January 2019 I was speaking to my VP and I reminded him that if I didn’t secure a single additional order for the entire year with my objective being cut in half I was at 108% of objective-based upon business that I had carried over the year prior.
My VP smiled and said, “It sounds like you’re going to make a ton of coin and this new manager is going mess up his payroll budget.” Keep in mind that had this not have happened, my previous year business would have only gotten me to 54% of my yearly objective. I started the year 2% away from my first commission accelerator. I knew that 2019 would be my biggest moola-making year ever…and I was going freaking blow it out of the water…
I went back and looked at my sales for the year, and here is how my year went
End of January I was at 38% of my objective for the year
End of February I was at 74% of my objective for the year
End of March I was at 109% of my objective for the year
End of April I was at 149% of my objective and for the first time in my many years of being with this company hit maxed my 1st and 2nd level accelerators.
I was now earning 130% commission.
End of May I was at 175% of my objective and had maxed out my 3rd level accelerator and was into my 4th and was now earning 150% commission
June 202% of my yearly objective I had officially hit the max accelerator and was now earning 200% commission. For the rest of the year, this was going be the case
June was also my mid-year view.
To my surprise, the owner attended my mid-year review and it was all positive.
I was doing a fantastic job and there was a lot of talk about how much I was earning, and would earn. To which the owner said “I’ve never seen a sales rep get to 200% commission as fast as you.” I smiled and said “I know, its a great year.” He asked me “How do you think my son is doing as a manager”
Now to be fair, I was very experienced and very rarely needed my sales manager and the son had been doing the job that he was supposed to be doing and I smiled and said, “Your son is the best thing to ever happen to me, I’ve never made so much coin with this company I love it.” The owner smirked and said, “I’m sure you are very happy with him” and I was giving a good review.
Later on, in a private conversation with my VP, my VP admitted that the owner was freaking furious because our region’s payroll budget was going be blown out of the water because of not only the decision his son made in regards to my market but other markets as well. And that sales overall hadn’t increased as much as the cost of payroll had increased. And for the first time in our company history, there was a good chance our market would actually end up with a net loss of profit due to the increased cost of payroll.
Apparently, the son had increased the size of all teams under his control with the thought being “more salespeople, more sales” but didn’t factor in the cost. Back to my sale.
July 218% (I went on vacation…kinda regret this…shoulda canceled that vacation and sold more)
August 241%
September 274%
October 301%
November 319%
December 331%
The year was over, in total I had sold about 17% more than what I had expected, the extra dough was a motivator for me and I had banked A TON MORE … let’s just say I no longer have a mortgage payment cause of 2019.
I did lose some business to the new rep, who really struggled.
So here we sit in January of 2020.
I now have a new sales manager, for some reason the son isn’t in charge any more…wonder why…
The sales rep that we had hired to compete against me was actually a very good sales rep but he didn’t make what he wanted and we transferred him to another market.
And apparently we let go of a lot of the excess hires or old employees had quit and we are back down to the same amount of salespeople as we had started 2019 with.
My objective is back to where it was in 2018 and I expect to make significantly less then I did in 2019…but it is what it is.
The rumor is the son is not working in any official capacity with the business and the owner (his dad) is debating the next step for his son.
And yes our region for the first time in our company history posted an overall loss after everything was said and done and it’s been attributed to the increase in payroll costs due to veteran sales reps benefiting from a lower objective due to the increased sales staff.
I did send an email to the son’s company email address, it was returned saying that email is no longer in service.”
10. Okay, Cut My Hours, But It Will Cost You In The End
“So, in 2012, I found myself working as an overnight maintenance laborer for a family-owned collection of properties. Two shopping complex, a winery, a few warehouses, etc. But most of the time, I was working keeping a grocery store built in the late 60s functioning.
Worked my way up to night maintenance manager and loved my job.
I was getting the kind of education you can’t buy; hands-on electrical one night, plumbing the next, welding after that.
All taught to me by 3 men who could build a house, up to code, single-handedly. And we all got along great! It was the first time in my adult life I had real responsibilities and I was respecting myself because I respected the job I was doing.
The owners were all people that truly cared about their employees and they proved this when, in 2017, they sold the Main grocery store; one of the many things they included in the sale was all current employees had to be offered a new position at their current pay level.
The company that bought us (I won’t say their name but think the opposite of “dangerous path”) does not employ an in-house maintenance team. Something breaks, they outsource the fixing of it.
So they really didn’t have a ready-made place for me to fit into like the other department managers. The store manager also did not like that I was making $18 an hour, 6 bucks over a new hire rate.
Thus began the systematic (what I saw as) harassment and what has been later confirmed to me as the standard operating procedure for legally getting rid of someone at this company. Some of my favs include:
Making my 35-year-old self a bag boy. (Joke’s on you; I love doing easy work for good pay.)
Writing me up for spending 20 minutes talking to the police about an accident I had seen while returning carts (I thoroughly enjoyed the district manager apologizing to me for that).
Cutting my hours down from full-time to 24 hours a week (which is completely allowed, but as the second most senior member in the store, everyone below me has to get their hours cut first).
No, you can’t force me to take a salaried manager’s position.
Yes, you can make me a cashier (a position you know I do not want) but you have to give me the $3 pay bump.
