Malicious Compliance

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/PotatoPoweredFan on 2025-07-26 06:27:39+00:00.

I work in a warehouse, and a while back we got a new supervisor who was all about “following protocol.” His big thing was that no one should touch anything unless it was their exact job to do it. One morning I noticed one of the older machines starting to smoke. I’ve worked with it before and I knew what was happening, but I remembered the rule. So I let the supervisor know. He barely looked up and said, “Don’t touch it unless it’s your job.” Alright then. I went back to packing. Ten minutes later, the thing actually caught fire. We had a clear out the whole floor. Maintenance took their sweet time showing up. The machine was toast. Production was shut down for the rest of the day. They quietly dropped the “don’t touch anything” rule after that. I just did what I was told.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/TheOmega010 on 2025-07-24 17:23:07+00:00.

I work in contract security as an armed guard at a major utility company. I pick up extra work on my days off from my main site covering banks that the company I work for has as clients as well.

Today, I covered a branch of a large bank that has a white and red logo, likes stage coaches, and traces their roots back to the mid-1800s. After I was allowed to enter the bank, the Branch Operations Manager gave me a run down and read me the riot act right off the bat. I had a feeling at that time that this might be a long day.

30 minutes later, a bank customer came in looking lost and said she had an appointment with a banker. I greeted her and told her to take a seat and they’ll be with her shortly. That prompted Madam BOM to come out from the back and get onto me for telling the customer to take a seat. Told me that I wasn’t allowed to give any direction to anyone coming in as it could cause problems. Ok, that’s reasonable enough.

A hour or so later, a man entered the branch with a problem and he was a bit irate because of his issue. BOM said she could try to help him and ran into issues, which caused him to get more irate, especially since she was not acting very helpful and kept putting the blame on him for something that appeared to be the bank’s fault. She came out from behind the teller desk and was looking for a banker to help the gentleman and while she was wandering around, I engaged him in conversation.

He was wearing a Marine Corps hat and I started chatting with him about what he did in the Corps and other things along that line. She finally figured something out and instead of calling the gentleman over, she called my name and did a throat slash. After she was finished with the gentleman and wasn’t able to help him while still blaming him for the situation, she called me over and proceeded to lay into me about how we had just spoke about talking to people. She said that I’m here for presence only and I’m not here to de-escalate, one of the primary purposes of a security guard, or to speak with the clients. She said that my conversation with the man could cause problems for the bank, despite it not being about the bank at all, and that I wasn’t to talk to the customers at all. I asked her if she wanted me to be “Seen and Not Heard” and she indicated that’s what she wanted from me. She once again threatened to call my supervisor if I had a problem and didn’t understand her.

Message was received loud and clear. I notified my supervisor of the incident and then decided I was going to comply with her orders to the letter.

Queue malicious compliance with me deciding to communicate for the rest of the day with signs, from the limited sign language I know from my wife and friends, and gestures. People would ask me questions and I’d just just gesture and point the to “Please Wait Here” sign. People would talk about the weather and I’d just nod. I directed people to stand in line with gestures and nods.

This went on until just before noon when the Branch Manager pulled me into his office with Madam BOM. He proceeded to talk about their concerns and asked me what had happened with the irate gentleman. I filled him in and it was obvious by his reaction that my version of events didn’t match with what Madam BOM had told him. Nevertheless, he proceeded to tell me how I was supposed to do things and that we had to work together. According to the both of them, anything that I say, even not related to the bank or financial matters, can cause problems and it’s best to not say anything, especially to irate customers. Afterwards, as I was leaving his office, I informed him that I’d already let my supervisor know of the situation and that any further issues would be best brought to his attention. I’m half expecting them to call my supervisor to have me removed early and that will be perfectly fine with me as I never plan to cover this location in the future.

I am eating lunch now, but I plan on continuing my malicious compliance after my break ends. I’ll be present and do my rounds as I’m supposed to do, but nothing says that I have to greet people or discuss anything with anyone.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/MemeMaestro5000 on 2025-07-24 15:51:01+00:00.

I work in retail, and I used to help wherever I was needed. If a customer looked lost or had a question, I’d step in, even if it wasn’t technically my department. Then a supervisor told me, “Stick to your area. Let the others handle their own zones.” Cool. So the next day, a woman was clearly struggling with a heavy item two aisles over. I was five feet away. We made eye contact. She asked if I could help. I smiled and said, “Sorry, I’m not assigned to that section.” She left the cart and walked out of the store. Later, a manager asked why I didn’t step in. I just said, “I was following instructions.”

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/AreaMiserable9187 on 2025-07-24 08:48:43+00:00.

