People Tell The World About Their Best Malicious Compliance Revenge
23. Only Give Me A 1% Raise? Yeah, I'm Going Somewhere Else
“So I previously worked as a customer service rep for a big health insurance company for almost two years.
It was my first job out of college, so I was just trying to get my feet wet and ultimately move on to something else within the company.
I hit my year within the company a couple of months after 2019 and poop hits the fan.
Parts of the company go on hiring freezes, and the roles available get snatched up very quickly, and it is super competitive. I apply to multiple positions and don’t even make it to the interview stage. It’s alright because I’m thankful for my current role providing me job security even though the pay is abysmal.
Fast forward to early 2021 when our annual review happens. I’m mentally checked out of the role but still doing extremely well stats/metrics-wise and am excited to see how big my raise is. I finally have my review with my manager and get a 4 overall on my review (reviews are conducted out of a scale of 5 Typically people get 3’s and that’s pretty good, but getting a 4 is very, very good, and one would expect a big raise with that).
I am super pumped that I got a 4 and am expecting a big raise and finally towards the end of my review we discuss the raise. My manager states that my 4 (which again is rare and super good) nets me a 1% raise. Now I’m not going to get into the details of how much that is exactly because it’s rather embarrassing, but let’s just say you would barely even see a difference in my paycheck.
I was stunned, and I asked my manager how I could get such a small raise with such a good review? My manager says essentially something about the budget only allowing me a 1% raise and if I don’t like it to look for something else.
I have to admit I was slacking on the job search, but that really kicked me into overdrive. Two weeks after that, I was in the interviewing stages for 3 different roles at the same company or our sister company, and after a month of that, I got an offer I couldn’t refuse.
The new position came with a 32% increase in salary, and I couldn’t have been happier. I told my boss that I had accepted a new role and mentioned the increase, and my boss was shocked. It was also very inconvenient because I was the most experienced person on the team, so a lot of coworkers would come to me for questions/advice, and I also had been assigned to special projects that I was an expert in, and now they would need to find someone else for that in a short period of time.
In conclusion, know your worth and don’t settle for less.”
22. Calling Out My Student's Angry Mom
“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: B***d 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.”
21. I'm Not Going To Break Company Policy
“When I was in grad school (about 15 years ago), I was working nights and weekends in a convenience store.
It also happened to be the first time the fuel prices shot up to $4+/gal (in America). Because of this, there were quite a few people who pumped gas and drove off, prompting our company to institute a “pay before pumping” policy.
The company was a small, regional chain of gas stations/convenience stores in a largely rural area.
They were concerned about any loss. So much so that in the company newsletter, they announced firing someone for regular theft from the store. The “theft” in question was when an employee refilled her fountain drink while on duty.
Another example was that we were required to do fund drops any time we had more than $200 in the cash register.
Another employee was fired because she was robbed at gunpoint and hadn’t done a fund drop. There was approximately $205 in the register at the time.
So when this new policy came out, I wasn’t about to risk my job over someone filling up and driving off with a tank full of gas on my watch.
My manager was really good about working around my needs for class, research, etc. while working on my degree. So I put up with this and wanted to keep my job.
One night, I’m working, and someone pulls up to get gas. The machine beeps letting me know someone is trying to fuel up before paying.
I won’t preauthorize because… policy! The customer comes in and demands I let him fill up before paying. I explain the policy, and he lights into me with perhaps every expletive he knows. I’d like to say I was professional, but I returned his hospitality.
The next day when I show up for work, my manager is waiting for me, clearly unhappy. “He is a regular customer, and we want to keep them happy.”
I explained to her that, regular customer or not, I wasn’t willing to risk my job over a drive-off when people are getting fired for losing such little sums.
The manager states, “I see what you’re saying, but you have to learn which rules to follow.” Now, she’s been with the company for about 15 years. She could get some leeway. I’d been there less than a year. I had NO leeway.
So I asked her, “Please put in writing which rules I am expected to follow and which rules I do not. Or put in writing which customers are exceptions to policy, and which ones are not. Until then, I’m following all of the company’s policies.”
I’m not surprised that she wouldn’t put that in writing.
Fast forward about a week. I’m working solo on a Sunday afternoon when someone I’ve never seen before comes in and yells at me for not preauthorizing his pump. I explain the company policy and that he would have to prepay, just like everyone else.
The customer claimed he was with corporate and that he should be allowed an exception. I informed him that if he really was from corporate he’d know about this policy and would expect me to follow it. I even pointed to the policy statement in the window for him to read.
The customer yelled at me and stormed off before I could reply.
Turns out, this stranger was from corporate and even the VP of the company! He called to complain to my manager about my refusal to let him pump first. She repeated my arguments as to why I refused to risk my job and that he should be glad to know they have such loyal employees.
VP said that policy was meant for regular customers, and not for employees. She replied, “please put into writing which rules we are expected to follow and which ones we are not…””
20. I Have To Wear A Tie? Okay, I'll Wear The Ugliest Ones Possible
“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 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 angry 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’m 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.”
So when I get home, I go online to the website of a certain non-urban store named for a small, mountainous New England state and bought a blue denim skirt which I wore into the office the day after it was delivered. My supervisor gave me the stink eye all day. Meanwhile a couple men in the office complained about the discrepancy with skirts vs jeans. They made a union grievance based on s*x discrimination, but since I, a man, chose to wear a denim skirt, the arbitrator denied their grievance. One of the guys MCd by buying 5 pairs of white jeans and dyed them gawd-awful colors, like neon shades of lime green, tangerine, fuchsia, etc. Soon thereafter, the code was changed again to totally nix denim of ANY color, so my MC days were over, sad to say.
19. It Has To Be The Exact Weight? Sure Thing
“It happened a few years ago when I was working at a grocery store deli. The main part of our job was to use a slicer to cut cold cut meat and cheese for customers. One day, an older gentleman walked up to the counter and you could just SEE the bad day he had been having on his face.
It looked like someone had kicked his puppy before peeing on his lawn.
You know the kind.
Anyway, he walks up and asks in a really disgruntled voice ‘I need exactly 0.66lb of such-and-such (forget what kind) cheese, in a solid block. And YES I know you can’t get it to the exact weight, I don’t care, just get it done.’
Now, normally I try and be as polite as possible; one thing you’re never short on at a deli is rude customers. But something about this guy’s attitude kinda twisted something me the wrong way, and I thought to myself.
‘You know what? Challenge accepted….’
Now, if you’ve never worked in a deli before, something that might not really have crossed your mind before is not all cheeses weigh the same.
Some are pretty light, others are dense and heavy. Normally this isn’t a big problem since you weigh as you cut and can adjust the thickness of the slice as needed. When it’s a solid chunk though, things become a little harder.
More so if you have some angry dude waiting on you who looks like he’ll tell you to recut the chunk if it’s .01lb off. And if they do THAT, you’re now stuck with a 0.65/0.67 chunk of cheese that you’re probably not going to be able to sell and have to either cut it up and mark it down or throw it out.
So, me being the mildly OCD kid working at a deli for the past 5 hours, go into full engineer mode; weighing out the total weight and length of the “chub” (the term for the large block of cheese or meat that is cut into smaller slices), doing the quick calculations on a piece of spare paper, and measuring out the exact size needed to get the weight required, before using a knife to chop off a chunk from the end (the mechanical slicers were not big enough in order to fully cut it, but the total work only took about 45 seconds.
I’ve always been good at math).
I put the cheese up on the scale, it blinks for a moment as it’s weighting and pops up with a beautiful 0.66lb on the dot.
The older gentleman just looks down at the scale with a frown and squints his eyes, huffs like he’s disappointed, then grabs his cheese and walks away.
