Malicious Compliance

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Flirtsparkk on 2025-07-01 18:21:39+00:00.

I used to work at a busy sandwich shop. During rushes I’d jump on the register to help out, even though it wasn’t really of my job. One day manager got mad over a small order mistake and told me, right in front of everyone. “Never touch the registers again. That’s not your job.” So the next lunch rush hits. The line starts backing up. People are waiting out door. The manager is trying take all the orders on their own and looks completely stressed. I just kept restocking napkins and wiping tables. I was doing exactly what I was told. After a while they gave me this look and asked if I could please help at the register. I said. “Sure. Just wanted to follow what you said.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/MrJokster on 2025-07-01 15:04:31+00:00.

I am the type of person who doesn't get a lot of symptoms when sick. A scratchy throat, a runny nose, but nothing that really knocks me out of commission. However, I try to remain aware that anyone else my contagious self infects might not be so fortunate.

So one morning I wake up feeling off and text my boss that I'm going to Urgent Care & will let him know what they say. I get strep throat a lot and had it again, so they give me antibiotics & send me on my way. Call my boss and ask him if I can work from home (100% of my job can be done from home). "No," he says. "You either need to take a sick day or come in." So I tell him, "Okay, see you shortly."

Now, my boss is the type of person who doesn't really listen. He hears what he wants to hear and most everything else goes in one ear and out the other. I pull into the parking lot, put a mask on, and head straight to his office. When I barge in, he's in the middle of a video call, so my one colleague overhears all this and has to keep from laughing.

Boss says, "Oh, they gave you a clean bill of health?" I say, "Nope. Like I told you on the phone, I feel decent enough but am sick and contagious." I reached into my pocket to pull out a pill bottle, "Gotta be on these antibiotics for at least a day before I'm not." I even coughed a bit for dramatic effect as I stood there, breathing his air. "Oh," he says, the color beginning to drain from his face. "Well, why don't go you ahead and work from home today."

"I'll do that, boss." Funny how that's fine now that he's at risk.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/FeralFaee on 2025-07-01 13:54:16+00:00.

I originally posted this as a comment on another thread, but a few people messaged me saying I should give it its own post. So here we are.

About ten years ago, I worked for a mid-sized manufacturing company that did contract work for a lot of big-name tech companies. We were always under pressure to meet tight deadlines, and it was common for employees (especially on my team) to rack up a ton of overtime. We weren’t forced, but we were compensated really well for it. I was young, hungry for the extra cash, and honestly proud of helping the team hit goals.

Enter new management. Our old supervisor retired and was replaced by a guy I’ll call Dan. Dan came in hot, trying to “shake things up” and “streamline operations.” Classic. One of his first big changes? He decided that too much overtime was making him look bad to higher-ups. Said it made it seem like he couldn’t manage his team’s workload. So he called a meeting and announced that going forward, we were not allowed to log overtime unless it was pre-approved in writing. And spoiler: he wasn’t going to approve it.

We tried to warn him. We told him how much we actually needed that extra time to hit the ridiculous deadlines that were promised to clients. He waved it off, said we should “work smarter, not harder.” So fine. We did exactly what he wanted.

We all stopped working overtime cold turkey. No staying late to help the next shift, no logging in early, no coming in on Saturdays to prep for big shipments. We worked our 8-hour shifts and clocked out, nothing more.

At first Dan was thrilled. He kept bragging in meetings about how he’d “fixed the overtime problem.” But within two weeks, the cracks started showing. Orders got delayed. Shipments missed deadlines. Customers started calling, pissed off about late deliveries. Dan started staying late himself trying to figure out why things were falling apart, but the dude had no clue what actually went into the day-to-day work.

It all came to a head about a month in. We missed a massive delivery for one of our biggest clients, and they threatened to pull their contract. Dan ended up in a panic, trying to throw overtime at us to catch up. By then, most of us were over it. A few people bailed and found other jobs. I stayed long enough to watch him eat crow, then I moved on too.

The best part? The higher-ups eventually figured out that his no-overtime policy was the root of the problem, and he was “let go” (aka fired) about six months after he started.

Moral of the story: Be careful what you wish for when you try to fix things that aren’t broken.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/OwlNo1068 on 2025-07-01 07:57:41+00:00.

Had a narcissist GM. I was in a a senior role in a small company. The GM hounded staff and expected me to join in, while I did my best to protect them. After huge staff turnover it was my turn to be the target.

One of my tasks was to liase with our agents in China. We had a multitude of manufacturing projects under way from initial design to shipping.

I'd communicate with the agents via WeChat which is similar to Whatsapp. And because I'd been working with the agents for a while, when we were talking about projects there would be side chats about the weather or holidays or family.

Now I was under the microscope, the GM demanded I share ALL my communication with her. I have no idea why but I did exactly what she said.

I took a screenshot of each message sent or received separately and sent it to her via slack. Our conversations were not very exciting but I made sure to send her each and every message. A simple conversations like the following which would be 10 separate slack messages. I made sure to get the name and time stamp so she could see exactly what I was doing.

Hello / Hello, how are you / I'm good, how are you going? / Great! Things are busy / Oh here too! / I'm looking forward to the weekend / Do you have plans? / Nope / Just relaxing? / Yes ✋🏼

Obviously relationships are important in business so I made sure I was extra chatty, and in the interests of efficiency kept the messages as short as possible.