So I work with the most frustrating woman I have ever encountered. We're both managers within the company but she continously treats me like she's my boss and keeps track of what my team does, often commenting on things that has nothing to do with her. She tries to tell me how to feedback to my team, telling me how to pull them up on "errors" she perceives. She's told me I cannot speak to clients one-on-one despite the clients wanting to speak to me. She recently told me "I'm not a writer" when I queried a part of a project, but I am a writer! That's how I got the job! However, our teams collaborate all day so I can't just ignore her.

Recently there was an issue where a note for a specific project was missed. It was missed by her team and when it got to my team we assumed that because it was approved by her team we were good to go. Apparently that was completely my fault and I should know better. No accountability for the fact her team approved it and didn't flag it. She told me I had to flag such things in future.

Okay, I'll flag every single thing. Every single note that comes across with a project I am questioning. Everything she's asking me to do, I am questioning. I must waste so much of my own time sending back random questions but if it's winding her up, I will continue doing it until the end of time.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/CarolTheEnglishMajor on 2025-07-23 17:09:52+00:00.

So I work in a toddler room, and the toddlers were starting to get really into potty humour, as is typical for that age. They had started talking about poop at the lunch table, so my head teacher told them you can only talk about bathroom stuff in the bathroom and would send them into the bathroom to get it out of their system before coming back to the table.

They immediately realized the loophole we just gave them and started going into the bathroom and saying every potty related word they knew, we hoped it would blow over once they got bored because at this point it was too late to take it back.

Fast forward a couple days later, we are trying to do a circle but there are 5 toddlers all congregated in the little bathroom chanting " poop in the butt! Poop in the butt!" We can't even say anything cause like ... they ARE in the bathroom. So we had to sit there and wait for the weird poop cult to finish before we could start circle.

**Repost because it was originally taken down for rule 6- I added more clarification in this new post about how absolutely intentional this was, toddlers are honestly too smart for their own good sometimes!

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/WorkFromHomeHun on 2025-07-23 17:06:18+00:00.

I work at a retail store where each sale requires on average 10 minutes of paperwork, that's if you're fast and know what you're doing. Two months into the job, the boss told us new hires to "Stop asking questions in front of the customers. We look like clowns and customers lose confidence."

The only training they provided was asking questions. They'd stick you with a customer and make you guess how to process the paperwork. If you got stuck, you'd ask for help. They tell you what to click but not why. Then they info dump all exceptions to the rule they just gave you.

Malicious compliance: Stop asking questions and I take my sweet-ass time (30-40 mintues) guessing my way through paperwork.

• I've undercharged customers.

• A customer actually walked out. "Call me when you all actually have time for me, because I can't be here all day"

• A customer decided not to buy. The senior employee was mad I didn't ask about shipping. "Yes, we usually don't but we sometimes make exceptions. Always ask questions!"

• When I'm at the sales desk, instead of asking if we sell a product or accept an insurance, I just tell callers that we don't. This saves me from doing the work of looking them up.

• When I'm working the reception desk, I waste time looking up obscure insurance policies instead of just asking a senior employee.

• I'm not Latino but I speak some Spanish. Now when Spanish speakers call, I only respond in English. Before I would speak Spanish and ask for help if I need it. Now because of the no questions policy, I don't even ask my co-workers if they are free to take a call. I feel bad for these people though. but not too bad, all they have to do is call back and hope I don't answer lol

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/gobuddy99 on 2025-07-23 14:14:16+00:00.

This is about malicious compliance by our 3rd party IT support. For years their 24 hour response meant that problems would get a technical response within a working day or they would be in breach. After some cost cutting by them they reviewed the contract and reinterpreted the 24 hours to mean 24 working hours which is the same as 3 working days. So a problem reported Friday lunchtime would have to be looked at by Wednesday lunchtime the following week.

They were still compliant with the letter of contract but definitely not the spirit. They saved money in the short term, lost the contract in the long term. Our contracts team made sure that the working days / 24 hours ambiguity never appeared again.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/El-Fearo on 2025-07-23 00:34:06+00:00.

Hey there,

just wanted to share my compliance with you. Its been a few years but i still am proud of it.

Background: I worked in it in a medium sized company. We were a team of about 20 persons, with always 2 specialists for every topic. For example server / database and mine - network and firewalls. Due to laws in our country we had a gentlemen's agreement with our company. As noone could be forced to be on call pretty much 24/7 every 2 weeks, but the company needing exactly that they paid us about 500€ per month, and we would be on call - but with less harsh rules (you were supposed to call back in a larger timeframe, it wasn't expected that you could start working within a specific frame etc.). The calls were not frequent so this was okay for us. Every team was called like 2-3 times a year, so it was decent money for a psychic burden, more then for real work.

The problem: I was the new one. So I worked there for several years and my boss just left me out of the agreement. At the beginning it was ok, because I wasn't called and also wasn't able to help immediately. But after 2 years my higher boss blatantly stated "well if there is a problem, we'll just call him" to other colleagues and my direct boss when it came to my partner going into vacations or illness.

