People Share Their “Ask And You Shall Receive” Moments Of Revenge

To comply, or not comply? That is the question! Sometimes we don’t realize that when we ask for something, the person is more than willing to do it, to the point where it’s detrimental and causes more harm than good. In most of these stories, it’s usually because the victim of the act of malicious compliance doesn’t give the other person a chance to explain. They are cut off, and with no other option, the only way to get even without going full-on revenge is to just do as they’re told – tenfold! And that’s where it gets entertaining.

We all know that you get more with honey than you do with vinegar. It’s common sense, but apparently, even common sense isn’t too common, and it’s definitely different for everyone. What might be a normal way of talking to someone, certainly isn’t normal for someone else. Usually, if you’re rude, people aren’t going to go out of their way to help you. In the following cases, they’ll go out of their way to give you exactly what you asked for, with a big smile. Take the angry man yelling at the front desk for a room with a double bed.

He’s so adamant that he gets what he demands, that the attendant sees to it that he gets what he wants. In fact, he gets what he deserves and it isn’t what he wants. That, plus a nice big piece of humble pie. It’s an A+ malicious compliance, and only a taste of the fun stuff to come. Ready for more? Get reading for some tasty and satisfying tall tales!
15. “There’s Simply No Way?” Watch This

“Like most colleges, the university I went to had a lot of bullcrap fees. Most of these were inevitable, but we also had a ‘printing’ fee for us to use the printers around campus.

Effectively we were required to pay $25 at the beginning of each semester, and would be deducted for each page we printed (less than a penny per page).

Fast forward to my senior year. Before we graduate, we are required to do an exit interview with our financial counselor to understand our balance and repayment plans. That’s when I noticed I still had around $90ish on my printing balance. Obviously, I didn’t want to pay for something I didn’t use, so I ask how I’ll get that money back. Apparently, there’s ‘simply no way’ they could reimburse me and that ‘I may still need to print paper before graduating.’
That’s where they messed up.

Let me rewind a bit… if you were on-campus WiFi, you had access to any public printer on campus at any given time. That means if the library was out of paper, I could print to my dorms and pick it up on the way to my room. Let me reiterate: I could print to any of the 30+ printers no matter my location.

Sure enough, my counselor was right. I DID have to print something before graduating. I just HAD to print a meme with a cat with the text “Haters gonna hate” over 400 times on each printer simultaneously. Recently learned they have a new printing policy now.” okiespy
14. Don’t Want To Hear What I Have To Say? K, I’ll Charge You For It Later

“One of the things builders hate is an architect or draftsman who assumes builders are thicker than the two short planks they’ve been told to nail together.

My friend agrees to a contract to build an extension to a house in Wales. Hilly, hilly Wales. The only problem is that the couple asking for the work has picked the worst pig-headed type of architect money can possibly buy.

He gets the plans and starts the build, but before long, he notices something odd about the drawings for the new extension and calls the architect to query it. The architect isn’t having any of it, giving him the whole ‘just do your job, the plans are fine’ without even letting my friend finish explaining the problem. Well, fine.
Before long, the architect comes to the site at the owner’s request (they’re in on it) and walks into the main part of the house to see the problem.

The doorway through to the extension is only 3 feet tall. My friend is in the extension, so he storms round to ask *** is going on, blaming the builder all the way. When he gets into the extension room the doorway is, in fact, the regulation height, but the architect hadn’t factored in the slope of the hill, and the fact that the adjoining room in the existing house, the floor is considerably higher than the floor of the extension due to the hill, and given the extension has an outside door.
After my friend patiently explained how the plans were wrong, the architect agrees to pay for the builder to put it right.

He haggles the architect up to 500 pounds, proceeds to take a sledgehammer and knock out the remaining part of the door.

It turns out that having been told to just do the work, he did it properly (right size door, staircase), then put in an extra little and bricked the top part of the doorway up, made good so it wasn’t obvious, hid the detached staircase he’d ordered, and waited for the inevitable to happen. 500 quid for an hour’s work.
Long story short, the builder follows plans exactly as instructed, but builds in the ability to fix the planning mistake for quick cash bonus.

(A few people having issues visualizing this one. In short, extension floor was quite a bit lower than the existing house, but on the plan, there are no stairs and the adjoining door is positioned on the floor of the extension. This height difference results in an unusable door. Thank goodness he had the forethought to build it right, ignoring the plans, then maliciously comply with a temporary fix to match the plans he was told to follow…)” imvirtuallyinsane
13. Want A Small Banana? I’ll Get You One

“My office building is located right next to a grocery store that is a popular lunch destination due to the proximity and their variety of quick lunch options.

I am often the first on my team to take lunch and often ask if they want me to pick up something while I’m out. My colleague Daniel frequently asks me to pick up bananas.

This was another day at the office and another planned trip to the supermarket next door for lunch. When I told my team I was heading out and asked if anyone wanted anything, Daniel gave a slight variation of his frequent request.
‘One banana. Just a small one.’

He handed me a dollar to buy the banana, which I handed back to him because I wasn’t worried about buying something that would cost less than a quarter.

I headed to the store, picked up my lunch, and headed over to the produce section and the giant banana display.

This time I spotted something at the top corner of the display. Mini bananas. And thus, an idea was born.

The mini bananas were sold by weight and the bunches were already bagged in plastic, so I couldn’t just break off one from a bunch. They were about the same price per pound as their normal-sized counterparts, so I grabbed a bunch of the mini bananas and one regular-but-small banana that Daniel asked for, and went to check out. For the record, the bunch of mini bananas was roughly fifty cents.

I walked back to the office, and while I was in the elevator heading up to my department’s floor, I opened the bag containing the mini bananas and broke one off the bunch. I got back to my desk, dropped my stuff off, and headed over to Daniel’s desk with the single mini banana. I placed the tiny banana on his desk wordlessly and started to walk away.

