Malicious Compliance

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Loose_Alternative990 on 2024-05-09 13:27:11.

My husband told me a story yesterday about his act of malicious compliance that happened about a decade ago.

In a previous job, he worked 8-4 in an office. Many of his colleagues worked 9-5, so they were still working when he was leaving. When he was about to leave, he'd usually be asked a technical question or asked to quickly glance over something by another member of staff. This was rarely quick and usually had him standing around for a further ten minutes which, on a regular basis, starts to add up.

One day, his manager was going over the monthly time sheets and asked my husband why he'd added 10 minutes on five days across past month. Bear in mind, flexi-time was allowed. My husband explained the situation, referring to the specific problems he was asked to deal with on each of those five days.

The manager told him that the company only works in fifteen minute segments so he can't put down 10 minutes, it would have to be 15 minutes. "However, we can't round it up because that's dishonest," he said. "So just bear it in mind for next time." This was in front of the rest of the office.

That very same week, my husband signs out of his computer at 4pm. Just before he leaves, the manager asks him to explain some of the particulars in an email he'd received from a contractor. My husband asks, "how long will it take?" The manager replies, "just five minutes." My husband then says, "unless it's a fifteen minute problem, I'll have to look at it tomorrow. Is it a fifteen minute problem?"

His manager turns red and awkwardly says it's not. My husband respectfully states that he will put it at the top of his to-do list the following morning and leaves.

One of his colleagues texted him just after 5 and said there was an awkward silence after he'd left and when the manager eventually got up and left to do something, they all burst out laughing.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Diligent-Comfort-191 on 2024-05-06 23:54:23.

This happened a long time ago, in a different century.

I was working for a large multinational firm with multiple sites in the UK. I was usually based in, let's say York, but was sent on a 6 month secondment to head office in London.

Everything was on expenses. The hotels during the week, evening meals and particulatly rail transport to and from London on Monday mornings and Friday evenings.

At this time I was living in digs in York which were charged by the nights I actually slept there, so most weekends it saved me cash to go back home and stay at the parents in Reading (relatively close to London compared to York).

As I was in Reading almost every weekend I asked if I could travel from there direct to the London office instead of driving all the way from Reading to York, just to catch the damn train back all the way down to London, and do the reverse on Fridays. Not unreasonably this was agreed to by my line manager. All was fine for the first few weeks until it was discovered by Finance that another colleague on the secondment had been doing similar to me, but claiming for rail travel to London from her parents house in Edinburgh (a lot further from London than York!).

There was a bit of a stink about the company subsidising her travel home to Scotland at weekends and as a result an edict was issued that said only rail travel claims for York to London would be signed off in the future. I spoke to my line manager about my circumstances and he referred me direct to Finance (I think he knew what was coming and didn't want to be implicated).

I spoke to a senior manager in Finance and began to explain my circumstances, but he just cut me off and said, in a tone that would brook no dissension, that ONLY claims from York London would be signed off. NO exceptions would be made.

As a callow youth I got the message, and thereafter submitted weekly expense claims for flexible return rail tickets from York to London for almost 5 months whilst actually travelling from Reading to London.

I made a surprising amount of money from this, and combined with not needing to pay for digs and meals, I saved enough to buy a nice second hand TVR car after the secondment was over.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/GenX_75 on 2024-05-06 20:48:05.

Back in the 2008 housing crisis, I did some work on the side for a customer's computer system. We got to talking and he had a cheap 1bdrm "Duplex" for rent that was too good to be true. It was a detached garage converted to a 1bedroom little apartment and it was as plain and basic as they come.

The actual house was being rented out and he was charging the full amount priced for the area (which was high) so the little garage conversation was pure profit for the Landlord. I signed a lease for a fixed price that was almost half of what the going rate was for 1bdrm apartments in the area.

It was no frills, plain as can be with the cheapest appliances and amenities possible. Light fixtures from the early 80s, cheapest faucets and countertops money could buy, you get the visual. The elderly landlord and I had an arrangement, I could fix it up so long as I could keep the rent low and he would allow me to pay for the remaining balance on upgrades if/when things broke.

Years go by and I'm still in this 1bdrm garage conversation and making progress on updating the features. Kitchen faucet is gone, new fancy sprayer head faucet with a bar style glass cleaner installed. Old toilet replaced with an water saving tank and bidet installed. 80s lights are gone, LED smart home fixtures installed.

Around 7-8 years go by and my rent is still half of the normal going rate for the area and my landlord is happy with our arrangement. Sadly, he has a heart attack and surgery saves his life. He is no longer able to mainten his active lifestyle and hands the reigns of being a landlord to a property management company.

