People Speak About Their Triumphant Malicious Compliance Stories
20. Sure, I'll Close Down All Your Accounts
“I used to work for a bank on their contact center. I literally have hundreds of stories about that place and its customers, but today I’d like to share a story that has always brought a smile to many a suffering customer service co-worker’s faces about the time we got one back for the good guys.
Backstory: I was employed as a Customer Service Officer. I’d been with the bank for about 18 months at this point, mostly working afternoon shifts, but recently the bank had moved to a 24-hour customer service model, so while most of the bank would be closed (Head office, Complaints, Credit, etc) — we were still open.
Let me set the scene: ~10 pm, midweek, fluorescent lights flicker overhead, the call board empty and I’m literally counting the seconds left in my shift, ready to go home.
Phone call pops onto my screen.
I think, ‘Oh no! I always get a call just before I finish…’
Me (mustering my best customer service voice): ‘Hi, thanks for calling (bank), you’re speaking with u/Absurd-n-Nihilistic, how can I help you?’
I hear nothing but dead air, so I start to repeat myself.
‘Hi, you’re speaking wi—’
When I hear the tone of voice and words every contact center worker has heard at some point. It just lets you know you’re in for a great call (not!).
Customer: (loud sigh) ‘Yes! I’m here! God, what takes YOU people so long to answer?! What are you doing?’
As noted before, there were no calls on the board, this customer didn’t wait in a queue.
He would have dialed, gone through to the IVR to enter his customer number and pin before being put through to me. Max 60 seconds.
Me (trying to not provoke any further and get this customer off the phone as quickly as I can so I can go home): ‘Oh, I’m sorry about that.
Our system doesn’t show a queue, but I’m sorry that you had to wait. What can I do for you this evening?’
The customer seems to settle down and starts explaining that the reason for the call was the interest charges on the most recent credit card bill.
He was sure they were a mistake because ‘I always pay my bills on time’ and ‘I don’t like paying you bloodsuckers anymore than I have to.’ Charming, I know. So I place him on hold to look at his account.
I started looking at the payment history, when payments were due/received, what the balances were etc. Then, I quickly looked at the customer’s interaction notes. This is where the bank records any contact with the customer as well as, any fee waivers, special interest rates, etc., and I see an interesting series of notes from colleagues of mine stating things like ‘customer advised interest was charged due to full payment not received by the due date.
The customer threatened to close all accounts with the bank. The manager approved the interest waiver.’ Notes like this went on for months until there was a note from the head of customer relations and retentions stating ‘if customer threatens to close accounts to seek a waiver of fees, interest or other charges, please process immediately.
No retention authorized.’ I was a bit shocked because usually, the bank would do a lot to keep existing customers like they told us in training, ‘it’s cheaper to keep a customer than it’s to gain a new one.’
So I call over my night manager to read the notes and give him a heads up I’ve got a feeling the customer is going to be demanding another interest waiver.
My cool night manager said, ‘well if he does, do what the note says.’
Total hold time: maybe 2 minutes.
I take the customer off hold and thank him for waiting.
Customer: ‘About time! My time is very valuable, you know. So have you fixed it yet?’
I start explaining that the interest charges are valid because he didn’t pay off his balance before the due date.
He goes ballistic!
He starts calling me every conceivable name under the sun and mid-sentence stops, he plays it like he’s just had an idea ‘Fine. If the interest charges are valid, I’m going to close my accounts. I want to close my accounts with you now!’
At this point, I’m excited about putting him in his place but I also want to cover my butt, so I ask:
Me: ‘So, just to be certain.
You are instructing me to close all of your accounts with us, including your credit card, savings account, and transactional account?’
Customer: ‘Are you stupid? That’s what I said!’
Lady’s and Gentlemen: We got him!
Me (Grinning my butt off): ‘Okay no problems. I’ll just place you on hold to do that for you.’
I hit the hold button fast just as I heard him say, ‘No I—…’
With my night manager’s help, we close his accounts.
His savings account was a term deposit so by breaking the term early he had to pay an early access fee of 10% of the balance. We used the funds in his transactional account to cover the outstanding balance in his credit card (including the interest) and sent a request for a cheque to be issued for the remaining funds.
I took the customer off hold.
Me: ‘Again thank you for your patience. As requested your accounts are now closed. Was there anything else I can help with tonight?’
If I thought the customer went ballistic before, oh boy! There was talk of suing the bank, suing me, suing my night manager, suing the head of customer relations and retentions.
That we were guilty of discrimination. That I didn’t have the authority to do what I did. He’s going to call the police. We’re thieves. Some other ways of telling me how useless I am and how I can kill myself.
You get the picture.
Me (still smiling because I know I nor anyone else at my bank will have to deal with this jerk again): ‘Sir I understand you are upset. However, on a recorded phone call, you instructed me to close your accounts.
I’ve complied with your wishes. As there is nothing else for us to speak about tonight. Thank you for calling (bank) have a good night!’ And hung up on him before he could say another word.
My night manager created an incident report and sent it to the head of customer relations and retentions with an attached copy of the call recording.
I later found out the head of customer relations and retentions sent the customer a letter telling him he was banned from our bank for life due to the ‘vile and disgusting’ way he had spoken to me! We would never do business with him ever again and if he called or visited a branch, we would be the ones calling the police.
Do you want to know what the total interest charges were that started all this? ~$30. His term deposit had $20,000 in it. He cost himself $2,000 in early exit fees because he thought he could bully his way out of ~$30 in interest.”
19. Make Me Drive 3 Hours To Fix Your "Broken" Terminal...Twice?! You Should've Let Me Troubleshoot Over The Phone
I hope she learned a good lesson on paying attention.
“Waaaay back in the day (1992ish), I worked tech support for a company that handled installations of Unix computers/terminals/software for accounting systems for small organizations. Custom software, check printing (used a special MICR toner in off-the-shelf HP laser printers), all running off Unix (SCO, Motorolla, etc) ‘servers.’ We could dial into their setup and remote control the software, apply updates, etc.
One day, I get a call from this woman who insisted that the terminal she was using was broken. I called into their system and could see that the terminal wasn’t connected at the moment, so I stepped through her making sure that it was plugged in.
She insisted absolutely that it was plugged in, turned on, and the light was on and everything. After running through all the possibilities that I could think of, she was still adamant that I come out and replace the terminal since it was clearly broken.
I was hesitant to make the trip since it was 140 miles away, would require about 5 or 6 hours of my day to make the round trip (traffic, and a lot of snow), but my boss told me to make sure these customers were kept happy.
I grabbed a new terminal out of the storage closet, some extra cabling (in case it was just a bad serial cable), and my tools, and headed out on the trip (at least I got paid enough per mile that it was well worth it).
It took me about 3 hours to get there, and the woman is just steamed.
I walk in the door, set my bag down, look at the wall, where the power cord is clearly not plugged into the wall itself. I picked up the cable, plugged it in, and lo-and-behold, the terminal turned on, and the login prompt comes up.
I looked at her, and she tells me that she tried that! I was literally in the office for less than 60 seconds, and since the call was not actually our problem, they got billed for the 6-hour service call in full, and I got 280 miles of mileage (at like $0.25 per mile, was way more than the gas/maint on my old ’86 Honda Accord cost me).
Cue the same woman, 8 days later.
She’s on the phone to me screaming that my fix didn’t work at all and that the terminal was broken again and that I needed to replace the faulty terminal right now! I asked her if the terminal was plugged into the wall because remember last week when I came out, and it wasn’t plugged in? Are you absolutely sure? She was absolutely sure.
Sigh.
Another 3-hour drive down there. Walk in the door and look at what I see. The power cable is clearly laying on the floor again. I asked her if she saw that it was unplugged, and she told me that she “isn’t technical” and that I should have made sure that it was done right last time.
I plugged it back in, and guess what? It worked! Hazaa! She was still mad because it shouldn’t be happening this much.
Not sure how I was supposed to make that happen.
I grabbed my bag, but before I left, I noticed that this small company had gotten a new receptionist (I guess before that they didn’t have one), so I stopped and chatted for a bit, asked her if she knew anything about what’s going on with the plug to the terminal; she didn’t have a clue, but she would keep an eye out for me.
Made in another 10 days before I get another call from the lady again.
I tell her I was on a service call, but I’d call her back in 5 minutes. A quick call to the receptionist where she said that the lady had her little nephews in the room, so she ran and checked that the terminal was unplugged for me.
It was. She plugged it back in, and when I called back to the lady, she said it was working again but was still wary that it was going to go out.
I told her that if it fails again, have her receptionist call me, so she won’t have to wait, and I can perform a reset of the connection remotely (a new feature) and get her up and running in two minutes.
I never had to make another in-person service call to that location again. I sent the receptionist a big box of Bernard Callebaut chocolates for x-mas.”