Immediately, Daniel starts laughing. He showed the person sitting behind him the single mini banana, which made her laugh, too. I reminded him that he asked for just one small banana. Still laughing, Daniel proclaimed this tiny cavendish to be awesome.

I did bring him the normal banana he asked for after a few minutes of laughter. I told him that I could only buy the minis by the bunch and that he could have the rest if he wanted them, which he happily accepted.” elemjay

12. Stay Out Of Your Way? We’ll Make Sure To Avoid You

“Some backstory; I was a general troubleshooter for my company. My job involved a lot of traveling to different clients we support. My area of work is in Ontario, Canada (where I am based out of) and some of the nearby States in the United States (New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Pennsylvania.) I did most of my traveling by car since my schedule can change quite quickly and flying can become very expensive.

I had one colleague who is technically my subordinate but we have a very good working relationship and would often handle calls independently of each other only checking in by phone once a week and in-person once a month/when necessary.
A little over a year ago, I get an email calling me to the head office in New York City for a meeting with the CEO and the board of directors regarding my job. I check with my colleague and he got the same email. So we make our travel plans and meet in New York City the following week. We have dinner together the night before our meeting and can’t figure out between us what the issue is about (it’s rare to get summoned to head office and rarer for things to be so vague).

When we go into the meeting the next day we are informed that the company is dividing our department between the US and Canada and that there would be a new person to deal with the US clients and we were to restrict ourselves to Canada. Both my colleague and I were a little shocked at this since neither of us has even heard this was being discussed. I asked who the new person for the US was and we then learned that it was a new hire that the CEO had taken a special interest in.
Trying to be of good spirit I offered to train the new person, as there are many realities of the job that are not in the job description.

CEO accepted and then brought in the new hire. In walks a young lady who looks about 23 years old and wears an expression that she knows everything. She sits at the table and immediately makes it very clear that she wants nothing to do with us.

CEO – Bob, New Hire – Karen, My Colleague – Jim.

Bob: ‘Welcome Karen, we have just informed OP and Jim about the change in structure and they are willing to give you the support you need to get yourself started.’
Karen and Bob both look at me.

Me: ‘Glad to have you aboard Karen, I think both Jim and I have a lot of experience to share with you and we are happy to do so, perhaps it would be better in a separate meeting so we don’t take the board’s time.’

Karen: ‘Thank you all.

I have a lot of ideas about how I can streamline our department and new policies I can introduce that should save the company a lot of money in expenses.’

I’m very confused at this point. Karen is speaking as though she is my supervisor and that is distinctly not what Bob spoke to us about. I can see some of the board members giving strange looks at this as well.
Me: ‘Bob perhaps I misunderstood the new roles here. Would you please clarify?’

Bob: ‘Sure, Karen is the new head of your department and both you and Jim will answer directly to her.’

Board member: ‘That isn’t what we discussed or approved as a board.

We weren’t fully convinced of dividing the department but this is completely against what we discussed.’

Karen: ‘What did you discuss then?’

Board Member: ‘That your department would be divided between the US and Canada. OP and Jim would remain north of the border and you would run the US.’

Karen: ‘That’s not what I was told but I can work with that. As long as these two stay out of my way.’ (Indicating me and Jim)
Jim and I are both shocked and insulted to be spoken of in this manner. We are both very good at our jobs and before today have never seen this woman in our lives.

Bob: ‘That settles it, OP, effective immediately, you and Jim are to have nothing to do with Karen. Do not interfere with her work at all. You are both to restrict yourselves to working within Canada only.’

With that, he ended the meeting and left the room with Karen close behind him. Jim and I sat there stunned for a moment and some of the board members came up to us to express their shock and sympathies about this. I had enough presence of mind to ask if we would get a written directive of this change and was assured we would.

Sure enough both Jim and I got emails with the new directive from Bob by the end of the day.
So after sending an email to all our US-based clients advising them of the change and giving them the contact information of Karen, Jim and I made our way back to Toronto and reorganized ourselves for working within Ontario only. This meant much less traveling for us so it gave us more room to breathe.

Within a week I was getting complaints from our US-based clients that Karen was not answering emails and missing appointments. I forwarded these emails to Karen and copied the entire board including Bob.

Another week later I get a phone call from Karen who sounds frantic but will not admit she needs help. She makes pleasant conversation and then asks how I would handle a particular type of situation. I tell her I’m really not interested in discussing work as that might be seen as interfering in her work. Later that evening I get a call from Jim telling me he had the same conversation with Karen and handled it the same way.
By the end of that month, I get a call from Bob asking if I will take over the entire department again.

I politely tell him no since I didn’t want to interfere with Karen and her role. For the next 3 months, I’m getting emails and phone calls from US clients asking if they can have me back as their contact. This confirms an idea that had been in my head.

Jim and I had actually grown our client base in Ontario since restricting ourselves here. So I had lunch with Jim one day and asked him if he wanted to go into businesses with me as partners starting our own consulting firm. We couldn’t provide everything our current company provided but we could provide a high degree of professionalism for our specific field and it seemed we had a ready-made client base.

By the end of the lunch, he was on board and we started the necessary steps to get ourselves set up.
As soon as we were clear we both submitted our resignations with explanations of why. The next time clients contacted us we told them we no longer worked for the company. When they asked if we still worked in the field, we told them we had established our own firm and what services we offered. A month later, we had 60% of our US clients on board, and since the former company had no Canadian support at all, we had 80% of the Canadian clients.

Within 2 months, we had 80% of the US and 90% of the Canadian clients.

