People Have Us Evil-Grinning With Their Malicious Compliance Revenge
14. No Longer Letting Your Workers Have Access To Email Over The Weekend? If That's What You Want
And that goes for all employees.
“The story starts with me and my company. I’m a 30-year-old businesswoman who works in an IT service in a bank space. I’m the girl for everything basically, but I’m a specialist for first-level support, administration, and backup, sometimes even networking.
Even though I’m not the head of my IT department, I basically had all the responsibilities of them, but unfortunately, my pay grade doesn’t reflect that at all. I think of my boss in my IT department as kinda lazy if not incompetent; he even brags about getting so much pay for basically doing nothing.
I have a 40-hour week, but since the whole IT department is my responsibility, I need to keep track of the servers and maybe problems that can occur 24/7. This is mostly done via email. When the server status gives out a warning or a failure, I will get notified, and then I’m fixing the problem over a remote desktop or going to the company itself (even in my free time).
I wouldn’t mind this, but I’m not getting paid for this, but on the other hand, I’m getting punished when something is going wrong.
My boss’s boss wasn’t that much better. Since it was a fancy bank, everyone should be in a suit the whole time, to let it look professional, best with a skirt and high heels.
The only problem is when you work in the first level of support, you need to do a lot of “behind the scenes” work, like slipping under the desk to do or repair cable management, doing work on the server rack, and doing lots of other activities that make you dirty.
You can imagine that this wore out my business clothes really, really fast, and not only that, they were so impractical and really made my work harder. So I changed my clothes to a comfy hoodie and work pants to fit the work I’m doing a bit better.
When my boss saw me, he was furious, demanding I can’t look like “a poor hobo” inside his bank. I told him that I demand work clothes for both occasions because they are expensive and get worn out quickly. He refused, and I wasn’t really happy about this.
One day, my boss’s boss (head of the whole company) called me.
He had a plan. He wanted to create “quiet hours,” which means he didn’t want his employees working on weekends to let them rest properly. (At first glance, you could say: Hey, that’s a nice idea.
Yeah… no, he just didn’t like to pay them for overtime because he got in some legal trouble with overtime paying in general. Not only that, some employees have strict deadlines and need extra time to get work done.)
To actively ensure nobody can work over the weekend, he wanted the following: “Please make sure NO ONE can access their emails and remote desktop over the weekend, no exceptions!”
Since we had a ticket system and were able to attach emails to tickets, I ask him to write an official work task. (This has two reasons. First, I like everything documented. Second, I have something to protect and secure myself if the task I was given is incorrect.
And it’s exactly this that saved me.)
So I was at my office desk again, thinking how to get the task done and what implication it will have and then… it was clear to me what it meant!
The email came from my boss with the task and indeed he wrote: “for EVERYONE, NO EXCEPTIONS.”
I was thinking to myself: Should I write them, the implications it would have? After thinking, I thought of how I am treated as a worker and I… decided against it.
I was working immediately on this task and made an automated process to block every access to emails from Friday 6 PM to Monday 6 AM.
The weekend came, and it was Saturday, and I was calm and relaxed because if you have not noticed by now, cutting down EVERYONE’s emails means, of course, that I don’t receive any updates on the servers. I can’t possibly work on it because my remote access is also cut, of course.
(If you think, “You could forward your work email address to your private address,” no I can’t because we have very strict data protection. Nothing is allowed to go out.) I’m happy!
It’s still Saturday, middle of the day. I’m cooking myself and my husband a nice meal, and my telephone rings; it’s my boss’s boss!
He talks with a stressed voice and told me that he can’t access his emails. I needed a second to process this, but I responded, “That doesn’t surprise me at all, since you ordered me to cut EVERYONE’s email access, without exceptions.” He was angry, very angry, and told me that this obviously doesn’t count for him.
I told him that he specifically told me that there are NO exceptions, and he stated EVERYONE. He then argued that this wasn’t how he phrased it, so I reread him his own email. After that, he was silent for a moment.
He noticed the flaw in his logic. I broke the silence and asked him, “Sir, if you still want access to your emails on the weekend, that’s no problem. Please send me a request via email, and I’ll work on it first thing on Monday.” A bit angry again, he replied that he wants to have it done immediately, and I calmly explained to him that I can’t do this since my remote access is also blocked, like he ordered. He hung up.
10 minutes later, he calls me again. He asks me calmly if I can fix the problem right now when he pays me for overtime. He also wants me to be available at any time (meaning I should receive my emails and be able to perform remote work) and that this will raise my pay grade by a lot.
I thought that this is the perfect opportunity. I agree to that condition and pay raise but only when my coworkers and I finally get work clothes. He agreed.
Since then, my work situation drastically improved and mostly only because I maliciously complied, well aware of the consequences of the given task.”
13. Force Us To Be In The Office On Independence Day? Then You Get To Pay For The Office Party
“So this starts on Monday, the 13th, as I receive an email from a VP not over my department, or Bad VP.
I am told that my team will be required on the 4th. I politely tell them no that our team has been scheduled this day off and people already have plans.
My team is the IT team and, as many of you know IT team gets shafted every time it can get shafted by any company.
So over the course of the week, I let my team know what is happening. I let them know I have been reaching out to higher-ups to fix it. I also tell them that if their plans are ruined, I will make it right at work.
Over the course of 3 meetings, it starts to look like things will not go my way. In response, I send an email to the CEO of the company. All of my higher-ups know I was going to do this and said I should do this as he is very family oriented and that he would not allow ANYONE to work on a national holiday.
Well, he is on vacation in the Bahamas until the 6th. But his assistant informed me he would look at this after he gets back. Repeatedly slams head into desk. So I tell everyone that it will be work from home and that we will be setting my cell phone as a priority in the call routing.
Meaning I would get most of the calls. To be honest, I was expecting almost zero calls. Especially since I was asked to send out a notification that IT support would cover the 4th of July. I never sent that email out.
A day later I was given another outrage. I was told in an email that my employees would be required to be at the office, and no one was allowed to work from home. They would be checking the door badge-ins to verify we were at the office.
I asked why in an email, and they said that they wanted to make sure no one was playing video games at work. We normally work from home about 2/3rd of the week and video game playing is a normal occurrence at work.
So I walked into the person’s office. After a very long conversation where she was losing the logic war with me, she told me that “It’s just IT, you guys don’t have lives.” No, I am not kidding you, this is exactly what they told me.
I reported this to my VP who said. “I will take care of this. It likely won’t be until after the 4th, so get creative.” I know this man well. We have worked together a long time and “Get creative” is code for corporate crappery.
I asked the person requiring us to be at the office if they cared if we had an office party. They said no, as long as it did not interfere with the call flow. Even suggested using my new company card to pay for it.
“Go wild.” Pro tip, never tell me to go wild.
At this point, it was Tuesday the 21st. I let everyone know what’s up, but that I have something planned. I asked who had things planned for that day.
Two people told me they were planning to shoot off fireworks with their family, but the rest were planning BBQs with friends.
I write up an email to the VP of my department and the Bad VP. I tell them all that I let everyone know.
We all were expected to work until 8 PM Monday. Per the conversation with the bad VP, I will be having an office party as a sort of sorry to the guys and gals who got shafted by this decision.
The bad VP replied again.
“Thank you for your understanding. Also yes I would expect an office party if I had to work on the 4th of July as well. So go wild and enjoy your time. Use your new company credit card if you need to cover a few expenses.
Also, I should not have to remind you or anyone else. No fireworks or adult beverages on company property.”
So now it is time to tell you about my office. See a while back, the IT team was moved from the main corp office and into a smaller building by itself.
It has a nice gaming break room, a decent-sized gym, and a full-on drink bar. Soft drinks mind you, no adult beverages at work. Out back is a big patio that crosses county lines as soon as you cross a small creek.
A creek that just so happens to have a footbridge over it, leading to an empty field.
I start making phone calls.
Monday, June the 25th
I call up everyone into an hour-early meeting that morning. I explain to them all that I will be making it right.
I asked everyone to invite their friends and family to the office. No supplies will need to be brought by anyone. I tell them all that this will be a dry event, but that I will be planning something for everyone.
I told them to expect all food to be provided and that they don’t need to bring anything unless they want to bring some fireworks. IE they won’t have to spend a dime.
The 4th comes and the entire day, we did absolutely no work.