18. Abuse Me And Kick Me Out? I'll Take Everything
“My father is very religious to the point we couldn’t do a lot of things that would be considered normal: Christmas, romantic outings, etc.
I didn’t hate my dad by any means; he taught me a lot. However, he was very abusive.
He would constantly get angry at minor things.
I suppose we both just normalized that abuse.
You’d think all of this would make me hate him? Nope. My idiotic self just didn’t seem to register how bad this was. I’d try to justify it as him teaching me a lesson.
But eventually, the last straw would come.
So I was 16 at the time, and my father gave me this ultimatum: continue school or get a job and pay a majority of the bills. He wasn’t working at the time, and I hated school.
While my grades were average to high, I just didn’t want to be a part of that environment anymore.
Our overall bills added up to about $1,800, and I’d have to give $830 of my paycheck, with my brother paying the other half.
I decided to just go with it and look for a job.
Now, a week into my job search, my father started shouting at me. Saying I was taking way too long (keep in mind, when my brother left school, he gave him over 2 months to find something).
He ended up putting me in front of a computer and made me apply for things all day and night. I ended up going to bed at 6 am the next morning. I got so desperate, I applied for McDonald’s, and within a day, I got the job…
Unfortunately. It was one of the worst experiences of my life.
Anyway, a year into working, a new girl joined the team, and as cliché as it sounds, I fell for her instantly. I went out of my comfort zone and just decided to flirt with her.
Within that day, we were a thing. It was amazing.
Obviously, I couldn’t tell my dad about this. So we hid it for another year as we were seeing each other. Within that time, we ended up making love. Making love out of wedlock would be a big no-no.
My father later found out.
Now, this part is pretty invasive. But he had connected to my WhatsApp messages and was reading them on his laptop while I slept. I believe he actually opened my phone while I slept, using my thumb recognition.
I was chewed out the next morning and told to break up with her (which I didn’t).
Because she was a bad influence and didn’t really love me.
He then told me to get out of the house and never come back. I will give some context for this. My dad likes to use this line when we’re in trouble.
He’ll make us go outside our flat and then a minute later call us back inside.
He had never really gotten to that point with me. But my brother experienced it all the time. I’d always told him that if our father ever did that to me, I’d just leave.
So as you can imagine, I left.
I walked for hours while my dad was blowing up my phone to come home. If you thought this was because he cared and wanted me to be safe? You’d be wrong.
He would later send texts telling me not to tell anyone what was happening.
It’s none of their business, and I’m not ruining his reputation. I wasn’t planning on telling people anyway. But the fact he said that shows he only cares for others’ opinions.
Because I had left so quickly, I hadn’t had time to grab anything.
I had a phone and the clothes on my back. I had to call my girl for moral support, and after talking, she straight away booked a hotel. I was so thankful. Lucky for me, I was getting paid the next day.
So I’d be able to get my money and hopefully rent a place.
To this day, I haven’t spoken to my father, and I completely blocked him. And while I struggle to pay my rent every month, it’s still way better than my situation prior.
The story does have a happy ending.
Remember how I wasn’t able to get my stuff? Well, my father had gone on a trip (one of my friends tipped me to this). So my girl and I went back to the house and broke in using a credit card.
My dad never locked his door, so if you just swiped a card through the door with enough pressure, you could eventually make it turn and get in.
I was actually struggling to do this until the neighbor came by and actually did it for me. He was such a good guy! I know he just assumed we were locked out, but he really saved my life more than he knows.
I took everything I wanted, including stuff like the TV.
Since it was my money that paid for all of that.
I can only imagine how shocked my dad was when he came home and found all my stuff gone. He was probably going to sell it to cover the rent.”
17. Want No Air Conditioning? You'll Get No Air Conditioning, Even If It Kills Ya
“I work in building operations for some highrise office buildings in sunny Southern California. I maintain electrical systems, plumbing, HVAC, basically anything within the building I fix. My background is HVAC, with plenty of certifications and experience in how things work.
The building I’m currently at has covers on the thermostats to prevent tenants from messing with them.
Side note: Our HVAC system is a pneumatics system that uses air pressure to operate everything. You need a specialty gauge to check what the pneumatic signal is calling for: heating, cooling, or nothing.
This is why we don’t let tenants adjust their own stats, because without the gauge, you’re only guessing what you’re doing.
Anyways, Mr. Very Important puts in a call he is way too cold. No problem I go up and find his thermostat has had the cover pried off and set to 68 degrees and then half put back on.
I check my gauge, and it’s operating properly for being set at 68. I adjust it back up to 72 which is standard temperature and let Mr. Very Important know someone had messed with the thermostat, and that’s why he was so cold.
Halfway through telling him, he cuts me off and says, “I don’t care about the thermostat; I want these vents shut down. I don’t want to feel any air.” I try to explain it will be a lot more comfortable in a few minutes, and shutting the vents is not a good idea in the summer.
Well, Mr. Very Important isn’t having it. After all, he’s very important and knows better than me how comfort cooling works despite my decade+ experience. And to top it off, he’s an absolute jerk about the whole thing. After being cut off for the 3rd time, I finally had enough and say, “Ok, no problem.
You want the vents completely shut?” And he responds, “Yes, if I feel any air blow on me, we’re going to have issues that your boss will have to sort out.” So, I shut the vents completely at the damper at the AC box.
No air will come out. Well, I’ve dealt with “very important” people before, and I know what to expect. So I put a note on the work order, “Mr. Very Important asked for no air to come out of the vents in his office despite my objections, so vents have been shut per tenant request.”
If you’re aware, the west coast is going through a gnarly heat wave right now, so naturally, Mr.
Very Important puts in a call saying that his office is too hot. I accept the call, but I go on my way doing my normal duties which I’m very busy with as we just had 1 of 4 people on our team leave.
So it takes me 3 days to get back to Mr. Very Important’s office, and he’s losing his mind at how hot it is. And to be fair, his office was like a sauna. I’d be angry too if I had to work in that office.
I ask if he wants his vents opened back up to allow the air to flow into his office and cool it down. The dude looks like I just kicked his dog when he realizes closing the vents was his demand that I tried to talk him out of.
I open them up real quick because it’s very easy, and I leave. Apparently, he didn’t like being called out like that and called my property managers to complain. I’m not sure what they said back to him, but I certainly got a good laugh out of the whole thing.”
16. If I Don't Get Help, Then Neither Do You
“Many, many years ago, I worked at a large movie theater at a mall as an assistant manager. We were always busy and had full staffing levels on the weekends, but to make up for the payroll costs, off-peak days and hours were staffed extremely low, one staff member per area usually.
We always received our inventory shipments on a weekday and in the morning/early afternoon, but they were always such large shipments that my General Manager (a sensible fellow) would usually have an extra staff member or two scheduled to help put the massive amounts of candy, popcorn bags/tubs, drink cups, 35lb bags of popcorn kernels, cleaning supplies and whatnot away.
Even with help, this could take a few hours, there would always be at least 4 or 5 massive pallets delivered.
Well, on one usual inventory day, there was a slight problem. The week before, my GM went on vacation and the Assistant GM (a total jerk) made the schedule.
Ever the stingy jerk, he decided it was not worth a few extra payroll hours to schedule any extra people on that day to help out with shipment. Furthermore, on that day, he had scheduled himself and me as the two managers on duty during that shift, and since he was above such petty things as actually doing any work at all other than sitting in the office reading sports scores on the computer, it was up to me to get the entire order put away, cover breaks for each lone staff member working in-box/concession/usher, and deal with any customer complaints and issues should any arise.
I was (well, still am) a very small, lightweight female, so lifting a couple of thousand pounds of boxes and bags in a short time period while also tasked with the aforementioned responsibilities completely solo just didn’t seem logical to me.
So I made my way back to the office where Assistant General Jerkface McPoopwad was reading golf scores or something.
I said “Hey, I could really use some help putting the order away. I can’t get this all done before the end of my shift.” The jerk scoffed, gives me a sarcastic smile, and goes “I think you can handle it by yourself.” I say “Well, I would really appreciate you covering the breaks for the staff while I work on this, then.
I really can’t do all of this by myself before the end of the shift.” Again, he gives me that poop-eating grin and goes, “Well, if I were working alone, I know I would be able to do it all by myself, so you should be able to as well.
Figure it out.”
Fine. Screw you.
So I go back out there and just start hauling BOOTY to get things put away. In fact, I am furious, and when I am furious, I can be a little careless. I’m about halfway through the initial third of the quarter of the tenth of the first large pallet of nonsense I am tasked with handling when I realize something that infuriated me even more.
Assistant GM was supposed to be the person who prepped the area we stored candy in the day before. What this means, in theory, is that the person responsible for that goes into the candy storage area, rotates all the stock from the last week to the front left side of the shelves, so we can stock the new stuff towards the back right, so we don’t overlook a case of cookie dough bites and then it goes bad and murders all our customers and we get sued.
