Malicious Compliance

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/cjdubais on 2025-05-16 13:22:06+00:00.

So,

I was a contractor in a Government office. My background is extensive starting with multiple engineering degrees, and many years of designing, building and operation of Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV's).

There was constant personnel churn in the office, and the contractors were the corporate memory. It's an interesting situation, I always likened it to a feudal society. Staffers (direct Government employees) were the royalty and contractors were the serfs. Sometimes it was bothersome, but the position paid very well, so that was some benefit. Most of the time, the staffers knew they were in way over their heads and gladly accepted our advice.

A woman staffer arrived one day as head of the department that managed our outside service contractors. Typically, I played a large advisory role in dealing with these folks as someone familiar with the industry and able to call bullshit if you will.

Well, this woman decided that I was conspiring behind her back with the contractors virtually on the first day there. Why, I never knew, but it was what it was.

Luckily I didn't answer to her, I answered to a guy who in a former life was a member of Seal Team 6. Basically a trained killer, Great guy, he liked me a lot, and we got along well together. When the foo foo started, he pulled me aside and said, "document everything you do".

So I did as he suggested. I had a notebook in OneNote that I would record whatever I did that involved this woman, including her increasingly anti-social behavior towards me. We would be in meetings, and not only would she not look at me, when I asked her direct questions she wouldn't answer. Several times, this happened and then there was this dead silence until someone else spoke.

About this time we got a new division manager who was very.... personnel "sensitive". He was a PhD type in an operations role and completely out of his league, so he regressed to what he knew, making the office "kinder and gentler". This was quite a challenge as we had an office full of ex-Navy types, and they weren't exactly used to being "kinder and gentler".

In a short period of time, the woman in question had skewered 5 other males in the office in her short tenure, with the result of them departing the office. Both staff and contractors. I would have been her 6th if she had had her way.

So, there was a lot of concern about my position. My boss was in my office one day talking about the latest anti-social behavior demonstrated by this woman. He made a comment, "boy, I wish I had documentation of all this". I laughed, went to my computer and printed off a 20-page dissertation on all the stupidity. His eyes lit up. Come with me, he said.

We went into the office of the new director and my boss gave him my dossier. It took him a bit to read through it all. I had used the word "harassment" (which turned out to be the magic word) in description of many of the episodes. He said, I think harassment is too strong a word for this behavior. I asked him if a contractor was exhibiting this behavior towards a staffer, what would you call it?

He didn't answer the question.

About a week later, the woman was reassigned to a different organization.

I always say, it's not good to go head to head with a trained killer....

LOL

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Own-Dragonfly-942 on 2025-05-16 13:21:11+00:00.

I worked in fast fashion retail for 9 years on the tills. Every year roughly the store manager would decide that water bottles weren't allowed behind the tills and we needed permission to go upstairs to have some. It would only last a couple of weeks before it became too hot in summer and the rules changed back.

The last time she tried putting this in place, I'd been diagnosed with diabetes and my vertigo had finally been recognised by my doctor. The main factors of both being if I get too hot or don't have water I can faint. I got told by my line manager (whose under the store manager) that I needed a write note from my doctor saying I needed it and until that time I couldn't have it with me.

So, I took a week off work saying it was causing health issues while I waited for my doctor to write me up a letter. I went back and had a sickness meeting with my line manager and before sitting down I passed her this letter, still in the sealed envelope. On the letter, it said "£10 charge before giving to patient" and my manager looked horrified that I'd actually paid £10 to do what I'd been asked as evidence by herself. At the time, my hourly wage was £9.50 and I didn't get paid for sick days, so that £10 letter ended up costing a weeks wage too.

The best part, in the letter it was stated that I could use the toilets whenever I needed without asking (another rule) and could have a quick 5-10 minutes paid break when I needed to check my sugers and have a snack or anything as needed. So I started doing exactly that, even when I had a good day and didn't need the snack I went upstairs to just escape. This went on for about three years until I quit last year.

The store manager (as far as I know) has never implemented the water bottle rule again, or limited when employees can take toilet breaks. Apart from things like this, the store manager is a nice(ish) woman, so it was always out of character when it came about.

I still have a copy of the letter in case my current employer tries anything, but they're a pretty decent lot, so no worries there. There's over things from this place, but this one always stands out to me.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Comfortable_Tooth132 on 2025-05-16 08:29:16+00:00.

Year 7 Humanities class in Australia. Students are asked to research the daily life of Spartan and Athenian women in Ancient Greece. Then they choose between creating a Venn diagram, an article, a poster about the topic or a dialogue between the women.

One student writes a dialogue. In Ancient Greek.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/kschmitz22 on 2025-05-16 04:33:13+00:00.

Me, a sysadmin. Spend 6 months making a finely tuned alerting system that tells us when anything critical to our company's operations goes down.

Corpo. Asks ChatGPT what our alerting policies should be and directly dumps it to us as directives to follow.

Me. Of course! Let me just turn it back to the way it was! Queue turning on absolutely every alert in the system as instructed. We had > 175 completely useless alerts within 8 hours.

Corpo. (Surprisingly) decided it wasn't actually good to spam there employees at all hours of the night for unimportant servers that don't make us money. And rolled back the policy the next day.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/82dsoldier on 2025-05-16 01:39:43+00:00.