The first day I'd sent her several hundred messages on slack within a couple of hours. Even sent her "haha" and emojis.

The next day she told me she didn't need to see all my correspondence after all.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/ladyshadowfaax on 2025-07-01 06:04:42+00:00.

A couple years ago, I was asked to create an internal competition for employees. I designed the whole thing; the format, the communication strategy, how entries would be judged, everything. It ran nationally, was a hit, and the winning entry even went on to win an external national award.

Fast forward to the next year and my boss is asked to give a presentation at the awards ceremony about the competition. Naturally, since I built it, I put together his entire presentation; the slides, his speaking notes, even rehearsed it with him.

Turns out, some other companies that were at the presentation wanted to learn how we did it. My boss sets up a few meetings with their reps, invites me along, and says, “I’ll do most of the talking, but I’d like you to listen in.”

I’m thinking - great! What a cool opportunity, and it’s nice of him to include me.

Then the meeting starts.

He opens with, “So this was my idea from the start…”, and proceeds to go on, and on, for around 15 minutes about his “vision” and how he supposedly “led the strategy from day one.” He went so far as to say that I was invited “to learn some more about the strategy, since (let’s call me Sarah) was part of the team who set up on the day.” I was stunned. I kept my face neutral and nodded along.

Then came the questions.

Simple ones, too; logistics, structure, what tech we used, how we got employee buy-in. He fumbles. Repeats himself. Starts sweating. And then starts turning to me with, “Actually, Sarah can probably elaborate on that.”

That’s when the malicious compliance kicked in.

With my best poker face and a sweet smile, I replied: “Oh, I’m not too sure on that one. Your strategic vision was really integral here, I wouldn’t want to misrepresent it.”

He tried again later with another question.

“That’s a great point, but again, this was your brainchild. I was only part of the set-up team.”

He floundered through the rest of the meeting. The reps were polite but clearly unimpressed. Afterward, he was quiet for the rest of the day.

Next time, maybe don’t claim sole credit for someone else’s work.. especially when you can’t communicate it’s strategy or the work behind its implementation.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/SyntaxPetal on 2025-07-01 05:25:26+00:00.

Last week I woke up feeling awful fever, cough, the whole thing. I messaged my boss to ask if I could work from home so I wouldn’t get anyone sick. He replied, “No exceptions. If you’re well enough to work, you’re well enough to be here.” So I dragged myself in, coughing and sniffling the whole time. The look on his face when I walked through the door was priceless. By the end of the day, he told me to go home and said I could work remotely after all. Funny how that works.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Interesting_War559 on 2025-07-01 02:34:43+00:00.

I work at a call center and my supervisor Janet has this thing about bathroom breaks. She says people abuse them to get off the phones and we can only go during our scheduled 15 minute breaks or lunch. This seems ridiculous to me because sometimes you just need to use the bathroom and it's not like I'm taking 20 minute breaks.

Last week she specifically told me I was taking too many "unscheduled restroom visits" and that I needed to plan better. She said from now on I can only leave my desk during designated break times unless it's a true emergency. The way she said emergency made it clear she didn't think I'd ever have one.

So now when I need to use the bathroom outside of break time I make sure to treat it like the medical emergency she wants it to be. I put my phone on hold and announce loudly "I have a bathroom emergency and need to leave immediately." I practically run to the restroom and back to show how urgent it is.

Yesterday I had to do this twice and both times I made sure to let Janet know it was an emergency situation that couldn't wait for my scheduled break. Other people started looking over and she seemed embarrassed but she can't really tell me not to go when I'm following her emergency protocol.

My coworkers think it's funny but I'm starting to feel awkward about the whole thing. Janet has been giving me weird looks and I'm worried this might backfire on me somehow. Maybe I should just try to hold it until break time like she wants but that seems unreasonable for a basic human need. I don't know if I'm handling this right.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/GMSryBut on 2025-06-30 23:07:26+00:00.

First: I am german and english is not my native language, so I apologise for any mistakes I may do

A little bit of background: Due to horrible teachers and my easily intimidated personality, I developed the fear of making mistakes, since I was getting yelled at constantly for making some. Now, my body tried to avoid school and the stress that comes with it by developing the habit of vomiting, to prove my mother I was sick so I could stay home. Problem was, my body tries it a LOT when I get stressed out. Now I can surpress that habit to a certain degree, if I focus on my breathing and close my eyes. But sooner or later, I have to leave the stress causing situation or I vomit.

Now a little bit of German background, since I don't know if this concept exist in other countries. We call it "Zeitarbeit" and google Translated it to "temporarily employment", but long story short, it just means that you don't apply at the company you want to work for, you apply for the "Zeitarbeit"-company (ZC) who then find jobs for you. You go to the ZC, give any important informations they need to find you a job you don't totally hate and if they find something, they call you and you have an interview with the new company you may work for. Then, if you agree to work there, you are a temporarily employee for 6 month. After the 6 month, they either let you go if the company believes it doesn't work out, or you get hired and now have a full job. In Theory, that sounds awesome. In practicallity, the companys spare money if they let go of the temporarily employee and circle to new ones, so your chance of staying is barely non existing. Not to mention, in the 6 month, they don't need a reason to let you go, other than to say "it doesn't work out".