In the year since that time our new company has grown enough that we have hired 7 new consultants. Jim and I find ourselves doing more office work than road work, and a lot of client courting. Our old company has had to stop offering the in-person troubleshooting (what our department did) and Bob was fired by the board. No idea what happened to Karen.” ACFF
11. I Can’t Work Without A Tie? I’ll Work Wearing Every “Polyester Atrocity”

“I worked for a computer warehouse-type superstore. Right after I was hired I learned it was not a great job.

Almost everyone hated it, but you had some potential to make good commissions in sales so people kept their heads down and never questioned anything. Most competent people never stayed longer than a year and employee turnover was huge. Truly a terrible place to work.

I had recently sold my computer store and was taking a year off. After a few months, I got bored and got this job as a part-time to get me out of the house and supplement the cash out from the computer store sale. Being in this position gave me some freedoms some of the other people who worked there didn’t have.

If someone was complaining about something, I was more than happy to bring it up with management since I didn’t care if I got fired. I’m pretty sure the store manager hated me.
Dress code for guys was a white button-down shirt, tie, and some form of Dockers type pants. Since this job didn’t pay much for the non-sales staff, many employees had cheap ill-fitting button-down shirts and one cheap tie. Honestly, the staff would have looked better in a store-branded t-shirt or polo shirt. But since this store was crazy cheap, that would cost them overhead, and you can’t have that.

I’ve got a collection of some really nice ties I’d collected over the past 15 or so years – mostly vintage silks from the ’50s and ’60s. I actually hardly ever wore ties, but collecting them was a little hobby of mine. If I saw a particularly nice one, I’d nab it.
One morning I was getting ready and managed to forget my tie. It was about a 40-minute drive to work and I noticed my missing tie when I got out of the car at work. No big deal I thought.

Nope. Wrong.

About an hour into my shift I get pulled aside by my direct manager.

I explain I somehow forgot about my tie and didn’t really think it was a big deal. I also explained I was 40 minutes away from home and didn’t have time to go back before my shift started. My direct manager was pretty cool, but he has his stupid rules to follow so I got passed over to HR and the store manager.
The store manager acted like I just poured epoxy into all the toilets. He was crazy p*ssed at me. He lectured me for 25 minutes about the importance of the dress code, how those that don’t follow it aren’t ‘team players,’ and how, if it happens again, I’ll be looking for a new job.

He actually made me read the section in the employee handbook on the dress code ‘so I knew it and could follow it to the letter.’ All this over a tie.

I got written up and sent home to get my tie.

Since I was 40 minutes from home I just went to a local store, bought a cheap tie, and hung out at a cafe for an hour.
That weekend, I went thrift store shopping. I spent all day hitting every thrift store I could find. I found the ugliest, widest, most horrendous ties I could find. Massive 1970’s brown vomit colored ties, ugly green avocado-colored ties as large as a lobster bib, patterns that made eyes bleed – polyester atrocities time forgot.

I also bought some Christmas ties with Santa and holiday wreaths (it was summertime). To top it off I bought some terrible oversized white button-down shirts – a few were just off-white enough they looked almost dirty.

My next day at work I went from being the guy who looked fairly sharp to someone who looked like they escaped a mental ward in the 70s.
My direct manager saw me and started to laugh. He got it. He just patted me on the back and I was back to work. The store manager saw me later in the day and was not pleased, but since there was no wording in the employee guidelines on ties being within reason, or shirts fitting, he couldn’t do anything.

I sure he thought it was just a fluke for the day. Sadly, he was wrong.

My ties just got worse and worse as I uncovered them in thrift stores and garage sales over the next few weeks. I’d tie them short or uneven so the back hung lower from the front. I’d triple wrap a Four in Hand knot to make it look wrong and sideways. I found so many I started giving other people these terrible ties and within a few weeks, 1/4 of the people in my department looked completely ridiculous.
I ended up quitting about a month or so later.

My last day at work I distributed all my atrocities to everyone I knew at work to let my tie legacy live on.”CrazyCatLadyBoy

10. You Want Me To Close Down All Your Accounts? With Pleasure

“I used to work for a ban 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 bought 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.

Cast: Me, Night Manager, Customer, Head of Customer Relations and Retentions

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 ‘****! 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. 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 ***, 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 a*s 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 money 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 money.
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 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 ******* 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 head of customer relations and retentions with an attached a copy of the call recording. I later found out 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.” Absurd-n-Nihilistic

9. You Want Me To Pick Up The Ringing Phone? Please Hold

“Background: Part of my job involves taking calls from the public to offer various types of support, this can range from tech support to helping people find services in our county that they need. My ‘team’ is me and one other person, between us we have to cover 07:30 – 19:30 Mon-Fri and weekends as well. Because of this, and the fact that the company won’t invest in call waiting for us, we can only take one call at a time.

Our voicemail quite clearly states that we’re a small team but if you leave your name and number we aim to get back to you within 5 minutes.
Normally people are rather understanding of our situation and are happy to wait for us to call them back but, as the world is full of impatient ******,** we often get voicemails just criticizing us.

Now, this happened today and I’ve been wanting to react this way for a long time and finally got the opportunity to!

Jerk Caller: (Voicemail) This is bl**dy ridiculous, I was told to call this number but what’s the ******* point in telling people to call if there’s nobody to answer the phone!?

-Jerk Caller calls again-

Me: ‘Hello you’re through to -company name- CrackB3ar speaking, how can I help?’
Jerk Caller: ‘Oh, so now you answer the phone.

What is the point of having a number if you never bl**dy answer in!?’

Me: Ah, did you leave us a voicemail? I’ve just listened to it but unfortunately, you didn’t leave any contact details so I was unable to return your call. Thank you for calling back, how can I help?

Jerk Caller: ‘You should answer every call that comes through!!’

