People Share The Time They Got Perfect Revenge By Doing Exactly As They Were Told

To comply maliciously implies that even though you’re doing as you’re told, you can see around the corner better than the other person. Even if you try to warn them that maybe they aren’t playing with a full deck of cards, their reaction is less than helpful. It really doesn’t get you anywhere! Perhaps it’s a boss who thinks they know better; a superior who has more experience or a parent who is stubborn. All of these are power trips that can end badly for them if they think they are always in the right.

The following stories are a hilarious collection of people who think they have all the answers. It’s probable that they do, after all, we’re talking about managers, principals, HR, teachers – these people hold important positions. But it’s when they are quick to judge, and only listen to reply, instead of listening to understand, that things go downhill for them. It’s not fun for the characters who make the oversight, but it sure makes for some entertaining content for us to read. Read on for some funny instances of perfect revenge that backfired.

19. Tell Me Leave, In Haste? Hasta La Vista, Baby!

“I had two supervisors in my section, each assigned to oversee half of the tests being done in our small corner of the lab, Rory, and Tanya.

Tanya was the senior-most supervisor of the two, and secondary to my department head she had the most authority over me on any given day. She also hated me. Never did figure out why, but she hated about 3/4 of the people working in the lab so I never took it personally. I just don’t think she liked people (the lab tends to attract people like that, funnily enough. We always used to joke about being the rejects stuffed in a hole at the bottom of a hospital to be kept away from the general public).

As for Rory, it’s important to note that he had a very good reputation in the lab of never lying. He was never once caught in even a half-truth, and he’d been working there for over 30 years. He was well-liked and well trusted. This will be important later.

One day I was doing one of the more technically challenging tests that our department performs. It’s long, fiddly, expensive, and easy to screw up. Only senior scientists are allowed to do it unsupervised, and this was maybe the second time I’ve done it alone.

We are talking two days just to get it set up. It was a nightmare. While I was measuring out some gelatin powder into a beaker, I accidentally elbowed Tanya (our work stations were right on top of each other, this happened at least 4-5 times a day with everyone). I apologized and go back to what I was doing, but she flips out. Like full-on rage screaming in my face kind of angry. After a couple of minutes of her tirade, she says “Just **** off TerrificMoose, no one wants you here!” and then she storms off to her office to cool off.

Rory comes up to me, having seen and heard to the whole thing and asks if I’m alright. I say I’m a little shaken, but nothing too bad and get ready to continue my work. But Rory had HEARD the whole thing, and he saw what test I was doing. He whispers to me, “Your supervisor told you to go. Best you do what she says, and if she causes a fuss about it, I’ll be sure to tell the boss EXACTLY what she said to you.” Now, I knew Rory’s reputation, so I knew I’d be safe.

I also know that being told to leave early by a supervisor meant that I was still paid out for the rest of the day, provided I had worked at least 4 hours of my shift (The lab was actually pretty generous with time off, even if the pay and working conditions were ***).

So* I did exactly what Tanya had said. I f*cked off home.

Now at the stage, I was at with that particular test, I had spent about $4000 worth of reagents.

Normally batches of 20 samples are run to try and keep the cost down, but it was still an expensive test when you include nearly 3 days of work from a single scientist. This was one of Tanya’s tests, and therefore Rory was not required to ensure it was done. No one in my section was very happy with Tanya, and she had gone off to her office and so couldn’t see me leave, so no one went to tell her that the test was left unsupervised.

Apparently she didn’t come back for over an hour, and by then the test was ruined and had to be started over again. My boss was P*SSED. Tanya, of course, tried to throw me under the bus, saying I had left without informing anyone and that it was all my fault, but good old trustworthy Rory told the boss exactly what Tanya had said. I love Rory. I couldn’t be punished for doing exactly what my supervisor had told me to do, so I got away with it completely.

Unfortunately, nothing overly terrible happened to Tanya. She got formally reprimanded and had to take an anger management course that the hospital runs, but otherwise, she got no real punishment. She never yelled at me again and was always careful to word things just right around me after that though so that was something. As for what I did on my half-day off, I went to the beach to enjoy the sunshine I almost never got to see working in the deep dark dungeon that is the average hospital lab.

I made sure to bring in the pictures the next day.” TerrificMoose

18. I Can’t Cut Down A Tree? Ok, No Problem!

“My town had some pretty strict bylaws about cutting down trees within town limits. It’s because we’re part of a green belt or something meaning we have to maintain a certain amount of green space on our properties. So, for example, you can’t just pave over your entire front lawn for extra parking spaces and any existing trees on the property must be left alone unless removal is absolutely necessary for construction purposes or safety concerns.

Normally this isn’t an issue because we’re a fairly rural town, the lots are pretty big and have all the tree cover gives you a lot more privacy.

Where this became a problem was in 2016 when a massive ice storm hit that knocked out power for 3 or 4 days. It also severely damaged a large tree on the front lawn of a 25-acre lot just on the edge of town. The man who owned the lot was a retired farmer, about 80 years old, who was a well-known figure in the community.

He had built the house pretty far back off the road on his property and right next to a massive tree, the same one that was now damaged by the ice storm.

Spring came and the tree died and looked like it was now in danger of falling on the house. He had a local tree service come out to inspect it and they confirmed that if something wasn’t done that the dead tree could fall down, possibly towards the house, since there was a large split forming in the trunk as a result of the ice storm damage.

The tree service couldn’t do anything without the man getting permission from the town first since the tree would need to come down. Trimming would have been fine but not cutting it down. To make it more infuriating a neighbor literally next door was outside the town limits and therefore was free to clean up the storm damage however he saw fit.

The man went and applied for a permit to have the tree service come out and cut down the tree and provided them with the quote from the tree service stating that it was a hazard.

For whatever reason, the permit was denied by the town with no real reason given. With a nasty thunderstorm in the forecast, which he feared might send the tree crashing down on his house, and the town not giving him permission to do anything about it he decided to take matters into his own hands and got a hold of a copy of the town’s bylaws regarding this situation to see if there was a loophole somewhere, and oh boy was there a loophole.

The town had made a pretty serious mistake in writing their bylaws. Have you ever noticed how laws are always written in a really strange over-complicated way? Well, this is done on purpose to try and minimize any creative misinterpretations of the law. Our town, however, had written some of its bylaws in more or less plain English saying that it was illegal to cut down trees without approval from the town. Note the word “cut” in that sentence, this is important.

After a quick phone call to his attorney, this man somehow got a hold of a Caterpillar D7R, which is a big ******* bulldozer for those of you who don’t know. Probably borrowed it from the local gravel pit or something since he had that kind of pull in town.

Anyways the next day when the bylaw officer, knowing full well that his permit had been denied, caught him cutting up the already fallen tree he stopped to investigate.

The man calmly explained that he had been using the bulldozer, which was still sitting on the front lawn, to tear up a section of dead grass so he could reseed it when he had accidentally bumped into the tree with the blade causing it to fall over away from the house in the opposite direction from where it had been leaning. Obviously the town saw right through the cover story and knew full well that he had knocked the tree over with the bulldozer on purpose and slapped him with a fine for it.

He took it to court and won as the town’s bylaw stated that cutting down trees without a permit was illegal but it said nothing about pushing them over with heavy earth moving equipment. The bylaw was changed and has since been repealed entirely and you’re pretty much allowed to do whatever you want with your property as long as it maintains the green space requirements.” kg1206

17. Don’t Trust Your Employees? Watch It All Go Downhill – Over Burritos

“I work at a Corporate McDonald’s in Michigan, and I won’t get into too much detail because it will definitely give away where I live.

The most important part of this backstory is that it is a corporate store, and it is infinitely harder to get rid of a problem manager because they have company protection. This means that issues keep getting brought up with no resolution, and we lose employees as a result. Our store fluctuates heavily between being overstaffed and being so understaffed that we can’t function. Most of the reasons for quitting at my store are the result of one manager.

The manager in question, let’s, call her Jane, pretty regularly won’t let employees clock in if they had an altercation on Jane’s last shift. Jane is a Department Manager, in charge of the Kitchen with two other Department Managers taking over Guest Service and People Management. Now a fellow crew member, Terry, had recently changed her schedule because of class and was mistakenly scheduled four shifts outside her new availability. No problem, right? Wrong. All four of these wrongly scheduled shifts were Jane’s shifts.

They had a three-hour-long fight about clocking in on Terry’s fifth shift for the week because our scheduling manager and general manager both weren’t answering their phones.

Terry and I are both cross-trained in grill and in service, and most of the time I am stuck back in the grill with maybe two or three more people, and Terry being scheduled outside her availability did screw me, but I didn’t blame Terry for leaving me a ‘man’ down.

It is safe to say that these two hate each other. Very much.

Something to understand about McDonald’s in the US is that most of the stores don’t roll their own breakfast burritos. We are given the sausage-pepper-egg mix, tortillas, and cheese. We place the tortilla on a wrap, place one slice of the cheese (torn in half) on the tortilla, use a 3oz scoop to put the mix on the cheese, pile the mix in a line, and roll the burrito, then roll the burrito into the wrap.