This company is as shady and money hungry as they come. They get a percentage of the monthly rent for their role in taking over the Landlords duties. They IMMEDIATELY hate me and my rental agreement from the start. The month they take over, my rent goes up the maximum limit of 10% plus 5% the cost of living increase for 1 year.

I'm not happy with this as this is a significant bump in my costs. I suck it up but as a silent protest, I stop making upgrades to the house that first year.

The 12 months later exactly, I get a notification that my rent will increase another 10% plus 5% cost of living increase. This is yet another blow to my finances but I can't really complain as my rent is still well below the average cost for the area.

Another 12 months and another 10% plus 5% cost of living followed by another the following year. This whole time I had been saving a good portion of my paychecks as a downpayment for a house but these rent hikes were hurting my ability to set aside money for this purpose.

My landlord was not happy with the Property management company he hired but couldn't get out of his contract because they were doing maintenance and facility repairs like clockwork.

Covid hits and I had been in this place for 12 years by this point. My rent was still under the average for the area but not by much. Seeing as this was now just a crappy 1bdrm apartment, I was looking for houses to buy to get me out of this rent gouging arrangement I was in.

Right at the peak of the Covid scare in 2020, a pipe burst in the kitchen and floods the floors ruining the crappy cabinets, the carpets and the furniture I had nearby. I had renters insurance that covered most of the costs to what I had lost. Not the nicest furniture, but my couch was a total loss, my desk, entertainment center and my speaker were severely damaged.

In comes Property management to assess the repairs and gut out the damaged wood and carpets. I offer to pay for the upgraded wood and countertops as well as request hardwood floors. Nope! They deny my requests. I offer to do the work myself as I'm fairly handy, again denied with an actual written letter stating im not to do ANY WORK or maintenance on the apartment.

I contact my landlord who has his hands tied because this was the arrangement we had. I'm at a loss of what to do because this Property management company is not setting me up with a temporary place to live. Doing all the work while I'm working from home to watch my possessions. There is a literal door sized hole in my wall as they spend two weeks fixing all the damage.

They throw out my upgraded faucet (which was undamaged and worked perfectly fine), the upgraded sink, the light fixtures the tile work I had done, the bathroom faucet (which wasnt even part of the floor damage). They then removed an outlet originally part of the apartment to save on costs. I was pissed at them and complained via letters, via phone calls and talking to the maintenance supervisor.

It took 2 full months to do all the repairs and at the end, they sent me a notice that my rent was going up due to some loophole in the "neglect" the apartment was in and not reported. I was done with this bullshit and I pooled my resources, called in all the favors I could and found the house i wanted.

I gave 30 day notice to leave at the end of my lease along with an invoice of ALL the repairs I made to the appartment over the 12 years I was there. I attached a copy of my original lease agreement, a copy of all photos I took of before and after repairs I made, a bill of the costs, and a request of a refund of the past 6 months of additional rent hike due to "neglect" like they stated in the letter.

I had a running talley of with all the receipts, work performed and the cost of not being allowed to live in motel during the work being performed to over $9700. At the same time, I submitted all this to the courts as I knew they would contest all of it.

My landlord was on my side during the court hearing, giving testimony he in fact allowed me in the rental lease agreement that I could do my own repairs. I won within 4 hours and awarded $4700 (the judge removed all billable hours I included). Judge was harsh to the lawyer for the property management saying his client must obey the law and put a tenant up for housing during construction.

Nearly 4 years later, I finally got my lump sum including penalties and late fees which totalled up to $7500. Sadly my old landlord passed away and his properties passed to his son who immediately fired the Property management company some time early last year.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/DRHORRIBLEHIMSELF on 2024-05-06 18:19:57.

Happened this morning when walking my dog at the municipal park. It has a skatepark, playground, tennis club, softball fields, and to note -- a disc golf course.

With disc golf, some of the holes tee off and end near the foot paths that take you around the park. While there are signs in the general area that serve as a warning, people are usually aware of the disc golfers.

Anyways, I'm walking my dog and I see a group of golfers playing thru and they're throwing at a hole (that cage thingy) that's about 20 feet from the path. I stop just in case anyone over throws. Also, it's fun to watch.

I'm standing there and some grumpy old man is walking from the pickle ball courts at the tennis club to the parking lot. He has to walk up the path that I stopped at. I try to tell him, "sir, you might want to hold on, there's a group of..." he immediately cuts me off with, "out of my way, don't tell me where I can walk!" and trudges through without looking at his surroundings.

