Malicious Compliance

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/PandoraWinters on 2025-09-13 07:15:34+00:00.

---

Long time lurker and first time poster on this sub. Sorry for any mistakes, English isn't my native language.

So I used to work for this terrible manager in a pharmacy, let's call him Edwin. He was the kind of guy who wanted is to greet every client in an insanely busy store. He was the type that wanted to introduce a color wheel for when I made creams and such and he was an overall terrible person. Edwin was the type that didn't let me go to a funeral of a friend of mine who died at 23 and the next day he could leave because he had to walk his dog.

After a few years I was done with all that shit. The last figurative drop? Him giving me this lecture in front of our patients when I was late because a bus broke down and I couldn't let in. He told me... Work hours are from 9 to 12 and from 1 to 6:30.. got it mate.

I stopped going to the lessons we got from people during my break. And got on at exactly 9 to clock in. When he commented that I usually was early. I told him. "You said my hours are between 9 and 6:30. No exceptions?" Gave him a confused look.

So whenever I was helping a patient. I would drop everything and stop at that exact hour. He fired me, I went to the union and was paid for 2 more years by this pharmacy. Later I learned, that during Corona... He made his people work with that virus. So what did I do? I called my counties FDA and told them all about it. The pharmacy is still shit down.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Sven_Svan on 2025-09-13 05:24:57+00:00.

---

There's a tiny guy that lives downstairs from me that has the napoleon complex bad.

He is a bad neighbor in every way imaginable. He plays loud music once every few days, but he is way too old to be doing that (mid forties).

Anyway the first time I went to talk to him about it, he said he would stop and he did for a few weeks. The second time I went to talk to him about it he said "youre gonna have to take it up with the landlord" and closed the door.

So I did. He got a 100 euro fine. He was not happy about that. :D

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/baxterhugger on 2025-09-13 05:49:13+00:00.

---

Recently confiscated my 12yo sons iPad, for 48hrs over the weekend. To get it back earlier he could complete several tasks around the house each task would earn him his iPad back 1hr earlier.

Unload dishwasher -1hr Sort washing out -1hr ect

Here's where the MC kicks in and he got me good.

I was watching the football. "Get me a beer and it's 1hr off."

"So each beer I get you is 1hr off the iPad."

"Yes."

5 minutes later he appears with a cardboard box filled with every beer from the fridge.

"1 hour off for every beer delivered to you that's 24hrs off."

Look at wife. "He's got you."

"Dammit, well played son. Well played."

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Agreeable-Freedom504 on 2025-09-13 01:24:53+00:00.

---

First-time poster, long-time lurker. I was told that this sub may enjoy my little bit of pettiness. This happened a few years ago, and it still makes me laugh.

Those were the college days, and I worked part-time for a chain of grocery stores. Pretty run-of-the-mill stuff cashier, bagger, occasional cart-pusher duty when they were short staffed. It wasn't a bad job, but our store manager (all right, let's just call him Gary) had a God complex. This guy was obsessed with rules, especially when they didn't happen to apply to him.

Whatever, we had this insane policy that you weren't allowed to be "on the floor" as a uniformed employee if you weren't clocked in. Something about being liable and following labor laws. Who knows. So technically you were supposed to clock in when you put on your apron and name tag, and clock out when you took off the apron and name tag. And once you were off duty apron still on or not you weren't their employee anymore.

So I arrive at work 10 minutes early, like I always do, and walk by the store to the back break room. Just passing through. Haven't punched in yet. Not even touching anything. Just existing.

Gary sees me and snaps his fingers at me from the bakery section like I'm a damn dog.

"Hi! You're early. Can you just run check for carts real quick? Front lot's lookin' full."

I glance at the clock. I'm 9 minutes early. I explain to him, "I haven't clocked in yet."

He shrugs. "It'll take five minutes. Just go ahead and do it now."

I repeat, "I'm not on the clock."

And this dude I swear goes into lecture mode. "This is why your generation does not have a work ethic. In my day, we did not watch the clock. We just got the job done."

Terrific story, Gary. I still didn't get up.

He finally grumbles, "Fine. Just clock in and go do it then."

No problem.

So I did what he asked. I clocked in. At that exact instant.

And from that day forward, I never, ever did anything if I wasn't on the job.

If I happened to get to the store early and someone asked for directions to some product? "Sorry, not on the clock yet."

If Gary needed someone to unload an unexpected delivery after the employee's shift? "Can't. I'm already clocked out."

If someone spilled a soda on me along the way to the time clock? Not my problem. Not my job.

The worst part?

A week later, Gary tries to call me at home on my day off because someone called in sick and they needed help on register. I didn't answer. He had left a voice mail telling me to "step up if I wanted to be taken seriously." So I kept the voice mail. The following shift, I showed up to work, handed it to the assistant manager, and asked if being "on call" was part of my job description. Spoiler: it wasn't. The voice mail had seemingly disappeared after that.

Word traveled quickly that I was just doing my job, nothing more, nothing less. A few co-workers chimed in. Morale didn't necessarily improve, but Gary certainly unwound after corporate got wind of the voicemail controversy. Apparently, encouraging volunteer labor wasn't a good look during a rumor of unionization.

I left a few months later for a much better job where they treated us like human beings. But to this day, whenever someone says "It'll only take a minute," I respond, "Cool. So you're paying me for that minute, then?"

My manager asked me to work off the clock. I did exactly what he asked me to do and only ever worked when I was clocked in thereafter. He did not like it. I did not care.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/FMLitsSML on 2025-09-11 21:02:45+00:00.

---

TLDR at bottom, generally SFW.

In a previous role I came across the epitomy of manglement. A young twat who'd been smarmy enough to work his way into a leadership role, without ever having to actually do the job he was managing. Unsurprisingly, he was less than effective. To use his words, we were the "skilled team" that worked for him. He was "in the management".

