Malicious Compliance

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/sofiabrooksx on 2025-05-23 23:28:12+00:00.

I (18F) work part-time as a closing shift cleaner at a gym. Usually, we wipe down machines, take out trash, mop floors — takes about 2 hours if you stay focused.

One night, the assistant manager (who’s on a bit of a power trip) told me: “You’re not allowed to clock out until the place is 100% spotless. No exceptions.”

I said, “Got it.”

So when I finished my usual tasks in 2 hours, I kept going. I cleaned between every treadmill slat. Scrubbed the baseboards. Polished the inside of the vending machine window. Took 4.5 hours total.

Clocked out and left. Next day, he asked why I stayed so long. I said, “You told me it had to be spotless. I took you seriously.”

Now I’m only assigned to 2 shifts a week — because apparently I cost too much.

Worth it.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Full_Strawberry_102 on 2025-05-23 21:23:42+00:00.

So I worked at a resturant/movie theater as a dishwasher that was open really really late sometimes. Most nights that I closed I had to wait to turn off, drain and clean out the dish machine because it took a little for the busser to collect every dish from every theater. This guy was buddy buddy with management and treated me and other dishies as below him. More often then not I would be told “this should be the last of it” by someone bringing dishes late, but it was never true. I got in the habit of asking if they’re sure or if I should wait.

Well this particular night he wasn’t feeling very patient, and when I asked if that was really everything, he cut me off saying “shut it down NOW!” before quickly leaving the kitchen. It seemed too early in my opinion but hey, he seemed quite agitated and I wanted to go home. So I drained the machine and cleaned it out, then shut down the rest of the dish pit. By the time I was done and the manager was checking me out, I see him meekly bagging up 2 full bus tubs of dishes.

Dude never even made eye contact with me again while I worked there.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Fun_Sized_Momo on 2025-05-22 23:31:23+00:00.

I work for a security company at a large car manufacturer. As security we digitally document EVERY LITTLE THING. These new white shirts (admin employees) wanted to be apart of the action and requested to be added to the email list for incidents that we report. We're like "that's a lot of emails, are you sure?" (Roughly 45 emails per day) "Yes! We need to stay informed!".

I come into work today (two days after their request) and see that they are no longer on the list to be included for all incidents. They said it's too many emails and wanted off the list.

That's it, not super juicy but I thought it was fun enough to include. Thanks for reading!

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Squankyou on 2025-05-22 23:01:53+00:00.

25 years ago I worked as a bouncer in RI at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel. Lupos was an amazing live music venue. I was working the side door to the establishment; the door was only used to let in members of the bands playing that night or employees. The band playing that night was George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic. The opening band had already come in and all the employees working as well. George and the band were still in their tour bus. This is when the head bouncer walks over to me and says that "no one else is to come through the side door." To this day I have no idea why; he had never said this before. With a confused look on my face I asked "Nobody?" "Nobody" he repeated. Still perplexed I asked again "Nobody? No matter who they are or who they are with?" "Nobody!" he practically screamed at me. "Okay" I conceded. Not 5 minutes later one of the bands roadies came to the door and told me they were ready to come in. I told him that they would have to go to the main entrance. He looked confused as he had already been back and forth through the door multiple times while setting up. I told him my boss just told me that nobody, no matter who they were, could come in this way. Visibly pissed he turned and went around to the main entrance. 1 minute later my boss came storming over to me, looking both pissed and sheepish at the same time, tells me to let in anyone with the band. I just smiled at him and nodded my head. 1 minute later the band and the bands hang arounds and groupies and random fans that were on the bus all come strolling in. All told, about thirty people. I could see my boss seething up by the main entrance as they all came in.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Friendly_King_1546 on 2025-05-22 20:40:38+00:00.

Someday I will be a saint… but today is not that day.

I just heard an agent give my 80 yr old Father in law a very, very hard time about cancelling home phone service. She wanted to upsell services, etc and get personal information she did not need to complicate what was supposed to be an easy request. It went on for a while like this.

I finally stepped in and shut that down, confirmed a cancellation, and handed the phone back to him and walked away. The agent insisted it was nothing personal, just company policy to engage in “customer retention” efforts. He moved across country. He told her that- there is no retention possible. Still, she kept him going in circles unnecessarily.

I can hear the agent now begging him to hang up from the other room.