Me: ‘Well, unfortunately, there are only two people in my team, including myself and there tends to only be one of us in at a time so if I answered every call I’d end up having to keep putting people on hold and that really doesn’t seem fair.

Regardless though, you’re through at the moment and I’m happy to help you however I can.’
Jerk Caller: ‘You can help me by doing your job and answering the phone when it rings!’

At this point, I’m like, **** you lady. So sod it, I’ll comply.

Me: ‘Ok, sure. I’m sorry that I’ve annoyed you, I’ll make sure to answer the phone whenever it rings. Now, how can I help?’

-Jerk Caller starts to describe her problem-

-Phone rings-

Me: ‘Oh, I’m sorry, the phone is ringing. I’ll have to place you on hold.’

Jerk Caller: Wai…

-Hold-

I then help the person calling, taking my sweet, sweet time. Like going above and beyond just to keep this other ****** waiting… plus, y’know it’s nice to help people.

-Take Jerk Caller off hold-

Me: ‘Thanks for your patience, now you were saying?’

Jerk Caller: ‘How dare you put me on hold, especi…’

Me: ‘Oh, I’m sorry, the phone is ringing. I’ll have to place you on hold.’

-Hold-

You can see where this goes. I think I managed to keep this going for about 15/20 minutes before she hung up and I’m in for the next 10 hours…. god I hope she calls back.” CrackB3ar

8. You Think Your Child Is Special? No, She Just Does Nothing

“So, flashback to my first year of teaching. I was a 21-year-old middle school teacher, fresh out of college and extremely green.

I was admittedly shaky when it came to parent communication. It is quite intimidating to speak to a parent as an equal when you are less than 10 years older than their children! Many of them were old enough to be my parent, which made things awkward for me.
Enter Mom. Her daughter, Diva, did absolutely NOTHING in my class except stir up drama, be extremely rude and obnoxious, and generally anything but do her work.

Now, student grades are easily accessible at all times through an online parent portal, so I have always been of the opinion that parents should never be surprised by grades at the end of the quarter.

So the end of the 2nd quarter is drawing to an end, and I get an abrasive email from Mom demanding a parent/teacher conference with an administrator present. Of course, teachers are instructed to meet with a parent any time they want a conference. One of my assistant principals sat in on the meeting.
From the moment Mom sat across from me, I knew where Diva got her attitude. Mom was belligerent, accusing, and rude. She began to angrily accuse me of causing her daughter to fail (somehow my fault?). Basically, I should have done everything under the sun to make sure she didn’t fail: I should have contacted her early, I should have sent home extra copies, I should have been checking Diva’s agenda, etc.

While I admittedly should have called her early, her chewing me out in front of my boss was the most embarrassing moment of my career.

My assistant principal worked out a compromise that went like this:
Since Mom didn’t want a lot of phone calls (apparently a busy person), it was agreed that I would write a note to Mom in Diva’s agenda every Friday about her grade and her missing work. Embarrassed and chastised, I could barely look my boss in the eye.

I resolved that I would comply to the fullest, so much so that it would be annoying. I would be above reproach so that she could never berate me like that again.

However, I never could have imagined the incredible events that followed.

In the weeks that followed, I not only wrote in Diva’s agenda, but I printed off lists of her missing assignments, progress reports, and letters home, and stapled them to her agenda. I did this every week, without fail, and Diva’s behavior did not change. By the end of the 3rd Quarter, she was missing 8 assignments and was failing my class yet again.
Lo! And Behold! I get an email from Mom demanding a parent/teacher conference with a principal present. She arrives and starts in on me again about how I’m unprofessional and how I’m not supporting her daughter, and how I had yet again failed to notify her that her daughter was failing.

Then, the realization struck me: she had never looked at the agenda. I painstakingly stapled progress reports, letters, and missing work into her agenda for nearly 3 months, and she never once checked. A grin broke across my face.

Me: ‘Can we look at Diva’s agenda, there’s something I think you should see.’
Mom:[leaves the room and comes back with Diva’s agenda]

Me: *begins flipping through the agenda, showing her every single page that I wrote on or stapled*

Me: ‘Now, if you’ll notice, I have written in Diva’s agenda and stapled progress reports, letters to you, and lists of missing work into her agenda every single week since we last spoke, as per our agreement.

Are you telling me that you didn’t check her agenda once?’

Mom: ***** drains from her face as she realizes her credibility with my principal is now gone.

Me: ‘At this point in the quarter, it is too late for your child to turn in make-up work. Please be sure to be checking your child’s agenda every Friday for an update concerning her progress. In order for your child to be successful, you need to be involved. Do you have any questions?’
Mom: [stammering with excuses and apologies for not checking]

By this point, I could tell that my principal was stifling laughter, so I knew that I had won. Mom left very quickly, and I never received one of those harsh emails again.

Diva’s behavior didn’t improve at all, but I rode the satisfaction of that  all the way through to summer.” Aldon_Worldwarden

7. Throw A Fit? Go Ahead, Throw Another One! I Dare You

“I work at a hospital as a room service ambassador and work on the surgical floor. One day I found out while I was off a Karen was admitted to the hospital. She supposedly was very rude and demanded 5 entrees on her tray 4 sides and 3 desserts on each of her meal trays. She would throw the whole tray on the floor and would loudly complain if there was even a packet of sugar missing.

One day it made one of my fellow ambassadors cry. So when I heard of this I had to see this for myself. She was skinny and ate EVERYTHING on the tray (she was on a calorie-restricted diet but the nurses didn’t want to hear her complain so they let her have it).

Well, I saw the lady herself and was indeed skinny and not how I was expecting her to look like. Well after testing around and forgetting an orange juice on her tray, she threw the tray on the ground in front of me. See, she was in a contact room which meant we had to wash our hands down up and glove up.