Though as he was walking away, I couldn’t help see a slight smile/smirk on his face and hear him murmur ‘Good Job…’
Overall, I was pretty proud of the work, I still remember that moment years later, even If I couldn’t tell you any of the other hundreds of people I’ve served.”
18. Taking A Contract Very Seriously
Gotta follow the rules.
“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 bedroom 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 chest 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 made me mad.
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 funds 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 funds 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, 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!”
17. Yes, Tenant, I Can Be "More Professional"
“I am a small-time Landlord, with just four tenants. Earlier this year, I had two sisters who didn’t respond to my requests to add one of the gal’s partners to the lease, though he was living with them. Not a BIG deal, but did I mention the pit bull they also brought home, without permission?
I DO allow pets and had previously approved their other dog. I asked nicely in person and by email in the months leading up to the malicious compliance…
They also did not respond when I asked if they were happy there and wanted to renew their lease for the following year.
I asked again, then I emailed them notice that I would start showing the unit 2 days later.
I try to be a nice landlord, I do. They had a newborn, as well, so I scheduled all of the showings within a 2-hour window on the same night so I could be in their space as little as possible.
Also, because they had not responded, and it was now serious ‘crunch time’ for getting another tenant and my spouse worked all the following two weeks during evening showing hours, I had the delightful inconvenience of bringing my 2 and 6-year-old children with me to the showings.
Because I’m not a corporation – I’m a small-time family landlord with kids.
Try to imagine how difficult it is to conduct business meetings with 2 kids, right? Then imagine staggering showings every fifteen minutes, with prospective tenants who are also bringing their own kids.
Just to further clutter your imagination, this is an 800 square foot 2 bedroom apartment with a cozy entryway.
So I arrive with my two kids, to find that my tenants are still at home, along with the man, the newborn and the other sister’s man.
So that’s 7 people in a small kitchen already. Then the first prospective tenants start arriving. Spouses with kids and some showing up early, so there are two sets of them. That’s 14 people in a small kitchen…
And I’m a mom. I have magical powers.
So I’m holding my toddler, my daughter is safely under the dining table coloring, and I’m chatting with the prospective tenants and directing traffic while my actual tenants prepare to depart.
If you didn’t know this already, it’s common practice in the US to leave the premises during real estate or apartment showings.
This was their first apartment, so I actually emailed them ahead of time to let them know what is generally expected at showings (e.g. a relatively tidy apartment, and that they can leave, for their own convenience).
They do eventually leave after the dude tells a prospective tenant that he, in fact, ALSO lives there.
And I carry on with exhausting scheduling of showings. And have my new tenants all picked out and lease signed by the next day. Awesome, right?
The next night, I get a voicemail from the man (who is NOT my tenant).
I saved it, and just listened to it again because it still gives me that same delightful shiver of malicious compliance.
In his voicemail, he told me how awful it was that MY children touched HIS infant’s things (they didn’t, because I keep my kids entertained with magical mommy toys, but prospective tenants also brought children), and how they had to sterilize everything to keep their infant from being sick, and how inconvenient it was to have showings with only 2 days notice, and how very unprofessional I was to bring my children, and asked if I could just be more professional in the future.
You can hear it, can’t you? The deep shiver of malicious compliance vibrating through my offended being.
The next morning, I started issuing professional Lease Violation Notices. One for the extra residents of the unit (male spouse). One for the extra dog. And a few additional ones for building concerns I noted during the showings.
They ignored the violation notice, which I sent by certified mail and, thoughtfully, also by email. I decided to be even more professional 30 days later, and issue a 5-day notice to vacate. And I called their mom, who is their emergency contact, as an eviction notice IS an emergency.
Did I mention that their lease was due to end just a few weeks later? But it would be unprofessional of me to let these violations slide until then…
Three days later, they’d magically sent me all the information I’d requested, removed the other dog, licensed the first dog, gotten the required pet insurance…
They moved out on their lease termination date.
And skipped out on their last electric bill, and left the unit in damaged condition. Despite my professional security deposit disposition statement and request for payment, they ignored those notices, until I stated I would proceed to small claims court by X date for the total due BEYOND their security deposit.
On X date, they replied stating they ‘didn’t think it was fair’ that they should have to cover damages to the unit, or ‘pay any more’ toward their utility bill.
Yep. Two months later, there we were in the lobby of the courthouse, sitting across from each other on uncomfortable waiting-room benches.
They’re laughing among themselves about how they’re going to get their full security deposit back.
And I’m quietly reviewing my presentation notes to the judge and my sizable stack of evidence, photographs, videos…. this was my first time in court, but I wasn’t laughing.
I was preparing.
One hour later, we’re back in the lobby and their mom is trying to write me a check for the full amount of the judgment.
She doesn’t have a pen. Her kids don’t have a pen. I, however, have a pen.
I cheerfully offer my pen. She writes the check and hands it to me, and… wait… I hold out my hand again. Got my pen back too.
I was so proud of myself for not saying any of the sassy things in my head at that moment.
You know why? Because I was being professional, as I’d been from the moment he’d left that voicemail. As a last note, I do acknowledge that it would have been better if I hadn’t brought my children. However, if you have kids, you’ll understand that sometimes, they simply have to go where you go.”
16. Time To Go Above And Beyond
“One of the most entertaining things in a customer service/dealing with the public role is the spouse dynamic. Sometimes the man is the more reasonable of the two. Sometimes the lady is the calm and understanding one. Other times they’re both a bunch of idiots.
On this particular day, I had a lovely lady with an extremely aggressive man come into the warehouse and pick out a storage ottoman they wanted. Now the storage ottomans were a frustrating item, as the metal mechanisms that allowed the lid to be opened and shut made the ottomans extremely heavy, needing at least 2 x people to lift them.
Naturally, the aggressive jerk of a man flat out refuses to pay delivery for his ottoman he’s just purchased. In his words, ‘we’ll just pick it up.’
Yeah right buddy… more like, we will drive our small car around back and your warehouse staff can do it.
The dude and his woman conclude the sales process in the store and the sales associate passes a copy of the paperwork onto me.
I scan it over and make sure they’ve ticked off and signed off on the Terms and Conditions: that all clearance sales are final, that all clearance sales are ‘as is,’ that warehouse staff/sales staff are not covered under any insurance for loading or unloading customers goods and customers are responsible for the pickup of any items them purchase/order, etc.
The customer pulls the car around, and it’s a smallish car, but should be fine. The dude walks over and I show him where his freshly bagged ottoman is and hand him a trolley.
Man – ‘What’s that for?’
Me – ‘To load your ottoman sir.’
Man (chuckles) – ‘No no no, you’re helping me.’
Me – ‘There’s two of you sir, you’ll be fine.’
Man – ‘Well then I’m canceling my order and filing a complaint against your company.’
I just sigh… I don’t want to cost this salesperson a sale, but my gut is trying to tell me something.
I quickly go into the office and grab a release form which we use for anyone picking up clearance, but make a few handwritten notes of my own. I bring the paperwork back out and show it to the customer.
Me – ‘Sir could you fill out your full name, contact details, and initial these handwritten comments, and sign this release?’
Man – ‘Why?’
Me – ‘It just says that you’re happy to have me help you load up your ottoman and that if anything happens you won’t hold us liable.’
Man (smirks) – ‘Wow, you guys sure take things seriously.’
I just smile as he signs the document.
I pass it to my offsider, asking him to make a few photocopies for the sales associate, the manager, the Area Manager, and the General Manager.
The woman grabs one end along with her partner and I grab the other end. We all lift it up and begin walking it toward the trunk of the car.
The woman seems fine, but the man is struggling.
He keeps asking to put it down so he can take a break. We pick up the ottoman again, and as we are just about to reach the car, the dude lets go of his end, the lounge tips to the right, I lurch forward and the ottoman smashes into the back of their car, taking out the right-hand side tail light.
