People Tell Us How They Plotted Their Malicious Compliance Revenge
25. Rude Customer Gets A Milky Revenge
“I used to be a shift lead at a locally owned drive-through coffee establishment in Arizona.
Awesome coworkers, awesome customers, and just an all-around fun job.
There’s a lot of lingo that goes along with being a barista, one of my favorites being the term “breve” to describe a cup of steamed half and half with any number of espresso shots.
It is my favorite term because of the following events.
Early shift, Sunday morning, 6 am. Hungover from the night before. The hot morning sun is scowling into my eyeballs through my squinted eyelids. I cradle my shift drink in my palms like the lost Holy Grail.
Cue the Sunday morning rush.
Everything is dandy as my coworkers and I bust out line after line of cars awaiting their delicious, delicious caffeinated beverages. Smiles all around, until Knowitall Nancy arrives in her oppressively expensive Buick.
My coworker approaches the Buick with POS tablet in hand.
The shenanigans begin.
Their interaction appears tense, and she returns shortly after, appearing confused.
“She wants a 32oz iced breve latte, no ice, with a single shot. What do I do?” Ah yes, half and half with a splash of espresso. For those who are unfamiliar, this woman had asked my coworker for a 31:1 ratio of half and half and espresso, and was apparently rather rude about it.
Sounds like a job for the shift lead. Now it’s my turn to talk to Nancy.
“Hello miss, so you asked for a 32oz iced breve latte, no ice, with a single shot, correct?”
“Yes!! Starbucks does it for me all the time, it’s just coffee and cream, how hard can that be??
Your coworker must be an idiot.” She clearly wanted a cup of coffee with a splash of half and half, but we were now past the point where I felt obligated to correct her grave mistake.
I was fuming. My coworker, being in earshot, understandably burst into tears and disappeared into the storage room.
Nancy showed no shame.
“Okay ma’am,” I repeat her drink order back, word for word, once more, before she confirms with all the arrogance she could muster.
Like my wage master says, the customer is ALWAYS right.
When I return with her snow-white beverage, she loses all of her composure.
Gone. Out the window. Her face glows beet red as she complains “THAT’S NOT AT ALL WHAT I ORDERED, ARE YOU AN IDIOT TOO???”
“Yes ma’am. Have a blessed day.”
I shut the window, and step back to watch her wide mouth lob obscenities towards the glass.
Through her tantrum, she attempts to throw the 32oz cup filled with half and half at the drive-through window, but it catches on the frame of her Buick window instead, thus spilling all that milky retribution into her lap and on her upholstery. Sweet, sweet karma.
With one last “SCREW YOU,” she sped off into the morning sun, never to be seen by myself or anyone else at the shop again. The real kicker is that this was during the summer, so if she didn’t have time to get her car cleaned out, it DEFINITELY smelled like rotting milk by the end of the week.
My coworker felt better after I explained the events she’d missed. We finished the day joking and laughing about Knowitall Nancy and her big stinky Buick.
Be nice to tipped workers. Thank you.”
24. Clever Hotel Manager Circumvents Council's Restrictions To Enhance Business
“This isn’t my story but my ex-boss’.
I work in a hotel, which changed hands a number of years ago. My previous boss before the change of management had a number of tales of her time in the hotel trade and this was one of her favourites.
She had a previous job running a different hotel, which was a fairly modest size when she took over.
Whilst there, the management had big plans for expansion. Ex-boss was responsible for getting this done and went about applying for planning permission for the planned extensions. Over the next few years the hotel grew in size, acquiring a swimming pool, spa, and numerous guest bedrooms and function rooms with ex-boss exhausting every avenue she could when it came to getting the necessary permissions, ending up with the hotel being several times its original size.
Next door to the hotel was a public car park and picnic spot and, once the expansion was complete, she decided to maximize on the location by building a footpath linking the hotel grounds to the car park, enticing picnickers into the hotel bar. The problem was that by this time the council had made it clear that the company wasn’t going to be granted any more planning permission for any further work of any sort.
Knowing this, ex-boss realized it would be futile to even attempt to apply for the necessary permits, so she took a different approach. She contacted the council, saying she was concerned for the safety of the hotel clientele as the hotel was situated on a busy main road, which posed a danger to any customers trying to get from the neighboring car park to the hotel.
She demanded that the council take action to ensure the safety of the public, financing some way of preventing them from walking along the main road where they ran the risk of a potentially fatal accident. The council replied that this wasn’t their responsibility and, if the hotel was really so concerned about the issue they should pay to have a path built themselves.
This was exactly what ex-boss was hoping for and, before the council could change their mind she did exactly that, building a footpath at the council’s request which they would never have let her do if she had asked for permission through the regular channels.”
23. Refuse My Vacation Days? I'll Quit And Take Them Anyway
“Back in 2015, I worked for a pretty dismal call centre.
It was an outsourced centre that handled customer support for a lot of UK retailers. Staff turnover was real high, with the vast majority being on temporary contracts and the promise of a permanent contract being hung over people’s heads to make them suck up being treated like crap.
After working there for about two years, in late February of that year I was offered a permanent contract because they wanted to put me on their team leader programme.
The pay was slightly better, the job security was better, the only major difference was how holidays were handled. People on temporary contracts were paid for any unused holidays at the end of the working year in April.
People on permanent contracts had to use their holidays or they would lose them.
I had just over 3 weeks of holidays saved up, so the day I accepted I booked 3 weeks off in March so that I wouldn’t lose them in April.
March rolled around and my manager told me that my holidays had been refused. I said that’s fine as long as they pay me for them, and he replied that no if you don’t use your holidays you lose them.
I said that I was trying to use my holidays and they were not letting me. He shrugged and said it’s the “duty of the employee to manage their holiday time wisely and I should read my contract” despite the fact I had only gotten that contract 3 weeks earlier and the holidays worked differently.
Understandably annoyed that evening I went home and read my contract from beginning to end and discovered my manager had overlooked one crucial part of the paperwork.
The contract clearly stated I had to give a week’s notice, and that any holidays not used would be paid to any leaving employee in full on their last paycheck.
The next day I came into work and announced I would be quitting unless they paid my holidays or allowed me to take the time off, and if they accepted my notice then to be sure my holiday days were included in my final paycheck.
My boss asked me if I was really going to quit over this, and I replied was he really going to lose one of his most reliable employees over this.
He wouldn’t budge, I assume he thought I was bluffing.
So I handed in my notice, and on my leaving interview with my manager’s manager made sure to explain exactly why I was leaving.
And yes my final paycheck did include my unused holiday days.”
22. New Director Learns The Hard Way That IT Knows Best
“This happened a few years ago before I retired. I was IT tech support for a medium-sized company with about 500 employees and a full management structure with departments and a board of directors. We had a new director start in the PR department, let’s call her “Karen”.
It’s company policy for directors to be issued with a laptop computer. We used quite a lot of bespoke software in our company so we had done a lot of research into the best laptops to get, not the cheapest by any means, so we had pre-purchased one and set it up for her with all the necessary stuff loaded on so she was all set to go.
I was unfortunately the guy who took it up to her office on her first day. I took it into her office all smiles and “good morning, welcome to (company name) here’s your laptop.” She took one look at it and said “I don’t want that pile of junk, I only use (other brand of laptop).” I was somewhat taken aback, but not being a very confrontational person I just said OK, turned tail, and made a hasty exit.
By the time I got back to the IT office, she’d already been on the phone with the IT director who had been on the phone with my boss.
My boss basically said get her what she wants, she had specified the exact make and model of the laptop, so we ordered it.
It turned up in a couple of days and we configured it and I dropped it up to her, to a “hmph-about time” or similar comment.
Within days she was on the phone with the help desk complaining it was slow, kept crashing, etc. We did the best we could but this was exactly why we used the other brand of laptop.
Eventually, she got fed up and called the IT director to complain we were all incompetent. He told her in no uncertain terms that the problem was her and her insistence on overriding the IT department’s decision. She then asked for one of our regular laptops and he told her the one we had got for her had been allocated to somebody else and it would be a minimum 6-week wait for a new one.
After the 6 weeks were up, I gave her the exact same laptop that I had given before and had been sitting on the shelf in our storeroom all that time. After that, we hardly had a peep out of her!”
21. Late Intern Wants To Follow A Different Schedule? Hope She Enjoys Her Increased Work Hours
“I used to be an intern at a bank while I was pursuing my diploma and on paper, the working hours were supposedly your typical 9 am-6 pm but people usually either came late and stayed late or came early and stayed late. There was a colleague of mine (Denise) who had to come all the way from Malaysia every morning just to get to work in Singapore.
There was an unofficial agreement with her boss that she was allowed to enter the office at any time since she was never sure what time she could reach her workplace depending on traffic. This was fine since she usually reached at 12 pm and stayed until at least 8 pm just like everyone else and staying past 11 pm was the norm here.