Or something like that. Anyway, since he did not do this, I now not only have to put this stuff away myself, but I am now also responsible for rotating the existing boxes on the shelves in a neat stack on the left before I can even think about unloading this pile of overpriced diabeetus chow.
So now I am just a whirlwind of candy-shuffling fury.
As fast and carelessly as possible, I am just punching boxes into their rightful positions without any regard to their delicate innards. I don’t know if M&Ms can bruise, but some of them probably did that day. My rage was actually helping me out quite a bit until I got to the Twizzlers.
For you lucky souls that have never stocked boxes of bulk candy before, most of them are reasonably sized at about 5-10 lbs a box, so while there are a LOT of them, they are reasonably manageable. This is NOT the case with Twizzlers.
Our Twizzler packages were full-sized, and there are about 60 of them in a box. I could easily move into one of these boxes and have a friend of similar proportions over for company. Twizzlers are also the preferred overpriced movie snack for recently divorced middle-aged white women on their first jump-in back into the romance pool for some reason, so suffice it to say we sold a lot of them.
I’ve got about 6 of these boxes already on the shelf allllll the way to the right with another 6 I need to unload, and NONE OF THEM ARE WHERE THEY SHOULD BE, so this is where I lost it completely.
I shove my arm in to grab the first of the massive box of twisty sugar ropes that is on the right side that needs to be on the left side and QUICKLY… and hurt my arm near the elbow on the metal shelf bracket.
Well, I make my way back to the office to interrupt Jerk McGolfscores and show him my ouchie arm.
Despite his failings in literally every other area in his life, he does realize that workplace injuries should be taken seriously because of potential lawsuits and funds and liability and whatnot and immediately located a clinic that we had some sort of professional dealings with that would check out my arm and give me a shot and all that jazz at no cost to myself.
I was pretty hysterical at this point (although not, as he thought, over my injury), and he assumed I was upset about having to lose hours (I was hourly, you see) and assured me that I would receive pay for the full day of work.
So, I got to go to the clinic, get patched up and my shot, and be home about 3 hours prior to the end of my shift while I had the knowledge that the jerk now had to go rotate the stock, get the order put away, cover breaks, and handle people complaining that Saw III wasn’t the intellectual cinematic masterpiece that they thought it would be and could they pretty please get their funds back even though they watched the whole thing please it just was really Gorey, and they weren’t expecting that okay what’s the number for corporate then, while I got to sit at home receiving full pay for the rest of that day.
Worth the scar, in my opinion.”
15. Fine, I Won't Clean The Oven Before Using It
“I’m the assistant kitchen manager in a gourmet pizza place where we have a giant brick oven. My station every night is manning that behemoth 600 degrees monster for hours on end.
We have an open kitchen where, from the register, you can see the oven and whatever I’m doing behind the register.
Now, a big part of running a giant brick oven is that every possible chance you get, you want to sweep out the burnt semolina (course, wheat grain stuff that’s used to make the pizza slide off the peel into the oven) from the bottom of the oven.
If you don’t sweep out the burnt semolina, you’ll have burning and smoking, black dust covering the whole bottom of the brick oven. When you put the pizza in, the burning semolina attaches itself to the bottom of the raw dough, thus making the pizza look and taste burnt.
Today, my understaffed line is super busy, and I’m trying to keep up with all the pizzas coming in and out of the oven, as well as expediting every order.
A lady comes up to the register where she’s about 8 feet from me and can see my every move, and she asks me where her pizza is.
I locate the order, and it’s on the counter for me to put into the oven. I tell her that I’m about to put the pie on the oven after I clean it, and she says to me, “Well, why can’t you put it in before you clean it?”
I try to tell her that if the burning semolina is on the bottom of the oven, it will burn the bottom of the pizza, but she wasn’t having any of it and insisted on getting her food right then, no cleaning the oven, just immediately cooking her pizza.
So, I wait to clean the oven and put her pizza in, all the while this lady is watching me like a hawk from across the counter. A few minutes later, I pull it out, and sure enough, it looks burnt on the bottom.
But screw it, she made her bed. I pan up the pizza and hit her buzzer number, and she comes to get her food.
Not even five minutes later, she comes back with such an attitude complaining that her pizza was burnt all to a crisp.
I told her that this is more likely to happen where the oven hasn’t been swept clean, and she kinda just muttered, “Oh.”
Ensue internal victory.
Of course, I offered to make her a new one after I cleaned the oven, but I hope that from now on, she will respect kitchen procedures and not try and argue with the people handling the quality of her food.”
14. Don't Disturb You Under Any Circumstances? Okay!
You can’t get mad at the consequences when you’re the one who demanded things go your way.
“This happened to me many, many years ago.
I had just been hired as an administrative assistant at a large antiquarian store/auction house in a small city in New England.
The owners, my bosses, were a couple who I shall refer to as Heboss and Sheboss. It was a small crew of employees: a couple of furniture movers, the person who did furniture restorations and clock repair, a woman who sold custom lampshades, and me.
This was a time way back in the dark ages when a company had to pay through the nose for long-distance phone calls.
Sheboss had her desk in the middle of the sales floor, where she could keep an eye on everything. She had a standing order that under no circumstances was I to take a message from someone calling out of state. I was to let her know that the out-of-state caller was on the phone, so she would not have to call the person back and incur the long-distance charges.
That made sense, was an understandable directive, with which I complied. These two were difficult people to work for though. I never seem to be able to please them.
At one point, the company was holding the largest auction of antiquities they had ever done.
The catalog was immense and people were calling from all over the country to ask Sheboss questions about specific items. When these calls came in, I immediately notified her and she always took their calls.
Then a very important (wealthy) client came in and asked for a personal preview of the auction.
Sheboss said to me, “Under no circumstances am I to be disturbed while I’m with this client.” She then disappeared with the client into the auction hall.
It was coming in on the afternoon, which meant that the West Coast was just starting their day.
During the roughly 2 hours that Sheboss was with the client, I took something like 40 messages for her from various places like L.A., Seattle, San Francisco, Boulder, as well as NYC, DC, etc.
My workspace was on the second floor where there was a balcony that ran around two sides overlooking the very large sales floor.
I generally kept my door to the balcony closed because the echoing volume of the sales floor made it hard to hear on the telephone. When Sheboss finally came out of her meeting with the client, she saw the very thick stack of messages that were left on her desk.
The unintelligible screech that resulted was damaging to my ears (and presumably those of everyone else in the building). I had no choice but to open my door and look out over the balcony down to the distorted, red splotched face of Sheboss as she proceeded to curse at me worse than I’d ever been chewed out before.
She demanded to know why I had taken all of these messages from out-of-state callers and threatened to take the cost of returning the calls out of my paycheck. I replied, “You told me that you were not to be disturbed. It’s not my fault that you can’t remember what you’ve ordered people to do.” Needless to say, I did not last very much longer at that job.”
13. Sorry, I Can't Be In Two Different Places At Once
“I work in a nursing home on the 3-11 shift as a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA). What happens a lot is the CNAs will go to get food around 7:30 or 8:00 after they’ve put the majority of the residents to bed.
Some of the residents figured out when we normally eat lunch and come out to passively beg for our food or try to give us money to go get them some (legally, we can’t touch their funds), ESPECIALLY if we have pizza.
Don’t even mention the word pizza in a nursing home unless you want a mob of people around you.
A few residents complained about the CNAs “teasing them with food that they can’t have by eating in front of them.” The facility made it a rule that we could not eat where the residents can see us.
The problem is, the break room is a side room attached to the dining room. Sometimes when we’re in the break room eating, we could look up and see residents staring at us through the glass door.
That means we can’t even eat in the break room.
The CNAs didn’t even talk about this compliance. We just all did it. The facility put in a rule that we absolutely had to take our lunch break about a week before this happened because CNAs would put that they didn’t have lunch at the time clock which led to them paying overtime.
Even if there was one CNA in the hall, that CNA still had to take a lunch break according to their rules.
When I was the only CNA on a hall, I would pick up my lunch and eat while still answering call lights because I was the only CNA to answer them, but since I couldn’t eat where the residents saw me, I stayed out of the building for my lunch break.
Because we stayed gone the entire time, they started getting complaints that call lights were being ignored. The nurses were doing their own malicious compliance because the Director of Nursing (DON) was jumping down their throats for answering lights while they were passing out medicine.
“You can’t lock up the cart to answer a light during med pass!” is what she would screech at them, so when the aides were on lunch, the nurses weren’t answering the lights either.
No residents were harmed during this malicious compliance.
This led to a lot of complaints and phone calls to the DON’s cell phone at night because the residents would call their family members who would then call the DON. One night at around 7:45, the DON stormed up to me while I was eating lunch in my car.