This call agent cannot end the call. Company policy is that the customer ends the call.

My Father in Law can not hear her as he and my mother in law are happily chatting away about elderly bodily functions and peanut butter crackers with apples while this poor agent is literally begging them to end the call.

I will not end her nightmare.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Grose040791 on 2025-05-22 19:46:21+00:00.

So this happened when I was about 16 and working at a TCBY. I was about to get off work when the store manager told me to take all of the display ice cream cakes and put them into the back freezer because the front freezer wasn't working. She then left for the day. About an hour after I did this, the store owner walks in yelling "why are all the display cakes not in the front freezer???? We just had it fixed!"

I told him that I literally just got done taking them out and putting them in the back per the manager's request. Some back and forth went on until I just shrugged and put all the cakes back into the broken front freezer and left. All the cakes melted and I was fired. Oh well lol

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Kirjavs on 2025-05-22 18:33:43+00:00.

I worked in a big compagny. I did the developer (tech lead) job, project manager's job and a big part of team leader's job.

I asked multiple times to have a raise and also less work. That didn't work. When I said I did all of that, my manager just answered "Yes, you do a spectacular work. But we don't ask you to do all of this. So I don't know why you should get paid more than other people."

Well... I stopped doing extras and focused on my job for 3 months.

Everything collapsed bit by bit expect the projects I kept working on. When I was asked by the clients, I just answered:" oh, I'm not in charge of that. You should contact X or the manager, not me. "

I was asked to come into the manager's office : "why is everything falling apart?! You need to do something!"

Me : "it's not my job. For years, you didn't asked yourself how it happened that everything worked so fine. So I stopped doing what was not in my contract. Now you ask why it's not working anymore. The answer is just that I let things fall down. And I'm glad it did because only now you notice the work I did.".

He was really confused. Got a raise pretty fast.

Edit : language mistakes

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/YolaGod on 2025-05-22 18:00:15+00:00.

So I (34M) recently moved into a small condo building. One of those places with shared laundry in the basement and a building WhatsApp group that only exists so people can passive-aggressively shame each other about dryer lint.

A couple weeks after moving in, I get a message from the downstairs neighbor:

“Just FYI: building rules say no laundry after 9PM. The machines are noisy.”

The rules were printed in Comic Sans and taped above the dryer, so clearly serious business.

I replied politely:

“Got it. I’ll stick to daytime washes.”

Cut to a few nights later. I get home from a work trip at 8:30PM with a bag full of gym clothes that had been marinating in airport funk. I toss a load in immediately, thinking, no problem, it’ll be done by 9:15, maybe she won’t even notice.

At 9:02PM I get a text:

“Please don’t do laundry after 9. We all have to follow the rules.”

Okay then.

So for the next few weeks, I followed her rule perfectly. Any load of laundry that wasn’t done by 9PM , I just left it. Wet. Sitting in the machine. Or in the hamper. Didn’t matter if it smelled. Didn’t matter if it was towels. If it was 8:59 and I hadn’t started? See ya tomorrow.

I even stopped short once with 3 minutes left on the spin cycle. Rules are rules.

Eventually, someone (guess who) complained that “someone” was leaving wet clothes in the machine and the smell was bothering people. And of course, just imagine the smell this could have when it’s dirty and wet.

I just responded:

“Totally understand! But as per the rules, I don’t run the washer after 9PM.”

No response.

Last week the Comic Sans sign disappeared. Still no one running laundry at 2AM… but now everyone seems a lot more relaxed about finishing a load at 9:10.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/FoFoAndFo on 2025-05-22 17:43:27+00:00.

I'm a high school science teacher and a few years back a water main burst in my classroom. I saw the drain was clogged so I sent the majority of the class to the library and grabbed some students I knew could handle themselves from coaching wrestling and football. I had them help carry water to the window in trash cans while I called Building and Grounds. A few minutes later a maintenance guy came in and yelled at me, told everyone to leave and that we should let the water fill the class until the pressure cleared the blockage in the drain.

The water pressure did not clear the blockage in the drain. The whole hallway on both sides flooded, as did the hallway beneath it, mold grew and we had to shut down over 40 classrooms for over a year. There wasn't enough classroom space and we had to split the student body in half and have one group come in from 5 am to 11 and the other come in from 11-5 pm. The repair cost the district over $15 million. All spring sports were cancelled for the year, the next year's fall sports were cancelled too and in a lot of ways the district never recovered.

