People Blow Us Away With Their Greatest Malicious Compliance Revenge
12. Stay In My Lane? Okay, I Will
“Some time ago, I used to work in a medical specialty office (it was ID, or Infectious Disease) as a medical assistant.
Sidebar: I used to work in the food industry and was always told that I wouldn’t ever contribute to society or do anything meaningful with my life. While I absolutely loved working as a chef and baker at the time, I wanted to do more with my life and prove to myself that I’m not as useless as people made me out to be.
Not that I believe that for one second, but in my culture if you aren’t a businessman or a doctor, you’re “lower” than everyone else. It’s pretty terrible, but that’s how the culture is.
I now live in the US and it’s been pretty good. Back to the story.
I had graduated top 3 in my class and was certified through the AAMA and scored in the 90th percentile, so I knew my stuff.
But I’ve never worked a white-collar job in my life so I was afraid that I would seem out of place. I did my externship at this ID Clinic in my town and they loved my interpersonal skills.
They loved my work and stated that I would be offered a job at the end of my externship. I was elated! I was so happy to have a job secured and have a foot in the door to the medical field.
It turns out my blue-collar experience helped me relate with a lot of our patients and they appreciated my work more for it. As my time went on, my experience working in the medical field became less about the salary and more about the people I can help with my direct patient care.
They weren’t just charts, MRNs (Medical Record Number for those non-medical folk), and diagnoses. They were “Jeff” who ran the local farmer’s market or “Meg” who worked with kids at the Y. I cared for my patients and our repeats would always look forward to coming back to see me and chat.
I loved working with my patients.
So at the end of my externship, I was extended an offer of employment for a decent amount of money (it was more than my other classmates were offered at their practices, but still not a whole lot) and I took it.
I was to be the Medical Assistant in charge of direct patient care. This meant checking in, rooming, dealing with prescriptions, performing and searching for labs, packing wounds, and doing dressing changes.
Being officially a part of the office now, I was determined to work my butt off and show myself and my colleagues that I could do it.
I continued to do my work and care for patients. However, over time I would notice certain things that weren’t in my job duties that I could do that would help care for the patients.
Certain things like calling their doctors for updated orders or checking for records from local hospitals. Also helping patients find good Home Health or SNFs (Skilled Nursing Facilities, generally the Medical Scheduler’s job.) This also included looking into insurance coverage (Billing) and checking referral statuses (Referral Coordinators), among other things.
Doing these tasks meant a bit more work on my end, but also meant the best care that I could offer for my patients.
This went on for a year, and my patients were happy and willing to come to appointments.
Apparently, not a whole lot of people like to come to a building that has the words “INFECTIOUS DISEASES” in big print on its side.
Then one day, out of the blue, I’m called by my supervisor.
Young, naive me thought “oh great, they see how hard I’m working and I’m finally getting recognized! Maybe they’ll promote me to lead!”
Nope.
My boss, “Shelly” told me that I’m working too hard and sticking my fingers into too many pots.
I asked where this was coming from, she stated that I was staying more than 5 minutes late too many times and it’s because I’m doing too much work. She said, “we can’t keep paying you all this overtime.” I think I was maybe making 30 minutes of OT at MOST. She said that’s still too much, I’m doing too much work.
I was baffled. Absolutely stunned. I thought I was doing the practice a service, but she undermined the entirety of the last year’s hard work I put in. I was frustrated and a bit upset but tried my best to remain professional. So I asked her what she would like me to do, and the next words out of her mouth were ones she would come to regret.
“Well, I see you’re doing a lot of tasks that are meant for other positions. Maybe you should stop doing those and just “stay in your lane.” She then proceeded to write me up for trying to manipulate the time clock.
Insert Jim Carrey’s “Alrighty Then!” and Cue Malicious Compliance.
I asked her to send me a list of exactly what my job duties are, which she was happy to do. It listed most of what I was originally meant to do, except it didn’t include “dressing changes” and “packing wounds.” I saw this and immediately knew this would be trouble – for my boss.
You see, she was the only other Medical Assistant on our end of the office that was certified to deal with minor wound care and dressings. At that point, since I was the main contact for patients, that would fall onto her plate.
So I told each of my patients that I won’t be doing any of that extra work because it goes against the practice’s wishes and I was told not to. All of them understood, but it’s tough to get patients to keep appointments when things are delayed.
Not long after the order was issued, I got my first page for a wound pack. Excellent.
One thing to note about my boss is that she absolutely abhors feet. And one thing to note about Infectious Disease clinics is that we dealt with A LOT of Diabetic Foot Infections.
At least 2 or 3 a day. Doc wants to see how it’s healing, so he removes the wrap and unpacks the foot. Spent a little extra time with the patient and now has to get to his next appointment.
I’m paged by the doc to pack the foot, wet to dry. “No problem doc, let me get Shelly for you.” He gives me kind of an odd look but continues to his next appointment.
Shelly gloves up and as soon as she passes the threshold of the room and notices it’s a Diabetic Foot, is holding back her gags and is immediately sweating. I pass by the room and she asks for my help.
As calmly as I could, I turned and said “sorry boss, packing wounds isn’t on my list. Can’t do it, just staying in my lane. By the way, the 2 o clock in 3 is a through-and-through foot infection, probably should get that packed soon too.”
I’m glad we were wearing masks because she couldn’t see the massive crap-eating grin I had on my face throughout that whole encounter.
She tried to write me up about disobeying superiors, but I had spoken with my GM and she was behind me.
Instead, she ended up getting written up for trying to put wound packs back on my list after she told me I did too much work! She ended up having to do part of the Medical Scheduler’s job, part of the Referral Coordinator’s job, and part of the Billing office’s job as she had let go of one of our front desk staff because there was “not enough work to go around.” There was plenty of work, I was doing it.
She didn’t last long after that, the burnout got to her and she stepped down from her supervisor position 4 months after that. They ended up hiring another super and I left the practice shortly after.
Last I heard, they have an entirely new front office staff and they’re perpetually shorthanded.
Should have let me drive my own path instead of staying in your silly lanes!”
11. Don't Talk To You? You'll Regret It, But Fine
“As a preface, I work in the security and law and enforcement industry. This story takes place in an old county jail a few years ago. At the time, I (F) was a correctional officer running my own unit in a majority male-populated and employed facility.
It took a few months, but I had finally earned the respect and trust of most of the inmates. It was drilled into my head from day one to always be “firm, fair and consistent.” And I was; that is how I succeeded in running a unit efficiently.
Though, it wasn’t without its issues. Namely inmates jamming their doors with toilet paper and other miscellaneous items. Now, this wasn’t your typical or even stereotypical jail. It was old and had huge steel (metal??) doors.
Think big doors with a small glass window, not actual bars. Like most doors, it had the metal mechanism and slot in the center of the door, which was responsible for keeping the door locked and secured. Most everything that had to be unlocked, was controlled by a big, old, clunky control board.
Only a select few units had computerized systems. My job was mainly the “control officer” which consisted of operating the control board, answering the phones, key-holder, filing daily paperwork, etc. Said control board had a variety of buttons, but was mostly used to let inmates/COs in and out, turn on TVs, and turn the mezzanine lights on and off on each unit.
It should also be noted that as a control officer, you almost never have direct contact with inmates, as you are higher up in a “fishbowl” or “bubble” as we called it. We control officers had to find unique ways to interact and converse with the inmates.
All of this will be important later.
Now onto the story. On this rare day, I was assigned a block officer. Same unit, except now I am patrolling the blocks and spending the majority of my shift having direct supervision over the inmates.
I was always one to make my presence known. Patrolling every 20-30 minutes (even when there was no rec and inmates were “locked-in”), sitting on the block during recreational hours, and random cell inspections.
The works. On this particular morning, I was conducting my first tour of B block and asked the control officer to inform me of the doors that were not secure. My coworker notified me that B108 was not secure, and I promptly made my way over there.
You see, there were colored lights under each door (red, green) indicating whether a door was secure or not. The inmates were expected to keep their doors secure during non-rec hours. However, there were quite a few inmates who consistently jammed their doors.
Thus, being able to “escape” their cell and do whatever they wanted. These things ranged from taking an unauthorized shower to running into another inmate’s cell and shanking them. You can see why that is a problem and created a huge safety/security risk.
The inmates in B108 gave me an issue with this at least once a week, even when previously housed on C block. They resorted to putting globs of toothpaste in the slot to manipulate the door open.
I had had enough.
I made them clean it out, and as punishment, they wouldn’t be receiving rec during my shift and would be getting a three-day lock-in. Simply put, that meant no phone calls, showers, tv/tablets, or yard time during the first shift, and only coming out for scheduled appointments.
It may sound a bit harsh, but they always got rec at some point in the day, and this was one of the few tactics that worked for me. To say that they were livid, would be an understatement.