The woman immediately starts laughing as the man loses his marbles. He is inspecting the damage and is looking at me with wild eyes, wanting me to offer him an admission of guilt. I calmly stand there as they load up their ottoman and drive away.
The next day the man calls the store, he is filing a lawsuit against the company for damages and has provided HR and head office with excessive estimates. Immediately, I am called into the board room upstairs.
There’s the General Manager, the Manager, HR and a legal representative who is there for the shareholders.
GM and HR explain to me that they’re not risking a lawsuit, that they’re going to pay for this guy’s car and that they’re going to fire me. Without a word, I take out the document the customer signed. I hand it to the HR rep, who hands it to the GM.
Me – ‘The customer signed off on a release form after I explained that the company didn’t cover or expect me to load his goods. The customer clearly stated here that if I helped him he was absolving me of any liability including vehicle damage.’
The GM hands the document over to the lawyer who scans it.
And his face changes – they know they can’t do anything.
Me – ( I couldn’t help but add this ) ‘Ask your lawyer over there, I did EXACTLY what the customer asked me to do, I helped them.
It was the customer who dropped his end of the ottoman, he caused the damage, not me.’
There’s silence in the room
I turn and walk out. I’ve had enough.
I go to the warehouse, grab my bag, get a bus home and play some Dead Space 2.
There was aftermath… I went to my best friend to get a lawyer and put my own lawsuit against the company, for a variety of issues. This started a legal battle. After this bullcrap transpired, I got together with my best friend and we started looking into the company and the safety procedures they were breaking; the fact they were not hiring enough staff to safely lift items; no lift access in the store which breaches safety laws regarding moving heavy items and also breaches a few laws around access for people on wheelchairs or disabilities; no overtime pay when people are forced to work overtime, etc.
The General Manager ran a special promotion during my time there for proceeds that would go to a Cancer Charity… and guess what? The $50,000 meant to go to charity disappeared and somehow found its way into his bank account. There were also some claims made about the furniture that were false, made in Italy (actually made in China), 15-year warranty (2-year warranty), unlimited cleaning for the entirety of you owning the sofa (claims were always denied), stuff like that.
Armed with all this, my lawyer and I went to a mediation, where their legal team tried to pressure me into NOT taking a payout of my wage, my holiday pay, and a payout of all my other benefits … if they made this lawsuit against me ‘go away.’
Imagine their surprise when my lawyer began bringing up all the safety violations, staff wage discrepancies, not to mention the outright lies and stealing carried out by management.
The meeting was quickly postponed and the lawyer for my ex-employer and the General Manager asked for a private conversation outside.
They asked me what it would take for me to not go ahead in court, my lawyer asked for all my benefits paid, and to pay out the rest of the year as if I had been working a 5 day week. They deliberated for 15min before they agreed. What they didn’t agree on is that we couldn’t send off the violations to all the necessary government bodies.
Last I heard the GM AND MANAGEMENT team were fired and the company was fined $250,000.”
15. Refuse Retirement Benefits? Get No Resignation Notice
“This happened in 2016. I am a Chartered Accountant/CPA and got a breakthrough in one of the largest accountancy firms in the world.
I was hired as a manager in 2014 after working as a trainee student for 3.5 years in the same firm (I was required by law to complete the training to get my degree).
I was over the moon until I got face to face with Mr. Partner.
The 2 Senior Managers who hired me resigned from the firm abruptly leaving me second in charge to Mr. Partner. Being that this happened only 3 months after me becoming a manager, I had no idea how to cope with Mr. Partner and his work style.
The important thing to mention is that I was hired on probation of 6 months which is the norm. After 6 months, Mr. Partner had to sign a confirmation report because of which my post-employment benefits would start accumulating. This means Mr. Partner would have to contribute 10% of my pay towards my provident fund.
Being the funds-grubber he is, he never signed that confirmation.
I went to him to question about this and he said the agreement says that the probation period can be extended if your performance is not satisfactory. He emphasized that I am not working up to mark and I need to do more in order to be ‘confirmed’ as per agreement.
According to him: Me working for more than 60 assignments in a single year (each assignment can run from 2 weeks to 4 months), without overtime, coming in on weekends and staying all together in the office for 2 to 3 days consecutively was not up to mark.
I lost my crap, but I knew he could bend me over since it’s as per agreement.
Oh, I also single-handedly managed to increase his revenue by 18% in that year alone from existing assignments by renegotiating contracts and identifying unbilled work.
1 year passed and he didn’t confirm me always citing the same reason. My life was a living nightmare. My hair went grey from the stress and I gained a lot of weight since all my time was spent working.
Mr. Partner left no stone unturned to prove he is a typical greedy curt old and narcissistic jerk who only cares about profits.
At the same time, he was pressurized by senior partners to hire a senior manager despite my good performance (my annual increment finalized by HR based on performance was 35% after I helped the firm secure A+ rating in annual internal audit).
Enter Mr. K. He was a snobby little jerk who viewed me as his competitor and immediately started to treat me in a very passive-aggressive manner. I won’t go into details as this is already getting long. After 3 or so months, I was asked to change cabins and I was cleaning out my drawer where I found my appointment letter.
I started to read it and lo and behold: I found gold!
There it was written that after confirmation (emphasis on after), the notice period to serve after handing in your resignation is to be not less than 6 months otherwise amount equal to short number of days of salary will be deducted.
Since I was never confirmed, this did not apply to me.
I go to 4 of my other colleagues who also worked for Mr. Partner and I discussed this with them. They were also never confirmed so technically we were never permanent employees of Mr. Partner.
Keeping this in mind, we started searching for new jobs actively.
As fate would have it, it took us 1 year to find alternate jobs, and I was the first one to leave.
As soon as I got an appointment letter from the other company, I went to Mr. Partner and handed my resignation with 2 weeks of notice.
I put in 2 weeks since I wanted to finish all my jobs in hand which was crucial for me, both ethically and ensuring I stay on good terms with these rich people.
Mr. Partner goes on a rant as I have to give at least 6 months’ notice.
I calmly said, “Sir, you never confirmed our appointment so the clause does not apply to me.”
At first, he resisted, then called in HR partner and went on another rant. I sat there calmly and the HR partner listened to him, his face turning red. He knew Mr. Partner had messed up because if he says I am a permanent employee, he would have to pay all post-retirement benefits retrospectively which amounted to a hefty sum.
If he says I am not a permanent employee then I am not bound to serve 3 months’ notice.
So I serve my 2 weeks, finish all my assignments and on the very last day, went to Mr. K, handed over my laptop, cabin keys, and employee card; and exited the building without saying a single word.
Within 2 months of my leaving, all 3 other colleagues got different jobs and all of them went out after serving a week’s notice and there was nothing Mr. Partner or Mr. K could do about it.
Since I was handling more than 50% of the workload, I start receiving calls from ex-clients about the deteriorating quality of work and lack of attention.
2 clients left immediately after they got to know about my departure.
The incremental benefit I received from switching immediately compensated for no post-employment benefits within 6 months so it was a win-win situation for me. Plus the mental peace… Those 2 years were awful for me but the satisfaction of this malicious compliance was only topped by the fact that I also met my now partner in that office and we are now as happy as a human could be…
My woman went on to work for another partner in the same firm (who is a very thorough gentleman) and just a week ago she told me that the firm has kicked out Mr. Partner due to ethical issues and Mr. K has been denied promotion to Director level over non-performance which effectively means his career has ended in that firm.”
14. I'll Guard Every Little Spill Like A Hawk Now
“I used to work at Walmart and the store I worked in had a rule that if you see a spill, you are to guard the area to keep customers from slipping and falling.