The first problem: As you might expect I was pissed. And low and behold, the time came and they needed help from the whole department, because there was a computer problem with all systems. The higher boss didn't even have the balls to call me himself, he made one of the other colleagues do it. I answered and it was hard to leave them hanging, but I declined, knowing everyone would have more work with less people.

The Solution : After being set into such a harsh spot, I chose to solve the problem myself. You don't want me on call? You won't be able to call me. I switched my mobile number, only giving it to my direct partner, who also agreed with it being unfair, like my direct boss. He would simply lie that he didn't have it either if he was asked. Everyone knew I was pissed, so they agreed with my solution. Then i turned off my home phone, which I didn't use anyway and gave hr the number of my parents, telling them to only contact me, if there was a real problem, nothing just work related. And then I waited. And waited.

The Crashout & Aftermath: And then my time came. Colleague was out of country on holiday. I had a nice weekend. On Monday I came in and everyone was like: everything crashed on the weekend. Turns out the firewall as main gateway had a network interface going up and down. Noone even had a login expect my colleague and me. They had to get a specialist from the support to help them, which cost them the whole weekend to solve this, meaning critical calculations didn't run as planned. I was immediately called into my boss (unfortunately not the higher one again) office. He instantly promoted me to being on call, no matter the consequences. Everything with HR and the bigger boss would be done afterwards, I just had to make sure I was on call when leaving the building this day. So I went ahead and gave them my number, and after that I was never even questioned about it again.

Bonus for me: Other departments always were pissed about our "free bonus money" and I was the only one who always just went ahead and told everyone I would actually give it up again, if I had my personal freedom and space back.

I actually prefer my space over the money. Left some years afterwards for a 8-16 it job without being in the constant awareness that someone might call. The money might sound great at first. But about 3000€ per year for always having your work in the back of your head just isn't worth it for me.

Hope you enjoyed my MC

Have a good one

Edit for clarification: 500€ a month, at about 42% tax rate. It's quite usual to make it simple and just half the initial income. So it would have been around 3400€. Nothing was split, every one on call got the 500

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/meh_mooody on 2025-07-22 16:06:09+00:00.

My manager got hired when her role was remote. After some recent restructuring they decided to tell everyone they had to come back to the office or leave (classic corp bs.) I told her to stop answering her phone and emails after she left the office bc it was their rules, they decided no more wfh. She eventually stopped and people started freaking out. I had a senior manager come up to me and ask if I could help with something as she wasn’t answering it was (8pm on a weekend.) I said I’d be happy as long as it was something I knew how to do😉 then asked why they were reaching out to her since they had announced that we were no longer allowed to wfh his face was priceless. Also I pretended to not know how to help out so they had to wait till she came back from vacay

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/br00kssofia on 2025-07-22 15:02:22+00:00.

My manager sent a passive-aggressive message to the whole team, clearly aimed at me: “Lunch breaks are unpaid, but everyone is expected to be available during core hours, including lunch”.

I used to take a quick walk or step out to grab coffee, never missed meetings, never late. But fine. If she wants me “available”, I’ll play along.

I started eating lunch at my desk every day - no headphones, not working. Just… sitting. I ignored emails and messages, and when people came over, I’d smile and say, “I’m on my unpaid break, but I’ll jump on it at 1”.

One day she sent a message at 12:10 asking for a report ASAP. I didn’t reply until 1:00. Someone else had scrambled to do it by then.

She later asked why I didn’t respond, and I said, “I was available, just not working. As instructed”.

She never brought up lunch breaks again.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/HurryAcceptable9242 on 2025-07-22 15:02:06+00:00.

I had a pretty successful lawn mowing hustle in high school, with enough regulars to have a decent income.

Sometimes, it just rains every inconvenient day and lawns get longer and longer. Most customers understood that they needed to be patient and wait until it's dry enough to mow, but not this one guy.

He was on the cutting edge of impatience, and in a mowment of dullness, he insisted I come and "deal with this" because it was too long, even though it had continued to rain even on the same day. I told him, this is not going to go well, but he insisted, so I got out there and did the best I could, with wet soggy grass clumping up all over the place.

If you know anything about this, you know that mowing thick wet grass with a push mower tends to just lay the grass over and not really cut it, so you can imagine what it looked like after two dry days.

The house was on a busy corner of the neighborhood, so until I could get to a week later, it looked like a troop of drunken monkeys had attacked his lawn with scissors. It looked much worse than if he'd just waited until it was dry.

The only thing I felt bad about was that everyone knew that was my work, so I made sure to make it look super nice as soon as I could do it properly.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Ancient_Educator_76 on 2025-07-20 21:03:53+00:00.