And on and on and on, in addition to the many broken verbal promises and out-and-out lies. I became very well-versed on the union rules, my specific contract rules, and how to protect myself. 7 Union arbitrations in my first 5 months, all ended in my favor.
Meanwhile, the assistant managers love me. I can cover any department because I’ve done most everything and I’m a quick learner for what I don’t know.
Anything breaks down in the store (it was falling apart before they bought it) if I can’t fix it, I can at the very least make a detailed work request so it gets fixed sooner. I become the go-to cover guy, filling in any position that needs it.
Which at long last brings me to my malicious compliance.
The store was not doing well, sales-wise. About a year-and-a-half in, they couldn’t get a closing butcher.
So, the night manager taps me to work in the meat department for 3 hours every night just to close it out and clean it up. In the department, there is a bandsaw that’s used for cutting meat with bones in it. It’s a pain in the butt to clean, so after reading the department manual I realized you were not to use that piece of equipment if you hadn’t been trained on it.
Now I 100% had been trained on that bone saw. I knew how to take it apart, fix it and put it back together. But that training was with the old company and I had been informed many times that the new company only thought I’d been trained when they had trained me. Perfect! I can close down the bone saw earlier and get it cleaned.
If any customer needs me to cut meat with a bone in it, I inform them that I hadn’t been trained on that piece of equipment.
Shouldn’t be an issue: This is late night and the stores not doing that well to begin with. I clear all this with the assistant manager.
This goes on for months until finally I’m called into the manager’s office during the day.
Turns out one of the customers I had informed that I could not use the bone saw was a secret shopper. The store manager is writing me up for failure to complete my duties. She’s also writing it up as ‘malicious’ failure ( I forget the term they use; it’s basically two write-ups instead of just one) and that coupled up with my previous write up (I was 15 minutes late once; that’s on me) gives her the three write-up she needs to fire me.
As I have done so many times in the past with this woman, I invoke my right to Union representation and declined to talk with her until after I’ve spoken with them. At this point I’m thinking “they can’t bust me; I was following the written directions” but oh no!!! it got so much sweeter and so much worse.
While talking to my union rep it quickly becomes clear that the butchers are a completely different Union.
The store is in violation of the butchers Union contract by having a non-union employee work in that department.
So first my union fights the write-up, wins, and gets me paid for the four/five days I missed work. They then get me a lawyer who tells me I am not to speak with any store manager in any capacity, due to the butchers union complaint against the store.
2 weeks off, fully paid, for me; I can’t very well work at a store where I cannot speak to my bosses.
I then get two more days off paid while I speak to the various Union reps for my testimony. The store is fined ($50,000 is what I was told) for breach of butcher’s contract. When I return to work, my store manager does not work there anymore. Her replacement only accepts the job if his bonuses are not tied to the store’s overall performance, so he doesn’t mind I’m overpaid.
As icing on the cake, no one really liked her so I’m darn near a hero when I get back.”
9. Stealing Lawn Ornaments Would Be Funny? You're So Right, Dad!
Don’t joke around with these kids.
“I grew up in small-town, rural America. My town had its own well-read, daily newspaper with a staff photographer who was somewhat of a local celebrity. This is important later in the story.
As a lifelong horticulturalist, my father was strongly in favor of live plants in a home’s landscaping and loathed manufactured lawn ornaments of any variety. When I was a teenager, a very popular lawn ornament came into fashion in our area, known as “Lawn Sheep.” Basically, it was a piece of plywood, cut in the shape of a sheep and covered with black, white, or brown faux wool – along with other accessories that made them look like sheep.
They had stakes on the feet, so you could put them in the ground to stand upright. There were different sizes, too, so people created little ‘sheep families’ in their front yards. My Dad HATED the lawn sheep and often had snide comments when he saw them.
My older brother and I were in the car with our mom and dad one day, and we passed a football practice field (known to all as “the East Field”) that is in a small valley and very viewable from two busy streets.
My dad pipes up from the driver’s seat, “Wouldn’t it be funny if someone gathered up all the lawn sheep in town and put them down in the East Field, like they were grazing?” My brother and I locked eyes in the back seat and replied, “Yes, Dad. That would be VERY funny!” Cue malicious compliance…
Soon thereafter, my parents went out of town for the weekend, leaving my brother and I alone.
On a Friday morning, we agreed that it was time to hatch our dad-inspired plan. I recruited another friend, and we spent the day driving around town, writing down the addresses of houses with lawn sheep in their front yard. We’d record how many sheep, the colors and sizes. We then went home and created address tags for each of the sheep – so the homeowners could get their sheep back after we rustled them.
Around 11:00 that night, we began driving to each of the addresses we had written down. My brother drove the van, and my friend and I would run up, snatch the sheep, run back, and throw them in the van. While driving to the next house, we’d affix the address tags with packing tape.
We had scoped out well over 100 lawn sheep earlier in the day, but by 1:30 am, we had only gathered 35.
We decided that was enough; we parked near the end of the field and ran with as many sheep as we could carry at a time, and planted them in a random group in the middle of the field. We returned home and looked up the phone number of the newspaper’s staff photographer and called his house at 2:00 am (mind you, this was in the pre-cell phone/pre-internet days, even before caller ID was a thing). When he answered the phone, I told him, “Report to the East Field with your camera at daybreak. There’s a picture waiting for you!”