She was in her pajamas, so I knew she wasn’t happy.
DON: “Why aren’t you in the hall? I’m getting phone calls about call lights not being answered!”
Me: “I’m on my lunch break.”
DON: “You can’t leave the hall unattended!”
Me: “According to the in-service AND the write up that YOU made me sign, I have to take a lunch break whether I’m the only aide on the hall or not, AND I’m not allowed to eat in front of the residents, so I can’t be in there.
We’re also not allowed to work while off the clock.”
When she realized the corner her rules back us into, she practically short-circuited. She wasn’t even making words anymore. She looked around and saw two other CNAs eating in their cars. These ladies were kind of sassy and weren’t going to take any nonsense from her, so she didn’t even bother.
She stormed into the building, and I didn’t see her again until my lunch break was over.
She apparently answered the call lights in her pajamas.
For anyone that is curious, the call lights that she answered were for little things like a resident who was on a fluid restriction wanting water or wanting their tv turned to a channel that the tv was already on.
Those were the only two lights that were on according to my nurse. The DON was furious that she had to drive down there to answer those lights since they didn’t even need anything.
Welcome to CNA work, jerk!
The next day, we had a new in-service that said we can take our lunch in the break room, and they put a sad excuse of a blind on the glass door of the break room.
They also put a sign on the break room that said: “Staff Only.” This didn’t stop residents from going in it, though. The in-service also said that if there is only one aide on the hall, that aide can not leave the hall unless they find another aide to watch it while they’re gone.
Sadly, she didn’t stop bothering the nurses.
I know some people would think we went too far with our compliance, but they were threatening termination for eating in front of the residents and for not taking a lunch break. I was suspended for three days before this compliance for not taking a lunch break, so there was nothing left to do but malicious compliance.
The DON and the administrator of the facility kissed up hardcore to the residents, which is why we had stupid rules like that.
Thankfully, both of them are gone. I was told by the next DON that the write-up and suspension would not be on my record, and they paid me for the 3 days I missed because there was no wrongdoing.”
12. Customers Might Get Mad Though
“So, the situation I’m about to describe is from a food service job that I no longer work at.
I absolutely loved it at the time and was pretty good at it (since I got promoted from regular crew to HR manager and 3rd in charge of the store within like a year).
I ended up quitting due to some issues with the GM, but that’s neither here nor there.
At the time of this story, I was a manager in training and knew my way around the store very well. I had the respect of my coworkers and of customers and got along with pretty much everyone.
My specialty at the time was working the drive-thru
I was working back at the first drive-thru window, which we called back booth, where the worker confirms the drive-thru order and collects payment.
We had recently been told by franchise management that we don’t ask customers if they want a receipt; we just hand it to them, and they have the ability to refuse it.
Seems harmless enough, but in this case, it would have helped the situation. A side note: while most people took orders and cashed out drive-thru one at a time, I was able to do both simultaneously to cut down on time.
A customer comes through in a large diesel truck, which anyone who’s worked drive-thru will know, can cause issues with hearing the order. This guy had to shout over his truck what he wanted and then pulled ahead before I could confirm his order.
When he got to the window, he pulled out his card and handed it to me before I could confirm again.
As I was taking another order, I quickly walked him through his order and total while I was swiping his card, then continued to take another order as I handed him his card and receipt.
He grabbed the card, but not the receipt, and continued to the next window. As this was common, I simply threw away the receipt to prevent clutter.
Apparently, I entered one of his items wrong, and he called later to complain, and specifically said, “If she hadn’t been talking to someone else the whole time, maybe she would have been able to do her job!”
My manager, who knew how I worked and placed me in back booth for that reason, came back and let me explain the situation to him before judging.
He then said, “How about you try and do things one at a time? That way you won’t have any more complaints.”
A few things to note: 1- We all got complaints for stupid reasons because we can do things perfectly and still be wrong.
Cause that’s what people do. 2- Our company takes drive-thru time very seriously. If we went over, say, 150 seconds for a person to start an order to when they left our drive-thru, we weren’t being fast enough. 3- My manager knew both of those things and placed me in back booth because, frankly, I was the best.
I was able to multitask with little to no error, and therefore, extremely decreased our drive-thru times.
But you know what? I said fine.
I wasn’t going to argue during a busy weekend lunch period, so I just did as he said. I would take an order, then confirm, and complete the order at my window, one at a time, without any crossover.
Our times tanked. We went from a happy 150-160 to over 400 with like 10 minutes. People began complaining left and right that their food was cold, they waited too long, why did they have to be parked for a 2 item order, etc.
And once the times tank, it’s near impossible to get them back up for a good 4-5 hours, especially on the weekends.
My manager came back and looked at me. I maintained eye contact with him as I took a large order, then felt him watch me as I carefully went over an even larger order at my window to confirm and pay.
I then looked over at him and said, “You said to do them one at a time” with a big smile.
Him, being a guy with a great sense of humor, just laughed and told me to shut up and do my job.
The times went down pretty quickly after that.
No regrets.”
11. Make A Big Deal About Overtime? I'll Forward Your Little E-mail
Be careful with your words and even more careful with the medium you choose to say (or type) them through.
“I was hired as an inspector, which was an hourly job. Overtime pay and overtime were common but involved management to approve.
Management needed to approve as there were many inspectors on standby, and if they could just have another inspector continue at the start of the next shift, they wouldn’t need to pay overtime, which was fair.
Overtime decisions were made by the team leader, supervisor, scheduler, or project manager.
I was working at a client site.
It was around 2:50 pm when the client walks on the floor and asks for the progress. I let him know that I am done with 95% of the work, and the remaining 5% should be completed the next day.
He then asks me if I could complete the remaining 5% today by staying overtime.
I let him know that I could and that it actually needs approval.
Now, this guy was from the same country as I was from, and we got along well.
He says I have his approval, and if any of the supervisors, project manager, or anyone needs to hear it from him, he can let them know that I have approval.
I say thank you, and he walks away.
This client facility is huge, and the area I was working in had bad cell phone reception. I try calling, texting the other management that I was doing overtime. One text goes through to a supervisor, who doesn’t reply back, but I knew he would be cool with it.
(I couldn’t walk out of the facility or to a different area as walking out means I need to check out of security and walk about 7-8 minutes to get there, and then go back inside checking into the security and walk back 7-8 minutes.
Walking to a different area kind of meant abandoning my post, which was frowned upon by the client and reported to my management – so was taking untimely breaks.)
Me being a team leader myself had the authority to make that decision.
Me being the only person on-site doing that job also meant I was acting Supervisor. So, I decided to complete the job which took me 25 minutes of overtime.
This was Friday.
On Monday, I was scheduled to a different client alongside the supervisor whom I had texted.
(The supervisor came from a different site and joined me a few hours later.)
A couple of hours into the shift, when my hours were processed, and I sent the end of project email with all the reports and hours billed, I start getting nasty-grams from my project manager as to who approved the overtime and who did I contact and all.
(This is in the same email chain as the end of project report to the customer: The project manager removed the customer from the email chain before sending me those nasty-grams.)
My supervisor who is setting up this stuff sees that I am uneasy and kind of scared as the project manager was angry with me and looking into what was going on.
In the email chain, I explain that I had verbal approval from the client.
Project Manager: “Verbal approval is like toilet paper; it gets flushed down the drain,” plus some stuff that basically says we can’t trust the client and that I should get written approval if not before at least afterward as soon as possible.
We were required to have all conversations with the client regarding a closed project in the same email chain so that all issues (if any) stay in one email chain which the management was copied on.
Since this happened on Friday at the end of the shift, technically Monday was “as soon as possible” per the request. So, I added the client back to the email chain and asked him to kindly send a written approval for the 25 minutes of overtime he requested.
Oh, and yes, I made sure I added the client replying back to the email from my PM where he said the toilet paper line. I also called the client to let him know about replying back to the email with the approval.
We were cool and kind of buddies at this point. He says he will, and we hang up.
10 minutes later, PM called me angrily saying he didn’t mean that I ask for the approval in the same email chain and all.
I explain I had approval and all, but the conversation just ended with him repeating his side and me repeating mine.
Meantime, I tell the supervisor what I did and we burst out laughing, with him saying he can’t believe it.
The client eventually replied back saying I had approval, and the chain went silent after that.
I get a call from HR that day saying I need to be aware of the email chain and what stuff is in it before adding customer, etc. That’s all.”
10. Fine, I'll Keep Bowling
“When I was younger and through my early-to-mid-adult years, I was an avid bowler. 200+ average back when that actually meant you were good (before the bowling ball technology boom, which comes into play here). And I worked at the local bowling center from the time I was 16 through 21 or so and then again later on in my early 20s, working the back (pinsetters), front of the house, etc., so knew how things operated, what could go wrong, etc.