I got a load of crap from my supervisor, a VP and the school principal in the immediate aftermath and wasn't brought back the next year. I got offered my old job back when they realized how much damage I was trying to prevent but had already moved on to greener pastures.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/JustSomeGuy_56 on 2025-05-22 16:12:44+00:00.

I had a consulting contract with a large financial services company. One of the rules was that I was not allowed to have investment accounts with any other companies. (They were afraid of insider trading). The exception was accounts that were managed so I was not making the investment decisions. In order to get this waiver, I needed a statement from the company that held the accounts. I called my financial adviser and he said it was common practice in the industry and would send me the standard one page letter that listed the details of my three accounts. 

I eMailed the letter to HQ and they rejected it. They needed a copy of the complete customer agreement for each account. I explained the the agreement was 60 pages long and I had 3 accounts. Sorry, No exceptions 

I said I had PDF copies of the documents. They were too big to eMail. Could I just upload them to some server so they could fetch them? 

No, All documents must be hand delivered or FAXed 

This client was paying about $125/hour for my services. I spent an entire day printing the docs (on their printer) and created a separate FAX job (with cover page) for each page.

For the next 10 years I had 5 or 6 contracts with this company and each time I had to apply for the same waiver and FAX the same documents to the same office.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/SolsticeQueenn on 2025-05-22 15:38:55+00:00.

I work in a small warehouse where job titles don’t really mean much. We’re always short staffed so i’ve just gotten used to helping wherever I can, shipping, inventory, customer stuff… not technically my job bit it kept things running. Then outta nowhere my manager told me “You need to stop doing other people’s jobs and just focus on your own” alright then.

Next day I did exactly that, just handled my orders, didn’t touch the inbox, didn’t restock a thing. Just watched stuff pile up while everyone else pretended it wasn’t their problem. By day two it was chaos. Angry customers, missed orders, and late shipments. Manager comes back like “WHY DIDN’T YOU HELP?” I just said “YOU TOLD ME NOT TO”

Funny how quick they notice when you stop doing the stuff they never gave you credit for.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/thezero4 on 2025-05-22 12:30:54+00:00.

My wife told her to stop putting stickers all over the house, and she should only put stickers on paper.

My daughter argued with her but my wife was just done picking stickers up all over the house, especially the kitchen, so it wasn't going anywhere.

An hour or so later I walk into the kitchen and see stickers on post it notes, and the post it notes were stuck all over the refrigerator! She was so proud of herself it was hilarious.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/MaddieGator on 2025-05-22 01:28:01+00:00.

Years ago, I worked for a medium-sized retailer which sold all sorts of things, from confectionery to garden supplies. The store had half an aisle near the front of the store dedicated to events, which were pretty much right in the customers' faces as they entered the store.

Every few weeks, these event shelves would change over to a new department, or be themed to any upcoming holidays or special days, such as Mother's Day or Halloween.

Usually for these events, we would get the stock delivered the week before, and spend that week taking out the old stock and replacing it with the new lines. If a new line was missing from the delivery, we'd go and find a different line that would fit into that event from elsewhere in the store.

One day in early April, we received an email from upper management:

"Do not replace missing event lines with any other lines."

We emailed back to clarify, because of course, nearly every event delivery is missing at least one line. Do they want us to spread other items out to fill the empty space, or what?

"Just leave the space for any missing lines empty. It will look like they have sold out."

Barely a month later, while preparing for the Mother's Day event, we receive our regular delivery, with no Mother's Day event lines - not one. So we email upper management to let them know that we haven't received any of the event lines.

"They will come on your next delivery. Do not fill empty space."

Well, they did not arrive on the next delivery either. We emailed them again, informing them that we had still not received any event lines, and heard nothing back, so we decided to do exactly what they asked. We cleared out the old event lines, and left the entire event section completely empty, for the entire 3 week period leading up until Mother's Day.

After Mother's Day, during a conference call (a group call between upper management and all the store managers for the region), they asked us why we had zero sales for the event lines, and why our sales for the period had dropped significantly. We just referred them back to other previous emails where we told them that we never received the delivery, and they had said not to fill missing lines. Cue the most deliciously sweet awkward silence.