I used to work in a transmission shop as a front wheel drive transmission puller. A friend of the boss brought his car in for a rebuild, so that made it a rush job. After getting the car in the air I find out that it has locking luggage nuts and he hasn't bothered to leave the key. I report this to my boss who screams "I DON'T GIVE A G*DDAMN HOW YOU GET THOSE WHEELS OFF, JUST MAKE IT HAPPEN NOW!" No problem, boss-man. I go back into the shop, grab my air chisel and start cutting the lugs off. This has the wonderful side effect of leaving large scars across his $3000 set of rims. I was halfway through the second side when the boss comes back into the shop and completely loses his mind. I very calmly remind him what he had told me earlier. He turns immediately back around and goes back into his office. To give the man some credit, he did come back an hour later and apologize to me for going too far.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Jolly-Bad-7892 on 2025-05-15 16:32:23+00:00.

A few years ago I was hired as Head of Bar Operations at a new resturant opening. A hugely successful even if quite average resturant group, opening a new 3 floor, 280 seater resturant. The opening was a bit of a shit show, I was drafted in late as they fired a lot of opening managers, which should have been a red flag big enough for me to pass on the opportunity really.

One of my many responsibilities was to write the rota/ schedule for our 30 odd bar staff. There were a few stipulations I had to stick to, importantly that I had to have a manager from the bar side on duty at all times. After a few weeks of doing so, a new area manager was hired who took over from the general manager on day to day operations. One of the things he implemented was that he would write the rotas, and just generally micro manage. He subsequently uploads a rota when in the first week there were 2 days without manager on duty. I highlighted this to him in person, where I was pretty rudely told to just do my job and work with what was passed down to me. In turn, I decided to email him, the general manager and one of the company directors explaining the issue and how it must be an oversight, but attached a new proposed set of rotas that would fix the issue.

The next day the new area manager pins me in the office and again tells me how I'm going above my station and should just "do my fucking job and adhere to the rota", he said he'd amended and sorted it all. So I did.

The following day is my day off, there was no manager on duty, and a general lack of staff in the building. My phone starts going off from 8am, and at about 2pm I decided to respond to some of the messages and highlight how I was doing what I was told. The next day, the area manager requests a sit down meeting, with a witness, and fires me- something he didn't have approval to do given I don't report to him. I get my dismissal paperwork via email, and naturally say I have some issue with it due to the reasons I've outlined and have the receipts to prove it.

I ended up getting a pretty decent payout due to being unfairly dismissed. Another few days later the new area manager has 'moved on' from the business with immediate effect. I don't think he was able to find work throughout most of Covid subsequently.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/wowthatssocool2023 on 2025-05-15 16:07:28+00:00.

The timekeeping system at my job runs on a 15-minute increment schedule. Basically, if you clock in during the first 7 minutes of the increment, it rounds you backward to the start of that segment. If you’re in the last 7 minutes, it rounds you forward to the end of the segment.

Example: You clock out at 4:52? Congrats, the system says you left at 4:45.

Now, if you clock in and out multiple times a day (like for lunch), that’s four punches—and potentially up to 28 minutes lost or gained depending on where you land in those increments.

Shortly after I started, I began getting flooded with emails about being “short” a few minutes on my timesheet and was told I had to submit PTO—even though I worked full 8-hour days, sometimes more. It didn’t matter that I was physically at work; if the system said I was short, I had to burn time off.

So I started paying attention. Really close attention.

Here’s the twist: my employer doesn’t pay overtime in cash, but they do give you 1.5x time off if you earn it. So one hour of OT = 1.5 hours of PTO.

With some strategic clocking in and out—always landing on the “helpful” side of the 15-minute window—I’ve gotten good at squeezing out those 28 minutes extra a day.

That adds up to 140 minutes (2 hours 20 minutes) of overtime a week… which, when converted at 1.5x, becomes 3.5 hours of PTO every week.

All for doing exactly what they asked: watching the clock very closely.

Thanks for the free time off!

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Aggravating_Dot_5217 on 2025-05-15 15:00:15+00:00.

Here we have another IT story.

One of my many tasks is to create specific document templates that will be used by the company to show off achievements.  For some unknown reason, those that are in the higher up suites decided to change the look of the certificates.

I am given a copy of the certificate and told to update the system that will do the printing.  I start off by taking the existing certificate and try to match the new certificate to the template.  After much frustration, I decide that I will have to start over and spend some time redesigning the document template from scratch.  It takes a bit longer than I expected and when I did my first prints, the various field were out of line.  This is tedious work as it means checking, move the elements by little increments.

I get every thing aligned except for the date and no matter what I try the date will not move up or down.  I ask some of the guys in our development department and none of them can figure this one out. We are all stumped.

I do some research and discover that the problem is the renderer (the program that takes the template and inserts the data – for those non IT people)  One of the issues that is raised is that the renderer has a bug that will move items around at random and unless placed in a fixed location will just keep on changing the template.  The changes are very minute, probably no more than 1 or 2 millimetres.

I send the higher ups an email explaining all of this after.  I had reached a serious point of frustration as this task should have taken about half a day and I have now been at it for two days. I send my boss an email explaining what the problem is and if they may know somebody that can help.