“What do we have there?” he asked. “Sheep grazing,” I replied and then quickly hung up. “
8. Leave If I Don't Like What Station I'm In? I Will Since You Can't Accommodate Me
“So a few years ago, I was a barista at a well-known coffee shop that features green aprons. It was a pretty good gig in a tourist town that saw easily 1.5 million tourists per year, especially around Christmas. During the month of December, the lobby would be so full, people were waiting outside, and the drive-through line sometimes caused traffic to back up on the main road.
The manager who hired me was an absolute gem. When I was hired, I explained that I had PTSD from an abusive relationship. She was totally cool with this, and we had a system worked out where if I started having a bad panic attack, I could switch to washing dishes, and she would send someone else out to deal with customers for an hour or two.
I didn’t use this often, but I was thankful this was in place when I needed it.
Unfortunately, this manager ended up stepping down after she went through a life trauma. I don’t fault her for this, but it really sucked. For the first two months, we were without a manager. Managers from other stores were filling in when needed, and since I also would work at a few different stores, they knew me and gave the same treatment.
If I had a panic attack, I could go wash dishes or do the trash/restock, so I could have a moment of quiet.
Cue the new manager getting hired. He was a total jerk and basically thought mental health was BS and just an excuse. Welp, December rolls around, and we are bombarded again. I had been on the front register for three hours and felt that familiar chest tightening feeling again.
I explained to him what was going on and asked if I could switch out for dishes/backroom work for a bit to calm down. He looked at me like I was absolute trash and replied:
“No. I already have everyone where I want them, and if you don’t like it, you can just leave.”
So, I did just that. I went to the back, packed up my stuff, and walked out the door on one of the busiest days of the year.
He was left having to cover dishes AND register for the day.
I didn’t find out about the fallout until weeks later after I’d been working at my new job and one of my old coworkers came in. Apparently, my leaving was just the beginning of over half the staff quitting because of his constant abuse, and by the end of the month, only about 3 original staff were left, and he was scrambling to hire and train people during the busiest month of the year.”
Another User Comments:
“While suing someone is always an option, many people forget lawyers got to eat too.
If you don’t have the dough, you can’t hire a lawyer. Most lawyers are not wealthy and cannot afford to take a case without pay. Also, if OP doesn’t have something in writing from a medical provider in the personal file, the employer does not have to grant reasonable accommodation. However, this supervisor was just a jerk on a power trip. The other supervisor was doing the decent thing, not because of documentation but because it is the decent thing to do. We all need more supervisors like that.” Crimsonblackshrike
7. It Will Definitely Be Put In Writing
“I used to work IT tech support for a large company and it was my first proper job, as such I started as an apprentice.
This story takes place about a year into my apprenticeship, so I still had much to learn. On this particular week, I was working the shift that started an hour earlier than everyone else, as in I was solely responsible for support before everyone else arrived at 9am.
My manager sent me on a job quite a few miles south, it was going to take two(ish) days. On Monday, I informed my manager I’d be leaving Wednesday afternoon and coming back Friday afternoon and he’d need to cover my shift.
It isn’t my responsibility and I didn’t need to say anything but I thought I’d help him out by giving him a nudge:
Me: “Mike (not real name), I’m on early’s this week so someone will need to cover my shift Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.”
Mike: “Cheers mate.”
It came to Wednesday and I suspected he hadn’t arranged anything so I thought I’d give him another nudge, genuinely trying to help the guy out:
Me: “Mike, just letting you know that my early shift will need coverage for the rest of this week.”
Mike: “Ah right you are, thanks pal.”
So off I went on the Wednesday thinking I was doing a great job and keeping everyone in the loop.
We knocked the job out of the park and finished by Thursday evening so I head to the hotel and enjoy some sweet, sweet expenses.
Friday morning I head out in a rental they’d given me for the trip and start the journey back to head office. I get a call from my manager:
Mike: “Where are you?”
Me: “Heading back, I’ve just set off. I’ll be back in the…”
Mike: “I don’t see anything in your calendar?”
Me: “I didn’t put anything in it, I told…”
Mike: “The finance director came in this morning and couldn’t access the system and YOU were supposed to be here for 8(am).”
Me: “I told you…”
Mike: “Speak to me when you get back.”
The finance director happens to be my boss’s, boss’s, boss.
Not a dude you want to anger. And he was very angry. Turned out his network cable had somehow come loose (kicked) and couldn’t access the network. He sat stewing from 7 am expecting someone to arrive by 8 and fix it, only to have no one turn up until 8.45, the head of IT. My bosses, boss. Who took a fair few expletives on the chin.
I arrived back at the office as planned, expected and informed Friday afternoon.
My manager calls me over and gives me a lecture on the importance of communication. I tell him:
Me: “I told you Wednesday I’d be back Friday afternoon and my shift would need covering.”
He couldn’t even look at me as he says the following in the most condescending manner possible, loud enough for the head of IT to hear:
Mike: “I don’t know, Jam_and_cream, I’ve got a PRETTY good memory and I do not recall that conversation.”
Then sends me to the head of IT who gives me a bit of a sterner lecture on the importance of communication.
The word ‘disappointed’ was mentioned.