After the call, one more email was sent out to everyone:

"Please use your best judgement when filling missing lines for events."

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Xenoman5 on 2025-05-21 22:03:58+00:00.

In the early 1990s when I was in my 20s I worked at a grocery store in the Midwest whose name rhymes with herbs that was owned by the chain Kroger. After working days for about six months I was eventually move to working the 11 to 7 or 10 to 6 overnight shifts and found that I really preferred them both for the clientele and for the different pace and not having to deal directly with the clueless general manager. One of the duties of the lone overnight checker was to restock all of the candy and snacks at the multiple checkout lanes. The candy was stored in the stairwell giving the only access to the second floor office near the front of the store (which was an obvious fire hazard). Just picture ~10 opened cardboard boxes stacked along a not particularly wide stairwell and you could imagine how messed up the whole thing was.

A lady who worked in the morning who inventoried the candy remaining on the shelf was a different person than the afternoon lady whose job it was to occasionally(read never) inventory remaining candy in the stairwell. Then, daytime checkers who were supposed to fill the lulls between customers by cleaning their check stations and restocking candy would just grab whatever was handy at the bottom of the stairs, including opening brand new packages to take out the individual sale packages inside to top up their aisles displays meaning that over time those ~10 large cardboard boxes of candy each had a bunch of partial boxes and loose pieces inside of just random candy with no organization.

Because I worked as the overnight checker I was constantly getting notes attached to my time card from the general manager (who only had his job because he was golf buddies with the district manager and had never worked in a grocery store before three years before that) reminding me to sort out the mess by stocking the candy. One of the banes of my existence was the ordering lady in the morning ordering a bunch of Cherry Nibs. Apparently it was part of a discount deal to buy a bunch of them yet we barely sold any of them. There were unopened and partial boxes of them in every one of the larger boxes that held candy as well as the mad assortment of other candy.

Finally after about a dozen notes attached to my time card over the course of a month I decided to act. One night I pulled all the boxes down off of the stairs and told the night manager that I was going to sort it all out for good and he said fine. He was actually a cool guy who let me get work done and ran a very relaxed yet efficient shift. I sorted all the candy into chocolate gum, suckers, basically by category labeled about six of the boxes, put all the stuff back in their proper boxes, and then put all the rest of the candy in a cart along with the trash that it was my job to take out from the registers at night. I then proceeded to throw what I can only estimate was $1000 or more worth of candy, including 90% of those damn Nibs, into the trash compactor in the back of the store with all of the trash on top of it so the next person who used it wouldn’t notice a bunch of crushed candy and report me.

The next night when I clocked in I was pleasantly surprised to find that instead of being fired there was a note on my time card letting me know good job, and that I would be getting a $.25 an hour raise starting on my next paycheck.

Let it be known that nothing containing chocolate went into the trash as I am not a heathen!

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Beardie_mama on 2025-05-21 18:55:19+00:00.

I am, well let’s face it, OCD TO THE MAX. Last year, I considered myself late if I was less than 15 minutes early. It would stress me out and I would panic, mind you my brother died the day before I went back to work and I only missed two days, the day after and the day of the funeral. I guess I kind of trauma bonded to my job in a sense. So I worked my butt off to be the best there was.

Anyways, no complaints all year about my timely arrivals, until this year. She pointedly told staff, while looking at me, no clocking in anymore than 5 minutes early. Cool. So I show up 15 minutes early, sit in my car until exactly 5 minutes before my shift. Once I clock in, I’m immediately supposed to be outside on the other side of the school… not possible with 5 minutes early, but I try.

By the time I get to location, no one is there, cool… I got this. I sit and listen to music, wasting thirty minutes because I’ve missed my students, but I’m where I’m supposed to be within two minutes of my assigned time.

Then there is my lunch. I’m supposed to clock out immediately from my lunch duty, and be back 30 minutes. I sit in my car until exactly 25 minutes pass, go in and clock in, but that messed with my schedule, so I had the schedule changed. Now I have a small grace period incase others aren’t there to take my place, which they try but it’s a struggle to be in two places at once. I always cover anyone in need, and I worked through a migraine that my dr thought was a stroke for two weeks before taking AN HOUR AND A HALF to go to the hospital for a scan, came back and worked the rest of the day without medications or the ability to see out of my left eye.