I just look at him as one of the discs sails long and connects with the side of his face and clocks him off his feet onto the wet grass. I see the coast is clear now and make my way to the parking lot. He's dazed and now angry and yells at me, "why didn't you warn me?!"

I looked at him and replied, "You told me not to tell you where to walk." Then proceeded on my way as he tried to get up and get his bearings while still cursing at me because all of that was me fault apparently.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Defiant-Lion8183 on 2024-05-06 12:16:46.

So I am a fiend for excel spreadsheets. Absolutely love them and even bought an extra extra wide monitor for home so I can see them in all their glory. My Boss keeps telling me that she's an "advanced excel user", she can run macros, she can do pivot tables, she knows formulas. Not once have I seen her create or manipulate a spreadsheet in the 6 months I've worked for her.

So I had a Template on our Teams chat that we used every week, it was automated to within an inch of its life to tell us about the companies health. We've been using it for the last 4 months after I was given approval by the boss to make it live, gave her a tutorial and everything. This was for the admins to all see it and I'd only need to update the raw data once a week instead of send it manually to who ever wanted it on a given day (Up to 4 times a day usually).

Took out about 6 hrs work a week having it set up like that. Well the boss told me to take it down because a different department who hadnt seen it, was worried about personal data when one of the admins told them about it. There isnt anything like that in there, and anything that isnt open access is password hidden anyway. Our IT team has to be formally requested to add a new member to our teams chat, the spreadsheet is password protected, the tabs are password protected and the whole company is locked down hard anyway.

So boss orders me to take it down and delete it "Run a fresh one for anyone who wants it".

So I explained there wasn't anything in it that was "personal or private data", but got told nope delete it.

Tried to explain we use it amongst the admins every day and it has all these built in features/tables etc.

Nope delete it.

So I did. The fall out? Read on

Cue today Boss says to me her big boss meeting is presenting figures to the executives tomorrow. She starts quoting figures that are wildly out from the true numbers, I questioned where they came from and she shows me a Frankenstein report that is saying the exact opposite of what she thought. Run by someone not even in our department... I tell her the accurate grand total and show her how I got there with a simple table and some screenshots I had of the original shared spreadsheet. She asks for access and I tell her its been deleted.

I explained why and even showed the meeting notes where she had approved its use after viewing it.

She denies any knowledge of it, but wants it back. I said It would take me 2-3 days to make it again due to my workload increases.

I saved a copy of the template, but no way am I telling her that. This will give me breathing room to get the backlog out of my queue while she thinks I'm working on it. Let her sweat through that Executive meeting knowing every figure is wrong, no ones saving her ass in this team anymore.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Blitz-Dublone on 2024-05-06 09:28:31.

First the classic english is Not my native language and am writing on mobile.

About the middle of the Last year I needed a surgery. Had a inguinal hernian which needed ro be fixes. I tell my Coworkers that i will be sick for Like 3-4 weeks, they are fine with that. I that the Head of the Laboraty, he's fine as well. Now to quickly Tell my Boss or so I thought. I started: Hey Boss, just want to tell you something about some sick days ... She interrupts me, Boss: Oh, you don't need to Me: See the Thing is ... She interrupts me again: Listens, i don't really Care about sick days, got it ? Now go away ! Me: Okay, Boss

This was the last day of work before the surgery. So after the surgery, still a bit dizzy in the head, I take my cellphone and call my Boss. Me: Hey Boss, Just wanna let you know i won't come for the next 3-4 weeks. I just had a surgery Boss: What ??? You NEED to tell me those Things. It is very important that I know such Things. Blah, blah, blah ... Me (with all the calmness i had): Well Boss, i tried to tell you that twice. After the second one you said that you don't Care. Silence Silence Silence Me: Boss ? Boss: Get well soon (Hangs up on me)

I think in the future she will listen to Things about sick days 😅

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/6mac17 on 2024-05-05 20:39:10.