There are a few stories I can share about this dick (including one where he said I was too attractive to do my job, but that's for another time). This particular anecdote was when the previous leader left, and we ended up with him. Our new leader was quite particular about his role. He wasn't just a leader, he was a PRODUCTION LEADER. He was quite insistent we called him by his job title - to the extent that he moaned when we said "oh, the gaffer says xyz" - nope, it must be "the production leader says xyz". Please respect his job, thanks.

I assume this was his pretentious effort to seem important. Remember I said he'd never worked the job before? He never quite understood the details of what he was asking, and you could see his eyes glaze over and his mind wander to KPIs and metrics whenever someone said "uh, that won't work, we need to do abc first before we throw this job onto the machines". For the most part, we just worked it out ourselves and did what we could, and explained what we couldn't. More glazing over and thoughts of metrics and checkboxes followed.

His general demeanour didn't really sit well with us, especially how he thought he was better than the grunts working the job. The one thing that sticks in my mind is that the previous boss (who had retired) used to say "our team", the new guy said "my team". Small difference but it speaks volumes.

So, we decided to maliciously comply. You want to be called by your job title, sure. We can do that. However, we abbreviate everything. Including your job title, Production Leader - Operations.

That abbreviated to PL - Ops.

Which abbreviated to Plops.

I can't take credit for the nickname, but it spread super quick. The malicious compliance was embedded. Within 36 hours, every shift knew that we had to follow Plops' orders.

(For non-English speakers, "plop" is an onomatopoeic way of describing the act of passing faeces).

Plops was obviously quite unhappy with his new nickname. Just imagine the most nasally voice ever saying "I am a PRODUCTION LEADER" to a group of guys, most of which had been in the trade since before Plops was born, and you've got a good idea of how well respected Plops ended up being.

For the rest of his short career in that role, we called him Plops. It infuriated him. To give you an example of a typical incident, three of the shop floor guys are stood in the middle of the factory talking. Plops sees this and walks over to chastise them for not working.

Plops: "Excuse me, gents"

Guy #1: "What's up, Plops?"

Plops: "I'm a Production Leader. Why aren't you on your machines?"

Guy #2: "We're trying to figure out how to do the job."

Plops: "What? Aren't you trained for this?"

Guy #1: "We are, Plops. Been doing this for 24 years."

Plops: "But th-"

Guy #2: "The problem is, Plops, we have 4 sets of tooling available. Each job requires 2 sets of tools per machine, and as there are 3 of us, we would need [pauses sarcastically to count] 6 sets of tools."

Plops: "Nobody told me that!"

Guy #3: "Yes, because we normally split the job out by individual tasks. #1 can process the tasks that don't need tooling, then split the tasks between #2 and #3. It doesn't matter what order these are done in, so we split the batches 2:1 then swap. Do you have a better solution?"

Plops: "Umm... no, do that."

Guy #1: "Thanks for your advice, Plops."

Plops walked away looking very red, with the guys bursting out laughing whilst still very much in earshot.

Plops complained numerous times, and the chief of production told us off in a very half-arsed way. We later found out he also hated Plops for consistently bringing his nickname up and expecting something to be done, often telling him that this wasn't a school and to just play along and it'll naturally go away.

Fast forward to one day when Plops was late for a site-wide meeting. He entered the room, to be met with two or three voices chastising him with comments such as "what time do you call this, Plops?" and "good grief, it's Plops o'clock". Turning a now-familiar shade of crimson, he opened his mouth, but then noticed the Director of Operations (Dops?) stood at the front, having paused his speech. Plops shut his mouth, and quickly found a seat. The director continued for a bit, before pausing to ask if anybody had any questions.

Plops' hand immediately shot up. "Apologies for being late, but I had a question about the half-year business projections given the ramp-up in production. Was this already covered or is this a good time to ask the question?" This question had absolutely nothing to do with anything we did, and it was painfully obvious Plops was just asking the question to seem even more pretentious than he normally was.

The director replied, "Not a problem, er, Plops. Maybe save that one for the end."

This was too much for everybody else, who burst out laughing. The director didn't know who Plops was and had assumed that was his name. The director innocently asked, "oh, is that not his name?"

Someone explained it was a nickname, he was called John. The director apologised and Plops, presumably trying to hide his embarrassment, said "um, don't worry, it wasn't an important question".

After the meeting Plops excused himself and we didn't see him for the rest of the day. He was back in the following day, with an even more sour face than normal. We were all still giddy about how the director had called him Plops, so we just gave him a wide berth.

A few days later, when the atmosphere had calmed down, Plops announced at a meeting that he'd accepted a similar role at another site and would be transferring in the next week. We then found out that Plops had complained yet again (about a director, no less!) to the chief, who had now got fed up of having to baby the kid, and had had a quiet word with the director. Said director, presumably wanting to save face a little, advised that another production lead at a different facility was going on maternity leave so Plops could be parachuted into that role fairly easily. They then had the best part of a year to find somewhere else for him.

We weren't sad to see Plops go, but he "forgot" to bring in cakes on his last day. So, one of the guys who'd worked with some of the staff in the new facility made a phone call. From what I understand, Plops' outgoing counterpart introduced him at one of their morning meetings and invited him to speak. He said "Good morning, I'm John and I'll be taking over from Lisa whilst she's off. I am an experienced production leader so I'm hoping we can keep the wheels turning whilst Lisa and I make the transition. Wishing her the best with the baby and for new parent life."

A chorus of voices came from across the room. "Well said, Plops."

We eventually got a new production leader, who'd worked in a similar role at another company. He seemed to be a decent guy; at his first meeting, he introduced himself and brought in a crate of home-made samosas. He said he didn't want to intrude on our workstations unnecessarily and thus asked everybody to pop into his office at some point in the next day or two to introduce themselves and have a 5-10 minute chat. I was nominated by the guys to go first, and report back how he was. I summarised his personality with one observation, before I'd even sat down. I walked over to the office door and knocked. He waved at me to come in, and as my gaze went upwards, I noticed the new sign he'd put on the door.