I go back to my desk defeated. My victory in the south quashed and sullied. My manager finishes the barrage:
Mike: “Next time, put it in the calendar and tell everyone in writing.”
The words ricocheted around my mind for a while until they settled and sat imprinted in my brain. I chalked this up to a learning experience and carried on.
Fast forward a few months later.
The words lay dormant until a bizzarely similar situation occurs.
I was sent on a job for a few days and was returning, once again on a Friday afternoon and it just so happened to fall in a week when I was doing the early shift.
As soon as I heard about the job, the words sprang back into life. Put it in the calendar. Tell everyone in writing.
Now I could have put the details of my trip into my personal calendar. But I thought, why not enter it in the IT department’s shared calendar.
Which the head of IT is part of. And when telling everyone in writing, surely that means everyone involved the last time. The IT department, and of course, the finance director.
So I send off an email to my manager with the IT department, and, just for fun, the finance director copied in.
Something like:
“Hi Mike,
As you are already aware, I’ll be working down south this week until Friday afternoon. I am on the early shift so this will need covering while I’m away.”
Some of my colleagues asked what that was about and I informed them about my manager’s memory issues.
They smirk and continue working.
I complete the job and arrive back Friday afternoon, exactly like before. And like before.
The finance director came in early. And unbelievably, like before, he had issues getting onto the system. Choice expletives were shared, words were had. But not with me.
I only knew poop had hit the fan when a colleague pulled me to one side and told me why Mike was in such a foul mood. In classic British style, he never said a word to me.
And never has silence felt so vindicating.”
6. Okay, We'll Make Even The Prank Callers' Orders
“I work in a major pizza delivery chain that has so far been unsuccessful in out-pizzaing the hut. Our store is in a college town, and everyone is super bored right now for obvious reasons. So we’ve gone from maybe one prank call a day to at least 3-5 which isn’t much but still really annoying with how much more business we’ve been getting, again, for obvious reasons.
The worst part is how uncreative and low effort most of them are. At least 80% of them are, ‘Can I get a boneless pizza?’ or ‘Is this the Krusty Krab?’ with the occasional insert GTA fast-food order copypasta here.
This had been going on way too long, so I took up the habit of just hanging up whenever someone starts saying some stupid nonsense. The boss wasn’t too happy about this but didn’t care enough to say anything until an incident where I hung up on someone who wanted that boneless pizza and he called back ticked off because he actually wanted to order.
So I get a stern talking-to from boss man and he sends a message to the company’s group chat app saying: ‘I know we’ve been getting more prank calls than usual, but please don’t follow in certain people’s footsteps and just hang up on them.
Take the calls as seriously as possible.
If they order something we can’t make, calmly explain it to them and offer them something we do actually sell. We want to try to make some moola off of them even if they’re acting dumb.’
So the very next call is where the fun starts. ‘Thank you for calling, what can I get you?’
‘I’m soooooo hungry, can I get an extra-extra-extra-extra large pizza with triple every topping?’
‘I’m sorry ma’am, we can only go up to one extra and double each topping.’
‘Hmmmm, ok then.
Can I get twenty XL’s of each meat y’all have? So like 20 pepperonis, 20 sausages, etc…’
These people are giggling in the background the whole time.
‘Sure, give me a sec to ring it all up… Ok, so that’s 180 pizzas, the total will be $1,000 (don’t remember the actual price, but close enough), and it’ll take about 3 hours.’
‘Awesome thanks! We’ll pay with a check when we get there!’
Dial tone.
So I place the order, and not 30 seconds later, I hear, ‘What the heck?’ from the boss and he runs to the computer.
‘How are they paying for this?’ He asks me.
‘They said with a check. We do still take checks for orders over $200, right?’ I say.
‘They can’t have been serious. Was this a prank call?’
‘Not sure boss, you said to take all calls seriously!’ I reply.
He just grumbles and picks up the phone and calls the customer, and all I hear is super loud laughter as he hangs up.
Meanwhile, other employees have started actually making the ridiculous order not noticing anything weird about it. So by the time the boss finishes the call and cancels the order on the computer, there are already five XL pepperoni pizzas in the oven. So we got free dinner for everyone working that night as well as another message in the group chat app simply saying, ‘In regards to my last message, please just use good judgment when taking orders.'”
5. Not Talking Unless I'm Asked To
“This story starts a month or so before the March of this year. I had just joined a precision stampings company for an internship and what they basically manufactured was washers, shims, and spacers from cold-rolled steel. They used about 34, 60, to 150-ton mechanical presses and had specific dyes for each part. To make it simple, they had glorious punching machines with different sizes of holes to punch.
I had a manager above me whom I reported to and he was basically a work of art in his own way. Regularly ignored the chain of command, carried himself like the king of the castle, regularly demeaned the jobs of people below him, and had a blatant disregard for safety. He looked after the whole production and I guess it was normal for people in top positions to get their heads stuffed with the wrong stuffing.
I judged this pretty early on and never got in his way and did what I was told.
Now little intern me was learning the basics and little things about everything and spent most of my time on the shop floor watching operators do their job and study each process and the tools. The tools were unique punches for a specific part and couldn’t be replaced easily.