Now to the story: The first two jobs I got through ZC, I try hard to impress them, doing overtime, work more outside my job description, always beeing on time and never be sick. I ignored my mental problems and drown them at home to endure everything. However I wouldn't be here if I got hired. This story takes place in 2018, my 4th job, a factory where I have to pack and sort stuff. However now I was far less enthusiastic, no overtime, keeping to my job description but I still was always on time and stayed my 40 hours/week. HOWEVER, the manager "demanded" overtime nearly daily. I wasn't going to do it, not for minimum wage, and she didn't like it, but I was doing my job so I believe she kept me in for the full 6 months before they let me go.

But then, I made an absolute fatal mistake by daring to get sick! I got a cyst very close to my private area and I could barely walk, stand or even sit. Laying was uncomfortable but at least not painful. I went to the doctor, got antibiotics and a doctors note for 7 days. (5 for the anti biotics and 2 to see if it helped enough). I called in my job to state I was sick for a week but my manager demanded I gave it to her in person, or she would let me go then and there.

Now I was annoyed, tired and in pain that I have to go in, since I was just in my second month working there, so I accepted and my parents drove me in.

I waddled like an X-legged Penguin through the factory into her office. She didn't saw me walk since she was writing something. I put the doctors notice on her desk, close to some other documents. She looked up at me and started talking . . . a LOT! Now, You can imagine that condescending Karen tone in her voice.

She started lecturing me how she dislikes I don't do overtime and now that I'm lazy and went to the doctor to get a "week of paid vacation". That I need to work on my working morale and that my chances of getting hired are VERY slim and I need to put in 110% if I want to have a chance.

Now, my pain around my private area started worsening due to me standing so I barely listened to her after that, but I noticed her voice got louder and louder and she, somehow, talked herself into rage, nearly yelling at this point. . . And I felt my stomache started turning.

I started my strategies to keep my stomache calm since I knew, it would be maybe a few minutes of her complaining before I can leave. I tried to cut in to explain that I need to go home to rest but she had none of it and interrupt me, telling me how disrespectful it is to interrupt some. (The irony, lel).

Cue my malicious compliance: I stopped calming down my stomache and let it does what it want to do and surprise, surprise, not even after a minute, everything comes out, hitting her desk and covers some of her documents AND half of my doctors note. Her face was absolutly priceless, though I wished I could enjoyed it more, next to my pain and new taste. After her initial shock and silent, she FINALLY sent me home to rest. I still think about it till today.

After the week, I came back rather healthy and I got pulled into her office, where she and another boss/Manager waited for me. After a few words back and forth, they asked me, why I didn't even try turn around as I vomited, since I apperantly damaged/destroyed some important documents.

And even though I was not obligated to it, I explained the cyst I had, that I couldn't even walk, stand or turn around without a lot of pain, let alone going to the next restroom or trashbin. And that I shouldn't even been there in the first place, since a doctors note can be hand over AFTER I came back. The other manager/boss looked super pissy at my manager. After more unimportant back and forth, I returned back to work.

I still got let go after the 6 month but I wasn't sorry about this job. I then decided to start focussing on my mental health and my addiction problem.

For the last bit of fact; the manager was gone quickly after me and the factory was destroyed end of 2024. According to some of my old colleagues, they were constantly f/hiring and more and more people were quitting on their own.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Kevincav on 2025-06-30 20:14:51+00:00.

Sorry if this isn’t exactly malicious but it kind of is, also I’m writing this on my phone and my autocorrect hates me

Short but funny story from college. I was taking a science class back in my college days. I had a ti-89ish calculator for all my classes. My professor apparently a rule where you couldn’t use scientific calculators, you can only use a basic one. Well, on a test day I brought in my regular ti calculator and the professor came up to me, saying I can program that and to use my phone instead. The funny part, I’m a software engineer (I was going for a computer science degree at the time of this) who probably could figure out how to write a basic calculator app with anything I could have cheated with. From then on out, I just used my phone, knowing that I could secretly cheat if I really wanted to just because you can program your ti but not your phone apparently.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/cccanaryyy on 2025-06-30 15:36:36+00:00.

I finally have one.

I send two reports to our biggest client every week. One I send Tuesday and again on Friday. This is the open order report- every order we are currently fulfilling. The second I send on Monday. It’s the report for what orders we have shipped the previous week. This gives the customer a full image of open and closed orders.

Mind you, I specifically requested that the tool to generate the second report be created. Sending the report AND the creation of the tool used to send it were both my idea.

In my 1:1 on the 18th I explained to my manager that I need to send the second report on Monday because the information is not updated in our software in a timely manner on Friday, so sending it on the Monday of the following week ensures everything is current. The tool has an option to select which dates are reflected in the report. So today, Monday 6/30, I would select the dates for last week (6/23-6/27).

My manager misunderstood and thought that if I send the report on Monday, it would include that Monday and four days of the previous week, Tuesday-Friday. He sent me an email on the 26th saying he did not like this solution and found it confusing. He said, effective immediately, we would need to adjust my hours to extend to when billing is complete, which is around 4:30pm (I work til 4).

I absolutely don’t mind staying to do the job I’m paid for, but I knew that due to the delay in updating, the shipping report would not be current. I also knew it would reflect five days of the same week and not one day of the current week and four days of the previous week.

I went to his office to clear this up, and I said two words before he interrupted me in a raised voice. “I don’t care! I want the report sent on Friday!” I immediately said “okay, (Manager)” and went to leave but he continued going off. I said something else and he shut me down again. “You need to send the report on Friday! End of discussion!” “Okay, (Manager).”

