Sometimes no matter how much you try to convince someone something, they’re too stuck on proving that they’re the one who is correct in the situation to even consider what you have to say.
For example, there was a time years ago where I tried to prove to a friend that her boyfriend was not a good person and that she should consider breaking up with him, only for her to think I’m either simply trying to ruin the relationship they have or that I’m misreading her boyfriend and his intentions entirely. Sure enough, they ended up breaking up about a month later for the exact reason I was trying to point out to her. At that point, I got the, “You were right…” speech, but I knew deep in my heart that if she got another crummy boyfriend, and I gave her a warning about him, she’d do the same thing again: ignore me and accuse me of having foul intentions for even suggesting the break-up.
It’s times like these where I wish people would just listen. Like, if you open your ears and consider my perspective for one moment, maybe you wouldn’t end up in a bad situation, but, hey, what can I really do? Nothing but comply and wait until you find out the hard way.
Speaking of complying, I have some juicy malicious compliance stories below. Some people just don’t want to listen, and others, well, they simply think they’re always right, but they end up getting slapped with payback in response to prove that they’re actually wrong!
22. Wanted A Pound Of Wings? Sure, We’ll Reweigh Them
Pixabay
They could’ve brought the scale to the customer to weigh them in front of them to prove that they actually did get more than a pound of wings, but instead, they decided to simply give them exactly one pound of wings just like they asked.
“I worked as a cook at a chain restaurant that had a ‘wing night’ where you could get a pound of wings at a discounted price.
We didn’t actually weigh the wings; our specs said eight wings to a pound. Four drums and four flats.
One night, a table comes in, and everyone orders a pound of wings.
A little while after the wings go out, the server comes back a little flustered and explains there has been a complaint.
Apparently, one of the guys at the table complained that it was ‘obvious’ that he didn’t get a pound because it would be a huge coincidence if everyone’s pounds led to the same number of wings on each plate.
He insisted that the server go and weigh these (already discounted) wings to make sure he was “getting what he paid for.”
So, we weighed it. Sure enough, it was not a pound. It was a pound and a half. We tell the server to bring it out and tell him he’s getting more than a pound.
She says, “**** no. He paid for a pound; he’s going to ‘get what he paid for'” and threw two of his wings in the garbage and re-weighed the food. Still over. Throws another one out. Bang on 1 pound of wings.
So, she brings back out his 5 wings and calmly tells the gentleman, “Here are your wings, Sir.
You were right; there was more than a pound there. So, we threw the other ones out. Good catch.”
When they ordered a second round, he didn’t complain that everyone got 8 wings to a ‘pound.'” advocatus_ebrius_est
21. Want Me To Write An E-mail? I Will, But I Can’t Promise It’ll Be Good
Pixabay
“I am currently an executive for a large bank.
My job is to manage the accounts for businesses that have an existing relationship with the bank. Specifically, I manage the Credit Card Processing side, AKA Merchant Services.
About 6 years ago, there was a huge uproar within the organization about a new position opening up (the executive position mentioned previously). It would be a new team with amazing pay, flexible hours, and above all actual authority to make business decisions.
It was a big deal. So, naturally, I applied. It would be a huge step up from my (then) job of managing escalations for the senior directors.
Fast forward a bit, and I’m hired. I join the team in October, a few months after the team was started. So, 10 or so people had already started working with their assigned customers.
I strangely was not given any accounts to manage. Instead, they decided to give me training modules to complete to get me “up to speed.” I’m cool with that. I figured it was a difficult job, so it made sense at the time.
Well, I complete the silly modules in a few days and decide to walk to the manager to ask what he would like me to do.
This is when I discovered this department was a cluster ***.* The manager informs me that those modules were all of the work that they could assign to me. They had already assigned all of the portfolios of customers for the year, and I would not be getting to manage customers until the new portfolios were approved.
Having come from a world where everything is literally a dumpster fire emergency, I am confused. I assumed that I would be fired or something. Nope. My manager told me that I would be allowed to “assist” the other executives with their customers should the need arise. Not a single soul asked me for assistance, understandable since they were all trying to make the appearance that they were capable.
So, every day I would sit at my cubicle, with my feet on my desk, watching movies, reading books, and browsing Reddit. It was an unbelievably great way to support my family, literally a dream job.
I feel like I need to add that I did not receive the portfolio to manage until March.
******* MARCH. Six months of me entertaining myself on the company dime. I’m not going to lie, it was wonderful.
Anyway, I finally get to do my job, which I am extremely excited about. My first order of business was to reach out to my customers and the team of merchant services reps that previously assisted the customers to basically let them know that there was a new sheriff in town.
Not a single rep took me seriously. They knew nothing about my position or the responsibilities of my job. They assumed that I was just a support member that they could dump their problems on. It was a mess, and our management team did nothing to smooth over our role to the reps or their higher-ups.
A day or two into the job, I am added to an enormous email chain with a customer, their accountant, several directors, and a VP of a partner banking channel. The long and short of it is that the customer was upset about the rates that we were charging them. I reviewed the pricing and offered a very appropriate alternative to their current pricing schedule.
It was a small change to be sure, but it would have saved them in the neighborhood of $20k per year. My first mistake was assuming that the directors and VP on the chain understood that it was my call to make. My manager immediately gets a call from that VP ranting about my email.
My manager comes to my desk (breathing heavily) asking me about the email. I explain what I was doing. I was 100% in the right, and my manager agreed. It was a good business decision, but the VP felt that they would get to set the pricing as it had always been done in the past.
He wanted to gut our rates so that we made little to nothing on the customer. Well, I didn’t work for his channel, and I refused to gut it. He wanted to gut the pricing on our side because that’s not where he made his money. He made money on the banking side.
He was forcibly trying to ruin my take to protect his own. My manager is in hot water, so he insists that he tell me what to write for the remainder of the chain. I do not like to be babysat. I’ve never really experienced working for this guy before, so I felt it was a good time to test the waters.
While the peter measuring contest is going on between the manager/VP, the customer fires back in an email that she completely agrees to the new terms. However, she also requires that we refund her the difference in fees for the last 3 years. Due to my manager’s order, I let him dictate what I am going to write.
This is where the malicious compliance comes in.
He tells me to write that we can change her rates to the new pricing, or we can refund her the difference of fees. She cannot have both. For those of you in the know, this is an extremely bad move. For those of you that don’t know, it is not a good business practice to give your customer an ultimatum if you want to keep them.
In this situation, the customer holds all of the cards.
I still have the email to show off in the office. I am going to cut out the personal details. Here is the email. I made sure to add the first bit myself. My manager’s part starts at, “You are entitled..” I write EXACTLY what he says.
Keep in mind everyone and their mother is copied on this email.
“Thank you for your email, [Customer name]. I have reviewed your request with my leadership, [manager name]. We appreciate the opportunity that you have given us to retain your business. You are entitled to the rate change or the refund. At this time, we are not prepared to grant you both of these things.
We can get you the numbers on the savings if that would help. We feel that your request is unfair to our business. It is with a heavy heart, we decline. [VP name], [manager name] said he got your voicemail. He said he’ll call you back after we are done with this deal.”
Sent.
I have never in my life sent such a disrespectful email like that.
I was awestruck that someone like this was able to crawl his way up to such a position in the company. My first real experience with this guy was a living **** show. It sickens me to know that at the bottom of this email was MY name. To someone on the outside, it would look like I was the dumbest person in the world.
Now for the fallout. I still don’t know the exact details of what happened after the email was sent that day. I was not added back to the email chain. The very next day, I was invited to a conference room with 6-7 people. The only people I knew there, at that time, were my manager and the manager of our sister team.
I was greeted by one of the people. She was smiling and very friendly. She asked me if I knew who she was. I said no. She sat on the table and said that she was the Senior VP of sales for my bank. At the time, we rolled up to her.
She was the head honcho (My boss’s boss’s boss). She had flown from our headquarters, literally across the country, just for this meeting.
She seemed like a very nice person (she was not) but it was unnerving how all she would do is ask questions. She held up her hand and shushed me anytime I tried to say anything outside of answering her questions.
I was there for a while, and I was nervous, so I don’t remember all of the questions. The big ones were: “How do you like your job?” which scared me. And, “Why did you feel it was appropriate to email a customer a rude email?” This one turned the tables in the room.
I told her that the email was completely inappropriate. “Then why did you sent it?” I told her I was asked to send the email by my manager and then was allowed to explain my side of things. It was dead silent in that room even after I finished speaking. After some time, she asked me to leave the room.
I sat at my desk for a good two hours working when one of my teammates told me that I was needed back in the conference room. This time, it was just the manager of my sister team and the senior VP there. This time, the manager of the sister team did all of the talking.
He said that the customer that I was emailing is pulling their account not just from us but from our banking partner as well. He explained how much money they made the bank through the partnership. I don’t have access to the other banking systems, just the merchant services side. I was shocked to learn that they had tons of loans, business accounts, and stuff I had never even heard of.