Get the process? Good. This is something that the afternoon shifts are supposed to be doing to fill 7ish large trays for the next morning. No big deal, until they don’t get done.

A few shifts after the clocking-in debacle, maybe a week or two later (the concept of time passing is a real struggle for me), Terry and I are working in the grill together. We run out of burritos and find out when Terry goes to roll them that we are out of the mix, and that we just weren’t told that because communication across even two shifts breaks down pretty fast.

No problem, right?

Well, Jane thought that Terry was just being lazy and didn’t want to roll any burritos and told her such, and then to “Stop being so [dang] lazy and just do what I tell you. Now, GO ROLL BURRITOS!”

So Terry did.

Without the mix.

It took probably 40 only cheese burritos handed out to customers and four phone calls before Jane realized that she made a mistake. Terry had made about 140 or so. Seven whole trays worth.

Terry knew what she was doing wasn’t going to end well, but she was told to roll the burritos, so she did.

If anyone has worked fast-food, you’ll know about something called food costs. It is how much waste food is produced on one shift, and has a significant impact on if a manager is considered for promotions and raises and is a factor in overall effectiveness as a manager. Jane is responsible for not only all of the waste from this shift but as the Department Manager for the kitchen, also overall store waste.

140 tortillas is a lot of waste for one shift to produce, as is 3/4s of a block of cheese. What we didn’t know at the time, is that it was the last day of accounting for food costs to receive a bonus check. That little spike of extra food waste lost us our bonus check. It lost us the extra money for the store (aside from the bonus check, for things like renovations, uniforms, whatever corporate deems it budgeted for at the time of disbursement) that corporate will give us for meeting certain criteria, like food costs.

Amazingly, Terry didn’t get sent home, and we all got to watch the fallout. Jane is currently on probation because of this mistake, and if something else major happens, she could lose her job. She also isn’t allowed to run any shifts on her own during probation, because another manager has to be there if something else happens. I have since left for college, but I’m sure that Jane isn’t going to be there when I get back.

It is hard to change eight years of anger in one day.

All because she didn’t believe Terry that we really didn’t have the burrito mix.” TayaKnight

16. You Know My Boss? Yep, I Sure Know My Boss REAL Well Too!

“So today I was training staff in the safe use of medication, I have a student turn up an hour and a half late. I politely inform said student that unfortunately have arrived in late to attend the session as I would not be able to catch them up on the vital information they had already missed.

I do always try where I can, but that much time is just too much for what I was teaching, it is not a subject you can skimp on.

The conversation went something like this. Student: ‘I don’t see why you can’t just catch me up during the breaks?’ Me: ‘Because they are also my breaks.’ Student: ‘So, that’s not my fault.’ Me: ‘Unfortunately it is your fault you are late and I’m not willing to give up my lunch break.’ Student: ‘I know your boss, so maybe you just let me take my seat and either catch me up during break or at the end of the session.

Or do I need to ring your boss to tell you that!’

So now for MC, I tell the student to go ahead and ring my boss, which the student does. My student starts ranting at my boss and after about a minute my boss asks the student to put me on, I take the phone, look the student dead in the eye as I say, “Hey Mum, what’s up?” I honestly think I saw this guy **** himself, I explain to my mum what has been going on and she asks to be put back on with the student.

30 seconds later, he is packing his stuff and apologizing deeply.

I’m a Health and social care lecturer, I train part-time and during holidays to supplement my income for my mother’s training company. Turns out she did know him and not only tore him a new one professionally but personally as well (this woman raised 6 boys on her own).” PickleRick12321

15. Bully Me Then Lie About It? Meet My Uncle

“When I was 8 years old, my dad and brothers moved across the country.

My brothers started high school while my dad started a new job. My mom and I stayed back so she could sell our house before we moved to join them. During this time my dad asked my uncle to keep an eye on my mom and me.

While selling the house we moved in with my uncle and his family. It was in a different area, so I had to go to a different school where I didn’t know anyone.

A few weeks into the school year and a much larger kid 2 grades above me decided I would be his target for the year. It started small, he would knock things out of my hands, or push me when we crossed paths. Then he started stealing things from me.

I put up with it because I didn’t think I had a choice at that time. I was working up the courage to fight back as my dad told me to, but this kid was huge so my courage wasn’t building fast enough.

One day I went to the bathroom during recess and ran into him in the bathroom. I knew that out of the view of teachers this wasn’t going to be fun. As expected, he pummeled me right up until the bell rang. Unfortunately for him, he left a lot of noticeable marks on my face. I had a fat lip, a shiner, and a ****** nose.

A teacher noticed this right away and sent me to the office.

Once there, I was p*ssed and told the principle everything. He called down the bully who denied doing anything to me, ever. The principle knew he was lying so he scheduled an appointment with both sets of parents.

That night my mom and uncle went with me and his parents went with him. Once in there, his parents constantly denied that their kid did anything and even said I was bullying him. I was 8 and could see how ridiculous that was.

The principle had another meeting to be at, so he asked that we meet again the next night to resolve this. The bully’s father started complaining and saying that if I bully him again that he is okay with his son defending himself. He made a point of saying that just because you lose the fight doesn’t mean you weren’t the bully – which I guess is technically true, except in this situation his son was definitely the bully.

Everyone agreed to meet the next night, and we left the school.

As we were getting into our cars, my uncle went over to the bully’s father and put his arm around him. He walked him to where I assume he thought was out of sight. It wasn’t.

My uncle beat this guy up really badly. Then as the bully’s father was laying on the ground covered in his own *****, my uncle leaned in and said something.

He came back and everyone remained silent for the rest of the night.

The next day my bully was not in class. That evening we all went to meet up with the principle and the bully’s father looked like those UFC post-fight photos. Lumps and bruises everywhere.

The principle asked what happened, and my uncle responded by saying that the bully’s father was bullying him and he defended himself. Just because he lost the fight doesn’t mean he wasn’t the bully.

The principal took a moment, then looked at the bully’s father and said: “is that true?”.

The bully’s father looked at the principle and said: “yes sir”. Then he said that his son needed to say something. My bully stood up and began apologizing as he broke into tears. He confessed to everything and said that he will never bully anyone ever again. Then the father apologized for not believing me and the way he treated me.

My uncle looked at the principle and said: “I think we can accept that apology, is there anything else?”

The principle said “no” and let us go.

For a short time, I was stuck going to that school, the bully went the long way around me whenever he saw me.” GeneralDiet

Another User Asks:
“Did you ever find out what your Uncle said to bully’s dad? Perhaps, “we’ll do this again tomorrow if your kid doesn’t own up…” KelsierIV

User Replies:
“I have actually, and it was close to that.

He told the guy to apologize to me and make sure his kid never comes near me again. He actually was a member of the same legion hall as the other guy and said that during their weekly dart night the other guy would buy him a pitcher each night for the rest of that season. They actually got on good terms with each other. My uncle jokes and says he smacked the sense right back into him.” GeneralDiet

14. You Want Every Single Email To Come Into Your Inbox? Ok, Enjoy Emailageddon

“Just happened, my bosses and I are still laughing.

We are a small IT company. We manage quite a few clients, though. This one gentleman and one of our busier client sites say that he’s tired of being told his emails never arrived to him. We look it up and yes, a couple of legit emails got tangled up in the spam filter. No big deal, we whitelist the sender and release the message.

No, not good enough for this guy. He calls back screaming. “I ORDER YOU TO LET ANY EMAIL ADDRESSED TO ME COME TO MY INBOX.” I advise him that I’m going to have to transfer him to IT security and he’s going to have to, on a recorded line, said he understands and accepts responsibility for yadda yadda yadda.

See, I did that because these guys get thousands of spam emails a day. A while back, several folks (this guy included) decided to give their email address and password to some unsavory website. Then did it again. And again. And again. So now they get easily 15-20+ messages an hour to the entire organization.

So he accepts, saying he just wants all his emails to go to him. We allow all messages to him to bypass the spam filter.

Three hours later, he has over 100 new emails. And they keep coming in.

He calls back, furious, asking why his spam filter isn’t working.

“Sir, you asked that all emails addressed to you arrive at your inbox.”

UPDATE: So right around 4:45 pm today, he’s calling our office and the call gets routed to me since I own the ticket. He’s livid. Shouting so loud my co-workers on the opposite side of the room can hear him. “WHATEVER YOU DID TO MY EMAIL I WANT IT PUT BACK TO THE WAY IT WAS! YOU F*CKED UP MY EMAIL AND NOW I CAN’T GET ANY WORK DONE BECAUSE MY STUPID NOTIFICATIONS ARE GOING OFF EVERY SECOND!”

I calmly reply “Absolutely.

I’ll go ahead and turn your spam filtering back on and all these emails will stop.”

“GOOD! ITS WHAT YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE IN THE FIRST PLACE!”

At the end of it all, nothing changed, and he’s happy. God, I love IT work.

EDIT: To the few of you who have (and the many more that will, seeing as how this picked up a little more steam than I was expecting) commented saying I should be fired… Chill. I’m lucky enough to be at a place that values their employees enough to know that we do not deserve the kind of verbal abuse this guy slings out.