"Plops Office"

TLDR: New boss insists on being called Production Leader. We work in Operations. Put the two together - Production Lead, Operations. We abbreviated it to Plops, much to his disdain. He forgot to buy leaving cakes so we made sure the nickname followed him.

[edited to add the final paragraph, above the TLDR]

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/CptUnderpants- on 2025-09-11 20:37:51+00:00.

---

Back when every business and government was starting to get their services accessible online for the first time, there was a new law passed in my state that all local government public records must be accessible via the web.

Those records held by local government included dog registrations, building plans/permits, property ownership information, etc. Until this point, you had to physically turn up at the local government offices and have your name recorded to access such information, but it was free to access and they were not permitted to deny you.

At the time I was the webmaster for one of the local government areas in Australia. When this was first proposed, we highlighted that residents would be very upset by making this information easier to access, and potentially for people to 'scrape' the entire dataset. (Tests to prove you were human were not very reliable back then.)

This was politics, so we were somewhat surprised that the politicians didn't see the potential public backlash.

We also wanted to protect our residents from people who would try to abuse or profit from mass-access to this information.

Our warnings were ignored. So we complied... maliciously.

I wrote an absolutely brilliant information portal (with the best captcha we could implement at the time) which complied exactly with what the law required. We ensured the local newspaper knew the exact date and time it would go online and what would be published. It was easy to find and put in a lot of time to ensure news media would be able to easily demonstrate the potential harm.

The following day, front page news about the massive privacy issues this could pose. That morning, we were told to take it offline and it stayed offline permanently.

The portal was up for a total of 27 hours.

In the aftermath, politicians tried to shift the blame to our local government leadership, who shifted it to us in the IT department. We had prepared a paper trail to ensure that those truly responsible were given all the credit for the project. And those who rebuffed our warnings, had their emails included in the freedom of information requests made during the investigation.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/vikingzx on 2025-09-11 19:06:49+00:00.

---

This happened a few years ago, in my last apartment. My roommate and I were living in a basement place with upstairs neighbors, and the owner decided he wanted to sell.

The upstairs neighbors ended up buying it, and became our new landlords. And they ... were awful at it. I could fill a whole post with the amount of stuff they tried to get away with, but we're here to talk about one particular instance. But suffice to say, they had no idea that landlords had "responsibilities" and simply saw us tenants as a source of income that should be ever growing (hence our rent suddenly spiking, and why we left).

But there was one time they maliciously complianced themselves. See, they had a habit of trying to push stuff on us that was blatantly illegal. Their first contract, for example, said among other things that they had the right to enter the apartment at any time they wanted and could go through our stuff if they wished because we were "living on their property." I pointed out that this was highly illegal, and they grew very upset, saying "Well, we'll see about that." This clause later suddenly became the real one before we signed.

One day, however, our lone fire alarm stopped working. As dutiful tenants, we reached out and said "Hey, the fire alarm stopped working."

Their response was a predictable sort of 'So what?'

"We need to have a working fire alarm," we replied. "And it's the landlord's duty to provide working fire alarms."

"No it's not. You want one, you get it."

"The law says otherwise."

And here's where they maliciously complianced themselves. Possibly because they were getting tired of being corrected, they got snooty with this one. We got a very sarcastic response. "Oh, it does, does it? Well, we'll just see what the FIRE MARSHAL has to say about THAT!"

Me and my roommate, upon recieving this message, burst out laughing. But they were serious. They thought they were going to contact the fire marshal, he was going to side with them, and then they could come down on us hard. I don't know what their expressions were when we said "Okay, yeah do that!"

However ... The next morning there's frantic knocking at our door. There's the landlord and his family, looking very concerned, with a bag of brand-new fire alarms, one for each room and IIRC even two spares. He begs to be let in outside of the 24-hour notice, and says its an emergency: He has to put these alarms up RIGHT NOW.

Trying not to laugh, we let them in, and they hurridly put one in every single room, apologizing profusely for the "delay" and telling us "if you need anything, don't hesitate to ask!"

I don't know how that meeting with the fire marshal went, or if they got him or someone else at their office, but their attitude painted a pretty clear picture of the ultimate result.

They complied maliciously, thinking they'd called our bluff. Whoops.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Key-Needleworker9208 on 2025-09-11 14:41:45+00:00.

---

Years ago I taught at a religious school (all girls, boarding). It wasn't all out Catholic but more laid back Anglican, so they didn't require you to be members of a church before you could even apply for a job.

When I went for my job interview I was quite concerned that, as an atheist, I'd have problems but the Principal, to her credit was quite laid back. When I asked if I'd be expected to teach religion she looked quite shocked and told me "Goodness NO. We have experts for that!". She even managed to cope with finding out that I was riding a motorbike to work! Shock! Horror! Of course I was careful to not park near the school for the first six months and kept my leathers under my desk.

So years go by and we went through a new Principal and then another. Unfortunately this new one decided that ALL staff had to attend the chapel services at the start of the year and on any pupil free days. I pointed out that I was an atheist and felt that I would be mocking the staff who were truly devout if I attended and pretended to be religious. I point blank refused to take communion.

Eventually she conceded the communion issue but still insisted that I had to attend. So I went to the chaplain, who was a really nice guy and didn't deserve to be disrespected, and explained what was going on and what I'd be doing.

From then on at any services I simply sat in the very back row with headphones on and reading a book. Nothing was said and after six months or so I just stopped going and it was never brought up again. I taught there for over 25 years before retiring. :-)

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/bingbong_Iamwrong on 2025-09-11 02:00:52+00:00.

---

This happened over 5 years ago, and it still ticks me off whenever I think about it. Also sorry about how long this is lol:

I was 17 working at a big theme park, and had been working there for the better part of the year. I had quickly picked things up, and was usually regarded as the responsible one on the team when it was just a bunch of us teens working a ride. We had a college student intern lead who was... not good at leading, or training new hires... We'll call him M.