The one inmate, who we will call Potty Mouth (PM) was fuming and spouting slurs and insults even after I left the block. I didn’t care. I had warned them not to jam their door on numerous occasions.
Three days go by and they finally are allowed to resume recreational activities. I am assigned the block again and deliver hall passes (used for inmates to get around the jail) for upcoming video calls.
At this time, in-person visits were not allowed and inmates were doing video calls in the visitation room instead.
It so happened that one of the inmates, PM, in B108 had a video visit scheduled that day.
All visits are made with the knowledge and consent of the inmate days prior. Dates and times (30 minutes) are precise due to a limited amount of monitors in the visitation room and there being over a thousand inmates in the facility.
Once your time is up, your time is up. If there is a connection issue or the person doesn’t show up, it cannot be pushed back to later in the day; you must reschedule for the upcoming weeks.
It’s early in the morning, approximately 8:15, and I knock at the door to get the inmates’ attention. PM wakes up and immediately starts in on me. “What, witch?!” I inform him of his visit and slide his hall pass under the door.
Like your standard hall pass, it has the date, time (or time of appointment), inmate name, unit, blah blah blah. He snatches it up and orders me not to freaking say anything to him.
I walk away not wanting to start anything first thing in the morning.
Visits started promptly at noon that day, and the inmates begin preparing themselves to see their loved ones. Taking showers, getting dressed, and so on.
It’s not my job, but I always went out of my way to remind inmates that their appointment was soon, and would let them leave 15-20 mins early so they could walk across the jail and make it there on time.
You wouldn’t believe how many would play poker or watch TV, and would actually get mad at me for interrupting them and trying to remind them they had an appointment. Then, 5 minutes before their visit rush to take a shower, run out, and then come back upset that they somehow missed their appointment.
I was in the bubble covering for the control officer while they took their lunch when I noticed PM sitting on the table (sweats and t-shirt) talking to another group of inmates with his back turned to me.
I looked at the time and realized it was only about an hour before his video call was scheduled to begin. I then began to flash the mezzanine lights to get his attention.
It took at least 2-3 times of me doing this before the other inmates told him to turn around. He looks over his shoulder, assumes I want him off the table (policy violation), and flags me off before turning back toward his friends.
Cue malicous compliance.
You want me to not say anything to you, you want to ignore me when I’m trying to help you, even after getting cussed out. Fine. I sat and watched as every single inmate on B block got showered and dressed. They were ready to go at least thirty minutes before their visit.
All lined up near the door, anxiously waiting for me to let them out. Everybody but PM. No, he wasn’t outside playing basketball or on the phone, and let the time get away from him.
No, he hadn’t taken a nap. He was sitting ten feet away from everyone who was waiting, running his mouth. Twenty minutes before the visits start, and I begin letting the inmates into the hallway.
I stop one of the nicer inmates, and ask “why isn’t PM with you guys?” He’s confused. I say “yeah I gave him his pass this morning and tried to flash the lights at him.” He runs back in to remind PM of his impending video call.
PM shoots daggers at me and frantically runs into his cell to get dressed. I smile to myself. Unsurprisingly, he missed his visit. He came back screaming at me for making him late for his video call.
I didn’t care. I just laughed and said it wasn’t my job. The best part is: there was a clock hanging directly above his head, so there was no excuse.”
10. No Blue Jeans In The Office? I'll Wear Them In Every Other Color!
“Many years ago, I worked for a large, well-known insurance company. We were working hard to meet a ridiculous deadline for a big new flashy sales system; we were, as a rule, working anywhere from 12- to 16-hour days.
(It’s a story for another day as to how that deadline was set.) OK, we’re not happy about it, but we’re going to get it done.
Toward the end of the arduous march, the bosses appear with an announcement.
The rest of the time leading up to the deadline would be casual days. You have to understand that this was at a time when you would have the clothes you would wear to work (dresses, suits, like that), and a couple of things you would wear on weekends (jeans, sweatpants).
Maybe you would have one more outfit you’d wear on “business casual” days – khakis, a polo shirt, or something like that. Most of us definitely didn’t have enough work-presentable casual clothes to be able to deal with all-casual days.
Bosses amended their announcement – no blue jeans. Clavin Klein jeans were a thing in those days; nope, if you had ’em, you couldn’t wear ’em.
That sent most of us into a tizzy.
Not only do I barely have enough time to do my laundry because of this insane deadline, but now I have to go shopping too? And spend a lot of money I don’t have on clothes I don’t need?
Great.
Not me. I sew and have been sewing for a long time. I went home and made jeans; yellow jeans, gray jeans, pink jeans, any color but blue.
Drove the bosses crazy.
Mine called me in and let me have it; I’d been told not to wear jeans to work. Um, no, I was told not to wear BLUE jeans, and these jeans are most definitely not blue.
It made him nuts that he couldn’t do anything to me.
Needless to say, from then on I was considered a troublemaker, and not a “team player”, which I knew would happen, but I just loved pushing those buttons.”
9. Throw A Fit Over A Doctor's Note? Here You Go, And Also, I QUIT
“Many years ago I worked at a care home for individuals who needed help learning how to transition into living independently. I loved my job. I loved the people I cared for. It was tough though as we were always short-handed. Staff had a high turnover rate because the pay wasn’t great.
We were consistently working double shifts and getting called into work on our nights off. I was generally open to it as I had no kids at the time and half my shift was literally hanging out with some of the coolest clients I ever met.
Cooking dinner with them, watching movies and after they went to bed and everything was cleaned up I was allowed to do homework or art or really whatever I wanted within reason.
The clients here really liked me and would look forward to when I was coming on shift. They would often come out to the driveway area to greet me when I got in.
One day, the manager and several clients were in the driveway waiting for me to arrive. Just as my husband was about to pull into the driveway (residential road speed limit 25) we were hit from behind.
The driver was going near 70 MPH and reached down to get his cell phone and hit us as we were pulling into the driveway. The way he hit us and with how fast he was going our car did a full 360-degree spin in the driveway and everything that was in our trunk went flying all over.
The manager and the clients all saw what happened and we were very lucky that day that they were further back in the drive and didn’t get hit. The manager called an ambulance for us.
My husband’s knee went into the dash and I was in complete shock. Felt like the world slowed down to frame-by-frame slow motion. The ambulance took us both to the hospital. Our car had to be towed away.
At the hospital, we were cared for and I was given the order to stay on bed rest for a few days and see my family physician as soon as possible. Ultimately I was okay.
Major whiplash and body aches, headaches, etc from the shock and the force of the vehicles clashing… but nothing severe. My husband wasn’t as lucky but he was okay and just had to use crutches for awhile while his knee healed.
After a few days of rest, I was still sore but ready to return to work and just move forward. I arrived at work for my shift and when I entered the house my manager (the one that saw the crash and called the ambulance) was in the dining area sitting at the table with paperwork in front of her.
She said to have a seat, so we can go over this paperwork. I say down and she asked for my doctor’s note that put me on bed rest for a few days.
Well… I didn’t have one. I hadn’t considered it in my state of shock at the time to ask for one. She had seen first hand the accident and saw me being taken away in an ambulance.
So surely there wasn’t a question of why I had to call in for those shifts? Wrong. Company policy if you miss three shifts, you must show documentation from a doctor that you were instructed to take those days off work or you can not return to work.
“Okay.. no problem.. sorry I didn’t realize it was needed. I’ll run up to the hospital and get that right away.” So I head up to the hospital and let them know I had been seen there a few days ago after a car wreck and I needed a note that stated I was seen and that the doctor recommended that I take a few days of bed rest. So the receptionist who is currently dealing with a triage of patients waiting to be seen eye rolls and looks up the file.
After reading it she writes a note to my work stating that I was in a wreck and had been seen and was excused from work for three days.
I promptly return to work and hand her the note and let her know they pulled the file and got it taken care of.
I expected she would let me fill out the paperwork and go on with my shift. Nope. She says.. the note has to be written by a doctor. Not reception. Ohh, okay, I say.
I’ll run back up and let them know what we need. I head BACK to the hospital. I let the receptionist know I was sorry to interrupt AGAIN but that I needed a note that was written by a doctor.
My boss can’t accept it from reception. She says we’ll I’m a nurse, but okay; I’ll see if I can get this signed by a doctor. Quite a while later, she was able to get it signed by a doctor who would much rather be spending their time caring for people who ran over their foot with a lawn mower.
I thank her and head back to work with the note. Once again expecting to move on and get back to work. NOPE.
She says so is this the doctor that you saw the night of the accident?
Well no of course not. This is an ER and most of the doctors at this hospital work for several different ER around the valley they are rarely aliveness at the same hospital in a given week more than once or twice.