Not only that but we had to ask her for her name and date of birth. Malicious Compliance mode engaged.
I saw this as an opportunity and brought her up another tray, this time syrup missing on the tray I gowned up and gloved up slowly in front of her door so she could see me. Then I went in with my best ambassador voice and a big smile and said, ‘name and date of birth ma’am’ which she grunted annoyed and said her name and date of birth. Then I said do you want the tray over you or on the side? Then she said ‘over me you idiot’ so I complied and did so.

She saw the missing syrup and threw the tray on the ground. Then I looked and said, ‘oops forgot the syrup, I’ll get you another tray.’
So I went and got her the same tray of course without the pepper on it. I went up put the gown on slowly turned towards her with a smile, and said I’ll be with you shortly, then gloved up. Then I said, ‘Oops forgot to wash my hands!’ Then I proceed to take off the gloves and gown and wash my hands and then went back and put gloves and a gown on again. I could just see the fury in her eyes then I went into her room ‘name and date of birth ma’am,’ then she said, ‘You just asked me that question you should know by now, Now give me the **** food,’ then I said, ‘I can’t give you the tray till you give me your name and date of birth.’
She said fine and gave me the info.

Then she saw the pepper was missing but didn’t say anything. Then I said, ‘Do you want it over you or on the side?’ she said over and I did so then I said have a good morning! And took off my gown glove and sanitized out of the room. She never complained about her trays again.” JewsusKid

6. Make Myself Unreachable So I Can’t Be Contacted To Work? Hello, Cabin In The Middle Of Nowhere!

“I work for a small company in the trades as head of the IT department (aka the only IT person). Truthfully, the gig is pretty great. Good pay, benefits and I can come and go as I please within reason.

The two people I have to answer to are the VP and CEO and as is par for the course they know nothing about anything to do with technology and generally leave me be as I’m good at my job and everything runs smoothly.
Being a small company a lot of us don’t take vacations due to A) building the company and B) not having replacements for the time we’re gone but after two years vacations (we’re in the US) my wife convinces me to use the time I’m given to decompress and take a small, one week, getaway. I talk to VP and he gives me the thumbs up to take the time barring I get everything in order and do some minor teaching to other staff in case of an emergency.

Cool, easy.

Enter FOD (Field Operations Director) a man who is an attack dog for the VP for no reason as the VP is nothing but polite and reasonable. FOD loves giving everyone a hard time, adding steps to tasks to make himself look like he’s part of the process, reminding everyone how much of a ‘boss’ he is to the rest of us in management and calling me a nerd any chance he gets.
Fair to say, I dislike FOD immensely.

After making my rounds with other staff it’s FODs time to do some scary computer-related learning. FOD refuses to look weak under any circumstances and gets very aggressive when learning new things because ‘I’m the boss, I already know.’ In the midst of learning, it dawns on him to ask why he has to learn this stuff anyway, I’m the nerd and it’s my job to do this.

I clue him in on the week I’m taking off and this stuff is just precautionary. This worries FOD as he’ll have to retain information, answer questions and do some minor troubleshooting.
The conversation went something like this, and I wish I could tell you that this guy isn’t this much of a jerk, but he is.

Boss: ‘Who approved your vacation?’

Me: ‘VP did as long as I could get you guys comfortable with some small maintenance.’

Boss: ‘I only approve vacation time, I’m your boss.’

(Side note: he does THIS so much that VP actually wrote out the hierarchy in chart form and we all carry a digital copy with us to remind him who he’s actually in charge of)

Me: ‘You’re not.’ (shows chart)

Boss: ‘Well fine! But you’re salary so you have to work during your vacation.

You’ll bring your laptop and work phone with you.’
Me: ‘When YOU vacation you make it very clear you’re unreachable and can’t be bothered even if it’s an emergency.’

Boss: ‘That’s because I go to places without service and unless you’re going to the mountains you have to work! You’re salary!’

Malicious Compliance initiated.

Me: ‘Just to be clear; if I go to a place without service I won’t be expected to work, yeah?’

Boss: ‘That’s right, but you’re a nerd you don’t do anything outdoorsy.’

Me: ‘Great, thanks for clearing that up.’

Fast forward 3 weeks later and it’s vacation time. All my ducks are in a row, people are comfortable with me being gone for the week and are all encouraging me to just disconnect.

A close coworker of mine knows of the conversation FOD and I had and asks what I plan to do to about it so I shared my easy but effective plan.
The wife and I rented a cabin in the woods, 2 hours from the nearest town and it doesn’t have service. I set up automatic email replies that have all IT questions and concerns forwarded the Boss since ‘he’s the boss, he knows.’ I leave work phone on the charger in my office with the ringer on, door locked so he has to hear it and voicemail changed to have FOD become IT for the week.

Coworker loves the idea of flooding FOD with questions he can’t answer so much that he gets other coworkers in on it.

Midway through the week, I get a call from a coworker with an update: FOD loses it. He can’t keep up with any requests for help and didn’t bother to memorize the simple tasks I showed him so he does what any good ‘boss’ does and puts in a request to take a vacation until I get back. A retreat is always an option. Nothing screams leader more than retreat. It’s not weakness and failure if he’s not there!
My coworkers were able to manage and FOD got his 3-day vacation, unfortunately.

After the week off I’m called to VP’s office to catch up and get things back on track. VP obviously heard of the hardships FOD faced in my absence and laughed at my MC surprisingly. VP struck a deal with me moving forward since it was made clear to him no one else knew how to do my job: I can go on vacation wherever I’d like as long as I bring my laptop and phone and check it once a week. They’ll refund my vacation time for that day even if I only work for 5 minutes.
I took that but with the caveat of making FOD actually learn some of my duties just in case.