Next thing I am called into a Teams meeting with the higher ups and asked what the problem is. I explain everything.  The higher up tells me to open the original template and we will redo that to match the new certificate.  I follow instruction and keep adding my few cents worth.  I am then told to do what I am told and get on with it. I am also told that I must stop any other work.

Now comes the malicious compliance part.  I do as I am told, make the changes as requested.  We work line by line and make the changes.  We then check that the change is correct on the certificate.  I am asked to print the completed template document to the printer in their office.  No problem, I do as I am told.  I stop responding to emails, doing other work while waiting for the people from the other office to do there thing and tell me what the next set of changes are.  This goes on for nearly a week.  The higher ups are losing their mind because every time we change one thing other things go out of alignment and we need to go back and fix them.

When I am not sitting at my desk looking at my computer screen. I am doing a bit of research to see if I can find a solution but not saying anything to anyone. Remember what I was told.

I am having dinner with the family and mention this to my son. (He is a software developer). He asks if he can look at the code and tells me that the code that I had been working on for the higher ups is seriously wrong. He gives me some tips on how to fix it so that the elements are locked in and will not move.

I sit down in just over an hour I produce a new set of code that, needs to be tested to see if it is robust enough.

Now for the outcome.  Today I go into the office, get pulled into a Teams meeting again to continue with the product that isn’t working. I make a passing comment that my son helped me with the template and has put in more robust settings.  The higher ups reluctantly agree to try as they say we have nothing to lose.  We made the first print and one of the items was out of alignment, made a change and the item held its position. Took a few hours and the template is now working like it is supposed to. I even got a well done from the higher ups

Sometimes there are others that know what they are talking about.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/DickFartButt on 2025-05-15 13:39:32+00:00.

I work for a major US airline, for a long time and at several different airports. There's an area behind the baggage counter where the bags get sorted for their respective flights after they've been checked, we're on our feet most of the time but we each have chairs at our work stations so we can sit and rest for a minute when there's a lull in bags coming down.

Every few years there'll be a hot shit new manager who's gonna turn this airport around and make it the best performing one in the system and they all seem to have the same idea; take away the chairs so the agents are always standing at the belt.

Now, the agents in this area are generally on the senior side as it's indoors and out of the elements, we've done the job for a while, we know how to do the job efficiently and we really do do our best to avoid fuck ups but as long as human error is a factor there will always be some. Taking our chairs does nothing but piss us off. Their bullshit excuse usually is framing it as a saftey issue, a tripping hazard. So that's where we start...smaller or oddly shaped bags get sent down in a plastic tub so they don't jam the belt, maybe you've seen them. We take them off the belt and stack them up on the ground for someone to come by and collect. Not anymore, we let them pile up on the belt making it a giant pain in the ass for the poor bastard collecting them, they're bitching constantly to the manager, we say sorry boss, they're a tripping hazard on the ground.

Next, we start following the rules...our employee handbook lays out very clearly what the company's expectations for us our in our job duties. We're only expected to pull one bag per minute and take bags out no later than 20 minutes before the flight departs. Maybe you've guessed already but those expectations are nowhere near good enough to actually complete these tasks so by the company's own rules we were already going well beyond what was expected of us. We start giving them the bare minimum, one bag per minute, 20 minutes prior. Manager was pissed, he and the supervisors were throwing bags and us being unionized we documented and grieved every single time it happened and the company a few days later had to pay out several thousand to agents for covered work.

Delays across the board, 1500 bags missed that day. The next morning the chairs were back in their spots and we continued as normal and afterwards no one would give that manager the time of day. A lot of passengers got fucked over that day but we were working exactly to the rules our company had given us so you can blame the airline and not the agents. The handbook was changed after a while but only extending it to 35 minutes prior instead of 20, it's still one bag per minute last I looked.

I was lucky enough to be apart of three of these events over the years but this was the most satisfying.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Additional_Trick_226 on 2025-05-15 09:11:50+00:00.

I've been working at this small marketing agency for just over a year now. It's my first "real" job after college, and I've been thrilled to have actual clients and responsibilities. Well, I was thrilled until we got a new account manager, Debbie (not her real name, obviously).

Debbie came from one of those corporate mega-agencies where apparently they micromanage the living daylights out of everyone. From day one, she had "concerns" about my communication style with clients. Mind you, I'd been praised by these same clients for being responsive and helpful.

Last month, after I sent what I thought was a perfectly normal email to our biggest client about a small scheduling change, Debbie called an emergency meeting.

"From now on, I need to approve ALL client communications before they go out," she announced with that fake smile managers use when they're being unreasonable but pretending they're helping you. "Everything. Emails, phone call notes, text messages, meeting agendas. Send them to me first for review."

When I pointed out that this would slow down our response times, she just waved her hand dismissively. "It's about quality control. Better to be right than fast."

Fine. You want ALL communications? You got it.

I started that very afternoon. Every. Single. Thing. If a client asked what time a call was scheduled, I drafted an email response and sent it to Debbie. "Awaiting your approval on this time confirmation." If a client texted asking for a quick file, I'd screenshot it and email Debbie. "Please approve my response to this text message."

I even created a special folder in my drafts called "Awaiting Debbie's Approval" and set up an automated counter. By the end of day one, I had sent her 17 approval requests. By the end of week one, it was over 100.

The best part? I stopped answering my phone when clients called. Instead, I'd let it go to voicemail, then email Debbie: "Client X called about Y. My proposed response is attached. Please approve."