A lot of jobs I’ve been at would have handed me my walking papers the moment I didn’t immediately suck this dude off to climax before finding out what his name was. Between me and the security team, we told him at least four times that this exact thing would happen, and he said (on a recorded line) “I don’t care”. I take care of my customers and my bosses enable me to do a **** good job.

I believe that’s why our company is experiencing very good growth right now. Relax.

FINAL EDIT: I had to. I logged into our system this morning from home and listened to the recording. It’s glorious. Here are the highlights:

Security: So [OP] tells me you’re looking to turn off the spam filter?

Client: I don’t even get spam. I’m paying you people for something I don’t need.

Security: It’s not an added cost, but you’re not getting spam because you have a spam filter.

If you turn that off, you’re going to get flooded with spam emails.

Client: I don’t care. I’ve given you guys an order, and I expect it to be done.

Security: I just need you to be aware that without the spam filter, you’re open to getting every spam email that comes to you, some of which may be malicious and could open you up to viruses, malware, and all sorts of software that could compromise your entire network.

By going against our suggestions, you understand that [Our Company] cannot be held liable for any malicious software that makes it on to your network, infect any of your systems, or causes any system downtime and that you are claiming sole responsibility for that. Do you understand this?

Client: ‘Yeah, whatever. Just get it done so I can get off this call.’

Security: ‘Sir, I really need to reiterate how much we cannot recommend this action, you’re going to get–‘

Client: ‘I DON’T CARE, DO WHAT I TELL YOU.’

Security: ‘Ok, I’ll have [OP] remove you from the default spam rule, and you’ll start receiving any email sent to you.

Again, it’s going to be a lot. The spam filter actually does catch a lot of spam.’

Client: ‘I. DON’T. CARE. JUST DO IT.’

Security: ‘Ok then. Thank you. Have a good day.’

Click.” TheNerdyMupton

13. Tell Me To Keep Working Even Though I’m On The Brink Of Passing Out? Just You Watch

“A couple of friends of mine told me that I really should tell this story here.

This happened in the summer of 2018. I had a summer job doing graveyard maintenance.

So mowing the grass, cleaning gravestones, planting and watering flowers, and clipping hedges. We use a motorized hedge saw for efficiency and speed. P.S. I got the job since my parents know the boss. Since they also work for her.

This particular day it was a blistering 32C in the sunlight. I was suffering more than my on-site manager. I went through probably 4 liters of water in three hours and I was still feeling nauseous.

I asked my manager if I could take an extra break because of the heat.

He denied and told me to go clip the hedges. I tried explaining to him that I struggle with the heat and that in 32C I could not work efficiently thanks to this. He didn’t care and just handed me the equipment. This included a shoulder cross strap, a helmet with earmuffs, steel-tipped boots, and the 8kg machine.

I was feeling that I wasn’t going to last long in the sunlight. I was already dehydrated and was pushing myself too much.

So I asked him if it couldn’t wait until a less sunny day. He ignored me. And told me to get to work.

I just replied with a “lol, okay.” I worked for probably a solid half hour before I blacked out. I woke up in an ambulance around an hour later. With my boss sitting next to me checking if I was alright.

She told me that I had been found by a stranger between a couple of gravestones out cold, with a revving machine in my hands.

I was in such bad shape that I was rushed to the hospital and put on intensive care. (I couldn’t move and had severe dehydration.) So I was put on drips for 2 days in order for me to recover. I recovered slowly and was moved to cleaning duty inside. My manager was fired for endangering me and not heeding what I said.” FrostDragon57

12. I Basically Looked Into The Future And Predicted Exactly What Would Happen

“This happened about 12 months ago.

I am a nurse and work in a relatively specialized field. Due to previous financial difficulties, I had taken on a number of additional jobs in the previous few years and had settled on one that was particularly good for me – I was employed casually in a smaller six-bedded unit in a private hospital. Because of the nature of my specialty, this particular area required two nurses in attendance at all times. 2 nurses to 6 patients is a dream ratio and virtually unheard of in private health.

To combat this, most hospitals that have beds for this particular specialty area combine them with another ward so that they can staff us down and allow the regular nurses to cover us. However, for some reason, this hospital had located the beds completely separate to any other unit. This meant they had no choice to safely staff us but to roster two nurses on at all times, and our manager stood her ground and refused to budge on that requirement.

Because I was casually employed, there was always the possibility that my hours could be cut or shifts canceled at any time. However, because they needed both nurses present at all times, they could not do that. Even if we had no patients in this particular specialty area, they had to keep two nurses available in case we needed to admit. If we had no patients at all some nurses would go on call, but because I relied on public transport/bicycle commuting to get to work, my manager understood that I could not go on call because I could not return to the workplace in a reasonable time, and instead I would be sent to help out in other areas.

Our manager had, in addition to her other duties, become the project lead on a large expansion within our facility, and had performed very well in the role. So well, in fact, that when another facility under the same company was expanding, she was headhunted to lead their expansion project as well. She was compelled to a secondment that would require her to live out of state for several months, and as a result, we would be given a new acting manager.

To our dismay, we discovered that the acting manager was from a ward where it was well known that the staff could not stand her. Sure enough, within days, she began doing things like canceling our staff and moving her surplus staff into our area when she was low on numbers and overstaffed, costing them to us, even though they lacked the appropriate training and experience to work in our area. Anything to make her budget look better, which at the same time made our budget look worse.

It all came to a head one morning when, after two hours of a 12-hour shift, we discharged our last patient. I was literally on the phone finalizing the patient discharge when our acting manager called the other nurse on the shift and instructed both of us to clock out immediately and go on call. Confused, I rang her back.

Me: “Hi AM, it’s Schmickers. I just got a message saying that you want us to clock out and go home.

You may not be aware, although our previous manager was, but I take public transport to and from work. I can’t be on call.”

AM: “That doesn’t matter. You have no patients. I can’t pay for you to be on the ward doing nothing and no other areas require help today. I need you to clock off and go home.”

Me: “Are you sure? We are halfway through checking the emergency trolley, there is a massive pile of follow-up calls to make and we haven’t even stripped the patient room yet.”

AM: “That doesn’t matter.

Bring me your phone and keys and clock off.”

Me: “What are you going to do if there is an admission? It will take me over an hour to get back.”

AM: “Well I’ll sit there until you can get back.”

I was fuming. The other nurse began re-sealing the emergency trolley and I stopped her. We had been instructed to leave, and leave we would! I marched the phone and keys to our acting manager and handed them over.

As I did so, she said: “You can’t be paid to sit and make phone calls. That has to be done when you have patients.”

I replied: “We are busy with the patients when we have patients. Besides, it’s only just past 9 am, and most of the follow-up calls are to families with children who are busy doing school runs. I wouldn’t answer a call from an unknown number before 9 am.”

I handed the keys over, clocked off, and began the journey home.

I hadn’t reached home before I got a message from my OTHER workplace, asking for a nurse for the night shift and offering an overtime payment. Now, I was booked for a day shift at my second job the next day, and I knew we had no theatre cases booked, which meant the likelihood of THAT shift being canceled was also high. I couldn’t afford to sit at home waiting for work if we didn’t have patients, but just to be sure, I gave the union a quick call, and they managed to illuminate something wonderful.

As a casual employee, I was not entitled to be on call at all.

That meant not only could they not ask me to be on call, but I also was not entitled to the measly $26 allowance that permanent employees received. As soon as I had clocked out, my shift had ended.

Armed with that knowledge, I rang my acting manager and informed her that I had been offered to pay work that night, and as a consequence, would need to cancel my shift the following day.

She was quite hostile, asking: “Do you normally cancel work here to work elsewhere?”

I replied: “I don’t normally have my shifts canceled at all, but I am not a charity and cannot sit at home unpaid when I could be paid to work elsewhere. I have a family to support.”

After this call, I sent a quick email to my usual manager, outlining the acting manager’s request and why I had left the ward disorganized, the emergency trolley unsealed, and a stack of work not done, and went to bed to have a nap.

I was awoken at approximately 16:15 in the afternoon by my wife, looking confused. My acting manager had rung and left a message with her that we were admitting a patient and she required me back at work. I was bemused – the acting manager should not even have been there at that time of the afternoon, and clearly lacked the stones to talk to me directly. No matter. I rang the hospital supervisor.

Me: “Hi, it’s Schmickers.

I just got a message via my wife that I’m a bit confused about. Apparently there is a patient, and you want me to come into work for a shift?”

Supervisor: “That’s right, we’re admitting to your area. We need you back in.”

Me: “You know my shift was canceled, right?”

Supervisor: “AM told me you were on call?”

Me: “Well, I can’t be on call, I’m a casual employee. My shift was canceled. Besides, by the time I’ve dressed, packed, got on my bicycle, ridden half an hour to my nearest train station, caught the train, changed to a tram, then walked the rest of the way, then showered and changed it’ll be,” (quick check of the time) “1830.

My shift was meant to end at 1930. I don’t think I’m going to be much help to you.”