Hey party people it’s your boy troyyyy ! Nah jk was trying a thing it sounded awkward moving on …

I’m working in the deli in Scottsdale Arizona , where the customers are weird and the employees are nonexistent. It’s a busy day because of this fact.

A customer comes up with his hands on his hips like Superman. You know that way that customers try to let you know they’ve been waiting a long (any amount of ) time ? Some due the I’m a little teapot with one hand on hip, some find their arms. Not this guy. He acts like he walked into the second hand of a Hims commercial minus the smile.

I eventually get to him among the sea of tasks and other customers on the other side of the deli (slicers) and he huffs. “Why do you only have three spicy strips left!? You guys ain’t prepared at all!l And he puffs. “How are you the only person here?” (Which was more accusatory than the remorseful or showing pity etc). And he just about blows my patience in when I realize that by the time I’ve rung up /weighed out his chicken strips that I hit the wrong Tare weight, significantly affecting the price. Infiguu up red oh well I’m only losing four bucks. I’d pay twice as much to have this transaction over.

Before I can say anything , Shirley temple (Sassy Superman) literally spits out “that’s the wrong price Dude ! How bout u Reweigh it the right way!!” You got it. Enter MC

I knew full well that when I reweighrd it and properly did the correct rare weight it was going to be a bigger price. I accidentally hit .4 for rare weight not .005. It made the chicken seven bucks more by the time the tag printed out .

He was not happy

“What the he’ll the price was 5.99 on sale and you had it at 7 bucks there’s no way no fuqqing way”.

I explained to him that I originally did make a mistake but I “accidentally hit a large tare weight that made your chicken significantly cheaper but this is the correct sale price now. Sorry for the mixup ! “

He crumpled back into the sea of demanding customers who all seemed fairly entertained Who am I kidding half the people didn’t even notice. But for me. It was a great moment in an Otherwise brutal day so far.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/TrashedLeBlanc on 2025-07-20 06:01:26+00:00.

I'm actually excited to be able to contribute here for once. This is currently taking place in a casino in a province in Canada I work at and it is a bit multi faceted so I will apologize for the long read and there is a TLDR at the end

To start, we're technically government employees. Don't ask me why, but we're also union. Ya, I am a literal bartender in a restaurant where everyone is a unionized government employee....you can see where this is probably going or what kind of environment this has engendered.

So first off employees. There are 3 FT bartenders. As a person who has bartended or managed bars off and on for decades and we actually get hosed. Like I have never made so little money working in the service industry; but we have a pension and benefits and that's pretty choice.

We consistently work our asses off while we watch our floor counting their hundreds of dollars at the end of a shift while we only make what happens directly at our bar. The servers are mandated to tip out 2% of drink sales ONLY. Regularly they ignorantly throw dimes across the table at us and make comments about "oh it was only 50 cents but I rounded up to a dollar because you earned it"

Yes, comments like this happen on the regular. The rub is because of the CBA with the union bartenders are not allowed to serve tables and the servers consistently remind us of this. Here is where it gets bad. They expect the bartenders to also run their food, clean and clear their tables and still only tip to the literal penny.

This is one aspect

Now, as for management. We have numerous times had conversations with management as our servers constantly abandon their tables. Go outside to smoke. Hang out on their phones and generally do the barest of minimums. But because they are not on the floor we HAVE to be. We are mandated and guaranteed 15 minute breaks twice a shift and one 30 minute which we never get. This is without mentioning once that management refuses to hire any new bartenders due to "budgetary constraints"

We've spoken to management numerous times and all we get told is that "the servers have the floor" and that we can "file a grievance" with the union.

Cue malicious compliance (and it's gooooood)

So myself and the other 2 bartenders sat down with our union reps and hammered out the EXACT parameters of our jobs, managements duties and obligations and that of our floor. We got everything highlighted and we now have laminated card stock behind the bar with the printed and highlighted aspects of our jobs, our job parameters and our job guarantees.

A few weeks ago we 3 started every shift the same way. Servers, would regularly just walk behind the bar to get drinks for themselves or their clients. Sorry, you're not bartenders you can't come behind the bar. What! Ya sorry, it's in the CBA, we can't take tables you can't server drinks, we'll get to it as soon as we can. Servers now have to wait on us to pour their drinks, pop; water, beer or even get them ice. That's step one.

We now officially take our 15s and our 30 minute breaks. As such, any and ALL drink service stops. Here is the best part; as such management; who is otherwise completely useless. Chatting with friends or hiding in their offices now have no choice but to come down and man the bar while we do so. They have to make drinks, stock the bar (which we ensure is needing to be done) and put away, polish our glassware. This is important as we have very specific criteria for our house drinks and what type of vessels they get poured in. This has been amusing to watch but we enjoy our breaks and I am catching up on some reading.