Just like most people, her day can’t start without a cup of coffee and she would get one no matter what time she reached. No one had any issues with her coming in late at all until another intern came.
Let’s call the intern Jane, now Jane was the kind of person who hated coming to work early and loved to go home the moment the hand on the clock hit 6 (honestly so do we but we don’t do it).
She loved to gossip with her other colleagues and friends as well as getting to work at 10 am without any valid reason with a layer of make-up so thick you could probably slap her and leave a handprint. Other colleagues had already submitted multiple complaints regarding her coming to work late and her manager was already upset and sent Jane an email.
She was not to come to work late anymore or her internship would be considered null and void along with a mention to her supervisor that she would fail that semester as our internship was graded. All of us were in a Teams meeting when she received that email which led to her outburst.
Jane: Manager. Why can Denise come to work late but I can’t? Just because she’s a full-time employee doesn’t mean she doesn’t have to follow the rules.
Manager: Alright, in that case, you get to follow her work schedule then.
Jane: Ok sure.
At this point, all of us were amused but horrified by what that entailed, because as interns, we had to send a morning report to our school from our work email at 11 am sharp in the morning with no exceptions.
Imagine her surprise when she remembered this the next day and even took a taxi down to rush her report and tried to leave work at 6 pm but was reminded by the Manager she could only leave at 11 pm. It didn’t take too long for her to realize that when the manager said to follow her (Denise’s) work schedule, she meant the staying late part as well.
This meant that Jane had to report to work from 10.45 am and could only leave when Denise did, at 11 pm. I’ll never forget her face when she panicked and tried to call up our Manager but was denied resuming her previous working hours as per the verbal agreement which everyone heard the day before.
This continued for roughly a week with Jane looking wearier and wearier as time went by from coming in an hour later but only being allowed to leave work 5 hours later. Thankfully she apologised by then and our manager was nice enough to let her resume with actual working hours.
Throughout the rest of my time there as an intern, she was always punctual and even worked late sometimes. I left before Jane did and she did eventually become a better person, didn’t gossip as much anymore, and was a lot more well-mannered, we added each other on socials and still keep in touch.”
20. Exploitative Tearoom Job Ends With Moldy Cake Scandal
“This happened 30 years ago. It was the second job I ever had in my life, taken because the owner’s son at my first job fell in love with me and became abusive and enraged that I was seeing someone and I ended up quitting after locking myself in a bathroom for an hour for my own safety.
But that is another story.
This was a tearoom. And they catered events. My first shift we were catering a wedding. I had been told to wear my best wedding clothes. I wore a beautiful white blouse and a lovely skirt. I arrived at the venue, served the wedding, and then, I got to wash every pot and pan in the kitchen at the venue.
My wedding clothes were ruined, and in addition, I got yelled at for leaving “contamination” on a pot that I seriously doubt had been scrubbed clean in my lifetime. I was pretty mad, but I needed the job, and I thought it would surely get better.
I was wrong.
My next shift, I was serving in the tearoom. I was pulled aside and told by the owner that I was to forfeit all of my tips and work only for my base pay. Because I was young and I didn’t need the money, and her son was in jail and he needed it more than I did.
I reasoned that she had no way of tracking cash tips, so I resolved the issue by making sure I got generous tips and pocketing half. Not illegal, and she had no way of knowing, and I could keep the job.
The next time I was called in I was told to head down to the basement.
This was apparently a religious place (I had no idea) and everyone was in the basement singing hymns while chopping watermelon and putting it in a blender. This was for watermelon punch, to be served the following day at a catered event. The blender being used was old and standing in an inch of water.
It kept mildly electrocuting those of us lucky enough to be tasked with using it. I was pretty rapidly reaching the end of my patience.
My next shift I was working their catering event. This one actually was fine. Maybe the only shift where there was nothing completely insane going on.
My next shift was my last. The tea room had a display case filled with beautiful cakes and pies. Customers could select what they wanted. A huge party of 30 people came in. It was explained that since we did not split tips, I was responsible for serving this party all on my own.
I think the party was given to me because the owner felt it would be a big tip, and knew I would be forced to give it to her after. I slaved running back and forth, taking orders, serving drinks, rushing out food…. I managed it all, and in the end I got a huge tip.
I kept half and gave her half, and I said nothing. As they were leaving, I was seated again. This time a party of two. I was exhausted and this meant I would be working past my scheduled shift. I sucked it up and served them.
At the end, they walked over to the display case and chose dessert. I pulled the desserts out, and one was moldy. I showed the owner, and her response? Serve the cake. I suppose I could have argued, and I truly felt bad for the customer, but this was all I could take.
I was exhausted and I was done.
I served the cake.
It was not long before the mold was noticed. When I walked out that final time, the owner was yelling at the customer who was screeching back. Predictably she tried to blame me. I just cursed her out, told the customer the truth, and left.”
19. Unjust Firing Turns Into Unexpected Unemployment Compensation Thanks To Clever Manager
“So, in this story, it wasn’t me doing the MC, but I was the intended beneficiary of it, so I guess this is my story.
Back in the early 90s, I was working for a company that provided staffing for US government agencies. I was a system administrator at a large Department of Transportation facility.
One day, I walked in, was told to see my supervisor, who very apologetically told me that Uncle Sam no longer wanted me working there, and, well, I was fired. I was told to go to the contracting company’s office on the other side of town, which I had never been to save the day I was hired.
Shocked, I drove up there. I was like 24 and had never been fired before. In retrospect, I know what happened: the project I was working on was failing. Not because of anything I did, or didn’t do — the concept itself was flawed. There were three people who worked on the project, two were federal FTEs, plus me, the contractor.
Anyone who has had experience with this knows the contractors are the first to go.
So I am sitting with the manager of the local branch, who has an email from the government employee in charge of the doomed project, listing a parade of horribles that I had done.
Some of the minor ones were true (I had been late a few times) but the major ones were just… fabrications.
“They claim that there was a problem with the networking, and that a contractor had to be engaged to fix the problem. Is that true?”
“Well… yes. I am that contractor. I diagnosed the problem, and then I fixed the problem. That’s my job. Or at least it was until a couple of hours ago.”
The manager realizes pretty quickly what’s going on. Not that it gets me my job back.
As we go through the separation procedures, he tells me that per company policy, he’s required to document that I am not eligible for unemployment compensation. I just nodded because I didn’t know much about these things. He says I am getting a two-week notice, and that for the next two weeks, I am to show up to his office.
He offered the use of office equipment to print resumes, apply for other jobs, and the like.
So after a couple of days, he says he’s set up an interview for me at another project at the same facility. Sure! I went down there, sat with the project manager.
Interview lasted less than five minutes.
“So, we’re a COBOL shop here. What’s your experience with COBOL?”
“None whatsoever.”
So, we both realized it was a bad fit. I went back to the office, confused as can be. The site manager knew I didn’t have COBOL experience.
Why did he send me there?
I found out a few weeks later. I had applied for unemployment compensation anyway, upon the urging of friends who said that “policy” sounded really sketchy. I had an interview at the unemployment office, and they looked over the paperwork, noticed the form that said “ineligible”, and the lady explained that I could contest that.
I said sure.
She asks me if I’ve been applying for work. I said yes. She asked if I’ve had any interviews. I told her about the one I had. Her eyes widened, she smiled.
“If they interviewed you for another position, that means you were not terminated for cause.
You were let go because of lack of work. That’s a layoff.” She then marks on the paper that I am eligible for unemployment compensation.
I ask if I still need to contest their finding. “No. They can contest my determination, but given that they actively tried to keep you employed after these events, it’s not gonna fly.
He did you a big favor by sending you on that interview.””
18. Student Uses Filibuster To Defend Fidget Toys In College Class
“So, I’m in a college communications class of 50 people, not including our teacher. For our midterm, we were to “become the US Senate”. The class would vote on several classroom measures, with the goal being to “communicate professionally whilst demonstrating competent debate strategies.” My teacher often sticks to his word, and we really did make a cool little senate – complete with dress codes, a candy desk, a gavel, and a flag.
This is important to note because the teacher wanted our senate to be as accurate as possible.
We were debating several measures, all created by us, the students:
1. Hats should only be allowed in the classroom if they are cowboy hats (passed, 39-11)
2. We should be able to wear pajamas to class (passed, 48-2)
And finally:
3. Fidget/stim toys should not be allowed in the classroom (you’ll find out how that went)
I use fidget toys because I have ADHD, they’re all pretty silent and the person who wrote this “bill” has it out for me because I get accommodations like extra time and earphones that no one else does.
Since we are allowed to talk as long as we desire about any measure, I get comfortable in my seat (since we are all remote) and begin to talk.