This is a known fact in our area. But they pulled the file and confirmed the information that I was seen and excused from work and was asked to see my family physician as soon as I could.
“SORRY.. But I must have a note from the doctor that saw you, in the ER, the night of the accident. Not some random doctor. And because you can’t seem to follow policy you are now suspended for three days.
I expect you to have a note from the doctor who saw you before you return after your suspension.”
I am beside myself. Why. In God’s name. Am I being forced to do this and suspended WHEN SHE SAW THE WRECK AND CALLED THE AMBULANCE HERSELF?
I am so confused at this point. I was an excellent employee. Almost a college graduate with near-perfect marks. Availability beyond the scope of my own schedule weekly. Last minute double shifter for sake of the company and the clients without even a whine.
Suffering the effects of malicious compliance far beyond my comprehension.
So.. what shall I do. I went back to that hospital on the off chance the doctor would be there. He was not there.
And he wouldn’t be for weeks. I spent the next day tracking down this doctor and in the end.. I prevailed. I got my note. From the doctor that saw me in ER on the night of the wreck.
I went to work early the next morning before the manager would arrive. I placed the note on her desk front and center. With my keys and another note stating my gratefulness for the opportunity I had to work with these amazing clients.
But that unfortunately I could no longer afford the time to work there as I was in a crunch with completing my education. Wished her well and good luck. I continued to visit the clients often as a friend instead of a caregiver and I’ll never forget the awesome times we had hanging out ranting about the world with no doctor’s note required to do so.
That malicious compliance dished out to me resulted in an ample amount of double shifts for the old manager though.”
8. Want To Fire Me And Replace Me With My Trainee? See How That Works For You
It’s never really a good idea.
“I used to work as a temp in a cardboard factory. I started out assisting the machine operators in their work, but after the person who managed the materials (cutting forms, printing stamps, and ink), who henceforth shall be referred to as Dave, was forced to take a week off (paid vacation he was forced to take before the end of the year, and the end of year rush was coming up) and things went south because the floor managers couldn’t keep up with his job and their own at the same time, the company decided we needed a second person to do Dave’s job to avoid situations like that in the future.
They tested several people by having them work together with Dave for a couple of hours and apparently I was the only one who did a decent job and so I was told Dave would be training me.
I was never asked if I was interested, I didn’t even know they were looking for someone to help Dave until I arrived at work one Monday and my schedule said I would be working with Dave.
Of course, I didn’t mind, because since I was already capable of helping operate 8 of the 10 machines in the factory, I figured this was a great way to further solidify an actual contract with the company.
Now, during his week off, Dave had met a woman and they had started seeing each other. She would constantly text him while he was at work and it showed in his productivity.
Of course, the COO figured his drop in productivity was because I was slowing him down. As time went on, Dave’s chick moved in with him. Now, I haven’t mentioned this yet, but the factory had a 2-shift system.
Early shift and late shift. Most of us worked in rotating shifts, but Dave had a fixed early shift (because he had to be there on Monday mornings). Now, this meant Dave and his girl could never go out on weekdays and even had to go to bed quite early, so Dave requested to be put back on rotating shifts once he had finished training me.
The COO said he would look into it, but kept giving Dave excuses. So Dave started interviewing for another job.
Then came the day Dave and I were called into the COO’s office and got yelled at for “not pulling our weight” and stuff like that.
One of the things mentioned was repeated tardiness. Dave couldn’t deny that one, he had overslept several times in the last few months. But I had only been tardy once, because of a flat tire.
So, wanting to set the record straight, I tried to interject about my flat tire and the COO snapped at me to “keep my trap shut” while he was talking. So after his rant and he dismisses us from his office I once again bring up the flat tire and he just snaps at me again that I should’ve just avoided having a flat tire.
That was the last drop for Dave. He got home, wrote his letter of resignation, mailed it to the COO, and accepted one of the job offers he had gotten that week.
For the next three months, I’m stuck doing all the work on my own.
Also during this time, due to a change in the laws in my country, I might become homeless, unless I get a contract. So I start asking the COO for a contract since I’ve been there 2 and a half years as a temp at that point.
Just like with Dave he keeps giving me excuses.
After an incident with them refusing any vacation time request I put in that included a Monday, they finally gave me someone to train to be my second.
Let’s call him Abdul. About a month after I started training Abdul, I get called into the floor manager’s office. Apparently, a mistake was made somewhere and he asks me how that happened. Now that was the first week I was letting Abdul work independently without me constantly telling him what to do.
So I tell the FM that Abdul had done that job and I had not yet had the chance to inspect his work. The FM grumbles but just dismisses me. A week later I get called in again for a similar situation.
So again I point out that Abdul is learning and mistakes will be made. So this time the FM blows up at me that I have to stop blaming everything on Abdul and if I blame one more mistake on Abdul being a rookie, he’s getting me fired.
This is where the compliance comes in. Around this same time, Abdul and I were put in opposing shifts. My first order of business every day would be to double-check all of Abdul’s work and fix any mistakes.
I couldn’t inform him of his mistakes so he kept making them. Abdul also started to get sneaky. You see, part of our tasks had to be done in an area of the factory where only the two of us would frequently go, so Abdul would do all the work that was to be done where people could see him work, leaving me with all the tasks behind the scenes, meaning I was never anywhere to be found.
We also had these big barrels of ink, which were hooked up to a machine that mixed the basic colors of ink into other colors. Abdul had always refused to change these barrels when they were empty.
He would usually state he hadn’t had time, even though making sure those barrels aren’t empty was a priority job.
This eventually all culminates in a moment about 8 months after Dave left where I am once again called into the COO’s office.
I’m thinking I’m finally getting my contract after 3 years as a temp. I’m also convinced Abdul got a contract the week before, though Abdul and the COO have always denied that. Instead, I’m told I’m fired. The COO also goes out of his way to inform me that he’s been wanting to fire me for 6 months now, because he blames me for Dave quitting, but was asked not to by the Floor Managers until I had trained someone to replace me and they considered Abdul to be ready to do the job now.
He also told me that he did appreciate the work I did, he just had a problem with me personally.
After my meeting with the COO, I make my round of the factory to inform my co-workers that I have been fired and to say goodbye.
The look on Abdul’s face was pure panic. He suddenly realized that despite me demonstrating how to change those ink barrels, he had never actually done it himself and as such didn’t remember how to do it.
A week after I left I got a message from one of my former co-workers that the entire factory was looking to go to the COO’s office and demand they rehire me because Abdul was not only doing a poor job, but he was also being a megalomaniac.
I told her not to bother because if they did rehire me, it would only make the COO hate me even more. Several months after another former co-worker informed me that not even a month after I was fired, Abdul was demoted back to the assistant machine operator and one of the Floor Managers had to take over his tasks full-time.”
7. Keep Shut About My Workplace Harassment Or Leave? Bye, Then
“Several years ago, I worked for six months at a daycare.
I was 18 and was rotated between classrooms to cover for the other sick teachers/to relieve them so they could go home instead of working 13+ hours.
Backstory of how they treated me:
Despite receiving government funding this daycare was /super/ Christian.
The owner was always there and I was the only non-Christian. Growing up not Christian in the Bible Belt I knew better than to let them know that though. I never made the kids say grace before lunch, but never commented anything negative towards Christianity or God.
They once asked me what church I go to and I gave them the name of one I always saw on my way to work. They once asked me if I pray every day, and I told them I did but in a different way than they do, that I don’t pray about my day-to-day troubles as “I know god has a plan for me” and instead prayed for the world’s well-being.
They were horribly harassing me the entire time for “not believing in god” the way that they do (the /right/ way), and for being depressed. The owner saw me disassociating once (which from the outside perspective looks like I’m spaced out, but I’m actually fully aware of what’s going on around me) and spoke to me about ‘not paying attention to the children.’ I had to explain to her what depression even was and she accused me of being possessed by the devil.
The director/two-year-old teacher, who I had barely spoken to before, came up to me one day to tell me that she used to have depression and I just needed to drink more water and do yoga.
Furthermore, every time I passed through the kitchen, whoever saw me in the kitchen would “remind me” to drink water, and if I said “I just had some,” I’d be met with “have another.”
After I started to ignore them and their comments on my appearance (I had blue short hair and why didn’t I grow it out or wear perfume) on Thursdays during nap time all 6 teachers plus the owner, myself, and the other aid like me (who was younger, unmarried, and /pregnant/) would gather in the office, hold hands, go around one at a time and tell me what’s wrong with me (the cologne instead of perfume I chose to wear made me smell ‘manly’, ignoring their comments, getting on my phone to answer a call from my sister who I was taking care of by myself around the kids, etc) and then everyone would /pray for me/.
This went on for more than half the time I was there.