Today I was told I’m a “strain to my team”. Why? Because I complied to the guidelines given to me at the beginning of the year… I’m never late to a class, my students get every minute of my time, and I’ve spoken to my team to ensure I met all student needs (interventionist). My boss has never seen me in class. Doesn’t respond to communications, yet I’m the issue. Cool, I’m not your problem next year and I hope you find someone as committed to student success as I am

Sincerely,

The one who lost 23 people, yet showed up and showed out consistently, all while getting another degree so that I could be the absolute best teacher my students could ask for, oh and I paid for that on my own. Resignation signed! ✌🏻

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/mykepagan on 2025-05-21 17:28:18+00:00.

Years ago I taught skiing on the weekends at a small Pennsylvania mountain. They oaid minimum wage for group lessons, but if you were requested for a private lesson, you got paid about 8x as much. Some instructors had business cards made that they would give out at the end of a group lesson so that people would remember their name if they came back for a private lesson.

I was too cheap for business cards. Instead, I bought a surplus leather bomber cap. This worked like a charm… people would ask for “the guy with the bomber hat”. Plus it was funny and made students smile.

But the ski school director decided it was unprofessional and told me not to wear it. He said it was not “ski gear” and that I needed to wear a skiing-specific hat. So I went out to the local ski shop and bought the most godawful ski hat I could find. It was neon green tiger striped that clashed horribly with our uniforms.

The students still asked for me based on my hat, and the ski school director had no desire to push it any further for fear that I would find something even worse.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/LechonLegend on 2025-05-21 16:43:13+00:00.

At my retail job, the manager demanded we wear “professional shoes” per the dress code. I dug up the ugliest, clunkiest, neon-green loafers that barely fit the rules. My coworker burst out laughing, saying I looked like a radioactive clown! Customers stared, and the boss’s face fell. She begged me to wear sneakers the next day, but I rocked those loafers all week. “Just following the dress code!” I grinned. She rewrote the rules by Friday.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/HeraSteps1 on 2025-05-21 15:17:08+00:00.

Our manager put out a call for "any available staff member" to help with a particularly unpleasant task – sorting through a massive backlog of dusty, disorganized files in the basement. Nobody volunteered (surprise!).

So, I, the newest intern with the least to lose, cheerfully said, "I'm available!"

I then proceeded to interpret "any available staff member" literally. I found someone from accounting, who hadn't been downstairs in twenty years and complained about the dust allergies. I got someone from IT, who insisted on wearing his full hazmat-looking cleanroom suit. And then there was me, meticulously sorting each file with the speed and enthusiasm of a sloth on tranquilizers.

The task took three times longer than it should have, with much sighing and wheezing. The manager came down, took one look at our "team," and just rubbed his temples. He never used the phrase "any available staff member" quite so casually again.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/SithLordSky on 2025-05-21 13:20:38+00:00.

Okay guys. I'm pretty proud of this one.

I'm a front desk receptionist. And I have this woman who is a team lead/manager/whatever for a department in the office I work at. She is insanely lazy. One of my jobs is to sort out the incoming mail and get it placed into the proper mail slots for the departments. Easy enough, right?

This woman, I'll call her K, after a few months walked from the mailroom, where the fax machine is, and handed me paperwork asking her if I could fax it for her. I figure, oh she must be in a hurry, so I say yeah, sure. Nope. That was her testing my willingness to do things for her. She would, every time after that, open the mail in the mailroom, bring me the mail, so I could go BACK to the mail room and fax it in. Now this is only like 15 steps away, so it's not like it's on the other side of the building, but it really irked me. Like she is RIGHT there. She knows how to do it, because she once explained how if I fax things to a few particular numbers, a program checks it and puts in our computer system. Check and all. I confirmed that it was okay to fax the CHECK. She agreed. So I said okay.

Fast forward a few months and my boss leaves. Suddenly I am not doing my job and am told that I need to open all of K's mail and forward mail type B. (I'm withholding saying what because it becomes very apparent the field I'm in) I make a note in my "Guide book" that my old boss had made, and move on. Whatever. It's dumb, but the material is time sensitive, and my new boss agreed that I need to do it so I do.