I was bowling at a different center one day. The first frame, after each shot, my ball came back with a small nick out of it. Nothing major, but yeah… So I put that ball away and brought out an old ball that I never use but was in one of my bags.
Next 2 or 3 shots, another nick each time… 4th frame, it finally came back with a fairly large chunk taken out of it. Usually, that means there is a nail or a screw that has worked its way loose, and the ball is catching on it, or a piece of metal has broken near the ball lift and is cutting into it.
I take the ball up to the counter and tell the manager and show him what had happened.
Now, I was only 4 frames into the game and said I would move, and he said no; they couldn’t move me as they had a party coming in and no lanes available. He said just keep bowling, and the pro shop will repair the ball.
I asked if he was sure, he said yup, he will go in and tell them to fix it and the center would pay for it (most pro shops are individually owned and operated, the owner rents the space from the center; this was no exception).
Now, having done simple pro shop work, I know for a fact there is no way it can be fixed if I keep bowling with it and this keeps happening.
One gouge can be repaired fairly easily as long as it is not in the track of the ball (The track is the contact point where your ball rolls down the lane, so anything in that line just can’t be fixed and will throw off the ball as it rolls since it can’t be perfectly rounded back.
Depending on the core of the ball and how you throw it, the track can be 3-4 inches wide as the ball flares going down the lane). But massive multiple gouges all over the place? Nope.
So I keep bowling, 2 or 3 games, knowing that I am getting a new bowling ball out of this.
Of course, the huge chunks keep coming out of the ball. I get finished. and there probably isn’t a 2 inch by 2-inch section of the ball that isn’t damaged. I take the ball into the pro shop, and the conversation goes:
Pro shop guy: “What happened to this ball? Did it get hung up in the pinsetter or something?”
Me: “The lane I was on damaged it each time I threw it.
The manager said you would fix it.”
Pro shop guy: “Why did you keep bowling? I can’t fix this..”
Me: “The manager told me to keep bowling after I showed him the first gouge.”
Pro shop guy then calls in the manager of the center.
Pro shop guy: “I know you said he was bringing in a damaged ball, but did you tell him to keep bowling after you saw the damage?”
Center Manager: “Yeah, we couldn’t move him, so I told him to just bowl out his games, and you would fix it.”
Pro shop guy: “I can’t fix this.
You are going to have to replace his ball.”
Manager: “What? (A bunch of arguing back and forth about why it can’t be fixed, the ball I have they don’t carry, etc.)
“Fine, replace it with anything on the wall except for the X-Calibur” (The X-Calibur was almost 50% more expensive than regular bowling balls.
It was the first reactive resin ball on the market. Reactive resin is a compound that made the ball hook MUCH, MUCH more than a traditional urethane ball. It revolutionized the game..and ruined it according to some since it allowed average/below average bowlers to suddenly improve drastically due to not having to be anywhere near as accurate and took a lot of the skill from the game, but I digress.)
Me: “So I can pick any ball other than the X-Calibur, and you will pay for it, drilling and all?”
Manager: “Yes.”
Me: “Ok, thanks!”
Manager leaves.
Me: “Can I have store credit for that ball on the wall, but then apply it to the X-Calibur, and I will pay the difference?”
Pro shop guy: “Sure, we can do that.”
And proceeds to measure my hand and drills the ball, and I pay like 40 bucks for what was then between a $150-$200 ball that I could not have afforded at the time.
Bowled my 2nd ever 300 game with it less than a month later and won 2 center tournaments with it.
That ball paid for itself 10x over in the first two months.”
Another User Comments:
“Did you find out what exactly it was doing to the ball? I mean what was doing it?” Prestigious_Gold_585
Reply:
“Nah, they shut that lane down, though.
Whenever I saw it happen from working at a bowling center, it was always either a screw head that had worked its way out of somewhere (could be in the ball return underneath which was wood and screwed together), something broken and sticking out to where the ball lift made the ball come in contact with it (the ball lift is the wheel that gets the ball from the pit up into the ball return so that it comes back to the bowler).
This was a WAY worse situation than I have ever seen, though. It was literally happening every ball.” Swiftraven
9. I Stopped Saving The Company Funds
“Several years ago, I worked for a government contractor and traveled extensively.
Usually, it was for meetings in godforsaken places, but sometimes it was somewhere cool or to spend time on a ship (sometimes both). For one such ship ride, I was to board an aircraft carrier in Japan, sail to Guam, and get a flight from the ship to the island before flying home.
If you’ve never been a non-essential passenger on an aircraft carrier, you don’t get a departure time when you’re planning your trip. You get a departure window of several days, and you only get to know for sure the day before your flight.
So, I knew a range of dates that I might arrive in Guam. The plan was to book a hotel for all four nights, and until we knew we were flying the next day, to just push the reservation back before the deadline.
Once we had the date, we would move our flights home to the next day to only spend one night in a hotel.
My boss made his reservation at a Day’s Inn while we discussed this plan in his office. He said it was the only hotel on our travel site that was within the per diem limit, so I should book soon.
By the time I was at my desk, the last room was gone, and the only hotel available through our corporate travel site was a junior presidential suite at a pricey beach resort that ran somewhere around a luxurious $1,400 per night.
I looked around budget travel sites and direct booking with a few hotels, but there was a major fleet exercise happening around the island and hotels were packed.
There were even rumors that they would set up tents on unused airstrips to house all the marines coming in.
I told our travel department all of this and proposed that I book an Airbnb with the caveat that I would have to pay for all four nights, even if I only stayed for one, but that it would still be a thousand dollars cheaper than one night at the only hotel available.
My proposal was raised to the head of the travel department who wrote back rather aggressively that if I booked an Airbnb, I would only be reimbursed for the night I actually stayed there and that I would not be reimbursed at all if I booked the expensive hotel.
My instructions were to call our travel office when I landed, and they would find whatever was available and that a room within the per diem rate would surely become available.
Fast forward to landing in Guam. The first call I made was to change to the next possible flight home, but I had missed the last one of the day, so I called the travel office.
Of course with my luck, the person who answered was new (and by new, I mean she had started while I was on the ship). She looks it up and says there are no rooms available. I told her I was pretty sure there was one room available, and she replied, “Well, yes, but it’s way over the per diem rate.” I explained everything and told her to ask the head of her department and that he knew the situation.
After a long hold, she came back and said that I had a couple of options. I could search around by myself for an Airbnb that was within per diem, see if my boss would let me stay in his room on a cot, or she could book the suite, and I would be reimbursed in full, so…
On my expense report, I made a special note that I had no transportation expenses to get to the airport in Guam because my hotel room came with a private car.
The only fallout was that they got very picky about my expense reports for a while. I was a pretty by-the-book business traveler, so it usually wasn’t an issue, but one time, a hotel I booked was one cent per night over the per diem limit, so they rejected my entire expense report.
I filled out a new one (it was a terrible online system, so I couldn’t just edit the old one), explaining that I would pay the excess out of pocket (in line with policy). I also forwarded the rejection email to my boss, CCing the head of travel and asking which budget code I should charge for the half-hour it took to rectify this $0.04 mistake. (You don’t need to know my hourly rate to know that it cost the company substantially more than 4 cents.) He gave me his managerial budget, and funny enough, they stopped questioning my expenses after that.”
8. Since You Won't Let Me Stay Later, I'll Leave You During A Rush
“This is a story from about 6 years ago back when I worked as a waitress.
The summer between grades 11 and 12, I worked at a small family-owned restaurant about a 20-minute drive from my house. I lived fairly middle of nowhere, so this restaurant and 2 others served basically the whole county.
So, even during the dead time of winter, we were often busy. But, we’re also directly on a path from a big city to a large lake, so we’re especially busy in summer.
The people that ran the restaurant were a married couple.
The wife, Sandra, was generally lovely, but the husband, Marvin, had a very short temper. I think I can count the number of times he talked to me without yelling on one hand.
I picked up on the job easily enough. I’m very extroverted and friendly, so a lot of the customers loved me.
Sandra decided to train me to do the opening shift at the restaurant.
She would stay in the back and help me with prep and other things as I got used to the setting. Marvin was against this from the onset, saying I wasn’t there long enough to be taking on this commitment.
This malicious compliance took place about midway through June. After two weeks with Sandra helping me out, she stops coming by, so I was there with a singular cook until lunch when I got relieved by another staff member.
It just so happens that the next few weeks were going to be gorgeous weather, so my first week without Sandra, we get slammed.
The waitress that relieves me, Bonnie, is my senior. So, as Sandra and Marvin have told me, Bonnie can ask me to stay to help out, and it’s like them asking me to stay.
Bonnie asks me to stay and help out every day that week.
Marvin sees my time clocked in and out and freaks out, saying he knew I wasn’t trained enough and that I was using that excuse to get more hours (even though I was getting 25+ every week and had a second job).