I had just about had enough because obviously being there only made my depression worse and the owner got more and more convinced I was possessed by the devil.
So she took me out of the classroom. I was no longer an aid. I was “promoted” to education enrichment manager. It was a made-up position that did not come with a pay raise and while I was supposed to remind the teachers to do their monthly certifications, encourage them to go to our state-funded childcare classes, and so on, I was never actually given time to do any of this.
My new job was essentially being the owner’s chauffeur. She was 60 years old ish and has never had a driver’s license or driven a car. She was too scared to ever learn.
Despite always being at the facility before, all of a sudden she had a plethora of reasons to be driven around now. I get one on one time with her as we drive in the southern humid summer with no a/c in the daycare van to do grocery shopping for the daycare, visit her husband while he’s at work, take her to a realtor for her own personal looking, etc. Except for grocery shopping, she would always ask me to stay in the van and leave me for about two hours give or take.
She once took an hour and a half grocery shopping for the daycare and forgot her wallet so she called one of the teachers to come to pick her up, leaving me there for three hours, and took the van keys with her so I couldn’t leave.
She had her transaction suspended while I sat at the front the whole time waiting on her. At least I had a/c that time. I was also getting paid the entire time and it was easy to just drown out her talking at me and screw around on my phone when I wasn’t driving.
The fallout/malicious compliance:
The director/two-year-old teacher ended up leaving because her husband was being relocated so they put me in the one-year-old class and put the one-year-old teacher with the two-year-olds in the other half of the split room.
(We can see into each other’s rooms because there’s just a baby gate between us where the room was split by a big bookcase). She’s always on her phone when I’m looking at her and usually holding a child while the rest play but pretty much not paying attention.
After about two weeks (during which time Thursdays resumed), I once again receive an important call from my 14 yr old sister who is home alone, calling me because her dog of 5yrs got out and she’s freaking out, the director called the company phone which another teacher brings to me for her to ask me why I was on the phone.
Wherever she was, she was watching the cameras. I tried to explain about my sister but I guess she was having a bad day because she told me that if I wanted to back talk I could get out.
I still attempted to explain but now I was arguing and I was still in front of the children that’s unacceptable behavior and needed to be quiet and stay off my phone or get out.
So I hung up on her and walked out. Just left the children unsupervised. I walked quickly through the kitchen (which also had a baby gate and it swung closed behind me) and I leave and go home.
I get a call the next evening when I didn’t show up there. I didn’t intend on going back whatsoever. She called chastising me for leaving and asking me when I’m coming back.
I tried to explain to her that she /told/ me to leave. She didn’t mean right then /apparently/ and when was I coming back. I asked her if she wanted me there.
She asked me what I meant. I told her straight up, “tell me you want me there and I’ll come back tomorrow as scheduled.” She asked me why am I playing these games, do I think she was stupid, etc. She never answered me and so I asked her again.
She goes on to yell and explain that she’s educated and just got her GED 5 years ago, I’m playing games with her and treating her like she’s stupid. I told her congratulations on getting your GED, but I just graduated a few months ago at 18 despite living on my own and taking care of my sister.
“If you don’t want me there Mrs. M, I will not be there. If you want me there, I will be there tomorrow.” I tell her. I stood fast to my position though the longer it went on the more obvious she wasn’t playing stupid, she either just was or just didn’t want me to be there and didn’t want to say so.
I ended up hanging up on her again.
The aftermath: She called me the next day saying that if I wasn’t coming back in to just come in to sign my resignation.
I had a friend who I often vented to about the way they treated me and offered to go with me, and I dearly needed the emotional support and knowing manipulators, they would save face in front of a witness.
I go to go sign the resignation which I wasn’t even sure was actually needed because I had never needed to before and I have quit a handful of jobs up to here, but whatever I’d never worked at a daycare before either.
Then they show me a write-up for the baby gate hitting the pregnant girl behind me on the way out. My friend suggested that I don’t sign the write-up and I agree.
What’s it needed for if I’m resigning anyway? I didn’t do it intentionally either; I didn’t even know she was behind me. Also, why didn’t she catch it?
Whatever, I go and read the resignation which stated that I was quitting effective immediately without a two weeks notice. I sign it. Then the write-up. I said I wasn’t going to sign it and they said if I didn’t the pregnant girl was going to press charges.
I thought that was stupid as heck and stared at her mouth agape and she looked at me so freaking smug. I don’t know how they could count that as assault but I signed it anyway after some arguing because once again I didn’t do it intentionally, and nothing happened to her or the baby.
I did however sincerely apologize to her because I genuinely never meant her or her baby any harm. I left and never looked back. Nothing ended up happening with police or any legal ramifications of any kind and I’m still pretty sure it was just a bluff anyway.
Anyways that’s well behind me and the next week I got hired at another daycare, as an actual teacher, closer to home. It was awesome for a year and then they started cutting my hours when the owner’s daughter got pregnant and needed a job and they had us “share” a classroom.
When they had me coming in two hours a day five days a week I just quit showing up and they never called me, and I never signed a resignation. Both places were minimum wage by the way.”
Another User Comments:
“This applies to the U.S. If you don’t show up for work the company can fire you “for cause”; the same with being late 3 times in a reasonable period, for insubordination and theft. For these reasons, you don’t qualify for unemployment.
Now if they harass you and you quit then that is considered “involuntary termination for cause.” For that, they have to pay you unemployment. That is why they had you sign the documents.
If you screw up on the job and are fired for incompetence, they have to pay unemployment. Definitely never sign anything. If you quit one company and go to another and are fired for incompetence, you will collect your unemployment from the first company’s unemployment insurance fund.” Gomaith23
6. Tell Me To Do My Job Properly? I Will, A Little Too Properly
And it will cost you your job.
“In early 2020, I was hired under the title “assistant manager” at a local Automotive shop. We mainly sold tires and alloy wheels for passenger vehicles. The company owned several stores.
I reported directly to my manager, who then reported to the owner of the company. Shortly after I was hired, I noticed the behavior of the manager was far from professional. He would constantly mock and berate me for being the new guy.
I believe part of this was jealousy and insecurity on his part, as I ended up recording more sales under my name within the first few months. He would also “knock off” work early and start drinking beer whilst the rest of us continued to work.
I remember when he found out that I participated in MMA training sessions after work, he tried to goad me into a fight for his own amusement. Clearly, this guy didn’t like me and I was starting to get the feeling that he was trying to get me to snap or lose my cool, and as a result; my employment.
I became even more certain of that with what happened next.
During the few months that I had worked there, I noticed that our takings for the day and sales records did not match.
I would often spend half an hour to an hour after work trying to figure out where the errors were coming from, whilst the manager would simply throw his hands in the air and exclaim that he had no idea how this was happening.
The recurring issue seemed to be that our register takings had been recorded incorrectly. There would sometimes be an excessive amount of cash that didn’t match up to what was recorded on our sales/invoicing software.
Other times, there would be less. I was, at the time, an accounting student studying toward my bachelor’s degree. I was already suspicious of the funds being out each day. However, given how the manager had been treating me up until this point, I was concerned that any complaint would somehow be twisted and used against me.
And boy was I right!
Several weeks later my manager took some time off. During this time I managed a personal record of in-store sales and also noticed something interesting: The cash was never out at the end of each shift. I reported this directly to the owner of the company (given I was acting manager during the time my manager was away, I was expected to report to the owner every day) and explained what had been occurring whilst the manager was there.
In all honesty, I was hopeful that the owner would be having a word with the manager about the discrepancies. However, I was also wary, as I believed once the owner spoke to my manager, that the manager will immediately know it was me who reported this.
When the manager returned to work, he immediately approached me with a disgruntled look on his face. “I’ve spoken with the owner. You tried to blame me for the discrepancies?! You should focus on doing your job properly, then this wouldn’t happen!” I was quite taken aback by how angry he was, though, I wasn’t surprised that he twisted it and tried to place blame on me.
Given his reaction, I’m even more suspicious at this point. He wants me to do my job properly, eh? Malicious Compliance ensues.
That same week, I got to WORK! I started paying attention to what customers were paying when they were dealing with my manager.
Behind his back, I began examining all of his sale transactions and invoices with a fine comb. As the days rolled by, I started to find evidence of his dishonesty. When it came to a few sales, my manager was doing the following:
Example
- Would tell the customer the price is $200 if he pays in cash.
- Would discount the price by $50 in the sale/invoicing software.
- Would put the extra change into the till and record a $150 sale.
- Before we did the cash-up at the end of the day, he would sneakily pocket this extra change whilst no one was around. Though, he was very foolish, as he clearly couldn’t remember the exact amount he had swindled. Hence why the amount would be up some days (didn’t swindle enough), or the amount would be down (swindled too much).