You were not to leave the spill for any reason while you flagged down another employee so that they could fetch cleaning supplies (only managers and the cleaning crew had radios). I understand the logic here as a lawsuit would certainly cost much more than an hourly employee’s time standing next to a spill until it was cleaned up.
However, there are a few issues with this in practice.
I worked the evening shift in the Meat Department and most days I was the only person in my department. I was situated between Frozen Foods and Produce, which more often than not only had 1 person shifts as well but they also closed much earlier than my department.
This meant that I was the only person in my corner of the store for about half of my shift. If I came across a spill there was no telling how long I would have to wait around for another employee to come by because there was literally nobody else working in or around my area.
Also, being in the Meat Department, we had multiple cleaning stations all around. One was always a few steps away.
One day, while working alone I noticed a small spill. So I stood next to it per procedure for about 10 minutes. At this time nobody, customer nor coworker, had even entered my view.
I couldn’t help but think how dumb this was as I could see a cleaning station just on the other side of a bunker. I decided to throw in the flag and just go get the cleaning supplies and take care of it myself because even if a customer did come around I could still see the spill and easily call out to them to watch their step.
Unsurprisingly, I was able to make the round trip without any incidents. As I was cleaning it a manager came walking up and took notice of me.
Manager, ‘What happened here?’
Me, ‘Just a spill. I’ve got it all sorted.’
Manager, ‘Did you just happen to have cleaning supplies on you?’
Me, ‘No, but they were just right there. I was able to fetch them without losing sight of the spill.’
Manager, ‘That’s not how we do things! Someone could have gotten hurt!’
Me, ‘No, as I could have called to anyone that came near it.
I was never more than a few steps away.’
Manager, ‘Doesn’t matter. You should have stood next to the spill and waited for someone else to come by.’
This went on for a few minutes but the manager was not budging so I conceded. That was not good enough for him as he then proceeded to write me up for ‘Negligence and unsafe work practices.’ I was livid, but I was also a college student and needed the job so I just kept quiet and returned to my shift.
A week or two later as I was once again the only person working in my corner of the store, I happened upon another spill. This time I shrugged and decided to guard it as if my job depended on it.
I checked my watch and noticed that I had about 3 hours left on my shift and had a small laugh at the thought that I might be standing in that spot guarding a puddle instead of closing my department.
10 minutes passed. 30 minutes passed. 1 hour passed.
Around this time I was bored out of my mind, but then I heard a call over the intercom system that made it so much more worth it. ‘We need an associate from the Meat Department to the back for a truck.’ This was followed by a few other calls for other departments for their trucks arriving as well.
I started laughing out loud at this because I knew that this meant that the very few people that were likely to come by my department were now at the loading dock unloading trucks while I stood guard over my puddle.
A few minutes passed before I heard the second call, ‘We need an associate from the Meat Department to the back for a truck.’ I just stood there counting the lights on the ceiling.
1 hour left of my shift and there still had not been a single fellow employee walk by. I assumed everyone was starting to finish up their own trucks by this point and would likely soon have to start unloading my truck as well.
I was watching the minutes go by in anticipation trying to decide if someone would come find me before my shift ended or not.
I got my answer 15 minutes before the end of my shift as the very same manager from before came storming through the Meat Department furious. We made eye contact and he stormed over to me and started yelling about how they have been calling for me to unload the truck and how they are now behind schedule and so on.
Once he took a breath long enough for me to speak I asked simply, ‘Can you go to a spill station and grab something to clean this up? I’ve been here a while now.’ He glanced down at the puddle next to me and I thought he was going to explode.
Manager, ‘You mean to tell me that you didn’t unload the truck because you were watching a spill?’
Me, ‘Yes.’
Manager, ‘Why didn’t you just clean it up?’
Me, ‘But leaving the spill would be unsafe for any customers. Besides, you wrote me up for doing that very thing recently, right?’
The manager tossed his hands up in defeat and walked the 15 steps away to the nearest spill station and returned with supplies, that he promptly gave me to clean the spill myself.
Manager, ‘Once you are done go back to the loading dock and start on your truck.’
Me, ‘Sorry, I have only about 10 minutes left on my shift and as I’ve been standing here guarding the spill I never got my second break. So I’m going to the break room for a bit before clocking out. You’ll need to find someone to close down my department as well.’
The manager just stomped off in a rage. I cleaned up the spill, played on my phone in the breakroom for a bit, and clocked out with a smile on my face. I know that the manager just made someone else do all the work and wasn’t personally affected by this, but knowing that I could be a thorn in his side was enough for me.”
Another User Comments:
“I feel like your security people must be as dumb as your manager if they watched you stand in one place for hours on cameras.” deliverinthenight
13. 60 Seconds More, Nothing Less And Nothing More
Let’s be precise here.
“So I supervised a mom and pop restaurant for several years that dealt specifically with shrimp and fish.
Outside of cleaning and prepping the stuff, the main deal was cooking it in several big ol’ fryers. It’s involved work, but it’s not hard work. Just stick the basket of food in the fryer and set a timer for 3 minutes, and when it comes out just bag it up and give it to the customer.
Easy work, though it gets a bit complicated on let’s say a busy day like a Friday evening.
And when it’s Lent season? The busyness quadruples. So yeah, BUSY. When it’s that busy, you can’t exactly rely on timers as much, because there’s so much food going in and out of the fryers, the temperature fluctuates.
You have to eyeball it. I’ll have food burning at 2.5 minutes, or some food taking up to 4 minutes to ‘look right.’
During a Lent Friday night dinner rush, we’ll get hundreds of people coming into a shop that’s probably smaller than a middle-class living room.
The waiting area on the other side of the counter was probably 20ft by 7ft, so it can get pretty cramped. I have my register person taking orders and making bags, and pushing them along the line while my weigh table people can weigh out the food so I can start cooking them.
When the order is done, I’d shove it in a bag and yell either the name or the order, and someone in the crowd would come grab it and be on their way. It’s a very intimate setup.
So I got a counter full of about 20+ bags, each bag with a different order, and this one bag gets to me and it said, ‘Cook shrimp an extra minute.’ Now like I said, the fryers cook funny when there’s that much food going in and out, so using my ‘years of shrimp frying experience,’ I extrapolate in my head what the food should look like if cooked for that long under normal conditions, and cook it until it looks like that.
I pull the food up, and I hear an ‘ahem’ from behind me, and I look, and this lady apparently followed her bag down the line, waited for me to drop the food, and set her own timer. She said with a crappy ‘gotcha!’ attitude while looking at her own timer, ‘Yeah, you need to cook that for an extra 45 seconds.’ At this point, her food was already looking too done, but she interrupted my flow and gave me an attitude, so I blurted out, ‘OH, OK,’ and set a timer for 45 seconds and put it on the counter.
I bagged some other people’s food, and I hear the lady behind me again, apparently with a little less condescension to her words this time, ‘Oh, I think it’s done now…’ and I grab the timer that had I set right in front of her, looked at it, and yelled, with an equally condescending crappy ‘gotcha!’ attitude, ‘Oh, but you still have 17 seconds left!’ and smacked it down and waited until the timer went off – 17 seconds can feel like a long time in those kinds of situations.
Finally, the timer went off, I grabbed her food, it looked burnt; I bagged it up and gave it to her and said, ‘Here you go, miss! Enjoy the rest of your day!’ She muttered a thank you and walked off, and my coworkers and customers had a little laugh about it.
Never got a complaint.”
12. Keep Demanding Changes? You're Gonna Pay For The Extra Time
“I am a web programmer (among other things) and used to be a consultant at a very high-end, very expensive agency.
I once had a client who was incredibly particular about the exact wording on their menu. At the time, pretty much every website had a section on its main menu that said “About us,” and they wanted to be different and wouldn’t have that (but had to have that section, only not with that name), so we got a writer and a graphic artist and a programmer together, and we sat down and came up with a new label for that section: “Portraits.” We told the project manager, who told the client, and we all went about our lives.