VP agreed. Now I do an hour of teaching a week to a very surly FOD. After all, he’s ‘the boss’ he’s gotta know.” out_run_radio

5. Don’t Mess With Your Clean Toilet? I’ll Use Mine

“I’ll start by saying that this story isn’t mine, but a friend’s. He’s a builder and while most of his work consists of building new houses from the ground up he also does work on existing houses that are occupied. It’s also worth noting that we live in a semi-rural area in Australia. The population here is quite spread out and it’s not uncommon for him to travel 60-100 km’s to a job site.

One such time he was working on a kitchen renovation of a house in a neighboring town 60 km’s (about 35 miles) away. It was a decent-sized job and he was there for over a week. Obviously being there for 8 hours at a time he eventually had to use a toilet and on the first day, he simply helped himself to a toilet in the house.

Upon arriving on his second day he was greeted by the owner of the house and then told that he was not allowed to use the toilet in their house and that the owner thought it was very rude of him to use it without asking.

‘Well, what do you want me to do?’ he asked.

‘I don’t care, but I don’t want you messing with my clean toilet!’ was the response.

‘Not a problem.’ he answered.

Later in the day, the inevitable happens and nature called. So he jumped in his ute and drove home; a 120 km round trip which took well over an hour. The homeowner was out for this time and didn’t notice which disappointed him, but eventually, she returned and saw the progress for the day. She was happy enough with the work so far, but he couldn’t help himself and said: ‘I would be a lot further along if I didn’t have to duck out for over an hour.’
‘Why did you have to do that?’ she asked.

‘Well, I had to use the toilet so I went home.’

He said that she just stared at him for the longest time and he could see the cogs turning in her head as to why he would do such a thing. She never said anything about it, but later in the day, she wanted to discuss payment. He reminds her that he worked on an hourly rate and that yes, it included travel time. That’s when she hit the roof.

A quick reminder that he would happily use her toilet if he was allowed to but she made it clear that he wasn’t and she had to eat her words.

He felt a bit bad about it so on day 3 he drove into town and used a public toilet instead of driving all the way home – but this still took a good 10-15 mins.

On the morning of day 4, a truck arrived with a hired portaloo for him to use. This woman was really keen to keep him out of her toilet and ended up paying god knows how much extra for it.” Beezneez86

4. Don’t Tell Me In Advance? I Won’t Bring Home My Computer

“I work in a support role for a global insurance/investment company. Over the last 6 months, I’ve lost many an evening and weekend to unexpected work problems, with not even a thank you, let alone any financial compensation.

As an example, being called at 21:30 and asked if you can log on when you’ve met friends for a drink.
Where a job needs to provide out of hours support, a supplement is meant to be paid for being on call, with additional payment if you’re required to actually work.

My contract is based on annual salary, where additional work might be required for no extra pay/overtime if it’s considered business as usual (BAU) or known in advance (this bit is important). However, the work I’ve been asked to do on weekends/evenings is not BAU. BAU assumes processes work. If something goes wrong, someone needs to step in to fix it and it’s no longer BAU.

A couple of months ago, I had the conversation with my manager about being paid for being on call. I was told the work I was covering actually fell under BAU, and as I was always given advance notice (I wasn’t) I wouldn’t be paid for being on call. The manager wouldn’t budge on this, so I made it clear I would not be taking my laptop home/available unless I was given advance notice I might be required to log on, to which my manager agreed.
On this glorious day, I received a call from my manager asking me to log on as some critical data was missing from a file, causing significant problems with several admin systems.

Trying to sound as sincere as I could, I apologized and said as I was not made aware in advance, and I’m not on call, my laptop was left at the office.

This was met by an ‘Ah.’ To which I responded, ‘Good luck, and I’ll see you tomorrow.’

So, after the call to me, my manager rang around and finally got hold of a manager from P Team (Team I provide support to). Over several hours, between them, they figured out that somehow a group in the system had not been run for the day (controls are in place so this shouldn’t be possible).

To fix it, they had to run the missed group, validate the movements, and then rerun processes to send the data to the admin systems.
After looking into it this morning, this is for Team P to look into how they’ve managed to done goof on such a scale, a ‘near miss’ recorded with governance, who they’ll need to explain it to. This caused several issues with admin systems and a lot of verifying everything is as it should be this morning.

Following this, a group email has been sent around, to remind people that laptops should be taken home, as in the event of the building being unavailable/inaccessible, recovery plans are for people to use their laptops to work from home/alternate site.

It seems the manager had trouble contacting someone with a laptop able to log on.
I’m positive they’ll have no issues finding someone to drop everything at a moments notice going forward . . .

I fear that should I receive a similar call in the future, I’ll not be in a position to access my laptop. Worklife balance is important, and I’m going to enforce those boundaries. The trouble is, it starts as a one-off here and there, and you do it to be nice with the best of intentions, but give an inch and they’ll take a mile if you’re not careful.

For some of those asking, I’m already looking at other jobs. Although there are definitely issues with the management in my current area, and employees being taken for granted (not just me), the company as a whole does have a good ethos. ” UPMCThrowAway
3. You Want Me To Take Your Non-Disclosure Agreement Seriously? Watch Me Go

“I’m a proofreader/editor by trade; I do all kinds of work from instruction manuals to essays to books. It’s pretty fun and I get to set my own hours as long as the job gets done.

Late last year I get an email from a man (let’s call him Martin Von Madeupnametoprotectidentity).

Martin has written a book, and he wants an editor.