After about two weeks, Debbie was drowning. She'd fallen behind on approving my communications, which meant clients weren't getting responses. They started escalating to her directly, which doubled her workload.

The breaking point came when our biggest client emailed both of us complaining about delays. I responded to the client with: "I've forwarded your concerns to Debbie for approval of my response. Once approved, I'll get back to you promptly."

The next morning, Debbie stopped by my desk looking exhausted.

"I think we need to adjust our approval process," she said, trying to maintain her corporate dignity. "Moving forward, just use your judgment for routine communications. Only send me things that involve project scope, timeline changes, or budget discussions."

"Are you sure?" I asked innocently. "I have about 30 draft responses waiting for your review right now."

She visibly cringed. "That won't be necessary anymore."

I've been happily sending emails without approval for two weeks now. Debbie barely makes eye contact in the hallway, and honestly, that's fine by me. The best part? My quarterly review is coming up, and all those approval emails are documented proof that I've been trying my absolute best to follow company protocol.

Sometimes malicious compliance is the best teacher.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/algloglo on 2025-05-15 07:37:54+00:00.

A few years ago, BigCorp (heavy industry) launched a spinoff to develop an industry-specific IT system and after a year I got recruited from a competitor. I was in sales, so I was supposed to be given a company car. I was informed that as there was a unavoidable delay between ordering a car and having it delivered, the spinoff would immediately provide a short-term rental car, which was a very expensive workaround but the company cares about its employees blah blah blah. OK for me.

After the usual training at HQ, my boss told me to order right away a company car at the relevant BigCorp department. However I noticed that all my coworkers, some of them being there since the launch of the spinoff, still all used short-term rentals. How bizarre... So I downloaded the relevant documentation and quickly catched a glitch: one of the necessary validations from BigCorp could not be given in the spinoff (different organization and different chain of command), so I went back to my boss and it went like this:

-"Boss, I was about to order my car but I read the process and..."

-"IAM NOT INTERESTED IN THE PROCESS! (yelling!) I TOLD YOU TO ORDER YOUR CAR, SOOOOO (yelling stronger!) ORDER-YOUR-CAR!"

Cue Malicious Compliance. I ordered my car, never received it, and all the team drove over-expensive short-term rentals until BigCorp cut its losses, shut down the spinoff and fired everyone.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Environmental-Fan961 on 2025-05-15 02:18:03+00:00.

I was an ER charge nurse a few years back at a busy facility. In order to increase capacity during busier times, we frequently would bring patients to hallway gurneys to be seen by the doctor. It's not a great setup, literally just a journey in the hallway in front of the nursing desk. But, if the rooms are clogged with patients waiting on beds upstairs, etc, it's a commonly used workaround.

So, one night a few years back, we're busy, and non-emergent patients are waiting for hours in the lobby. I am using hallway gurneys to increase throughput. I'm putting stable patients who don't need cardiac monitors into the hallway. So, I bring the next patient from the lobby to a hall gurney. Let's call her "Karen."

Karen is bitching because she's been waiting hours. Since American healthcare is all about kissing ass and patient satisfaction, I can't tell her that she's been waiting because her medical complaint would be dumb to take to urgent care, let alone an emergency room. We get to the hallway spot and she pitches a fit. "I've been waiting for hours, I deserve to be in a room, not the hallway," and other shit like that. She sees an open doorway to an empty room and demands that we go there. I say that a different patient will be going into that room, and explain that Karen doesn't need a cardiac monitor for her visit.

Karen crosses her arms and says something like, "I don't care, that room is available, so you have to let me use it." I had a department to run, and I was tired of her entitled bullshit. Pointing at the hallway gurney, I said, "Are you refusing to see the doctor in this space?" Her eyes lit up, apparently thinking she had won, and Karen said, "YES, I won't be seen right here!"

I said, "No problem." I waved at the security guard a few yards away and said, "Hey Tom, this lady would like to leave now." Karen looked shocked, then started saying she never said that. I reminded her that she clearly stated that she refused to be seen in this bed, and so she was going to have to continue to wait in the lobby until a room became available.

She tried to backtrack and said something like, "Fine, I'll see the doctor here." I just shook my head and said, "It's too late for that. You have already refused. Tom will escort you back to the lobby and we'll call you back to a room as soon as we can." Security walked her to the lobby, and she pretty quickly decided to just leave without being seen.

ETA: I'm being vague on some points on purpose, #HIPAA. But, her particular complaint was a bullshit reason to come to the ER. She was NOT going to have to disrobe or change into a gown, so visual privacy was not a real concern (it was a more private environment than a crowded lobby, that's for sure).

I would also like to say that I was doing her a favor by letting her be seen in the hallway. I had real emergencies that needed the monitored beds, and it would have been negligent of me to give her one of those beds while making a real emergency wait longer. I was putting non-emergent patients into hallway beds to do them a favor so that they could be seen and discharged sooner. My staff was already busy with their own patients. So, these were my own patients that I was fitting in while running a 50 bed ER.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/wilara23 on 2025-05-15 00:14:33+00:00.

At my last job, our department was drowning in extra tasks because management kept cutting corners and shifting responsibility. I usually helped out wherever I could, stayed late, trained new hires, even covered for my manager once during a client call she forgot about.