It was part of a very large organization that spanned several different sectors. The person that I had emailed was the decision-maker. He didn’t give me an exact number but said we had just lost millions of dollars in annual revenue. I was certain that I was going to be fired.
Instead, he lectured me on the importance of diligence and other corporate mumbo-jumbo.
A few extra details: I later found out that one of the people in the room was my HR rep. He was there because they were indeed going to fire me, up until I had explained what happened. Also, my manager didn’t get fired.
Miraculously, he is still my manager to this day. He did leave the office for the day which probably means that he was grilled pretty hard. He is not a good manager but he is genuinely a good person.” NoFortunateOne
20. You Said You Wanted Everything On Your Potato
Pixabay
“I was once a really angsty teen working my first job at Wendy’s.
Malicious compliance was sometimes how I got through my workday.
One thing I was recently remembering was how ridiculous people used to get over baked potatoes. Now, don’t get me wrong, I did and still really like the fact that Wendy’s offers baked potatoes as a side as an alternative to french fries.
I’ve never been a huge fan of fries, so I used to eat baked potatoes all the time when I was there.
Ordering a baked potato should be a really easy task. On the menu, there were three options at the time: a sour cream and chive potato (the cheapest option, 99 cents at the time), as well as a bacon and cheese potato and a broccoli and cheese potato was also available for all potatoes, and we were more than willing to mix and match ingredients for all potatoes, sometimes for a little extra price depending on what the person wanted on it.
This sounds simple enough, but there were a number of people who would come through and ask for a “potato with everything” or a “works potato.” (I think they got this idea from Arby’s, who did have an item called a “works potato” at the time, but they didn’t have broccoli as an option.) Since there was not a menu item called works potato or a potato with everything, we usually tried to confirm with the customer what they actually wanted on their potato to ensure there was no whining and complaining about what the customer actually got.
Most of the time, people were reasonable and confirmed what they wanted, often finding out there was, indeed, an ingredient they didn’t want. A few crazy souls really did want it all.
But every once in a while, I got a real jerk who talked to me like I was an idiot for daring to confirm what they wanted on their potato.
These people took up a lot more time than was really necessary and made my job just a little more miserable.
I remember one night, I had a Karen in the drive-thru who was being an exceptional jerk and absolutely refused to have a conversation about what she wanted on her potato with everything.
“I want a potato with everything!” she screeched. “What do you not understand about that! I want EVERYTHING you can put on a potato!”
*CUE MALICIOUS COMPLIANCE!*
What most people didn’t know at the time was that we had a secret menu item called the chili and cheese baked potato. (I think it since became a regular menu item, so more people probably know about it today.) Very few people ordered it, and most people certainly did not mix and match it with most other ingredients.
After all, chili over top of broccoli is really, really gross.
But this woman said she wanted everything we can put on a potato! So, I rang her up for a chili and cheese baked potato and added on sour cream, butter, broccoli, bacon, chives, and shredded cheese. (The cheese that came with it was melted.) It came out to like $6, which was a lot in the late 1990s for a single baked potato!
My sandwich maker got wide-eyed and asked if I was sure.
I told her the woman insisted she wanted everything we could put on a potato! The sandwich maker makes the potato, and it’s got so many ingredients on it that she has to force the lid closed on it. It looks and smells gross, but we bag it up, take the woman’s money, and give her the bag.
She comes inside with her potato, puts it on the counter, and asks, “WHAT IS THIS!”
“It’s a potato with everything we can put on it, ma’am!”
“This isn’t what I wanted,” she screeches. “I wanted a bacon and cheese potato with sour cream and butter!”
“Sorry, ma’am, but I tried to confirm with you what you wanted, and you insisted you wanted a potato with EVERYTHING we could put on it!”
“No, that’s not what I wanted! Make me a bacon and cheese potato!”
My manager eventually came up and had the sandwich maker give her what she wanted, but the woman was so wrapped up in getting the potato she wanted, she didn’t realize she paid about $3.50 more for it than she had to due to the chili, broccoli, and shredded cheese, so guess who didn’t get a refund for the extra money she paid?” Throwaway39981
19. Think I’m Bluffing With My Notice? You Do You; Not My Problem!
Pixabay
“I was a Dispatcher for a Plumbing/HVAC/Basement Waterproofing company, but I was more of a coordinator.
I handled customer bookings, scheduling, some parts ordering, dispatching, etc. As I used to say, “I have more hats than a hat rack.”
Now my techs had their own tools, and I did my work on the computer. I kept bugging the boss for a better computer, and he never got me one, so I built a system at my own expense and brought it into the office.
My techs had “personal tools,” so this was mine. As a matter of fact, 10 years later, it’s the system I am typing on now. It has a 4-core processor and a graphics card capable of supporting 4 monitors. To give you a better idea of how long ago this was, I paid $350 for a 60gig SSD.
I used 1 monitor for the Dispatch software, one monitor for Google Maps with traffic overlay, one monitor for Outlook, and one monitor for QuickBooks to issue invoices and purchase orders.
When I gave notice, my boss, the owner, and I agreed on 3 weeks’ notice as an exit strategy. Unknown to me, the owner was convinced I was bluffing and was just hunting for a raise.
He refused to hire a replacement. My boss was more of a Field Supervisor; the owner handled the office and Admin.
Finally, the DAY BEFORE my last day, at 2 pm, I was introduced to the new hire. Seriously? You intend to have me train a guy for a complicated pivotal role in a few hours?
I was on a 44-hour schedule: 10 hours Mon-Thursday, and Friday, I was off at 11 am.
I said my goodbyes, and at 11 am, began dismantling my computer. The first thing I did was format the hard drive, as I told them I was going to do. Fortunately for them, the data was all backed up on the server…except for what had transpired that morning, despite my repeated warnings to trigger a backup into the server at 11 am.
The owner came out in a bit of a panic when he saw me taking apart the computer, as he had forgotten that it was me that owned it, and now his Dispatch station had no computer. He asked if I could leave the computer behind, and I declined. He set my replacement up on an unused, antique computer in a cubicle.
It had a ******* CRT monitor and was slow as molasses. The job was hard enough with 4 screens; I can’t imagine doing it with one.
This guy wasn’t a dummy, but there’s no way I could have trained him in a few hours. He had the bare-bones of the processes, and that’s it.
By noon, I was out the door.
My boss spent the remainder of the day and most of the next week in the field, leaving the owner to deal with the fallout, and it was legendary. Nobody could handle it. The replacement quit, just never showed up on Tuesday, and nobody else in the office could do what I was doing.
He dumped PO generation into Accounting, which p*ssed them off with the extra workload. He tried to handle scheduling and dispatching himself and p*ssed off a lot of the techs. He stuck one of the CSRs into training for the role, and she wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier. The best part? I used to handle after-hours on-call, and since there was nobody with enough experience, the owner had to answer his phone at all hours of the night, 7 days a week.
That’s when the exodus started. Over the next few weeks, many of the good techs bailed, and jobs were screwed up. I heard that he had 2 basement waterproofing jobs, each worth 5 figures, double-booked. The company hit the wall, hard.
How do I know? About 3 years ago, I reached out to my boss on Linkedin, and he had moved on to another employer.
He offered me a job, and I took it. We get along famously, and he has told me all kinds of stories about the **** that hit the fan when I left.
…and all they had to do was buy a new computer, and give me enough time to get the new guy in the groove.” balles_de_acier
18. Get Annoyed With Me Asking For More Shifts? Good Luck On Weekends
Pixabay
Asking for more shifts shouldn’t be a crime.
“My story happened about 10 years ago.
I work in an office and, at the time, I was the new guy who only worked part-time, taking shifts here and there when needed. I could do pretty much anything and did it well but often had to ask around for extra shifts to make ends meet.
One day, our supervisor went on short term disability leave after an accident, and an assistant, let’s call her Brenda, took over the job, which included the scheduling duties. Brenda was easily overwhelmed, and we believe that she was too proud to admit that she needed help. She had to plan the schedule for 5 teams, and I’d often tell her that I’d be available for more shifts to cover X or Y, as the slots were clearly empty.
She was always pretty dismissive, and most times, I’d end up not working more. People tried to work around her mishaps, so there was never any direct impact on the overall production.
One time, I noticed that a lone position on the weekend (that nobody wants to do when that person lady was sick/away), was not being backfilled, even though it was essential to have someone in that chair.
Hoping for extra shifts, I sent Brenda a casual email to bring to her attention the fact that the shift was not filled and if she had plans for that yet. Her response was an extra-long email on work ethics and respect for my colleagues’ time, that I’m new here, that I should learn my place, to stop begging for extra shifts all the time, and that she had nothing else for me that week.
Duly noted, ma’am.
Cue malicious compliance: My last day at the office that week was Wednesday, and I knew that the shift had still not been filled. When I left, I wished everyone a nice weekend, including Brenda, “See you next week!” It’s important to mention that I was on-call. They couldn’t just put me on the schedule and expect me to show up.
They’d have to confirm with me beforehand.