It's only been a few weeks but the servers seem to be getting it and all of a sudden there are 2 new bartenders in training on the schedule and 2 more apparently being hired. Maybe this malicious compliance stuff does work

TLDR: Serving staff treats the bar terribly. Management is lazy and ineffective. Bartenders got walked on and paid a pittance while working harder than anyone else. MC was to adhere strictly to the union guidelines afer the servers kept throwing them in the face of the bartenders forcing management and servers to actually work harder and stop floating.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/wenrdogred on 2025-07-20 03:50:30+00:00.

I am currently in my malicious compliance phase at work right now. I got ripped a new one last week because I needed to work from home in order to get some urgent stuff done for a conference I needed to attend the following week. I was explicitly told that I could not work from home without approval. And I was told that I signed a policy about it. I responded that my job requires me to work from home all the time, to which they replied, "You signed the policy." So now, after I leave the office, I turn off my work issued cell phone and never look at it on the weekends. I am a salaried employee, but I am not going to beg my employer to allow me to work from home.

This weekend I got a call on my personal cell from one of the other managers about approving some billing rates that were due. I told her that I wasn't allowed to work from home, and I will get to it on Monday whenever I have the opportunity. Everything will be late, but I signed the policy.

It literally would have cost them nothing to just let me do my damn job. I already get paid a fixed rate. But if they want to play stupid games, they can win stupid prizes.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/stutum on 2025-07-19 23:13:45+00:00.

Years ago, I worked as a consulting engineer at this company with a very tightwad CEO with multiple sticks up his butt (everyone else was super nice). I engineered a machine that shipped to the Far East and was asked to go onsite to startup the system. This was in the northeast in February.

I parked on an offsite parking lot to save my client the expense of parking at the airport and flew out on a cold, clear day and landed at my destination many, many hours later. I spent 2+ weeks working long, long hours to start up this machine. So many hours that I felt bad for my client and decided that I would not charge OT.

Fast forward to my departure - I asked for limo service home because the car was frozen solid and I’d flown some 20+ hours and was severely sleep deprived.

“Nope” - only full-time employees get limo service. Consulting engineers have to drive themselves decreed the CEO.

I decided to charge full OT to the letter for every hour over 8, especially the all-nighter I pulled while there.

It was the most expensive $80 limo ride he never paid for…

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/dablack123 on 2025-07-19 06:11:55+00:00.

A few months ago, I had to travel for work. Some cost savings measures had been implemented recently and I was required to have a funding letter from the financial department so they could allocate funds appropriately, even though my travel was authorized by my supervisor and required for the company business. Ok, I'll jump through this hoop, whatever. I get a funding letter and travel a couple hours to my home away from home.

Halfway through my trip, my work schedule opens up I have a few days off, but I know I'll be working more the following week. Since I'm only a few hours from home, I decide to check out of my hotel, drive home to spend the weekend with my family, then drive back the following week when I actually have work to do. Saves the company paying a few days for a hotel room and per diem, I get time with family; win-win right?

Wrong. When I submit my travel claim to financial, it counts as two separate trips. The problem is I have one funding letter, which covers the dates of my travel, but doesn't cover two trips, even though both trips are inside the travel window in the funding letter.

This blows up and takes about a month and a half to get sorted out, during which time I had to pay off my company credit card for the travel expenses incurred using my own funds. Eventually, the money was all properly allocated and I got reimbursed for my interest free loan to the company, but I learned my lesson.

Another trip comes up and I am issued one funding letter. I drive up again and work for a few days. Sure enough, my schedule opens up and I have some days off. This time, instead of checking out of my hotel, I just leave, drive home, and now I'm sitting on my couch typing this while the company pays my per diem and pays for an empty hotel room.

Pretty sure the bean counters will get a raise for their fine work. Cheers to them.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/KingOfMooks on 2025-07-18 20:40:17+00:00.

Very mild one. Bit wordy with a not particularly satisfying payoff.

A while back my wife and I were buying our house after a few years of rental. There was a delay in the new house being ready, so we moved in with my mother for a few weeks. During that time I stashed some stuff at work, including bringing in my chair, a very nice Herman Miller Aeron I had gotten second hand. The office chairs were old. standard/serviceable but not exactly nice.

After a few days. I noticed that my chair would be in the conference room every morning. No problem, I just wheeled it back to my desk. I was working 8 to 4 to avoid traffic so was usually in first

The CEO (of about 120 people) would usually not arrive until about noon, and take later meetings when most of the staff were away. After a few days the chair kept ending up at his desk. (Open plan thankfully, so I just took it back every morning. i wasnt foolish enough to go into the CEOs office.. ). He'd shoot me a dirty look every morning but that was it.