Now because it was normal for customers to give urgent orders with deliveries to the tune of 2-3 days as compared to the usual 2-3 months, this one customer let’s call them GG, a major automobile spare parts manufacturer, had the habit of doing just that and our company manufactured the part within a few hours and always delivered on time.
Because of this, the customer always stuck to us.
During the first few days of my internship, the order dropped and I got to see the turmoil needed to reach the deadline in two days.
I watched every step of the process and saw it through the end till dispatch. Now it so happens that an experienced operator had just joined our company and didn’t have an idea of the little things of the workings here.
He got to work on the part, and after he was done, he removed the tool and had no idea about the designated place for the tool to be kept.
I told him about the racks with numberings for each unique tool to be kept. Meanwhile, I get down to work and forget about it. He comes a few minutes later and tells me that he couldn’t find the exact place for the tool and hence kept the tool in a place, equivalent to keeping a book behind a shelf, for the time being until he tells someone puts it in the right place.
Fair enough. Then something happened a few days later and we went into a shutdown.
Jump to after something happened in a country to cause shutdown, let’s call that AC. The company has been closed for about two months and we were working on about 30% of the original workforce which was mostly machine operators. I had just graduated from my engineering and was looking for a job.
They laid off some people in top positions, and as a result, I got promoted to the position of Production Supervisor.
Basically, they needed someone who knew everything about the processes and production timings of operators which we most definitely not me, but I came for a cheap price, and hence bippity boppity, a wild OP appeared.
I tried my best to live up to it and took me about a week to get used to the pace.
The manager kept bypassing me to contact the operators and have them order without me knowing which caused a lot of confusion.
One day, that is the day before yesterday, he held a meeting to decide the production schedule that we were going to follow for the rest of the month. I don’t know why the meeting was held because the production planning department gives us the schedule every week.
So I say just that in the meeting. I regret waking up that day. He felt undermined in front of the production staff I guess which caused him to just go off on me.
Scolded me for interrupting my senior and talking out of turn and not knowing enough about the company to even talk in a meeting. Also, to keep my gob shut and open it only when asked to.
Fair enough. Guess I was just there to look after the small jobs.
The meeting finishes and I keep out of his way for the rest of the day. Just before my shift gets over GG company drops the purchase order for their part.
I saw it, read it, and as I wasn’t qualified enough, decided to send it to my manager. Now company policy dictates you to let me know about overtime at least an hour before my shift gets over.
Me being “incompetent,” “forgot” to send the schedule to the manager until a few minutes before the overtime deadline just to be safe. I knew the delivery was for two days later, so they had to get going early.
The manager starts barking orders. Trek me to wait over time, I refuse, mention the company policy and get scarce from his usual working space. There was some commotion around there but my shift got over.
I go home, sleep, come back to work the other day knowing that it was going to be a long day with a probable double shift for me. I came prepared with the provisions.
You people are smart enough, you know where this is going, so here’s wrapping it up fast. Before I left, they couldn’t find the tool they needed for the job, hence the commotion.
The operator who kept it there was fired and the company knowing that they did it in bad faith didn’t call him for the location. I come back the next day, they still haven’t found it.
They have started developing the tool from scratch and had to call in the tool designers. They obviously had no idea that I knew it, we wouldn’t be here if my manager had simply asked me.
But I was to open my mouth only when asked to. So I didn’t tell them. I called the operator and told him to tell the company that he kept the tool in place just in case.
The day gets by smoothly for me until lunch when the manager suddenly sees me. He tells me I’m working a double shift and I say okay. He didn’t ask me about the tool.
I said nothing. This was yesterday by the way. The tool they made breaks down within an hour. The hunt for the old tool begins.
Nobody asks me anything. Fair enough. I keep working on the rest of the production line.
My first shift gets over. They have looked under every stone in the factory. It’s almost midnight. Everybody is tired. My manager hadn’t slept since the order came in.
Now it’s apparent the order wouldn’t be completed but they still keep on searching. Now to the point that I’m writing this in real-time. I slept in my office, a nice six hours. The manager was too busy to notice me.
Woke up and got ready to leave. But decide against it. The delivery was supposed to be at 9:30 am today. It’s 3:30 pm now.
They have told the customer they won’t be able to deliver due to lack of raw material in the shutdown era. Probably lost a customer.
The manager hasn’t slept in two days. I’ve completed almost three shifts and would be paid double for the overtime.
I have just come from the manager’s cabin. This is how it went.
Me- May I come in sir?
Manager- What do you want?
Me- Did we complete the schedule, sir?
Manager- What does it look like? Me- I guess not, why though?
Manager- Were you under a rock? The tool was missing and we broke the new one.
Me- If you don’t mind me asking sir, which tool? I haven’t gotten used to the nomenclature yet.
Managers- TN5386GG, what even have you been doing all this time? All the production supervisors were on the floor looking for the tool.
I didn’t see you once.
Me- You asked me not to speak unless asked to, sir. And if I’m not wrong, is that the tool that’s on that place?
Manager- Umm, what even are you talking about? We don’t keep it there.
Me- Well, that’s obvious that we didn’t keep it in the usual place isn’t it, sir? Should’ve asked me.
Manager- I don’t think you even understand what’s going on here. That must be a different tool you misjudged. I’ll show you what tool that is.