The client got very agitated about it, probably because there was one person there who felt he had to have his finger in every pie. The client insisted that they had to decide on a name and the new scope of work their decision would entail.
What they didn’t bother paying attention to was that the contract said very clearly that they had to keep paying the entire team or they’d lose us, and the moment they asked for any change of scope, all work would stop, but they’d keep paying the entire team full time.
So, the project manager was working at $300 an hour, me at $300 an hour, the artist at $200 an hour, and the writer at $200 an hour… $1,000 an hour total.
Normally, we wouldn’t all be working full time on the project every day and would only bill the client for actual hours worked, but the contract was very clear that once they told the project manager there would be a scope change, everyone billed for 8 hours a day until they decided, and all work had to stop until the client either approved us to resume on the old terms or finished negotiating a new contract or fired us.
We stopped and billed them 8 hours a day. We wanted to keep working because there was other stuff we could do, but the project manager (who I adore) insisted, they had signed, they could deal with the consequences, and we had to stop work.
(The client was a Fortune 500 company who is mega-successful; they really could afford it.)
Meanwhile, the client paid $8,000 per day while they thought about it. And they thought about it for 4 days before they announced that on the morning of the 5th day that they’d have a teleconference to discuss it.
On the teleconference, we spent perhaps a minute describing our deliberation process over words, gave a list of words we had rejected, and made sure that we were all in agreement that “Portraits” was the word for the job.
Then the client people started arguing with each other over whether this was the right word, isn’t this other word better, no that’s boring, well how about this one, no that’s overused.
We all sat in our conference room and looked at each other like, “Are they out of their minds?” and waited as they kept arguing.
Literally, an hour later, I got a word in edgewise and told them that it was no problem to me how long they wanted to argue about it because I got paid either way, but this meeting was costing them $1,000 an hour in our time (plus I don’t even know how much for theirs), so perhaps it would be to their benefit to just let us use “portraits” and get on with it.
The boss at that company (who had been very quiet on the call) chuckled and told his people to******* up, and they gave us the approval to go on.
To be fair, he didn’t even balk when he got the bill for $33,000 for one word, although I expect he probably had to look at it twice to believe it.”
11. Make Us Cut Your Burrito For You? We'll Do It... Lengthwise
Bon appetit.
“So I bartend at a Mexican restaurant, and we often have guests that share the burrito. It isn’t uncommon to have people ask if we can cut the burrito in half for them. The thing is: we give them a steak knife for the burrito, so they can cut it up whatever way they want.
Whenever someone requests that the burrito be cut in half, I let them know we’re going to get them a proper knife for the table, and that’s usually the end of the conversation. Sometimes it’s an older guest or a parent with some young kids, and in that case, of course, we’ll help you out because you need the help.
So one day, two young couples came in to dine with us, and I got that request from one of the young guys as he and his girl were going to share the burrito. I let him know we would get him a steak knife, but it wasn’t enough for him.
He was insisting that we cut it and getting pretty freaking heated about it. Unless these two were going to swallow each half like snakes, I didn’t see the point. I got tired of trying to explain that he can use the knife however he wants, and finally acquiesced.
What angered me is after I agreed, he sat back all smug and put his arm around his girl and said, “You see? That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
So I put the order in and told the chef, “We’re gonna cut this burrito in half for this guy, but we’re going to do it lengthwise.” He was confused at first, but when I told him about this kid, he was all for it.
So the food came up, and I ran it for them. A burrito beautifully cut in half evenly across the whole length of the burrito. It was impressively done, actually!
I dropped the food, and I could tell he was angry. I was rehearsing my response in my head, but he didn’t say anything.
I think he got the point that I wouldn’t give a crap what he had to say anyway.
So after a silent time serving them, they got the bill, didn’t tip, left quietly, and left a one-star review the next day, and never returned.
Nowadays, when I ask the chef to cut the burrito for a family or some other guests that could use the help, he jokingly asks me which way he should cut it.”
Another User Comments:
“I used to work in a seafood place that served lobster tails in shells (but cut, so you could get it out easily), and it only came in 4oz sizes (our chef had decided any bigger and it was tough and yuck).
I had more whiny adults than I can count about having to do it themselves and yelling at me to make the kitchen do it.
The ONE person who got a pass and was actually kind? Dude didn’t have arms (cue a very awkward story of my fellow server trying to hand him a drink cup) and used really interesting hook mechanisms instead.
I knew him from another place I served. Nice guy, asked if we could please remove the shell for him and if there was any chance the chef was willing to slice it into slightly smaller bits. Chef did all they could, used a different plate to avoid the rim chaos, and that table was fabulous.
But of course, the table next to them throws a tantrum why we won’t cut up a full-grown adult with no other issues food or her 12 year old’s burger… Dude just lifts his awesome hook and waves at her.” S3xySouthernB
10. Fine, I'll Run The Test Before Making Repairs First
“Essentially, I work on diesel-powered refrigerators for transportation services. Well, some of these refrigeration units have satellite components that allow the customer to view specific information about the system remotely and change things such as food settings and temperature settings.
Well, when units come in for repairs or maintenance, we have to do a test on each one before the end of the day to make sure everything is working properly. It’s an automated test, so all I have to do is press a button on the control module, and the system will run through its test.
So one specific unit came in, and I had the lovely task of doing simple maintenance on it. Well, I took one look at this unit and knew it wasn’t going to be simple maintenance. This system ruptured a vital gasket that sits between the engine and the compressor.
Crusty oil was EVERYWHERE. I open the drain plug, and there’s almost no oil coming out. I’m sort of surprised it made it here while running with basically no oil.
Well, I inform my boss about what I’ve found, and he tells another tech to go take a look.
I show my co-worker what I’ve found and he just chuckled and says, “Holy crap.”
So we go back to the boss and tell him it needs a new gasket, and the repair will take a little bit. Mostly because this gasket repair is one that I haven’t done yet, so it will be a slow one.
My boss doesn’t like that because the customer needs it tested and released like yesterday. So he tells us to just do the maintenance and test it, and we will worry about it later (this bad unit was not the only unit we had that day).
We inform him that part of the scheduled maintenance is doing an oil change… which would mean the new oil we put in would just come right back out.
We both watched our boss sit and think about the situation for a second before he told us to just go ahead and do the maintenance and test.
I spoke up and asked him if he’s sure he wants us to do that. He seemed to get frustrated with me before sternly telling me that he’s sure.
SURE THING, BOSS.
I bet you can guess where this is going now. I completed the maintenance and proceeded with the test. We don’t sit and watch the unit because the test takes 20min or so.
But I patiently waited nearby within earshot but not within eyesight. Within 10 minutes, I heard a loud knocking coming from the engine. By the time I got up to the unit the engine threw a rod and obliterated itself. So I tell my boss what happened, and he just sits there for a second before going to inform the customer.
Myself and my co-workers were not tasked with replacing the engine and we never really knew how the conversation went but we did hear that my boss was called into the director’s office for an important discussion.
Maybe he should have listened to his techs.”
Another User Comments:
“If I understand the chain of events correctly, the test destroyed the engine since engine without oil is no bueno. Correct?” narrauko
Reply:
“You would be correct sir. My co worker and I didn’t want to conduct the test since we didn’t want to risk damaging anything.
Well. Worst case scenario happened.” AverageNetwork
9. You're The Project Boss Now? Start Bossing Me Around
“So this story happened around 2003 or 2004.
I was in the military working for a new boss who was afraid to look incompetent. I understand his position, but the equipment we were working on isn’t used anywhere else in the world, so there’s no reason he should have been self-conscious about it.