A 3 weeks ago I was walking my dog through the neighborhood (planned community, so pretty big) doggo did his business and I being a decent human being picked up said poo. A couple houses down from me was a dumpster on the street. As I walked by I threw the poo away. The homeowner promptly came running out the garage and started screaming obscenities at me for using his dumpster. I apologized and said no disrespect meant I just saw a dumpster and thought it wouldn’t be a problem. Homeowner continued yelling at me demanding I jump into the dumpster to fish the shit out. He then said he would call the sheriffs, not wanting to cause a stir or take law enforcement resources away from what was needed I jumped in grabbed the shit out, and saw that there were hazardous materials in the dumpster that were illegal IE paint, paint stripping, fluorescent lights, and other chemical materials. I asked the homeowner if they were doing any fun renovations. At this point he had calmed down and said yes just finishing an ADU as well as adding two extra rooms and bathrooms. At this point I noticed that there were no postings on the house that this was ok’d by the city and county (LA County and the city I live in requires permits to be posted on the garage door/front of the house denoting that the construction is permissible). Now after being yelled at for throwing a bag of dog shit away in a dumpster that had hazardous materials in it on a house that was undergoing unsanctioned construction, I did what any NIMBY neighbor would do, I called city and county code enforcement explaining the above situation and what I saw in the dumpster, I didn’t say anything about the additions.

Cue 2 days later I am walking the doggo on the same route only to find code enforcement and sheriffs in the garage with the homeowner loudly discussing the non-approved additions.

About a week after seeing the sheriffs and code enforcement, I was walking the doggo on the same route and came across a neighbor of the homeowner that had the dumpster, we started chit-chatting and the neighbor said that the last week had interesting with county code enforcement citing the homeowner for non-approved construction, non-code, plumbing, electricity and not getting permitted approval for adding an ADU, to top it off they were also cited for dumping hazardous materials.

Long and short of the story, don’t get pissy when someone is throwing their dog shit away when doing non-approved additions.

Edit 1 - some comments are saying this isn’t malicious compliance, I forgot to add our community recently switched collection providers for trash collection and we have all gotten notices to follow SB 1383 and report instances where this isn’t being followed. Gotta love NIMBY Jesus on Suburbia towns

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/WordWizardx on 2024-05-05 01:48:41.

Was reminded of this story today about my in-laws. When my wife was a kid, my FIL joined a bulk warehouse club (like Costco) and came home with a giant case of split pea soup mix. My MIL then proceeded to make and serve split pea soup for every meal until the case was empty, which my wife remembers taking about six weeks. FIL did no more grocery shopping at the bulk warehouse.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Knowledgefromwork on 2024-05-04 01:21:45.

So this happened 20+ years ago and it still makes me laugh. I’m an Australian radiographer who was working in the UK NHS. There was this older radiographer Susie who told me she hated locum radiographers and particularly hated Australians. Sadly I was guilty of both.

Susie generally tried to make my life hard but regularly failed to succeed. All the staff liked me and I throughly enjoyed the work and the people I worked with.Susie also did her best to avoid doing any activity at all. She was disliked by nearly all in radiology including the supervisor.

One Friday afternoon at a work meeting the supervisor radiographer informed us all,that a new pain clinic service would start Monday in the operating theatres and a radiographer was required to go for 4-6 hours each Monday.

Now most radiographers I know are not overjoyed at doing theatre work.You stand around in a lead gown for hours pressing a button occasionally. Some love it, but I think it’s ok sometimes. Susie quickly yells outs “ I’m definitely not doing that make the Aussie go. He is getting paid enough.”

Everyone stopped and looked at me and I just said sure no dramas. Come Monday I attended theatre at 9 am and met the loveliest pain specialist and his nurse. They made the whole day great. Here is the thing but , I would do a case and than the pain specialist would say he didn’t need me for the next case and could I go to the the tea room and wait .

I actually spent most of the day in the operating theatre tea room eating biscuits, drinking tea and reading the newspapers. I would generally come down from theatre about 2 pm where I would be met by the supervisor radiographer who would tell to take my lunch hour plus my morning tea break . I would return about 330pm just in time for my afternoon tea break then actually do some work from 4pm to 5pm.

Meanwhile Susie has been assigned to the general x-ray department doing ward work . Slogging away all day .

This went on for months until I moved on . The last week I was there, the supervisor radiographer sent another radiographer to theatre for pain clinic and it was discovered what my working life on a Mondays had entailed. Susie was livid and demanded she should go to pain clinic but the supervisor reminded her she had refused previously. Ps sorry for any grammar etc on a phone with fat fingers

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Alconen on 2024-05-03 17:46:30.

So when i was about a 13 year old little shit, i went to the supermarket to get myself something to drink.

There was only one cash register opened and a que had formed, i was in the back with one person in front of me and one person in front of them putting their stuff on the counter. Eventually a second register was opened and the girl said:" next one in line step over here, please." The person in front of my line was finished packing groceries and was about to pay, the guy in front of me had only a few items, and i only had a single can of energy drink.

I stepped over to the next register and this guy steps over behind me and starts instantly flipping his shit about how he "was first, and im stealing his spot". This is an adult man against a 13 year old.