We go over to the place, and sure enough, it’s the same tool. He immediately started yelling and calling for some people and I make myself scarce. Safe to say that I might get fired, but I lived this moment and I have a college admission in my hand.”
4. Yeah, I Don't Like It, So I'll Freaking Leave
“I work(ed) as a housekeeper at a small local hotel.
At the beginning when I started (about three years ago), things were pretty peachy. I got above minimum wage and worked in an environment with a more relaxed working pace. We had more time than your average hotel to clean rooms and it showed in customer satisfaction.
We had stellar reviews with customers raving about how there wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere, how everything from the lampshades to the bathroom drain was always scrubbed squeaky clean.
I loved my job and took pride in it, and when we had extra time (which happened from time to time), we would do some deeper cleaning like scrubbing all the walls inch by inch, disinfecting the whole bathroom, cleaning the blinds, etc.
Even though we all had some extra time, we used it to make sure the rooms were always up to a very high standard.
As a result of this, we got a reputation of being an affordable but very clean hotel, so our popularity spiked. Even before we got so popular (in our prime we were booked full about 90% of the days) our boss made a pretty nice amount of moola.
We don’t have a reception, we’re self-service (you just get a passcode for your room via text message) so he saved coin with that.
He drives an expensive car and seems very well off. We were never struggling financially.
Then things started changing. We’re a very close-knitted team of cleaners who have been in the house for years. A couple of us left at the end of last year (one moved to another state, another became a housewife after having a kid), and we started expecting newcomers to our team. They never came.
Our boss claimed that it’s hard to find workers for this kind of job.
We never had anyone interviewed and I never saw ads anywhere that we’re hiring, so I’m not sure he was even planning on replacing them.
So our work pace got tighter. We managed somehow but there was no longer time for thorough cleaning.
Then, the boss opened a restaurant so that the guests could have breakfast.
Cleaning it daily got added to our workload (and that place is massive, it takes at least 1½ hours to clean daily). At the same time, he also opened a separate Airbnb-style apartment (three bedrooms, kitchen, living room, and bathroom) for larger groups who wanted to reside together.
Cleaning that fell on us as well.
So suddenly, we were down two people (there were seven of us initially) and shoved two massive new responsibilities.
We asked our boss again to hire more people, but he said no and that “we’ve been having it too easy” beforehand.
He also refused to add another hour or two to our daily working hours (currently 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.). We have six hours and everything needs to be done at 3 p.m. sharp because that’s when the new passcodes start working.
Understandably, we were stressed out.
There was suddenly far too much to do and our boss also simultaneously expected that we would keep up our usual cleaning standard. But when our time per room plummets from 45 min to 25 min tops (usually closer to 15), obviously we’re not able to clean everything the way we did before. We would get yelled at when we got bad feedback because there wasn’t enough time to clean thoroughly enough, customers who came in after our clean rooms were disappointed and took their business elsewhere.
Also, my coworkers started calling in sick because they were burnt out. It was a mess, but our boss maintained the outlook that if he just pushed a massive amount of work on us, we’d somehow magically find an extra pair of hands and get everything done 100%.
Last week, we had a meeting with my coworkers. We discussed the current situation and to my surprise, everyone was considering quitting.
Out of loyalty to our long-time employer, the five of us agreed to have a meeting with our boss and try to persuade him to hire more staff to bring the hotel back to its earlier standard.
A couple of days later, we had the said meeting. Our boss was still in denial and said that we just need to up our pace and do things faster.
He cited that most hotels give housekeepers about 20 minutes to do everything. We pointed out that it’s true, but in that case, he can’t expect us to clean better than those hotels.
He scoffed and told us, “If you don’t like working here, then leave.”
That was all we needed to hear. That night we had another meeting amongst us cleaners.
We checked our contracts and realized there was no agreed-on notice for resignation as we’re at-will.
So, we were all going to take his advice.
This morning, at 9 a.m. sharp, the five of us paid our boss a visit. The look on his face when we simultaneously slammed down our resignation letters and marched out, leaving no one to clean the whole hotel today, will warm my heart for the rest of my days.
He was absolutely stunned.
He tried to call us to talk things over.
Nuh-uh, we just did what you told us to. Have fun replacing what was a motivated, loyal, and dedicated team of cleaners who made your business bloom.”
3. Don't Do The Main Part Of My Job? Okay
“I worked at what everyone calls Wally world (thanks national lampoon vacation). I worked there for 14 years of my life. For the first 6 years, I was what you called a stockman which was basically the person who gathered the carts and help customers load heavy or large items into their vehicles.
Well, we also have been given a lot of small jobs to do either early in the morning when it’s slow or if there are enough other stockmen to cover.
One being filling the soda machines. Now we didn’t have to fill coke or Pepsi because of vendors. Walmart at one time had soda machines for their own great value soda and Sama choice water machines. We would have to stock that.
Now, this day, I had an odd short shift. Normally when you open, you work 7 am to 4 pm. This day, I worked 10 am to 4 pm a shift I worked before, but usually, there is someone that was here at 7.
Nope, not today; I clock in, and the carts are a disaster.
Think about it: no one was there at 7, so customers were taking and using carts for 3 hours till I got there. So I just start to get the carts caught up as in the main part of my job the part I was hired to do.
As I was bringing some up one of our assistant managers storms over to me demanding to know why I wasn’t filling the soda machines when I clocked in.