After a few more days of this back and forward, the CEOs assistant (who was a lovely person who I felt immense pity for) approached me and told me that the CEO didn't think it was appropriate that I had a nicer chair than him. People would think that my desk belonged to the CEO and it was stressing her out having to basically fight for it every day on his behalf.

I told her I understood completely, and would stop fighting over it. I took it out of the office that lunch time, and reclaimed a normal office chair.

The next day she came over and asked where the chair was. I said with an incredibly straight face that I thought since it wasnt appropriate I just took it to my car. She had a super stunned look, but just kind of ran off.

Since I was almost always first in I always got parking near the building, pretty much everyone got to walk past my car on the way into the office and see my chair in the boot for a few more weeks, however given his cowardly nature I never got approached about it again

To this day, I'm 100% certain they thought I was just going to give in and let him have my chair. Instead I got the joy of telling everyone the honest truth about why my chair was in my car for weeks

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/ThighHighHex on 2025-07-18 08:00:11+00:00.

I’ve kind of always been the “quiet fixer” at work. I don’t have an official title for it, but whenever something’s off, missing info, wrong numbers, miscommunicatio, I usually catch it and quietly fix it before things get worse. I never made a big deal out of it, just wanted things to run smoothly.

A few weeks ago, my boss pulled me aside and basically told me to stop. He said I was “overstepping” and needed to just focus on my own responsibilities. I was confused but fine, I took the hint.

So I did exactly what he asked. I stopped proofreading other people’s reports. I didn’t follow up on tasks that weren’t mine. I didn’t flag obvious mistakes or offer suggestions when something didn’t feel right. I just did my work.

Within a week, it was chaos. A client email got sent out with the wrong pricing. A report went to leadership with huge gaps. Deadlines got missed because no one realized someone else hadn’t followed through. People were pointing fingers, scrambling, trying to fix messes at the last second.

Then the big one hit, we lost a client because of a presentation that went out with outdated info. My boss was livid and started asking why nobody caught it. I just said, “You told me to stay in my lane.”

He didn’t have much to say after that.

Now he suddenly wants my “eyes on everything again.” Funny how that works.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/LoudCoffee4291 on 2025-07-18 03:24:28+00:00.

There was a bonus earned a few months back. The company never paid it and a couple weeks later, they made a video call to a select number of managers informing that the company had an accounting error and cannot afford this bonus payout that we earned. (Totally illegal, I consulted with a coworker whose husband is an attorney and I know how to read the Wage Act for my state).

A couple months later the president jumps on a Zoom call with nefarious intentions and when we brought up the bonus he exasperates saying [if you guys want it so bad, some one has to be let go] (for unrelated reason that had nothing to do with the bonus).

I spend a week interviewing. One week later, 2 hours before my shift I send the most beautiful resignation letter stating that I quit effective at the end of this working day. And that I look forward to our bonus being paid.

I emailed up the chain, my boss, her boss, bosses bosses boss etc. head of HR, head of Legal, head of Marketing, president, vice president, senior vice president, ceo, etc.

You get the picture. I filed a complaint with the Department of Labor as well. Now it’s one month later, bonus has not been paid and this company has not responded to my resignation/the concerns I expressed over the bully tactics, lack of accountability and toxic work environment they allow.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Downtown_Physics8853 on 2025-07-17 23:49:20+00:00.

I work at a manufacturing company. The closest timeclock to the employee parking lot is down in the machine shop, and every day about 2 dozen people can be seen standing around the clock, waiting for it to click over to 3:30 and they can punch out. But, about a year ago, we got a new general manager.

After she had been there for a couple of months, she decided that this would should not be allowed, and a notice was posted stating that people may NOT congregate around the time clock any more. At about the same time, there was a corporate-wide exercise campaign based around the Olympics, and many people downloaded an exercise app that tracked their daily steps (along with other things) for possible prizes and locational honors.

Now, the downstairs machine shop is a large, open, roughly square space, with a marked aisle running around the periphery of the floor. So, when the time-clock edict came around, people still headed to the clock, but instead spent the time "getting their daily steps in". By the end of the week, we had about 30 people spending the last 5-10 minutes of the shift circumambulating clockwise around the entire machining department, checking the clock each time they passed.

After the GM saw this spectacle one day, I guess it reminded her too much of that scene in Midnight Express and she reversed the clock edict. Funny thing, though, people still kept coming down to get their steps in for a few weeks afterward, until the contest was over...

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/GinggasinParis on 2025-07-17 15:47:02+00:00.

I just saw an article about Mercedes Benz allowing Teams calls with a camera to their vehicles and it reminded me of this situation.