Being the naïve 13 year old i was, i was 90% sure this adult wasnt gonna beat up a child, so i told him to calm down and if he just asks normally i will let him ahead of me, he doesnt want to, so i refuse to let him go ahead of me and turn around to pay for my SINGLE CAN OF ENERGY DRINK. Que more raving from kevin.

At this point some big burly security dude steps over to check out whats happening, so kevin starts raving at him instead. After he was done i was asked what was happening, and i told the security guard that the man was indeed ahead of me in the previous line, and if he had just asked nicely i would have let him go ahead of me.

The security made the lunatic calm down, and as kevin growled out the words: "may i go ahead of you?" in a dejected voice. My response was:" of course sir, go right ahead."

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Sea_Thanks_7677 on 2024-05-03 13:29:32.

On mobile, not a native speaker. I do not consent to this story being used outside Reddit.

When I was a teenager, my extended family (my parents, sister, me, aunt, uncle, cousins, all in all eight persons) went on our annual multi day cycling tour, but due to bad weather we had to reschedule and ended up renting an apartment in Ticino (Switzerland) that had enough beds for all of us, but only one shower. (It's not that easy to find accomodations for eight persons in high season, so this was the only option).

So one late afternoon we came back from a long day cycling the steep mountains around Lake Maggiore. We did a couple of hundred (maybe even thousand) meters of elevation difference in a very humid climate that day, so you can imagine, all of us were REALLY sweaty and REALLY hungry.

I probably should add that this was long before e-bikes were a thing. We did those cycling vacations every year, going back to when we kids were in elementary school, always those two families who were really close and yes, we were (and are) crazy when it comes to cycling...

To prevent fights, we always settled on an order for the shower as soon as we got back to the apartment. I was supposed to be third in line, but my aunt insisted I gave her my shower slot bc she "needed to be finished sooner than me". As most of the days the adults were cooking dinner and we all ate at the apartment, this made sense to me as I figured she wanted to get a shower before starting to cook.

As soon as she was in the shower, I found out we were supposed to go to a restaurant for dinner that day, so there wasn't any reason for my aunt to jump the queue other than she was last in line and probably figured there wouldn't be any hot water left for her.

I tried to get in the shower next, but my sister, cousins etc. insisted that I lost my spot by letting my aunt jump the queue and had to wait until all of them were finished. Everyone was in a hurry as we all were really hungry after all the cycling and we wanted to leave for the restaurant as soon as we could.

Cue malicious compliance: While I was waiting to finally get into the shower I secretly snacked on a packet of nuts to soothe my hungry tummy and patiently waited my time. When I finally got in the shower, I washed my long hair, used conditioner, rinsed again, made sure to put on lotion after showering and finally blow drying my hair. Like really thoroughly blow drying my hair (even though it was hot outside and I really didn't need to blow dry my hair). By that time my family was banging on the bathroom door, trying to make me hurry up, as everyone was really hungry. When I finally got out of the bathroom my family gave me sh*t for taking so long and making them wait when they were starving. So I told them that my aunt had tricked me out of my slot in the shower line and that none of them were willing to let me shower earlier - what did they expect when they made the only person who wore their hair long shower last?!

Well, they always made sure I was one of the first to shower after that. On every vacation!

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/HyzerFlip on 2024-05-03 08:16:57.

It was early 2018 and I was a sales rep for a corporate location of one of the big US cellular companies. Working in a very busy and very tiny old store.

I'm also one of the top sales reps in our district.

My job is to sell. I do well at my job by recommending things I'm genuinely enthusiastic about and transferring that enthusiasm to my customers. I did exactly what they wanted, I got to know my customers and found things that they would actually use and love and they would be my loyal customers and buy my recommendations.

We also were required to do as many demos as possible in a day.

I was throwing my phone in its otter box, pumping up music on the Bluetooth. Having a fun time with my customers while transferring their data.

3 times across 3 months we'd have some senior that literally needed to call customer service and didn't need us sit in our tiny sales floor and make their call... Then get upset they couldn't hear over the tiny room full of reps and customers actually you know... Buying shit, which is what the sales location is for.

My boss kept pulling be aside, telling me things like: I know you get enthusiastic but your voice carries and it's a small place you have to tone it down.

By the 3rd time I just felt defeated. I was depressed. I was walking on eggshells.

I was quieter. For a week. I had 2 days in a row off, I came back in and same boss pulls me aside again.

"Hyzer, remember how I told you to bring it down? I was wrong. It's terrible. You are the engine that brings this team together. It's like you're a ghost. The vibes of the whole place are trash now. We need YOU back. Forget I ever said anything it was dumb. We need you!"