5 minutes pass. Then 10. Then 20, and my professor interrupts.
“OP, you’ve talked too long. Give someone else a turn.”
I look him dead in the eye.
“No.”
The look on his face. I politely explained that, since this was a senate, I was allowed to filibuster – as in, delay a vote simply by talking us out of time. The other classmates looked at him.
He turned red and spluttered but allowed me to proceed. Grades are based on individual performance, so I knew I wasn’t harming anyone but myself – everyone else had already spoken enough. So, my ADHD butt, the one always scolded for talking too much successfully filibustered the remaining hour and 36 minutes of our midterm.
As for the fallout, my classmate’s bill died on delivery and I got a B+.
Here’s to answer a few questions:
- There were only three bills, we had decided on them two weeks ago so we could debate them.
- The professor blocked out 4 hours of the midterm, which is why I was able to filibuster for the remaining 90+ minutes.
Everyone else had already spoken a lot because they cared about the other bills but not many people were gonna contest the one that would affect me.
- I will not be contesting the grade as I’m happy with it, and the satisfaction of the look on my teacher’s face was worth it to me.
- I filibustered on about what my ADHD accommodations are, why I need them, the fidgets I use, my favorite books, and what majors I’m thinking about.
- I use headphones in a remote setting because my dog barks a lot. When we take tests, our cameras are on, but we’re muted, so no one else can hear the dog but me.
I got my headphones approved by showing the box they came in and I have to show the teacher I’m not wearing any earbuds when I put them on. They’re not headphones in the sense that you can listen to anything with them – they’re headphones as in the ear protection like you would use in a construction site.”
17. Quality Control Summer Job Reveals Food Factory's Deceptive Practices
“Back in my University days we had a long summer holiday and in the UK most students got a job to top up their bank accounts for the next year’s studying.
At the end of my second year studying Chemistry, I got a job as a quality controller in a food factory. Now the one thing I really learned from that job was the foods to avoid, did you know one of the ingredients in canned Tomato Soup is concentrated hydrochloric acid?
Anyhow, I was significantly more qualified in Chemistry than the quality supervisor and after I pointed out some problems in the way they were carrying out some of the tests in the lab, I was put into the cannery where I was told to check the seams on the cans after they were lidded, the vacuum in cans after they were lidded and also that the check weigher was working correctly.
It was the check weigher where things got “interesting”. If the volume of products in each can was too high, then the cans could burst during cooking. If it was too low, then the company could be fined for underweight products. I was shown how to check and also adjust the volumes going into each can.
It really wasn’t difficult.
One day I was watching the production and canning of Chicken Soup and noticed the line was running just a little light, not below but just on the lower compliance level, so I adjusted the machine to add just a little more soup to the cans.
This brought it up to almost the exact weight expected per can. Things ran really smoothly from that point onwards until we got to the end of the run. There was a flurry of activity in the cannery supervisor’s office and much pointing at paperwork.
It seems the cannery had produced around 100 cans less than was expected from the run. Cue the investigation. Turns out that by stopping the line running light and adhering to the can labeling of the weight inside the can I had cost them 100 cans of soup.
I was told under no circumstances should I make any adjustments to any production line and I must find a supervisor. Fine, I was only there as a temp after all.
Everything was good for a week or so and then came the mushroom soup run.
Once again the line was running as close to the minimum as they could and then I noticed cans coming through the check weight underweight. I told the guy running the line and he said just adjust it then. No, I can’t adjust it, but also as I’m responsible for quality control, I can’t let this run underweight.
Cue pressing the big red button stopping the canning line. Canneries are noisy places, there are conveyors running all the time, cans clattering against each other, and then into the retort baskets they are cooked in at the end. All of this stopped and I had the entire room standing wondering what to do.
I asked one of the line staff to go and find a supervisor to make the adjustments and I waited. We waited for almost an hour to find someone by which time the soup that needed to be canned had got cold and couldn’t be pumped through the canning machines and had to be dumped.
The supervisor arrived and went ballistic dragging me into the factory manager’s office. He told the story of the lost 100 cans and how I had now cost them a whole batch of mushroom soup. The manager started shouting at me and then came out with a gem of a statement “I can’t see you having a career in this industry, you need to think about your options”.
My response was quite blunt I’m afraid. “Clearly, your margins are dependent on being as close to a can of soup being underweight as possible. I understand that and sought only to protect you from possible litigation under consumer legislation. I was told I was not to do that and find a supervisor to make any changes.
In the absence of this chap for over an hour I was faced with two options, either halt production or allow underweight cans to leave the cannery. My career options are not guided by my temporary summer holiday job, and I aspire to something more fulfilling.
As I will be returning to University in a few weeks, I’m going to get changed and you can sort out someone else to check your cannery production. Bye.””
16. Bullied By Management? I'll Follow Your Rules To The Letter
“I used to work as a supervisor of a security team at a large industrial facility. I had a good relationship with the manager (we will call him Dave) until he appointed his friend as a middle manager (We will call him Steve) between the supervisors and himself.
I did not have a good relationship with Steve at all and suddenly, Dave started rejecting ideas, suggestions, and requests out of hand. The friendly guy that I used to go and have sit-down chats with regularly became stand-offish and outwardly hostile at times. The staff all noticed this as well and would frequently comment that they didn’t know what I’d done to Dave and Steve but it was clear that I was being “bullied” all of a sudden.
It’s entirely fair to say that I couldn’t do right, for doing wrong all the time, and every little thing I did or did not do resulted in a lengthy email conversation with Dave and Steve. There is a lot I could add to this but for the sake of brevity, I’m going to move on to the point of my story:
The site we had to patrol was about 5 square miles so vehicles were provided so that we could patrol effectively and carry equipment and personnel to required locations. Part of my duties at the start of the shift was ensuring that the vehicles had not been damaged on the previous shift and that all vehicles had the required levels of equipment in them.
The first patrol went out the moment our shift started (and as this was a regulatory requirement, could not be delayed or skipped). This was the start of a night shift and so, it was dark. Very dark. We had Maglite torches but after 6 years of use and abuse, they weren’t exactly brilliant.
I didn’t find any new damage and so recorded that the vehicles were OK, and recorded their mileage on our check sheets.
The next night when I came in, I had a very angry-in-tone email from Dave demanding to know why my team had damaged one of the vehicles on the previous night.
Apparently, the vehicle looked as if it had been reversed into a wall. I immediately went to check the vehicle and found….. 2 extremely small divots in the rear bumper. I found them not by looking but by feeling the bumper. I simply could not see them at all using the light available to me at the time.
I then went and asked my team and all of them insisted they had not even used the vehicle. I went and checked the vehicle check sheets and found, true to my team’s word, that the mileage on the day shift’s sheet was identical to the night shift’s sheet.
The vehicle had not been moved. I sent an email back to Dave informing him that the vehicle hadn’t been used by us and apologized for missing the damage however lighting had made that extremely difficult. This was my last shift before my scheduled days off, so I was certain that Steve would be pushing Dave to punish me for “something” by the time I got back.
Sure enough, on my first day back in I was summoned to Dave’s office for what we British politely refer to as a “b********g”. Dave insisted that he could see the damage in the dark and could actually spot it from about 10 meters away.
For context, all of my guys had been shown the damage, and all of them, without fail had said “where?” when I pointed it out at close range. Not only that but there was no additional damage that I hadn’t spotted and my team was also now responsible for!
Luckily my boss had included a photograph of the damage I had missed: I could barely make out a light scratch. For Dave and Steve however, this was good enough to be punitive towards me and my team and told me that unless a culprit was found and named, I would be held personally responsible and would have to “pay the insurance excess to get it fixed”.
Dave also insisted that the lighting was more than sufficient to spot the damage on the vehicles. I told Dave that this was ridiculous and he couldn’t enforce financial penalties on a vehicle that had, again, not been used by my team. Dave was insistent though: It was my job to report 100% of the damage on the vehicles or I would be held responsible and at this point, something clicked in my mind and luckily, Dave decided to back up his instruction with an email, that Steve was CCed into.
The next shift, I refused to allow my team to use the vehicles until they had all been fully checked: inside, outside, underneath, mechanically, and equipment levels. Each vehicle took about 2 hours. I photographed every single small bit of damage that I found, no matter how insignificant or whether it had been reported previously (remember, the instruction was to report 100% of damage, not 100% of unreported damage) and sent it all in an email to Dave with a text description of the nature and location of the damage for each photograph.
There were 162 photographs in total. The first patrol could not be skipped and so I had to send out one of my officers on foot to patrol the site. This meant that the site patrol took nearly 3 hours and he was not available to fulfill other duties afterward.
It’s worth noting at this point that my team was also seeing this as a direct attack on them, rather than just me, so was fully supportive of the measures I was taking. This resulted in the site shift manager demanding answers, to which I was able to tell the shift manager of Dave’s instructions and why I was having to send officers out on foot.