Literally, everybody posted into this job is starting from ignorance of the kit in question.
For your knowledge, we are technicians. Our job is fixing electronics and performing 3rd line maintenance (board level, replacing components on equipment).
The equipment we were working on is 1.5 metric ton cameras used to acquire telemetry information from our aircraft.
They’re really, really old though. Like, they were installed in the late ’60s.
Due to this, we needed to start trialing a new system, so the government opened up contracts and a bid was won. We were finally going to get upgrades!
At this point, I was an expert on the systems. Our boss went on a leadership course required when you reach his rank, and he dumped everything he had on his plate onto the lap of his second in command, who was understandably frustrated. I offered to take on the biggest project so there would be less to do, and because I wanted to show I had the skills.
He agreed.
So, I contacted all of the necessary people, P-MED, supply, engineers, and transport, in order to orchestrate the removal and disposal of these cameras. After two weeks of careful planning and research, we were ready to go. The 2 I/C grinned at me on the day of the move and says, ‘Grab the white hat.
This is your project, you’re in charge here.’
Beaming with pride I grab the site supervisor hard hat, throw it on and start the ball rolling. Everything is going well and according to plan. The dome housing the camera has been cut off and the truck with a crane arm (HIAB), capable of lifting up to a metric tonne is on site.
I am about to go dismantle the camera (they are capable of being split into 3 pieces, all weighing under a tonne each), when my boss gets out to the range.
It’s his first day back at work after his course, qualifying him to be a ‘leader’ for his troops.
Instead of asking for a brief as to what’s happening or just letting it play out, he decides to puff out his chest and display his newfound levels of authority and command.
Loudly, in front of everybody, he says, ‘Why the heck are you wearing a white hat?
You aren’t the MCpl.’
Turning red with embarrassment, and not having much of a spine back then, I capitulate and apologize, attempting to stammer out that I was assigned this task.
He cuts me off, ‘Whatever. Take it off and get back to work.’ He exchanges hard hats with me, and I’m wearing my yellow worker hat now, he’s wearing the white site supervisor hat.
Smugly content, he turns to me and says, ‘Carry on.’
Here’s the malicious compliance bit. I’m the one who did all of the work. I know exactly what needs to be done next. As the person with all of the information, the reason I was supervising it should be obvious.
So I decided it was time for some Malicious Compliance. Did he want to embarrass me in front of everybody? Turn about is fair play, my friend.
I nodded and said, ‘No problem boss. What do you want me to do?’
He said, ‘Keep removing the camera.’
‘I’d love to. How do I do that?’ my vapid response came back, ‘As you are the site supervisor, I’m awaiting your instructions on how to proceed. What exactly would you like me to do next, boss?’
He turned to beet red as he realized this means he would have to publicly state that he, in effect, chewed me out for supervising the project I put together as I should have been doing.
He swore at me a bit and waved his hand saying, ‘Just finish the job,’ turning redder by the minute as higher-ranking people caught on to what had just happened, so they started clustering around him asking pointed questions about the project and process.
The absolute glee I felt when the range Chief asked him where we were bringing the cameras, and the look on his face as he realized he was going to have to call over to me to answer the questions was priceless.
But not as priceless as the malicious gleam I caught in the Chief’s eye when he turned to me. It said, ‘I understand. I’ve got your back.'”
8. Call The Cops About Your "Stolen" Old Lottery Tickets? Absolutely, Karen
“This happened a few years ago while I was working at a will-not-be-named store.
At said store, we have a booth where people can buy lottery tickets, etc. I was working said booth when what can best be described as your typical Karen walks in, wanting to check some lotto tickets.
Karen hands over two lottery tickets, and I run them through the ticket reader.
“Prize already claimed” pops up on the screen – meaning the woman had taken these tickets elsewhere, collected her winnings, and opted to take the winning tickets with her afterward. This meant at best, she mixed up her tickets. At worst, she was trying to run a scam – though why she thought it’d work, I’m unsure.
Me: Miss, the system is showing you have already cashed these tickets, meaning you’ve already received the prize.
I put the tickets down on the counter in front of her.
Karen: That’s ridiculous. There’s X prize on this one and X prize on this one!
Go get your manager.
As you wish, my minivan princess.
Manager: Miss, you’ve already claimed these prizes. There’s nothing we can do.
Karen does as Karens do and flips out. I was only 16 at the time, so my manager handles her as I stand back and watch.
Eventually, something clicks and Karen hears for the first time what I’d told her 10 minutes ago and calms down. Not for long. Crisis averted, my manager returns to her office.
Karen: Where are my tickets?
Me: I placed them on the counter in front of you.
They’re garbage anyway since there’s no prize on them.
Karen: I didn’t take them. Someone stole them. I keep all my lottery tickets. Where are they?
Me, giving her some side-eye: Uhm, not sure. I’ll check around.
No lottery tickets to be found anywhere at my station.
I inform her that’s she SOL, but again… The tickets are worthless.
Karen, returning to her primal state: I don’t have them, so clearly someone stole them! Call the police right now, or I will!
This time I go to my manager’s office and inform her of the situation.
Cue the revenge. We decide if she wants the cops involved, then very well – we’ll oblige. We do this both because if she calls, she’ll likely say something nuts, and cruisers will roll up prepped for an armed robbery which would be a huge waste of police resources, and as well, perhaps this is a good time for Karen to learn appropriate use of emergency services.
I call the non-emergency line and tell Karen to sit tight.
We live in a quiet suburb-like town in our city, so a single officer arrives shortly thereafter. I speak to the officer and inform them of the situation, noting specifically we called in the best interest of the situation.
Karen and the officer step into the break room to chat. What I hope occurred was a stern talking to and swift diagnosis of Karenotitis, followed by some crocodile tears and a hefty fine. Unfortunately, since I was the one who called, I don’t believe this occurred, and since I couldn’t hear their talk from my station, I can’t say with any certainty what happened in there.
That said, I can piece together that it wasn’t pleasant as a flush-faced, purse falling off her shoulder, tip-tap-tip-tap walk-running Karen emerged and made a beeline for the exit, not making eye contact with anyone. Ah, the satisfaction of a lightly cursing Karen struggling to find her sunglasses in the cosmic wasteland of her purse.
The officer stopped by briefly to let me know not to call for anything similar, though I could tell there was no animosity between us, having been on the same side in the eternal battle against Karens.”
7. Sure, Here's A Timesheet Entry For Every Little Task Like You Wanted
It might take us a while, but since you really want it to be done THIS way…
“This is from around 11-12 years ago. My team was both primary development and tier 3 support. Unfortunately, there was a known issue on a system that caused people’s passwords to lock.
We determined the issue and the fix that needed to be done, but we couldn’t convince the management to let us make the fix because the issue had been there so long that nobody understood why the broken code was introduced to begin with. There wasn’t even an entry for it in the code management system.
And management said if we can’t understand why it was put there, then we can’t remove it. As a result of said issue, the password unlocks for that specific system required a database update. It was simple enough to run, but as a result required tier 3 support to do it instead of help desk.
Each person on the team got probably 10-12 tickets per day just doing password unlocks in addition to the 4-6 actual tier 3 tickets.
The place I was working had your basic timesheet system internal site to enter your weekly tasks and assign time to it.
Members of the team for tickets mostly just had a single task for “trouble tickets” and assigned all weekly time to that for tickets then had other tasks for development projects. New VP gets assigned to the team and decides that each single ticket we work on should have its own timesheet task.
We tried to explain about the password unlock issues, but he wasn’t hearing it.
Cue the malicious compliance. I convinced the entire team to just wait until the end of the week and take time on Friday to open their tasks and assign 5 minutes per.