I heard the sound of the phone being covered, and a muffled voice, before shouting and ranting began in the background. It was my acting ma*****, still clearly there and clutching her pearls about how unreasonable it was that it would take two hours for me to return to work. As the ranting continued, I spoke on the phone again.

“Supervisor, it’s Schmickers. I know you have AM shouting at you in the background, but right now I’m the person you need to be listening too because I called you. AM is well aware of how long it takes me to return to work because I told her this morning. She knew when she asked me to clock off that I would not be returning to work. I’m sorry she gave you the impression that I could be on call, but I cannot.

Now, as I am not able to assist you any further and I am not on the clock, I will be ending this conversation.”

And I put the phone down.

I got a couple of confusing texts about why I wasn’t working the next day and *** had happened on the ward from the night staff when they arrived and began re-sealing the emergency trolley and arranging for after-hours bed cleans. I had a week off after that.

Unfortunately, this particular ma***** appears to be Teflon coated, but I’ve never had a shift canceled since. schmickers

11. I Should Tell My Kid To Defend Himself? You Got It, Lady

“Years and years ago, when my oldest son was about 4, we had him in a pretty good daycare center about a block or two from where we both worked. After a while, though, we started getting ‘incident reports’ – usually with one other boy biting my son.

We complained after the second event and were assured it wouldn’t happen again. But of course, it did.

Now, we really liked the daycare teachers and caregivers – it was just the administrator who wasn’t very good. She wanted to avoid confrontations, she tried to calm us down, she didn’t want to confront the other parents. Basically, she did nothing and hoped things would go away. Finally, in one meeting after yet another biting incident report, I asked why the biter didn’t get suspended or kicked out? Well, he hadn’t hit my son.

So if he hit my son? He’d be out. But not for biting? No, that’s what the rules say (it was something stupid about infants crawling around occasionally gnaw on another and they didn’t know better, so they made a one-size-fits-all rule). The director suggested that my son really should defend himself. I’m sure she was thinking of pushing the biter away, or staying away from him, or calling a teacher – something very passive, which is what she always advocated.

Okay, let me make sure of this – if my son defends himself, he won’t get in trouble? Nope.

Okay, I can work with those rules.

Wicked grin and my wife got a little worried. My son and I had a little project out behind the garage for quite a few evenings. The next time the biter got my son, the fruit-of-my-loins laid him out. Really laid him out, just like I’d taught him. So we got summoned from work to a meeting at the daycare with the director and the other kids’ parents.

They were rather furious. So I waved the stack of incident reports of their young whelp biting my son. But my son hit theirs! Hitting was a suspension offense! With a grin, I repeated what the director had told me – that he was allowed to defend himself. He did so – just a bit aggressively. She nodded that I was right, cringing at having her own words used to defend what my son had done.

The other kid was kicked out. The director wasn’t happy with me, but as I told her, “I knew I was going to have to take my kid out behind the house and teach him to defend himself. I didn’t think it would be before kindergarten, though.” I asked her if she’d have rather my son defended himself, or that I’d have called Children’s Protective Services, and she would have probably lost her job. She really didn’t like me and was glad when we left.” Elrod_W

10. Everyone Has To Pay For An Emergency Locksmith? K, That Includes You Mr. Boss

“I used to work as a property manager for a semi-large company in a small city.

Among the usual duties of a PM we were also responsible for after-hours maintenance calls.

Originally, we were paid for 3 hours of overtime to cover the phone calls we answer and paid an additional $80 for any call outs we have to attend ourselves.

The entire team rotated the phone between us so we only had the emergency phone for one weekend every 2 months. The phone was an after-hours maintenance line for over 800 properties, so you can imagine how busy it would get but the extra pay helped the blow of losing your weekend.

This was not a problem until our boss wanted to crack down on overtime hours stating: “I very much doubt you are working 3 hours whilst you have the emergency phone”

His new rule was for each staff member to document when and who called and you would be paid an hour of REGULAR time each call. But under NO CIRCUMSTANCES are you to attend any issues yourself. This includes unlocking doors for tenants who are locked out of their property.

He enforced that the tenant must pay for a locksmith to attend and let themselves in. This angered many of our clients and caused us to be constantly abused over the phone by our tenants as they had to pay $300 for a locksmith.

This is where the malicious compliance began.

We indeed documented all our calls, which instead of paying each employee $100 for 3 hours, he ended up having to pay us $500 (or more) each weekend due to the number of calls we would actually take!

But it doesn’t stop there! What i should probably mention is that our company can provide accommodation for our higher staff at a fraction of the cost you would normally pay.

The manager in question was in such accommodation and low and behold, he managed to lock himself out of his apartment at 11 pm on a Friday night!

Manager: Hello OP. I have locked myself out of my apartment. You need to collect the spare keys and come unlock my door

OP: I am very sorry, Manager, but I cannot do that.

Manager: Um excuse me?? Why not?

OP: Unfortunately you have instructed me not to attend any call outs under any circumstance.

I can, however, send you through the number of our preferred locksmith to come let you in?

After a few choice words, the manager hung up and phoned a locksmith. Let’s just say, after he had to fork out $300 for an after-hours locksmith, he changed our ability to attend call outs.” darlin_squishy

9. Cut Me Off After Trying To Warn You? You Can Get Escorted Out, Thanks

“In 2013, back when I was working at a movie theatre in my town,  like a rich uppity area.

Right after Wolf of Wallstreet came out. It caused problems. Now, Working at a movie theatre you can usually just tell after a while what people know what they want and people who think they know what they want but have no idea what they are getting into. After a lot of refunds for Wolf of Wallstreet, because of a scene, Leo did ***** off a woman-of-the-night’s butt. We were told to warn people exactly what they were getting into.

Because we were getting a **** load of refunds every showing and we were too busy to not keep them waiting a while, so it was my job.

So Cue, our little old lady…we will call Agnes.

Agnes was a little old lady, who was a short but large woman with a very short pixie cut. She wore activewear leggings, an overlarge t-shirt, and a fanny pack.

She waddled over to my ticket booth fishing her money out of her fanny pack.

“One ticket to Wolf of Wall Street,” Agnes stated before yelling loudly. “SENIOR.”

Yes, Agnes, I can tell you need a senior and yes, she was NOT The type for this movie.

“Okay, but just so you know it’s R-Rated-” I started but she groans and rolls her eyes slapping her hand on the table.

“Just do YOUR job and give me a ticket. I’m going to be late.” Agnes stated.

Cue my malicious compliance.

“One senior coming up!” I handed her, her ticket as she snatches it out of my hand and waddles off to the theatre.

I waved goodbye.

As if on cue, thirty minutes into her entering the theatre. Her like most people who have no idea what they are getting into…walks out of the theatre. I was about to call my manager with glee for a refund happy for my subtle revenge…

…When I realize she had just come out to make a call. All my hopes and dreams crumbled. Maybe I misread her? But she was for SURE not the type to enjoy this movie.

I sighed in defeat and went back to waiting for movies to get out.

That was until not long after her call, three police cars with flashing lights pulled up to the FRONT of my theatre. I paused in noticeable confusion as six police officers came in with their hands on their side pistols. Since again, I was in a ticket booth, they approached me.

“Ma’am, we got a call about some illegal films here.” The police officer, we will call Robert, stated.

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” I stated in a loud long continuous uh, my eyes slowly drifting to Agnes who was waddling quickly up to me.

“ARREST HER!” Agnes demanded as I just continued my continuous…uhhhh. “AND ARREST THEM TOO!” She pointed to the concession workers in loud noticeable anger.

“…For what reason, Ma’am?” Robert asked now seeing how calm and quiet the theatre was because the movies were in.

“FOR THAT DISGUSTING ILLEGAL THING OF WHAT THEY ARE TRYING TO SAY IS A MOVIE!” Agnes huffed, she was red in the face and panting.

“I DEMAND YOU SHUT THIS PLACE DOWN!”

“Were you the one that called about…the children engaging in adult activities illegally films (Can’t say it or it won’t be approved)?” Robert asked as completely went dead silent.

CHILD WHAT?!

We had NOTHING remotely like that here or ever!

“YES!” Agnes stated. “THAT THING IN THERE! THAT…WOLF OF WALLSTREET IS ILLEGAL! THEY CAN NOT SHOW THAT KIND OF…TRASH IN THERE!”

“…Ma’am, I saw that movie. There is nothing really illegal in it and there are no children engaging in adult activities illegally films in it either.” Robert stated pretty ticked off.

“Is this why you called us?”

“YES! BECAUSE BACK IN MY DAY, THE POLICE WOULD HAVE SHUT THIS PLACE DOWN!” Agnes was screaming her head off as Two of the officers got the hint and just left.

“Ma’am! Do you know what you did is Illegal? It is filing a false police report! 911 is for emergencies only! Not for your bad movie reviews!” Robert had enough of her at this point.

“BUT I DIDN’T FILE A FALSE POLICE REPORT!” Agnes whined as Robert turned to me in a very very nice tone.