Fast forward a couple more months and K hasn't come to pick up her mail in 3 weeks. I email her to mention this because there were quite a few things in her mailbox. She goes and tells my manager that I am not doing my job again. And now I have to scan in everything that is Type A. The one with checks. My boss agrees and says, "why haven't you been doing this?" I explained that it wasn't my job and I was faxing in type B like requested, and showed her the note I made in my guide book where I had added a note from the last conversation. Well now it's both. 10 checks later, one of them is for over 200 bucks. I hold onto this one instead of shredding it like the others because I'm thinking, "This is the one that's going to make them realize what I'm doing."

And sure as shit, 2 weeks later, I get questioned by another manager.

"Uh...why is this in the {program}?"

'Because I was told anything Type A related was to be scanned, after that, they go in the shredder because it contains PII.'

"Uh...this is a check for payment of (paperwork)."

'Yep.'

"Things that were already sent."

'Okay?'

"This needs to go to finance."

'Oh? I was told that ALL Type A info gets scanned.'

"Even checks?"

'Even checks.'

"Who told you this?"

'K, did.'

"But...this isn't a request, this is payment."

'Yeah I didn't know that. I'm not part of that team so I don't know what they've done, and the wording of this doesn't say that they already received something. Maybe I'd have asked if I saw that.'

"So this has been shredded? We can't cash a photocopied check."

'Actually this one I saved because I had a feeling it was the wrong thing to do. I was going to shred it at the end of the week if I didn't hear about it.'

"How many have you shredded?"

'Like 5 or 7.'

"Do you have these instructions in writing?"

'Yep, I'll email them to you.'

Haven't heard from them since. Maybe K should come into the office and do her job like she's supposed to. I'm just following her directions.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Carlbug2 on 2025-05-21 10:51:28+00:00.

I work at a company where the C-Level is absolutely in love with everything AI. In every town hall meeting they swagger about how great it is and how much more productive everybody will be. It is so ridiculously exaggerated, I swear the CEO would fuck chatGPT if he could...

They even got us all a ChatGPT-Pro Account. - To finance that they took away our annual 1000$ learning budget, which every employee could use for learning new skills and get better at the job (e.g. visit conventions, do paid courses, buy trainings and so on... )

They also explicitly threatened us to use it whenever possible. Those who do not want to use it, will be leaving the company sooner or later. The CEO is very clear about that. And yes... they even track the usage of AI tools. If you don't use them, sooner or later you have to explain yourself to your manager

Sooo... of course I am using AI. I am using AI EVERYWHERE:

• Every year we have to do online-trainings to be compliant. Those trainings are for example: "DEI Stuff, Anti-Corruption, Secure Coding, Fire-Hazzard stuff for the office building, GDPR, and what not... Those trainings consist of videos, a lot of text and a quiz to prove that you know everything. One course is about 1-2 hours long. So when your trainings are due, you're gonna spend at least 2 workdays with this shit again.

Well... not if you can use ChatGPT. I just skip all the text and videos and just copy paste the quiz in the prompt. "Median Time to take the course: 2 hours" ? Rofl, try 5 minutes. Hey, I'm more efficient, am I?!

• 2 times a year we have to write self reflection, reviews for our managers and even for our colleagues. Basically all the HR Bullshit that justifies their existence.

That process is just painstaking and tedious. So guess what? AI! Just give ChatGPT some key points and let it do the magic. That saves at least 2 hours every time that process is due.

• Attending hour long big online meetings where I don't need to say anything and just listen to a presentation? yeah, AI can summarize that for me. No need to actually be there.

I know they can probably tell that I am using AI for everything. But so far no one has complained and if they do, I will just forward the CEOs directive to use AI or get fired.

TLDR:

I use AI everywhere in the job, even where I am not supposed to.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Blaze-Dragon4162 on 2025-05-20 21:57:13+00:00.

Container Chaos

Living with family means there will always be something weird that triggers someone. The other day, it was plastic containers.

For context, our house has three kinds of containers; plastic, glass, and Snapware. The Snapware, bought by my mother, hardly ever get used and I avoid using them because my sis and I were already scolded for not putting them in the proper place (a bin in the dining room). We tend to use the plastic containers for leftovers and food while glass was for sauces and stain heavy foods.

So, seeing some of the older containers were losing their luster, I decided to buy some new containers to spruce up the collection. Bought them in different sizes so we had variety in the closet and handwashed them so that anyone could use them.

Cue my mother's rant the other night.