I got many many calls on Saturday, about 30 minutes after the beginning of that shift that was not being covered, asking where I was, why I wasn’t in, that error alerts were being sent ALL OVER THE COUNTRY because nobody was there to do the job.
I told the weekend manager that I was out of town, as I wasn’t on the schedule when I left on Wednesday. They’d need to take it up with Brenda.
Monday morning, I was called into a senior manager’s office. I was told that they were giving me a written warning because I didn’t show up to work that weekend, and it caused a lot of trouble for other managers.
I pulled the email thread and was able to prove that I warned Brenda that a shift was not being filled, that I would be available if needed, but that Brenda made it clear she didn’t need me. They then checked the log to see when the schedule was last changed, and yup, Friday afternoon, long after I was gone.
I made it clear that she made no attempt to try to contact me. The senior manager apologized, and I was able to return to work.
I don’t believe Brenda was specifically punished (as we’re all allowed mistakes. It happens), but she was eventually demoted. She retired probably a year after the incident.
I ended up being promoted to full-time shortly after, and as it turns out, 10 years later, I’m now office supervisor, doing a much better job at managing schedules!” Dargad082
17. Wanna Play By The Rules? I’ll Follow The Rules To The Letter
Pixabay
“I used to work at a group home for developmentally disabled adults.
I had just gotten my AMAP certification, Authorized Medication Administration Personnel. It meant I was licensed to give prescription ***** to the residents. That’s all.
The MedEx or Medical Logbook had very strict protocols under AMAP. If the book said “Penicillin,” and the bottle said, “Amoxicillin,” you could not administer the drug, PERIOD – they HAD to match; that was all there was to it.
I came to work an hour early as my house had very low functioning individuals who were on a lot of medications. I wanted to familiarize myself with the MedEx BEFORE they got home. I was afraid there would be so much work to do that I wouldn’t be fast enough, and I wanted to be sure this was done.
Some of these medications are critical: anti-seizure medications, anti-psychotic medications, behavior modification medication. Some of them the clients would DIE if they didn’t get them.
Well, I’m sure you guessed it – there were errors in the book for every single resident.
I went to my supervisor, who immediately began screaming at me.
She started saying crazy things like I was trying to memorize the MedEx or that I was uncomfortable delivering meds. I didn’t know better than to try to reason with a crazy person at the time, so I tried to explain. This was not a little thing – in class, they drilled it into us again, and again, and again.
The supervisor fired me.
I went to the main offices. At first, I was going to meet with the director of the entire facility, but then suddenly, that changed, and I got an underling.
I was assured this would be taken care of and to just go home and wait.
About a week later, I was called back in, made to answer questions, then sent home again, suspended.
They whined at me about “following the rules.”
I could not help myself. “OH, so you want to follow the RULES now. Okay, we’ll follow the rules.”
I went home and sent a certified letter, asking where my paycheck was. I received a letter back saying that since I was not working, I would not be paid – duh.
I sent another certified letter. “Oh, no no NO – you see, page 5, section 2 of the employee RULES handbook says that any employee who is suspended still gets paid for their regular hours.”
I received a paycheck, but then I sent in Another certified letter. “No no NO, you see I’m AMAP certified now, that entitles me to a raise of 25 cents an hour, effective immediately upon completion of the course.”
They got tired of paying me and called me to come into the main office.
I knew what it was about, but I tried to get them to SAY it over the phone, (the job wasn’t exactly down the block), but they refused.
I told them I was unavailable that day and made them wait a few days. They were p*ssed because they’d have to pay me more.
I came in, and I was fired.
“What about the MedEx?” “That’s not your concern.”
They thought that was the end of it. WRONG.
I got dressed up in my suit and tie and physically WENT to what was called the NYS OMRDD at the time, the state regulatory office: New York State Office of Developmental Disability.
(I forget what it’s called now).
I handed them a notarized statement saying, in detail, everything that had happened, touching only briefly on my firing, focusing mainly on alllllllll the errors in the MedEx.
They.
Were.
FURIOUS.
They went for an immediate surprise onsite inspection.
AND it turns out that the manager, assistant manager, and several of her cronies had ALL been AMAP certified and had ALL been in violation for not following proper protocols AND for administering medication they had not literally been authorized to administer.
They were all fired (criminal charges were not pursued as, like I said, had they not administered the medications, had they gotten the doctors on the phone, etc., people might have died), and the company was fined a LOT.” thedavecorp
16. Want To Talk To Anybody But Me? Sure Thing
Pixabay
Well, you said anybody…
“About three years back, I worked at a call center that was contracted to a certain three-letter mobile company that reminds me of my favorite Star Wars vehicle, the At-At Walker.
I was actually a team lead/supervisor, but the queue was high, so I jumped on the phone to help. The first call was someone who was either driving with her windows down or sitting behind a jet. She was having issues with one service or another that we offered. We always start calls the same way, “Thanks for calling At-At! My name is Mikeh.
May I get your name, please?” She just starts spouting her issue, completely ignoring what I said, very common.
After hearing her out as best I could, I reassure her I understand what she is dealing with and should be able to clear it up fairly fast; we just need to authenticate the account, so I can actually make changes.
She says she spoke to someone before me, and they already authenticated, so why should she have to do it again!?! God forbid you have to give out the 4 digit pin you set up exactly for this situation. It turned into a huge deal to her. “I am driving. I don’t have time for this ***.
Get me your supervisor.”
OhBoyHereWeGo.
“Maam, I actually am a supervisor just doing some phone time to help clear our queue. If there are any issues, I am the one to clear it up.”
Her – “No. You get me your supervisor.”
Any time there are escalations on a supervisor, we would just go grab another team leader at the same level to go on and likely repeat exactly what we just told the customer; however, because she wasn’t authenticated in, no one was going to take the call.
After about two minutes, I pop back in and try once again to explain I am wanting to help! I told her if she didn’t want to give her pin, I can send a text with a code in it to one of the numbers on the account just so we can get through this one d*mn page.
I did not expect her response.
“Excuse me! You do not have permission to send anything to my phone. I did not tell you that you could do something like that! You know what?! You are a stupid b*stard. I want to speak to anyone other than your stupid a**.”
I really weighed my choices on this and said, “I will be happy to do that to you.” I put her on hold, and after about 4 minutes, muted my phone and took her off for about 20 seconds, then put her back on hold another three minutes.
I pulled up my company directory, picked an affiliate company phone number, and hit transfer. I stayed on the line long enough to hear the other line get answered, “Thank you for calling McDonald’s corporate headquarters!” And just dropped the line.
I downloaded that call and turned her insult into my text tone, probably the most satisfying thing to ever happen for me at that job.
15. Think The Test Curve Is Unfair? You Can Be Exempt From It
Pixabay
I’ve always appreciated test curves personally, so…
“This is technically not my story, as I was a fellow student in the class, but I’m sharing it anyway. ALSO, this takes place in the USA, so the system may be a tad different!!
My 10th-grade math teacher was amazing and consistently went above and beyond for his students.
One example was his grading policy for tests.
How it would work was, we would take the test, and there would never be any partial credit. Any wrong answer or work shown that was incorrect would result in 0 points for that question. This may seem harsh, but then around a week later, we would have a retake and be allowed to redo all the questions we got wrong (they would be different questions but the same concepts).
For every correct answer, we would receive a certain number of percentage points back. Most importantly, it would always work out so that the bottom line was, even if you got a 0 on the original test, if you aced the retake, you could still get a 60% and pass. This teacher worked hard to ensure the curve was correct and fair for each test, and everyone in his classes generally liked this system as it not only boosted your grades, it also provided a chance to learn the concepts again and have a second chance.
Here comes the malicious compliance.
In our class, we had a stereotypical, disrespectful, entitled student who didn’t pay attention in class and was rude to the teachers. Nobody really liked him other than his group of friends, who found his backtalk and intentional flippancy hilarious. One particular test, everyone did terribly. The curve was calculated, and after the retake, the class average on this test went from around a 65% to an 85%.
Everyone was happy.
Except, apparently the above-mentioned entitled student didn’t study, and his grade was something in the 60s range, (by the way, still passing). Unfortunately, our overall grades were heavily weighted with test scores, so that meant his average significantly went down.
He wanted a third retake, and then after being refused, blew it out of proportion and brought his parents into the equation.
They obviously were told a different story and took his side. Nobody quite knows how the conversation went, but it eventually got to the argument of “your grading system is unfair and discriminatory” (he was the only math teacher that used it, but the average grades of his students were only slightly higher, and everyone agreed it was because he taught higher level classes).
There were threats of taking this to the Board of Education, and eventually, the school and the parents came upon an agreement.
Don’t like how you were graded? Then you will be exempt from the curve and will be graded with partial credit on the original test for the rest of the year.
The teacher only taught AP and Honors/High Honors level classes. The tests we received were harder by principle.
For the next two months, the entitled student struggled through the class and was moved to a lower level class after failing. He now cannot take any AP math class in 11th grade (there’s a policy about your grades in the previous class to take it).