Several years ago I worked for a small solar company that was acquired by what is essentially the Walmart or solar. We went from weekly in person meetings on a schedule that worked for both management and staff to daily check ins, weekly department calls and other unnecessary regional calls and meetings. What was initially 2-3 short meetings per week turned into around 10 45 minute to an hour meetings per week. My responsibilities were about 20% in office, 80% field work. Some of the locations I needed to get to were an hour + away and a lot of times I was crunched to get to 5-6 locations within the work day. For as long as I could, I would either skip a call if I was in the field or I would listen and not participate so I was “on the call” but could still take care of whatever tasks I needed to. I ended up getting reprimanded and told to just park and take the calls but I needed to participate in all of them or I would be written up. So that’s what I did. If a call was happening, I would find the closest parking lot, take the call and participate. This company also scrutinized overtime and hours so we couldn’t work OT without approval. This meant if I didn’t get something done, I would just head back to the office and reschedule it for the following day. My coworkers did the same and our productivity dropped overall by about 60%.

Within a month, our regional manager was in our office asking us wtf was going on and we told her directly that we have a large region to cover and most of these calls are nonsense corporate feel good bs. If they wanted productivity where it was before, they needed to cut the meetings because meetings don’t improve metrics, actually being able to work does. They did cut our meetings but it turned into a shitshow when the big company fully took over. That office is now officially closed because while we had the 2nd best metrics in the entire company, we were tired of the bs and we all quit and they could not replicate our quality or quantity of installations in that office.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Emotional_Pain_9466 on 2025-07-17 13:29:24+00:00.

The company I work for converted some execs from having set PTO to unlimited. And also wiped out their PTO bank. Mine personally was worth 40 grand the day I would leave. I could never take enough PTO in the past. Just didn’t need it. Needless to say I was pissed. We were told that this was a recruiting tool! You don’t have to record your time off or ask permission! I asked does that mean we can take 30 or 60 days (like a mini sabbatical)? Oh no, HR says…culturally we don’t do that. Umm.. then what does unlimited PTO mean..? No definition given. So, I made up my own rules. I now work 9-3, lunch if I care to, Fridays are completely blocked off, and three two week vacations set off on my calendar. I know what you’re going to say. Why don’t you maximize your PTO before? Because I actually enjoyed my work. I had a sense of satisfaction. With this and other benefit reductions and promotion of figurehead leadership the place lost its soul. PTO decision was the lynchpin. I work 1/3 less time and still pull in the same wage.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/mdlapla on 2025-07-17 11:23:41+00:00.

Around 2000, 2001, in Argentina, I did a network admin course.

The guy that taught the course was also an admin in an university (let's call him ITProf) and he told us this story.

The department of the university ITProf worked for dealt mostly with Philosophy and Philosophy-related careers. and it was around 95% female students, mostly high school graduates but also a lot of people that, once retired, started the career as a hobby (in Argentina, university can be free of charge).

In Argentina, IDs are numbered and sequential. So, for instance, if an ID starts with 28 million, you can estimate what year that person was born in. There's only one caveat: foreign-born people that have gained citizenship get a number that starts with something like 80 million...

The dean (let's call him CreepyDean) at that department was a 50-55 something old dude with, you guessed it, a pretty creepy behaviour. ITProf could access browsing history of every single person in the department and, let's just say, his wasn't pretty nor university related.

CreepyDean taught a couple of mid-career courses, he was one of several professors that taught this courses.

Every year, each university assigns the students to the courses they ask for and divides them between all available professors. Sometimes this is done by hand, sometimes it's randomized somehow, this is handled by each department.

In this case, it was done by a computer program that randomized everything so each course had a wide array of different students. This program was something that ITProf created, because, prior to that, this was done manually.

One day, CreepyDean calls ITProf and tells him "I want, in my courses, just female students, with IDs starting at 35 million or more, get it done" and remarked to ITProf that his job was on the line if he didn't comply.

Since 95% of the faculty was female, this is a creepy request but CreepyDean knew that it wouldn't be as notorious (he could always blame it on chance) and, at that time, this behaviour was not something that could have gotten CreepyDean fired, but the university board members wouldn't be too happy about this behaviour either.

ITProf understood that 35 million or more on the ID was for people that were roughly 21-22 years old or younger, CreepyDean wanted some eye candy and who knows what else...

But CreepyDean just said "female, 35 million or more...".

So ITProf complied. He assigned all foreign female students, with IDs starting 80 million, and all older than 65 to CreepyDean courses.

CreepyDean was furious the first day of classes. He wanted ITProf fired. ITProf told him "I've complied with your request even though it was weird and something that I'm sure the board members wouldn't be to happy to find out about".

ITProf told us CreepyDean got "dishonorably" discharged as dean a couple months after this story, there were some speculations but he never found out exactly why.

TLDR: Dean wants an entire class of young female students, IT manages to give him the exact opposite.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/philipferdinand on 2025-07-16 23:13:31+00:00.

A year ago I got fired from a job as efficiencylead.

( It happened a week after I noted that I was going to become a father, but that's another aspect).