At my main ride, it required 3 people minimum to operate; One person in the control booth, one at the entrance gate, and one at the exit. However, we could have 4 or 5 if we were incredibly busy to help deal with the line. The people in the booth and at the entrance could not see the person at the exit directly, so we used radios. The control booth also had a camera on the exit gate. From day 1 on the job, we were taught hand signals in case the radio dies or for quick communication, these signals were universal across the entire park.

That summer, 3 freshly certified kids (we had to take tests to prove we paid attention to training) started the ride with someone locked inside the fence, aka: not in a seat. Twice it was another employee, once it was a guest (which was a HUGE deal). The thing with those incidents was that those in the control booth didn't notice their mistake until the others SCREAMED at them to hit the E-stop. Those new hires were either retrained or moved to a simpler ride.

Well, one incredibly busy day, there were 5 of us running things. Me, M, and 3 others. M had been called over to another ride, which normally wasn't an issue. About an hour later, someone was scheduled to go home, and M hadn't come back yet. I called the other ride and asked them to send him back. We could've run things with 3 of us, but it was super busy and we really needed a 4th. A few minutes later, someone (not our lead) was sent over to take over. Weird, but no big deal.

Another hour or so went by, someone else needed to go home, I called again asking for M. Also, all the radios' batteries were dead/dying. Things had slowed down, so I, being the spare 4th person, took the radios to the office to get fresh batteries. This took less than 10 minutes, and in that time, the guys had switched to hand signals as we were trained. When I came back, our lead had once again sent over someone else to take his spot. At this point I realized that M was probably just shooting the shit in the nice air-conditioned booth at the other ride.

Now the guy that got sent over to us was normally at a rollercoaster and hadn't been at this ride in over a month, so I gave him a quick review and he took controls. I turned around for maybe 30 seconds when I hear yelling. I turn around, and the ride was stopped maybe 3 ft off the ground with our entrance guy locked in the fence. The guy at controls saw what he did and hit the E-stop, something that the other screwups that summer did not think to do.

We had to call upper management, and wouldn't ya know? M came running over! This time the highest of the higher ups came over as well. They pulled each of us aside and interrogated us (which was odd) then walked away and talked for like half an hour. They then FIRED the guy at controls on the spot, and came up with BS reasons to get the rest of us removed from running rides. They absolutely were only doing that to make an example of us. I tried to rip into M for shirking his duties, but as an anxiety ridden kid it didn't hit very hard. I was mainly pissed off that they fired the poor guy who never should have been there in the first place.

Remember I took the already dead radios earlier? They tried to say I had 'removed communication devices from the ride area' which prevented them from letting controls know they were outside the gate. They were basically trying to pin the whole thing on me. Total bull, bc this happened after I brought them back. I assume M threw me under the bus for being 'in charge' while he wasn't there. Also, we had hand signals!!! I tried explaining that to them, but they didn't give a shit. I refused to sign the paperwork which would be admitting fault, so this fight was stretched over multiple days. Plus I was leaving for college in like 2 weeks and didn't want to spend my last days of summer cleaning bathrooms.

They gave us a new rule: if a single radio was dying, we had to call a manager to fetch us a new battery even if we had people to spare to go grab one instead. If a radio died, we had to close the ride. Managers roamed around the whole area and were responsible for sooooo much, so if you called them and it wasn't urgent, it could take a long time for them to show up. The next day, my radio was dying, I called the manager, half hour goes by, I call again. My radio died. I shut down the ride. The people in the over-an-hour line got PISSED. I explained to people that we had to close because of the radios. Naturally, they got even more pissed bc of how stupid that was. Manager shows up minutes later, I took the battery from him with a smile on my face and he left without saying a word. After many complaints, management was magically fine with us using hand signals again! I never signed that paperwork, I left for college, and funny enough, M also went to the same college. I ran into him once, he just kinda nodded at me, I gave him a dirty look, and I never saw him again. The next summer, I was rehired by the park as a lead and actually did my damn job.

TLDR: When I was working at a theme park, we had several incidents of someone at my ride starting it up with people locked inside the gate. This happened again when I was there because our lead, who was at another ride, was sending over inexperienced people instead of coming back and helping us. Upper management fired the guy who should've never been there, and my lead tried to blame it on me and get me sent to janitorial duty. I fought them, and they made up a rule stating that if a single radio battery died, we had to close the ride until a manager brought us a new one. After I closed it down many times over the next few days and got tons of complaints, they were okay with us getting the batteries ourselves/using hand signals again

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Olastun_bee on 2025-09-09 16:49:00+00:00.

---

A few years ago, IT rolled out a new “cost-saving” policy: all printing must be in black and white. No exceptions. They even locked down the printers so you literally couldn’t choose color.

Fine. We grumbled, but went along with it. Then came the big quarterly presentation. Our exec team had spent weeks putting together slides full of colorful charts, graphs, and visuals. On presentation day, our department was told to print out 200+ copies for distribution.

We did exactly what IT told us to do. We printed everything in crisp, glorious grayscale.

All those red vs. green charts? Now just gray vs. slightly darker gray. Pie charts? Identical-looking circles. Key highlights? Completely invisible.

The execs flipped. You could hear the frustration all the way down the hall. “Why does this look like a bad photocopy from 1993?!”

We shrugged and said: “IT’s policy. Black and white only, no exceptions.”

By the next morning, color printing was magically restored. And IT never tried that “no exceptions” stunt again.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/hastings1033 on 2025-09-09 12:52:00+00:00.

---

I'm sure lots of people have stories like this - and here's mine

I'm retired now after a long IT career. Like most such folks I worked as a software developer for part of this time earlier in my career. For a time I worked for an engineering firm that produced a lot of architectural drawings and blueprints as part of the design process. I was the dev lead and primary designer for a new system to track drawings as they moved through the development and review process.