I knew better than to say anything back, and then he told me I wasn’t allowed to stay past my time anymore. I confirm with him that, no matter what, I shouldn’t stay past my time. He yells that, unless he or Sandra specifically tell me to stay, I can’t stay past my time.
I smile and tell him no problem.
So, I’m opening all of next week, and like the week before we’re slammed.
It looks like there’s going to be no reprieve as my time to clock out comes. I tell Bonnie I’m leaving, and, like usual, she asks me to stay.
I shrug and said Marvin told me explicitly I couldn’t take her word for asking me to stay. Bonnie is angry. She agrees that I can leave, and she phones Sandra and Marvin. Sandra phones me and asks me if I can come back, but I’m already at home at this point, and I refuse.
So, she and Marvin have to leave their house to go help out.
I come into work the next morning to open, and both Sandra and Marvin are there. Marvin starts yelling at me about how I just left when it was so busy.
And I calmly remind him I was told to leave unless he or Sandra specifically requested it. He’s grumpy and says I should know what he meant. So, I ask if I can take the relieving waitstaff’s word for asking me to stay.
He disagrees, and instead, I have to phone him before I leave. Sandra starts arguing with him, saying that’s ridiculous and to just let us make the judgment call as we’re the ones out there and know what’s happening. But Marvin is sticking to his guns, and Sandra just rolls her eyes and walks away.
So, obviously, here comes malicious compliance part two. I phone him at the end of every one of my shifts, even when I have to close, or it’s dead.
I always said I just wanted to be sure this time since he was so upset last time.
This lasts for a little over a week before he finally gives up and says it’s fine if I or another waitstaff make a judgment call to stay past the time if it’s busy.”
7. Extra Spicy And Extra Well Done? Can Do!
Their taste buds must be a little… twisted.
“So, quite a number of years ago, I worked at a large pizza chain. The one with the red roof.
Every Tuesday evening, a group of 12 people would come in to eat usually within 30 minutes of closing time.
They would order 1 large vegetarian pizza with hot peppers and ask for the pizza to be well done. They would also ask for chilies on the side.
You might think, ok, what is wrong with that? Well, a large pizza would be cut into 12 pieces.
This group would come in, take up a large space, only have water, order the one pizza, each person would have one slice, leave a mess, and then not tip.
They started asking for more hot peppers and complaining that the pizza wasn’t spicy enough.
They also started sending the pizza back to be cooked more (it was already pretty dark).
Well, one day, they sent the pizza back, but this time asked for it to be remade not just cooked more.
At this point, it was 15 minutes to closing.
I had cleaned everything and was pretty much finishing up my shift. Of course, the manager has to appease the customers.
So, I start making them another pizza.
They want it spicy? Let’s give them spicy. I added a coating of chilies to the tomato sauce.
I covered it with toppings and added lots of hot peppers. They want it well done? Fine, let’s put it through the oven twice. (It was a conveyer belt oven. Normally well done is put in the oven 1.5 times.)
This thing came out dark and just smelled spicy.
I cut the pizza and give it to the waitress.
I’m now waiting to get an ear full after the customer complains, all prepared with my reasoning that I’m making what the customer asked for.
I finish my shift, and the manager calls me over.
Turns out, the customer did ask to speak to a manager… The customer said it was the best pizza they have had since they started coming, and it was just how they wanted it. They asked if it could be made this way each week and left a nice tip.”
Another User Comments:
“Good, win-win all around.
I had a very similar situation where we had a customer always complain there wasn’t enough X on their dessert pizza. I added so much to prove a point that I didn’t think anybody would let it out. So, I made sure to make it and box it up for the driver.
They called, and sure enough, they said it was the best one they’ve ever had and to always do it that way.” PogueEthics
6. Treat Me Like The Least Important Person In The Office? I'll Stop Hounding You To Get Things Done
“My Dad is a CPA. A total boomer. An awful boomer. He was exempted from serving in Vietnam for medical reasons (rare bone disease), and has zero sympathies for Vietnam Vets who “haven’t gotten their life together already.” He thinks mental illnesses (including PTSD) are made up, and anyone who succumbs is “weak.”
For example, I have bipolar, and anyone who knows anything about it knows that I should take my meds as prescribed for the rest of my life.
To him, that means I’m an addict and deserve no respect.
His office and mind are absolutely chaotic. Things are lost, shuffled under stuff. “Where’s that file?” was one of the most common questions asked by any staff. Dad would have the whole office stop to look for an important file for a coworker who swears she gave it to him, but he has no recollection of that happening.
Guess where I find the file? On his desk, over by his adding machine, under a mountain of church charity brochures he’d just ordered.
His email… wow. If I told you he, at any given time, had over 3,000 unread emails, would that surprise you? Most of them were spam or “100 days of prayer” stuff, but there were important emails going unchecked.
Especially anything I sent him because nothing about me was important enough to even warrant a glance.
The worst part of him making me feel useless was the fact that I was the only one who would notice something like “we’re running out of stationery” and try to order some, only to be told to wait, and have to bring it up multiple times until we’re down to our last 2 pieces and the cheapskate is photocopying our stationery because “no one will notice or care.”
From office supplies to maintaining our ability to e-file, to arranging everyone’s continuing education for the year (always done Dec 28-30 in a panic), calling vendors to keep our equipment running, cranking out tax returns he should have done already while the clients wait in the lobby to pick it up (I was never fast enough), to consoling or counseling coworkers on how to approach him regarding X, new software installation (yes there are people in their 20s-40s who don’t know how to install a disk, or open a file, and click “run”)…
I was running myself ragged for the good of his company, but anything I had to say was immediately disregarded.
Sorry about the previous run-on sentence. Don’t know how to structure it better and still give an idea of how broad my responsibilities were because no one else cared.
One thing he was a stickler about was saving copies of everything.
For example, in 2009 the IRS demanded a copy of a customer’s certain payroll tax form they claimed not to have received from 1996. We hadn’t even prepared the freaking thing, but we had a copy!
The paper got to be too much, and the filing cabinets in the attic were creating cracks in the ceiling.
We went paperless, and our extremely competent IT guy set us up with 3 backup systems. Since we by then had 2 offices, he had two 1TB hard drives that every 2 seconds, exchanged data, so if a tornado blew away a whole building, we’d still have everything from both buildings in the other building.
Another backup was kept in the cloud and another on a server in a state across the country.
One day, I had been yelled at once again until I started to cry, then was berated because of all the meds I’m taking because HE certainly didn’t do anything to make me that emotional.
“Either go home and cry or shut up and do your job.” And if he had to remind me of something, it was because I was on meds and not because he gave me 27 things to do standing in my office while I was clearly eating on my lunch break.
On January 5 one year, I got an email from our IT Guy (who had CC’d Dad but knew to include me) that our 1TB backups had enough space to last maybe 2 days and that he could upgrade us in time to prevent disaster.
I called over to Dad (our offices were adjacent, and our voices carry) that IT Guy sent a really important email. Dad replies, “Uh-huh” in a way that tells me he’s not paying a bit of attention to what I was saying.
So I forwarded my email to him and changed the subject to “URGENT-IMPORTANT-PENDING DISASTER.” And gave him no further reminders after that.
(Not my job. I was supposed to shut up, remember?)
So he didn’t read either email. Even with my subject line, my email didn’t strike him as one he should read.
On January 8th, everything hit the fan. We lost everything. Our IT guy dropped everything and got everything up to Dec 27th from the cloud backup.
The server in the other state said it would cost a $7000 “rush fee” and 3 weeks to fully restore everything the way it was.
Well, W2s and numerous payroll reports, sales tax filings, and other government deadlines occur in January. So we didn’t have 3 weeks.
My coworkers had to redo or reconstruct everything they’d done from December 27 to January 8, which was a LOT. Anything we had completed, scanned, and shredded was gone.
A major audit was underway, and several crucial spreadsheets had disappeared. The worker that had prepared them did so on his last 2 days before moving to another firm, December 26 & 27.
All in all, our IT guy was paid about $12,000 to spend three 14-16 hour days (one was his Sabbath) rescuing what he could.
Over $10,000 in overtime pay. And we still had missing stuff.
This was concerning to clients affected because to them “data loss” = “data breach.” Nobody would ever hack into our system because our IT Guy would consider it a personal failure if we were successfully hacked.
Our data was safe from everyone but dad.
Dad never suspected me of anything. Had I pointed out that I had reminded him only once, since he thought I should only have to be told something once, he would have berated me for “sabotaging” the firm.
While he wouldn’t listen to me, it was my job to make sure he did his job? Don’t think so.
End of malicious compliance.
Eventually, the harassment became too much, and I had a nervous breakdown and quit. I do food delivery for a living because something in me is broken, and I don’t think I could hold down a real job anymore.