I took screenshots of the discounts he had been giving on sales and sent them to the business owner, along with a report. A report with a detailed description of my findings. The report also showed that on all days he wasn’t there for the register count, there was no variance.
When he was there… well.
The owner was infuriated. This man had been his trusted employee for years. The owner was so infuriated in fact, that he ordered my manager to do a mandatory substance test (pee in a cup style) on the same day he found out.
And no surprises… he failed.
Turns out the manager had quite the illegal substance habit. This was most likely his sole motive for stealing, and the owner was beside himself. We operate machinery every day in this store, and so the thought of a manager walking around under the influence wouldn’t sit well with any health & safety professional. In fact, it could have landed the owner in serious legal trouble if any accident or injury occurred under this manager’s watch.
The manager was terminated immediately for violation of his contract and was later taken to court by the owner in an attempt to recover the stolen funds.
Safe to say, I was promoted to store manager position shortly after his termination.”
Another User Comments:
“”Hmm, let me threaten the job of the hardest working employee who KNOWS I’m stealing and make my boss suspicious. What could possibly go wrong?”
No surprise substances were involved.” RookMeAmadeus
5. Claim Some Tasks Require A Man? Then I'm Not Cut Out For All These "Woman" Tasks
“First, context: since I (m28) was 11, my parents have been divorced. My mother (f64) got custody and we would see our father one weekend every two weeks.
I have also a little sister (f25), so I ended up being the only man in the house.
Growing up, our mother always taught us that we needed to participate in house duties, such as washing the dishes, taking out the laundry, and preparing food… We would take turns, and during the week, we children would take care of all of that, because our mother would come back from work exhausted and expected to not have anything to do once at home.
And we kind of were ok with that. Only that as young children, we would sometimes (often) forget to do stuff and it would cause a fight. But we ended up learning to not forget.
Only, there are some tasks, that wouldn’t be fairly distributed. My mother ALWAYS needed a man close so that she could give him some work to do. And even though she never remarried and only went out with one or two men after she divorced, she always found some male friend, or some friend’s husband/partner, to whom she could ask for help.
Until at some point, people started to realize that she was being close to them for the only purpose that she could ask them for help (yeah, she’s one of these “t*t for tat” people, where if she does something for you, you have to give back something equivalent or you disappear from her life…) So basically she lost a few friends.
But at some point, I was old enough to be useful. And she started asking ME for help on these matters. “OP, the internet box doesn’t work anymore, can you look it up?
It needs a man’s brain to understand that.” “OP, I bought some furniture from IKEA, can you build it for me? It needs a man’s brain to understand that.” “OP, can you carry luggage?
Only a strong man can do that.” “OP, can you look up why my computer is so slow? It needs a man’s brain to understand that.” And so on. I asked repeatedly that she looked at how I dealt with these things so that she could understand herself and fix it alone next time.
Especially when it was something so basic as to restart the internet box… But she didn’t want to learn. She just wanted me to do it because she didn’t want to have to deal with it herself.
And it went on for a few years, growing from just restarting the box to piercing onto walls so that she could hang mirrors and stuff.
For info, I never did anything of all that before she asked me to do it.
So I guess it made me learn it which is a good thing. But what bothered me was that she just didn’t care and expected me to do all that because it was normal, and me knowing about it or not was not a question.
I am a man, so that’s my job. And as I was growing up, and her still not learning anything, I got more and more frustrated. Until this one final time, I don’t remember what specific task it was, where she told me that it was a man’s job, needing a man’s brain.
I had a huge sigh, did the job, then went back to my business.
Cue the malicious compliance.
As some tasks require a “man’s brain”, it is obvious that some others require a “woman’s touch”, as we men are all about technique, big thinking, and strength work.
So the following days, I started to wash the dishes and put them back anywhere in the kitchen. Because you know, we men have no idea about where goes what in a house.
We just fix things and carry heavy stuff. I forgot to get food back in the fridge because you know, that’s already cooked so it won’t spoil. I overcooked my steaks, eggs, and pizza because you know, I was SO busy thinking about all this technical stuff that I didn’t have the brain space to think about checking food.
Laundry would be spread to dry, one piece onto another because it is more efficient as it saves space. And about cleaning the house, let’s just say it was a waste of time because I could perfectly live in my own mess.
Of course, it didn’t take long for my mother to get angry at me for not taking care of the house, or for doing it so stupidly. To which I answered: “sorry, I mean you know, it needs a woman’s brain to understand how to take care of a house correctly”.
Which yes, is TOTALLY sexist. But so is saying that all the work she made me do was for men only.
So at first, she was dumbfounded. Then the storm unleashed. It still is one of the biggest fights we had to this day.
Things calmed down, and I went back to caring properly. Until she asked for my man’s brain again. From this point, I stopped caring. I would forget the laundry in the washing machine, let the dishes pile up in the sink, and would only do my man’s job.
She would still get really angry, ordering me to do stuff, which I would ultimately do, completely lazily. Meaning that she had to do it all over after me because half of the dishes were just out in the kitchen, not at their place, laundry was all stuck together to dry, and so on.
The mood in the house was tense, and it wouldn’t need much for a fight to blow up. Until at some point, she asked me to HELP her do this or that. Not to do it for her anymore.
So I helped. I showed her how to do it, I took time for it, and we did it together multiple times until she finally learned how to do it. I then started taking care of my duties as I did before, and things went back to normal. Finally.”
Another User Comments:
“This. My family is openly very sexist, just not so much to the women anymore. The attitude of “that’s a man’s job” is just as sexist as saying the opposite but no one seems to catch on or take it seriously.
I know biologically men are statistically larger and often stronger, but why is it always my job to carry/move everything? Why is it always my job to figure out basic house maintenance things and to put things together/set them up/hang things on the wall?
Why is it always my job to do so many things? Like I actually grew up thinking women were incapable of certain tasks for some inexplicable reason until I made more friends who laughed at my naivety.” Broad-Literature-438
Sometimes, mom could be so dumb! But other times she amazed me with what she came up with.
4. Want Tickets To Be Updated Immediately? I'll Give You Every Update Possible
“So one of the first IT jobs I worked was for the corporate headquarters of a midwestern sandwich chain. My brother’s best friend was the IT manager of this place and was given free rein to hire anyone he wanted. We had previously worked together in another place and he liked my work ethic, so he ended up asking if I’d take the job.
Of course, I said yes since I genuinely enjoyed working alongside this friend, and I thought it would be cool to report to him.
Anyway, a few months go by and everything is going well.
I met and enjoyed mostly everyone in the IT department. Then one day, the CEO congratulates and welcomes a new CTO. This confused me as I thought that my friend’s boss was the CTO, but I then was told that he was actually an interim CTO this whole time.
So, being green and naive, I decided to take it upon myself to meet the new CTO. The conversation goes more or less like so:
Me: “Hi! My name is Jerry, I am one of the help desk technicians here!
It’s a pleasure to meet you and look forward to working with you!” Sticks out hand to shake hands.
CTO: blank stares at my hand, then back at me.
Me: “Uhh, yeah so if you need anything or have any questions, I will do my best to help.”
CTO: “So just because I am a woman, I need help? And what exactly can a help desk help me with? Don’t offer help to me unless I ask for it, got it?”
My friend saw this and was honestly shocked. To this day, that entire exchange still haunts me.
In any case, I moved on and ensured to try to stay out of the CTO’s way.
I decided I wanted to just do my job and work with my friend. The entire time I worked there, my friend kept me in the loop with all his projects and his work so that I could hopefully be successful in the field.
Then, one day, when I get to the office, I am informed that my friend was fired by a demand of the CTO since he was “not meeting expectations”, despite all the reports showing that his leadership and changes did in fact yield very high ratings for ticket closures and customer satisfaction.
That same day, the CTO comes to the help desk room and walks up to me. She then says “Hey you, you worked alongside that manager, right? Well, I am making you the interim manager since you know most everything he was working on.” I felt like this was two slaps to the face, one being that she didn’t refer to me by my name, and the other that she gives me my friend’s job the same day he was fired.
A few weeks go by and I just experience going to meeting after meeting. I keep getting told that performance ratings and customer satisfaction is dropping. In particular, the biggest gripe that was reported was that work orders were not getting any updates for days on end and that the requesters were beginning to feel that we were ignoring their issues.
I tried to reply with a plan that I had to help alleviate this, but the CTO said “we will make sure this is fixed” and would not let me speak.
After all those meetings, the CTO sets up a meeting with me, the Director of Infrastructure (we’ll call him Matt), and the previous interim CTO (who we will call Joe).
CTO: “Ok..how are we going to fix the problem with the work orders?”
Me: “Well, I’ve got a plan that should help with this. See, what I need to do is canvas the tickets and see wha-”
CTO: “If I needed a plan, I would ask for it. I want an answer NOW!”