If you have gone to high school in the USA, you know how important AP and high-level courses are junior year.” 24chocolates
14. You Want Hot Sauce? Hope You’re Prepared For A Super Spicy Bite
Pixabay
“Back in 2011, I used to work at a hot dog and burger joint on the graveyard shift.
It was a chill job from midnight to 6, but after 6, we’d had a lot of drunk and disorderly, upper-class living off their dad’s riches type customers come in for a quick snack after the nightclubs close.
Most of the nights were fine, as most of the customers were on the chill side of drunk at that hour.
This one time just after closing, three guys and a girl want to come in, but we’ve had closed entry already. I explain this to the quartet of jerks, and of course, they want in no matter what. I’m literally forced to guard the door while my coworker takes care of the last orders.
15 minutes have passed, and they won’t leave. I’m starting to get angry because they’ve been badgering me this entire time, calling me names and whatnot. Anyway, I put my foot down and loudly and clearly explain that they’re not gonna get anything and to go away, or I’d call the cops.
Cue one of the guys who sucker punches me, while the 2 others and the girl start stealing things from the outside eating area and running to their car. I didn’t have my phone with me, so I sound the alarm of the store which automatically calls the cops. By the time cops showed up, they were long gone.
The next day, I’m working the same shift, and just after midnight, this guy shows up. Apparently, he’d been at the store when the incident happened. Since he’s a piece of ***,* he starts mocking me about it, how I got punched and had to call the cops, how my work clothes were ***,* and some other garbage.
I’m not fazed by idiots like this anymore, so I don’t respond with aggression. He then commits a grave mistake: orders a hotdog with hot sauce.
I could only smile. I get a hotdog and start pouring so much hot sauce on that.
I give it to him with a smile. He takes a bite.
Instantly realizes his mistake as his face is turning very red. Now keep in mind, this isn’t a franchise store; he can’t complain to a manager or write up a complaint at HQ, nor ask me to remake it because it’s not to his liking. He did ask for a glass of water, which I of course denied as stores aren’t mandated to, and he was a big-time jerk.
I offered the alternatives: pay for a soda or go drink tap water out of the bathroom sink. He threw the hotdog in the garbage and rushed off to the bathroom.
The bathroom is outside the store, like a gas station bathroom, so I didn’t see him when he left.
“This happened today while I was at work. I work at a gas station that has a pretty good pizza place in it and tonight I was working pretty much alone getting hammered with orders coming in nonstop.
About halfway through my rush, an online order comes through and almost immediately the phone rings.
I drop what I’m doing and go answer expecting another order, but it was just a customer (let’s call her Karen) wanting to confirm that her online order had come through.
I asked the name and confirmed the order with the Karen. It was one large all meat pizza, and I very specifically remember confirming this because she said that was correct, and she would be using a coupon for it.
I didn’t really think anything of it and went back to work making the pies.
Jump ahead about an hour toward the end of the rush and the phone rings, I again prepare to take another order but instead am greeted by an angry customer saying that I messed up their pizza.
I apologized and asked for the name so that I could look up the order and she says Karen. It has not been that long, and I remember the name saying absent-minded ‘oh yeah, I remember the order. You called to confirm and I remember we agreed the order was correct.’
Karen: ‘Well the order I put in was for all meat but I wanted it with only double pepperoni on one half and only cheese on the other half.’
Me: ‘Ok, let me just pull up the record and we can get this sorted out for you.’
Karen: ‘The only way to sort it out is for you to make me what I ordered.’
By this time, I had the order slip pulled up on the screen and could clearly see that there were no special instructions but was not really looking forward to telling that to Karen.
So, I politely ask if she would mind holding while I talk with my manager to solve the issue, and she agrees.
I head over to the manager’s office and explain the situation to her. She is a very easy going person, and I love working for her because she will almost always just tell us to use our best judgment (the pizza here is super overpriced, and the profit margin for a single pie is somewhere around 400%).
She said to just make whatever she wants, and I agreed.
Back on the phone, I tell Karen that I would be happy to make the correct order for her and asked her exactly what she wanted.
She said it exactly like this. ‘I want a large hand-tossed crust with only double pepperoni on one half and only cheese on the other half.’ I repeated exactly what she said and was told yes, that it was correct.
I tell Karen to give me 15 minutes, and she could pick up her pizza.
Here is where the malicious compliance comes into play. I make exactly what she ordered. I rolled out the large crust, tossed it out to a large size, put it in a pan, added a layer of pepperoni on one half then put cheese over the other half.
I’m sure most of you know how a pizza is prepared and can tell that there was a skipped step in there. You know, pizza sauce. Karen did not ask for the sauce on the pizza, and I made sure that I let my manager know that I made exactly what she ordered to help cover my backside when she called in to complain.
When Karen came to pick up her pizza, I had my manager take it out to her and ask her if the order was correct reading from the slip: large hand-tossed crust with only double pepperoni on one half and only cheese on the other half.
Karen smiled and said yes, then took the pie and left.
Jump to the end of my shift, and my manager let me know that Karen had called in to demand a refund for her pizza because it had no sauce and was dry. The manager refused because she went over the order with Karen before she left with the pizza and told her she got exactly what she ordered.” kiethfromtmb
Another User Comments:
“This reminds me of a time when I ordered a salad from Subway online using one of the delivery services.
I like only lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers on the salad, but there was no option for lettuce. So, I selected tomatoes and cucumbers thinking obviously they’re going to add lettuce, right? I mean it’s practically the main ingredient!
Nope, they sent a salad with only tomatoes and cucumbers. And it was already late at night, so by the time I got the delivery, they had already closed.
That was the last time I ordered from Subway. Jared, if you’re reading this, **** you.
Edit: It was more of a lol moment. And I didn’t order from Subway again because until they don’t fix the menu in the delivery service, I’m not taking that chance. Still like the roasted chicken salad though.” nikhilbhavsar
12. Can’t Wear Headphones While Listening To Music? You’ll Hate What I’m Gonna Play
Pixabay
“My dad is a SCARY driver when he wants to be.
He always goes extremely fast on the roads but never insane, just enough to get the thrill… and NOT crash us and get an earful from Mom (Mom can lecture us without us even REALIZING it. SHE’S the head of the house despite Dad being the older and bigger boy, as well as a little old fashioned.
We love and RESPECT her!).
Also, my dad’s got a thing about technology. He doesn’t like us having any earphones in when HE’S driving, even if we’re not talking, and he’s got his SIRUS radio cranked up.
It was two weeks ago that I got a bit of payback. And to note, I am a 20+ female.
To make a long story short, my dad was driving me to another city to pick up my laptop from repairs (the battery needed replacing and was under a three-year warranty, but only a store in another city actually had battery replacements for the laptop model ’cause, of course, what’s been going on in the world lately)… and his radio was broken.
So, the ride was silent, me sitting twitchy from boredom. And the cherry on top? We were in a heavy traffic jam. As in, bumper to LITERAL bumper.
Eventually, Dad got fed up with my twitching and told me to stop. I told him that I’m bored. Dad told me t**********o******* up.
I retorted that I’ve been holding it in for the past half hour.
We went back and forth until Dad finally told me, “Fine! You can put your music on! But NO headphones.”
I scoffed but pulled out my phone. As I scrolled through my playlist, I saw a song, and an idea hit me.
The perfect way to get some payback… AND not get in trouble since I was doing as he told me to!
So, I hit play, volume turned up… and Girls Are Always Right by G.R.L started rocking out. I was bobbing my head, grinning, and Dad was doing his best to stay stoic in the driver’s seat.
I did see his fists clench the steering wheel as the chorus played out:
Boy, why you trying to fight?
Get this straight tonight
Girls are always, girls are always right, yeah
Boy, one day you will cry and wish for you and I
Girls are always, girls are always right, yeah
Oh, that was AWESOME.
I rocked out for that 3:30 minutes to the song, watching my dad work to keep his temper in check out of the corner of my eye as I rocked out.
But, since he gave me permission to listen to my music without headphones, he couldn’t say anything against that. And because of the traffic jam, he couldn’t even do any crazy driving to scare me!
Then, the icing on this revenge cake. The song ended, and I saw Dad relax… and then he TWITCHED as it started playing again.
I had stuck the song on repeat!
The next twenty-so minutes, I rocked out to Girls Are Always Right until my dad politely (if tensely, his teeth were GROUND) asked me if I could change the song.
Grinning, I obliged… and put on Power by Little Mix. Oh, how he TWITCHED hearing the lyrics!
Baby, you’re the man
But I got the, I got the, I got the power
You make rain
But I’ll make it, I’ll make it, I’ll make it shower
You should know, I’m the one who’s in control
I’ll let you come take the wheel, long as you don’t forget
Who got the power?
I got the, I got the power
I got the, I got the power
I got the, I got the power
Hold up!
Needless to say, for the next hour as we worked through the traffic jam and even after as we drove to the shop, I BLASTED female-empowering music from my phone.
Dad was SEVERELY twitching by the time we got to the store, and I could tell he was FIGHTING not to lose it.