Opening each task took about a minute, so we also each opened a task and assigned about an hour time to just filling out the timesheet. This also meant that on Fridays, this 7 person team was opening nearly 500 tasks in the timesheet system. In addition, once a task was opened and assigned time, only a PM or management could close the task.
And for whatever reason, open tasks in the system could cause the system to bog down. So with 500 or so new and open tasks, the act of opening new tasks and the act of closing them took longer than normal.
As the second week rolls around, there are still hundreds of open tasks.
So the entire team does it again, but this time it takes about 2 hours for each of us because we’re bogging down the system even more. By the end of the third week, I literally spent half of Friday just filling out my timesheet because it was hanging so much.
The following Monday the VP sent out a directive that all tickets assigned to Tier 3 support teams should have a single timesheet bucket that was to be renewed each week by the PMs and that all new timesheet tasks were to be emailed to your PM to open for you.
They had to assign 3 PMs on week 4 to do nothing but close open timesheet tasks for the entire week as, by then, it was moving so slow, it was almost impossible to use.”
6. Can't Tell Me If You Received My Fax? I'll Send 500 More To Make Sure
“This happened about 5 minutes ago at my local DMV/MVD. I’ve been here for the past hour and 48 minutes and finally saw someone who bumped me back into the queue while my insurance company sent proof of insurance.
I have an email sent about 15 minutes ago but that apparently isn’t enough. Anyways, there’s this gentleman standing reading out numbers even though they’re announced over the loudspeaker. While I’m on the phone with my insurance company, I approach this gentleman to ensure that they’ve received the fax so that I don’t have to call again.
Instead of double checking or even politely declining, our docent decides to make a bit of a scene. ‘No!’ he exclaims. ‘We only take faxes of your insurance as a courtesy and you need to sit back down and wait for your turn in line!’ I’m a little taken aback, however, I want to make sure that everything is okay, so I ask the docent, ‘In the event that the fax didn’t go through, what happens?’
Well, this was apparently the wrong question for our docent as he lashes out screaming, ‘That isn’t our problem if it doesn’t come through you’ll have to come back a different day because we’re closing, I suggest you have them send it a couple of times.’ I’m a bit dumbfounded so I walked away telling my insurance agent, ‘Wow that’s possibly the biggest jerk I’ve ever spoken to in my life.’
The agent chuckles and I tell him the docent asked for the fax to be sent a few times, could he accommodate that? My agent looking to make good on customer satisfaction asks, ‘He never did specify how many times right?’ Turns out my insurance company has an auto fax system so they could send as many copies of my insurance as they wanted.
What if someone mistyped and wrote 500 instead of 50? That would be a real shame, wouldn’t it? Filling their fax line while 500 faxes came through. Something so petty that only a child would do? Well, unfortunately, I’m a child and the MVD/DMV is currently receiving 500 copies of my insurance.
Hope they get at least one of them.”
5. Want Me To Mail You A Notice? Oh, I'll Mail You Several
“I hated my old apartment. I needed to desperately get out, and right when I was looking for rentals last year, everything was shut down. With less than a week on my lease, I had to jump at the first available home.
Didn’t even get to inspect it. I ended up with equally horrible property managers.
I didn’t have a key on day one, had to break in to move in, they didn’t tell me about the German roach infestation (it’s okay, I used to do pest control, so I managed), and so forth.
Right when I lost power during Christmas (also, okay, I live in the south; I didn’t get too cold), I tracked down the original property owner and asked her if I could get out of the contract and just pay her directly. We investigated many options, and the best way to get out of the contract was to just pay for the last remaining months and write a 30-day notice.
They call me and tell me that I have to write them a notice, signed and sent and received on the exact date 30 days from the lease’s end to be accepted, or I will lose my $1,000 security deposit. They really stressed it had to be mailed and definitely on time, or they won’t be able to accept it.
Cue my pettiness.
I wrote a template letter, with a generic, “This is a (number of days till lease end)- day notice. I’m writing to terminate my contract and to receive my security deposit as stated.” I sent one out on my 103-day notice.
Then another one on 89-day notice. Then another one on 73-day notice and so forth, basically whenever I remembered about it. I would change the date around, print it, sign it, and then mail it.
They call me saying this is very unnecessary and that they got my message loud and clear.
But they sounded pretty rude about it, so I sent some more.
I then received some passive-aggressive emails that they will honor the contract and leave me the $1,000 deposit as I have sent them a 30-day notice. But they can be tricky, and as I haven’t technically sent them an exact “30 days” notice, I have some more letters to send.
Plus again, they sounded pretty rude over e-mail.
Cue the final 15-day countdown till my 30-day notice letter. I upped the ante. I now have one letter per day to send, and I have changed the fonts on each letter ranging from Papyrus to Jokerman to Comic Sans.
My favorite one is the one where it’s all bright yellow and barely legible. It just hurts looking at it. Oh, and better yet, I got the last batch sent as certified mail, so I get an email that they received it AND that they had to sign it.
On my 34th-day notice letter (now probably the 20th letter I’ve mailed), I received my cashier’s check back. No message or anything. Fortunately, I have four more letters to send. The best $43 on stamps I’ve ever paid.”
4. It's Really Not In Stock, But I'll Check For You Again Anyway
Instead of you taking my word the first time, you’ll just have to wait until I come back to give you the same exact answer.
“So this happened a few years back when I used to work at a department store in the UK.
This store is very popular amongst the middle/upper class and therefore leads to a lot of entitled and outright rude customers coming in.
I should also explain that the way the break system works here is due to the lack of staff, you have to wait for the people who go before your allocated break slot to come back to work before you can go so that there’s always staff on the shop floor.
This also means if you’re late going to break you can send the whole team off track for the day causing people to have lunch breaks ages after they’re meant to.
So I was working in the TV department when a customer came up and asked me to check the stock on a particular model, no problem, I check the systems and see that it is showing out of stock in store and the distribution center with it due to be coming back into stock in a couple of days time.
I explain this to the customer who immediately goes into a tirade of entitled moaning about ‘this is not what I expect from DEPARTMENT STORE’ and ‘If it’s out of stock why is it still on display?’ I explained that the store sells upwards of 50 different models of televisions and if we had to remove each one that went out of stock there’d be no staff left to serve anyone, which just annoyed this customer even more.
Anyways, it got to the point where despite me explaining the TV would be back in stock in 2 days and also offering viable alternative models, some better specs for less, this customer was bent on getting that particular TV today and started demanding I went to check the stock room.
‘Surely you must have one? This is ridiculous, how can you tell you don’t have any without physically checking, etc.’ I can’t describe to you how incredibly entitled and rude this customer was, even by the DEPARTMENT STORE’S usual standards and he really started to wind me up.
Now by this point, I’d been with this customer for a fairly long time explaining I can’t just magic a TV out of thin air for them and I was already 15 minutes overdue on my lunch break. I could see my manager (who had been listening to this whole conversation) waiting to tell me to go to break so I explained to the customer that I was going to talk to my manager and come back to him.
My manager was a down-to-earth guy and a good friend of mine, I explained the customer was asking me to go check the stock room and I knew I was already late for my 45-minute break so together we formed a plan.
I returned to the customer and explained that the stock room was on the 3rd floor of the building and contains 100s of different TVs which would take a while to search.
The customer was adamant that I checked the stock room for his particular model as that was the service he expected from DEPARTMENT STORE and if not he would be complaining. With a spring in my step, I then asked the customer to wait there whilst I went up and checked if there was any in the stock room and swiftly left the department.
As pre-agreed with my manager, I then proceed to go on my 45-minute lunch break, I had a Subway, did a bit of clothes shopping, got some snacks for the team for when I went back to work, and generally took my time strolling around the town center.