I had (and still do have) a great relationship with all of the site shift managers and so, while he was frustrated, he understood the predicament I had been put in, especially when the instructions were shown to him in black and white. This resulted in a financial penalty for my company.
Dave was off the next day so I did the exact same thing again, with the exact same amount of photographs but all taken again on a fresh inspection. The night shift after, I came to work to find Dave waiting in the office for me.
I was allowed to finish my handover with the off-going supervisor before Dave shut the door and refused to let me leave before he had discussed why he had received multiple emails, over 800Mb in total (I didn’t compress or reduce the size of the photos) and how the company had received a financial penalty and the regulatory body were coming to speak to him.
I reminded him that he had demanded that I report 100% of the damage on the vehicles and that this had taken time. I couldn’t allow any member of the team to use any vehicle until they had been checked as there could be financial penalties involved. Dave frustratedly pointed out that many of the pics were too dark to see anything anyway and so most of the photographs were pointless.
I apologized for the lighting but pointed out that he said the lighting was more than sufficient to spot any damage and so he should be able to easily see the damage I had reported. Dave insisted that I had deliberately misinterpreted his instructions and he would be taking it to a disciplinary.
I informed him that this was no problem, if he could just let me know the date and time I would inform my union rep who had been fully appraised of the situation and was 100% behind my suggestion that I report every single tiny bit of damage on the vehicles.
Dave was ultimately left with no choice but to drop any attempts to discipline me and left Steve to deal with me from that point on. Steve then took up the role of disciplinarian for the next 3 months until I left the job, however every time he tried, I was able to shut it all down due to briefings with my union rep.
I left the job in February of 2019 and still, to this day, receive complaints from members of staff who remained there about how terrible the job has gotten due to Dave and Steve.”
15. Ignored My Advice, Hired An Illegal Worker, And Lost Your Business
“This was 5 years ago, the company I used to work for was a metal works company in the southeast of England.
It had a 40-strong team of fabricators and fitters. We were hiring an electrical engineer for some automation that we were branching into. I was also the guy training the engineers in what system they would be using.
I got word from the workshop supervisor that they had hired a guy, Gav, and he was from Europe.
They warned me to speak slowly and clearly as English wasn’t his strong suit. I told them to check his documents to see if he could indeed work. I was told to keep my nose out and do my job when I had spoken to Boss.
He had a thick folder of pictures of electrical systems that he had built for home automation. I was a bit skeptical at first especially as some of the pictures had “stock photo” plastered over them. I asked him to make sure he was sure about this and if he had done the checks to make sure he was allowed to work.
I was told the same thing “keep your nose out of it and do your job.” “Ok.”
A month or so goes by and I think he understands how the system works and how it should be used with all of the safety systems in place.
So we take him to a site and leave him to do his thing while the rest of the guys get started on fitting the security grill and railing all over the site. Me being the sucker I agreed to help the rest of the team with the fitting and finishing leaving our new engineer all alone, BIG MISTAKE.
All power on the site cuts out, the generator kicks in, all the lights come on and we discover smoke coming from the room where the fuse board is. An “oh dear” moment has just dawned on everyone. What Gav had decided to do was try and wire in the system to a three-phase board without checking the board (standard phase board right next to it).
First red flag.
This made the situation worse as he somehow blew the entire board up and had to explain to the electrician why he had to install a new board.
The second red flag came in the shape of a van filled with immigration officers wanting to speak to Gav about him working when he shouldn’t have been.
I asked if they had any proof of it being the same guy and indeed it was.
I pulled the boss to one side and told him the immigration officers wanted to talk to Gav and the boss. I could see the terror on his face and panic in his voice as he said “call the new guy in so I can get rid of him fast”.
I politely reminded him that he should have checked before hiring him, he looked defeated.
The immigration officers decide to wait around the corner and just as Gav walks in the van pulls in and swoops on to the poor man and slaps him in cuffs.
The officers then load him into the van and drive off.
A few weeks pass by and the boss thinks he is in the clear. A few weeks later and he is sent a letter telling him to make his way to the nearest Home Office building.
To this day I still don’t know what they said to him, as he came back two hours later and closed up the workshop and never re-opened, but it turns out he is still paying off a massive fine and couldn’t afford to re-open. He was later arrested for Tax evasion and fraud.
Gav and I became friends and the Home Office helped him become a British Citizen with some help that they offered, so he wasn’t removed.
Update: He did return to the UK, and has been stuck over here due to travel restrictions. He completed his level 3 NVQ and is now registered with NICEIC as a fully qualified sparky.
He was from a country called Armenia, and his family is planning to move to the UK when they are allowed!”
14. Landlord's 'Park Anywhere' Backfires In Small Claims Court
“About 10 years ago, my at-the-time partner (now wife) and I moved from the area where we went to college to an apartment near where we planned to start our careers. I say it was an apartment, but it was really the basement of a house that the landlord had walled off to create 2 “apartments” to rent.
The place was kinda crappy, but the rent was cheap for the area, and we were close to work.
Everything was fine for a few months, but the only parking for us was on the street out front – the couple that rented the upstairs “apartment” had rights to the garage and driveway (they paid more than we did).
Suddenly my car got a couple of nonsense tickets for parking on the street – I’m guessing some jerk cop needed to meet their quota – and my partner’s car got sideswiped in a hit-and-run. This nonsense had to stop, so we emailed the landlord (her preferred form of communication) to ask if there was anywhere safe for us to park.
She replies, “Park anywhere you want.” We had noticed that our upstairs neighbors usually eschewed the driveway to park in the front yard (they were horribly lazy), so we figured that would be a good spot for us too. We parked in the front yard for the rest of the year.
We figured that would be the end of it. We finished our lease, left the place in better shape than we found it, and requested our $1500 security deposit back. After a couple of weeks, we got a check for $700… What!? Since there was no explanation, we asked the landlord for one, and she replied that the deducted amount was to “re-sod the lawn”, claiming that parking on it had damaged it.
Now, I was the one who cut the grass at this house while we stayed there, so I was well aware that the lawn was more weeds and bald spots than grass – picture the African savanna in mid-summer. No one had ever lifted a finger to landscape any part of the property, but the landlord wanted to sell the house once the leases were up, and she figured she could get the renters to pay for a nice, new lawn.
I complained to the landlord: didn’t care. I put in a complaint with the local housing department: didn’t care. I threatened to take her to court: didn’t care. So, that’s what I did – took her to small claims court.
I had never sued anyone before, so I was going in prepared!
I took pictures of the entire front yard – the area that we “damaged” was actually one of the best patches of grass, though it did have a small rut that my tires made when the yard was muddy in the summer. I got testimonials from our upstairs and across-the-street neighbors.
Most importantly, I printed out the email where the landlord told us to park anywhere.
We were suing for $1800 to cover court costs and us both missing a day of work on top of the full security deposit. In mediation, we said we would settle for $1400, but she must have thought she was in the right because she refused to offer a penny more than the original $700 check, which we never cashed. When we got in front of the judge, it was pretty clear that she had no evidence, hadn’t prepared anything, and just assumed that us “kids” would fall on our faces.
We did not.
We put everything we had in front of the judge and made our claim (he was impressed). He stopped us when we showed him the email to ask the landlord, “Did you really tell them to park wherever they wanted?” When she said “yes”, the judge replied “Then what are we even talking about?” and that was that.
Judgment in full for us, and that woman had to pay to re-sod her own darn lawn.
Next time you tell someone to “park wherever you want”, you’d better mean it. Or at least don’t try to deceive someone when they comply with what you said!”
Another User Comments:
“My landlord tried to keep half our $1500 deposit because of some burn marks, a broken door, and some shades missing – all of which I had taken pictures of when we moved in. All were pre-existing. I told her (company) that if I didn’t see my entire deposit back by the 4th of the month I was legally entitled to double that amount and I had lawyers on standby if they wanted to go to court over it.
They paid. Then I printed out copies of “The Landlord Tenant Act” which she had violated on several occasions (including not giving my full deposit back) and distributed bound copies to every person living at every rental property I could find listings for. Screw crappy landlords.” Disorderly_Chaos
13. Consultant Ignores Dress Code Advice, Gets Booted From Industrial Site And Contract Cut Short
“Some years ago the organization I work for brought in a consultant to make us more efficient and reduce waste. She was working across a number of teams including the team I worked for.
For our team most of our work is office-based (about 75%) but we often work in retail environments and occasionally in industrial settings. The other teams that the consultant was working alongside all seemed to be totally office-based. Some of the sites we work at can be quite dirty or smelly (butchers are among the worst) and so we always advise people what to wear as it’s easier and cheaper to clean a pair of jeans rather than a suit.