As I put my mask on before walking in after exiting the car, I heard a SERIES of swears explode from Dad from inside the car. It. Was. GLORIOUS.
He even slammed a fist on the horn!
And the best part of all this petty revenge? On the way back, I was allowed to wear my headphones… and he SAW as I listened to relaxing/epic music by Audiomachine.
He has NEVER asked me to not wear headphones when he’s driving since!” EpicWinterWolf
11. New Girl Says All Questions Go To Her Only, So I Make It Happen
Pixabay
“AT my last job, I was a total people pleaser.
That being said, I also respect knowledge over seniority, so looking back what I did fits my attitude.
I’ve worked for the same financial company for a few years. I enjoy it, I’m good at it, and the company reflects this fact by allowing me extra privileges such as training new hires, cross-training new areas, and recently a promotion, so I got more pay for my knowledge.
Unfortunately, knowing your job can come with some drawbacks, and mine came in the form of leaving my high-production, no-nonsense team for a newly-formed team mostly made of new hires including a brand new manager whom we will call Barbie (because she’s bright blonde and a bit of an airhead).
When I got the news, I wasn’t thrilled as I enjoyed my team, but I knew there wasn’t anything I could do.
I was even less thrilled when I found out Barbie had only been a manager once before this current job, was barely 5 years older than I was (I was 26 at the time), and had never worked financel before. I still have NO idea how she got this job beyond she either A) let them underpay her or B) lied about her qualifications.
My first private sit down with her was basically her telling me how nervous she was and how much she was going to be looking for me for help.
Ok.. Whatever. I don’t mind helping as it makes me feel good.
Well, helping quickly turned into “teach the new people AND me.” Every time I got an email for help, I’d get up and go to their desk to look over the issue at hand.
9/10 times if I looked behind me, I’d find Barbie there next to me, watching and listening as I explained the answer to the question. I’d ask the rep if they understood and would have to answer their sand her questions before going back to my own job.
Apparently, other senior reps dealt with this as well as a few of them started making jokes when Barbie was at lunch.
A few managers threw Barbs in as, well, anytime a rep asked Barbie a question, she would run off to find another manager for the answer (which I understand for harder questions, but she did this for EVERYTHING even questions about the most basic task of our jobs).
Fast forward a few months, and by now, none of the senior reps really liked her.
She had chased away our team lead because the lead would constantly be getting questions or interrupted while doing side projects, so Barbie could annoy her with questions or about a case review that “couldn’t wait.” It got to the point that the team lead moved her work station to another area just to avoid Barbie and told her straight up to buzz off (only less PG as my old team lead had an attitude).
Well, I guess Barbie suddenly decides she’s going to pull the “I’m the manager” card because we get an email saying all questions, reviews, system errors, etc. need to go to HER and HER alone. Ok.. I and a few seniors shoot back some concerns.
What about when you’re at lunch? “The rep can notate the account is pending review and move on.”
What about if you’re in a meeting or with another rep? (See above answer.)
What if we get a question from a rep? “Forward them to me! Do NOT answer their questions.
I’m the manager, and I have more knowledge than you!”
Cue “oh, it’s on ****” and the malicious compliance.
Each time a rep sends me a question, I forward it to Barbie and CC the original rep. Each time I even slightly question something on an account, it’s sent to Barbie and marked pending review.
If a rep made a simple mistake that took a minute tops to fix, it went to Barbie. To top it all off, Barbie is AWFUL at reading her emails. It got to the point where reps were coming to me, and others saying they had accounts stuck in their workload for days as they never heard back from Barbie.
During all this, we finally got a new team leader (TL) who was and is one of the best workers on our floor (she’s barely older than me but I’d respect her far more as a manager than Barbie). Barbie moved TL, so she was sitting next to Barbie’s station which I thought was dumb as you should move those with more knowledge closer to the newer hires, so they can be of more help.
Turns out that’s what Barbie did.. kinda.
Barbie was still having people send her questions or accounts to review.. only now she was then peeking over her divider wall to ask TL for the answer, then would email the answer back as if it was her own. (I was between the middle of my team’s desk spine but close enough to hear everything.)
During this, people (me included) were still sending her accounts we didn’t want to work or had questions about.
Some of the newer people would even send the last of their workload for the day as they knew leaving without finishing was frowned upon, but “sending them for reassignment” was ok. It got to the point that not only were new hires not getting the knowledge they needed, but the team’s production was trash as accounts would end up in limbo until they got reassigned.
Team members with seniority were jumping ship as fast as they could, and I was eyeing a position on my old team when it finally happens; I come in one day and discover my team has been fully dissolved.
The good news is I and TL (after dealing with Barbie’s crap for months) got better team assignments, so we’re doing fine.
The bad news is, Barbie wasn’t fired. Instead, she was given a new team as she somehow managed to convince HR the reason production was so low was because the team was 75% new hires who worked slow. Before things went to **** in a hand-basket, I asked a friend on Barbie’s new team how it was.
Apparently, Barbie tried to throw her weight around again but got shut down as she was well known to be clueless. Anyone with a question would reach out to another team member or another manager, but they still threw accounts at Barbie as now any that she got SHE had to work.” LivyKitty2332
10. Natural-Colored Hair Only? Guess Black And Blonde Is Okay
Pixabay
They’re still natural colors, you know.
“A couple of years ago, I worked retail in a store geared towards children.
A very…. magical store. Lots of princesses, superheroes….rodents. You get the picture. Our store had about 25 female employees (including all of the management) and 3 male employees.
The dress code was incredibly strict. We had a uniform that had to be ironed all the time, no visible tattoos, only natural hair colors, women were encouraged to wear makeup and style their hair, men were either to be clean-shaven or have fully grown in ****** hair.
For some reason, one particular manager was intent on nitpicking me regarding the dress code, even when I was in complete compliance with it. I was constantly told that I needed to iron it better, so I started getting it dry cleaned and somehow that still wasn’t enough.
I wore very minimal makeup and she constantly told me I should wear more (though she couldn’t make me).
Hair bows were a big thing at the store and people made and gave as presents custom ones highlighting characters. They weren’t exactly against the dress code, but they did push the limits. Regardless, this particular manager seemingly only had an issue with them when I wore them. Once, she got down on her hands and knees with a ruler to prove my pant hem was too long only to be proven wrong.
There were also some conversations about my appearance that looking back were definitely body shaming.
As a side note, this particular manager was a natural brunette but she dyed her hair black and bleached a portion of the hair underneath so that it would show. She was a self-proclaimed ‘bro-hoe’ if you need a more clear idea.
Point is, her hair pushed the edge of what I would consider natural.
I got the itch to dye my hair and before working for the store, I had always loved to color my hair all sorts of colors. However, with the dress code, only natural hair colors were allowed, so I came up with a compromise: silver.
I went and had my hair professionally lightened and dyed silver.
The next day I worked, the district and regional managers were visiting the store. I was always picked to work those days because I had the best “stage presence” and knowledge of the company and those two were always impressed by me.
When I showed up to work that day with my new shiny silver hair, my store managers were appalled. They wanted to send me home immediately, and for whatever reason, they decided to talk to me in front of the higher-ups. This is a paraphrasing of the convo:
‘You’re in major violation of the dress code.’
‘How so?’
‘Your hair isn’t a natural color.’
‘Yes it is, gray is a natural color.’
‘But you aren’t gray yet.’
‘So?’
‘So it looks unnatural to be all gray.’
‘Are you saying that we can’t dye our hair at all if it’s not a color that would grow out of our heads naturally at this moment?’
‘No, you can dye your hair, it just can’t be obviously fake.
It needs to look real.’
I pointed at the manager who was constantly on me, ‘Your hair is half black and half bleach blonde. I feel like that looks more unnatural than my gray hair.’
I turned to the two the higher-ups and asked if I was in violation. They agreed with me that I was not.
I also showed them one of my bows and they fawned over it and even asked me for directions on how to make one.
In the end, I got to keep my silver hair AND my bows, and my manager was told that HER hair actually was a dress code violation and she had to dye it before coming the next day.” Reddit user
9. Accuse Me Of Forging My Mom’s Signature? Let’s Make That Come True
Pixabay
“This happened back in high school when I was in my first year.
Our school had this system where, if you had tasks or homework, you needed to write those down on a specific piece of paper with the date and the score and a box for the parents to sign. At certain intervals, we would get a date by which a parent had to have put their signature in every box, so they could be sure they’d seen ALL the tests and scores.
Now, my mother is one of those people who constantly changes her signature, by which I mean she sometimes signs with just her initials, then her full name, then the initials of her first name (which has 2 parts) and her full last name, then her full first name but only the first letter of her last name, etc., etc.
Basically, all the combinations you can possibly think of.
Now normally this isn’t a problem, but with this paper, you would have all signatures in a row, and it’s immediately obvious that the signature is different for almost every single test. And of course, my biology teacher thought I was faking the signatures.
I would like to point out that, okay, I wasn’t a genius in biology, but I got good grades. I didn’t have even one fail on the list that time (can’t remember the exact score on every task and test, but I remember finding it strange that she’d think I’d falsified my mother’s signature for GOOD grades).