I danced my way back onto the sales floor.

He started telling the complaining boomers to go home and call if they wanted quiet, we've got a job to do.

Only time I've had a boss admit they fucked up.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/bills0341 on 2024-05-03 01:09:15.

it's long, and lots of military jargon, apologies.

reading another story (https://www.reddit.com/r/MaliciousCompliance/comments/1ci9zw4/rewrite\_your\_prices\_to\_gouge\_money\_from\_students/) made me think of this from years gone by.

was in the marines in 1987 , stationed at mcas kaneohe on oahu. beautiful place to live , horribly expensive to do much of anything off base due to prices. we lived in a squad bay LITERALLY across the street from the base burger king. always been a fan of their product, what can i say.

our battalion's chow hall was a 10 minute walk from the barracks i stayed in. the closest barracks to the chow hall was 7-8 minute walk. the chow hall was named anderson hall ( named for a navy cross recipient if memory serves)and it was a shithole, even by 1980's marine infantry standards. think biloxi blues chowhall scene style. all the tables and chairs were broken/lopsided, no condiments, bland, over/undercooked, you get whatever they have screw you deal with it, you're in the infantry. or don't eat.

some of you know this feeling.

if you don't know, if you are in the us military service, chow is part of the compensation you get. they don't say what, how much or how often, but it's part of the deal.

if you were not in your area at chowtime and , say, ended up at the airwing chow hall, you ( with your chow hall card) could eat there instead. they won't turn you down because you are at the wrong chow hall , but they definitely keep track of that

since the long walk ( compared to burger king) in the hot humid hawaiian sun to the aforementioned shithole on my time was not appealing to me i would go to the bk lounge a couple lunches a week. along with lots of other lcpl's from my unit ( as well as others that "ate" at anderson hall) . the bk got busy but they would do their thing and life was as ok as it gets for a lcpl in the marine infantry not out in the field. the airwing chow hall got a lot of repeat business as well.

apparently the battalion commander through the mess hall officer got wind of this, probably due to the large # of "meals" being "prepared" and not "eaten" on a daily basis. also the other chow halls probably were bitching about all the extra meals they had to prepare for irritated marines who "don't belong" in their decent, well maintained chow hall where there are options and politeness and 2nd's and edible food. i can say this with confidence, because orders got issued and everyone who had a chow hall card ( and could "eat" for free) was to line up at their respective barracks 3x a day, have a headcount to make sure that nobody was missing, and then marched to the anderson hall for their "meal".

being the good marines that we were, we submitted to this latest assault on common decency with all the grace you would expect from pissed off infantry grunts.

there are several types of unit movements in the marines, route step being one. route step is a very casual unit march where you can be casual about the movement, talking is permitted, etc. day 1 we went to the chow hall route step

bitch, bitch, bitch all the way there until we were dismissed from formation to go "eat" .

once dismissed, fully 2/3 of us walked away without setting a foot in the chow hall. repeat several times a day for several days.

the poor nco who would be forced to route step us down there got so tired of the bitching about bad chow ( and life in the infantry in general) we ended up marching to the chow hall ( imagine movie/parade unit movement everyone in step, facing forward, looking good and most definitely no bitching) to make his life just a little less worse for having drawn the short straw and assigned this task.

initially, if we were "off" on the weekend , we wouldn't have to march to the chow hall. this lasted 1 weekend. 2nd weekend, if you were found in the barracks at chow time, in formation and off to chow you went. most marines were never slow on the uptake and were scarce if in the area on the weekend during certain times

finally, the lightbulb turned on and someone came up with the idea of asking why we didn't want to eat at the chow hall. what a day, given permission to bitch about your shitty conditions, with theoretically no repercussions.

at first it was the platoon sergeant, with an informal bitch session. bitching completed, he took his results to the platoon commander, who apparently didn't believe the 15 year veteran infantryman, so then a platoon meeting was called with the platoon commander (1st Lt) in charge. the tone and language definitely changed, but the bitching came fast, furious, and amazingly politely to the LT.

he reports this to the Captain, who holds a company meeting , rinse and repeat.

still not good enough, major buffnuts from battalion has to come down and hear the exact same thing ( although much more politely) he has been told 3 times already.

after our little chat with major buffnuts, the force marching to the chow hall stopped, and all was quiet over the weekend.

come monday morning, the chow hall officer and the senior enlisted "chef" were mysteriously reassigned, replaced by the next punching bags assigned to lovely anderson hall.

we were also told that airwing chow halls were off limits to the unwashed grunts.

it got a lot "better" but never good. i would like to think that major buffnuts or the colonel went to anderson hall and sampled the wares, but that would be asking too much. things were definitely edible after the culling, but never airwing good. someone fucked up on several occasions and i ended up on the pearl harbor navy base and ate like a king comparatively

i think that this is the only time in my military career that bitching about something bad and needing a change actually had a positive impact.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/MemyselfandIplus on 2024-05-02 22:06:54.