(Again, supposed to be the first thing you do when you clock in when working the morning shift. I explained to the manager that I came in at 10 am; the carts are really bad. I figured I’d do them because of how bad it was. He screamed that it doesn’t matter; you need to do the soda machines and water machines first and I can’t do anything else till they are done.
One reason we do the soda machines first thing in the morning is because:
1) it is slow, and we can do it without too many interruptions since the carts are usually gathered up from the 3rd shift.
2) it can take a while to do because first, we had to open the machines to see what soda was out.
Then we had to go to the back of the store to go get the soda. We were not allowed to take off the shelf because of taking product a customer could buy. So we go into the back gather all the soda and water we need for the machines then fill the machines each machine. Once that is all done, we have to dispose of if all the packaging for the 12 packs of soda and water cases we used for the machines.
Finally, we had to get all the UPCs we used and turn them in, so they can keep track of the merchandise, and not think a bunch of soda was stolen.
Cue Malicious compliance: I say umm alright; whatever you say and go get the keys to the soda machines. The customer service manager looks confused at why I need them considering they knew how bad the carts were.
I had to explain that the assistant manager says I have to fill the soda machines before doing anything else, so they give me the keys, and I get to work. NOW there were 3 soda machines one at each main entrance and one in the break room. As well as 2 water machines: one upfront and one in the break room. Now, this can take a few hours to do depending on how bad the machines were and trust me they were bad almost everything was sold out so I’d have a lot of soda I’d need.
Different people come up to question why I am filling the machines.
I just tell them that the manager making me saying it has to be done as I’m doing this the carts outside getting more and more worse running out of carts for the customer they are all over the parking lot. Come 12 pm when the next stockman came in and I was still in the middle of filling the soda machines. he came to me asking me why I am doing the soda machines when it’s so bad out front right now; why wasn’t I getting the carts.
I just tell him which manager making me do it so he goes off to try to catch up
Finally one of our co-managers comes up to me they are just below a store manager. demanding to know why I was filling the soda machines when it is clear they need me our front almost yelling st me for not doing my job. I look him in the eye and tell him the assistant manager yelled at me for not filling the soda machines when I came in at 10 even though they were bad then and told me I had to fill the soda machines first.
He walks away from me going inside probably to talk to the said manager only to come back a little later asking if I would please help the other stockman get the carts caught up, and he would finish the soda machines. So I say ok and go out to do carts. It took the two of us a while to get them caught back up.”
2. Call 911 Over A Non-Emergency? Go Ahead
“In 2013, back when I was working at a movie theatre in my town, like a rich uppity area.
Right after Wolf of Wallstreet came out. It caused problems. Now, Working at a movie theatre you can usually just tell after a while what people know what they want and people who think they know what they want but have no idea what they are getting into.
After a lot of refunds for Wolf of Wallstreet, because of a particularly risqué scene. We were told to warn people exactly what they were getting into.
Because we were getting a crap load of refunds every showing and we were too busy to not keep them waiting a while, so it was my job.
So Cue, our little old lady…we will call Agnes.
Agnes was a little old lady, who was a short but large woman with a very short pixie cut.
She wore activewear leggings, an overlarge t-shirt, and a fanny pack.
She waddled over to my ticket booth fishing for change out of her fanny pack.
“One ticket to Wolf of Wall Street,” Agnes stated before yelling loudly. “SENIOR.”
Yes, Agnes, I can tell you need a senior and yes, she was NOT The type for this movie.
“Okay, but just so you know it’s R-Rated-” I started but she groans and rolls her eyes slapping her hand on the table.
“Just do YOUR job and give me a ticket. I’m going to be late.” Agnes stated.
Cue my malicious compliance.
“One senior coming up!” I handed her, her ticket as she snatches it out of my hand and waddles off to the theatre.
I waved goodbye.
As if on cue, thirty minutes into her entering the theatre. Her like most people who have no idea what they are getting into…walks out of the theatre.
I was about to call my manager with glee for a refund happy for my subtle revenge…
…When I realize she had just come out to make a call. All my hopes and dreams crumbled. Maybe I misread her? But she was for SURE not the type to enjoy this movie.
I sighed in defeat and went back to waiting for movie to get out.
That was until not long after her call, three police cars with flashing lights pulled up to the FRONT of my theatre.
I paused in noticeable confusion as six police officers came in with their hands on their side pistols. Since again, I was in a ticket booth, they approached me.
“Ma’am, we got a call about some illegal films here.” The police officer, we will call Robert, stated.
“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” I stated in a loud long continuous uh, my eyes slowly drifting to Agnes who was waddling quickly up to me.
“ARREST HER!” Agnes demanded as I just continued my continuous…uhhhh. “AND ARREST THEM TOO!” She pointed to the concession workers in loud noticeable anger.
“…For what reason, Ma’am?” Robert asked now seeing how calm and quiet the theatre was because the movies were in.
“FOR THAT DISGUSTING ILLEGAL THING OF WHAT THEY ARE TRYING TO SAY IS A MOVIE!” Agnes huffed, she was red in the face and panting.
“I DEMAND YOU SHUT THIS PLACE DOWN!”
“Were you the one that called about…the adult activities in illegal films ?” Robert asked as completely went silent.