Cue malicious compliance.

The next day, I stay later, refreshing the report that I know is not going to update. I generate it and see that Friday’s shipments are missing. I send it as instructed and leave.

Shortly after, he emails saying the report is not complete and I need to send one Monday morning. I don’t work on the weekend so I just saw it this morning.

I tell him that I have one tool to get this done and there is a delay in the system and tell him this is why I suggested sending on Mondays. I ask him if there is another tool or method I am unaware of. I tell him the invoicing report and the shipping report don’t match.

He says, “that’s the problem. You sent the report without looking at it.”

I let him know I DID look at it; but I did what I was instructed to do. Now we look (even more) unorganized and inconsistent to our biggest customer. He says the information should be available on Fridays and he asked a higher up for details on when the report updates. That higher up said that the report DOESN’T UPDATE UNTIL 4:30pm-5:15pm. WHEN EVERYONE IS GONE.

Most recent correspondence: “FYI. We can talk about when we want to send the report.”

Oh.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Fit_on_my_sace on 2025-06-30 11:37:37+00:00.

Context: I’m a paramedic that works semi rural (1 hour drive to hospital). We work 12 hour shifts from 6-6. Commonly we would arrive at 5:30 so the off coming crew could go home earlier after handover of equipment.

Anyway. The 5:30 arrival time was a “gentleman’s agreement” so that the off coming crew wouldn’t have to attend a call out that would put them over their finish time and potentially breach their 14 hours maximum working time (Local driving laws can’t be working for more than 14 hours if your job involves driving, at 14 hours you must stop driving no matter where you are unless you have a critical patient).

Occasionally a job would come in during that 5:30-6 period which the new shift would take and then claim the early start as over time (standard practice here, normally never a problem).

One day the Manager sends out an email stating that no staff should be turning up early and starting work before 6 because it was costing too much in overtime.

So that’s what we all did. Every single crew which was 30+ staff. At the peak of winter which is usually one of the busiest times of the year.

It sucked finishing late a fair bit but making the boss pay us 2+ hours of overtime and giving them the headache of driving us back to station once we breached 14 hours instead of paying for 30 minutes was great.

After 2 months of haemorrhaging money in overtime payments, we get another email “You can now go back to the 5:30 arrangement”.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/LovelyKittenPetals on 2025-06-30 05:58:22+00:00.

This happened back when I was in school, few years ago.

I had this one friend. She was cool most of the time, but when it came to money, she turned into a human calculator. If we went out to eat and the bill was $19.87, she’d insist on paying exactly that and not a penny more. Never rounded up, never covered tax or tip and definitely never chipped in when we ordered shared stuff.

Anyway, one weekend we hit up a burger place with a few other friends. I spotted her because she forgot her wallet, again. Her total was like $12.63 burger, fries and a drink.

A few days later, she comes up to me and says, Hey, I’ve got your money. But I only have a twenty. Do you have change?

I didn’t.

So she goes, Okay, then I’ll just give you the $20. But I want my change back later. Exact change. I don’t want to be short even a penny.

I nodded and said, Sure thing.

So later that night, I swung by my dorm, grabbed this big jar where I dumped all my random coins, and sat there counting them out while watching Netflix. I made sure it was exactly $7.37 in dimes, nickels, pennies, and just one quarter for fun.

Next day, I handed her a sandwich bag full of coins.

She looked at it, confused and asked what it was.

I said, Your change. Exact, just like you wanted.

She never pulled that exact change stuff on me again. In fact, next time we went out, she rounded up and offered to leave the tip.

I guess Malicious compliance won.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/jasmantle on 2025-06-29 19:32:25+00:00.

This happened a few years back, when I was between jobs, a mini-recession was underway, and I wanted a who-cares job in a high-energy environment. I ended up managing a food stand at the local NHL hockey arena. In the stand there was myself (Stand Lead), one head cashier, a cook, a runner, and a number of cashiers.

This company started from the position that all their employees were crooks - sorry to be so blunt, but that was their reality. It was not an unfounded position - refilling beer cups and pocketing the cash from the sale was not a rare practice. I had two of my cashiers fired after secret shoppers caught them.

The trick was to do this with non-inventory items. At the start and end of a night I counted everything: Beer cups, the cardboard triangles on which pizza was served, popcorn bags, bags of potato chips, etc. Bulk items could not be counted: Popcorn, draft beer, nacho chips, etc. At the end of the night we garbaged the bulk items that cannot be carried over to the next night: Cooked hot dogs, pizza sliced, popcorn, etc.

We may have wolfed down a few items. "We're closed, I'm going to toss these three leftover slices in the bin, anyone want one?" I recorded the waste (three slices), but they may not have all made it into the garbage.

Apparently some suit envisioned that stands might loading up with extra food from the delivery folks, or cooking extra hot dogs. Manglement got their panties in a twist about us eating the garbage, and sent a memo that all waste was to be boxed up and carried down to the warehouse.

So we did as told. After counting the waste, into the box went a random assortment of pizza slices, hot dogs, and popcorn. It wasn't put in neatly. There was always lots of popcorn. Manglement probably didn't care about the popcorn, but the directive was vague so they got it anyway. The box was stuffed with popcorn. If the warehouse ever did anything with what was in that box, it would be a fermenting fly-infested mess by the time they got around to opening the boxes. At the after-work beer party the directive was discussed, none of the stand leads liked the assumptions made regarding our integrity, and they adopted the practice.