“Have a great day, Ma’am.” He beamed with obvious annoyance, they started to file out and Agnes angrily followed them yelling to them. Right when Robert was about to exit the door, Agnes grabbed the push bar for the door and yanked it back to keep the door closed to not let him leave…Hitting Robert with the door.

Yes. If you’re wondering…That does count as assaulting an officer.

Last I saw Agnes was escorted to the police cruiser with shiny new arm bracelets…

Though, I’m not sure what happened to her.

But I never saw Agnes again, I did see Robert though.

He got a free movie on me, but it was busy and I couldn’t talk to him to see what happened with our dear old friend…

…but I can tell it was…just amazing things.” Ushudhavebeenaborted

8. Rat On Me For On Tiny Noise Infraction? I’ll Let Them In On Your Yappy Secret

“In my junior year of college, I lived in a 24-hour quiet hour on-campus apartment. The rules meant any noise at all could be complained about and three complaints and you’re evicted.

Realistically, it meant if you stopped the party by midnight nobody cared.

My roommates and I lived in the last apartment, so I only had the one apartment upstairs as neighbors and I was next to the road. We didn’t complain about their noise and they didn’t complain about us (me since my roommates were never there).

Until finals week.

After the first day of finals, I turned on some music to chill. About twenty minutes later I heard a knock on the door.

It was the resident assistant (RA) whose job it is to enforce the rules.

He told me there was a complaint about loud music. We went back and forth for a bit because I’m was there only one there and he couldn’t even hear my music at the door. The RA did say he could hear it a bit as he walked up because my window was open and we walked outside to find that yes, you could hear it outside and it looked like the upstairs neighbor’s window was open too.

After that, he left to talk to the complainer (upstairs) and then came back saying she held to the complaint and that if I get two more I’ll be evicted.

After he left I went upstairs to talk, but my neighbor wouldn’t open the door. She just yelled though it that I should know better in 24-hour quiet hour housing and to follow the rules and make no noise or she’ll complain again.

Fine. I turned off my music and waited for her to leave.

Around dinner time I heard her leave. Within 10 minutes I heard what I was waiting for, so I call the RA to complain about “an intermittent loud noise from upstairs that’s making it hard to study.”

The RA asked if I’m just complaining in retaliation and that we should work it out without his involvement.

I told him I tried but that she told me it’s 24-hour quiet hours. I offered that if he came and felt my complaint was not legitimate I wouldn’t say anything for the rest of finals week.

He came and knocked on her door. I could tell when he did so because her dog went crazy. The RA came down and told me it was a legitimate complaint and dogs are not allowed. He then asked when the dog got there saying it was stupid of her to bring one over right after she complained about her neighbor’s noise.

My response: October.

He just looked at me for about 20 seconds like I had two heads.

Finally, I continued that yes, he heard me right that she’d been keeping the dog there for two months and I hadn’t complained even though it barked like crazy when she wasn’t there.

He had to go to the campus housing authority and they ultimately told her she could finish out her finals on campus if she immediately removed the dog but she would need to find alternative housing next semester for violating rules regarding animals on campus.

Two mornings later a dog’s barking woke me up, so I called the RA to complain.

That night the RAs helped her pack up her stuff and she had to stay in a hotel for the rest of finals.” Olthar6

7. No, You Cannot Take My Peanut Butter, It’s Not A Liquid

“Happened to me about 7 years ago. I traveled for work and they gave us a flat per diem for food, no receipts required. We also would be at the same location for 1 to 4 weeks.

It wasn’t a great per diem but no questions asked. So in order to bring back every penny, I would buy groceries and keep them in my hotel fridge.

I was traveling back and got to TSA screening and after they scanned my bags the agent informed me that the unopened 7lb heirloom lavender peanut butter and the jelly would have to be tossed. This was a lie, it was not going to be thrown away, I could tell by the way her eyes covered it that it would not make it to the trash can.

I’m pretty serious about my peanut butter and jelly and it was not the cheap stuff.

So I said could I have it back and give it to someone who was arriving so they could keep it. This was also a lie. She could tell.

After she handed it back and while I was collecting my bags we had a brief discussion on the nature of liquids. I could see she was ready to move on. Then I asked if peanut butter was ok if it was in sandwich form.

With a petty glee, she said, “of course. Yes. if if the peanut butt…..”

I saw defeat wash over face midsentence as I pulled out a nearly full loaf of bread and utensils. I was 3 hours early for my flight and had plenty of time to make my sandwiches

The other TSA officers chuckled and nudged each other as I made my way through security a second time with a bread bag of PB&Js.

Edit just to give some context, because people keep posting (does the kid who reminds the teacher about homework voice),”the TSA clearly lists peanut butter as a liquid.”

This happened in the days of yore.

The TSA was still young, iPhone was never going to outsell BlackBerry, unlimited data plans were actually unlimited, youtube was curiosity, and few people outside of the book trades had heard of Amazon. I had an Ericson Walkman phone.

I had traveled dozens of times without peanut butter being a problem through some of the nation’s largest airports without any issues. And here is some podunk airport TSA agent telling me my 7 pounds of hippy made heirloom apple lavender peanut butter after looking at long a seemingly hand blown jar is not allowed on board.

Well, what would you think.?” garaks_tailor

6. Tell Me I Can’t Carry A TV? Now Watch Me Go

“Okay, so where I’m from there are two times a year where you can put anything you want to throw out on your front lawn and it’ll be picked up no cost. I don’t know if it’s just my home state that does this or if most states or even countries do this, where I’m living now used to but doesn’t anymore, but that’s a basic description of what happens.

For kids it’s like Christmas because it’s common to go to others’ trash piles and grab anything you like, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure am I right? I’ve got a desk chair, roller skates, toys, DVD players, a mini trampoline, etc. It’s always fun to see what you can find.

And now onto the story and the malicious compliance:

So when I was 12 my mother sold a lot of our things, TVs and such included, and put anything we couldn’t or didn’t want to sell in storage while she dragged us all over the country for her book tour.

We were homeless, living on the road and all that. Anyway, when we finally return to our home state we moved into a rental house in a city four hours from where we used to live. And then the unpacking happened, my mother had sold the family tv and so stole mine, which I’d purposely kept, and made that the family tv. I was understandably pissed since it wasn’t my fault that she’d sold their tv, why’d I have to give up one of the only big items I’d been allowed to keep?

Months went by and then… then that glorious day came and my siblings and I were allowed to wander the nearby streets looking for hidden treasures.

That year everyone had been transitioning from analog TVs to a digital one so the streets were filled with analog TVs that were being thrown out, almost every house had one on their lawn.

I took my siblings home after some successful treasure hunting and begged my mother to help me bring one of the TVs home. It would’ve taken very little effort on her part to get the car and drive it to one of the TVs I had walked to and bring it home.

We were both used to some heavy lifting so between the two of us it would’ve been a piece of cake and free!

But no… she refused, “If you want a TV so bad then you have to carry one back to the house by yourself!”

It wasn’t a challenge or a tone that was in any way positive or encouraging. It was a tone that said “I won’t help you and you can’t do it alone so just give up” with a hint of smugness, waiting for me to dejectedly walk to my room in defeat.

No way!

“Fine, just make sure to hold the door open for me when I get back so I can get it inside!” I turned and left, determined to prove her wrong.

“Yeah sure you will.” She had replied, Sarcastically.

So I went front lawn to front lawn looking for a good TV. There were many that were way too big to carry and other that didn’t have any good way for on singular person to grip them and would slip when I tried to pick them up.

Eventually, though, about two blocks from our house I found a, still relatively large, TV with two grip holds and was square enough for me to pick up.

I lugged that thing, arms protesting and back aching, the whole way home and set it down right in front of the door.

Knock Knock Knock!

“MUM COME HOLD THE FRONT DOOR OPEN FOR ME!!”

The look on her face was priceless! She just stood there, dumbfounded, before I reminded her that I’d only done what she told me to do.

I brought that baby inside and placed it on my tv stand, where I proceeded to hook up my DVD player and give my mother a sh*t-eating grin when it turned on.

I had that TV for years until I eventually had to put it out on my own front lawn when I got a digital tv of my own.

The funny thing about this though, is that the TV had to be moved a couple of times while I owned it, moving house and the like, and I couldn’t lift it again.

It was too heavy and even with my mother helping we both struggled to get it out of the house. Yet 12 yr old me had managed to lift it all by herself. The desire to maliciously comply and spite my mother gave me a momentary burst of super strength in order to accomplish my task.

I still look back and laugh at how my stubbornness and spite empowered me like that.” Monsterchic 16

5. Bring On Another Sales Person Even Though It Doesn’t Make ANY Sense? Be My Guest

“So I work in sales for a family-owned business, a large family-owned business but none the less owned by one family.

I’ve been with this business for quite some time. Many years in fact.

Now it’s important to describe my pay plan, obviously I don’t want to give too much info as I don’t want the company identified.

The pay plan is a base salary + commission + accelerators for going over the objective. The company is divided into Regions which is overseen by a Senior VP, and those regions are divided into markets which are overseen by a VP and the markets are divided into teams which are overseen by a manager, and then within those teams you got territories which are assigned to sales reps.