One day, I politely declined staying late because I had a doctor's appoinment I couldn't move. The next morning, I get pulled into a meeting. My manager tells me I’m being written up for “refusing to support the team.” I asked if this was a joke. It wasn't.

Alright. Cool.

From that point on, I did only my job. No more late nights. No more fixing other people’s work. If it wasn’t in my job description, I wasn’t touching it.

Two months later, the whole department’s a mess. Client deliverables are late. The new hires quit. The manager had to start doing her own scheduling (which she sucks at). Eventually, she gets demoted, and the company starts offering retention bonuses to people who just show up.

Meanwhile, I found a better job and left without notice used the same write-up she gave me as the reason. “Didn’t feel like the team was a good fit.”

Funny how “not being a team player” only matters when you’re the one holding everything together.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/IllIlIlIlIlIll on 2025-05-14 22:30:23+00:00.

I work in a call center for a regional bank, handling everything from balance inquiries to fraud alerts. The job isnt glamorous, but most of us were good at it because we knew how to actually talk to people and calm them down.

One day, corporate decided we were going “off-message” too often. They rolled out a new script we were required to follow word-for-word. No improvising. No adapting to the customer’s tone or urgency. Just read. The. Script.

We all knew this would go badly. One-size-fits-all language doesn’t work when someone’s card just got stolen or their mortgage payment didn’t go through. But management was adamant: “If you deviate from the script, it’s a write-up.”

So I complied. Religiously.

One day a customer called, clearly panicked: “Someone just charged $800 at Best Buy on my card and I’m at work—I didn’t do it! Cancel it now!”

I took a deep breath and replied, exactly as the script instructed:

“I’m so sorry to hear you’re experiencing this inconvenience. I’d be happy to assist you with that today. Before we begin, may I ask how your day is going so far?”

Dead silence. Then the customer said, “Seriously?”

I continued:

“ we strive to provide exceptional customer service with every call. Can I please have your 16-digit card number to better assist you?”

The guy actually laughed. “I hope they’re recording this call.”

They were. And so were three others that week where I stuck to the script in absurd situations—people locked out of online banking, someone whose check bounced, a woman crying because of a fraud lock on her account.

my supervisor pulled me into a room, looking annoyed but also kind of sheepish.

Her: “We’ve had…some feedback. You don’t have to follow the script that strictly.”

Me: “Oh, I thought it was a write-up if we deviated?”

Her: “Just…use your judgment, okay?”

The script was “officially optional” within the month.

I probably enjoyed this too much

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/OberonDiver on 2025-05-12 18:48:47+00:00.

Ages ago now.

Working at the hardware store. There were two in town. This one was not the real one. Boss was only boss of a hardware store because his parents owned two more and gave him this to run so their only grandson wouldn't starve to death.

I was putting stickers on things or some such when the next aisle over the boss is sitting there with a couple of his friends - on the floor in the middle of Aisle 3) and I hear him bad mouthing me. 'Useless idiot wanker' sort of thing

(Technically, I wasn't good at hardware storing, but that's mostly not relevant.)

A bit later he calls me over. Gives me some money and a list of things to buy from the grocery store down the plaza.

Happy to get out of the store I go on my merry way (and Pippin!)(No, it was before that.). I get everything on the list. EXCEPT... a quaht of vanilla ice cream. They didn't have any quahts of vanilla.

Oh, but here's this new ice cream that comes in pints. I'll get him two pints. That's the same as a quaht. Of Häagen-Dazs

Deliver his change. Deliver his groceries.

He looks at the Häagen-Dazs. I explain my clever exploitation of grade school units knowledge.

He looks at me like I'm a complete and utter idiot.

He snides at me in front of his friends "You know, you could have got a half gallon for less money than one of these pints?" /subtext - you stupid little wanker I'm so better than you ha ha my friends all think I'm bmihs/.

"I know."

Edit : Big Man In Hardware Store

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/lilysincla on 2025-05-14 15:38:51+00:00.

Used to have this chill supervisor understood traffic happens, life happens, as long as the work got done. Then we got a new guy. Corporate type. Obsessed with “punctuality culture.”

First week he calls me into his office:

“You’ve been 5-10 minutes late a few times. That won’t fly anymore. If you’re late again, don’t bother coming in at all.”

I asked if we could talk about adjusting my shift slightly. I work late most days anyway. He cuts me off: “We have to maintain standards. No exceptions.”

Alright then.

Next Monday, I hit traffic. GPS says I’ll be 12 minutes late. So… I didn't go in. Took the day. Sent an email: “Following your guidance. Late again, so I won’t be coming in.”

No reply.

Then I did it again Thursday. Same deal light traffic delay, stayed home. HR finally emails me like “Are you planning to return to work?”

I forwarded them his exact words. No edits.

Suddenly there’s a “clarification” meeting. Apparently the policy was “miscommunicated.” I’m welcome back and minor delays will now be “handled with understanding.”

Guess he didn’t expect me to follow instructions that well.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Rude-Strawberry4097 on 2025-05-14 12:00:41+00:00.

Typical im not native English, im sorry for mistakes or flow issues at the start of a reddit post.

Story is some months old already - In my job(military), we get a decent number of extra hours when we work on the weekends, around 60-65. Which is normally happening not so often due to the amount of personnel which can work on the weekends. Due to some mismanagement, paternal leaves etc etc. Our "weekend workforce" for this specific position was now consisting of max. 7 people.