No tickets, no calls came in. Well, 7 calls did come in but from the same person. The Bad VP. She was calling to make sure we were manning the phones. All of us were playing video games or watching movies.
6 PM rolls around and everyone was told that the food was ready.
People were expecting hot dogs, hamburgers, maybe a bratwurst or two. What they got was a full-on BBQ feast with pizza and other foods. There was smoked brisket, spare ribs, smoked sausage, smoked turkey, both kinds of tater salad, cole slaw, green beans with bacon and onion, potatoes au gratin, pizza from 2 different places, excellent hamburgers, and bratwurst hot dogs.
On the desserts side was cake, very good cookies, 4 different kinds of pies, and about 2 pounds of fudge.
Families, and friends started showing up at around 6-6:15ish. Some brought booze, but I told them they would need to leave that in their cars as I was not THAT crazy.
Some were not too happy about that but agreed as it was a free dinner for random strangers.
SO let me set the scene for you. I am out there with all calls routed to my cell phone, and everyone just having a good time.
We have a TON of people there just enjoying the fun night, chatting about random stuff, eating the food, and occasionally lighting off some sparklers or throwing firecrackers into the stream. (It’s not stocked and only 1 foot deep.)
My VP, not the bad VP mind you, showed up with his family and brought some water balloons for the kids… and manchildren.
Around 8:30ish it’s getting dark and people want to shoot off more than the simple sparklers and firecrackers we had been using. The VP over the IT dept had everyone cross the foot bridge, over the county line and off company property, mind you, and we set up a big wooden board using it as our launch pad.
We fired off what we had for an hour or two, and sort of just hang out for a little while. At around this time, people were tired and ready to head home. I told people to take home leftovers, within reason.
We all clocked out at 8 and no one left until about 10:30. The bad VP did call once more while we were out back at the party. It was 7:50 and she called asking for a status update. My exact words were.
“Well, you were the only one to call us today. The rest of us are on the back patio enjoying the 4th of July shindig.” She simply acted like my boss and said “As long as no booze or fireworks are on company property, I do not care.”
We ate roughly half of the food catered. The rest was taken home. A small group volunteered to stay behind to clean up including my VP. We had a funny conversation about how this will make waves with the bosses.
But he said he had my back and asked me how much this cost. I just gave him a sideways look which made him laugh.
Tuesday morning, I submitted the expense report to my VP. This email would inevitably make its way over to the bad VP and up the chain to the CIO of the company.
It would be a bad idea to give out the exact cost of the party, mind you, but I can tell you that because of this 4th of July party, new rules were put into place. Any expenses of 4k or more must be approved by the direct supervisor, VP over the department, and the full expense report must be sent to the financial department for review after the fact.
Hint, the party cost over 6k.
The BBQ was the most expensive part. I did not order from a low or mid-tier place. The place I ordered from has consistently been in the top ten in the DFW listing for the last 30 years.
I ate at that place so much that I made friends with the owner. The BEST bbq I have ever had.
The pies and cakes were custom-made by a bakery and the cookies were made by a boutique cookie place.
I had 10 12 packs of Dr. Pepper, Dr. Pepper Zero, Pepsi, and Pepsi zero. I bought 5 pepperoni, 5 sausage, 5 cheese, 2 Hawaiian, and 3 cheeseburger pizzas from one place, and nearly the same number from another place. Excluding the cheeseburger ones I subbed out those for a different specialty pizza from the other place.
The burgers were from an excellent burger place that did the catering. I know that owner well. He brought his kids for the night of fun after he heard what was going to be happening. He was also the one who brought the brat dogs as he recently added those to his menu.
This was the most expensive office party in the history of the company. The only things more expensive than this were some business meetings that the CEO rented private rooms in high-end restaurants for.
As for the CEO, he was outraged. Not at the cost of the party mind you.
He knew that the party would not have been necessary if people had been allowed to go home. He was outraged that IT was the only group required to work on that day. When I submitted the logs showing how we received no real phone calls, no service requests, and that we basically watched movies/played video games during our shift, he had heard enough.
He apparently sent out a scathing email about work-life balance and the importance of our holidays to every upper management.
It was kind of funny as people wanted me to get in trouble for what I did, but the reality is other departments have done similar things in the past just not on the scale that IT did.
The Bad VP was admonished quite effectively and sent me an apology email. I forwarded it to the team with a strong hint to not reply.
Then my VP let the CIO and the CEO know about what the Bad VP said.
“You guys don’t have lives.” The bad VP did actually confirm she said it in a meeting with her EVP. It did not go over well. I have never heard people yelling in an office meeting like that before.
The CEO of the company came to our office and YELLED at her.
Not sure if she was fired, but she is not at work today. In Active Directory she does not have the down arrow of death, so not 100 percent what happened to her.
I know she lost whatever clout she had at this company with her attitude.
If anything more happens, I will update. But so far it looks like the fallout from this is I caused a new rule to be put in place about how much you are allowed to spend at one time.
The Bad VP may or may not be let go/forced to resign. I know she got yelled at. Strangely there is now no longer any pushback for my bid to get everyone back to working from home.”
12. Blow Up At Me And Tell Me To Find A New Job? Oh, I Will
“Back when I used to work at McDonald’s, they would treat me so terribly. I would work extremely hard with very little gratitude. I was only on $13AUD an hour at 15-16 years old, but even so, I’d put my absolute all into what I did.
I’d run stock, take orders over the headset while packing orders done the front, rush back up to the booth, ring up the orders, etc. We were timed, and my times would always be under the maximum limit (unless we were in a rush).
I’d been working there for around 9-10 months at this point and slowly losing my sanity every single shift I did. The managers and staff were terrible, but the worst person was the store manager. She’d get angry at me for things that would be completely out of my control.
If a customer changes their mind at the payment window, we need to get a manager to come in and give us a code to remove it from the screen. The managers would refuse to give us their codes to use during a rush, so they had to run up to my booth from the front to get rid of an item from an order.
So many times I had customers change their minds at the window, and I’d ask over the headset for a code and my store manager would scream at me from down the front, then walk up to my booth and berate me for making her use her code saying ‘you need to learn to just take orders right!’ when it wouldn’t even be my fault.
She’d also scream at me if I accidentally brought down the wrong stock, or if I was too slow in getting stock (usually I’d be busy cashing cars and taking orders during the busy rushes). She would even make me come into work on days I requested off due to my hip dysplasia or other back problems playing up, and she would threaten me with getting fired if I didn’t come into work, making me work through my pain, so I wouldn’t get much time to myself that wasn’t just laying in bed at home in pain.
So, back to the story. After a very long 8 am-4 pm shift, I was up in the drive-thru booth at around 3:58 pm, two minutes before my shift was over. We were dead as we usually were at that time, and I was just kicking around waiting for my shift to end.
I got a text from my mum asking if I needed picking up from work, so I took out my phone and texted back a simple ‘yes please’ and put my phone away. At this point, it’s important to mention that there was a camera in the top right corner of my booth, so if a manager looked, they could see what I was doing.
Not even a second after I put my phone away, my SM started to talk over the headset.
Store Manager: Jaz, what are you doing right now?
Me: Waiting for cars. Why?
SM: That’s not a good way to use your time.
How about you get off your phone and do what I freaking pay you to do, or you can go get a different job.
I was really upset. I started to cry but was holding in tears because I didn’t want to be seen.
She’d called me out over the headset, where everyone else in the store who was wearing a headset (everyone) could hear. To add some more clarity as to why I was so upset, there were three girls who were heavily favored, and they would often just sit in the crew room for sometimes up to an hour on their phones, and no one said anything to them.
They were terrible workers too, but since they were favored, they got the best treatment. When it was time to clock off, I just left and started bawling my eyes out because of the embarrassment. I worked my butt off with no gratitude for months, but the second I text two words to my mum, I get scorned. My mum was worried and very angry.
This is where my malicious compliance comes in.
When I got home, I remembered what she said about finding a different job, so I wrote a very lovely email to the shift manager that went like this:
Hi (Shift Manager),
I’ve decided, after a lot of thought, that I will be resigning from my casual position, effective immediately. I’ve had a few experiences over the past few months that haven’t been very positive, and I believe the best option for me is to resign.
I appreciate and thank you for all the opportunities you have given me over the past year or so.