To get to the point, the new system was launched to mostly good success and heavy usage. As with all new systems, people had a learning curve. As it was not a huge company, most of the user community knew me. We also had a "help desk" who's job theoretically included providing user support for this new tracking system. However, the company had ignored my repeated requests to let them spend meaningful time with me to learn the system well. The user community quickly realized the help desk was useless so they would call me directly. I was fine with this - I always found helping the user community my favorite part of my job.

Word came down to me that I was to direct all such calls to the help desk. Frankly, I ignored this at first, but after a while it was made clear I could not. So, I complied. That did not go well for the users. They basically got no help.

Took only about 3 days for word to come back that I could help people again and time was set aside for me to properly train the help desk folks.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/FishermanAlive5786 on 2025-09-08 15:53:20+00:00.

---

I work as a technical writer for a mid-sized engineering firm. My job is to take the chaos of engineer-speak and turn it into clean, understandable documentation for clients, regulators, and sometimes even legal teams.

Normally, I get a solid 3–5 business days to write and polish a report, review technical data, clarify ambiguous points, add diagrams, cite standards, and make sure it actually reads like something a human wrote.

Enter our new Project Manager. Let’s call him well, we won’t, because acronyms and nicknames aren’t allowed here. Let’s just say he came from a background where speed was valued above quality. First week on the job, he tells me, “I don’t see why these reports take so long. We’re going to start turning them around in 24 hours. I need you to just write what the engineers send you and move on.”

I tried to explain the process: engineers often leave out key details, formatting has to follow industry compliance, and rushing leads to client complaints or worse, regulatory rejections.

He cuts me off: “No excuses. From now on, if I send you a draft, I expect the report back in 24 hours, no exceptions.”

Okay then.

Next day, I get a 20-page data dump from one of the engineers. It’s full of typos, half-finished tables, conflicting numbers, and no clear structure. Normally, I’d spend a couple days cleaning it up.

But I had 24 hours. So I opened the file, dropped the content into our report template, fixed a couple of the obvious red squiggles, and hit send. No formatting, no table of contents, no citations, no standard language, no professional polish, just exactly what he asked for: a “report” in 24 hours.

Two days later, I get copied on an email chain with him, the client, and a couple of VPs. The client was not happy. They said it looked like a rough draft, had missing information, and wasn’t up to the standards they expected. The VPs wanted to know what happened.

He tries to throw me under the bus: “Our technical writer must have rushed it.”

I reply all: “Per [PM’s] directive, I was instructed to return all reports within 24 hours, using the engineers’ drafts without delay. I did not proofread, format, or perform the usual QA processes.”

Silence.

Then, a new email from one of the VPs: “Effective immediately, all technical reports will follow the established documentation process. Timelines will be determined in collaboration with the writing team.”

Back to normal.

PM doesn’t speak to me much these days. Which is also kind of nice.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/FalconGK81 on 2025-09-08 15:53:13+00:00.

---

I grew up as an Army brat, so I did a lot of moving in my childhood. I had been at my current school for 4 years, starting in 8th grade. Up until then, it was the longest I'd ever been in one place. I would be moving across an ocean for my senior year of high school. I was going to miss the friends I'd made, but as an army brat, this wasn't anything new. Frankly, I was looking forward to a change of scenery.

I was a member of the high school band. Through my sophomore year, we had a wonderful band director who was the kind of teacher everyone dreams of: helpful, friendly, supportive, encouraging, and a little bit of a hard ass when needed. However, she left us, and her replacement was nothing short of horrible. He was mean, rude, short tempered, and authoritarian.

One spring day, nearing the end of my junior year, I needed to go to a dental appointment to fix a cavity. Given that we were about to move thousands of miles away, we just took the first appointment we could get, and that happened to be an early afternoon that would require me to miss a single day of band class. So I go to the band director, inform him that I'm going to miss class this afternoon for a dental appointment. Then I check out of school, go to the dentist, get my tooth filled, go home, and carry on with the rest of my life because this is a regular, routine, normal and not at all unusual event that is hardly worth even noticing, let alone causing drama, right? Of course not.

I come to school the following day, and a bunch of my band mates come up to me at morning break. "Hey, OP, did you hear about Mr. B yesterday?" they all inquire. "No, what happened" I reply. I get a story about how Mr. B decides to take the opportunity of my absence to lecture the entire band about how dedication is soooo important. Everyone really needs to be a team player. We don't need selfish members in this band who schedule appointments during band class/rehearsals. I mean he really lays into it. Apparently arms waving, voice rising, he works himself into a full tirade against selfish band members who don't show up to class for trifling things like medical appointments. While the band was somewhat large (probably 80 students), everyone in the room knew exactly who he was referring to, as I'm conspicuously not in my chair that day. Hence the cluster of band mates asking me if I'd heard about this.

So, here's the thing. As I mentioned earlier, I'm an Army brat, through and through. To this day I still say "Yes sir" or "No ma'am" when talking to my elders/superiors. I know rules and order, and I know my part in the system. I was not rebellious. I had a 3.9 GPA, good manners, and never put a toe out of line. But I also have a very large sense of justice. And this? This was bullshit. So, I marched myself right to the band director and said "Mr. B, I hear you gave a good lecture about not needing people who aren't dedicated in the band, and how scheduling appointments during band class is not showing dedication. So, effective immediately, I am no longer in your band. I'll find another class to finish out the year."

You should have seen the veins on his forehead, I swear the man nearly stroked out. I've never seen anyone angrier. He starts to yell at me, but this isn't my class time, I don't have to be there, so I turn around to walk out. The man literally moves to block my way yelling about how "I decide if you're in here or not, you can't leave this class without my permission. I'm the one in charge here." We'll see about that. I just walk around him and go about my day, since this is between-class free time, I don't have to stand there and discuss it with him.