Therefore, as you can imagine, within some month we all got some huge extra hours. The extra hours are normally per regulation to be taken in free time, but since we all know how that would end, we mostly get them paid out.

Cue in - our new bossboss.

He was all pro family and pro off time. So when we asked our boss how he(bossboss) would like to proceed regarding the extra hours, he told us "the regulation is to prioritize free time, not the money. So do that". 5 of us, told him(boss) on different occasions within the same week, that this will be a catastrophe but he(bossboss) demanded that we take our time off.

Cue in - malicious compliance.

In the middle of the month, we all submitted our time-off requests to use up our extra hours, which our boss approved, since we're now prioritizing our free time. Starting at the end of the month, we each had scheduled leave. The work schedules are planned monthly and approved about a week before the new month begins. Each of us had accumulated between 200 and 500 extra hours, which meant we were taking anywhere from about 1 month (based on a 41-hour workweek) to up to 11 weeks off, depending on the amount of time each person had built up.

When our plans guy was coming around asking which weekend shifts we want to do, we all told him that we are having days off. He went full panic since the boss and bossboss obliviously are waiting for a set plan by the end of the week.

The solution was, that people from other companies in the battalion had to come into our unit and work there on the weekends. After our scheduled leaves, we were all allowed again to get our extra hours paid, since our bossboss had a nice talk with our grandboss (had to use the term, since i saw it in another post today), after the other bossboss's of the battalion complained.

Sometimes the military is a fun space.

Edit for some extra context :We also had to do nightshifts Mondays to Fridays but could leave while other personnel is on duty. So we came in at the end of the day and were on duty until the next morning. So that had to be compensated too

Edit2: Thanks for the queue/cue tip

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Frantic_Pedantic on 2025-05-14 05:11:43+00:00.

Years ago I worked in a semi-public sector job as part of a successful team helping make life easy for local businesses. Our team boss took a good job in the private sector and a new boss was recruited from a decent organisation similar to ours in a different part of the country. She worked compressed hours Monday-Thursday and was off on Fridays.

A month or two in, and although the new boss was quite particular about things being done her way and had upset a couple of my colleagues by criticising their work, I'd had no problems with her. We had a team meeting where the boss said that our performance wasn't good enough (we were arguably the best in the country) and that she wanted to be more involved in what and how we did everything to ensure better quality and so we should copy her to every client email so she could comment as needed before we sent another reply.

Although this seemed inefficient, nobody argued and I just asked her if I should wait until Monday for her to comment on any client emails received on a Friday. I can't remember exactly what she said, but at the end of the meeting she asked me to stay behind and then told me in a heated tone that my question was "bullying behaviour", that it was "unprofessional" to ask the question in front of the team, and said that my actions were the sort of thing that HR would see as grounds for dismissal and that I should be "very careful" in future.

I told her I understood and we returned to our desks where I wrote up every single detail of the entire meeting and interaction and sent it to the Head of HR with the explanation that as bullying was very serious and may not be reported by the victim, I felt duty-bound to report myself. I also laid it on pretty thick about being appalled by my unprofessional behaviour and the fact that my career was likely at risk and I clearly had a desperate need for training and discipline to fix my dangerous ways. I also copied in my union rep.

Within a day me, my union rep, and my boss were with the Head of HR who, being a 'by-the-book' professional, could find no indication of bullying or justification for my fears of being an unprofessional bully in need of re-education. I was asked to leave the meeting. My union rep stayed in and I don't know what was said but within 6 weeks my boss was gone and that same week my (weak and ineffective but likeable) big boss called me in to thank me as he had wanted to get rid of her but hadn't known how.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/totem-fox on 2025-05-13 18:12:07+00:00.

I worked in retail since November 2019 up until last month. I was made full-time in February 2020 when my supervisor was fired for insider theft and I took his place as fresh meat department supervisor. Two years later, our warehouse manager went AWOL and was a no-show due to management shifts so I was unofficially promoted because all the vendors knew me and I was the best possible person to work a borrowed inventory and tagging system. Ugh, whatever. Maybe I'll get a raise and then some. Half-truth, because I did, but barely covered much because everyone got hours cut due to budgeting issues with corporate (they shut down three stores and were renovating five in the course of three years).

Fast forward to March 2025. Corporate district manager says I'll be officially promoted to warehouse manager after proving myself competent and in spite of losing several departments due to budget cuts. I asked if I finally qualified for the 401K outlined in the employee handbook regarding the position, along with a substantial raise that wasn't a mere +$.15/hr. I was barely making enough just to pay rent and my credit card bills.

He then said it wouldn't be likely due to most of the budgeting gone to renovations and new suppliers (and of course, new idiot nepotism baby corporates who fucked everything up with the new suppliers in terms of purchasing). I still would be training someone else to run the meat department regardless because I would still be lead receiver minimal.

Fuck it. I put in my three weeks' notice and trained the former head of the deli department (replaced with a disgusting cave of American-only beers) to run the fresh meat section while another warehouse manager trained my replacement at another location.