However, my mental health has vastly improved since I left that place.
And before all the comments start about what a nightmare of a CPA office this must be, they are all like that. The coworker who quit in December came back to us the next year and said that even with $10,000 CRM software supposedly tracking workflow at the 3rd largest firm in our state, “Where’s the so-and-so file?” was the #1 question on a daily basis, and they spent as much time looking for stuff as they did doing actual work. Every worker we’ve had with previous experience working for another CPA agreed that files got lost All. The. Time.”
5. Okay, I Won't Help You Since You Want To Be Cocky
“I worked in a pharmacy dedicated to sending medications to nursing homes. Since this is often difficult to do just by hand, there were machines that could help out. I often helped use the machines to package the meds.
A new coworker joined my team.
She was pleasant enough, but for some reason, I could not tell you, even to this day, I hated her on sight. Apparently, the feeling was mutual, though we were able to work together cordially enough.
Since the machines, while super useful, were also prone to breaking down, a lot of manual intervention was required to ensure smooth operation.
Since it’s a pharmacy, we also had to keep track of the medications being used on it (which means counts, often done nightly, particularly with more expensive medications).
This information is relevant.
I had been at this job for a few years, so I was reasonably experienced with the use and maintenance of the machines.
My coworker wasn’t. This is also where I point out that my coworker is older than me.
So, my coworker had been at the job a few weeks and had received some training, so my boss at the time told me that it’d be okay for her to shadow me while I worked but also to make sure she did some of the work on her own, so she’d learn via hands-on experience.
This also meant I couldn’t leave until my coworker did since she hadn’t been given the go-ahead to be alone with the machine. Goody.
It went more or less okay for the majority of the shift. I let my coworker do some of the work, as ordered by my supervisor, and she seemed to be getting it.
However, for some reason, she wasn’t relying on the computer, which had kept track of all the medications used (and their corresponding slots) to do the nightly count.
Instead, she was literally writing down every single slot and medication by hand, to count later.
“Coworker,” I said, “you know the computer keeps track of that–”
“I know it does, YarnAndMetal, but I don’t seem to get how to do it!”
This is toward the end of the shift.
My nerves were fried from having to deal with her, and I was tired.
“You do it like THIS, Coworker.”
(shows her)
“I don’t get it, YarnAndMetal, so I’m just going to do it by hand. You younger people don’t seem to have a problem with computers, but I do! Let me do it by myself!”
People. The process to see what had been used was literally two clicks of a mouse button.
I had shown her once at the start of our shift. Our supervisor had shown her during initial training. Another coworker had shown her while she was training.
I. Was. DONE.
So, I let her do exactly what she wanted. I let her write down every canister by hand, every med by hand, and let her count by hand.
I even offered, as a show of good faith, to help with the counting, but again, “NO, YarnAndMetal, I’ll do it! Let me do it by myself!”
Fine.
As a result, we ended up leaving an hour after our shifts were supposed to end.
That’s an hour of OT that we hadn’t been authorized to take, for the record.
The next day, my supervisor asks me why I’d stayed so late last night, so I told her very honestly that my coworker didn’t want my help finishing out the necessary counts last night.
My supervisor, being what she was (yes, my wording there is deliberate), immediately went and ripped my coworker a new one.
The day after, my coworker didn’t come in. We all found out she’d quit, effective immediately.
Good riddance, I guess.
BONUS AFTERMATH: I also found out the day after I had to stay so late that the counts my coworker did were wrong.
All of them.”
Another User Comments:
“At one job I had when I was younger, I was showed to click 5 links on a slow laggy internet to input the data for the job we did. I copied the link to the page we went to, and created a desktop shortcut to go directly to the page, and renamed it to something useful. I was told I’m doing it wrong. And now they have to redo everything because I don’t know what I’m doing.” liquidklone
4. I'll Bug IT For A Minor Issue If You Insist
“This is currently happening, and it’s both frustrating and a lesson to those who may be looking to start a company with strict password requirements.
So, I work in a company that handles personal financial info. Due to this and the thing we all know is happening to force most of us to work from home, my company has become security-focused bordering on the ridiculous.
One of the things that ISN’T very secure is the fact the password into our computers acts as a type of master password for everything from my email to my job-related websites and functions. I guess they do this to make it easier on IT, but my spine itches when I think about it.
Whatever, not my circus.
Well, recently, the CEO decided to push a mass password update across all computers, both in-office and out. Last week, I was randomly kicked from the system due to this password requirement and, while annoying as it messed up my flow, I just shrugged and plugged in a new password.
Everything gets updated to the new password and works perfectly.. except for the company’s business messenger program.
This program is only there so those with access to it can message those in the company with “work-related” (spoiler: it’s never work-related) issues or concerns.
You know, the very thing your work email can accomplish very well with less than half the issues.
The main reason that my management staff wants to have us on it (but will never admit to it) is because the messenger is set up to automatically kick you into idle status if your computer doesn’t sense movement for 5 minutes.
Basically, it’s a very anal sleep mode function that also keeps time for how long your idle and announces that time to anyone who scrolls over your name.
Normally, this isn’t a big issue as even before WFH people would need bathroom breaks or a quick snack, except currently, my workplace is dealing with a massive wave of new work as the current economic climate is causing everyone and their mothers to suddenly want their financial history spotless and in perfect order.
Huge workload = pressure on management = suddenly everyone’s manager is very strict about your production. It suddenly becomes mandatory to ALWAYS be logged into the messenger while on the clock.
That leads us back to the password change and messenger no longer working.
I shoot an email to my manager letting her know my messenger is down so she knows why, and I go back to work. I think, “Whatever, it’s not important to my job, so they probably won’t have me worry until crunch is over.”
Nope.
I get an email back asking me to call our IT number. The problem is, as you can imagine, our IT has been swamped since March as they suddenly had 1,000+ employees suddenly applying to WFH (I got lucky as I’m pretty decent with computers and could do the transfer without them walking me through it, so I was out of office by early April), and they had been dealing with staffing issues even before it became a hazard for all 3 of them to be in an office the size of a closet.
It’s also a problem as they can no longer pop into the elevator to come to visit me, but it now takes remote logging into my computer, trial, and error, then seeing what sticks.
As an example, the last time I called them, it was due to my mic not working on the program that they wanted us to use to train new hires.
In the past, this would have maybe been a 20-minute fix. Now, fixing it took over 2 hours.
Cue me frantically emailing the manager why I didn’t need to do that/why it was a bad idea and her firing back with, “Company says it’s mandatory to be logged on.” Cue me putting it off till today as the response of “call IT” came late on Friday, and I was desperately hoping it would end up being a “time will fix it” issue.
(Yes, I know that’s stupid, but I was desperate, ok?) Cue me getting an email from management a few hours after clocking in telling me I had to get this issue fixed.
FINALLY, cue malicious compliance (thank you to those who stuck around).
I shrug my shoulders, close down my work, and dial up IT on my phone. I get an answering machine and leave my details, secretly hoping they are too swamped to get to me. They call back an hour later, and it goes as follows:
IT: We got a message you can’t log in to (insert messaging program name) due to a password issue?
Me: Yeah, that password update last week forced me to update my password, and I did.
Everything else transitioned to the new one fine except for the program.
IT: Ok, should be an easy fix. Can I get your computer ID number?
Me: Ah. Yeah, see I’m working from home on a personal laptop, so..
IT: Hm, ok, no problem.
I’ll just need you to walk me through the steps to let me remote into my laptop.
Cue about 45 minutes of trial and error, trying different passwords and email combos, awkward silences broken by the occasional muffled curse on his end, and him needing to unlock my account every 5 minutes due to security locking my account-
IT: Ok..
Good news is I figured out what happened. Basically, during the forced password update, your messenger used the wrong username and updated with the new password, causing a mix-up that I’ve fixed with a new password.
He gives me a new password.
Me: Ok, sweet. So, bad news?
IT: The bad news is as everything is connected, I had to change your password for everything to the new one… and it can take at least an hour for the new password to be recognized, and it might not work the first time.
Me: -silence as it slowly dawns on me-
IT: -sighing- I’ve already sent a transcript of this to your manager and the floor manager. I suggest trying the new password to see if something stuck faster, and if it doesn’t work in an hour, call us back.
We hung up, and I tried the new password, and nope! It’s not been updated yet, and for “security reasons,” my old one is no longer accepted. I get a call from my manager asking about the email she just got, and I give her the quick version.
She demands I try the new password. I do, still nothing. She asks again. Nothing. She tells me she’s going to call IT and hangs up.
I get a call from my floor manager (my manager’s boss) asking why I haven’t worked anything in by now in what has been an hour.
I explain. She asks if I can come into the office. I tell her that A) I am not comfortable with that and B) even if I was, the password would still not work for my desktop.