I was introduced to the consultant and was told she’d be accompanying me on a job. She seemed quite pleasant and was very smartly dressed. I talked her through the booking process and explained the work we would be doing. I suggested that she may want to wear casual clothing rather than business attire.
She got extremely angry and said “don’t you ever tell me what to wear” and told me that it was inappropriate to “tell” a woman what to wear. She was unwilling to listen to my justification.
A few hours later I was pulled into a meeting with my supervisor and our manager.
The consultant had made a complaint to the higher-ups in our organization. Whilst my supervisor was supportive (as he normally was) our manager didn’t want to rock the boat with senior staff and so agreed to tell me my behavior was wrong. Thankfully it was agreed that no formal action would be taken and there would be no record on my file.
My manager agreed with the consultant that I shouldn’t provide “fashion advice” and wasn’t willing to listen to reason. Thankfully it was agreed that she wouldn’t come along on the job.
About a month later again I was told that the consultant would accompany me on a job, this time to an industrial site where I would be testing a piece of equipment.
The site would draw steel from large coils and turn it into bars. Whilst not the dirtiest place we go to it’s a long way from being clean. I felt this was the perfect opportunity for some malicious compliance. I emailed the manager and asked if I could advise on appropriate clothing and he emailed back saying that both the consultant and he had made clear I was not to bring it up and to do so could lead to disciplinary action.
The job I would be doing normally required a second person to record results while I was doing the testing, it was agreed that the consultant would be hands-on and record the results.
An important point to note is that all industrial sites we visit will have a PPE requirement, with the minimum being protective footwear.
Obviously having been warned I didn’t mention this.
The site was about an hour from our office and I phoned as I was leaving to let them know we were on our way (thankfully in separate cars). They normally asked for a call so they could stop production just before we arrived to avoid downtime.
As we arrived we were met by the health and safety coordinator for the site who did his intro. I produced my safety passport card which showed I was competent in health and safety matters. I introduced the consultant and explained she would be assisting me whilst looking at ways my work could be delivered more efficiently.
I took my overalls out of my bag and slipped them on over my clothes and swapped my shoes for my steel-capped boots. The H&S coordinator asked if the consultant wanted privacy to get changed and she explained she wouldn’t be. He gave me a bit of a look, knowing that she didn’t have a clue what was going on.
He then asked where her safety shoes were and she explained she didn’t have any. He refused to let her down onto the factory floor and she had to spend the job in the reception.
Once away from the consultant, I explained that if I had to log the results myself it would slow the process down.
He offered me one of his staff to do it. I then told him the story of what had previously happened. He thought it was hilarious what I’d done and wanted to play along. He asked for the details of a senior manager and while I was testing the equipment phoned to complain.
He said it was unfair that he was supplying staff to assist me when he was paying for the job to be done. When I finished the job the consultant had already left.
When I got back to the office I was pulled into a meeting with our Director, my manager, and lots of other higher-ups and was asked to explain myself.
The Director let me fully explain and thought it was ridiculous that I was blamed for the first incident. I also explained that I had email confirmation that I wasn’t to speak to her regarding clothing. He said he was disappointed that I hadn’t at least emailed regarding the need for safety shoes or raised it with a manager as a safety concern but he understood why I’d made a point.
I was excused from the meeting and my manager came out a short while later looking sheepish (and never mentioned the topic ever again). We gave the company a discount on the work for supplying an assistant so they were happy. My supervisor later explained that the consultant had upset a number of people and so her contract was cut short.”
12. Prankster Customers Meet Real 'Wendy' In Fast Food Drive-Thru
“My first job when I was a teenager in the late 1990s was at a certain fast food restaurant whose mascot is a red-headed girl.
The pay was horrible, even for those times, and management was generally belligerent and incompetent, but it was a job and gave me lots of stories.
Now, given that we were a restaurant named after a person whose founder became the face of the restaurant in television commercials up to his death, we frequently had jerks come through who thought it was cute to say things like, “Is Wendy there?” or, when they’re angry, “I know Dave Thomas and I’m going to get you fired!” It was so annoying because it wasn’t cute since it happened dozens of times a day, especially late at night on second shift.
Now, at the time this takes place, a new manager had just completed her training and it was one of her first times managing by herself. I was working on drive-thru when a couple of guys started going on the speaker, “Is Wendy there? We want to talk to Wendy!” I try to ignore them since, as I said this is a frequent occurrence, but these guys just don’t know when to stop and just keep saying it all through their order.
I was having a bad night; I hated working drive-thru more than any other station at the restaurant so their antics, which would probably just make me roll my eyes today, were beginning to make my b***d boil.
They get to my window, and they’re these two redneck-looking twenty-something guys who just keep giggling about how funny and clever they are.
I really don’t think they were under the influence given their demeanor. I just think they thought they were delivering comedy club-worthy material. I’m trying to hand them their drinks and they just keep asking for Wendy.
“Where is she?” one asks.
“We want to talk to Wendy!” the other one says.
I’ve finally had about enough and that’s when I get a plan for malicious compliance.
I go over and get my manager and tell her that there are two guys at the window who want to talk to Wendy. She grins, knowing exactly what I’m thinking, and walks over, opens the window, and looks at the guys.
“Hi, I’m Wendy, the manager here. I heard you want to talk with me? How can I help you?”
The guys just think this is the most hilarious thing ever and start erupting in laughter, when she looks at them dead serious, and points at her name tag.
“No, really, my name is Wendy. How can I help you tonight?”
They get really quiet and look at each other. You can tell this wasn’t how they expected this to go, and they seemed to have no witty retorts in them for if Wendy was actually there.
“Uh, can we have some ketchup?” one of them finally asks. Wendy smiles, puts some ketchup in their bag, and hands them their order. The two drive off without another word while Wendy and I break down in laughter at what we just did. In the long run, what we did that night didn’t stop other amateur comedians from asking for Wendy, but it sure did feel good nonetheless.
In a generally sucky job that could be really hostile at times, Wendy was a pretty cool boss. Wherever she is today, I hope she’s living her best life!”
Another User Comments:
“I also worked at Wendy’s while in high school and college. We were on the Gulf Coast of Florida with mostly senior citizens for customers.
One night a lady called in to complain that she and her husband were watching TV and a Wendy’s commercial came on and it was so loud she had to rush over and turn down the TV! She was calling to ask if we could do anything about that?
My 19-year-old self was busy making tomorrow’s chili so I told her absolutely, we’ll get right on that.” calicomonkey
11. Unresponsive Manufacturer? Prepare For A Fax Avalanche
“This is something I did in the 90s to finally get a response from an unresponsive company.
In my early 20s after being a team lead I took over as a shipper/receiver for a big box store.
I took care of receiving merchandise from the warehouse and processing returned merchandise to manufacturers for credit. Most business-to-business returns require authorization. So I as the receiver contact the manufacturer with information about the returned item, why it was returned and the manufacturer gives me an authorization number and shipping confirmation to return the item.
Each place has a different guiding setup and they constantly change.
Well, I took over the shipper/receiver job after the last one quit, I inherited a massive stock of unprocessed damaged returns. I start chiseling away at this pile and I come across these hard drives that have been sitting for months and they keep piling up with notes of no response when faxed for return authorization.
I check through the paperwork and I call. The company person on the phone is rude to me and tells me they only accept fax requests for return authorization. I tried explaining according to our records there has been no response. They tell me again to use the fax number and hang up on me.
Ok maybe the previous shipper/receiver missed the responses, didn’t work the fax machine right, or whatever. So I fax and wait. One day, two days, three days, nothing. I fax again, one day nothing. I try calling, rude person tells me to only fax.
Ok so I fax once a day now, a week goes by, nothing. Now I’m getting angry and getting tired of seeing those returns. So after that week, I walk in and every hour on the hour I send two faxes. About 4 hours into my shift I get a call.
It is from the company I’ve been trying to get a hold of:
Them: Can you stop faxing us, please?
Me: Can you give me a return authorization number for these items please? My store has been trying to get this authorization for months.
Them: Well you have to call this number 555-BS-moreBS.
Me: Interesting because when I call I am told I can only fax this number for return authorization and according to the documentation from your company it says to fax this number for return authorization. So which is it?
Them: Hold on.
They come back, give me authorization to finally return the items, and then say “In the future if you are having issues with returns don’t overload our fax machine.”
Me: You do know the best way to avoid this don’t you?
No, I didn’t stay long in that position and didn’t care if my attitude showed. At that point, they were preventing me from completing my task and I was tired of their nonsense.”
Another User Comments:
“We do this kind of crap at work all the time. Not to that extreme, but along the lines of: just manually adding the stock to inventory and then notifying our buyers/vendors, telling them after a month of no response that we will destroy the products in 7 days, pretending we don’t see the email about how we need to ship it at our cost (after they screwed up) and dump the pallet in the truck that does their next drop off (it’s their truck so we aren’t just adding it to a 3rd party transport).