So I was just listening to some ripe, red wheel, and Rslash And it made me think of Something I did a couple years ago. So for some context, I was living with my sister and her husband in their apartment being an unofficial tenant while going to college. I graduated high school in 2020 so I missed the prom because of the "you know what".

I did pay for half the rent while living there. Me and my sister get along really well so every once in awhile while living there we do things like go to the zoo and check out some play. She even took us us to the adult prom that some Church was hosting.

So, anyway, on to the story you wanted to read. one day my sister was working on something on her laptop. She asked me to if I could go to the grocery store and pick up some things for her. It was my day off from work so I said "okay".

I don't remember All of what the list said, but I do remember she told me to get some eggs and she specifically told me "To get the largest one they got." I knew she meant she wanted to get one of dozen ones, but when I saw the fresh farm eggs that have like 60 eggs in one box I knew what I had to do. I'm pretty sure the other customers at the store saw me with a big smile on my face looking at that box.

So I bought the 60 eggs box along with the other groceries and headed back to my sister's apartment. My sister's face was like gasping goldfish when she saw the Box I sat on the table. I looked at her and said " You did say the biggest one they got"

Thank goodness she married a chef because we had a lot of delicious foods with eggs in them for a while. I might have accidentally converted them into buying boxes of eggs instead of the cartons.

So yeah this story isn't really about getting even with a terrible boss or some crazy. Karen. It's just the brother messing with his older sister.

You could say that was an EGGcellent malicious compliance

(Insert cricket noises)

I'll just see myself out.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Ghost_Alice on 2024-05-02 17:37:02.

A karen neighbor of mine complained that my roommate and I park in the same parking spot, which is right next to the walk way up to the apartment building. Both of us ride motorcycle and both motorcycles belong to me, but my roommate rides one to get to work.

She accused me of using my second bike to get a defacto reserved a parking spot when nobody in the complex has one, and said that what I'm doing is not fair and it's cheating.

I said "Ok, I'll stop parking both my bikes in one spot."

She seemed satisfied with that and left.

An hour later I had all 7 of my motorcycles, 5 of them from inside the garage I rent but it's half way across the apartment complex, sitting in front of the apartment building taking up every prime parking space infront of the walk way to to my hall in the building.

She went to straight to the management to complain.

The management came out and knocked on my door.

"We can't have you using up every parking space"

"Let me guess, Karen complained?"

"Yes."

"Yeah she told me I'm not allowed to have two bikes in one parking space to reserve a space. I'm not doing it to reserve a space. Both my roommate and I ride both of the bikes we park in that one space, all the bikes belong to me but I gave the keys to one of them to my roommate to ride for commuting to work. The other one is my bike for going where ever I need. We park both in one spot to be nice and conserve parking spaces so other people have somewhere to park. I was just showing Karen what would happen if I'm only allowed one bike per parking space. The other 5 bikes are generally in another parking space, in my garage where I keep the bikes I that don't ride frequently."

The apartment manager said "I understand. You made your point and I'll talk to her, please put the other 5 bikes back in the garage."

"No problem" I said.

It's been a few weeks, haven't heard from Karen.

(EDIT)

Since so many people are inventing details not in the story, assuming those details are true, and then getting upset over what they imagined, let me clarify something.

This happened at 1 in the afternoon on a day both my roommate and I had off. Most people are away at work during this time. What's more, with the exact topography of the apartment complex, there are only 2 apartments per walkway without going up stairs on my side of the building, but 4 on the other sides because it's up a level and the building is built into a hill. What this means is that MOST people park on the other side of the building, leaving MOST of the parking spots in front of my building free and open except for very late at night.

How the heck do you think I took up the 7 closest spots with all 7 bikes if the parking lot was full of people trying to park? Think about it for just a second before you assume details that aren't spoken just because you want something to be upset over.

BOTH BIKES are away from the apartment complex AT THE SAME TIME for a MINIMUM of 4 hours a day. We didn't engineering the situation where my roommate gets home between 3 to 4 in the afternoon and thus gets first pick of the parking spots. We also could both be driving cars instead of riding bikes. Then there'd be two spots taken up instead of 1. I could just choose not to rent a garage and park all 7 out there forcing people into overflow parking, but I don't.