Thanks heaps, Jaz.
Ten minutes later, I got three phone calls from the store manager, but I wouldn’t pick up.
Then the shift manager. Also didn’t pick up. I was absolutely fuming, so I did what she asked me to do, find a new job. I was told by my best friend who was working at the same store that the store manager had been going around saying I called her terrible things and that I was a horrible little brat who wouldn’t listen to her rules.
I laughed and said ‘well, it’s a good thing I’m not working there anymore then.’
While on my job hunt around two weeks later, I got a call from the shift manager saying that the store manager had been relocated but later fired due to ‘a staff complaint’ and wanted to know if I’d come back because of how good a staff member I was.
Due to the lack of work at the time and needing money for teenage things, I went back and did the worst job I possibly could, basically just screwing everyone around and being a lazy piece of crap (edit: this was because I’d been called and asked to come back with promises that things have changed and the new store manager would be better.
Being 16, I fell for the corporate talk and I went back, which resulted in them treating me even worse and even refusing to give me the day off for my grandma’s funeral. They screwed me around, so I screwed them around in return while looking for a new job), then quit again two months later for my current job at a Mexican place.
The best part was that I put the store manager down as a reference, and when my employer contacted her about me, she hung up the phone on them (I explained what happened and we all laughed and I got the job).
Screw McDonald’s.”
11. Want Me To Calculate All Mileage From The Office? Gotcha
“I have a job that means that about half the week I have to visit various clients within a hundred-mile radius using my own car. The company pays mileage as long as you fill in a form saying where you went and how many miles you drove.
I do this all the time, and I like to think I’m sensible with it, so I try to minimize the distance driven. For example, we have 3 clients approximately 90 miles south of work, so if I can I’ll group them all together in a day and only drive around 180 miles on a round trip.
I also live about 40 miles away from work and have clients near my house, so some days I won’t go into the office, I’ll go see all the clients and only drive about 10 miles in a day and claim for 10 miles.
The story –
One day I travel to a big client that is 60 miles away from home. I travel straight there, spend the whole day there and travel straight home (as there’s no need for us to go into the office every day as long as we’re working).
I did 120 miles and claimed as such.
I put in my form a month later along with a few dozen other trips thinking nothing of it. Then I get a call from ‘Compliance Carol’ (not her real name), that goes something like this:
CC – Two weeks again you visited (big client) and claimed 120 miles. But they are only 45 miles from the office so you should have claimed 90.
Me – Oh yeah, as you can see from the claim I drove straight from home though, so I had to go further.
CC – You can’t do that, you have to calculate the distance from the office.
Me – having a slow morning okay, so I just take the shorter of the two journeys?
CC – No. All mileage has to be calculated from the office.
It doesn’t matter how far it is. (she’s instantly annoyed at my slowness and gets quite patronizing). You calculate the distance from the office to the client and back again. NO exceptions. That’s the policy.
Me – Okay, got it.
So I do that even if the actual journey is shorter? I claim for more miles than I actually did?
CC – (Sighs) Calculate all mileage from the office to the client and back. That’s the policy. I don’t want to have to check each journey.
Just do it the way you’ve been told.
Me – Okay. Thanks. Can you put that in an email to me so I don’t forget please?
She does, and it mirrors our conversation (tone and all), plus she CCs in my manager and very frankly tells them to check my claims aren’t wrong anymore.
Enter malicious compliance.
As the email clearly stated that milage has to be from the office to the client and back, regardless of the actual journey it means a few things:
All those clients who live near my house, yep, I claim an 80-mile round trip for EACH of them.
I see 3 in a day and only do 10 miles? Yep, I claim 240 miles.
I see three clients 90 miles away, I don’t group them. I claim 180 miles for EACH.
I see a client on my way home from work, normally I’d only calculate the extra distance since I’ve got to drive home anyway.
Nope, I can end up claiming 60 miles for a few hundred-meter diversion.
The result – where my normal mileage claim is around $240-360 a month, it now shoots up to $850.
I did this tongue-in-cheek and walked the form over to my manager (I’d normally leave it on her desk, but I thought she’d get a laugh out of it and tell me to redo it).
She looks down at it, I see her eyes widen at the number. Without saying anything she opens her emails, reads the snotty email from Compliance Carol, looks at my form, and says – ‘Looks like you followed the rules to the letter’.
She gives me a smile and signs the form. At the end of the next month, an extra $850 is on my wages and I don’t get a call from Carol.
The cherry on the cake? Mileage is 45p per mile and is supposed to cover fuel, servicing, insurance, and depreciation of the car.
I drive an old but efficient Ford Fiesta. My business insurance with extra miles is only $180 extra a year, there’s no depreciation because it’s worth very little anyway and I did a mechanic apprenticeship in my youth so I maintain the car myself.
Fuel costs me about $300 a month in total. So in the last 3 months, I’m up $1,450. I have double-checked with my manager twice since then and her response is – ‘They set the rules and you’re following them. Don’t worry about it.’
Can’t wait for someone to work out what Carol’s insistence on the rules is costing the company!”
10. Go To A Competitor Car Dealer Since You Won't Honor The Price You Listed? Fine, I Will
They lost out big time!
“This took place eight years ago when I was buying my first new car, not just a new-to-me car. I spent a good amount of time researching the options available, both in terms of other models from other manufacturers and option packages on the car in which I was most interested, so I knew exactly what I wanted coming in the door.
In 2014 car dealer websites hadn’t quite gotten to the level of borderline bait-and-switch trickery you see these days so if a dealer’s website said they had a particular car on the lot at a particular price, they almost certainly did.
There were several in the region that matched what I was looking for, one specifically at my existing dealership. This wasn’t a smaller dealership; it was one of the largest in the Northern Virginia area for this particular brand.
I had had a reasonably good experience with their service department overall and figured I’d give their sales department a chance to shine.
That was my first mistake.
I showed up on a Wednesday after work. It was early June, so with the mercury being in the upper 90s I was dressed in a comfortable, but still very presentable combination of a polo shirt and khaki shorts.
When I entered the sales side of the dealership I could see what appeared to be all the salespeople in a conference room laughing and joking while taking scissors to the tie of one of the men present (later, I found out that was a rite of passage after making your first sale).
I waited around for a minute or two as the conference room had glass walls and it would be impossible not to notice me as I’m not exactly a small fellow at six feet, six inches tall. When no one came out to greet me I went up to the receptionist’s desk and said “Hi, I’m interested in (model of car) and there’s one in stock I’d like to see.” Her response, without even looking up from her phone was “Okay.” I stood there for another 20 seconds or so and then politely asked “Would someone be able to show me that car?” This finally prompted her to look up from her phone.
She looked me up and down, scoffed a bit, and said she’d go and get someone. I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt hoping that things would turn around.
That was my second mistake.
The receptionist came back with what looked like the youngest, most wet behind-the-ears salesperson she could find, as evidently I wasn’t worth the time of the more experienced folks.
I explained that I was interested in a car that their website said they had in stock and provided him with the printout, showing the stock number, price, and all other pertinent details. It took him a while to find the car on the lot but after a brief test drive, I knew it was what I wanted and began the sales process.
I had a trade-in, which had been primarily serviced by them, and for which I already had a written offer from CarMax so I knew how much I should receive for it. He quoted me just over half of that figure.
When I pointed out that I could get several thousand more by taking it to the CarMax just up the road and had a written offer from them for that specific amount he went and got his sales manager who offered to drive me there and pick me up afterward, but that they wouldn’t match what CarMax offered. I was a bit surprised that they didn’t want a nice used car to sell for themselves (six years old, top-of-the-line, reasonable mileage, and serviced by them specifically), but again, cut them more slack than they deserved.
When we got to the price, things really fell apart. He quoted me a price that was several thousand dollars higher than what they displayed on their website. When I showed him the printout again with the noticeably lower price he looked to the sales manager for guidance.
The sales manager immediately took the line that “the price listed includes all available rebates and special offers and you may not qualify for all of them”. I was now frustrated and showed them printouts from the other dealers in the area that had a similar price shown and said that if they weren’t willing to honor the price listed on their website, I’d just go to the next closest dealer that had that model in stock at that price.
His response sealed the deal for me: “Go ahead, waste your time and go to (competing dealership). We won’t hold it against you when you come back here.” I told them “Okay, thank you for your time. I’ll go to (competing dealership),” and got up to leave.