Before the job began (in fact, before we’d even negotiated my fee), Martin asks to meet up. I didn’t have a problem with this; he lived locally and I quite like coffee, so we met in a local cafe. The man swaggers in like Johnny Depp in the Pirates franchise; before introductions are over he slaps a sheet of paper on the table and says ‘I need you to sign this.’ I take a glance at it, and it’s an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement). Martin, like a lot of people who’ve never completed a book before, believed his book was the best book in the universe, an idea that needed to be protected from all the idea thieves out there.

Now, I don’t judge literary merit, that’s not my job, I’m just here to make sure that the manuscript is polished and well presented, I also don’t usually discuss any project with anyone who isn’t directly involved with the project itself.
I read the NDA thoroughly but didn’t mind signing it. It forbade me from EVER discussing his project with anyone. I wouldn’t even be allowed to mention his name. I thought it a little extreme, but the fee for the job we’d negotiated was good enough. Who knows? Maybe he had written the next bestseller.

SPOILER ALERT: Martin’s book was not the best book in the universe.

Who could have guessed? It was terrible. It also had a *** scene in it that was the most excruciating bit of drivel I’ve ever read. I won’t give you a direct quote, but imagine a whole chapter devoted to naughty-time that had sentences like, ‘He put his hand on her breasts and it was nice’ and you’re halfway there.
Martin was also one of the worst clients I’ve ever had. Ignoring the petty stuff like the daily phone calls to see how I was doing (seriously, we set a deadline, it’ll be done by the deadline), he did some things that really p*ssed me off.

Firstly, I’d edited half the manuscript when he decided that he had rewritten the first two chapters himself. That’s right, I had to cast out a lot of the work I’d already done in order to re-rectify his mistakes. Not a big deal in itself, but this sort of thing happened so often that the book ended up eighty pages longer than when I received it, and a lot of the work was doubled up because of his ‘visionary rewrites.’ This led to the second problem.
This job was priced at a certain amount per page. Every time he added pages, I reminded him that the price was going to go up.

He assured me this was fine, and I kept a careful note of the extra work (always a good idea). I’m sure that you, dear reader, will be as surprised as I am by what happened next…

I complete the job (a week before the deadline, he added smugly) and send Martin an invoice for the final bill. A bill that he knows has been growing steadily from all the daily updates he’s been demanding. People in the creative industry will be well aware that getting money out of some clients is difficult, but Martin was determined to turn non-payment into a creative industry all by itself.

He shouted, begged, pleaded, and threatened me with a lawsuit unless he got his manuscript back. My reply each time was that he’d get his manuscript when he paid the bill, the bill that he’d agreed to on many occasions. He demanded a PDF of his project first: I sent him one with ‘SAMPLE, CLIENT HAS NOT PAID’ watermarked on every single page. This goes on for so long that I have to issue an ultimatum: either he pays or I delete the entire manuscript at midnight the next day. He did pay (at 23:35), and I send him the completed manuscript and think that that’s that.

Nope: he suddenly phones me up and asks me to get the book listed on a print-on-demand service that gives you a free ISBN (and will list the book on Amazon for you). Normally, I do this for free for nice people (it’s nice to be nice), but I told Martin it’d cost him. He actually sent the money to me within the hour and I list the book for him.

So where’s the malicious compliance? A couple of weeks ago, Martin sends me a text. It turns out that his book, despite being listed on Amazon, somehow isn’t number one on the bestseller list.

Not my problem (I’m not a literary agent) so my response was simple: ‘Okay.’ Martin then, after all the insults and the irritations and the barely disguised attempt to steal my services, asks me if I could ‘tell all my friends, and maybe get them to buy a copy to get the ball rolling?’ It felt incredibly satisfying to send this reply:
‘I’m sorry, Martin; under the terms of the NDA I signed I’m not at liberty to discuss the book with anyone.’

I know it’s petty, I know it’s not as spectacular as most of the stories on here, but I hope someone gets a kick out of my story – I know I did.

Also (just to make something clear in case I get questions about it) I am a man of my word; not even my closest friends know who this guy is or the title/contents of the book. Unlike some clients I could Martin sorry, mention, I won’t try to break a contract!” ESPeciallyFlynn
2. This Isn’t A New Request, But If You Say So…

“Every year, an external agency requests data from our company. The first time this happened, the accountant liaised with me on the requirements and the format I would send it to her in (Excel, in a particular layout) to facilitate her data entry to the agency’s web page.

After the first year and realizing this would be a yearly occurrence, I created a script and template. The accountant would give me the dates and a few other specifics and I would send her the data within the day. An hour if I felt like it.
This year, the accountant was on leave. So her boss (BA for boss accountant) took over and talked to me over the phone.

‘I need the data for XYZ event.’

‘Oh, is it the yearly request? Sure, could I have the dates and ?’

‘No no this is new, you need to get me

from and ‘ I didn’t bother to take notes since I was sure it was that same request and already opened my scripts ready to input the new data requirements.

‘Yes that’s what they ask for every year, I just need the – ‘ BA interrupts me

‘NO! YOU ARE NOT LISTENING TO ME! DO I NEED TO SPEAK TO YOUR BOSS? THIS IS A NEW REQUEST! ‘
She paused to breathe and I quickly apologized ‘oh no, so sorry, please tell me what you need again?’ At this point, I already knew I was going to maliciously comply. Why else be so polite?

BA repeats her requirements and this time I take detailed notes since she was so specific in which tables she wanted the data from as well. She takes inordinate pride in knowing ‘the backbone of the system and how it works’ Who was I, a lowly tech peon, to tell her otherwise?

I apologized again and promised to send it to her by the end of the next working day since it was, as she was well aware, really complicated.

And urgent too, since there was a submission deadline.
I took a coffee break and the chance to quickly update my boss about this PRIORITY request and that my other tasks had to wait till this was sent out to BA. I told my boss what BA said: it’s not the same yearly request, there were apparently some changes but since the documents were so sensitive I could not review them, I only had her word on the requirements. And since it was so specific, I would give her exactly as she wanted.