A month or two later I had reason to chat with the warehouse on another topic, and I asked them what they did with all the food waste that was brought down. Answer: We toss it right into the dumpster, we're not digging through that mess. "You never go in and count anything?" Nah, the suits tried to make us, but we refused, we already have full time jobs and they wouldn't hire anyone whose job description was to dig through garbage. It's just the suits trying to intimidate you stand leads.

I resumed binning my waste, and not lugging anything down to the warehouse. Nobody noticed. I passed the word. Neither we, nor the warehouse, told management. The empty suits never noticed.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/UnfoundedConfidence9 on 2025-06-29 07:55:40+00:00.

So I work in a pretty low stress job, which makes it absolutely hilarious that my boss demands that whenever we take our paid time off we "give a good reason"

Like, dude, why do I need to give you a good reason to take my vacation days? They're mine, I'm entitled to take them to dedicate the time to my new hobby of staring at the ceiling, it ain't none of your business.

Well I had planned to take a few days off to recharge after a (very relatively) intense work week. Unfortunately the boss thought this was a great time to send out a "reminder" email that if we intend to take time off we need to provide a reason & have it approved. This was a mistake on his part.

I went into his office, head hanging low, and started talking about my dad's cancer, how intensive chemotherapy was, I didn't make myself cry but I was putting that theatre class I took in college to good use, I might have even hit him with "and I'm just so used to seeing my dad as this strong, invulnerable guy, but... he's just human, y'know? And soon he might be gone... how do you even deal with something like that..."

Now by this point my dad had been cancer-free for years, so this was purely performative, but my boss just looked so uncomfortable, it was great. I wish I could say this caused the boss to send out an email saying we no longer needed to give a reason for our time off, but no such luck, instead I just kept coming up with other traumatic life experiences to justify my vacations. I think my grandma died 3 times these past few years, poor woman. I may have to come up with something new for when she actually does die. My boss still gets visibility uncomfortable whenever I come to ask for time off in person instead of via email, it's kind of hilarious to me.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Main-Ad7685 on 2025-06-29 03:59:52+00:00.

TRIGGER WARNING

I've been working at a poultry farm for about a year now (it's legal for 14 year olds to work in agriculture in my state), and I was always a hard worker who, in spite of my personal and brief legal troubles, was very productive and intuitive. As a result, I was very well liked by the management. The owner of the farm eventually acquired some more land, and the manager decided to break it down more, and appointed me as one of the assistant supervisors of the newly acquired chicken coops. I had this really annoying coworker who was always whining about "the patriarchy holding her back" and not being paid as much as the other workers. (She was just really lazy and spent all her time on her phone.) I overheard her trash talking me to a coworker, saying that she would have gotten the job, but that the owner passed her over because I'm a suck-up. Later that day (she didn't think I had heard her), she asked me for a raise (she thought I was easy prey because I'm young). I planned just to turn her down, but I had a better idea. Unfortunately for her, the guy who got rid of the waste had just moved out, and he earned about 3-4 dollars an hour more than the other workers. So I assigned her waste duty. We still work together, I'm still her (assistant) supervisor, but she's gotten real quiet about my management skills. As it turns out, you still don't want to screw over your boss even if he's 15.

(Yes I know most feminists aren't like that. I'm just telling the story as it was)

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Dr_Pillow on 2025-06-28 16:58:58+00:00.

I spent a few years at this company. The pay there is not as competitive and we all got measly 2–3% raises each year, nothing close to inflation levels. I had been in a starter position and still studying on the side, so I agreed with my boss already a couple years ago that I'd get a promotion once I graduated.

Well, last September I graduated, and asked for my promotion. I had looked over the worker union's salary statistics and the median would be around a 18% bump for me. I didn't expect to get that much because, besides them being a cheap AF, the economy was bad and they had just downsized like 15% of the staff in July. Luckily I had gotten myself into a strong position of being one of the only ones left with some unique skills, so I survived the downsizing. Anyhow, I show my boss a copy of the statistics and ask for the median.

Boss scoffs and proceeds to fight as hard as he can to justify lowballing me. He says several things baffling to me, not limited to:

• “damn, you’re rich bro” about my salary (no dude, I'm really struggling in this economy)
• “If I give you more, you’ll just spend more” (not your concern what I do with my well-deserved money).
• “no one at that level makes that much here” and that the statistics must be wrong. (I later went around the office to find colleagues in that level. First co-worker I ask? Earns exactly what I asked for.)
• Brought up some concerns about my 'communication', petty things like me not replying to a colleague's email for like 3 days (3 days during which I was off-site to give a course somewhere).

But my favourite thing he said was: “You can go look for other jobs to see how much others are offering, you’ll see it's not going to be any better”.

He lingered on my salary adjustment until December, "negotiating with HR", and then finally offers me 11%, which is around what I actually expected. But, there's a catch… next year I would not get the usual 2-3% salary adjustment like everybody else. WTF. I told him: "deal".

You see, I had taken his advice (or rather called his bluff) and was already getting quite far in interviews.

Come January, I land an offer from the top company in our field (think Google, Apple) offering me what would have been a 35% bump. I hit my boss with the news, he promptly panics. Says they want me to stay, they need me, my performance and development have been great, etc... but they can’t match that offer because “not even top management makes that much”. I obviously didn't believe him, but I said "I understand it's not fair that I earn more than everyone else, just do your best".