No one stopped me and the receptionist said nothing as I walked past her out to the parking lot to drive to the other dealership.
When I got to the competing dealership it was already around 8 PM as I had spent a fair amount of time at the first dealership and Northern Virginia traffic has never been known for being reasonable.
I had a salesperson approach me immediately upon entering the dealership and I explained “I’ve just come from (first dealership) and want to buy (particular model of car). Both of you have that car in stock with the options I want.
They wouldn’t give it to me at the price shown on their website. If you will I’m ready to sign on the dotted line right now.” The salesperson immediately took me to his office, verified that they had the car, and confirmed that yes, the price on their website was accurate and I could walk out the door with that price.
We started the process and when we got to the trade-in, I further explained how the other dealership tried to lowball me on the trade. He said if I could produce a written offer from CarMax for the price I mentioned, they would match it.
I gave him that paperwork and without any further discussion he agreed they would match that, and we moved on to financing. I hadn’t gotten this far with the other dealer, but I had already lined up financing through my credit union.
He asked if I’d be willing to see if his F&I guy could match or beat that figure. I agreed to let him try and he came back with a rate that was 50bps lower. Needless to say, I was already very happy with these people, but that definitely sealed the deal.
Right as I was finishing the paperwork the salesperson from the first dealer texted me to ask if they would give me the car at that price. I responded back that they would and I was finishing up the paperwork at that very moment.
He immediately tried to call me, then texted me saying he’d give it to me for $500 less. I responded to his text stating that I’d already signed the paperwork and he had lost the sale. Once the paperwork was complete, the exceptionally pleasant and helpful salesperson at my new dealership spent an additional half hour after the dealership had closed for the night running me through some of the features of the car and showing me how the infotainment system worked. This was completely above and beyond what I expected, as I thought I’d just be reading the 300-page user manual to figure it out on my own.
I drove home that night with my shiny new car a very happy camper.
The next day, I decided to rub a little salt in the wounds of the first dealership, so I drove there straight from the office. For context, I work in the banking industry and at that point, it was still very much business formal dress.
I showed up in my suit with my briefcase and had people falling all over themselves trying to help me, including the receptionist who clearly remembered who I was midway through me asking for the particular salesperson I dealt with the prior day.
She offered me a seat and asked if I wanted some coffee while she went to get him and I politely said “No, thank you. I won’t be here long.” She somewhat quietly/sheepishly responded that she’d be back with that salesperson very shortly.
There was a couple in the waiting area who seemed a bit displeased that they’d been waiting for a salesperson, but I got one the moment I walked in the door.
No more than a minute later, the salesperson and his manager came out.
The salesperson recognized me and with a look of defeat on his face shook my hand and asked how I was today. Before I had a chance to respond, the sales manager spoke up to introduce himself as if I hadn’t spent an hour and a half with him the previous day.
After I reminded him that I was there yesterday, and he had said it would be a waste of time to go to the competing dealer because they’d never give me the car I wanted at the price shown on their website his demeanor very quickly pivoted back to the snotty, insolent person I dealt with the previous day.
He proceeded to ask, “Well, did they?” with a bit of a sneer. I said nothing but turned to the side and clicked the remote for my new car so the horn would give a few chirps. He said, “Good for you” in a rather curt tone and walked away, leaving the poor salesperson on his own.
I shook that salesperson’s hand, thanked him for his time, and turned around to leave.
The receptionist spoke up as I walked past her and asked in a rather chipper voice if I needed any further assistance. I politely responded that no, the other dealership had provided me exactly what I needed and I was all set.
To make things just that little bit better, as I passed the couple sitting in the waiting area, I saw them exchange looks with each other that seemed to say, “Perhaps we should go to (the dealer I mentioned).” I said nothing further and walked out of the building wearing the smile of a winner.”
9. Refuse To Move Your Car For One Day? Fine, But Lose Your Parking Spot For An Entire Year
“This happened on the last 26th of January, and today, the malicious compliance was done not by me but by the committee of the society where I live. This drama conveniently happened in front of my window.
In my city the residential complexes are managed by housing societies much like the HOA system in the USA, just not as horrible. Each society has its own committee to manage day-to-day affairs.
Also, as my society has much more parking spaces than it has cars, it has no designated parking spots allotted to the residents.
Anyone can park their vehicle wherever they want, but it must be a marked parking spot. People mostly park their cars in the same parking spot just because of convenience and habit. Everyone mostly respects each other’s spots, and I have never seen any confrontations happening because of the parking.
So, for those of you who don’t know, January 26 is the Republic day of India, and all over the country, the day is celebrated by a flag-hoisting ceremony in the morning. The flagpole of our society where the flag hoisting ceremony will be held is just in front of the main gate of society.
There are two parking spaces just under the flag pole. All other parking places are further away from the main gate, and you have to walk some distance to reach there from the main gate.
The thing to note is that these two parking places are very, very convenient for all the flats which are facing this flagpole.
However, out of respect, people have left one of the parking for one elderly person whose flat faces the flagpole, and the other spot is taken up by an annoying kind of person who never moves his car from this place, or else someone will steal his spot.
If this person wants to get into his car he just has to walk a dozen feet from his front door.
On the evening of January 25, committee members asked this person to move his car for a day so that the decorations and other arrangements for the next day’s flag hoisting can be made.
Someone had already moved the car of the elderly person. However, the annoying guy was too frustrated about moving the car and first argued a lot with committee people saying that there is no such rule in the society rule book that someone has to move their car for any kind of festivities and if you want to move his car you have to write a rule in the rule book.
After a lot of arguments and interference from other people, he finally moved his car. The decorations were done at night, and the next day, a small but beautiful ceremony was held.
AND on the evening of the 26th, everyone in the society received a message that there was an emergency meeting of the committee.
The rule book has been amended and it has been decided that those 2 parking spots have to be converted into one and anyone who wants to park in that one spot has to take prior permission from the society committee.
As expected only two people applied for that parking spot – the elderly person and the annoying guy. And today the committee unanimously decided that the elderly person is in much more need of that convenient parking spot because of his age, and that spot has been allotted to him for one year.
Now the annoying guy has to park his car far from his front door for at least 1 year (pretty sure that he is not going to get the spot next year too). He is not going to like this more in the coming rainy season.
As we live in Mumbai which is notorious for its horrible monsoon rains each year. All this just because he didn’t want to move his car for one day.”
8. Leave The New Girl On Her Own? If You Say So
Gotta love lazy co-workers.
“I, (17F), am a waitress/server/cashier at a semi-local Italian chain. (Not going to say which, but it’s considered a “specialty” of the DMV area.) I recently had to take a month off of work for health reasons, since I was in the emergency room and then had to spend time in in-patient.
While I was away, there were huge changes at my job, including new managers and two new employees.
I’ve only been working there since last June, but I picked things up pretty quickly, barring the first day I had to deal with a packed dining room by myself while still in training – I’d messed up pretty badly with the computer system and needed Manager’s help.
Still, it happens.
Yesterday, I met the new girl for the first time (it was her third day, still in training.) She’s my age and a complete sweetheart, and as the dining room slowly became more and more packed, we made a great team – she got to practice working with the computers and talking to customers while I took down the orders and showed her how everything worked. It was her first time “properly” serving there, and she really did great considering that, certainly at first.
The other two people who were working were a manager and one other hourly employee. The managers at my job will also serve and work the counters (basically, all waitresses have to do double the work, and we still get paid dirt but that’s another story.) I was running between the dining room and the counters to try to keep up (although we can only serve max two people at the counters picking up or placing orders at a time.) It was to the point where my manager and her friend had bundled up and complained about how cold it was, while I was flushed, with my coat off, covered in sweat (cleaned myself up when dealing with the food, of course.) The manager and her friend were sitting down together, alternating between scrolling on their phones and talking, only getting up to answer the phones when they’d already rung 5+ times and having people wait at the counters to be helped for 10+ minutes.
It was massively irritating, but I didn’t have the time/energy to confront them. Well. About halfway through my shift, my manager told me that I can’t just go in between the dining room and the counter, and if I didn’t pick one or the other she’d withhold my tips for both since I “wasn’t fully invested in either.” Ouch.