She called me to her in front of the entire class and accused me of having faked the signatures. And not in a soft tone of voice either. EVERYONE could hear what she was accusing me of, and me- being a rather shy and terrified first year (that teacher was SCARY to first years I tell you) – kinda stammered that I hadn’t falsified anything, but would you know, she didn’t believe me.
She wrote a note in my planner in which she asked my mom to come and have a chat with her when she was able.
Cue me FREAKING OUT. I’ve always been a ‘good student’ and never had gotten a note in my planner before, and my mom…well…she may only be 4 feet, 9 inches, but she can be terrifying if she wants to be.
So, I went home, knees shaking, palms sweating, and showed the note to my mom. She IMMEDIATELY demanded to see the paper, stared at the signatures for a while, and then apologized to me. She said she’d go talk to my teacher as soon as possible, which she did, but for SOME reason the woman just didn’t want to believe her and thought my mom was an entitled mom whose precious girl ‘could do nothing wrong’ and that she was protecting me.
She urged my mom to “make sure to have a signature I couldn’t possibly falsify, and that if it happened again, I’d get detention.”
This is where the malicious compliance comes in.
You have to know that my own handwriting and my mom’s look NOTHING alike; she has this nice, big handwriting with loops and letters that are attached to each other, while my handwriting is super small, changes from attached letters to loose letters constantly, and with barely any loops at all.
(Of course, if I really wanted to copy her signature, I probably could, maybe by tracing over one of hers on another piece of paper, but it would be difficult). So, when my mom heard that she had to pick a signature I couldn’t possibly falsify, she smirked and said, “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll make sure you know she didn’t copy my signature.”
From then on, every single time my mom would have to put down her signature for ANYTHING regarding schoolwork (as she knew my teacher would probably tell other teachers I’d falsified my mom’s signing), she’d make me try and copy it directly underneath it, making me add my name underneath MY signature.
And underneath that, she would always address the biology teacher and write something along the lines of, “Don’t worry, as you can see I checked and her signature looks nothing like mine.”
When some of my classmates caught wind of what my mom was doing, they gleefully started doing the same thing on their tests, trying to copy their parent’s signature as bad as possible, signing their names under it again, and adding the name of the biology teacher.
In a matter of days, the ENTIRE class was doing this. Needless to say, the next week a LOT of teachers had noticed this happening and were wondering what was going on, and when our class teacher addressed the issue during class hour, I had a note ready from my mom (whom I had told what was happening and who had written this in advance to give to any teacher who would talk to us about this) and handed it to her.
The class teacher read it, started laughing hysterically and kindly but firmly ordered all of us to stop these shenanigans, as we might actually get in trouble if we continued ‘falsifying’ our parent’s signatures. She also said she’d have a chat with my biology teacher.
For the rest of my two years in that school, no one bothered me ever again about falsifying my mom’s signature, though the biology teacher REALLY didn’t like our class after this.
My mom still thinks of this incident every now and then and has a good laugh. She still uses 12+ different signatures, though.” ChessHatter
Another User Comments:
“I had a similar issue in high school. I was out sick for two weeks with a bad infection, and when I went back to school, I dropped off both the doctor’s note and the note from my mother.
A few hours later, I got called down to the VP office where he started yelling that he was going to expel me for forging documents, etc.
He claims he called the doctor’s office and spoke to a nurse who (I might add had no right to even talk to him, let alone access my medical records).
Apparently, she told him that I had a minor and should’ve been back to school a day or two after but definitely not two weeks.
After I left his office, I went straight to the school payphone (yes I’m that old) and called my mom (who is also a nurse and worked for the doctor who treated me) and told her what had happened, and she told me to go back to class and not worry about it; she’ll deal with him.
About an hour later, we heard some shouting, and that shouting turned out it was my mom ripping him a new one. From eyewitness accounts, he was in the corner of the office just staring down at the floor.
Apparently, she went in and slammed the HIPPA guidelines on his desk and went to town on him.
After that, I never heard another thing about it. In fact, he wouldn’t even make eye contact with me when we passed each other.
As for that nurse, once the doctor found out what she had done, she was fired on the spot after only two days on the job for breaking the HIPPA law in giving out medical information to a non-authorized person.” ConcealedPsychosis
8. Want Me To Write Down All My Downtime? Sure, I’ll Write Every Little Thing
Pixabay
“This happened about a month ago.
I work at a plant that makes parts for a very well-known car manufacturing plant. My workplace is very picky about efficiency and your parts per hour. I work on a 3 person line, and on that particular line, we have the 2 people load the parts together, and the robots weld them together (resistance weld), and they send it to the person in the middle to load it to be MIG welded by another set of robots, then inspects the parts, then put them on a rack to be sent to another line.
If there is a bad weld, that person has to MIG weld repair the part if possible.
Because of the certain sickness, we had to readjust on how we work to keep everyone and self check ourselves before going to work and have to report any symptoms, and no, they do not check the employees’ temperature, only ask them at the door.
One day, I had a very bad cough that turned into a sore throat and a running nose, so I went to the EHS (environment health and safety) office to report my symptoms, and since I didn’t have any of the other symptoms, I was approved to continue to work but must wear a mask at all time (go figure) and given me a bunch of cough drops.
Remember how I said that we have 3 people on my line? Well, we had been struggling with the attendance since we went back to full production (about 80-90% attendance), and so we only had 2 people on that line until we g0t more people to show up for work. So, we have to do the job for 3 people with just us 2 which is possible but can’t run as fast.
For reference, with 3 people, we can easily run over 60 parts per hour, but just 2 people, we barely get over 40 parts. Plus, I had to blow my nose every 15-30 minutes and sucking on cough drops one after another.
Eventually, the coordinator came to me and asked me about why I wasn’t hitting my numbers, and of course, I mentioned the lack of a person, and I wasn’t feeling well.
So, then he looked at my downtime paper where I must write down all of my downtime including breaks and lunch, then he asked me why I didn’t write anything down. I told him that I was very busy trying to run as much as possible. He was having none of it and demanded that I write down all of my downtimes.
I was very mad, but I decided to let the malicious compliance kick in. I took the downtime and write down the EHS visit, then continue to fill out the paperwork work to include 1 minute of downtime of every time I blow my nose and 1 minute for every time I had to unwrap and insert a cough drop.
I also included the time I was stopped and talked to the coordinator and the time it took me to write down my other downtime.
By the end of the shift, I filled the entire downtime sheet, and because we have to share the same downtime with the night shift, they had no room to write down anything, and they have to turn it into the team leader at the end of the night to be turned into the office where they have to go through them.
In the next few days, I was expected to be called into the office or asked about the paperwork, but that never happened nor was it brought up in any meetings. Nobody said anything about it, but the coordinator was a lot more respectful to me, and we get along well, and eventually, they were able to hire someone to run our line with us.
I know the malicious compliance was petty and very childish, but it felt good and turned out better than I expected.” Joshy89
7. I Can Only Work Where I’m Scheduled? Okay, I Won’t Help You Elsewhere Then
Pixabay
Can’t get mad at an employee for having good judgment and simply doing their job.
“I currently work at a big-box store.
Yesterday, I was scheduled to work as a cashier; however, my main thing is customer service, so on days that I’m scheduled to cashier (every once in awhile), I’m most likely at the service desk anyways because there’s never a closer for the service desk.
This has never been a problem, and to be honest, some days, I don’t think managers ever even notice I was supposed to be on a register.
So, it was an extremely busy day. We had way too many people in the store and not enough cashiers. An assistant manager decided she’d take it upon herself to get the lines down, paging every cashier to the front (including some on lunch).
Eventually, I get paged to the front… It’s 6 pm, and all the other service desk associates went home.
I have a line, and I’m getting it down, so I ignore the page with plans to let them know where I’m at after I get through the customers.
Not two minutes go by when she goes through her list again. I start rushing, and once I finished, I went to tell her I was at the service desk.
Here’s how that went down:
Me: Hey! I heard you paging me to the front, but I’m already here. I’m at the service desk; there’s no one over there-
AM: I paged you 10 minutes ago. I need people on the registers. You’re not supposed to be at the service desk right now.
It’s supposed to be…
Me: Both closers called off. There’s no one there. That’s why I went over there.
AM: No one sent you there?
Me: Well, no but-
AM: Then you don’t go there. You don’t supervise yourself. We know what’s going on. If we need you there, we’ll put you there. Open register 6, and from now on, work where you’re scheduled to work at and nothing else.
Understood?
Me: …understood, I guess.
Anyways, she did let me stay at the service desk but not without continuing to **** about how I shouldn’t go where I want and all that. It p*ssed me off, so I said, ‘*** it. I’ll just do that from now on.’
Well, guess what? Today, I also had a cashier day, and the first thing I did after clocking in today asked which register I should open.
Pretty smooth, it’s 1 pm, and the service desk has its associates.
5 pm rolls around, and this is where I know it’s gonna get interesting because, once again, the two closers called off. (This happens too often- right now, there are no attendance penalties due to recent events.)