I then return to work at the end of my break, go to the 3rd-floor warehouse (via the stairs, not the lift), straight to the shelf where the customer’s TV was meant to be and sure enough there isn’t any there! I then stroll back down three flights of stairs, stop for a glass of water, have a couple of chats with some colleagues, and then return to the TV department well over an hour after leaving the customer, who is still there, where I left him, looking extremely angry.
I approach the customer ‘out of breath’ and explain that I’d checked every TV in the warehouse and his one wasn’t there, at which point he erupts into a rich person rage, shouting and asking to speak to a manager and saying I’d wasted his time making him wait for so long.
My manager then walks over, introduces himself and then explains he had heard the entire conversation and that I had already explained there were 100s of TVs upstairs meaning it would take a while. The customer looked as if he was about to explode but realized that he had caused the wasted hour of his life, stormed out the shop and, as far as I am aware, never did get that TV.”
3. Give Him A Speeding Ticket For Going 1 MPH Over The Limit? No Free Drinks For You
“A little background: (2 separate pieces of info): I used to work for a pizza place in my home town.
Inside our delivery range was a smaller city that had been engulfed by my city. They had their own police station, fire station, they even paid different taxes. The city-wide speed limit was set to 20 mph, and the cops would ticket anyone for going over.
At my job, I tried to give a group of officers a discount once, and I was instructed by one of the officers that, in my state, the police force isn’t allowed to accept free gifts or discounts for food and drinks as it is considered bribery.
There were ways around this of course, but I wasn’t able to just give an officer a discount because I wanted to randomly.
Now for the story: On one of the deliveries placed at my work for that small city, my friend was pulled over.
The police force in that city was so difficult that they ticketed him for going 1 mph over (happened to my friend twice). When he tried to fight the ticket in court the first time, the judge told him, “You were technically speeding.” (Technically breaking the law; it’s important later.)
Years later, I’m working at a gas station just outside of said small city. My work has a policy that cops drink free. My company was happy to lose the profit if it meant we gained a little extra security for a few minutes a day, throughout the day.
Enter small city cop. He comes in, grabs a drink, and starts heading for the door. (This is where the malicious compliance starts). As he heads for the door I say, “Hey sir, you need to pay for that.” He looks back confused and says, “Nobody makes me pay for these.
I’m an officer?” To which I replied, “I understand that, but as an officer of the law, you should know that that is technically a bribe. And as I’m not going to be charged with bribing an officer, I need you to pay for that.” He shakes his head and moseys himself to the back of the line, so he can pay his $1 for his drink and leaves a little annoyed. I continue this trend over the course of the year I worked there.
After a few weeks of this, the officers complained to the manager, and my manager came down on me. So I went into the small city and file a complaint with their chief that his officers were taking bribes. He looked annoyed, but again, I was the best kind of correct (technically), and he said he’d talk with his officers.
Over the course of that year, the cops were just flat-out rude to me, but I didn’t mind because they had to wait in line and pay their $1 for a drink. My manager gave up trying to enforce the policy because every time he tried to talk to me about it, I would state, “That policy is “technically” illegal, and he doesn’t pay me enough to break the law.” I never told him about my past job.
I eventually left, and I’m sure both the manager and officers were happy I left.”
2. Can't Get Two? Make It A Double Then
“Military based story here, so I’ll go over a few details first:
Meal Card: A program for fresh enlisted members to ensure we get proper nutrition without wasting taxpayer dough.
HEAVILY regulated down to the quantity of every item eligible for consumption.
Tech School: the place where we learn our jobs after finishing Basic Military Training but before actually becoming military members.
Military dining hours are exact. If you go to get something outside of the approved eating window, there will be no food available for you to get.
So I’m at tech school, and it’s a cool place. Because of our work taking care of civilians 24/7, we had a place we could go get food in the building we worked. This also meant that civilians and visitors could also get food here.
This place was well known for its burgers, so everyone would pass by every other option on the food line for the burgers, which were at the very end of the line.
Anytime lunchtime rolled around, the line formed of both military members and civilians that was so long you would typically stand in line for 25-30 minutes, get your food, check out, and then have between 15-20 minutes to scarf it down and get back to your work center.
There is a policy with the Meal Card program that you could go BACK for seconds (you couldn’t get two initially); however, this meant that you had to get back into the line at the back (for those of you doing math, this essentially prevents you from getting seconds because you just don’t have time).
Because of where I worked, it was a long walk to get lunch. As a result, I was typically in the back of the line, and all the other side options were normally picked through, so you couldn’t expect to find any good sides still left which meant that the ONE burger needed to be able to hold you over till dinner.
It never did.
Eventually, I got creative and asked the guy serving us if I could get a double. He said no because I was on a meal card, and all meal card members are only allowed one hamburger per trip through the line. I explained to him that I didn’t want two hamburgers; I wanted one double hamburger.
He paused, smiled, and said, “Sure.”
About a week goes by, and almost every member on meal card is now getting double burgers, which is close to 90% of the workforce at this place who are on active duty. My stomach is happy, and I’m no longer starving by the time dinner rolls around.
Until two more weeks go by.
One day, I go down and stand in the line, and I make it up to the window and see that in big, red, all capital letters it reads: Meal card members are not authorized to have double hamburgers or cheeseburgers.
Now this place has hotdogs too, but they aren’t as popular, so I pause, think, and ask for a double hotdog. Again, the dude just smiles and hands me my food, and again, I trot off with my food.
Another week, and almost everyone has double hotdogs now, almost like we’re saying “screw you” in unison.
This time it only took two days for them to change the sign to be very specific as to what entree we are allowed to have. If it wasn’t on the list, we couldn’t have it.
Eventually, I learned to grab extra side items at breakfast and put them in the fridge to finish off lunch.
Apparently, everyone getting “doubles” really threw off the numbers for the crew that was in charge of the food supply.”
1. Can't Use The Bathroom Unless They're A Customer? I Won't Even Let A Cop In
“So, I was working at Subway a few years ago, and a man came in with his lady and two children. I had all four sandwiches started when the man asked me for the code to the bathroom.
The policy was you had to make a purchase to get the bathroom code, but by the way he was doing the potty dance, it was pretty apparent this guy needed to go. Obviously, either he or his lady will pay for the four sandwiches I’ve already started.
The next day, my boss sits me down and lectures me about how the code is on the receipt for a reason. She watched the tape and see me give the man the code and tells me, “I don’t care who it’s for. Whether it’s your friend, family, whatever, you name it, you do NOT give it the code under any circumstances.”
Later on that night, I was working by myself when some guy in a trench coat and greasy long hair came in the side door and said, “Hey man, somebody got seriously messed up outside.” A long line of customers waited for me while I subtly grabbed the bread knife (very sharp) and went around to check.
It wasn’t the best part of town, so you never know with people.
Anyways, as trench coat man stated, someone was seriously messed up outside. I called 911 and went back to making sandwiches.
Sometime later, a few cop cars and an ambulance showed up. They were doing their business outside and then one of the officers comes in and asks for the bathroom code.
Like six hours earlier, my boss told me not to give it “under any circumstances” without a purchase.
I laughed a little and told him what I told all the other customers, “I’m sorry, you have to make a purchase first. You can get a cookie, which is $X, and then it’ll be on the receipt.” He didn’t realize the laugh was really at myself and how awkward of a situation he unknowingly put me in, nor did I have a chance to explain it before the laugh and the rejection of the bathroom code caused the cop to become straight up furious.
He gives me three warnings to give him the code. Each time, I tell him I’m not going to give it to him, and the customers are on my side telling him I’m just doing my job. After his third warning, he shook his head and muttered, “I can’t believe you’re interfering with an ongoing investigation,” and he uses the walkie on his shoulder to get some information.
About five minutes later, one of the cops handed me a phone. I answered, and my manager said, “Are you freaking serious?!”
Long story short, the cop got the bathroom code and a free bag of chips.”
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