She gave me a choice on paper, but in reality made it perfectly clear that I was stuck behind the counter and the new girl, the trainee, was on her own. There was nothing I could really do, so I just stayed at the counter, though that was plenty slammed in and of itself, and I really, really could have used my two coworkers who were screwing around on their phones.
I didn’t have time to answer phone calls, pack up orders, check people out, and take to-go orders all at once, and I had one particularly angry woman call me a “lazy witch” for leaving her on hold for about two minutes (that stuck with me.) While I was doing all this, the new girl was stuck with a packed dining room and no help.
About twenty minutes into it, my manager approaches me looking both angry and sheepish. Basically, the trainee had messed up and charged the wrong orders to the wrong cards and needed help – though the way she phrased this was, “you know, you don’t HAVE to stay by the counter the whole time, that’s not what I meant.” I looked over and could see her friend on her phone still, and the manager herself still had AirPods on and a show playing on her own phone screen.
I responded in my sweetest, most respectful voice, “I’m sorry, but as we only get paid $10/hour, my tips are too vital for me to forfeit them, so I’m going to stay put.” (Context, the minimum wage is 15.65 where I live.) She was floored and instead of helping either of us herself, waddled back to her seat and resumed her show.
Of course, I ended up checking in with the trainee and asked if she needed my help and if the mistake was sorted out. She said that she had things back under control and a lot of the people dining in were headed out, which was great because the counter was still slammed.
The kicker? This morning apparently a customer called in and complained that “the blonde girl (me) and the girl with braids (trainee) were so busy that they were sweating, while the two other women (manager and her buddy) were sitting on their phones.” I only wish I saw her face when she heard about the complaint.”
7. Won't Let Me Throw Away A Small Box? Fine, But I'll Throw Away Everything Else
“For a little context, I’m a construction worker with my own company truck.
As far as from what I have seen in my area, most people with company trucks have this thing where the front two seats always stay very clean (aside from dirt that comes from working in my field of work) the backseats however are a different story… it is amazing how much trash gets thrown back there whether it be water bottles, snack wrappers, food wrappers, etc. My company has a contract with a local detailer that comes and washes and vacuums all company trucks bi-weekly to keep the appearance up, we are just responsible for removing all large trash so they don’t have to do too much work.
Usually, we just throw out everything at the dumpster at the shop before the detailer goes in and works his magic.
Anyways… on to the story.
So today I had just finished up a service call and was about to go on my lunch break.
I had stopped at a local gas station near downtown Austin to pour gas right before I headed off to get some tacos. As I’m pouring gas I look in the back of my tailgate and realized I forgot to throw it away at the job site and didn’t want to run the risk of it flying out and possibly causing an accident, so naturally, I decided to take it out, break the box down, and toss it in the trash can at the pump.
Now the box itself wasn’t too big, about the size of a shoebox, and once broken down it was probably about a quarter of that size.
As I took the broken down box and placed it in the trash, one of the ladies who worked at the gas station came out furious saying I wasn’t allowed to throw away that box.
She claimed the trash was only for smaller items and we weren’t allowed to throw away larger things. I was really confused and told her that it really wasn’t all that big and I didn’t see an issue.
She then argued that the cardboard can unravel and fill up the bin and then she would have to replace the bags. I didn’t feel like arguing so I just obliged and took out the box and placed it back in the tailgate.
She thanked me for not being so difficult and was about to go into the gas station before I stopped her and asked, “so then… what can I throw away in the trash?” She replied with anything small like water bottles, taco bags, wrappers, etc.
Now cue the malicious compliance.
After she said that I thanked her for letting me know and proceeded to open the back door to my truck and she got a hold of all the mess. I then proceeded to take out small loads of empty water bottles, taco bags, etc. It is truly amazing how much trash builds up in these construction trucks.
Unless one had been recently cleaned out I have never seen one with little to no mess. I think I’m pretty good at tossing the stuff out of my truck but every two weeks when I submit my truck for cleaning it always baffles me with how much mess is in there.
I then proceed to stuff the trash can with trash and fill it up. Now granted these trash cans already had trash in them and weren’t all that big and I didn’t really press down the trash to make more fit.
I then proceeded to move to the next trash can and started filling that one up, all while looking at her with the biggest smirk on my face. She then proceeded to tell me that I can’t be throwing out that much stuff cause it’s only meant for small things that I bought from the store.
I then proceeded to show her that almost all this stuff can be bought at the store she was working at. She then screams at me saying that there’s no way I bought everything there and that I probably got some from other places as well.
I then pulled out my company gas card that was from her gas station and told her that this was the only gas station that I’m allowed to use while in this vehicle so yes I come to this store a lot since it’s right by my job and most of this, other than the taco wrappers, come from here.
She then proceeded to call me a jerk and a few other names as she stormed off into the store. I just sat there with such a huge feeling of accomplishment knowing that I dealt with that Karen accordingly. If she would’ve just let me throw out the small box you wouldn’t have to come out and replace the trash bags right now and could be sitting inside on your phone but now you gotta come out and do the job you’re getting paid to do.
It must suck to actually have to do what you were hired to do. All because you thought some small pieces of cardboard would fill up one little trash can. Little words of advice, next time mind your own business.”
6. Call Everyone And Explain Everything? Sure Thing!
“I used to run a medium-ish-sized (40 rooms) hotel down in Florida for a couple of years not that long ago. The hotel was a couple of old neighboring beach apart-motels bought by a foreign investor and then extensively renovated into a single modern boutique hotel.
The location was amazing for this type of business. Before the current world situation, it was indeed a prime piece of property.
The property manager that ran it at the time had built the hotel up with the idea of a place people would be really happy to return to.
Especially considering that the person who had run the place at first, an ex-partner of the owner, had chased all the old motel guests off. Apparently, and I quote one of the former guests here: ‘we don’t want your kind here’, she told people.
Meaning – the older generation mainly middle-class Americans from the Mid-West, spending their family vacations down in Florida every year for decades…
Also, backtracking a bit to a point rather important for the story.
The owner is not a nice person.
Nor had he ever worked in or run the hospitality business. His main line of business is retail. Abroad. Very much so. And he is a self-absorbed entitled narcissist with an attitude. He had constantly meddled, making incredibly foolish or downright harmful decisions during the renovation and then forcing the property manager to carry them out.
She was smart and competent enough to usually find a workaround, but sometimes he insisted further. Things weren’t smooth.
So, fast-forward to me starting to run the actual hotel part of the business. Which at first the owner hadn’t meddled in that much.
Our main focus groups at the time had been the Cruise-ship crowd, regular vacation-goers, the conferences nearby, and finally – the annual events. Multiple music festivals, holidays, as well as -drum-roll- the International Boat Show. The last one being a week-long affair of yacht-building companies selling their boats to rich folks.
10 minutes walk from our hotel.
The place I managed was a bit too low-key for the rich crowd. But guess where all those yacht-building companies wanted a room to place all their staff at? We had 40 of them, with multiple beds and full kitchens.
And we had built the place up with regular guests in mind. Including the festival-goers and the yachtsmen. Especially the yachtsmen. Meaning discounts, free upgrades, personalized approach, regular touch-ups, and even occasional BBQ parties. I was on a first-name basis with quite a few boat-building managers.
As well as boat captains. Because when a boat is sold, they often stay around, get it repaired, and the crew has to stay somewhere. And our little place was known in the circles as a good place for them.
I had made it my goal to make it attractive for the target audiences. And in some of them, everyone knew each other and word got around. I am a firm believer in the hospitality business being run with the client in mind, not the profit.
So, we had an amazing year of building up connections and making the place really nice to a few very specific circles. However, the hotel was almost empty for half a year. Had to furlough most of our staff for a while.
Eventually, the worldwide issue was sort of forgotten about. At least in Florida. Cruise ships hadn’t come back, but the regular vacation-goers had. En masse. We got very busy very fast.
However, the owner wasn’t thrilled with me hiring a new Front Desk receptionist. Why bother, if I myself could do this job as well, right?
Make housekeepers (we had two of them total for the entire place) do laundry as well. Get the property manager to do accounting too.
At the same time, the owner had bought a yacht. Just because. And attempted to make our property manager run the boat as well.
So, after a few more months of struggle, she had finally had enough and quit. Good for her. We are still friends, even today.
The owner replaced the property manager with his daughter. Like father like daughter, exactly the same type.