She tells me she’s going to call IT.
So far, I haven’t gotten a callback, and I really hope the IT guy who called me went to lunch to avoid the nightmare my managers tried to drag him into. Meanwhile, I get to sit on my thumbs for at least an hour, then go on my legally scheduled lunch, and come back with the hope the password took effect.
If not, I call IT again and hope they answer.
The best part, I’m still getting paid as I cannot clock out, and they can’t require me to make up lost production as it’s been documented my manager requested me to do this (not the first time something like this has happened, and I’ve learned to document EVERYTHING).
Moral of the story to those looking to run a company: DON’T have stupid security methods that tie everything into one password.”
3. You Ordered It
Have it your way.
“My brother Jason, who started his first job, and not three days into it, met his first Karen and witnessed a really satisfying case of malicious compliance.
For background, he started his job at a popular pizza chain and was with three other employees: Alisha, Kaylie, and Jess, all three of whom were easy-going, young women who were showing him the ropes.
It was a busy day and in walks our future Karen. But at the time, she was seemingly nice and even left a small tip for the initial order – wings and a pizza.
Cut to about an hour later, she calls, and Jason is the one managing the phone.
She tells him that her pizza was completely “undercooked and disgusting, and it tastes as if someone has just poured an entire pile of butter on it.” And she demands a new pizza be delivered to her home for her for free.
Keep in mind that 1. She initially came in to pick up her first order, and 2 this pizza place has a delivery fee.
So, Jason, unsure what to do because it is his THIRD DAY, calls over his coworker, Jess, and they were talking about what to do for this situation.
And meanwhile, he is still on the phone, keeping her on hold, and Jess says to him that if she wants it, she’ll have to come back to the store to get it.
So, Jess goes to start the pizza, and Jason informs Karen that they were not able to deliver, but they still were able to honor her request.
Her last words before hanging up were a snippy, “Fine. I’ll go there and I’ll make a scene.” Yikes.
Jason informs Jess of what she said, and she takes the pizza that almost went in the oven and throws it right away.
“I’m not making that jerk her pizza.” Way to go, Jess.
Out walks the shift leader, Kaylie, who asks why Jess threw away that pizza. Jason catches the shift leader up to speed, and Kaylie just sorta shrugs it off.
Cut to another hour later, Karen comes storming in with her previous box of pizza in hand, slightly more in disarray than she previously had been.
Jason says, knowing who she is, “Hi, how can I help you?”
“Hi, I’m here for my pizza.”
Kaylie steps in at the moment and asks, “Are you the woman from the phone?”
“Of course! Look at this,” she says haughtily, and opens the pizza box, revealing the already half-eaten cheese pizza that didn’t have anything wrong with it.
Kaylie responds, “I don’t care. Did you threaten my employee?”
Clearly taken aback by this “accusation,” Karen exclaims in self-defense, “No, of course not! No one threatened anyone.”
“Okay. Well, he says otherwise.”
Karen insists she did nothing wrong, “I said my pizza was undercooked and calmly asked for a new one.”
Jason shakes his head, “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but that’s not what you said.”
Karen, now being caught in a lie for some reason now says, “I wasn’t even the one who called!”
Alisha steps in and then pulls Jason over to the side while Kaylie and Karen continue, and says, “Alright, we’re just gonna pretend to do something and listen in on this.”
Karen’s final words on the matter before Kaylie gives in to end up remaking her pizza are, “My kids are starving! This is not acceptable!” And so they begin to make her pizza.
Karen complained it was underdone, so they are extra careful to be sure the crust was burnt and hard.
She complained that it was too much garlic on the crust. So, they place none on and leave it bland for her. No oil is in sight.
When they give her the pizza, Jason smiles, she opens it and sees the disaster of a pizza, looks up with disgust, realizes she’s not going to win against four young people who refuse to be treated like garbage by customers, and leaves in defeat.
She calls corporate, so she’s heard. But nothing will probably come of it. Hope your starving kids enjoyed the wings that you didn’t bring in.”
2. I'll Tell You About My Bathroom Troubles Since You're So Interested
“About 6 months ago, I got a small dog bite and had to get antibiotics for it.
One of the side effects was diarrhea, and that caused me to have to be in the restroom quite a lot at work. The diarrhea was an embarrassing medical condition that caused me to be on the toilet throughout the day.
I had just walked out of the restroom to come face to face with my manager who was on her way to the back. As soon as she saw me, she stopped dead in her tracks.
Manager: “Why are you always in the restroom? Whenever I’m looking for you, they always say you’re in the restroom.
Why is that?”
Me: “Uh, it’s just a… something medical.”
Manager: “Well, you didn’t bring us a doctor’s note. You can’t be in the restroom all the time. You know how busy we get. So, what’s going on?”
Me: “It’s kind of embarrassing, and I don’t really want to tell you.”
Manager: “You have to tell me.”
Me: “Please, I really don’t want to say it.”
Manager: “If you don’t tell me right this second why you’re always in the bathroom, I’m going to have to write you up.”
This manager is always on my case for some reason.
Whenever we’re working together, my tension is always increased because I know she’s going to critique me for something or another. And her berating me outside the restroom in front of some of the customers really rubbed me the wrong way, so I thought, “She wants to know, so I’m going to tell her.”
Me: “Okay, it’s an anal fissure.
It’s a small tear in the lining of the anus. When I sweat, it irritates it and causes it to itch. It sometimes gets itchy while I’m working, so I go into the restroom to clean it out.”
My manager just stood there, staring at me in shock for a few seconds. I could only guess that she was trying to process what I had just said.
Manager: “Okay, well, you… you’re…”
Then she continued to make her way into the back.”
1. Speaking Nothing But The Truth
“During my school days, I was too naive, innocent, or stupid – whatever you prefer. I could never understand the real intentions of a person, and thus, I usually followed whatever I was told to do as I understood it.
I took admission at a new school in Grade 6 in the middle of the session due to my father’s transfer.
I finished my admission test early. While I was waiting for someone to come and collect my paper, I started doodling on the extra sheet of paper I had. A cute teacher was sitting and checking notebooks. So, I drew her head hidden behind a pile of notebooks.
A teacher (who turned out to be my math teacher later) came to collect my paper.
He asked me what I was doing. I told him that I was drawing the lovely teacher. He asked me if the principal was sitting in the teacher’s place, would I draw her too? He had a friendly smile on his face.
Since I didn’t mean to insult the teacher, I said, “Sure, if that’s not against the rules here.”
The teacher collected my answer sheet along with the extra sheet I was doodling on. I don’t know what he told the teacher and the principal, but apparently, there was a great furor over my admission.
I had got all the answers correct, but I was considered rude, disrespectful, and a rebel.
I and my parents came to know about it later through another teacher (who was my father’s friend’s daughter) at the same school. I somehow got the seat with a few conditions.
The principal told my parents that if I proved to be disruptive in class, I will be kicked out of school. That was the first time I had faced such a situation because I was a quiet, obedient girl.
On the first day, I joined the class, the math teacher gave us a test.
One question was on a topic that I hadn’t studied before. I told him that I didn’t know the answer to that question, and since it was my first day, can I be excused from the test. He agreed. Then, as the class took the test, he sat down with me and asked me about what my parents did, how many siblings I had, where I lived, etc.
He kept talking to me for the entire class.
He went back to the teacher’s desk for only 5 minutes, and then, he asked everyone to submit their tests. I stood up and said that I haven’t done the test and do I need to turn mine in? He got enraged and asked me, “Why didn’t you do the test?”
I was puzzled.
I reminded him that I told him that I didn’t know one of the questions and that it was my first day and had asked his permission to be excused from the test.
He said he refused to give me any such permission.
He called my parents and took me to the principal’s office. He screamed at me and my parents with a red face and bulging eyes that I was trying to defy teachers on the very first day.
I was looking at him aghast.
My mom looked at me calmly and asked me what happened. I focused on her and told her everything that had happened in class – including how he kept asking umpteen questions to me throughout the class.
The teacher tried to disrupt me saying, “Speak the truth, girl.
Say the truth. Don’t invent lies.” I looked at him and said, “I am trying my best to say the truth, Sir.”
This happened 3-4 times until the principal told him to wait for me to finish what I have to say.
He told me to say the truth so many times that I searched my memory well and added questions that I had skipped earlier. I also came up with the story of what he did and said during my admission test.
My principal asked me if I had started doing the test before I sought my teacher’s permission to skip it. I answered in affirmative.
She asked me to run to the class and bring the test that I tore. I brought my diary which contained the sheet and the other page attached to it (that also came off automatically).
I was let off with a warning.
Later, there was an inquiry on the teacher, and it was found out that he had tried to bully many students with rich parents or parents with the least bit of power in the small city I lived in. Nothing happened to him though because he had many political connections to back him up.”
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