She should’ve gone to my boss first if it was a new request but she decided she would bully me into giving it to her urgently.

My boss didn’t want to get involved and sealed the deal for me: ‘Give her what she wants.’
Sooooo, I spent the next hour extracting large amounts of raw data and pasting them into Excel. Screw formatting and layout, BA knows what the raw data looks like. Auto calculated fields and date ranges? Pivot tables to organize? BA never mentioned that. How would I know, how could I guess?

I sent it early. A large zipped Excel file emailed to BA, cc my boss on the Urgent data requested.

I sent it the next day just before our lunch hour. I knew she would see it before leaving for lunch and would want to check it for a chance to berate me ASAP if it wasn’t exactly what she asked for.

Spoiler alert: It was exactly what she asked for. She never spoke of it to me again.

Her team wasn’t happy that she was late to join them for lunch (they have to walk past my cubicle).

I waited for the accountant to return from her vacation and gave her a few days before I asked her how this year’s submission of ‘s request went. She was concerned. Was I on leave too? BA was manipulating a huge Excel file and it didn’t look like anything I’ve sent previously. She thought perhaps MY boss has given her the data, since he wouldn’t know what we had discussed and worked with previously.

Turns out it *was* the same yearly request. BA spent a few days *tediously* doing what my scripts already do and she could’ve (as the accountant has been doing) just copied and pasted from my scripted data.” rgal7

1. Break Company Policy? I’ll Tell Them And Walk Out With A Reward For My Efforts

“This story comes from one of my previous jobs when I was a dishwasher at a local convention center. Because it was a convention center, many different events were held during weekend nights. The events always involved 300+ people, and that meant the server team had to wait until they all clear out to start cleaning up everything and the dishwashing team had to wait for them which meant our jobs went until 2-3 am when our shifts were supposed to end around 12-1 am.

Most servers understood what we were going through, and were nice enough to clean up huge food scraps off the plates and trays so all we had to do was run it through the dishwashing machine once.
Now as dishwashers, we were supposed to wash down pretty much everything EXCEPT for kitchen knives. Servers used kitchen knives to cut cakes or cooked meat, and it was their job to clean them down. The water that we used to soak kitchenwares got murky really quick, and you can guess how dangerous it was for someone to try to grab sharp knives. I even heard one of the ex-dishwashers SLICED his wrist open almost to the tendon.

Plus, the water was really dirty, so any cuts you make on your hands had a high risk of infection. As such, dirty kitchen knives weren’t allowed AT ALL in the dishwashing area. It was clearly stated in the company policy book. Almost every server didn’t mind washing down the knives, as they were simple tasks as opposed to the number of stuff dishwashers washdown.
Enter JCM, the Jerk Catering Manager. He joined our convention center about 2 months after I started to work there, and he immediately made clear he wasn’t there to make connections. He was so business-oriented and profit-focused, making the server team do all the heavy lifting while he casually talked with the event planners.

He was one of those people who smiled and laughed with the guests while going all gung-ho to the servers and even o dishwashers. We were part of kitchen staff which was a separate department from the catering group, meaning JCM had no jurisdiction over us. Many complaints were made from both the servers and dishwashers, to which JCM completed denied and said ‘They are just being lazy and don’t want to their job. I have the hardest job of managing both the guests and the staff.’
One night, it was particularly busy and both the servers and dishwashers were busting their *****.

It was so busy, to the point where we had to wash down the dirty plates twice so they can be used again. I was pretty much the dishwasher team lead and was running back and forth between the dishwashing area and behind-the-curtain area collecting dishes AND managing temporary staffs. I am really not the type to multi-task, so I was flustered. JCM comes into the dishwashing area while holding a dirty kitchen knife.

JCM: ‘Hey I am going to need you guys to wash this down…’
Me: ‘But I thought that was servers’ job?’

JCM: ‘Well we are a little too busy. I am going to need this washed down.’

Me: ‘Do you need it immediately?’

JCM: ‘No.’

Me: ‘Then why don’t you guys wash it down when everything is settling down?’

JCM: ‘I am the catering manager here.

If I say this needs to get washed down, THIS GETS WASHED DOWN.’

Me: ‘And why exactly should we listen to you?’

JCM: ‘Because I am your boss?’

Me: ‘No, you’re not. (Exec. Chef’s name) is.’

JCM: ‘Just leave it soaking in the dishwater then!’

Me: ‘If you are the manager, then you should be following the company rules!’
Did I mention he was swinging the knife around while talking? As in, while pointing at me while standing really close? JCM did not like my response, and slammed the knife into one of the waters.

JCM: ‘I do not want to see that knife brought back. Do it or all of you are fired!’

And he stomped his way out of the kitchen.

All of the dishwashers were stunned to what they had just witnessed. I calmly told everyone to wash everything that we’re supposed to wash down, except for the knife. In the end, as we were cleaning down everything, I decided to leave the unwashed knife in the pit, as I was told. I told the rest of the dishwashers and servers to do the same.
The next day I wrote a profound e-mail to my boss, other leadership figures, servers, and the parental company of the convention center. I told them about all the crap that went down, how I decide to comply with JCM’s violation of company policy, and if he tried to deny everything, I told them to check CCTV.

It may not have recorded sounds, but it certainly should’ve caught him in the act.

On my next shift, there was an envelope in my cubby. The envelope contained a letter and a $50 Amazon gift card. The letter stated how grateful the company was to be for standing up to JCM. JCM was given a choice of voluntary leave or face disciplinary actions w/ termination, and he chose the former. They asked me to accept the gift card as a sign of appreciation, which I did.” sgy0003
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