Forcing people to take action is some of the most satisfying crap when you’ve gone by for weeks and weeks of no response.” xKnightbusx
10. Rude Lawyer Demands Fast Service, Gets What She Asked For
“So, I’m from Brazil, I’m studying law here, and I have been doing an internship for almost 3 years at the town hall.
People are awful when they think they deserve something special and your face screams “I’m just an intern”.
The department I worked at was exclusively for autonomous workers like lawyers, engineers, architects, realtors, etc. It was just me and my boss, even though we should be 4 people.
I was responsible for making those workers a series of documents related to properties they were working on for whatever reason. If you had registered your personal information with us, you could ask for those documents via email – some were sent, some had to be picked up personally.
If you didn’t register your information beforehand, you had to go in person to ask for anything you needed and then wait or come back later, depending on what it was.
Enter a terribly impatient lawyer.
At the moment she came in my boss had left for lunch so I was alone.
She needed information on the debts of a property and the personal information of the owner. When she came in, I was finishing a document and there were 2 people before her. She didn’t care and just threw her stuff at the counter and started talking.
Not even good morning, excuse me, or anything.
I politely interrupted her, told her I was just finishing something and that she had to wait until I got to the 2 people before her, and told her that she could either wait or come back in about 20 minutes.
She tried to argue and said that what she needed was really fast and asked if I couldn’t just do it for her because she was in a hurry in a rude demanding tone. I explained it all over again using different words. She huffed and left.
About 30 minutes later my boss came back, there was no one at the counter so I was taking the email requests. He asked me how everything was and as we talked, a court clerk came in with some contracts for us, which we had to check, sign, generate the tributes/taxes of the transaction, and return to the court clerk by 2 pm because they had to pay the taxes at the bank, that closed at 4 pm.
Usually they came in around 10 am so we could have time, but that day they couldn’t make it until 1 pm.
As my boss was checking the documents, I continued on the email, and the lawyer from before came back. I noticed someone stopped at the counter but didn’t look at who it was, just continued typing, as I was finishing answering an email and said: “good afternoon, I will be”… I was going to say I will be with you in a minute and she interrupted me with the same tone from before, just louder, and asked, “CAN YOU TAKE ME NOW???”
I looked at her, smiled politely as if she wasn’t being rude, and said “in a minute”. If I was by myself I would’ve just dropped the email and seen what she wanted just to get rid of her and out of pressure but my boss didn’t like me being a pushover and always lectured me when I was, so thank God he was there.
It took me about 20 seconds to finish and when I opened my mouth to speak to her she asked why he couldn’t take her request. I told her I was already finished and he was busy with something he had to turn in in an hour.
She rolled her eyes and started telling me what she wanted.
The kind of document she asked for was sent via email and would take me about 15 minutes. I tried to explain that she could ask for those things via email instead of going in person.
ME: Instead of coming here to request those, you can just — and she interrupts me
L: can you just get it done already?
I was getting impatient and looked at my boss who had stopped what he was doing to pay attention.
ME: ok, so I just need an email to send those.
L: What do you mean? You made me wait an hour to say you won’t give the documents to me printed?
ME: we aren’t allowed to print those here because it’s the most asked document and usually is just for speculations. I’ll send them to you —
And she interrupts me again, this time looking at her phone:
L: Well I’m seeing here the legal time for sending documents via email is 3 hours, so I’ll be waiting.
And just left.
It was going to take me 15 minutes, maybe less, but since she was rude as anything I waited 3 whole hours.
When I sent the documents it wasn’t even useful for the day anymore because everything was closing at 4 PM. But you get what you ask for.”
9. Lazy Co-Worker Quits Without Backup Plan, Denied Rehire By Overworked Colleague
“I work at a nursing home as a QMAP (qualified medication assistant personnel.) We’re super short-staffed; for my first two weeks of employment, I had to work seven days a week, because there was no other Night Shift QMAP.
Finally, we hired a new person, who we’ll call Devin.
Devin was useless. I mean genuinely, truly, wholly useless. The only duty he did was administer medications… we only have to pass one med on night shift. The rest of the night, he’d either sit on his phone or sleep.
He never cleaned, did paperwork, checked on residents, did follow-ups on PRN medications, charted anything, and he even argued with caregivers about who would “wipe the behind” of bed-bound residents.
To make it worse, he took most of my shifts. He worked five nights a week as a QMAP, while I worked the other two nights, plus three as a caregiver.
On the two nights when I was QMAP, I had to desperately catch up on everything he let pile up through the week. What normally took maybe 3 hours of work per night suddenly took almost my entire shift.
I tried to talk to him multiple times about his lack of work, but it was like talking to a wall.
I’d spend 15 minutes begging him to, at the very least, clean the darn kitchen so we don’t get ants or mice, and he’d just nod and say “yeah, I get it” in the most monotone voice. Admittedly, I wound up blowing up at him twice, but I feel like it was deserved because he wasn’t caring for the residents and he was lying to my face about his work.
Everyone (including my boss) knew he was completely useless, but we didn’t have enough staff members to fire him.
One Saturday when it was only me as caregiver and Devin as QMAP, I’d been called in earlier to work a double shift because we’re short-staffed. 30 minutes before shift change, I got a call from my boss saying that Devin quit on the spot.
To my understanding, the interaction went as follows:
Devin: I’m changing my schedule to only working 3 days.
Boss: you can’t just change your schedule without talking to us.
Devin: then this was my last shift. I quit.
So all of a sudden, I was left as the only staff member on shift. I had to do the equivalent of 3 people’s jobs (normally there are 2 caregivers but like I said we’re short-staffed.) Not to mention, I’d already worked 8 hours on evening shift. It was a long, exhausting night, and I’m pretty sure I only got everything done thanks to a multi-hour-long adrenaline rush and spite.
And I didn’t get a break after that, because I was once again faced with the fact that I was the only night QMAP, so I’d have to work every night until we found someone else. However, after a few nights of consistent work, I remembered how darn easy work is when you don’t have a mountain of stuff to get done.
Cut to 5 days ago, and I’m having a medical emergency. Without going into too much detail, I have a PEG tube and it has been persistently infected and it’s gotten worse. I wound up in the hospital, and my boss had to cover me that night.
I came back in the night after despite feeling like complete crap. Once I got on shift, my boss called me with some news: Devin texted her asking for his job back. Turns out he quit without backup income and was facing the consequences of his own actions.
My boss asked me if I wanted to let him come back, since I was sick and still the only night QMAP.
I weighed my choices and came to the conclusion that, despite feeling like crap and being forced to work every night, it was STILL less exhausting and strenuous than trying to pick up after Devin.
It was a final, beautiful petty moment of revenge for the hours of stress and strain he put me through. I got to put the nail in his coffin. The idiot clearly didn’t want to work, and in no uncertain terms, he had told our boss that Saturday had been his last day.
Who was I to say otherwise?
Edit: I’ve got some people asking if he knows if it was me. Yes, I texted him separately to inform him. It was “professional” but very passive-aggressive.
“Devin,
I made the decision with Boss to not hire you back.
You told me several times that you did not want to work here, and your work ethic reflected this. On top of that, you quit; that’s a pretty definitive final statement.
Happy travels.””
8. Rude Mechanic Loses Reliable Tool Guy Over Temper Tantrum
“Several years ago I worked as a tool guy.
For those who don’t know, Mechanics buy ALL their OWN tools, shops provide very little. They’re also incredibly busy people so I’d drive shop to shop with a big truck full of tools to sell, fix, order, and help find solutions to things they were coming across.
Plenty of mechanics spend as much on tools as students spend on College.
This was a difficult job as my customers were a very rough bunch, you had to have thick skin to do this job and those that didn’t wouldn’t last long at all.
I was running one of the most established routes in the area to the point where mechanics from other territories would travel to me due to my knowledge, reliability, and inventory. I was well-known in the local automotive community, and I pampered my customers. The issue with pampering your customers is that some of them grow used to it and don’t realize how good they have it.
Most everyone was a delinquent at some point in their life but they would often mature enough to be tolerable as they get older. Not all of them though. One guy I saw had an unbelievable temper – he’d regularly talk down to me, demand everything from me, zero tolerance, and would even complain about the free candy I’d have on the truck for everyone.
One day I showed up and he asked, “Hey do you remember that time I told you my jump pack was acting up?”
“I don’t, sorry. What’s wrong with it?”
Well flip me sideways, he did NOT like the fact I didn’t remember a conversation from 4 months ago.
He flipped. He started complaining and going on a tirade. I don’t remember what he said but only half was in English so you KNOW he was angry.
He ended up throwing a Ratchet (Part# SHLF80A) at me and yelled, “JUST FIX MY STUFF THEN GET THE HECK OFF MY PROPERTY”.