Me: “Ok well I’m trying to give you the answer which is a part of this plan.”
CTO: “Then it’s useless if you can’t get to the answer. Any other ideas?”
At this point, we all stayed fairly silent and the CTO was just more or less rambling to herself.
In the end, her response..was…glorious.
CTO: “Ok, so moving forward, no matter what it is I want every ticket to be updated immediately with anything that is going on with the request as it is being worked on.”
Me: “Everything that goes on with the request immediately as it happens? Are you sure about that? I feel like that’s going to cau-”
CTO: “I know what I said. If I have to repeat myself, consider yourself out of a job.”
Me: silent for a second and then… “Understood.”
She then proceed to send an email, summarizing almost everything that happened in the meeting. She then writes that I had no constructive information to provide, but again see her plan there..it was then that it occurred to me…
Cue Malicious Compliance.
I go back to the helpdesk room to announce the immediate change.
Me: “Hey everyone, just wanted to give you a heads up that moving forward, you are to provide every work order with any and all updates possible.
That includes anything from looking at the ticket, to moving a laptop, to typing on it, just anything you do must be related and entered into a ticket.”
Tech 1: “Umm…you want EVERYTHING in tickets?”
Me: “Yep you heard that right! EVERYTHING! As you work on the tickets, keep those updates coming!”
Tech 2: “But if we do that, we could potentially trigger the spam filters..also it’s going to flood the requestors’ mailboxes…did you mention this to the CTO?”
Me: “She didn’t care to hear about it. It’s apparently not constructive information.”
The other 4 technicians stayed silent until one of them said “A storm is brewing..this is going to be fun!” and we all laughed, knowing what was going to happen.
I went to the email that the CTO sent, regarding the summary of our meeting and opened it in its own window on my computer. I then continued to do as she had asked, and so did the other technicians.
It wasn’t even an hour before our updates were beginning to get blocked by the spam filters and we started getting emails from the requesters asking us why we were updating the work orders so much, others asking to be removed from future ticket updates, and many demanding to speak to a manager regarding this sudden disturbance.
I updated the IT help desk email with an automatic replay that said something along the following:
“Thank you for your message,
If this is in regard to your ticket updates, rest assured that we have your best interest in mind.
A new policy is in place to provide you with as much transparency to your IT requests. This is in hopes to provide a better customer service experience.
Please rest assured that we are aware of the number of tickets this may produce.
We hope to provide further support to you and look forward to completing your request shortly.
Company IT Help Desk”
It was not long after this that the CEO came into the help desk room and demanded to know what the heck was going on.
I could tell he was ready to fire someone when I calmly said “Good afternoon sir! We are simply following orders,” and pointed at my screen, to the email with the meeting summary.
The CEO looked at me and growled “follow me.” As we were walking, we passed by Matt’s, Joe’s, and the CTO’s office, each time the CEO growling at them, “In my office, NOW!”
We get to his office and the conversation goes like this:
CEO: “What the heck is going on?”
Me: “I will reiterate, I am only following orders.”
CEO: “And what exactly were these orders?”
Me: reiterates the orders. “Here is the email from the CTO regarding this order.”
CTO: “Sir I can explain, I was just thinking that -”
CEO: “And did no one stop to think what issues this would cause?”
Matt: “Well, Jerry did try to explain a plan to the CTO.”
Joe: “If I am not mistaken, Jerry knows that if the exchange servers detect multiple updates coming out like this in a small time window, it triggers a spam blocker.”
Me: “And that’s why my plan was to update each ticket only once a day, rather than after every single thing that was done towards the request.”
CTO: “I asked you to update at the end of the day with EVERYTHING that happened with the work orders.”
CEO: “According to your summary, you did ask for ticket updates as they occurred, and Jerry’s team provided this. Why did you not listen to Jerry’s plan of action?”
CTO: “Well, sir, I have been working in the field since before 2000.
What can someone like Jerry provide me with?”
CEO: “Well, he can provide you with the information to tell you why your idea has just cost the company a ton of profit since now our exchange server got overloaded.”
Me: “When I was talking about canvassing, I was trying to say that I wanted to reach out to each location’s managers to compile a list of tickets to update in a scheduled manner, rather than do them all at once.
But since you wouldn’t listen to me and even threatened to fire me, I only complied with your plan.”
CTO: “I cannot believe this is happening. Why am I being targeted here?”
At this point, the CEO asked Matt, Joe, and me to leave while he “had a word with the CTO on what teamwork means.” Several minutes later, the network/infrastructure team was able to reboot the exchange servers and remove the IT help desk mailbox from the spam filters.
I later provided a mass email update to the organization, apologizing for any inconveniences that were caused and that I would be reaching out to provide planned support.
I would soon find out that the CTO was placed on unpaid leave until further investigations were pending.
I ended up quitting a few months after that since, after the incident, the CTO was frequently trying to take her grudge out on Joe, Matt, and me. I did leave reporting the incidents to HR.
I did later find out that the CTO was terminated and arrested for embezzlement.”
3. Give Us A List Of Our Job Duties? Guess I'll Stop Doing The Additional Tasks I Was Doing
“To start off I want to give a little context and backstory to set the scene. A couple of years ago I took a job in the kitchen of a private healthcare facility.
I had been working in kitchens for more than 10 years before this in various roles and knew I was overqualified for the job. But a close friend was already working there and had asked that I come fill a spot because they were short-staffed, and I wanted a low-stress job, for the time being, that could accommodate my schedule of working both jobs before switching careers altogether.
It’s a relatively small kitchen with only a head chef (we can call her Jessica) and at most maybe 2-3 other people on any shift. Head chef is a bit of an exaggeration as this lady sat in her office chair, dealt with paperwork, and occasionally walked around the kitchen to give us criticism on whatever we were working on at the time.
I’ve had a lot of bosses throughout the years, and she was by far the worst. Aside from her though the rest of my coworkers were great! We communicated and worked as a team to get everything done, regardless of what specific task was assigned to anyone.
I was hired on as what she liked to call “support.” This basically meant I did a lot of the menial prep and restocking tasks that no one else wanted to do. Which was fine because with my experience, knife work went faster for me than anyone else.
But because of that experience, I was also relied on pretty heavily by the rest of the cooks to help them out with their tasks. I didn’t mind this because like I said we all helped each other to achieve the common goal, and everything got done by the end of the day.
Everything was going great, and we were running smoothly for about four months after I had started, and this is where we get to the beginning of my compliance issue.
After four months we lost a couple of team members and they ended up getting replaced with people that didn’t really fit into the chemistry we had built up.
Overall, they were lazy, took constant breaks for 20+ minutes at a time, and had to be babysat for their entire shift. If they weren’t explicitly told to do something they would just sit around waiting for directions.
The rest of the remaining crew did their best to work around this and train them so we could get back to the cohesive teamwork we had all gotten used to, but in the meantime, a few things had started to slide, and some tasks weren’t getting done.
Nothing major like not replacing the juice in the drink machine or refilling the stash of coffee by the coffee makers. stuff like that. Well, Jessica had a real issue with this, but because she is never actually working with us to see where the problems were actually stemming from, she decided to start pointing fingers blindly and making changes.
She called all of us into a meeting where she had printed us all lists to “remind” us of our job duties and responsibilities. I read over mine carefully and here is how the conversation went:
Me: Hey Jessica I see on mi…
Jessica: Let me stop you right there. This is not up for discussion. This is what you were hired to do, and this is what you will be doing.
If all of your tasks aren’t finished by the end of your shifts, YOU will be the one responsible.
Co-worker: Jessica this list doesn’t even include…
Jessica: AGAIN, WE’RE NOT HERE TO DISCUSS.
You have all been slacking and you can all consider this your verbal warning. (She turns to look directly at me) If the problems persist, we will take disciplinary action.
I walked out of that meeting laughing my butt off!
We typically worked 8–10-hour shifts and the entirety of my list could be completed in 2 hours or less. I talked to my friend, who was already having the same thoughts I was, and we both agreed to just let it ride and enjoy the crap show.
That list became my bible. I had it on my person at all times, for every shift, just neatly folded in my back pocket. I showed up every single day with my earbuds and got started on all of the menial nonsense that was on my list (cutting fruit, restocking the snack counter, refilling coffee machines) and I made sure to set up my station at the closest possible point to Jessica’s office.
Every single day my co-workers would come back to me asking for help with whatever they were doing and each time I would very calmly reach back and pull out the folded piece of paper that had become my personal Magna Carta and pretend to scour over it as if it was my first time reading it and reply with “I’m sorry co-worker, I just don’t see that anywhere on my list. I can’t help you.
You should ask Jessica” loud enough for her to hear with me being so close. My co-workers started to catch on and they would come back to my station multiple times a day for me to put on my little song and dance routine, each time pulling out my little piece of paper and adhering the word printed on it as if it were law.