However, in their country manager is the manager, they don’t get the difference between a property manager (does the building or the property side of things) and a business manager (does the business in that building). She immediately decided that her job was to run the hotel.
And my job was to do what I’m told.
And the first thing they do – the father and the daughter – is look at the Boat Show just one month ahead. As well as the festive season a couple of months later.
They had a brilliant idea of making more money. After all, why had we sold all the rooms that cheap? Triple rates for the Boat Show? We could easily make twice as much, right? And why offer free parking when no one around does that?
Not like it’s a selling point, right?
So, they tell me to change the room rates. On existing reservations. And start charging for the parking. On reservations that were made with the ‘free parking’ listed. And above all – charge more for the Boat Show.
On the rooms that had been sold a year ago, mostly face-to-face when people were checking-out after the last show. And it was apparently up to me to call them and let them know that we had raised the rates by 50%.
Oh, and that the parking for the show is now $100 a day per vehicle.
I was not happy with the idea, to say the least. For whatever reason, I had assumed that this is not how things are done in the US.
Even down in Florida, despite the infamous Florida Man. Nor did I feel comfortable calling people, most of whom I knew, and telling them this banger of an idea.
So I had fought against this decision as hard as I could.
I came up with various reasons as to why we should not do it. Pointed out how we run the place. Argued the point of reputation.
The owner hadn’t listened, but said: “I hear you, but trust my business acumen, after all, I had made millions.”
The daughter had listened to me very carefully. Her reply?
“Your direct superior had decided and given your instructions. It’s not your place to think and question things. Just call them all and explain everything. That’s your job.”
Sooo, a bit of malicious compliance then.
I called our guests. And not just the boat people. I called most regulars of ours. Took a while. And I explained what was happening. I told them the truth. How things are run now, what new ideas are there, etc. I also told them that I was very much against these new decisions.
And that I probably won’t be there for long. Most of them thanked me for the information and said they will be in touch. A few local yachtsmen asked if they could come in to discuss things.
In the end, the boat people were forced to pay extra.
It’s impossible to find a good property, at any price range, close to the Boat Show location just a month before the show itself. The local ones who came in and met with the owner and his daughter got a great deal of ‘free parking, after the price adjustment’.
I struggled to keep a professional face. However, when I met them on my own after their talk with the owner, or when I talked with the other regulars over the phone, almost all of them thanked me for my efforts and told me they will not be back.
Neither would anyone they know. Also, if I would go to a new place, would I please let them know, so they would go there too?
Well, that very week I gave the owner’s daughter my notice. Left just before the show began.
Letting her be the one dealing with the crapstorm. Since she insisted on being the boss so much.
From what I hear, she hadn’t managed at all. Right now the place is run by a shady “management company” that just doesn’t care, with the daughter supposedly running the front desk.
No one is answering any calls. Or checking e-mails. Reviews plummeted. They hadn’t even renewed their licenses. Or paid booking.com and Expedia fees. Who is threatening legal action now.
And, apparently, the owner and his daughter blame me and the property manager for everything.
Since it’s our leaving that screwed them over.
Whatever.”
5. Insist The Property Lines Are Wrong? Keep Your Stupid Driveway
“I’m a Senior Construction Superintendent in the DFW area. The project I’m currently on is a 13-acre site, smack in the middle of an extremely affluent area to the north of Dallas.
3 weeks ago, a city inspector that we’ll call Joe, came into the site office and said that they received a complaint about a sprinkler/soaker line being damaged during excavation for the fire lane.
He, my landscaper, and I went to investigate and discovered where a small fitting had blown out of the line. Landscaper repaired it, I went up to knock on the door to explain to them the issue and inform them of the repair.
I got no answer at the door, so I left a card and a note asking them to call me. They never did.
A week later, Joe comes in and mentions that they’ve reached out again about the noise from equipment – which is odd because anyone with heavy equipment is currently working on the other end of the property.
I again went to speak with them, got no answer at the door, and left a card again.
Yesterday, in walks Joe to tell me that they’re complaining about how our construction fence is on their property and killing their grass.
The fence is 12′ from their fence, and our specs call for it to be a minimum of 15′ from the property line, so I pull up our CAD files on the survey plat, so I can make sure we have it placed exactly, and realize that their wood fence is 4′ onto our property.
Their house is about 14″ onto our property.
During all of this, I get an email from the city, asking me to place the construction fence squarely on our property line. The email is sent to me, the apparent homeowner, Joe, and my project manager.
I brought the surveyors back out yesterday to pinpoint our property corners and give us some 10′ off-sets (reference points 10′ east of the property line, for line of sight) to measure from.
I knocked on the homeowner’s door again and got no answer.
Mind you, every time there were cars in the drive.
Fast forward to this morning, my fence crew showed up and they began moving the fence onto the property line, which takes 31″ (2 feet, 7 inches) of their driveway, and 18′ of the road where it ends at the property (was previously a cul-de-sac).
The client finally reached out, or more accurately; came to the site office in a huff. I explained the issue, showed him the plat and he left with some unkind words flowing from him, like diesel exhaust on a steep incline.
I put a pause on the fence relocation, just to soothe the wound. My PM called him, I called the city Right of Way (ROW) engineer and our client. We set up a meeting that just ended.
He claimed that our plat was wrong.
The engineer and everyone else disagreed. The back and forth went on long enough for the client, who is an extremely laid-back, and quiet gentleman, to finally speak up and basically say:
We’re just gonna go ahead and sell you the property you’ve stolen, at current market value plus 10%.
(In this area…that’s not cheap.)
If that’s not acceptable, we’ll just have you move your fence, cut out your driveway, and use the east side of your home for advertisement.
Or, you can back off, let these guys work, and we’ll give you lifetime use of the area you currently occupy, so long as there’s no more hassling of any kind.
The guy asked me if we’d move the fence back out, and I told him no. I agreed to take it off his driveway, but the street and green space belonged to us. We only did what he asked us to do.
The engineer who asked me to move it agreed.”
4. Refuse To Do Anything About My Broken Keyboard? Let Me Get My Most Annoying Replacement
“Back when I graduated college, there were very few jobs available in my field so I applied for and landed a contractual job with the State Government.
It was mostly a clerical position with lots of typing involved; at the end of which I knew Microsoft Word and Excel well enough to call them family!
The pay was good enough considering the work and the fact that I was posted in my own city so there was no need for me to move anywhere. Besides, the contract renewed every year with a raise in salary.
The computers we were assigned for the job were surprisingly good. But anything will break down when used too often. I should probably mention that I graduated with a degree in Engineering and have been into computers since I was 11.
So, for the most part, I could fix any software and even some hardware issues that hindered my work.
The resident IT “God” (self-proclaimed), Bhaskar, hated me for that! Was it because I wasn’t as dependent on him as the others in the office and he had an inferiority complex; or maybe he just didn’t like the look on my face, I’ll never know!
But I was always met with a, “Why don’t you fix it yourself?” whenever I approached him with a difficult issue. So mostly I did!
8 months into my second term, my keyboard died. It was your typical membrane keyboard with typical membrane keyboard issues.
This meant once a key stopped working, you threw out the entire keyboard and got a new one.
For me, it wasn’t just one key, it was the entire R3 row. This means that all the keys from “TAB” all the way to “9” on the Numpad just stopped working one day.
When it comes to typing, that row is particularly important! So, like a sane person, I went to Mr. IT God to request a new one.
“My keyboard is dead. I would like a new one please!”
“Fix it yourself!” was the reply as expected.
“Yeah, I would like to, but this is a hardware issue. This keyboard is dead.”
“There are no extra keyboards. Just use what you have!” he said this as there was literally a stack of new keyboards behind his desk.
I knew this was going nowhere and I wouldn’t get a new keyboard from this guy. So, I just left.
I was now in a dilemma. I needed to do the work they were paying me to do. And I couldn’t do it with a broken keyboard.
I could’ve just bought a new membrane keyboard. They’re pretty cheap! But why should I spend my money on stuff my office should give me for free?
Besides, I had a point to make.
So, I drove home, picked up one of my most annoying personal keyboards, and drove right back.
My keyboard was mechanical. I could type faster on it. It had “Rainbow Vomit.” And it was loud!
I plugged it into my office computer and got to work! Needless to say, chaos ensued.
Word soon spread about the guy who had “connected a typewriter” to his computer.