Finally; an out. I picked up his ratchet and rebuilt it, made a repair order for his jump pack, left everything nice and neat on his unbelievably messy toolbox, and never stepped foot on his property again.
My boss asked me why and I told him, he never argued with me about it.
I worked 12-14 hour days, I wasn’t going to put up with that nonsense and he agreed with me. From then on he had to go way out of his way to get everything he needed and it was likely a lot, he even moved his shop to a different area where a less reliable tool guy was.
I heard a rumor that he wanted to apologize to me so I’d come back but he never had the courage to do it.”
7. Change My Efficient System? Enjoy The Chaos And Long Lines!
“This is set in Asia — I won’t clarify where since it’s not important, just wanted to give you guys context.
For starters, I’m (23) a university student working part-time at my aunt’s restaurant to make a little extra income before the academic year starts.
My job is pretty simple — it’s an all-rounder job where I need to take people’s orders, send tickets to the kitchen, calculate each table’s bills, handle payments, and clear tables. I.e I’m currently working part-time as a waitress.
I’m only here until the end of this week because I secured another gig elsewhere before the academic year starts, so I figured why not finish this week for a little extra income before then?
I get along with most of the staff, all of whom are a decade or so older than me, and said individuals work at the restaurant full-time. There’s another part-timer (19) who’s working here and he comes to work whenever he’s able since he’s studying too.
He wasn’t around for a couple of weeks, so I’ve been left to sort out most waitressing matters. My shifts during lunch hour get particularly busy, which is why my system keeping the workflow super smooth is a crucial point to this post. The moment after bills have been settled, tables need to be cleared immediately because new customers come pouring in and some insist on being seated even before the tables have been cleared or wiped down.
I came up with a system in the three weeks that I’ve been working here that works for both myself and my colleagues. Upon receiving tickets for orders that have been received, I always key in their order according to the table they’re sat at so that it’s less time-consuming in the event other customers want to settle their respective bills.
Customers are expected to come to the payment counter when they’re ready to pay, so this system is a lot easier and much more efficient than letting tickets pile up and only calculating the bill right when customers are about to pay (which results in a longer line).
I always make it a point to ask customers if their food has all arrived, if they were satisfied with the quality of their order, and if they ordered anything else that I hadn’t seen on their tickets. Once they verify their orders are correct, that’s all.
I go about my day and mind my business.
That was until the other part-timer approached me earlier today. His point was an eyebrow-raiser, for sure. I’m not the type of person to pick fights or argue, so since he was so insistent that my way of doing things was making it difficult for him to keep track of additional orders at each table, I decided to just let him have at it since he was so happy to tell me how to do my job.
I simply smiled and nodded at him, making a beeline to the cleaning supplies and thinking to myself, “You want me to stop punching in people’s orders? Sure thing!”
For a solid hour or two, I only collected the tickets, bringing them to the cash register and letting them pile up, just as he requested. When I noticed customers stand up from their seats and making their way to the payment counter, I would speedwalk to the cleaning supplies and start collecting plates to show that my hands were occupied and that I wouldn’t be able to sort out people’s bills!
I left it all to my dear coworker who tried telling me what to do and how to do it.
It was the right call to make because the line that followed, due to his insistence on changing the system, snaked about halfway through the restaurant, full of customers waiting their turn to pay their bill.
Once lunch hour had died down, I smiled to myself and went back to keying in people’s tickets the way I always had. My part-time coworker sheepishly approached me with new additions to existing orders since then.”
6. Still Need My Help? Ok, But You'll Have To Wait For It
“I’ve worked for my company for 7 years. I love it. It’s a great place. Except for my boss. She’s a liability and has been the cause of several almost employment tribunals (all been paid off to settle) but as she’s been involved with the owner she gets away with it.
Anyway, we all know what’s happening in the world, which is why I’ve been made redundant. I’m ok with this, it’s expected, I was furloughed and since coming back part-time, I knew it was likely to happen.
But I mentioned my boss is a pain.
Well, she told me that she wouldn’t be able to pay my notice out because she “needs all my help while she has it”. Well, that to me was a kick in the teeth, why am I redundant but you need me?
I’m only working two days a week, but as it’s my notice period I’m paid for the full week.
It’s agreed I work Tuesday and Friday. Fine. I allow all my emails to build up from her with her requests for things. She doesn’t know where things are, she needs this information immediately.
Nope. I’m working from home and don’t have a company-issued mobile so she can’t force a call.
Here is where my malicious compliance comes in.
I get the work done as soon as she sends it over. But I don’t send it back until the last ten minutes of my working day. She’s then slammed by emails from me and has to go through them to find what she needs.
And just to make it fun, sometimes I send her random stuff that she may “need” once I’m no longer there, which is usually just junk mail vaguely relevant to our industry that I would have normally deleted.
It’s only been two weeks, but her exasperation is rising and she has another five weeks before my notice is up.
I’m doing my job so she can’t say anything about it, I’m just being very conscious of doing a good job and only sending things when I’m sure they’re ready.”
5. Underestimated Substitute Teacher Turns Tables On Skeptical Boss
“When I was a teaching assistant, I used to work as a substitute teacher for very unruly classes (aka, the classes licensed teachers wouldn’t accept).
I had full responsibility, worked all hours, and my numbers showed that my class was making great progress. I just had some bad luck, that caused me to not finish teaching college at that time.
Because I didn’t have my license, my boss came to me one day and talked about how I was actually ‘too uneducated and inexperienced’ to teach and that I ‘must have had someone telling me what to do’ behind me.
I told her I didn’t, but she didn’t believe me and told me she’ll be watching me like an eagle to see if I was fraudulent (changing grades and stuff).
I never did anything to my students, I’m not a cruel person and I didn’t want anyone implying that I wasn’t doing my job as expected (they all got to the next year with scores higher than we would’ve expected beforehand).
But. I started to behave like a beginner student teacher, to my boss only! Asked really stupid questions like ‘how can I make my class quiet? I’m really too uneducated to know so can you please help this teacher out by showing it?’ (knowing fully well that my formerly disruptive class wouldn’t ever listen to her).
I called her for everything; a parent wanting to talk to me, a kid who fell down and needed a bandaid; anything. I made sure to tell her I was too uneducated and inexperienced to handle such a task and I needed to observe a true pro work.
My colleagues got in on it too. They started pointing out everything I wasn’t allowed to do, but expected to do and told my boss that she was being very fraudulent by expecting me to do so.
In the meantime, I was discussing gamification, the need for programming and English in primary school, showing older colleagues new teaching methods, and digital assistance… All the goodies.
After 6 weeks; she was done. She called me to her office and apologized to me for saying that I was too uneducated and inexperienced. And how she was renewing my contract and got some budget to pay for half of my studies.
I was happy to tell her I got a new job that would pay everything to get me my license and I would get full creative freedom, without being watched like an eagle.
This was two years ago. I almost have my license and I still work at that awesome school that hired me, after the allegations of being ‘uneducated and inexperienced’ at my old job. I even got a reward and a trophy from the board for doing exceptional work and obtaining goals with my students.”
4. Fired For Improving Company Documentation? Watch The Chaos Unfold Without It
“At one point in my career I worked for a major telecom. We did tech support for their VoIP product. Their documentation was lacking and I worked in their escalation team. To make things easier for me, I built my own website with screenshots of the interface for their device along with common routers to explain what to do for analysts who called me.
Mostly just to make life easier for me, but it was significantly better than their documentation so many people used it to do their job.
The company has a term-to-perm contract with the union that said if anyone was still employed after 3 years, the company had to make a permanent position available for them.
I was nearing on my 3 years but was already planning to quit to go to college.
One day I came in and was immediately called in to meet with the managers. They pulled the corporate playbook combo move:
- “We did a ‘random’ audit and found you used your computer for personal use.
We are giving you a letter of warning for that. Sign here.”
- “We’re giving you a personal review right now. If you have a letter of warning the highest rating we can issue is ‘needs improvement’ so we’re giving you that rating. Sign here”
- Your contract states if you are needs improvement at any time you can be job completed. This isn’t a termination, we are simply calling your contract complete early. Security will walk you out.”
So after they walked me out, I listened to happy music the whole drive home.
Why, you ask?
Enter malicious compliance:
The documentation I created was on my own website, was not sanctioned by work, and as it was on my own website it had proprietary information that I shouldn’t have. But also their traffic didn’t benefit me as I was no longer employed. So naturally I took the whole website down.
From the start, I had configured the whole site to force refreshes anytime the pages loaded so they couldn’t use cached data. I got calls from my coworkers that night that suddenly the entire department had no idea how to do their job.”
3. Won't Tell The People You Work With That You Changed Your Number? I'll Make You Regret That
“I had just moved to Australia and gotten a new phone, but as it turns out my number was someone else’s old number.