After a few weeks of this the tension had really started to build between Jessica and me as the issues we were facing before the meeting only continued to get worse, but what could she do?
She had made her decision and she would sooner drop dead than admit she was wrong. Eventually, after enough complaints from our clients and other staff members, she was let go.
It’s a bit anti-climactic but I actually left not long after that.
I told everyone with her gone, work was just too boring. I didn’t have anyone to go to battle with. In reality, my second job had really started to pick up and I was able to go full-time and switch careers.
I’ve heard from friends that they actually promoted one of my old co-workers and he is doing a great job in that position, and everything is running smoothly again.
My thoughts and prayers go out to anyone who decides to hire Jessica in the future.”
2. Unwilling To Pay For The House's Repairs? Fine, She'll Undo All The Work She Did
He totally asked for it.
“So my best friend had moved out of state with her family for several years. She was never really happy there as she is a small-town country girl in a big city, so when her marriage dissolved she decided she needed a change.
She was homesick but didn’t want to go back home. She wanted to live close enough that she could visit often, and she wanted to be in a similar setting to home.
While on a camping trip she fell in love with a small town that was about 5 hours from her children’s father and about 6 hours from her hometown.
Looking around the town she finds a small house that’s for rent and she decides to reach out to the owner about the details. It’s not a great house, looks terrible hence why I call it the crack shack, but nothing that some hard work and a little bit of change couldn’t fix.
The landlord tells her that the house is livable but it’s definitely a fixer-upper. It’s been vacant for a while, and they just recently had a man that kept breaking in at night but assured her the cops were aware and the guy hadn’t been back in months.
However, he had done a lot of damage. He was willing to make a deal with her. If she was willing to pay for supplies he would reimburse her, and if she would do the work on the house, and pay all of the utilities, he wouldn’t charge her rent until the repairs were complete.
He would also draw up legal documents that if she decided she wanted to buy he would sell it to her for 15,000 dollars, as in its current state it wasn’t worth more than that.
She thought it over a bit and insisted on having the legality of it all taken care of prior to move-in day. He agreed.
Over the next few weeks paperwork starts flowing in, she reads it, signs it, and sends it back.
Before she can move in she needs to make a couple of minor repairs. A plumbing issue, a damaged ceiling, and 2 broken doors. She does this, sends him the receipts via registered mail, and keeps a copy for herself.
A few days later, she gets a notification that he signed for the letter. A week goes by, then 2, and 3 nothing. She tries to call him no answer, she emails and sends a letter, nothing.
A neighbor tells her the guy is having health issues and has been in the hospital so for sure that has to be the hold up so she moves in on schedule and continues repairing the house.
Fast forward a year. She has cleaned up the junked-up yard, replaced all the doors and storm doors, repaired several windows, plumbing, electrical, replaced the hot water tank, repaired the furnace, and the supplies have arrived to fix the roof.
When who finally appears in her email.
The landlord pops up and explains he has been in and out of the hospital but he has received all of the receipts and photos of the work everything looks good; I’ll be in touch.
So she starts getting together a team of friends who all have experience in roof work. The day before they are supposed to start another email comes. After speaking to my attorney I have decided that you have been squatting in my house for 1 year without having paid any rent.
The amounts on your receipts are unreasonable I won’t be repaying you for the work you have done I will forgive the first 3 months of your time there this should more than compensate you for the work already done… not even close to the cost of supplies.
You have 15 days (which is the minimum notice allowable in her state) to pay the sum of $9,000 or move. If you refuse, legal action will be taken. So she replies reminding him of the lease she signed and the agreement they made.
He responds with my lawyer has no record of a lease on file. When he sent your copy to you the post office returned it so technically it’s null and void if I say it is.
Prove that we ever made this agreement.
So she dug thru her records and sent him copies of every email he sent her laying out the terms. Thinking he’s older, he’s been having health issues maybe he just doesn’t remember.
He comes back with I don’t remember any of that (she also had saved voicemails that he had left on her phone including one where he says we received your signed lease you can’t start the repairs and move in when you’re ready don’t forget to send me all receipts related to home repairs).
She offers up a compromise of “I’ll eat up the full cost of repairs and pay all the utilities, I’ll pay a reduced price in rent to compensate me for my time and finances put in.” She even made an offer that she would eat the cost of the repairs and start paying rent going forward but asked that he accept the work already done to compensate her for the repairs already made which even this was a deal where the landlord made out better as she had put more bucks into everything at this point and she only made repairs according to a previously agreed upon list.
Well we can certainly try to work out a new deal but I’m still not paying these receipts, you’re going to start paying rent, if you want to buy the house it’s going to be 30,000 dollars (in this area even after the repairs he would be lucky to sell it for this).
She tells him she needs to think about his offer (she doesn’t). She calls me as I can be creative. I tell her first to talk to a lawyer, she did, and while the lawyer thought with all of the correspondence she could probably win the case, she decided the house wasn’t worth it to her.
So she called the landlord back and tells him after careful consideration I’m going to have to decline this offer as I wouldn’t have agreed to it before moving in. He then tries to negotiate another deal still a horrible one.
Still didn’t include repayment of any sort for the work she put into it. Says this is his final offer accept it or get out.
This is where I came into the story.
Since he was unwilling to pay for the repairs I sat down and made a list of everything she had done to that house, and devised the following plan. 1 by 1 she and the team that was supposed to help fix the roof went thru the house and unfixed everything she had previously repaired. The new doors were removed (the old ones were still stored in the garage) and took down all the drywall she had put up but had not yet finished. Removed all pipes, fittings, fixtures, appliances, and every last shingle that was meant for the roof and made a few calls, and sold every bit of it to a family friend who happened to be in need of some home repair of his own.
A month after she was gone she received another email from him insisting that she pay up or move out. This is when she replied with, I’m sorry our business concluded a month ago when I moved to the next town over.
No need to pay me back for my hard work on your house as I have removed everything that I paid for in order to recoup my cost. I left the house in precisely the same condition as I found it, minus the several dumpsters full of garbage I had to remove from the house and property before I could even begin the repairs.
According to my calculations, this fact alone should bring us even up.
That was a year ago, once in a while she still gets the random email from him insisting she owes him some bucks.
She no longer replies.”
Another User Comments:
“A friend of mine had a nice little place above a store. The landlady was nice and they loved it there. They did a ton of work on it and it was beautiful.
Of course, suddenly her son wanted to move in so she let them know they had to move. I empathized with them when they shared how unfair it was, but I was thinking “You put all this effort into someone else’s place.
This is on you guys.”” algy888
1. Cause Really Expensive Damage To The Equipment? If That's What You Want, Boss
“This happened about 10 years ago. I was working as an industrial process engineer for a major company. My duties were varied and many. Some days I was an auditor of equipment condition. Others I would try to unravel how waste or scrap was created. Still others I would be the designated “smart guy in the room” to listen to plans the factory came up with and give them an engineering seal of approval.
The most enjoyable things I did were “trials,” which were basically science experiments with industrial value. For example, a trial might involve changing a chemical in the material, following it through the process, and testing it at every point.
If it passed everything to satisfaction, we’d begin the process to make it the permanent process in the material we would sell. Running trials was my favorite thing to do; I wasn’t a manager, but when I was running a trial I had give-or-take unquestioned authority over the process and the people to run it as I saw fit.
I ran hundreds of them a year, and I was good at it.
One day I got called into a voice call between myself, about 5 engineers in a downstream department I didn’t know very well, and a new corporate engineer that I had never met.
I had a very good relationship with my contacts at corporate; we always had a good back-and-forth on how to improve the process at the factory and they provided the chemical experience I didn’t have or couldn’t perform at the factory level.
This call, however, was different. There was no debate: I was told in forceful terms that my product was not sticky enough downstream for their purposes and we needed to make it more sticky.
He had outlined 4 different ways to make it stickier and the only choice I would get to make would be one to try first.
I was pretty confused by all this. I told him that, from my standpoint, the material was already too sticky.
It was difficult to process on my equipment without sticking to everything, and any time it did we would get scrap or bad product which we’d sometimes send downstream which created even more waste and scrap.
I was trying to work with my corporate chemists to make it less sticky, not more. I also said that the material would naturally lose stickiness over time: on the first couple of days it was a pretty sticky mess, but after that, it would be at a good level.
We would guarantee that it would be sticky enough to use for at least 7 days which was confirmed by audits. After 7 days it might become not sticky enough, but we made the material every 2 or 3 days.
If it was sitting around more than 7 days, it was on their end: they were probably breaking policies somehow, such as taking material out of the machine when changing over but putting a fresh bunch of material in next time so they wouldn’t have to change a half-batch and they could do less work.