I go to Coach N (another one of those awesome teachers everyone loves) and tell him about my situation. Coach N happens to teach an art history class the same period as the band class. I ask Coach N if he wouldn't mind if I finished out the year in his class. He did encourage me to try and work it out if I could, but I made it pretty clear to him that I didn't respect Mr. B, I wasn't going to be treated like that, and this was just the last straw in a year long display of his petty, mean, authoritarian nonsense. Since Coach N and I get along great he gladly agrees to let me join his art class. So I go on down to the principals office and tell the principal that I'm not going to finish out the year in band, but that Coach N is willing to let me finish the year in his class. The principal tells me "we're going to have to discuss this with Mr. B, and your parents. I'll setup a meeting." "Great, as soon as possible please.". So, last period of the day comes, and I go to Coach N's class. About 5 minutes into some slide show about Coach N's trip to Rome last year, and I'm fetched out of the class, and told that I haven't been allowed to switch yet, and I must go to my band class.

Cue the malicious compliance. I can't leave without your permission, Mr. B? Ok, I'll stay in your band. Now, what older more vindictive me thinks I should have done, was just play the most ridiculous, off-note, out of tempo nonsense all class long. That would have been hilarious. But that's not what I did. Like I said, I was a rule follower, playing wrong/loudly never crossed my mind. Instead, what I did, was go into band class, take my front row seat (I was first chair oboe), and sit with my hands folded in my lap for the entire 90 minutes. Staring at Mr. B. I don't take out my instrument, warm up, pull out sheet music, or interact with anyone the entire time. I just sit there, passive aggressively displaying that while you can make me stay in your class, you can't make me play.

You'd think he'd get the hint and just relent, but that's not Mr. B's style. Instead, for two days while they setup the meeting with my Mom, I have to sit in that class and openly defy him. But he's got a plan, he's gonna threaten my grades and try to coerce my Mom to make me support him. Thankfully I've prepped Mom, and she's no fan of Mr. B, so that is gonna go nowhere. So we finally go to the meeting, and when both sides have had their say, Mr. B smugly says "If I don't let you out of my class, you have to stay. You'll get a failing grade." The principal takes his side and also tried to cajole me into staying, trying to lean on the threat to my grades. "OP's Mom, OP has such great grades, you wouldn't want those ruined, now would you?" Mom, like a boss, basically says "I think OP is right. He doesn't want to stay in the class. Lets just find an alternative." Then I said to the principal, "You can make me stay if that's what you want to do." Then I turned to Mr. B, and said "I have a 3.9 GPA, I think I can afford one bad grade for one quarter in an art credit. I don't think that's gonna ruin my future. So, again, you can make me stay, and you can give me a bad grade, but you can't make me play. Every day, in front of every member of that band, I will openly defy you. Do you really want that for the rest of the school year?" I still remember the look of defeat on his face. It was glorious.

Coach N's class for the rest of the year was great fun. I learned a lot about art history and appreciation, which was something I hadn't really been exposed to before. Then I set off half-way across the world for an international high school adventure my senior year. In a way, I couldn't actually believe I pulled it off. I think its the day I realized that I wasn't so different from adults. You could maybe even argue it was when I became an adult. So I guess I could thank Mr. B for that. But I won't.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Z-mount on 2025-09-07 12:35:18+00:00.

---

My backyard neighbor has been difficult since the day I moved in. We closed on the house in late December, and by early spring she was demanding I spend $10,000 to build a drywell to stop rainwater from flowing into her yard. My property sits higher than hers, and it has been this way for over 60 years. I refused but offered to let her pay for it herself. She declined.

A few weeks later, she called the town to complain about a flood light on my property that was missing a cover. Code enforcement came by while we had people over, which made the whole situation embarrassing. The officer just told us, she’s known for this and not to worry, just correct the issue, no fines were issued. A week later the inspector returned to reinspect the light. We had a nice chat, everything was in order, and the case was closed.

On Father’s Day, we held a small surprise party for my father-in-law’s 80th birthday and played music on a small Sonos speaker. The following Friday, the same code enforcement officer called me to say my neighbor had complained again. He told me not to worry, but reminded me that if I ever held a party with music and I wanted to avoid drama , I should apply for a permit.

In mid-July, I overheard my neighbor on the phone inviting people to a barbecue, giving the date and time. The following Monday, I went to town hall, applied for a permit for that exact date and time, and it was approved.

On the day of her party, as her guests arrived, I turned on loud old Greek chanting music from the early 1900s. My grandparents loved it and used to torture me and my cousins with it growing up, so I knew exactly how annoying it would sound blasting across the yard. Within minutes, she ran over, banging on my door and ringing my doorbell repeatedly. The Ring doorbell footage of her tantrum is hilarious. I did not answer since I had taken out my wife, and my neighbors to the left and right of my house for drinks.

The next Monday, code enforcement received a complaint. The same officer handled it personally and informed her that a permit had been issued, and nothing could be done.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/overeasyallie on 2025-09-07 17:28:25+00:00.

---

I worked as a recruiter for a temp agency when I was young and fresh out of college. The manager of the agency was a total micromanager and wanted a say in absolutely everything. She micromanaged everyone so badly that she wanted to proofread any emails that any staff member was sending externally. She also want to be CCed on every single outgoing external email.

One day one of my coworkers got a response back from an employer who gave some positive feedback about the email she wrote. Our manager made sure to reply all and take credit for the email and explained she oversees all outgoing emails. A few days later in a staff meeting she made a point of saying she should get credit for any feedback the agency receives since she proofreads everything.

The thing is, this manager was not well spoken or smart and not even a particularly good writer. I regularly spotted issues with her sentence structure and use of commas but just didn't say anything.

One day she's proofreading one of my emails that would be going externally to an employer who pumped a lot of money into our agency. I was stating in the email that I thought so-and-so was a great fit for their vacant position based on so-and-so's past experience. Miss Manager comes to my desk and tells me the email looks good except it should read 'passed experience.' I told her that was incorrect and she told me I was wrong and she knows the difference between the two words. I wasn't in the mood to argue so I wrote it as 'passed experience and' and CCed Miss Manager on the email.