He runs to the top boss' office and somehow, within 30 mins, they magically found budget for a 30% raise. Perfect, now I had leverage to negotiate an even better offer from my future boss. After all, I had already made up my mind to leave long ago.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/raycostello on 2025-06-28 14:18:27+00:00.

TL;DR: HOA harassed me about brown patch, so I seed bombed it with aggressive mint. Now mint has taken over the entire neighborhood and HOA can't remove it due to their own rules.

So this happened last year but the mint is still spreading and the HOA is still losing their minds, so I figured you'd appreciate this.

I live in one of those cookie-cutter suburban developments with an HOA that has nothing better to do than measure grass height and count dandelions. Behind my house there's this steep slope that's basically a dead zone - terrible soil, gets destroyed by sun, nothing grows there. Looks like shit but it's not my fault the builder graded it wrong.

Enter the HOA Compliance Committee (aka three retired Karens with clipboards).

They start sending me violation notices about "insufficient green coverage" and "failure to maintain community landscaping standards." I try explaining that it's an impossible area but they don't care. They want it green or they want fines.

I spend like $200 on grass seed - dies. Another $300 on sod - dies. Hire a landscaper for $800 who basically tells me "some places aren't meant to be green" then leaves. More violation notices.

Finally I'm browsing Reddit at 2am (as you do) and see this post for "Bad Apples Doublemint Seed Bombs" that claims to solve "impossible erosion problems." The whole thing sounds sketchy but I'm desperate and facing HOA fines, so fuck it - $35 for 5 seed bombs.

Here's where the malicious compliance begins.

The violation notice specifically said I needed to "establish adequate green coverage using appropriate plant materials for erosion control." It didn't say WHAT plants. Just "appropriate" and "green coverage."

So I read up on mint. Turns out it's actually EXCELLENT for erosion control. Deep roots, spreads aggressively, thrives in terrible conditions. Technically checks every box they demanded.

Friday evening I chuck all 5 seed bombs onto my dead zone like I'm lobbing grenades. Saturday morning I email the compliance committee that I've "deployed professional-grade erosion control featuring premium mint varieties selected for aggressive establishment in challenging terrain."

Sounds official as hell, right?

Plot twist: It actually worked.

Six weeks later my dead zone is GREEN AS HELL. Thick, lush, beautiful mint covering everything. The compliance officer does her walkthrough and actually COMPLIMENTS my "creative landscaping solution." Violation notices stop. I'm feeling pretty smug.

Plot twist #2: Mint doesn't understand property lines.

By fall I notice mint popping up in the common areas. Underground runners had snuck under the fence and were colonizing the neighbors. Spring comes and mint is EVERYWHERE - around mailboxes, along walking paths, even in their fancy entrance landscaping.

Here's the beautiful part: The HOA charter (section 4.2.7 if anyone cares) specifically prohibits "removal or disturbance of vegetation that originates from individual property owner plantings without explicit written consent."

They can't touch the mint without violating their own rules.

Current situation (ongoing chaos):

• HOA hired THREE different landscaping companies. All basically said "you have mint now, learn to love mojitos"
• Community Facebook group is 50% people complaining about mint, 50% people asking where to harvest it for cocktails "
• Last month's HOA meeting included 20 minutes of heated debate about "aggressive aromatic species management"
• They're trying to revise the charter but need 75% homeowner approval and everyone thinks this is hilarious

Best part: Karen #1 from the compliance committee now sends passive-aggressive emails about "residents who deliberately introduce invasive species" but can't name names because that would be "creating a hostile community environment" (section 2.1.4).

My neighbors love it. Free mint for everyone. The mailman said our whole street smells like a spa. I make mint juleps with ingredients harvested from the community mailbox area.

The HOA wanted green coverage. Mission fucking accomplished!!!!

EDIT: i keep getting dmed for sourcing, search bad apples seed bombs on ebay , they work way, way too well lol

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Ashmunaday on 2025-06-27 22:16:06+00:00.

Right after finishing my training, I landed my first full-time job in quality control at a mid-sized chemical company. The team in the lab was five people - me full-time, the others part-time. The company always claimed that even though they were not part of the union, they still paid according to union contracts (I am from Germany, many industries are unionized and generally all employees get the contracted pay, no matter if they are members or not). It was good money at the time, I had no reference and no reason to doubt. Until I got engaged 7 years later. My fiancée had the exact same training, worked for a bigger company and they actually followed the union contract. The starting wage was the same, but real union contracts had pay raise after set times. This led to a difference in 600 € per month. I was a bit upset, to say the least. I was looking for a new job, but a 3-months notice period was too long for many possible employers. So, being frustrated and not really attached to my old job, I was free to comply maliciously in a way I would never recommend to anyone who wants to keep their job. I copied the part of the union contract with the wage table. There was a nice little relation between training level, tasks and wage ranges. armed with this and a secret weapon I asked for a talk with my manager. In his office I laid the union contract on his table, showed this nice little table and said something along the line: "You always tell people the this company pays according to the union contracts. Look at this, there is a gap between my skills and tasks, and my pay. It's a 600 € gap. So, to comply to your statement, there are two ways to fix this: First, I get 600 € more, Second, I stop doing many of my tasks. Which one should it be?" He wasn't thrilled. Said I was "really leaning out of the window with that statement" (a German idiom, basically: getting bold). I replied: "30% of your department's manpower is sitting in front of you. My fiancée is getting paid the real union wage and we are looking forward to move together, question is where, as we live 120 km (about 75 miles) apart. My biggest obstacle is my 3-month notice period." Then came my secret weapon: I pulled out a fully written letter of resignation and asked for a pen to sign it. Long story short: I got the 600€ raise. I stayed there for another year. So basically I was malicious and my employer complied. Hope this qualifies.