This type of problem wasn’t a chemical problem; it was a logistics and manning problem and making the chemistry worse to solve it wasn’t going to fix the bigger issues.
But I was outnumbered like 6 to 1 on the call.
They said all that didn’t matter, that they were the CUSTOMER and their CUSTOMER was telling them to fix a problem, and they expected me to do it. I’d never been treated like that at the company, and I have to say I didn’t appreciate it.
A few days later I got a corporate trial scheduled for me, though I use the term loosely. It was an amateur effort at best. It didn’t include standard vital information. For example, it requested “a sample” but it didn’t say how much, how many, or to whom to send it.
This was vital to make sure those who would test it got enough to complete their tests. The company was big; they had a dozen factories and maybe 50+ trials at those factories at all times, so stuff just couldn’t show up at “the lab” and get handled properly.
There was also no shipping information. I didn’t handle the company internally, so corporate would prepay shipping and send me the information so I could ship them samples. There were five or six other mistakes and omissions.
It was clearly a trial that wasn’t out of the planning stages.
I briefly told my boss all of this: that this trial wasn’t good for our department, that this wasn’t where I was going with the material chemically, and that the trial as planned was missing vital information.
He sort of nodded and that was good enough for me. So, I did what I very, very rarely had to do: I rejected the trial on behalf of the plant. I’d only had to do it a few times before, and those were with corporate mutual approval that we’d design a different, better trial and the one I was rejecting was a first draft. This was the first and I believe last time I had to reject a “hostile” trial that I was openly opposed to existing.
I was happily not remembering the whole incident a few weeks later when I see the same trial pop up for me again. I’m irritated. I go to my boss but this time this corporate guy had contacted my boss to complain, and my boss wants me to run it.
I remind him of what I told him last time and he says to run it anyway. I say I can’t, it’s not even ready, and he tells me to work with the corporate engineer to get the holes filled but we have to run the thing.
I should talk about this boss for a moment. During my 3 years at the company, I had 7 different bosses. Some of them were very competent and I lost as a boss due to reorgs, them resigning, or in one case one died due to an unrelated condition.
Other bosses were “filler” bosses, someone I reported to until the next candidate could be filled. But this current boss was the worst of the seven by a long shot. He was someone who apparently had excelled at corporate and they’d sent him down to fill the engineering manager role in my department.
We all disliked him. He had no knowledge of our department whatsoever. My entire work was a write-off to him. He was busy counting material we could ship so any of the processing stuff I did upstream was far out of his interest despite literally being in charge of it and me.
Also, instead of someone from our department being promoted to this manager role they’d sent us a corporate guy. Bad times. I ignored him the best I could, only looping him in if I had to make important decisions.
I could sometimes go weeks without talking to him and those were fine weeks by me.
Anyway, I didn’t reject the trial this time, but I leave it hanging for my approval. I email the guy all of my concerns with the trial and the questions he has to answer before I can run it.
I’m very professional, and non-judgmental, just saying what I need in order to run the trial.
No response to that email, of course.
A few days later my boss is LIVID. He says this corporate guy has been saying that our department is “obstructionist, rude, and negative” and that I need to approve and run the trial NOW.
I remind them of all the issues – that would increase our scrap, slow us down, and possibly damage equipment, to say nothing of the vague and incomplete trial requirements. He doesn’t care.
I’m an engineer, he pays me to figure this stuff out. I NEED to get this corporate guy his material. He heavily implied my job was in danger over all this.
So, I say, okay.
I approve the trial. And we finally get to the malicious compliance.
I ask a colleague to prepare the material for me. He reports that it was a nightmare and that he had to do it manually and even then he lost 2 batches before the 3rd finally was ready for me.
This alone would have been a cause to stop the trial. Remember that we are preparing industrial processes here; it doesn’t matter if we can do it once, we have to create a process that will work every day for years.
So, this type of failure means the material isn’t ready. But not this time, oh no. We have to get this guy material. And I have big plans.
Once I have the material I look to when to schedule the trial. Normally I am considerate of the manufacturing demands, scheduling my trials when we are ahead on what is needed downstream.
Not this time. I find what we have the lowest of and bump it from the schedule, putting my trial in the spot instead. 100% a jerk move, but it’s my job on the line at this point so I’m taking no prisoners.
We start running the trial on my equipment. It’s sticking to all the preparation areas, it’s a huge mess, just as expected. We have to keep stopping the machine to scrape stuff free.
Again, this would have been another failure condition. We keep going.
We have some sensors that sort of float on the material as it goes along. But the material is too sticky, it’s grabbing and twisting the sensors and bending their arms. I can see some of the damage will be permanent.
After this trial, they’ll need to have some machine work done on them to fix them. Totally unacceptable. But we press on until one of them breaks off completely. Now I have metal, plastic, and electronics in my material. This isn’t just a failed trial, it’s now a mockery of what trials are.
There’s no way we can use any of this material for any reason. But nope, corporate needs material.
We have an area that ensures an even flow of material. But it’s too sticky, it’s clumping up instead of flowing.
So the material we’re making is uneven, very heavy on one side, and with nearly none on the other side. At this point we’re not even making bad material; we’re making pure scrap.
I tell them to keep going.
Through this process, the machine operators are getting vexed and call their area bosses, and also engineering and maintenance get involved because of the damage. Everyone is asking me what I’m doing.
I tell them that this is authorized by my boss and that I have to run it and to direct all complaints to him. That’s all I say every time, just name-drop my boss.
In the post-processing area, the unevenness of the material combined with the stickiness of the material is starting to pull on the rollers that straighten it out in weird ways. Everyone is getting concerned we might have to do a whole realignment, which is a slow process that takes 3 or 4 days.
I eventually relent and allow them to stop the trial.
Nothing ever made it to the end of the process. Normally we make ~2000 lbs of material in a run. We made 0. Not that it would have been usable in any way.
The operators have the unenviable job of trying to get this crap off the machine. We were down for the rest of the day, about 5 hours of machine time, to clean and fix and replace damaged sensors.
But I have more work to do on my end. I cut various samples of this horrific mess; some of the heavy areas, some of the light. I find a piece of that sensor embedded in there and get a sample of that too.
Just frankly a ridiculous amount of material. It’s too much to carry, but I’m not worried; I have an industrial vehicle to drive around in these cases. And I still have a plan.
I briefly entertain sending some of these samples to our testing lab. That’s standard procedure during trials, to test them at the plant level as much as we can. But this is malicious compliance and I know it.
The lab equipment is pretty sensitive; if this sticky crap pulls on it in the wrong ways, it could break the testing equipment and that would shut down the whole factory. I don’t actually want that.
I’m pretty sure I’m making my point as is. But I keep a sample for myself, just in case testing becomes a thing I need to do later.
I take my too-heavy samples to shipping.
I never got the shipping information. But I did find the address of this guy’s office in the building. He’ll get this gigantically heavy package that he can’t carry delivered to his mail area.
And I don’t have shipping paperwork, but I do have the address of a private van shipping company. We used them in the past when the regular mail was too slow when we were worried about a major defect and needed to get material to corporate ASAP (it turned out to be a false alarm.) It costs much, much more than just shipping this normally, but I have no actual other way to ship it so I use the one tool I have available.
I’d been avoiding going back to the office for a few hours and when I do, as expected, my boss has been barraged by visitors and phone calls about what went down.
I tell him of the difficulties in detail and, as unsarcastically as I can muster, apologize for not risking a roll alignment and having to stop the trial early. I show him the horrible sample of material I kept for myself.
He’s still pretty mad, but I give him one thing that helps a lot. Because there was one important thing on that amateur trial request since he couldn’t create the request without one: a billing account number.
I give him the number and say the plant should charge it with anything related to the trial. Not just the damages, but any downtime due to lost production from material shortages.
I estimate the total cost of the whole venture somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000.
But it could be more, I’m not sure how much downtime was directly caused by this. I did keep my job though, so I guess that billing account helped ease the pain for the factory.
Maybe not on the corporate side, but they DID want their trial…
About a week later I have my follow-up with the 6 people that confronted me in the first place. I tell them of the unmitigated disaster that was this trial and my estimation of the damages.
This guy has the nuts to say something like, “Excellent work, we’ve proven we can move the needle on stickiness if we want to.” I can’t help but think, I’m a chemist, numbnuts, moving the needle was never a question.
He asks me which of the three remaining trials I want to do next. I tell him that I don’t need to worry about the details, and ask him to email my boss and ask him which he thinks is best, to which he thought was a wonderful idea.
My boss never mentioned a follow-up trial and no corporate trials from that guy were scheduled for me. About two months later my boss resigned from the company quietly and quickly. He was clearly miserable in his role, and I know that this whole mess helped contribute to it.”
