This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/postmodernistweasel on 2025-07-04 19:07:26+00:00.
This happened about 10 years ago when I worked at a restaurant. The place had only been running under current management for a few months, and had an unconventional working culture. The boss spent as much time as he could upstairs working on other projects, and staff did not have clearly defined duties, but all chipped in wherever their abilities allowed. I was hired as a bar manager, but also helped clearing tables, cleaning, maintenance, doing admin, and anything else that cropped up. We were encouraged to have creative ideas.
For the most part, everyone was quite happy, but when the boss did come down, he could be pretty stressy and irritable, especially if anything went wrong. Also, sometimes there were gaps or flaws in the smooth operation of business, as there were things no one had skills for or didn't think of, and their roles weren't organised thoroughly.
At some point, I decided I was going to tackle an issue that bothered me: the menus were pretty haphazard and not very professional.
The menus were stored on a shared document that any staff member could edit and print. The menu would just be black text on a piece of A4 paper. Staff had varying degrees of computer literacy, and the menus would end up totally messy - full of typos, and containing many different fonts and formatting styles.
Also, the boss would frequently ask the chefs to change up the menu choices, as he thought it would get boring. Or, he would buy different stock on a deal, that needed to be used. And, nobody would bother coordinating with the kitchen to check that the menu matched what was available.
So, naturally, there would be a LOT of silly situations that arose once customer orders had been taken to the kitchen, and waiting staff would have to go back and get customers to order something else. Basically, they would find issues by trial and error during service. Only after this, they would alter the shared doc and print new menus out. However, it could be very hard to get time for editing and printing during a busy shift, so the staff would often deliver erroneous menus to the customer along with a verbal list of alterations and additions.
Anyway, despite being bar staff, I decided to do something about the menu problems. My motivation was that I loved my job, loved the team, and loved the restaurant. I wanted customers to have a good time and could see there were easy ways to make the system work a lot better for everyone.
Firstly, I started arriving earlier, so I had time to discuss menu availability with the chefs and do all the editing that was necessary before service started. If we had a quiet spell, I started training the waiting staff to edit menus well, and resolve formatting discrepancies. It was not altogether easy to get everyone on board, as they were all used to the haphazard way of doing things , but they were a good bunch, and they humoured me.
In addition, I started working on prettier menus, in my own time, at home. Now, I'm far from being a publishing expert, but I had an old version of Word that I was very familiar with and I spent an awful lot of time tweaking and messing around to produce, I have to say, some very pretty folded card menus, with little designs and borders and nice colours.
I knew these menus would not transfer well through the shared doc and the work printer, and the formatting would likely go caput. So, rather than tackling the regular daily menu, that everyone would need to be able to edit and print at work, I focused on special menus that were for one-off events. For instance, our upcoming Valentine's Night and Mother's Day menus, and the Steak and Curry Night menus (which rarely changed). The boss had decided on the dishes for these nights, according to his whim, so, I was working from his draft.
I showed the nice menus I was working on to the chefs, and got them on board with collaborating to make sure our actual offerings and our menu matched up. During which process, we found a few catering difficulties with the dishes the boss had proposed, so we worked to find something agreeable to both boss and kitchen and had everyone working on the same plans.
I found an old, wooden display rack in a store room, and fixed it front of house to display the special menus, and we handed them out to all our customers as advertising.
At this point, service was running much smoother due to the extra effort on the daily menus. Much less stress, happier customers, happier kitchen. The boss didn't really notice much, as he was never usually around to see the mayhem! The Valentine's and Mother's Day events were roaring successes, full house, everything went like clockwork, and everyone was happy. We had loads of excellent reviews for these nights.
Time rolled on, and I worked with the kitchen to launch a daily kid's 'pick and mix' menu. The customers loved it. Then there was Christmas Day, which again was a great success. Of course, I am not claiming all this success for myself - our chefs made great food, and the staff were lovely, friendly, and hardworking. But, I guess I didn't even realise until I did it, how much the work on the menus would help pull everything together.
Soon, it was time for Valentine's Day again, which was a really big night for us. This is where a boss shaped spanner got in the works, and malicious compliance ensued.
I had again produced a beautiful menu, with a cupid on the front and a border of little red hearts. I would print them at home, in my spare time, at my own expense, as well as the other special menus, and keep the display unit stocked up.
On the fateful day, I arrived at work and I see immediately that the boss is in a foul mood. It transpires that he had wanted to give a Valentine's menu to someone, and there were none in the display rack. I have brought a bundle with me, and I also apologise for them running out. But he's still unhappy.
He accuses me of trying to control the menus in order to make myself indespensible. He complains that the pretty menus are not in the shared doc. His tone is so mean, meaner than I've ever heard him, and it stung. I try to explain that the menus won't hold their formatting, but that the text only version is available on the shared document. He says, in that case I shouldn't be developing them on my own computer, it should only be done on the business computer.
There's a lot I could have said to defend myself, and he clearly doesn't realise that it's not something I have time for during working hours. Nor am I very adept with the software available at work. But I don't even want to bother explaining. He was so condescending, so accusatory, over something I've done UNPAID, to help his business, that I don't even want to engage with it. I decide there and then never to have anything more to do with a menu.
I share my Word docs as requested, and that's the end of it. I run the bar and clear the tables, and clean and fix stuff. But, I don't do anything in my own time, and especially not with menus. Before long, the display rack is empty.
The waiting staff gradually slide back to their old ways of working. No one coordinates with the kitchen. Service is frequently chaotic. And Mother's Day approaches. I see the boss's draft menu, and I can see issues with it, so I book that night off. And it is a TOTAL disaster.
The next day, the boss is lamenting to me how embarrassing it was. He doesn't seem to realise at all that it had anything to do with me withdrawing my 'job protection racket'. He's not mad at me; he doesn't understand what went wrong. He says I'm lucky I wasn't there. A lot of the stuff on the menu ( black text printed on A4 paper) had not been available. The kitchen hadn't even seen the menu until the morning of the event, and didn't know how, or have the equipment, to make some of the dishes.
Christmas Day arrives, and is even more of a disaster. The advertised menu doesn't tally with what is served, the boss get's stressy and falls out with staff. Customers are beyond disappointed.
Over this last couple of months, my daughter was ill, and I had to take a lot of time off. Actually, my boss is really good about my situation, and even continues paying me. But, eventually, I feel like it's better if I leave.
In the next months, the restaurant gets ever more erratic and disorganised. In less than a year, the business folds. Not because I left, but because the boss is moody, the staff fall out with him, the service gets ever more erratic, and the customers dwindle. But, I do think my leaving had some part to play, as I used to be quite good at thinking ahead, at organising, and at keeping the peace between the boss and the staff.
Anyway, that's my malicious compliance story.
TL;DR: I stopped working for free in a way my boss disagreed with, and it led to disorganisation and disappointed customers, but didn't teach the boss anything at all.
Edit: typos