She went off on me for buying new containers and not taking out the old ones. I did, but apparently filling up the cabinet with new ones made it look as if I did nothing. She even said that having all this plastic was damaging the Earth and I was being wasteful for buying 'cheap' containers.

And so, to comply with her orders, I did exactly what she wished.

When everyone was out the house today, I took every plastic container out the closet and off the counters and put them all in a garbage bag. I hid that bag somewhere in the house, telling my dad that I had tossed the entire collection. When he asked me why I did so, I shrugged and said I was just following orders and that he could put the leftovers in the Snapware or glass containers. I made sure he knew that mom complained and I fixed the problem. He goes to get a Snapware container, notices how shallow they are and proceeds to lament that they aren't as deep as the good old fashioned plastic ones.

I told him to bring it up with the missus.

Only a matter of time before she notices a lack of plastic containers to place her own food in for work. The ironic part about all this is that the Snapware is also plastic based and gets burnt easily.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/ViniciusFromBcn on 2025-05-20 21:26:43+00:00.

Hi everyone, first-time poster here from Spain. Thought I’d share a little gem from my childhood in a small rural town during the 1970s. Back then, being Catholic wasn't just religion, it was a whole lifestyle. So naturally, my siblings and I were packed off to the local nun-run school, where fun went to die and shame was served daily.

The school had a ton of weird traditions, but one that sticks with me to this day was the honey sandwiches. Every single recess, we were handed a plain white bread sandwich with honey inside. No butter, no toast, just soggy, sticky misery. And you had to eat it. If you didn’t, the nuns took it personally. Like you'd insulted Jesus himself. If they caught you trying to ditch it, you’d get the kind of “discipline” that left marks.

So I got creative. I’d hide it in my desk. Stuff it into the lining of my backpack. Once I even managed to toss half of it into the school garden when no one was looking. We all had our tricks. It was survival.

Anyway, this post isn’t really about me. It’s about my older brother, Dani. He was left-handed, which, to the nuns, meant he was probably in direct contact with Satan. They were obsessed with making him write with his right hand. If he used his left, it was straight to knuckle-smacking territory with a wooden ruler.

Dani, being sharp and a bit stubborn, learned to write decently with his right hand just to avoid the daily pain. But it gave him headaches, and he hated it. So he wrote right-handed in class, and left-handed everywhere else.

One day, a nun caught him writing with his left hand while working on something at home. She absolutely flipped. Next day in school, she gave him a punishment assignment: a 15-page essay on obedience, written only with his right hand. No exceptions.

So Dani followed the rules. He wrote all 15 pages. He used only his right hand. And he wrote the entire thing in mirror script.

You heard me. Backwards. Perfectly mirrored handwriting. You could only read it by holding each page up to a mirror.

The nun went nuclear. Straight to the principal’s office. The guy told him he had to learn to follow orders and be normal.

Dani just said, “I followed the order. I used my right hand.”

“But it’s backwards!”

“You didn’t say it couldn’t be.”

That was the last month Dani ever spent in that school. Our parents moved him to the public one after that. Probably saved his sanity, honestly.

I looked up information about Catholicism and left-handed people, and I found this. I imagine they've gotten over that hatred toward those who write with their left hand by now.

Meanwhile, I kept figuring out new ways to hide disgusting honey sandwiches like my life depended on it. Because, in that school, it kinda did.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/dewhashish on 2025-05-20 19:57:07+00:00.

The backstory:

In mid 2022, I was hired almost fully remotely (as agreed by HR and hiring director) at my current job as a systems engineer. Part of my job is on-site data center support. For months, I didn't have to do anything because nothing really came up, but as time went on, I did more data center work. Not a big deal, because 2 of them are close to me by car.

Fast forward to October 2023. Due to client requirements, daily IDF and MDF checks were required again. It was split up amongst all of the engineering teams, with me being the "lucky" one of having to do it on Mondays. My main coworker (now team lead) was over an hour away because the train to his area was down. With the express train and bus, I could get there in an hour. During the meeting, the manager stated "You don't have to stay in the office all day. This was approved by the director. You can go in, do the checks, and leave when you want." Great! I'd go in, sign into work while on the train and bus. Do the checks and anything else I might need to do, and then go home. This went on for well over a year.