TL;DR: Boss said we follow union pay. I showed we didn’t. Gave him the choice: raise my pay or reduce my tasks. Had a resignation letter ready. Got the raise

P.S. I do not recommend pulling out a resignation letter unless you really mean it. I did.

P.P.S. Yes, this formatting is intentional. just to be safe.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/throwrathrowra on 2025-06-27 20:36:02+00:00.

This happened about ten years ago, but it still makes me laugh every time I think about it.

I was in my early twenties, dating this guy who was ridiculously controlling and full of himself. Classic narcissist. Everything revolved around him, and in his mind, he could do no wrong. You know the type. Anyway, after I caught him cheating, I finally hit my limit and told him I was done for good.

The way I found out he was cheating was the best part. I’d had my suspicions for a while, so I went through his phone. Sure enough, there were months of messages between him and some girl he worked with. Flirty garbage, talking about how he couldn’t wait to leave me… all that nonsense. But one text in particular had me rolling my eyes. He had sent her this the day before:

“She’s driving me crazy. She’s got me through the roof. I need you so bad, babe.”

Got me through the roof? Pretty sure that’s not how the expression goes. Your blood pressure can be through the roof. Your anxiety, your rage… sure. But unless you’re Spider-Man or a haunted Victorian child, you are not through the damn roof.

The next morning while he was at work, I texted him and said I was done. He kept pressing me to explain, but I never admitted I’d read his messages. I let him stew in his own arrogance until he finally realized I wasn’t bluffing.

By that point, he had pretty much moved into my house. So naturally, he wanted all his stuff back. He texted me something like, “You better have all my shit outside when I get there. And I mean every fucking bit of it. I’m not making two trips.”

Oh, don’t worry, sweetheart.

I gathered every last thing he had at my place, which included at least a third of his wardrobe, a pile of overpriced hats, two pairs of pristine Jordans, and an iPad. I stuffed everything (minus the iPad) into a trash bag, tied it loosely, walked outside, and launched it straight onto the roof. Some of his clothes flew out mid-air and scattered across the yard. Most of it landed on the roof and just chilled up there like it paid rent.

As for the iPad, I put it in a box and set it near the edge of the driveway. Not long after, a couple of teenagers walked by and peeked inside. I was sitting on the porch when one of them asked, “Is this yours?”

“Nope.”

“Can we have it?”

“Sure. Why not.”

He said to put his stuff outside. He never said I had to guard it.

About two hours later, he pulled up, saw his clothes strewn across the lawn and a trash bag dangling off the roof, and lost it. He started pounding on the door, furious, yelling, “Why the fuck are my clothes on the roof?!”

I swung the door open, looked him dead in the eye, and said, “Well, judging by the texts you sent your little girlfriend… apparently, I had you through the roof. I figured your clothes might as well join you. You told me to put your shit outside. You didn’t say where.”

He stood there red-faced, fists clenched, seething. “And how the fuck am I supposed to get my shit off the roof?”

I shrugged, smiled sweetly, and said, “Maybe your girlfriend can loan you a ladder,” then slammed the door in his face.

He did come back later with a ladder. Whether or not she loaned it to him, I couldn’t say. I stayed inside with the door locked and haven’t heard much from him since.

ETA: The one and only time I talk to him after the break up was the next day when he texted to ask if he could come get his iPad.😂 I told him the truth… That I sat it outside like he asked me to. If it’s not there, I guess someone stole it. Sorry. I don’t think he believed me because he threatened to GPS track it. I told him to go ahead. Don’t know if he was ever able to locate it or not because I blocked his number after that. Lol.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Fun-Heart2038 on 2025-06-27 19:37:43+00:00.

[Not a native speaker]

Many moons ago, I was a developer working in my first job, in a small software company. I had a 1-year contract and was developing an administrative system to process equipment tests and test results. I wrote it for the software company I worked for, who developed it bespoke for a customer. It was a long time ago, and almost all software was custom-made at that time.

The customer was nice and had a good IT officer on-site that could also develop, but had no time to do so, and certainly not from scratch.

When the end of my contract was coming near and the software was running, I tried to negotiate new terms but without an interesting offer. The job market was not good at that time, living was cheap in that area, and I guess they just assumed I would stay. I found however something else as I was young and did not really care about anything else than cool assignments with new technology.

So, at the last day, I shook hands and wished them the best. That did not fall well. They wanted me to stay, demanded me to stay, but under local law, walking in the next day meant accepting a contract with all attached obligations like a non-competition agreement, 8 weeks notice etc etc.

I walked out and a week later I got a threatening letter from their lawyer about abandoning post, misleading them, caused financial losses. Whilst I assumed they had little on me, even a little problem is a big one if you do not have money and quick access to legal support.

They wanted me to fix issues on the bespoke system as the customer made some tickets that no one could resolve, but I already started a new job. I did not have the source code anymore, no libraries etc.

Cue MC

I found a lawyer, who basically said: go and do it, commit to nothing, and this way you showed your good will. That is enough in this jurisdiction.