WHAT?!
We had NOTHING remotely like that here or ever!
“YES!” Agnes stated. “THAT THING IN THERE! THAT…WOLF OF WALLSTREET IS ILLEGAL! THEY CAN NOT SHOW THAT KIND OF…TRASH IN THERE!”
“…Ma’am, I saw that movie.” Robert stated pretty ticked off.
“Is this why you called us?”
“YES! BECAUSE BACK IN MY DAY, THE POLICE WOULD HAVE SHUT THIS PLACE DOWN!” Agnes was screaming her head off as two of the officers got the hint and just left.
“Ma’am! Do you know what you did is Illegal? It is filing a false police report! 911 is for emergencies only! Not for your bad movie reviews!” Robert had enough of her at this point.
“BUT I DIDN’T FILE A FALSE POLICE REPORT!” Agnes whined as Robert turned to me in a very, very nice tone.
“Have a great day, Ma’am.” He beamed with obvious annoyance, they started to file out and Agnes angrily followed them yelling to them.
Right when Robert was about to exit the door, Agnes grabbed the push bar for the door and yanked it back to keep the door closed to not let him leave…hitting Robert with the door.
Yes. If you’re wondering…That does count as assaulting an officer.
Last I saw Agnes was escorted to the police cruiser with shiny new arm bracelets…
Though, I’m not sure what happened to her.
But I never saw Agnes again, I did see Robert though.
He got a free movie on me, but it was busy and I couldn’t talk to him to see what happened with our dear old friend…
…but I can tell it was…just amazing things.”
1. Ignoring Customers Sounds Like A Great Idea, Boss
“After graduating college, I worked for about 6 months as a cashier at a local branch of a chain sandwich shop.
Mostly, it was a great job. Customers were mostly polite, my coworkers were friendly and helpful, and I genuinely believed in the company’s products.
Even my bosses were pretty great, except for one. We’ll call him The Jerk.
The jerk was belligerent, vindictive, nitpicky, and pretty much an awful boss in every way a boss can be awful.
He had the type of crappy ‘no excuses’ policy that defined ‘excuse’ as literally anything besides, “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.” I could go on and on about all the different ways he was terrible, but this story is about one specific flavor of his awfulness.
During our shifts, each employee had a certain section of the store they were assigned to keep clean in addition to their duties.
The cashier’s section was the front counters, displays, and coffee kiosks. I don’t know if it was officially the manager’s job, but as long as I worked there, whoever was the shift manager always took care of the outside patio area.
Except for the jerk.
At first, he would just say things to me like, “I’m really busy right now, could you clean the patio?” Totally fine.
Part of the job description stated that if you had free time and the manager asked you to do something extra, you did it.
He was well within his rights. But one day, he suddenly started asking me why I was shirking my duties by not keeping the patio clean. After all, the patio was part of my section.
It wasn’t and never had been. I asked the other cashiers, and they all agreed they’d never been told anything about the patio being part of the cashier section.
It felt like a bait and switch, and I felt wronged.
The bigger problem, though, was that keeping the patio clean through my entire shift was a huge pain for me as a cashier. In the afternoons, I was often the only one at the counter, and customers would trickle in with a few minutes between each group.
This meant that I was constantly having to run back and forth between the patio and the register, which confused customers and made it hard to get any actual work done on the patio.
One day when this was particularly bad, the jerk came upfront and started asking me why I hadn’t cleaned the patio. I started to explain that I kept having to come back inside to serve customers, but he cut me off.
I don’t remember his exact words, but it was something along the lines of, “That’s no excuse. Cleaning the patio is your job. Now go outside and do your job.
Don’t come back inside until the patio is clean.”
That last sentence was music to my ears. I assured him that of course I would do exactly as he said, went outside, and started cleaning. A few minutes later, a family walked past me through the front doors into the store. Through the large front window, I watched them stand, confused, in front of the register. There was no one at it to serve them (the jerk had gone back into his office to attend to his oh-so-important manager duties).
I continued to clean the patio.
A few minutes later, another family came in and joined the first, standing confused, and now annoyed, in front of the counter. At this point, the jerk must have noticed them on the security camera because he came out of his office and started ringing them up. Then came another set of customers and another. The jerk was at the register, so he had to serve them.
He was now being forced to cover my job because I was too busy doing his.
I finished cleaning the patio and came inside, and The Jerk immediately tore into me, asking where I had been, why wasn’t I at the counter, couldn’t I see there were customers? I put on my most innocent smile.
“But you told me not to come back inside until I’d finished cleaning the patio.
I assumed that meant you would take care of serving customers since I couldn’t possibly be two places at the same time.”
He just glared at me for the longest moment, then mumbled something about how I should have known what he meant, and I was never to pull a stunt like that again and shuffled back to his office.
Not much of a victory in the grand scheme of things, but seeing the momentary flash of panic in his eyes as he realized his “do as I say no excuses” policy had backfired had me giddy for the rest of the day.”
Another User Comments:
“You know he has a boss too. Unless such treatment is acceptable in the culture of your workplace, which I doubt, his behavior is not ok to his bosses, and you’re not a rat for protecting yourself by telling them. They don’t want to hear that he’s being unpleasant to you any more than they want to hear you’re being unpleasant to a customer.” Reddit user
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