Sales objectives are decided by the big boys at the top and those objectives are then cut into smaller chunks and handed down the line.

I have worked my way up and got one of the best markets a sales rep can have in my company. The reason for this is because my territory (Which I call a market) is geographically isolated from other parts of our company and has about enough business for 1.5 Sales People…problem being its awfully hard to hire half a person.

So I get the benefit of getting an objective that’s quite easy to meet and which naturally results in me making a very healthy living and I’m quite happy with this arrangement.

Also, our employment contract with the company which is also our commission agreement clearly states (and has for many years) that our sales objective rises and falls based upon the number of salespeople in our market. So if we hire a salesperson, that salesperson takes a little bit of the objective away from everyone else, if a salesperson quits until that roll is fulfilled objective goes up for everyone.

Also, we get bonuses for going over the objective, and at the biggest bonus mark, we double our commissions 🙂

Now the owner of my company apparently told his son if his son wants to run this company one day, his son needs to successfully work all the support level jobs for at least 6 months (that’s on the admin side) and be successful at each level of the sales side for 2 yrs each. If the son is successful at that, the reigns and control of the company will be given to the son.

Start January 1st of 2019 the son becomes my sales manager for his 1st of 2 yrs as a sales manager. Early in the year, he sits down with me and basically asks me what I expect to do for business. I tell him I’ll most likely finish at around 130-140% of the objective for the year. He tells me he thinks he can double the sales if he hires a new salesperson. I explain to him that I don’t see how that’d be possible and that if he hired a salesperson sure the company might sell a bit more product, but they will also be paying an additional salary and will end up paying more out in commission…far more then what it would be worth.

He tells me that’s none of my concern and that if I can’t commit to doubling my sales (which is a ridiculous ask considering I’ve grown this market a great deal already) that he’s going put in another sales rep. I tell him that’s his decision to make but he should consult with the VP first to see if that’s a wise move.

Obviously since your reading this we can all guess what happened…he hired another salesperson to give me a bit of competition.

I promptly ensured my objective was cut in half. If this smart *** ivy league educated sliver soon child is going make my life a bit more difficult then I’m going get paid more.

Shortly after all this went down in the month of January 2019 I was speaking to my VP and I reminded him that if I didn’t secure a single additional order for the entire year with my objective being cut in half I was at 108% of objective-based upon business that I had carried over the year prior.

My VP smiled and said “It sounds like your going make a ton of money, and this new manager is going **** up his payroll budget” keep in mind that had this not have happened my previous year business would have only gotten me to 54% of my yearly objective. I started the year 2% away from my first commission accelerator. I knew that 2019 would be my biggest money-making year ever…and I was going ******* blow it out of the water…

I went back and looked at my sales for the year, and here is how my year went

End of January I was at 38% of my objective for the year

End of February I was at 74% of my objective for the year

End of March I was at 109% of my objective for the year

End of April I was at 149% of my objective and for the first time in my many years of being with this company hit maxed my 1st and 2nd level accelerators.

I was now earning 130% commission.

End of May I was at 175% of my objective and had maxed out my 3rd level accelerator and was into my 4th and was now earning 150% commission

June 202% of my yearly objective I had officially hit the max accelerator and was now earning 200% commission. For the rest of the year, this was going be the case

June was also my mid-year view. To my surprise, the owner attended my mid-year review and it was all positive.

I was doing a fantastic job and there was a lot of talk about how much I was earning, and would earn. To which the owner said “I’ve never seen a sales rep get to 200% commission as fast as you” I smiled and said “I know, its a great year” he asked me “How do you think my son is doing as a manager”

Now to be fair, I was very experienced and very rarely needed my sales manager and the son had been doing the job that he was supposed to be doing and I smiled and said “Your son is the best thing to ever happen to me, I’ve never made so much money with this company I love it” the owner smirked and said “I’m sure you are very happy with him” and I was giving a good review.

Later on, in a private conversation with my VP, my VP admitted that the owner was ******* furious because our region’s payroll budget was going be blown out of the water because of not only the decision his son made in regards to my market but other markets as well. And that sales overall hadn’t increased as much as the cost of payroll had increased. And for the first time in our company history, there was a good chance our market would actually end up with a net loss of profit due to the increased cost of payroll.

Apparently the son had increased the size of all teams under his control with the thought being “more salespeople, more sales” but didn’t factor in the cost. Back to my sales 🙂

July 218% (I went on vacation…kinda regret this…shoulda canceled that vacation and sold more)

August 241%

September 274%

October 301%

November 319%

December 331%

The year was over, in total I had sold about 17% more than what I had expected, the extra money was a motivator for me and I had banked A TON MORE money… let’s just say I no longer have a mortgage payment cause of 2019.

I did lose some business to the new rep, who really struggled.

So here we sit in January of 2020.

I now have a new sales manager, for some reason the son isn’t in charge any more…wonder why…

The sales rep that we had hired to compete against me was actually a very good sales rep but he didn’t make what he wanted and we transferred him to another market. And apparently we let go of a lot of the excess hires or old employees had quit and we are back down to the same amount of salespeople as we had started 2019 with.

My objective is back to where it was in 2018 and I expect to make significantly less then I did in 2019…but it is what it is.

The rumor is the son is not working in any official capacity with the business and the owner (his dad) is debating the next step for his son. And yes our region for the first time in our company history posted an overall loss after everything was said and done and it’s been attributed to the increase in payroll costs due to veteran sales reps benefiting from a lower objective due to the increased sales staff.

I did send an email to the son’s company email address, it was returned saying that email is no longer in service.” yeasureletsdothat

4. Wanna Mess With My Hours? I’ve Got A Bone To Pick With You

“So, in 2012, I found myself working as an overnight maintenance laborer for a family-owned collection of properties. Two shopping complex, a winery, a few warehouses, etc. But most of the time, I was working keeping a grocery store built in the late 60s functioning.

Worked my way up to night maintenance manager and loved my job.

I was getting the kind of education you can’t buy; hands-on electrical one night, plumbing the next, welding after that. All taught to me by 3 men that could build a house, up to code, single-handedly. And we all got along great! It was the first time in my adult life I had real responsibilities and I was respecting myself because I respected the job I was doing.

The owners were all people that truly cared about their employees and they proved this when, in 2017, they sold the Main grocery store; one of the many things they included in the sale was all current employees had to be offered a new position at their current pay level.

the company that bought us (I won’t say their name but think the opposite of “dangerous path”) does not employ an in-house maintenance team. Something breaks, they outsource the fixing of it.

So they really didn’t have a ready-made place for me to fit into like the other department managers. The store manager also did not like that I was making $18 an hour, 6 bucks over a new hire rate. Thus began the systematic (what I saw as) har***ment and what has been later confirmed to me as the standard operating procedure for legally getting rid of someone at this company. Some of my favs include:

Making my 35-year-old *** a bag boy.

(Jokes on you; I love doing easy work for good money)

Writing me up for spending 20 minutes talking to the police about an accident I had seen while returning carts (I thoroughly enjoyed the district manager apologizing to me for that)

Cutting my hours down from full-time to 24 hours a week ( which is completely allowable, but as the second most senior member in the store, everyone below me has to get their hours cut first).

No, you can’t force me to take a salaried manager’s position.

Yes, you can make me a cashier (a position you know I do not want) but you have to give me the $3 pay bump

And on and on and on, in addition to the many broken verbal promises and out-and-out lies. I became very well-versed on the union rules, my specific contract rules, and how to protect myself. 7 Union arbitrations in my first 5 months, all ended in my favor.

Meanwhile, the ***istant managers love me. I can cover any department because I’ve done most everything and I’m a quick learner for what I don’t know. Anything breaks down in the store (it was falling apart before they bought it) if I can’t fix it, I can at the very least make a detailed work request so it gets fixed sooner. I become the go-to cover guy, filling in any position that needs it.

Which at long last brings me to my malicious compliance.

The store was not doing well, sales-wise. About a year-and-a-half in, they couldn’t get a closing butcher. So, the night manager taps me to work in the meat department for 3 hours every night just to close it out and clean it up. In the department, there is a bandsaw that’s used for cutting meat with bones in it. It’s a pain in the *** to clean, so after reading the department manual I realized you were not to use that piece of equipment if you hadn’t been trained on it.

Now I 100% had been trained on that bone saw. I knew how to take it apart, fix it and put it back together. But that training was with the old company and I had been informed many times that the new company only thought I’d been trained when they had trained me. Perfect! I can close down the bone saw earlier and get it cleaned. If any customer needs me to cut meat with a bone in it, I inform them that I hadn’t been trained on that piece of equipment.

Shouldn’t be an issue: This is late night and the stores not doing that well begin with. I clear all this with the ***istant manager.

This goes on for months until finally I’m called into the manager’s office during the day. Turns out one of the customers I had informed that I could not use the bone saw was a secret shopper. The store manager is writing me up for failure to complete my duties. She’s also writing it up as ‘malicious’ failure ( I forget the term they use; it’s basically two write-ups instead of just one) and that coupled up with my previous write up (I was 15 minutes late once; that’s on me) gives her the three write-up she needs to fire me.