Every other week I’d get calls from a tradie who wanted to know why I wasn’t “on site, mate”, or “what I wanted done with building project ABC…”
Every time I explained at length that they got the wrong number and quite often folks on the other end were absolutely rude or thought I was just being annoying and insisted I answered their questions or show up “on-site, NOW”.
I was over it, so I googled my own number and did some digging and eventually found out the guy who had my number before, then his new number, and then I called him. I politely explained my dilemma, and pointed out that there were two websites still having his old (my now new) number and if he could please change this and let his contacts know about his new number and to delete the old one as it was getting quite tedious for me.
By that time I had used my number for work, visa applications and landlords and friends, and changing it would have been a huge pain. I explained all of that.
Well, of course he was just as pleasant as most of his contacts and told me something along the lines of “I don’t give a crap, mate, that’s not my freaking problem.
Sort your own crap out, mate.”
Well, the universe provides and so I got a great opportunity to do just that only a few weeks later.
I received a call in the early hours of one morning from another disgruntled guy telling me he was early and demanding to know where I wanted the sand put down and how to get in.
I asked what sand and was told he had a full truckload of sand as ordered and no one was on-site and it was all fenced off.
Very briefly did I think about launching into my explanation but I was tired and over it and then realized the opportunity provided, I snapped back at him with no uncertainty: “Mate, it’s all good, dump it all right in the driveway, front of the fence, we’ll sort it out when we get there.”
The guy said: “You sure mate? It’s a lot of sand.” Me: “Absolutely sure mate, thanks a lot.” Him: “Alright then boss,” and hangs up.
Well, I go back to bed, snoozing for another hour with a big smile until my phone rings again and I see it’s old mate with his new number who I had saved when I called him a few weeks ago.
I pick up rather chipper and he doesn’t waste any time launching into a series of swear words and how he has no access to the site and that he has to move a literal tonne of sand by hand and whether or not I told the sand guy to dump it all there.
I replied: “You told me to sort this out myself, this is me sorting this out. You can remove the numbers and let your contacts know or not. Totally up to you. Mate.”
He was fuming, called me a few more choice words, promising to find me, and a lot more before we ended the conversation.
However the numbers disappeared from the internet really quickly after that and I never got another call again, I still have my number and every time I see a truck with sand I chuckle to myself thinking of this guy moving a tonne of sand by hand and losing a fair few hours of labor because he was a jerk and couldn’t be bothered sending a few texts.”
2. Ignoring Compliance Procedures? Prepare For 2000 Issues And A Job Loss
“I work as a compliance officer at a company that needs to prove compliance to a government body and a certifying body.
Our processes are designed in order to create that evidence. When I joined the company, I quickly noticed that the product development teams were not going by the process and were not documenting and generating the required evidence. I went to talk to their manager about it and he told me we are very busy and we will get to it when we can.
I explained to him that this project has been going on for 2 years already and will be done in 14 months, you cannot retroactively go back in time and try to create 2 years’ worth of evidence. He replied, your stuff is not a real issue and I am only concerned if there is a problem with the product.
I explained to him that without this evidence we cannot certify the product and put it on the market. He smirked and said that is your problem now, isn’t it? Do your worst.
I admit a part of me wanted to resign after that conversation to avoid being associated with a potentially bad product or a failure to launch.
Then it hit me. As part of the process we should raise noncompliances as issues in the system. So I went to work. I reviewed all their work and evidence and anything that was wrong or missing I logged an issue against. I raised nearly 2000 issues and have been reporting them to the VP and President of the company.
He came screaming at me and threatened if I don’t stop and put them as tasks for me to complete instead of issues, he will have me fired. I refused.
A week later we were having a meeting with my boss, his boss, the VP, and the president.
He and his boss went on a rant about how I was trying to destroy the project and make us miss our timelines and how I should take ownership of making us compliant. I replied I am just following the processes and regulations but if you really want me to change these issues to tasks I don’t mind but we need to do it the right way.
I went on to explain that they need to submit the change request which will need to be reviewed and approved by a panel. Of course their request will drive changes to our processes, so it will need to go to the governance board. These changes will go against regulations, so we will need to file for an exemption before we implement them.
Assuming we receive it, we will have to update and release all our processes again which we do only in July (this meeting happened in August). After that, I can go change all the issues to tasks. Since I am not working on the product, I will need members of their teams to be freed up over 2 years so I can document the work they failed to document.
This whole thing should take about 2 years. Until then I would have to hold them to the current process, assuming of course we receive the exemption.
My boss, the VP, and president were all chuckling as the other guys’ faces turned red in anger. They started to scream at me but the president stopped them and ordered them to comply and he will personally check it happened.
Since they were riding their teams hard, and committed to aggressive timelines, the team ignored the documentation still, they both got fired and replaced and the president negotiated a different timeline with the customer and paid the late fees.”
1. Denied A Parking Space? We'll Leave Our Mark On The Office Carpet
“Gather round kids; for today I will you the magnificent tale about how our parking space was conquered! For a bit of back story, years ago my husband and I worked for the same company in the same team.
One day, we received the news that our company was going to move to a much bigger building on a whole new construction site. And more good news, on the new site, there was the possibility to get a parking space from the company. This was great news for us because we just bought our own house out of the city so we needed to drive to and from work every day.
Summer came, and we all moved into the new building and made ourselves at home. We asked about getting a parking space and were told that we had to fill out an application and hand it in with HR to get one. The company only had a few spaces, so they were handed out via a first come, first served principle.
Fine with us, we immediately filled out an application and made sure we were one of the first ones to do so.
Days went by and there was no news about our parking space. After two weeks of waiting, we contacted HR ourselves to ask about it.
Imagine our surprise when we heard that we didn’t get a space because apparently, we were too late to hand in our application. We immediately knew this was nonsense, because we filled in ours in the first week of moving in, and we heard through office gossip that there were a few people who got a space that didn’t fill in an application at all.
No surprise that these were the exact same people who were the boss’ favorites. But hey, what is a company without some good old nepotism right?
My husband and I were annoyed. Because we didn’t get a space, we had to find our own parking place every single day.
The closest place to park near our building was on a nearby construction site. It was loud, dusty because construction workers were always working and we had to walk for ten minutes on a busy and dangerous road just to get to our office. We complained about this situation to our team lead multiple times, but her answer was always that there was nothing she could do.
One day when we came in a little late, the road we always walked on was blocked and we had to make a detour, we got an earful from her for being late and we just had enough. We told her about first having to find a place to park, then having to walk in the mud to our office and we said that we wanted a parking space.
Our team lead exploded at us. “It’s a bit of mud, deal with it! I don’t wanna hear another word about it!” Then we looked at each other and thought “fine!” We knew we would have our revenge.
Summer came and went and a few weeks later, the beginning of autumn announced itself.
In our country, the beginning of autumn is usually accompanied by heavy winds, colder weather, and lots of rain. One particular Monday we went to work and knew that was our moment. It had started to rain Saturday morning and it didn’t stop until Sunday night.
When we arrived at our usual construction site, we knew we hit the jackpot. The rain had turned the entire site into a wonderful mudfest. We got out of the car and sank immediately ankle-deep in thick, brown mud. But hey, we had a job to do, so we walked our way across the mud onto our office.
Our shoes were soaking wet and completely covered with sticky mud when we walked into the building. To make matters worse, we decided that we had to go to the bathroom and then to the break room before we sat down on our desks. The expensive, brand new, royal blue carpet that was only in place for a few months was completely covered with muddy shoe prints!
It was enough to make Hansel and Gretel jealous.
We logged in like usual until our team lead arrived. She made a noise and a movement as if she was having a heart attack, a brain aneurysm, and a stroke all at the same time.
She stormed to our desks and began yelling “What on earth did you do to the carpet?!” We calmly explained that it had rained and everything outside was muddy. And since we had no parking space, we had no choice but to drag through the mud.
She weakly protested “But, but, but look at the carpet! The boss will be furious!” Me and hubby looked at each other and said “It’s just a bit of mud. You told us to deal with the situation, so we did.” She stared at us for a few moments, opened and closed her mouth, and was desperately thinking of something to say to us.
Finally, she just let out a frustrated “Aaaagh!” and walked away.
We just started working and didn’t see her until late in the afternoon. We did apologize to the cleaning crew who had to clean this whole mess. It wasn’t their fault that they got dragged into this but they had to deal with the consequences.
Later that day, my husband got an email from HR saying that they took another look at the parking situation, and lo and behold, he was assigned a parking space after all. Gee, I wonder what changed their minds?”
Metaspoon Slow or Crashing?
If Metaspoon is causing your browser to crash or run slowly, please try viewing the article in Lite Mode and it should run more smoothly!