A couple months ago, my manager stated that if we go in, we have to stay in for the rest of the day. He didn't even have the audacity to tell us. My team lead had to tell us during a meeting and he thought it was complete bullshit too. I don't know the reasoning, but it's such a waste of time and worse for my work. Then I realized I could go in later in the day and then leave when I sign off work, at 3:30pm.

Now I leave for the 12:30pm train to get to the office by 2 (90 minutes to commute). I do the checks and anything else that might need to be done, then leave at 3:30pm. One afternoon my manager calls me and i mentioned i was on the train. He asks "Did you start late today?" I said "No, just going to the office for the IDF checks like every Monday." He didn't respond, knowing I am still technically listening to his stupid requirement. My team lead laughed when I told him that.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/NoButterscotch1824 on 2025-05-20 18:44:21+00:00.

Few years ago i worked as IT Consultant in Ministry of Justice (DOJ for USAers).

So in my fck up (excuse my french) country, you get a job for one position and you find yourself working 4-5 positions simultaneously.

So besides doing IT Consulting services for govermental archive project as my primary task i was also task with all kind of madness, from plugging in computers to outlet (yes there are a lot of public servants that still can't understand concept of electricity), through fixing printers to managing whole freakin network and servers...

Besides all that, because i had not political presence in any type of form (i was just IT guy) and my contract being in grey zone (contract of temp jobs that was extended every couple of months) i became errand boy for Secretary of ministry /we will call her JAss) ( if i didn't complied I would get terminated same moment).

So a lot of stupid things happened but i will describe two situations where Malicious Compliance peaked. So JAss is surgically removed from digital age but she has an iPhone and knows how to use Viber (btw government in my country strictly forbids Apple products and/or chat applications to be used for internal purposes).

So she was sending me orders via Viber to my private phone all the time, couple of times she would send me some pictures to be printed in colour (i was only one in whole building who knew how to "operate" color printer). We came to first case of MC.

She sent me a video long about 2 minutes running at 24 frames per second and ordered me to print it, yes to print it. I tried explaining but to no awail, JAss was like you have till end of shift or you are gone.

So i complied. Made a script that extracted every single frame from video as separate image ( that was total of 2880 images) and sent it to printer.

Of course mid way toners got empty so i changed them with last ones we had (and next procurement is planed in like 6 months from that time).

It finished printing just before shift and i brought it to her. I still can remeber that dumb face telling me that i am idiot for wasting governmental property, but i had proof on Viber of order she gave me so JAss shut up quickly.

Second situation happened like this: I was called in server room by inteligence personel to check out what is happening because they smell like copper is burning (worst thing that u can smell in server room), so i ran there and i had sight for my eyes, server that we used for all comunication between us and Ministry of Finance (Treasury) catched fire (no we don't have backup or redundancy) so if it dies we are in country wide problem, and what happened, i am in middle of putting fire down with fire extinguisher when got a call from JAss to help her out with something.

I tried again to explain situation but she wouldn't listen, and gave me same ultimatum as every time before. So i got a bit of thinking, i have two solutions, to not comply and get terminated (not get paid) or to comply, let server burn down (can't get paid).

So i complied, gone up and can you guess what was task so urgent that needed me? You won't believe, she didn't know how to put brush on a stick (you know those two part brushes that have little tongue you need to click in) that ahe brought for her secretary to do something in free time.

So i helped and gave my resignation immediately because in meantime server burned out and i won't get paid either way.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Nstraclassic on 2025-05-20 19:26:26+00:00.

At my last job i lived 5 minutes from a customer i had standing appointments with first thing in the morning, twice per week. The office was about 30 minutes away. I had another customer that was about 45 minutes from me that was over an hour from our office that i was at once per week. Management started refusing to reimburse my mileage because it was the "first stop of the day" and said use a company car if it's an issue. We had 2 cars for like 8 techs and one was permenantly assigned to someone.

Can probably tell where this is going lol. I told them my work day starts at 8 and I'll be at the office to pick up the car at 8. They fought that at first but there wasn't anything they could do because the employee handbook clearly stated working hours.

Unsurpisingly the car was never available so they had to reimburse me for way more mileage since i was taking my own car anyway and even when it was available i was extemely late to every appointment that we were contractually bound to. I might have let what I was doing slip to a couple other techs and within a week they removed the handbook from our shared drive and rewrote the policy for the next year to reimburse partial mileage for first-stop appointments but I quit well before it got rolled out.