As I have done so many times in the past with this woman, I invoke my right to Union representation and declined to talk with her until after I’ve spoken with them. At this point I’m thinking “they can’t bust me; I was following the written directions” but oh no!!! it got so much sweeter and so much worse.

While talking to my union rep it quickly becomes clear that the butchers are a completely different Union.

The store is in violation of the butchers Union contract by having a non-union employee work that department.

So first my union fights the write-up, wins and gets me paid for the four/five days I missed work. They then get me a lawyer who tells me I am not to speak with any store manager in any capacity, due to The butchers Union complaint against the store. 2 weeks off, fully paid, for me; I can’t very well work at a store where I cannot speak to my bosses.

I then get two more days off paid while I speak to the various Union reps for my testimony. The store is fined ($50,000 is what I was told) for breach of Butchers contract. When I return to work, my store manager does not work there anymore. Her replacement only accepts the job if his bonuses are not tied to the store’s overall performance, so he doesn’t mind I’m overpaid.

As icing on the cake, no one really liked her so I’m **** near a hero when I get back.” PunkThug

3. Won’t Go By The Books? Fine, I’ll Make Sure To Go By The Books

“I (23F) decided to take a year off university to earn some money and have some fun before my last year as a student.

I found a job in retail fairly easy, as I’ve worked in stores ever since I was old enough to work. My boss was thrilled to find someone with experience, who could help improve her small store.

My job was great at first, despite everything in the store that needs to be done manually. We have to write receipts down by hand, make a list of articles in the store every month, we didn’t even have a clear schedule of work, the boss would just call us and ask us if we could work the next day.

My co-worker and I weren’t bothered about any of it… Except for the schedule. She’s going to university this year and not knowing when she works is seriously messing up her progress in class. Our boss would also get really upset and mad whenever we told her we couldn’t work the next day, due to other plans.

A few weeks into the job I decided to fix that. I made her a spreadsheet that she could use to plan our work hours (like in any other company I ever worked for) in advance.

We also gave her our schedules three weeks in advance, so she could build and plan around it.

Her response?

“This doesn’t work for me, what if something comes in between and the person who’s supposed to work doesn’t show?”

I tried to explain that if that were to occur, the other will just try to show up, but she was having none of it, insisting that us learning whether we worked or not the next day was just fine.

It wasn’t, but okay… I didn’t want my work to go to waste, so I altered the sheet to work as something that counts our monthly hours at work since that also had to be done by hand and it was unnecessary time wasted. I’m sure most of us keep track of the hours spent at work, just in case.

I tried improving some other things in the store like building a database for articles we have, so we wouldn’t have to hand count everything every month or every time she had to order something new.

She sternly told me to delete everything I did because ‘she doesn’t like the look of it’.

Sidenote: this is kind of biting her in the butt right now because some providers are now giving her smack about the way she reports items sold at the end of each month. That database she made me delete and the way it generated the list of items in storage is exactly what they want from her from now on.

Skip to a few days ago. A few months into the job and I’m tired of her attitude. I try to help her improve the store, show motivation, present my ideas and she shuts everything down and we stay in the same cycle of work that wouldn’t be needed if she’d just take up some of my ideas. My co-worker already quit, she’s not in the store purely for emergencies until a replacement is found.

My boss comes into the store and tells me it’s payday.

Sweet.

She usually wants us to count the hours by ourselves and then compare with what she counted, but apparently she was in a bad mood that particular day and wanted me to go through everything again.

Boss: “We have to go over your hours for the previous month. I’d like you to count them now and tell me how many you had.”

Me: “Okay. I already have them counted, so you can just tell me how many you got and we can check if it matches with mine”

I pulled up the sheet which both co-worker and I update daily, so we don’t have to do this at the end of each month.

She apparently didn’t like that response, since she loves doing everything by hand so much. She came barreling from her office and into the store, yelling at me, how I shouldn’t be checking the spreadsheet of my hour count and that I have to delete it from the computer immediately and never try one of my improvements ever again.

I, having been tired of her ****, just raised my eyebrows and did exactly as she said. I deleted the spreadsheet.

Boss, now satisfied: “Good. Now I would like you to count and report the hours you worked last month.”

Alright. I pulled my phone out and showed her the exact same spreadsheet, except this one also calculated how much I should be getting paid for my time. “I counted x hours, which means I should be getting paid y €.”

She was absolutely livid with me. She was banging and throwing things in her office before she came back and handed me my hard-earned cash.

Bonus: That was also the day I decided I no longer wanted to work for her, due to her abusive behavior to both me and my co-worker. I informed her of my decision the next day and now she has to find two replacements. I take some pity on her and jump in when she really needs someone, but am otherwise free from her clutches. AquaVantas

Another User Comments:
“It sounds like a negotiation for pay. You start high and work down.

It sounds like a negotiation for pay. You start high and work down.” Dracula3811

2. Come In Thinking You Know Best? Let’s Just Take You Down A Notch Or 6

“I’ve worked for a call center for about 10 years, worked my way up to management level. We’ve always been given a lot of autonomy to handle issues within our departments, so long as we document everything and follow established guidelines (no making up rules, no firing someone for breaking a rule that you let slide for someone else, etc.).

I’ve always prided myself on being a good manager and having a low turnover rate, I try to take care of my people and give chance after chance for someone to make necessary corrections, but unfortunately, I do have to terminate employment somewhat regularly.

About three months ago, my center got a new manager, Harry. Harry had plenty of call center management experience and looked great on paper, he had big ideas and wanted to help create a more positive and fun culture in the office.

I’m all for it! The job is draining, especially for the reps on the phones, so anything we can do to boost morale is a huge plus in my book.

Straight off the bat, Harry was a bit standoffish to me. I chalked it up to shyness, kept about my business, and figured we’d warm up as we got to know each other. I was incorrect.

It may be important to note that, while the office was without a senior manager, a lot of those responsibilities fell to me.

I was the most senior and most tenured manager at the site, but I didn’t want the site manager position on a permanent basis. Before Harry got there, any issues that needed to be handled – maintenance requests, facilities issues, DOL requests, a “higher up” who needs to step in to assist another manager with an employee incident, you name it – fell to me. I was more than happy to step back and let Harry take the reins, but of course, made myself available to assist during the transition.

One thing my reps will tell you, I am strict but I am fair. If you mess up, I’m going to tell you and coach you on how to fix it, but I’m not going to be breathing down your neck. I enforce the same rules for everyone. If you’re having a bad day, you can come to talk to me about it. If your car breaks down and you’re screwed on transport, I’ll adjust your schedule and try to help you figure something out.

I truly understand that I can’t do my job if I don’t have reps who are willing to come to work and do theirs, so I try very hard to support them in any (appropriate) way possible.

On Harry’s second or third week, we had a rep who had been an NCNS (no call, no show) for about five days. Our company policy allows two before termination; because I knew of this reps situation, I held off on the term and tried to reach out to make sure everything was okay.

(To be quite honest, we rarely actually term at 2; we usually give at least 3 before the term is processed, sometimes because it takes us until the third day to catch it.) Unfortunately, we weren’t able to make contact. I knew he was physically safe and healthy because some of his friends worked there and told me he was just not answering us. I assumed that he had found another position and just not bothered to tell us – not an uncommon occurrence, sad to say.

I processed the termination as job abandonment on day 5 of NCNS. Day 6, the rep turns up and is surprised and angry that he can’t log in. I’d let Harry know about the situation from day 3, and alerted him as soon as the rep came in on day 6. I pulled the rep into Harry’s office and asked him if everything was okay, and why he hadn’t been at work or called us in about a week.

The following is a paraphrased conversation that we had:

Me: We haven’t heard from you since X, and you haven’t been to work since Y. Because our policy assumes job abandonment after two no call no shows, we’ve actually processed a termination for you.

Rep: I was busy.

Me: I understand that things happen, and I’m glad to know you’re doing okay, but it’s your responsibility to contact us if you’re going to miss work. We even tried contacting you a few times before processing the term but never heard back.

Rep: I got your message, I was busy. I’m here now.

Me: I understand, but again, we have to follow the procedure. We had no way of knowing whether you intended to return because you never contacted us. Your employment has been terminated, I have [termination paperwork, including signed handbook acknowledgment with NCNS policy highlighted and signed attendance policy] available for you.

Rep: Wow, y’all stupid. I was obviously coming back. Let me just go log into my phone before I say something out of pocket, I’m done with this conversation.

Me: Unfortunately you can’t log into your phone, as you are no longer employed here.

Here is your [paperwork].

From there, the rep got loud and started cursing; I remained calm and kept repeating that he was no longer employed and needed to leave. During this entire conversation, Harry said not ONE WORD. I eventually got the rep to leave, and as soon as he was out of the building, Harry asked to speak with me.

Harry: OP, the way you handled that was extremely unprofessional. You should have let him back. Now he’s going to talk badly about us and we’ll have a horrible reputation.