The employer writes me back and says as an employer who hires people to work on printed literature they wanted to correct me and let me know it's actually 'past experience.' That's where malicious compliance kicked in. I hit reply all and thanked them for the feedback and explained my manager values all feedback and since she proofreads all outgoing emails, she was the one who insisted on writing 'passed experience.'

The next day she announced she no longer wanted to proofread outgoing external emails and didn't want to be CCed on them any further.

Malicious compliance put that witch in her place!

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/pupillary on 2025-09-06 19:15:53+00:00.

---

Big box retail. I'm in a different store than usual. I've traveled an hour and a half to get there. Right away I notice the place has two big overflowing trash cans. I bag everything up to take to the back...the place where employees only are allowed. I do not wear my name tag when I walk through the store with trash because I have noticed that when customers see anyone wearing a badge, they run up on you to ask where stuff is. Again, I'm in a different store in a different town. I don't know where anything is in this place and customers really don't like to hear that, so I leave the badge in my desk and carry the two bags of trash plus cardboard boxes folded up and tucked under my arm.

As soon as I get to the back, not one but two employees descend on me informing me that I cannot be in the back without my badge. Rather than justify my presence, I just smiled and said "you know what, you're right!" I let go of both bags, dropping them where I stood. I pulled all the folded cardboard from under my arm and handed it over. Ever notice that if you hand something to someone, they usually take it? Well, he took it and as far as I was concerned, it was his. I stepped away from the trash bags I was not authorized to carry and kept walking as they frantically called out to me to not leave the trash behind. Too late, I'm gone.

On second thought, maybe this should go to AITA?

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Scenarioing on 2025-09-06 18:57:53+00:00.

---

I've been thinking of posting about a MC experience except that I was the foil. The day has come.

Four decades ago I got a F%*& up, move up type promotion to be a field supervisor for a security guard company. In the end I did pretty well, but I was young, sometimes stupid and inexperienced.

One day at one of our larger sites I checked in on the guards working there. It was a sweltering hot day and one guard position was outdoors in a booth where trucks would get checked in and out. The management of the company that contracted our company fussed a lot about appearances including wearing a tie. I told the guard he had a wear his tie. He said no, so I said I would send him home for the day (without pay) if he didn't comply.

He called my bluff. I had to cover his shift. I could have instructed another guard to take up the position while I got to sit inside, but thought better of it and also realized the additional repercussions it might also cause that day and down the road. Plus the embarrassment. There still was some because I'm sure the other guards got a chuckle over my consequences.

Anyway, within a half hour, my tie was off as it was absolutely miserable and I was just dealing with a few truck drivers on a weekend. My productivity that day tanked and had to make up for it later. Lesson learned.

After, I realized that there are rules and there is reality. To pick the right battles and to support the staff and earn their trust and gather info before making decisions. Which produced dividends later when I needed help filling positions or making other asks. I was also warned a few times if something might cause problems.

I always carried that experience with me and am a business owner now. Employees come and go, but they don't go because 'they didn't wear a tie' or such that was not needed. It was a small thing way back when and not a ruinous event, but is was still a life lesson.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Icarusreswings on 2025-09-06 18:17:53+00:00.

---

Very short and defiently not as dramatic as most posts, but it belongs here. My son is 6. He hates writing homework. So much that he will do anything to get away from it. He'd rather do higher grade math then to do his writing homework, so of course when I messed up, he took advantage of it. I meant to say "Write 10 words and you can be done for today" but instead I messed up and said "Write 10 letters and you can be done for the day" so he wrote the first letter in each word and then declared proudly that he had followed my directions. I tried to correct him by saying he has to write the 10 words fully and he said "No daddy you said 10 letters I wrote 11 letters so Im done now." Then proceeded to go play with his brother while I stand here semi proud and a bit disappointed in myself.. ive raised a menace lol

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Small-University-684 on 2025-09-06 17:52:03+00:00.

---

Growing up, I had very strict, yet absent parents. They always tried to control what I did and told me that I can do what I want when I’m an adult but until then, I had to follow their rules

When I turned freshly 18 (legally an adult), I was heading out to the club with my best friend. Before I left, my mom said “you’d better not come home at 3 in the morning this time” so I came home at 9am instead. She started kicking off so I simply reminded her that I was told not to come home at 3am

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Impressive-Bike-8126 on 2025-09-05 15:04:46+00:00.

---

In the late 90s I lived in a pretty sweet apartment with a cool little turret room. It was a studio, but it was just me and a cat, so it worked perfectly. I loved the location, but the landlord was...difficult. When I first signed the lease, she acted like it was cool that I had a cat, but one time when she came by with the bug guy, she saw my cat and demanded I pay her a pet deposit. I was like "you didn't mention that before, but cool. Whatever."

Things toddle along for a few more months, when I get a call: Landlord wants to come by and show her friend the work she did on the place before I moved in, because she was proud of doing it herself. Okay, cool. Whatever. Landlord and friend come over, walk around the apartment for a few minutes, friend is gushing about how much she loves the place and what she did with it. Yeah! me too! There were def some sapphic vibes going on, so I'm thinking "good for you too!"

A couple of weeks later, my landlord calls and says "I want you out by the end of the month." I'm like "huh, wha?" And she tries to say it was because I didn't tell her I had a cat when I moved in, despite us having that discussion and me paying her the pet deposit when asked. I explained this to her, she was adamant, tried to gaslight me, and insisted I had to get out. Turns out her "friend" fell in love with the place and was in need of a new spot BY THE END OF THE MONTH. She never told me this directly, but the downstairs neighbor heard them talking about it on their way out.

I ended up finding a much better place to land in a better neighborhood, so I wasn't screwed, but I was still incredibly pissed over the whole thing, due to the fact that she was so shitty and dishonest about the whole thing, so I delayed paying her that last month's rent until move out day because fuck her. On that day, I decided to go down to the bank and cash in the rent amount (like $350, it was the 90s) for pennies. The bank gave me rolled coins, which I promptly opened into a couple of Kroger bags. I moved all my shit out the day before, so I just met her there for a walk-through, and when she asked for the rent, I handed her the bags full of pennies. She got redhot pissed and screamed at me, said I was going to have to wait there while she counted it (first she tried to get me to count it and roll it), to which I replied "Nah, bitch. I know how much is there. Call me if it's short."