I watched the last service desk associate for the day leave, and I continued ringing people out.
I was giddy with anticipation. The assistant manager was supervising the front end again, and this time, I did as she told me! I stayed at a register.
Well, it finally happened: the first customer. She rolls up to the service desk and looks around and waits, then someone else rolls up behind her too.
Now I’m watching waiting for the assistant manager to notice when the first lady decided to walk back and ask the nearest cashier (presumably) if there’d be someone to help her.
I don’t know what the cashier told her, but she walked back and waited again. There are now 4 customers in line for an unmanned desk.
When the 5th person lined up is when she finally noticed, and by then, people were already antsy. I saw her scrambling behind the desk and looking around, and I didn’t dare make eye contact; I kept ringing people up.
Well, she had to help the customers, and not only that, but her pride was so much that she didn’t actually want to ask me for help.
She closed the service desk today, and by the end, she was angry as all **** and said she never wanted to cover customer service again. She closed it an hour early.
“This was a few years ago when photo centers were still actually common in stores.
Bit of a background. I had your standard terrifying grandma whose fear of reprisal instilled in me a rigid adherence to manners. I’ll always say “Pardon” instead of “What” or “Huh,” and I always address people I don’t know by gender respecting honorifics. Men are always sir and women I don’t know are ma’am.
I was raised believing these are signs of respect to people you aren’t familiar with.
Apparently, that’s no longer the case, and a lot of women/Karens take being called “ma’am” as utterly insulting.
A lady came in to ask for help with our photo kiosks. This is a tertiary service our company offered, and it was supposed to be entirely customer operated.
This lady comes in and is told the machine is self serve and immediately began to scream at us telling us that it’s our job to do it for her, that we do nothing else (while I was serving another couple), and that we were good for nothing. Trying to de-escalate the situation, I ask the couple I’m serving to wait and go over to see if I could help.
What she wanted to do could not actually be done by our machines, and I explained that to her.
“Don’t give me that. I’ve had it done here before. Can you get someone who actually knows what they’re doing to help me?”
“Ma’am, I do know how to work these machines, and what you’re asking can’t be done.”
Her face immediately filled with hatred, and she said in a cutting voice, “Don’t you dare call me ‘ma’am.’ I’m not a ‘ma’am.'”
“Okay, sir, I’m sorry,” I said without really thinking.
If I thought she was angry before, nothing compared to the torrent of hatred that exploded when I called her sir. She began screaming at me that she was an important customer to the store, I was the worst person she had ever encountered, she would be calling her friends in our head office to get me fired by the end of the day, and all the other things you come to expect from your average middle-aged woman who has been denied her idealized service of us bending over backward for her.
She was yelling so loudly that the store manager came out ’cause she was worried. Interrupting the lady’s diatribe, she asked what had happened.
“Your associate called me ‘sir’ when I asked him not to call me ma’am.”
The dumbfounded look on my manager’s face was priceless. “I’m sorry, but what do you want him to call you?”
At this point, I left, and the customer started screaming at my manager about how we were all going to lose our jobs.
I went back to the couple I was helping, apologized, and resumed helping them. Eventually, the lady stormed out, and my manager called me to her office. I walk in, and my manager is sitting with her head down massaging her temples. I come in, and she can only say, ‘I hate people.'” king-geass
Another User Comments:
“When I was a kid, I learned to say, “Yes, ma’am” and “Yes, sir” because it was a regional dialect thing.
When my family moved north, I was sent to the principal’s office several times because teachers thought I was being sarcastic, and it wasn’t until the principal called home and heard my dad’s even more drawling “yes’m” that they realized, lol.” tigercommadanath
5. Refuse To Listen? You’ll Pay For It Eventually
Pixabay
“One of the things builders hate is an architect or draftsman who assumes builders are thicker than the two short planks they’ve been told to nail together.
My friend agrees to a contract to build an extension to a house in Wales. Hilly, hilly Wales. The only problem is that the couple asking for the work has picked the worst pig-headed type of architect money can possibly buy.
He gets the plans and starts the build, but before long, he notices something odd about the drawings for the new extension and calls the architect to query it.
The architect isn’t having any of it, giving him the whole ‘just do your job, the plans are fine’ without even letting my friend finish explaining the problem. Well, fine.
Before long, the architect comes to the site at the owner’s request (they’re in on it) and walks into the main part of the house to see the problem.
The doorway through to the extension is only 3 feet tall. My friend is in the extension, so he storms round to ask what the *** is going on, blaming the builder all the way. When he gets into the extension room the doorway is, in fact, the regulation height, but the architect hadn’t factored in the slope of the hill, and the fact that the adjoining room in the existing house, the floor is considerably higher than the floor of the extension due to the hill, and given the extension has an outside door.
After my friend patiently explained how the plans were wrong, the architect agrees to pay for the builder to put it right.
He haggles the architect up to 500 pounds, proceeds to take a sledgehammer and knock out the remaining part of the door.
It turns out that having been told to just do the work, he did it properly (right size door, staircase), then put in an extra little and bricked the top part of the doorway up, made good so it wasn’t obvious, hid the detached staircase he’d ordered, and waited for the inevitable to happen.
500 quid for an hour’s work.
Long story short, the builder follows plans exactly as instructed, but builds in the ability to fix the planning mistake for quick cash bonus.
(A few people having issues visualizing this one. In short, the extension floor was quite a bit lower than the existing house, but on the plan, there are no stairs, and the adjoining door is positioned on the floor of the extension.
This height difference results in an unusable door. Thank goodness he had the forethought to build it right, ignoring the plans, then maliciously comply with a temporary fix to match the plans he was told to follow…)” imvirtuallyinsane
4. Of Course I’ll Answer The Phone… Hope You Don’t Mind Being Put On Hold
Pixabay
“Background: part of my job involves taking calls from the public to offer various types of support.
This can range from tech support to helping people find services in our county that they need. My ‘team’ is me and one other person. Between us, we have to cover 07:30 – 19:30 Monday through Friday and weekends as well. Because of this, and the fact that the company won’t invest in call waiting for us, we can only take one call at a time.
Our voicemail quite clearly states that we’re a small team, but if you leave your name and number, we aim to get back to you within 5 minutes.
Normally people are rather understanding of our situation and are happy to wait for us to call them back, but as the world is full of impatient ******, we often get voicemails just criticizing us.
Now, this happened today, and I’ve been wanting to react this way for a long time and finally got the opportunity to!
Jerk Caller: This is ****** ridiculous. I was told to call this number, but what’s the ****** point in telling people to call if there’s nobody to answer the phone!?
-Jerk Caller calls again-
Me: ‘Hello you’re through to -company name-.
CrackB3ar speaking, how can I help?’
Jerk Caller: ‘Oh, so now you answer the phone.
What is the point of having a number if you never ****** answer in!?’
Me: Ah, did you leave us a voicemail? I’ve just listened to it, but unfortunately, you didn’t leave any contact details, so I was unable to return your call.
Thank you for calling back, how can I help?
Jerk Caller: ‘You should answer every call that comes through!!’
Me: ‘Well, unfortunately, there are only two people in my team, including myself, and there tends to only be one of us in at a time, so if I answered every call, I’d end up having to keep putting people on hold, and that really doesn’t seem fair.
Regardless though, you’re through at the moment and I’m happy to help you however I can.’
Jerk Caller: ‘You can help me by doing your job and answering the phone when it rings!’
At this point, I’m like, *** you lady. So, sod it; I’ll comply.
Me: ‘Ok, sure. I’m sorry that I’ve annoyed you.
I’ll make sure to answer the phone whenever it rings. Now, how can I help?’
-Jerk Caller starts to describe her problem-
-Phone rings-
Me: ‘Oh, I’m sorry, the phone is ringing. I’ll have to place you on hold.’
Jerk Caller: Wai…
-Hold-
I then help the person calling, taking my sweet, sweet time, like going above and beyond just to keep this other ***** waiting… plus, you know, it’s nice to help people.
-Take Jerk Caller off hold-
Me: ‘Thanks for your patience, now you were saying?’
Jerk Caller: ‘How dare you put me on hold, especi…’
Me: ‘Oh, I’m sorry, the phone is ringing. I’ll have to place you on hold.’
-Hold-
You can see where this goes. I think I managed to keep this going for about 15/20 minutes before she hung up, and I’m in for the next 10 hours…. God, I hope she calls back.” CrackB3ar
3. Refuse To Use Tongs? Allow Us To Get You Your Rolls For You
Pixabay
“Okay, this happened about 20 years ago when I was 17 and working in a major UK supermarket in a rather affluent London suburb.
This was my first “proper” weekend job.
I used to work in the bakery, and it was the best section to work in a supermarket! My job was to make sure that bread and fresh cakes were well stocked and presented (and “test” the odd doughnut – for quality control purposes), so that we can make sure there were fresh items available before we ran out, slicing fresh bread, and… making sure rolls were stocked and tongs were available.