Here's the current fresh meat department supervisor, "Dina": she's elderly, has only worked deli for four years, and has no understanding of how things work outside of that field. She stands around dumbfounded and can't read in simplified English despite being American-born and rasied. Dina fails at ordering from the suppliers because she thinks the store get deliveries daily when they only come every Tuesday and Saturday due to new contracts. Then she got the PLUs wrong on the scales despite me showing her the order guides and pricing guides with everything sorted out properly. And then she conveniently forgot how to stack meats just like in the deli. She had all the hands-on training and forgot everything lickety-split.

Oh well. I got paid for "training" her, and still running the warehouse until April 11th when I finally left.

Everything fell apart pretty quickly. The replacement warehouse manager is vaping indoors and elaving pallets and paperwork scatteredand the vendors hate him, and Dina is retraining at another store while she's racking up an entire 144 square foot cooler full of outdates and damages. I get texts from my former co-workers and I'm glad things are falling apart there anyways. I don't shop there or any of their locations because I can find better deals 30% lower or more at higher-end stores not supplied by the same distributors.

Edit: where's the malice? I never actually finished her training, because I spent most of my time in receiving with other vendors and filing paperwork. No one in current management has been trained in receiving either.

Edit 2: tl;dr: corporates got fucked once I left retail after not really training a replacement because they wouldn't give me a 401K in the promotion as per the employee handbook

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Specialist-Link-3972 on 2025-05-13 13:06:45+00:00.

My city has chuggers (charity muggers).

These are people working for companies that are contracted by charities to raise funds for them. Chuggers want people to sign up for monthly donations. This is because the chugger gets a nice commission of each monthly donation. In fact, if a person cancels their monthly donations before a year has passed, the charity actually loses money as they have to keep on paying commission to the chugger.

Chuggers stand outside shopping centers and train stations and canvass the public to sign up for these monthly donations. They can be quite persistent and manipulative.

A chugger approached me outside a train station and asked me if I'd like to donate to major charity. I took out a $20 note and told him I'm happy to donate. He said that he cannot accept a one-off donation and that monthly donations are better as one-off donations are kept aside for 3 years before being used for "scrap projects".

He said that $20 was the minimum monthly amount he could sign me up for.

I looked at his shirt and saw that he was working for a major charity. I took out my phone and went directly to the charity's website. I selected $25 as a monthly option and showed my screen to him.

"This shouldn't be a problem, right?" I asked.

The chugger looked like a broken record, "Oh well ugh, you see". He then walked away looking pissed.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/barthem on 2025-05-12 15:12:24+00:00.

I work as an engineer for a company that assigns me to various client projects. For one such assignment, I was added to a project that wouldn’t start for a few weeks, so in the meantime I stayed focused on other ongoing work. A few days before the project was due to begin, the external project lead sent me a ZIP file containing technical documentation: diagrams, requirements, and other materials relevant to the upcoming project. I skimmed through it briefly, then moved on with my day. Nothing unusual.

A couple of days later, I got an email from the external company’s scheduling manager saying that “a document” had been sent to me which apparently contained some confidential company information, and asking me to delete the email. That’s it. No file name, no explanation, just a vague “please delete it.” I shrugged, deleted the ZIP file, and replied asking if they could resend it without the problematic part. Then I forgot all about it.

That is, until I got a call from the most condescending, passive-aggressive person I’ve ever dealt witt, the scheduling manager from the client’s side. She went on a 30-minute tirade about how the previous project lead never should’ve sent me that document, how serious the situation was, and, most memorably, how she couldn’t trust that I had actually deleted it. I quote:

“I can’t just take your word for it. I’m not just going to trust you because you say so.”

Right. So at that point, I figured: Im done with you, If you’re going to act like I’ve just been handed nuclear launch codes, then I’ll treat it like I’ve just been handed nuclear launch codes.

I said, “You’re absolutely right. I’ll contact our Security Operations team and report a formal security incident. They can coordinate with your SecOps team, and together we can do a full scrub of all relevant mail servers to ensure the document is completely gone. It’s really the only way to be certain.”

Suddenly, her entire tone changed. “Oh no no no, that won’t be necessary. It’s fine, I believe you!”

She practically stumbled over herself trying to shut it down. Because escalating this to both companies’ SecOps teams would’ve turned it into a bureaucratic nightmare: incident reports, compliance reviews, and probably someone getting thrown under the bus.

I politely reiterated that I really didn’t mind escalating it if it would give her peace of mind. She very quickly decided she had enough peace already. We ended the call, and life moved on.

if you act like I’ve compromised national security, don’t be shocked when I offer to treat it like a national security incident.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/DOAHJ on 2025-05-12 13:06:58+00:00.

I work in a training environment I plan training, book training, report etc I do more but that's what is what you need to know for this post. I have also previously trained staff myself and worked clinically essentially I moved from a clinical role to administrative because of severe health issues. Recently I received a request from a manager for a member of staff who between myself and four senior members of staff have been trying for 9 months to get them booked It's considered mandatory training and essential for patients safety. Staff member has either failed to attend, the trainer was sick or she was pulled for clinical reasons. I replied that the date that they requested was full but here I have booked another. (The rotas for that time period hadn't been done as I checked).

Manager of said person (AH manager) goes off on a huge email rant copying in lots of senior staff directors etc how dare I say when her staff should attend I knew nothing about running a department, or a clinical environment don't dare do this again etc etc.