Apparently, they could hear me typing over in the next department! People soon gathered around to watch me type. This is a small city in India. Most of these people were technologically illiterate. They had never seen a mechanical keyboard before.
This led to a disruption in the workflow of the office and so one of the higher-ups came over to investigate.
He saw me typing loudly and came over to talk. Let’s call him Borthakur because that’s his name.
Borthakur – “What is this? A typewriter?”
Me – “No sir, this is my keyboard. I brought it from home.”
Borthakur – “This is not standard issue. What happened to the one you were given?”
Me – “Sir, it’s broken so I’m using this.”
Borthakur – “If your keyboard is broken, you should’ve asked Bhaskar for a new one. You shouldn’t bring personal stuff from home for use in the office.”
Me – “Sir, I asked him for one and he told me he doesn’t have any extra hardware and to ‘use what I have’.
This is what I have.”
Borthakur – “Come on. Let’s go over and have a talk with him. Bring your broken keyboard.”
And off we went to Mr. IT God’s office.
Borthakur – “Is it true that you’ve refused a replacement keyboard for Mr. OP?”
Bhaskar – “He fixes all his computer problems himself. He can probably fix this too.”
Borthakur – “You know full well he can’t fix a broken keyboard. Give him a new one.”
Bhaskar – “There is none available.”
Borthakur then turned to me, “How much does your personal keyboard cost?”
Me – “This one cost me $150, I think. Why do you ask?”
Borthakur – “I will write you a check for $150 and deduct that from the IT Department’s budget. How does that sound Bhaskar?”
“This is ridiculous! Our keyboards cost $2!” Bhaskar shouted as he picked up a new keyboard box to show him the price.
“So you do have replacements available!” Borthakur said. “I do not know why you are refusing him a new one but you better give it to him now!”
Needless to say, I had a new keyboard before the hour was over.
I refused a contract renewal and left that job 3 months later.”
3. I Must Work 8 Hours, No More And No Less? Will Do!
“I used to work as a photojournalist for a local newspaper, I used to do a bit of everything. There were days that almost all the newspaper was filled with pics I took, the work shift in the newspaper was kinda taxing as sometimes the work shift went from 8 up to 12 hours a day depending on the news and things happening in town.
After 2 years here and there I was assigned to the Sports section, not a big fan of sports myself since I’m more of a computer geek; if it wasn’t an e-sport, I wasn’t interested. But the sports schedule was a bit over the top.
There were times when there was pro baseball, basketball, and even soccer in the city I was working in, without even counting the school sports events… It was tiring as heck, we were 2 photographers working in the section but since the other guy was a little old the editor was more lenient with him.
A year into the section and I was busted, I really mean it, super tired as heck, and my wife was annoyed since I was leaving to work at 6 am and sometimes not back till 10 pm and one time even later than that.
On the weekends if there were too many events, I surely was working. There was a season when I worked almost 2 months non-stop. I mean, it was all voluntary, and I was paid A LOT for it… I mean, monthly, I was cashing 7 or 8 minimum wages, hence I was always available for them.
My editor was an old-school journalist that was working in the newspaper since day one. We used to joke that the building was built around him and crap like that. He is a total grouch but sometimes can joke around and makes people forget he’s got a temper.
During baseball season, I was really tired after almost 2 months of working non-stop. There was a baseball game gonna be held on Saturday afternoon, and my editor called me to his office to tell me that he needed me on Saturday.
Since I was totally busted but could really use the overtime I told him, “Sure, but for the game, I’ll even be in the stadium and when the game ends, I’ll drive to the newspaper, deliver the material, and go home.” My boss wasn’t happy with that; he wanted me ALL DAY from 7 am up until closing since he had other events… I said no and told him he should call the other guy since it was my weekend off, and I really needed rest.
Needless to say, he wasn’t very happy with that. Afterward, he was really rude towards me on almost every occasion available, and if I did something wrong, he would scold me as if I were his son. Since sports is a section that was an awkward schedule, I had some liberties with the check-in time, and at times, I was up to a half hour late.
One day, I checked in late only to find him right at the entrance waiting for me, and he was super mad. He scolded me for over an hour and after he was done, he wrote me up with HR.
The memo from HR specified that the work shift was 8 hours and that I was to work from 7 am until 5:30 pm, no more, no less. Enter malicious compliance. From that day on, I was at 7 am sharp not a minute earlier not a minute later, sometimes I would arrive early but waited by the clock until it was 7 am to punch in, and at 5:30 pm, I was out the door.
It was already a week of abiding by the rules when the editor came to me at 5:25 pm; he told me that there was this university basketball game. Apparently, they rescheduled and wanted the newspaper to cover it. The editor said sure and he wanted me to go… I just stated to him, “I would really love to go, but as I recall in the memo HR made me sign, my work shift is from 7 am to 5:30 pm, aaaand since it’s 5:30 pm, I’ll be seeing you tomorrow!” The color from my editor’s face went from white to anger red, his voice went a bit higher while he said, “If you go, I’ll be writing you up in HR!” With a devilish grin, I just told him “extra hours are voluntary, and I don’t wanna do ’em” and left.
The next day, I came in at 7 am sharp like a good boy and I sat in my spot. My boss came with a somber face and told me in the fakest sheepish voice he could muster, “Ok, I guess there was a bit of misunderstanding with your work hours since you work a bit overtime when required. The management said your work shift is a bit more flexible, and you could be a bit later from time to time…” I just smiled and said “Thanks!””
Another User Comments:
“Not sure why your schedule didn’t start much later in the day given that sports events are generally afternoon and evening, unless it’s an all-day event.” Gigafive
Reply:
“It was a general entry schedule, I was one of the guys that wanted it changed till a bit later, but management wanted it like that…” Kaoz-Lord
2. Fire Me Because I Was In The Hospital During My Shift? Good Luck Making It To Your Wedding Dinner Tasting
“This happened when I just graduated uni. I had my main job over the weekend which earned me a living and a side job at a large mobile phone/broadband selling company, basically retail but with phones.
The shop was located inside a larger retail store as an island in the middle and of course, a lot of people didn’t know about it and didn’t exactly visit our store to buy a contract or upgrade. Instead, they would go to the store on the High Street which was a lot nicer and bigger compared to our island.
A few important details about the store. The working times usually are from 9 to 20:00 on the weekdays. Tills have to be shut at 8 pm, otherwise, it causes issues with accounting. Staff members, unless they are warehouse, cannot stay past 8:10-8:15 due to insurance reasons and only the managers can lock the store up.
Warehouse can stay later and they have their own exit, however, it can not be used by those who are not working in the warehouse. When you start/finish you have to put the times in a special machine which compares them to your rota, same when you go for lunch.
If you finish earlier than you are scheduled, then the machine will automatically put it as an unauthorized absence. The other option is putting it as sick. You can not take holiday on the day and the times of the rota can not be changed on the day either.
So you can not put someone as starting at 9 and change the same day as to starting at 10 as it wouldn’t allow you to. If you forgot to clock out, the extra time will be counted as overtime and only the manager can amend it, but they can not make it that you worked less than what’s on the rota.
However, it is also a lot easier to amend the times on the same day as if you are trying to do it the next day you will need the details of the member of staff to do it, like their memorable word and so on.
Also in our island store, you must have at least 2 employers working during the same hours as per company policy.
It was my last day at said store. My manager decided to let go of me because I didn’t attend a shift due to being in the hospital and I was still on my probation, I was told that I still have to work the notice period which was 2 weeks.
My manager, I call him Dan, had to create rotas 2 weeks in advance as per company policy. He can change the rotas up to the last Friday of the week, meaning he can change the next week’s rota on the Friday before, but not after.
So Dan scheduled me on my last day on a 17:00-21:00 shift when my usual shifts are 16:00-20:00. I have asked him if this was correct both personally and in the team group chat and he confirmed it. Dan was also the type of those whiny managers who don’t do anything but complain about everything and do not bother to train you or show you the ropes, so I kinda knew he made a mistake but decided not to mention it.
Cue malicious compliance.
Friday rolls on, I’m hungry so decided to have a late lunch before my shift starts. I’m putting the order through and noticed Dan is trying to call me. I decline. I finish my order to feel that Dan is trying to call me again alongside a few texts received from him.
I decide to reply.