One busy Saturday, I was doing a quick inventory count, and when I came to the individual rolls, I saw a middle-aged lady, in a large, furry coat and luscious, red fingernails. I didn’t pay much attention to her, until I saw her with a crusty roll in her manicured and bejeweled hand, give it a squeeze, poke her thumb through the crust, and throw it back in the basket.
She did it again, and when she reached in to try a third one, I piped up:
“‘Excuse me, Ma’am, would you mind using the tongs provided, please?”
She ignored me and grabbed a third roll and broke the crust, so, a little louder, I said, “Ma’am, please use the tongs provided.”
She heard me that time and glared at me and said, “I beg your pardon?”
“Ma’am, please don’t grab the rolls.
Please use the tongs in the basket.”
“Are you saying that my hands are dirty?” She then raised her voice while waving her embellished hand at me, wiggling her fingers so they sparkled as they moved. “Are you suggesting that this is FILTHY!?!”
Well, knowing that folks tend not to wash their hands before using trolleys and baskets, without blinking or thinking, I said, “Yes, they are.
Please use the tongs.”
The inevitable happened.
“I want to speak to your manager at once. You should learn to respect your elders and betters! I’ll have your job for this insolence!”
So, I called for the bakery manager to come on down, bearing in mind, this was a busy Saturday; he was in his whites and wanted to know what the problem was.
The woman went into a sob story about how she was testing the rolls for freshness, and I was so rude to her, telling her how her hands were filthy, a few crocodile tears here and there, how she had never been so insulted.
In a stern voice, my manager turned to me and said, “Did you say this to her?”
Now, I was starting to think I did something wrong, and a bit nervous, I replied, “Yes, I asked her to use the tongs.
She ignored me, so I asked her again…”
“Okay.” My manager turned to the woman, said that he will be back shortly, and said he needed to do something and get some paperwork. While my manager was out of earshot, the woman crowed, “See what happens when you don’t know your place? I said I could have your job for this.”
My manager did a quick count of the rolls, muttered “224” loudly, and went into the back room, and he then emerged with an industrial-sized black bin liner.
He then proceeded to empty 8 large baskets of rolls into the bin liner, and a label for 224 individual granary rolls, tied up the bag, handed it to her, and said, “Here you are, Madam, they’re all yours!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The rolls, Madam, they’re all yours. You openly admitted to contaminating our stock, and you ignored a member of staff when she asked you repeatedly to use the tongs.
You’ve wasted my time, so you are paying for the stock you have damaged. Good day!”
“What am I supposed to do with all of these ****** rolls? I only wanted 2!’
With a dazzling customer service smile, my manager chirped, “Not my concern, Madam, security will escort you to the register and make sure they are paid for.
Enjoy your weekend.” He then turned on his heels and went back upstairs to the bakery.
The woman looked at me, then the huge bag, absolutely aghast, so I did the only thing I could do, grab a random loaf of bread, take it to the bread slicer, and laugh in the back room.
I saw her almost every week afterward, always using the tongs.
We wouldn’t get away with that now, but he was easily my favorite manager in all of my years of working.” Nuttygooner
2. Keep Sending Me Junk Mail? Of Course I’ll Respond
Pixabay
“Background: I was in the Army and had been overseas for many years.
Rarely ever got junk mail at my CMR (Military Post Office Box). When I moved back to the states (2004), it was really surprising to me how much junk mail I received on a daily basis. Advertisements, credit card applications, etc., a lot of the same CC every single day.
I was receiving so much junk mail that if I didn’t check my mail every single day, there would be no room for real mail in my mailbox.
I found out about the National Opt Out Do Not Mail List and signed up. It takes 30 days for all companies to update their lists, so you can still get junk mail for up to a month. I just continued to toss all the junk mail and waited.
After about a month, the vast majority of the junk stopped, but a lot of the CC applications were still coming.
(ARGHH, what’s in your wallet….) I read online at the time that what a lot of people do is fill the prepaid envelopes with your other junk mail and send them back. The companies end up having to pay for the return delivery and do not get a new account, so it usually gets them to take you off their lists.
NOPE. Still continued to receive junk. I kept sending the envelopes back and would write stuff like, ‘TAKE me off your list,’ or ‘I don’t want your stupid credit card,’ but nothing worked. While I was doing this, though, I kept thinking about what I could do that would get them to stop.
How could I make it so that they had no choice but to take me off of their lists??
One day, I was at the Orange Home Improvement store and was in the gardening section looking at some stuff to get ideas for landscaping. I was looking at some bricks for edging when I had my AHA moment.
$1 bricks!!!
I called up my local post office and asked if it was OK/legal to send a brick through the mail. They said it was perfectly fine, but the postage would be expensive. I said that’s not a problem.
There were about 5 different companies that were still giving me trouble, so I bought 5 bricks for $5.
I took them home and wrote up the following letter:
To Whom it may concern,
I am on the National Do Not Mail List, but you continue to send me credit card applications every day. Until you remove me from your mailing list, I will use your prepaid envelopes to send you bricks in the mail.
I am a stonemason by trade and can do this for as long as you would like to send me applications. Take me off your list, and have a nice day.
OP
OP’s Address
I then printed out 5 of these letters, put them into the prepaid envelopes, and taped the envelopes to the bricks.
I then ran down to the post office. The entire time I’m in line, I cannot stop giggling. Seriously. When I get to the front of the line and put down my bricks, this is what happened:
Postal lady: Are you the person I talked to earlier?
OP: Yep!
Postal lady: These are prepaid envelopes??”
OP: Yep! Is that going to be a problem?
Postal lady:……No, I suppose not…..
OP: Thanks! Have a nice day.
After about a week, I no longer received credit card applications from those companies.” here_4_bad_advice
1. Not Hot Enough? Believe Me, It Will Be
Pixabay
“I don’t know what it is, but once people get to a certain age, they start saying, “I’ll have a cappuccino, but make it hot.” For those that have worked in hospitality for a few years will say, “Sure thing,” turn around, and roll their eyes.
Now a cappuccino, it’s quite heavily foamed, which will hold heat down but will not be hot itself. This means that the small amount of liquid that is there will cool down quickly because of the cup’s conductivity. So, generally, we make and run this drink fast with no delay once it hits the saucer.
One fine and sunny afternoon, I had a table of 4 Gerry’s (Geriatrics) who had request 4 of the aforementioned cappuccinos. We have a machine that only had one group, so it can only make 2 coffees at a time. So, to make sure they were hot, you’d do this….
– Make 2, send hot – waitress comes back – make 2 more, send those hot.
Otherwise, by the time that you have finished plating the second 2, the first would be cooling already. GOT IT? So what happens? The first 2 that were sent out, sat there, in front of the customers, until the next 2 arrived. (note: this is general table etiquette). We could have said to them, “Drink now while it’s hot the other 2 will be here in a minute!” but who are we to tell people how to consume?
2 or 3 minutes pass, and then I see the waitress walking towards me with a full tray, a crushed expression, and fried hair.
One woman had just given her a spray about how she ignored their request, that she was useless, and asked her if she was an imbecile. She was welling up. I like this girl. She would not hurt a fly, everyone loves her, always smiling…. and they took that away….
So, I went in to speak with her.
I tried to explain my predicament with the resources we have. I could only do so much without something cooling down. Did she care? NOOOOOOO, of course not! “Do it again properly, or we are not paying” or something to that effect…. (The others were noticeably quiet and almost embarrassed.)
Screw Karen…. She wants it hot????
Some staff will hold the heating wand under the milk for a longer period (not a good idea because you burn the milk.) Some will put hot water in the coffee (not a good idea as it waters the coffee down.)
I took one of the cups to the kitchen and asked the chef to put the cups under the salamander while I made the coffee and milk.
(He resisted at first until I told him why, then took those to the pass.) I let the cup cool a bit, so it would not crack from the temperature difference. Gave the waitress a tray and a commis cloth and told her not to touch the cup, but THAT one is for Karen.
I told her to warn the c*ntstomers that their drinks are hot, as requested.
As suspected, the cantankerous, old biddy picked up the cup and immediately dropped it spilling all over the table. She, quite rightly, lost her ***.
As the “manager,” I had to come in and conflict resolve. I can’t remember verbatim what was said because I was in panic mode.
“That cup is scorching!!” she exclaimed.
“What? This one?” I said, pointing at the mess on the table. “You asked for them to be remade hot, and I did these myself?”
“YES BUT NOT THAT HOT!” she replied.
I picked up the cup from the table, which was now by now the same temperature as the others.
I remarked, “It is no different to these other ones.” trying to make her look insane.
“Yes, but now it has cooled down!” she said as her eyes widened……………… (long pause)
“Oh, so now you understand.” Then I sarcastically dropped a mic and walked out.” marblechocolate
We can’t have it all, but I think we all deserve respect from other people at the bare minimum.
These malicious compliance experiences are great because they help teach a little lesson to those who refuse to be considerate, open-minded, and respectful. Like, you really want it your way? You can have it, BUT you won’t like it, although you won’t know that until you deal with the consequences! Good stuff.
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