Me: … I’m sorry? I’m confused, I followed the policy. I gave him the opportunity to show us he contacted us, he said he never did. We’re supposed to term after two, I gave him five.

Harry: But he came back. If this is the way you were running the center before me, no wonder your turnover rate is so high. You can’t run people off.

Y’all, I was HEATED. First of all, I was running the site BY MYSELF for three months.

It’s 500 people. Secondly, I fail to see how someone else disappearing for 5 days and then not being allowed back constitutes me “running them off.” Thirdly, our turnover rate was lower at that point in time than it had been in over a year!

I said, “Alright, I’m not sure how this situation is me running someone off, but fine. Please let me know which policies you’d like me to enforce and which ones I should ignore,” and walked out.

Probably not the smartest move, but I needed to get out of that room.

I took a quick break to control my temper and went back to my computer. Sitting on top of my inbox was a message from Harry to all management:

“EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY: All employee terminations must be cleared through Harry Lastname. Any manager who terminates the employment of a representative without proper authorization will face disciplinary action. This includes termination for job abandonment. Any write-ups must be performed with senior management as witness.”

Cool.

Cool cool cool. I got you, Harry. Queue malicious compliance.

I had a stack of attendance write-ups on my desk that I had been planning to perform with another “junior” manager. I sent an email to Harry and requested 60 minutes of his time to witness writeups with me (I have 108 employees in my department, about 20 needed to be written up). He asked for the documentation, which I provided. He then sent me an email that said, “These are not authorized.

Request denied.”

Awesome. I moved on with my day.

Now, Harry gets a bonus if all departments meet billable hours each month. (I’m not supposed to know this, but being at the company for so long, I hear a lot of things I shouldn’t because they forget I’m not an executive team member.) It’s my job as the manager of my department to ensure we meet those hours. What’s the best way to ensure we meet billable hours? Hold people accountable for their attendance.

What’s the best way to hold people accountable for their attendance? Write them up for their excessive infractions, terminate the ones who refuse to resolve the issues, and replace with a new class. Harry just took that power away from me.

We missed billable hours in September. In the first week of October, I requested another hour of Harry’s time to review attendance with the reps and perform writeups. He denied it again. Our attendance was atrocious at this point, as reps knew there would be no consequences for missing work.

In October, we missed billable hours AND didn’t meet some of our contractually-obligated service levels, so my company had to give a credit on the bill.

Enter November. I request another attendance writeup meeting, I am again denied. I send an email with the reps that have not shown up for work for 5+ days (some of them more than 10 days) and request to terminate them so a new class can be added; I am denied.

At this point, the last week of November, our executive team is up in arms and wants to know why we’ve failed for the last two months and projected to fail this month. Harry has a meeting with them about how management (read: me) is creating a hostile environment and morale in the center is low. I am unaware of this meeting until I get an email setting up a call with our CEO and my direct executive manager (not Harry) to discuss my department.

Remember, I’ve been here 10 years. These people have known me since I was a teenager and know my work ethic and standards.

CEO: OP, what’s going on down there? You guys have been missing numbers left and right. That’s not you.

Me: I agree. We’re having a major issue with attendance and haven’t been able to fix it. It’s affecting our staffing levels.

Exec: What do you mean? You’ve been at a steady 108 since September. Are you scheduling correctly? Are you checking reports to adjust?

Me: Our official headcount is 108, but in reality, we’re only at 84, with 10 of those reps working 20 hours or fewer each week.

CEO: What?! How is that possible?!

Exec: What do you mean? Why haven’t you asked for an attrition class?

Me: I have been following the new policy that all terminations or new class requests must be approved by Harry. He has not given me approval for either.

Exec: … new policy?

Me: Yes, I can forward you the notification we received. I’ve requested terminations and classes so that we can report the true headcount and fix the service level issues, but I haven’t gotten any requests approved.

CEO: Please forward the notification and any communication immediately. We’ll follow up with you shortly.

I forwarded the email from Harry, and every time I’ve requested writeup meetings, termination approval, or new hire classes and gotten denied. The exec called me a short while later and asked me to give her a full rundown; she said she would take care of it.

The next morning, all managers – about 20 of us, including the executive team – were invited to a mandatory meeting.

We were told in no uncertain terms that any policy changes would come directly from the CEO, and that effective immediately we all had the authority to write up and terminate employees as appropriate. I was given the authority to request an attrition class immediately. Harry was asked (in front of all of us) to remain on the line with the executives while the rest of us got off. A short while later, the managers received emails that our bonus policy was changing; we would each be receiving bonuses based on meeting billable hours.

Remember that bonus Harry was getting? Yeah, they took it away from him and gave it to us.

Guess who made billable hours for December? EVERY SINGLE DEPARTMENT. Turns out, when you let people do their jobs and give them an incentive for doing it well, they care about the work they’re doing.” HarrySux

1. Tell Me To Put It Down In Writing? Coming Right UP!

I used to work IT tech support for a large company and it was my first proper job, as such I started as an apprentice.

This story takes place about a year into my apprenticeship, so I still had much to learn. On this particular week, I was working the shift that started an hour earlier than everyone else, as in I was solely responsible for support before everyone else arrived at 9am.

My manager sent me on a job quite a few miles south, it was going to take two(ish) days. On Monday, I informed my manager I’d be leaving Wednesday afternoon and coming back Friday afternoon and he’d need to cover my shift.

It isn’t my responsibility and I didn’t need to say anything but I thought I’d help him out by giving him a nudge:

Me: “Mike (not real name), I’m on early’s this week so someone will need to cover my shift Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.”

Mike: “Cheers mate.”

It came to Wednesday and I suspected he hadn’t arranged anything so I thought I’d give him another nudge, genuinely trying to help the guy out:

Me: “Mike, just letting you know that my early shift will need coverage for the rest of this week.”

Mike: “Ah right you are, thanks pal.”

So off I went on the Wednesday thinking I was doing a great job and keeping everyone in the loop.

We knocked the job out of the park and finished by Thursday evening so I head to the hotel and enjoy some sweet, sweet expenses.

Friday morning I head out in a rental they’d given me for the trip and start the journey back to head office. I get a call from my manager:

Mike: “Where are you?”

Me: “Heading back, I’ve just set off. I’ll be back in the…”

Mike: “I don’t see anything in your calendar?”

Me: “I didn’t put anything in it, I told…”

Mike: “The finance director came in this morning and couldn’t access the system and YOU were supposed to be here for 8(am).”

Me: “I told you…”

Mike: “Speak to me when you get back.”

The finance director happens to be my boss’s, boss’s, boss.

Not a dude you want to piss off. And he was pissed off. Turned out his network cable had somehow come loose (kicked) and couldn’t access the network. He sat stewing from 7 am expecting someone to arrive by 8 and fix it, only to have no one turn up until 8.45, the head of IT. My bosses, boss. Who took a fair few expletives on the chin.

I arrived back at the office as planned, expected and informed Friday afternoon.

My manager calls me over and gives me a lecture on the importance of communication. I tell him:

Me: “I told you Wednesday I’d be back Friday afternoon and my shift would need covering.”

He couldn’t even look at me as he says the following in the most condescending manner possible, loud enough for the head of IT to hear:

Mike: “I don’t know, Jam_and_cream, I’ve got a PRETTY good memory and I do not recall that conversation.”

Then sends me to the head of IT who gives me a bit of a sterner lecture on the importance of communication.

The word ‘disappointed’ was mentioned.

I go back to my desk defeated. My victory in the south quashed and sullied. My manager finishes the barrage:

Mike: “Next time, put it in the calendar and tell everyone in writing.”

The words ricocheted around my mind for a while until they settled and sat imprinted in my brain. I chalked this up to a learning experience and carried on.

Fast forward a few months later. The words lay dormant until a bizzarely similar situation occurs.

I was sent on a job for a few days and was returning, once again on a Friday afternoon and it just so happened to fall in a week when I was doing the early shift.

As soon as I heard about the job, the words sprang back into life. Put it in the calendar. Tell everyone in writing.

Now I could have put the details of my trip into my personal calendar. But I thought, why not enter it in the IT department’s shared calendar.

Which the head of IT is part of. And when telling everyone in writing, surely that means everyone involved the last time. The IT department, and of course, the finance director.

So I send off an email to my manager with the IT department, and, just for fun, the finance director copied in. Something like:

“Hi Mike,

As you are already aware, I’ll be working down south this week until Friday afternoon. I am on the early shift so this will need covering while I’m away.”

Some of my colleagues asked what that was about and I informed them about my manager’s memory issues.

They smirk and continue working.

I complete the job and arrive back Friday afternoon, exactly like before. And like before. The finance director came in early. And unbelievably, like before, he had issues getting onto the system. Choice expletives were shared, words were had. But not with me.

I only knew **** had hit the fan when a colleague pulled me to one side and told me why Mike was in such a foul mood. In classic British style, he never said a word to me.

And never has silence felt so vindicating. Jam_and_cream

Sneaky, smart? Mean, justified? You can’t argue how pretty smooth some of these plots are. They’re subtle. They’re slick. They wreak havoc! What do you think? Got anything to share? Tell us everything!