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/IMrTrippy on 2025-09-05 13:30:01+00:00.

---

This is a more light hearted MC but I was thinking about it earlier and thought I’d share!

When I was a kid my dad used to torture my ears on the drive to school with his terrible music. We came to an agreement that I was allowed to listen to 1 song per journey, no matter the genre or what my dad thought of it.

For a couple of weeks I got to enjoy a few minutes of bliss each day, but there had to be a way I could make it last longer… That’s when I discovered a band called NOFX, most of their songs are a couple of minutes long. Except for one, a song called The Decline that’s roughly 18 mins long!!

I was doing my best to hide my smile when I put it on, it took about 6 minutes before “how long is this damn song??”. When I said 18 minutes he immediately turned it off and said “I’m not listening to that crap for that long”. I had my song access revoked for about a month lol

When I was eventually allowed one song again, it was on a case by case basis, and definitely not anything longer than 6 minutes. It was kind of worth it just to see my dads reaction to an 18 minute punk song

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/paperanddoodlesco on 2025-09-05 12:10:07+00:00.

---

So this happened a while ago before remote work was even a concept (think 2008ish). I was working at a large media agency and for anyone who knows agency work, we typically work around our client's schedule - or at least as best as possible. We were based in NYC but had CA clients, so it was pretty standard that we'd get in at 10am and leave 7/8pm (if you stayed to 9pm, you could take a car service home so we sometimes just did that - most of us were in our 20s so no big deal!).

When a new CEO started, he was used to working in Europe and hated that we weren't in the office at 8am and forced a company policy that we had to be in the office from 8am-5pm.

We of course followed the rules because who wouldn't want to leave at 5?!

Let's just say the policy was lifted within 2 weeks when our west coast clients couldn't get in touch with us!

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Ready-Branch87 on 2025-09-05 10:19:46+00:00.

---

Back when I worked at a mid-sized company, my manager decided that our team wasn’t “thorough enough” with our project handoffs. We already kept notes, but he announced that from now on, every single step had to be documented in detail. His exact words were: “If it isn’t written down, it didn’t happen.”

Alright then.

On my next project, I documented everything. Booting up the computer, logging into the system, which buttons I clicked, why I clicked them, screenshots for every screen, timestamps, file sizes, you name it, it went into the record. By the end, my “handoff” wasn’t the usual 6–8 pages. It was a full 198-page binder, neatly organized, with a table of contents.

I dropped it on his desk with a satisfying thunk. He looked stunned. “What is this?”

I smiled and said, “The complete documentation, just like you asked. Every step is there.”

He had to carry that binder to the next project review, where people actually laughed at how absurd it was. After that, he quietly clarified that we only needed to document “the important steps.”

Malicious compliance achieved: I followed the rule exactly, and he never asked for that much detail again.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Ok-Narwhal-6979 on 2025-09-05 08:36:42+00:00.

---

I had this coworker who loved acting like he was in charge of me, even though we were on the same level. He sent me a long message one day saying from now on I was required to copy him on every single email I sent so he could “stay in the loop.”

He wasn’t my boss. He just liked the power trip.

So I started copying him on every single email. Not just client stuff, not just internal updates. Everything. When IT emailed to remind us about scheduled maintenance, he got a copy. When HR sent me a reminder about updating my tax form, he got a copy. When the office manager emailed about bagels in the breakroom, he got a copy.

Within three days his inbox was buried. He tried to complain but I just showed him his own email where he said copy me on every single email.

Our manager got involved and told him to stop wasting my time. Suddenly I didn’t have to copy him on anything anymore, and he avoided me like the plague after that.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Commercial-Dish7684 on 2025-09-05 04:06:42+00:00.

---

I saw a similar story that reminded me of mine. Many years ago I worked at a print shop that no longer has its original name, but people still call it by its original name and is notorious for iffy customer service. (Side note: one of the main reasons is that we encountered the most ridiculous asks so when a perfectly reasonable request came through, we were already sitting on ready to engage in the madness…apologies for anyone who was reasonable)

Anyway, we were a pretty laid back, island of misfits store…grad students, wayward musicians, lifers, tokers, and single moms who work two jobs…but collectively got ish done. P&L unmatched to the smoke breaks taken. Our uniforms were navy pants and a button down shirt (long or short sleeve…dealer’s choice!) and could even order a cardigan sweater, which all came from the corporate catalog.

We get a new district manager who does a store visit. She determines that the men were not adhering to the official uniform because none of them were wearing ties. Pause. The reason why? We have an industrial size laminating machine that was diabolical and easily snatched up ties. Just a general chocking hazard and made absolutely no sense to wear to do this job. She threatens to write up anyone non-compliant and puts our store on notice.

Quiet storm Gil (not his real name) says, bet. He reviews the handbook and sees that both neckties and bow ties are acceptable with no additional descriptions. So he orders a box of what can only be called the comical clown collection of bow ties from eBay. Puts them in the break room and tells the store to have at it. We are talking about polka dots, paisley, stripes in every color of the rainbow and of ridiculous size proportions. Honestly, a joy to witness. Customers are like, this is interesting. Which btw, makes Gil and others grumpy because they are taking a stance, not trying to spend more time with customers.

A month later, district manager visits again. We have now normalized the bow ties. She is livid. She speaks to our store manager, who shows her the employee handbook and points out how it doesn’t provide color or size parameters and technically, they are all compliant and have taken her warning seriously. Soooo…

After she leaves, our store manager says that they no longer have to wear ties and it is up to the discretion of each employee if they want to wear a tie on shift. Every now and then someone would walk onto the floor with a polka dot reminder.