AH manager own supervisor approached me (someone I have worked with for ten years) and asked what happened I explained she was was happy with my resolution and reasoning. I said it was no worries I wouldn't book her staff without the full documentation in future . Other senior staff who were also copied in have had a laugh and asked if I told her my previous knowledge and skills base. Nope I'm sure someone will eventually.

Cue the malicious compliance. AH manager has sent through a good number 20 plus of bookings recently ALL declined as full or weren't ever offered or wrong inadequate booking information. Normally I will look at the rota and book on something else suitable look up the missing info I don't have to but I get they are busy and it helps. AH manager has phoned 3 times to be met with as per email you requested that I only use the completed booking form and do not use my own discretion. I am following protocol please complete the application process again.

It's taking her 2-3 times to get the members booked. (Those in charge won't pay for a live booking system🙄 but hey not my fault) her compliance figures have dropped massively something they are judged on at annual appraisals.

All because she wanted to belittle administration staff.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/I_am_here_but_why on 2025-05-11 21:36:28+00:00.

Years ago, in the days of 1” analogue videotape.

We had a client whose source material was usually poor quality, often originating on non-broadcast formats. In order to spare his blushes we used to write “Gen satis” (Generally satisfactory) on the record reports we enclosed with the edited masters.

One day he complained that one of his advertisements had been rejected by a broadcaster, which had complained about the lack of detail on the record report. He insisted that future record reports included a proper breakdown of all notable anomalies on the tapes.

You want detail? You’ll get detail.

I noted every instance of poor quality source and picture fault. A thirty second commercial ended up with me having to attach a sheet of A4 to the record report to cover them all. I put it in the box, which I gave to him. He must’ve sent it to the broadcaster unopened, as it was instantly rejected.

Gen satis was again acceptable for future reports.

Edit:

There’s been a bit of complaining about the “technical” nature of this post.

1: It happened back in the ‘80s and I still find it vaguely amusing, so I thought I’d share it.

2: I find some posts far too long and, being a bear of very little brain, I often can’t be bothered to read them. I didn’t want to fall into that trap.

3: I felt that most people could infer the gist of what happened without the need for an in-depth explanation of each point.

4: No poster owes anybody anything. If you don’t understand something there’s a marvellous source of (dis)information called the Internet. You can find out most things on there using a device called a “computer”. A computer is a fancy calculating machine that can run things called “programs” which are sets of instructions within the computer which allow the computer to perform functions, such as surfing the internet for basic answers to basic questions. The internet is a… see where explanations can go?

5: Points 3 and 4 will probably annoy some people and might get this post removed.

6: DILLIGAF? (The answer’s no.)

Edit edit:

I've descended from merely posting an "amusing" anecdote to sarcastically trolling stupid replies. That's what the internet made me do. Thanks internet.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Bryce_Madi on 2025-05-11 17:48:42+00:00.

Last week, I was randomly selected for a urinalysis (UA) in the Marines. For those who don’t know, every UA has to be directly observed—and I mean directly. The observer must watch the urine leave your body and go into the bottle. No looking away, no glancing—full eye contact with the stream, so to speak.

When my name was finally called, I decided if we were going to do this, we were going to do it by the book.

I stepped into the testing area, faced the observer, tucked my shirt up into my armpits like I was about to get a suntan, and dropped my trousers and boxers all the way down to my boots—Winnie the Pooh style. Then I turned to the observer, locked eyes with him, and didn’t blink once while I filled that bottle to the line.

He tried to look away. He really did. But duty is duty. He had to watch.

We both walked out of that room a little different. But no one can say I didn’t comply.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Equivalent-Salary357 on 2025-05-11 17:04:29+00:00.

Back in the 1970s, I was working in an automotive transmission factory as an inspector. The part I was checking had to be very straight.

If it wasn't straight, it could be straightened.

But if it went on to heat treat (the next process after my inspection) it couldn't be bent straight. It had to be scrapped.

I was able to check around 400 pieces each night, sometimes more, sometimes less. A lot depended on the percentage 'bent' pieces in each lot. The 'guy' on day shift was getting similar numbers.

This was fine for a couple of months, until someone worked a Saturday overtime shift at my station.

At the start of my shift the following Monday evening, my foreman informed me that the 'weekend guy' had checked 700 pieces, and he expected me to check 700 that night.

I tried to explain that the only way to check 700 pieces would cause a lot of bad parts to get through.

"Do whatever you have to do, I want you to check 700 pieces tonight," was the advice I was given.

When I got to my work station I saw that the 'weekend guy' had indeed 'checked' 700 parts. Exactly 700 parts. With exactly 400 'good' parts, and exactly 300 'rejected' (needing to be straightened). No way those numbers represented accurate measurements. Normally I'd only have 40 or 50 pieces out of 400 needing straightening.

These were fake numbers, although there were 300 pieces ready to be straightened, so I assumed that 400 had indeed gone to heat treat.

But I followed the procedure I had explained to the foreman, still trying to be as accurate as possible. I checked something like 650 parts with around 200 pieces in the 're-operate' racks.

Tuesday night, the foreman stopped me and told me to go back to the way I had been checking previously.

Apparently, between the 'weekend guy's 400 'good' pieces, my 'good' pieces from Monday evening, and presumably the pieces from day shift on Monday, there were a lot of scrap pieces coming out of heat treat.