Dan: hey where are you? You are not at the store and it is already past 4 and we have one of the higher-ups checking how things are going.
Me: oh, I’m having lunch. I’m not scheduled till 5 pm remember?
Dan: well no, you are lying. Your shifts are always 4 till 8, I make sure of it. Get here! I can’t stay as I have to try the food that will be served at my wedding and compose the menu!
Me: oh sorry but I really can’t.
I have just ordered lunch and waiting for it to be ready and then I have to eat. I have asked you if the rota is correct, and you said it is. But in case you don’t believe me, I’ll send you a screenshot and will see you at 5.
I did send him a screenshot where I questioned my times and he confirmed they are correct, haven’t heard from him till I got back to the store.
At the store I see Dan talking to a higher-up person. Dan notices me first, waves me over as soon as I sign in, and says he really needs to be somewhere else, he just needs to get to his office and get his coat.
I nod and have a small talk with the higher-up (HU).
HU: oh it was so nice of Dan to cover the start of your shift as you were having a family emergency! He is such a good and caring manager.
Me: Family emergency? Not sure what you are on about, but my shift has just started as per rota.
The higher-up is confused. He asks to see the rota, so I gladly show him the pictures Dan has posted on the group chat.
Then higher up turns to me and another member of staff and asks if one of us is a team leader and if not when did we start. After finding out we are not team leaders and started less than 12 weeks ago, the higher up gets visibly angry.
He stops Dan as he was on his way to leave and tells him he can not leave the premises as it is against the company’s policy to leave employers who haven’t been with the company for 12 weeks unattended or to close up so he must stay, otherwise the company insurance is not valid and there will be a hefty fine.
Dan has no option but to stay meaning he was missing the food tasting. He wanted to call his fiancée, however, the higher-up reminded him no phones during the shift and while on the store floor. So Dan couldn’t even let his fiancée know who was texting him nonstop.
While higher up was there and while Dan was forced to do his job, I had a few more conversations with him and brought up all the things Dan failed to provide us for training alongside with lack of support and any progression meetings, so by 8 o’clock higher up was mad with Dan and was organizing a meeting with him and extra training for him which I don’t think was paid as Dan had to do it outside work hours.
He was also put on a close monitor for at least a month.
As everyone was leaving at 8 pm, I was slowly getting ready. Dan tried to hurry me up but I was mainly ignoring him.
Dan: the store needs to be closed before 8:10, hurry up!
Me: oh, but you scheduled me till 9 pm today, I can not leave before that as the system will not allow me to clock out.
Dan: well you must leave as insurance does not cover us against theft or damage if there’s someone else in the store after 8 pm!
We have to put the alarms on too!
Me: sorry, but I really don’t want to miss out on any pay. You have scheduled me till 9 so I will work till 9.
Dan: what are you going to do? You need to leave!
Me: I can clean the display models and the island does look like it needs to be vacuumed…
The higher up was having the best time in the world. He was still there enjoying the show since he saw that Dan put me till 9 pm.
At some point, he gets tired of our back and forth and told Dan to cover me till 9 pm and stay in the store and then change the hours in the system so that I finished at 9 pm and I can go home.
Dan has tried to argue but the higher-up has pointed out that it was his mistake and if something happens in the store he will be the one responsible as he should have checked the rotas beforehand. Dan has no choice but to follow the orders.
From what I have heard he left around 10 pm that day as the system wouldn’t allow him to log in. His fiancée also left him a few years later, I do not know the reason why. But she took the house and the dog and saved finances since she never married him.
I have heard that Dan works as a “personal growth” coach but is not very successful at it either.”
1. Get Mad When I Refuse To Load Unscanned Packages? Sorry, It's The Rule
“First things first, a little Backstory: I work as a package handler for a large hub facility of a well-known shipping company, spending my days loading residential delivery trucks.
The packages come with special barcodes on the side, as well as small spot labels that allow someone to see the address and which truck they go on. We used to have small scanners that would scan the barcodes in order to ensure we didn’t put the packages on the wrong trucks or get a package that didn’t belong, as sometimes the labels could be lost or a package could get the wrong spot label.
The trucks were even fitted with small door-side sensors, so if you scan a package and try to walk into a truck where it doesn’t belong, the scanner would start to whine.
Now let’s move on to our main antagonist in this story: Alen, my former supervisor.
Alen is a short skinny guy with a thin mustache and is a micromanager of the highest degree. He always walked up and down the trucks to watch us work, always watched us from a distance or close by with his arms crossed to get us to work faster, and always constantly told us to grab all of our packages as they came to us despite the fact they go around on a moving conveyor belt that literally loops them back if we miss them, always told us to load up our larger packages as soon as we get them even though it makes it harder to move through the trucks and place other packages on the shelves, and had a tendency to hop into a worker’s trucks to move packages around the “right” way (his way).
I can go on and on about Alen, but today I’m here to vent about just one of these events, or we would be here all day. So anyways, Alen had me and all the other package handlers of our area in a group text chat in order to tell us our start times for our next shift as well as compare our work speeds to each other via our scanning count.
I assume to make us feel bad and work harder, but we don’t really care. Around that time, the number of packages we miss loaded onto our trucks as we call it had increased, and ever since Alen had been adding to his group messages that we need to scan every package and make sure we are aiming for zero misloads.
Annoying, but nothing too serious, at least I thought.
Onto the actual story portion: So, one day, I’m working on the belt as usual and my scanner suddenly decided to screw up on me as they tend to do if smacked or if the battery comes loose.
I go to Alen and ask him if he could help me fix it or give me a new one to use. Instead, he takes it and tells me to keep loading my trucks without the scanner and just use the labels on the packages.
This isn’t really allowed, and instead, I chose to stack the packages in front of the trucks so I can scan them once I get a new scanner. Alen eventually comes down and tells me to just load them into the trucks normally and to stop stacking.
Frustrating, but I shrug and do it to try and avoid any real conflict.
That evening, Alen messages the group and lists out our speeds with me at the bottom and is once again spouting on that we need to make sure we are scanning our packages before loading them, and even comes to talk to me the next day about my number of misloads.
I’m angry, of course, as he is the one to tell me, but at that point, I was still fairly new to the job and didn’t feel comfortable arguing with the supervisor, so I just try to continue on with my work with a mental note of always scanning my packages no matter what so he can’t pull this again, unaware that this will be my malicious compliance later on.
Fast forward a few months later. Alen is leaving for real estate and is training one of the package handlers to be his replacement before he leaves. By that time I am fed up with all the micromanaging and pestering, and can’t wait for him to be gone.
It’s about the final week of his employment that I’m working the belt and once again my scanner messes up and stops working. I hand it over to Alen once again, and just like before as if he has never cared about scanning, he tells me to keep loading the trucks.
I smile to myself and nod. So I continue, stacking my packages in front of my trucks, waiting for that new scanner to arrive.
Not long after, Alen comes back with the trainee at his side. He asks me what I’m doing and I tell him I am stacking my packages.
Once more, he tells me to keep loading my trucks, and this time, I talk back, telling him I’m not loading them without a scanner. I have to admit, at this time, I was done with Alen and let my anger get the better of me, raising my voice and getting a bit shaky as I have a very hard time dealing with anger, especially after dealing with his crap for so long.
The trainee tries to settle the situation and tells me to keep just keep stacking and they’ll get a scanner right away, but is interrupted by Alen telling me once again to load my trucks, this time louder. I flatly respond no, and thus it goes back and forth like this for nearly half a minute before I eventually tell him to get it to me in writing because I’m not getting fired over this.
Remember, we are not supposed to load a package without scanning it, and can indeed get in trouble if they can prove we did it intentionally. This seems to get him even madder and he eventually tries to pull the head supervisor card.
He asks me if I would like him to go get the head supervisor to try and intimidate me, I guess. I wasn’t able to chuckle in my anger and just told him to go ahead and get him.
He and the trainee walk off with him storming down the belt.
A few minutes later, the trainee comes back with a scanner in hand, apologizing and telling me to just get back to work. I didn’t see Alen for the rest of the day, and if memory servers, the rest of his final week as well.”
Another User Comments:
“God, screw UPS warehouses and those tiny lil freaking finger scanners. The truck already throws a crap fit if I grab the wrong box. Just get people who can read a stall label and you’re good.” ExcessivelyGayParrot