I went to the software company to get the sources and libraries that I needed to work on the software. I informed them that I would go to the customer site to use as I needed their hardware and installation to see their issues on-prem & fix them right there, so the customer could sign-off and provide absolution.

The software company agreed and was probably proud of pressuring me into working for them for free, as a punishment for my betrayal.

I went to the customer site, sat with the IT officer in order to set up a dev and test environment, copied the source code, libraries, documentation and digged into my code. At the end of the day, the issue list was addressed. Before closing down, I explained that I needed to delete the source code when ready but that I was hungry and wanted to grab a bite, and that they should continue testing, just to be sure.

When I came back, the tests were successful. I deleted all source code etc, made pictures of what I did and emailed the report.

In parallel, the IT officer was labeling a portable drive and I saw a finished backup job on his monitor.

The customer never made a ticket anymore and did not extend their maintenance & support contract.

[Edit for clarity, my bad].

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/LilMissYuna on 2025-06-27 04:17:56+00:00.

I was working part-time at a storage yard. The rule was always to check if anyone was still around before locking up.

One day my new supervisor pull me side. From now on, he says, “You lock the gat when you leave.

I asked, “Even if someone’s still in the yard?” He said, “Doesn’t matter. Lock it. Period.”

So a few days later, I saw him way in the back inspecting something. Didn’t say a word. Just locked the gate like I was told.

He called twenty minutes later, stuck and annoyed. I said, “You told me to lock it no matter what.” The rule quietly changed to. “Use your judgment.” And that’s exactly what I do now.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/ScarletHotFace on 2025-06-27 02:58:38+00:00.

Back when I was in high school, I lived with my extremely frugal aunt while my parents were abroad. She had this obsession with saving on the electricity bill. Fair enough but she took it to the extreme.

One day, she caught me walking out of the kitchen and scolded me for leaving the ceiling light on, even though I was going back in less than a minute. She said she didn't t care if I was gone for 30 seconds. When you leave a room, you turn off every single light. Got it.

I started turning off lights whenever I leave a room and soon I got used to it. Later that week, she was cooking in the kitchen, and I was helping her grab ingredients from the pantry which was technically a separate little room connected to the kitchen. I stepped into the pantry, grabbed the oil, walked out, and turned off every single kitchen light as I exited the room.

She shrieked mid stir like she'd gone blind.

What are you doing? I’m still here.

I said, Oh....I thought you weren’t. You said turn off every light when I leave a room and my muscle memory is already getting used to it.

It didn’t stop there. Anytime we were in the living room and I got up to use the bathroom, I’d leave her in pitch darkness. Once, she was even watching TV and I just clicked off the power bar on my way out.

It took about four days of bumping into furniture before she said, Okay, maybe use common sense.

I still turned the bathroom light off every time she used it though because I wasn’t in the room after all.

Took a while before my muscle memory returned to normal.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/jylppy81 on 2025-06-26 19:47:02+00:00.

Compulsory notes: English is not my first language, but it is my son's.

This just happened less than five minutes ago...

My son is turning 9 tomorrow. We've had some trouble putting him to sleep during his summer vacation, and I was steering him towards sleep right now. I asked if he'd brushed his teeth and gone potty to get ready to bed. He said yes, so I asked him to "put your head on the pillow, please". He went to his bed, took the pillow, and held it in his hands, resting his head on top of it, and started heading towards the living room...

I couldn't do anything but laugh for a solid minute, and then went to get him from living room, and added to my previous statement: "Go to bed, and put your head on the pillow, please."

Moments like this make a dad proud!

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Mesoposty on 2025-06-26 18:43:00+00:00.

I’ve always told him no, and that I gave you a fair price. He always asks and I’ve asked him too not too many times . The other day he asked if we could do anything about the price when I handed him the receipt and I said “SURE!, let me rewrite the receipt “ I went to my truck and quickly rewrote it for 10% higher and took it back to him. He looked at me like I was crazy, I told him you asked if I could do anything about it and that all I can do. He asked for the original receipt and he quickly paid that one

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/VelvetXGlimmer on 2025-06-26 14:37:47+00:00.

I am part of a small hiring team at my workplace and I take my position very seriously. Sometime ago we were looking to fill a key role that required someone sharp, organized, and ready to work under pressure. We had a solid shortlist after several interview and then my department supervisor pulled me aside. He told me, flat-out, to hire one candidate in particular. Not because she was the best fit but because he wanted me to, i later heard through office rumors that she was an “almost-girlfriend,” basically Someone he had a thing for and was trying to impress. He said I should but just make it work and he will take the heat if needed.

I refused at first, showing him her results of the interview. She was one of the least ranked. She was late to the interview, vague answers, couldn’t explain basic industry terms. But he wouldn't listen and said it was a direct order. So, I did exactly what he asked, I hired her. Gave her all the support I could. Even offered extra onboarding help. Within a month, she accidentally sent a confidential client file to the wrong company. Then she once approved a purchase order for 10x the budgeted amount because she obviously didn't read through all those numbers. It was from one wrong to another. We lost a major client over the email slip. Another pulled back on their contract due to delays on her end.

When upper management started asking questions, my manager tried to dodge responsibility. But HR already had the hiring records. I made sure all instructions including his were documented which was intentionally incase a situation like this came up and it did. He was reassigned within the quarter. She quietly disappeared not long after. Turns out, hiring your crush isn’t as cute when the company starts bleeding money.