The reason I was hired was to dig deeper into company issues, finding the root cause. My manager was thrilled to have an actual FBA on board.

Queue her assistant-manager. Since I needed to learn the ins and outs, she got me into spending 70% of my time into useless tracking that she needed for her glorious monthly pivot tables. The thing is, that noting down of post-its, mails and several other influx into a spreadsheet got me some very much needed insight. Either (for example) the printers were moved every month from one site to the other, or there was a huge flaw. Some if those flaws would be considered huge flags for the (equivalent of ) IRS. When I started tracking them, as my job was exactly that, the A-M tried to block me from several internal data .

Since the manager and her assistant were pretty close, I tried to get the actual department from said flaws in the loop. Less than a week later, the manager asked why I was 'snooping around' other departments. Meanwhile, everyone I spoke to at other departments were more than helpful in gathering information, even speaking to counterparts at other sites.

2 days later, she notified me she asked IT for a full copy of my mailbox (against the law) and was not amused. Henceforth, I had to include her in every mail I send and had to write down by the minute on every casefile I was working on.

The last one was the easiest malicious compliance. When I got a call, I noted it, when I went to get a coffee I noted 'internal movement's, even someone sticking his head inside the door to say hi. She got an excel sheet with about 600 lines a day, including a line after each entry for filling out the sheet. After 3 days she was furious and 'wasnt taking things serious'. If course I wasn't, but she didn't have to know. I asked her to email me on the specifics she wanted me to write down and asked for a route path on every project. With a 'you know what I want', she stormed off.

I got an email from HR for a talk. Told them everything, including my notes on every meeting. They asked me to just set up a spreadsheet with a total per day on every project and mailed it to the manager. Including the note that I needed the information her assistant had blocked me from.

The including in the email part was fairly simple. It was about 10% of my total conversations.

When the manager went on vacation, she said she liked the new way of working and told me to push on 3 main issues I layed out.

And of course the assistant took her chance to get into the high chair. The mails were not adequate, so I had to send her a full report on any conversation. It started innocent, till I got to an old file with the signature of the assistant and several sitemanagers. I started calling them and asked about the information listed. After about 5 phonecalls and a small note mailed to the assistant, she stormed into the shared office calling me a no-good golden retriever trying to find truffels in muck water. She demanded a full report on any coming call.

Queue malicious compliance number 2. I started using voice-to-text software to make full transcripts on any call. Even a question about something like 'how is the now cleaning lady doing' was fully written down. Imagine receiving an average of four hours a day of transcription. Because of the flooding, she missed the pattern about the million euro issue I was gently going towards.

When the manager came back, the assistant told her I was harassing her. Even without a chance to give a reply, I received an official letter at my house about an inquiry. The inquiry was the manager, someone from HR and someone from the European chair. To top it all off, the assistant-manager had given the manager a list off confidental documents that I 'have stolen from her private laptop'. Including that old file sitting somewhere on the server.

When they asked why I needed that file I started pointing out that the file was pointing to a huge flaw concerning legal documents and payments. The exact thing I was hired for. By the end of the meeting it was clear that I was going out the door within a few days. So, I started rattling up the cage.

I read my initial job description and the internal guidelines to the roll. The 2 guys I was working with went into a frenzy to find any concequente from that error. Site manager were alerted, accounting started making calculations.

The last email that I received was probably sent too early. 'OP falsified several documents on the server to get manager and assistant-manager into trouble. Any communication should be deleted by the end of the day'.

Needless to say, I had to pack my things.

3 months later I met some guys from the company. Turned out, the damage was done, but the coverup was even better. The avalanche of people involved that quit was undeniable. And some departments involved had over 50% of workforce sitting at home due to mental issues.

The duo still works there, sitting on a lie that can still cost the firm millions a year since they still haven't solved the issue.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/One_Tea_8623 on 2025-07-16 22:29:06+00:00.

Recently I’ve been going through personal strife and issues with mental health and finances leading to time management problems. In an effort to make some extra money I was late to work for my final strike before being put on suspension. Due to my union contract management has 3 working days to suspend me. Days one and two I left two hours after store management and was the last person to leave so they chose to not suspend me quite yet since only 1 other person is trained and willing to do my job and I was covering his days off. Today (day 3) I show up to someone covering my shift. I’m over half way through my shift and management still hasn’t called me in to the office. Usually they leave at the same time as me and we are a tad short staffed so I assume they are waiting until I leave to follow through with punishment. At lunch my supervisor approached me to stay an extra hour. Out of spite I accepted because that leaves management with 3 options:

1. Stay later than they usually would to execute my punishment.
2. Leave as they usually would and not punish me.
3. Suspend me when they usually would leave and still leave themselves short staffed.

I’m excited to see how the end of my night plays out and will update with how they decide to proceed 😂