Also the garage is beyond the overflow parking. It's not fair to expect me to always park in the garage and walk even further because you don't want to park next to my bikes and have all of 2 extra feet to walk to reach the concrete walkway to the building.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/APuticulahInduhvidul on 2024-05-02 15:59:32.

Before I start be aware this happened in Australia many years ago. The rules may be different where you live, especially in the US and for larger debts.

So anyway, I was in my early 20's working basically my first real job and I was offered an AMEX. Later, unemployed, I maxed it out to $2K pretty quickly.

Since the interest was now a big chunk of the money I was getting from social security I often missed payments and when I did pay it barely changed the balance. Eventually a debt collection service got involved and hassled me for money almost daily.

I was talking to a friend who worked for a loan company and he told me under finance laws you are legally paying a debt as long as you are making regular payments of a minimum amount - which at the time was about $5/week.

So I setup a recurring direct debit of $5 and told the collection agency in writing that was the maximum I could afford (it wasn't).

They made threats but I stuck to my guns. Sure enough, after a few weeks of this, they sent me a letter cancelling the entire debt with no default recorded. It's not a default if they terminate the debt, only if you stop paying.

Obviously it was costing them more in debt collection and management fees than I was giving them and at the rate I was paying it would have gone on for years.

Protip: I have a vague memory of being advised to play this one carefully. I think if you're too blatant about being malicious they can get a small claims court to rule you in breach anyway and/or force you to pay. The trick is keeping up the act - and being genuinely poor doesn't hurt either.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/l2evamped on 2024-05-02 14:03:25.

I was the only male staff working a warehouse at a branch. I would usually be looked for whenever any heavy lifting that couldnt be resolved with machines was required.

CEO of the company decided to stop by for the week to evaluate our operations.

At this time i was a coca cola addict. Basically if i had to sit down to take a shit, it was going to be at least 15 minutes.

Truck came with awkward freight that needed to be rigged to a crane extension on our forklift and i was the only one that could do it.

The CEO had decided to stop by that week to evaluate our performance. Well, they were looking for me for about 10 minutes as i was coming out and she asked me where I had been.

Told her I had been using the head and i assumed that was the end of it.

Queue the next day, i go in to do my business only to find the toilet seat missing. I had abs and thighs of steel back then, so i hover for about 5 minutes to expel the bare minimum and head to the branch manager to ask what was going on.

Branch manager apologized and said the CEO decided to renovate ONLY the male bathroom and the porta john hadn't arrived on site yet.

Welp, i had a lunch planned with a big baller client that day, and wouldn't you know it, we went to the mexican joint we go every year!

By the time we made it back to the branch he had to use the bathroom and well.....

He listenened to what i had to say, confirmed it with the branch manager and went on his way.

Anyway he's close with most of the board members and a week later the CEO went separate ways with the company.

I got my toilet seat back and i handed in my letter at the same time.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Hadomai on 2024-05-02 09:52:32.

This is from over a decade ago when I was a student, but it never fails to make me smile even now.

The curriculum I was in is very particular to my country. It's a two-year intensive program that usually ends in admission to the best schools in the country. This curriculum, like most of its kind, was hosted by a public high school (with a much larger population of high school students), and - important part - it was heavily STEM-oriented.

This high school, being downtown in a big city in a large area of nothing, had, in addition to the usual lunch room, boarding facilities that were mostly used by students in this curriculum, as the high school population usually lived in town.

When I arrived, the price structure was the following:

• boarding students paid a fixed price of about €62 a week for the room and all meals Monday morning through Saturday morning
• other students could eat lunch for about €4.30 a lunch, with a prepaid card. Easy enough. (I don't remember the exact prices but it was in this range)

In January of my second year, all boarding students were made to attend a meeting about a new price structure that would count everything separately.

• The room would be €29 a week, lunch and dinners would be €4.20 a pop, and breakfast would be €2 a pop.
• The resulting price would be an across the board 2% increase, which "is negligible".

Key word being "across the board" here. I still don't know who they expected to fool. Obviously good STEM students would figure out instantly that for them, the week would now be €82, so a 33% increase.

There was an uproar. The rest of the meeting was hearing over and over "it was validated by the school board". As if boarding students had any representation there. The parents were too far and the students too busy. And of course other parents and students would approve of what was essentially a discount for them.

So we were stuck with the new pricing. Okay. But we don't pay for the meals if we don't go, huh?

Remember: the school was downtown. And it appears, the students needed much less the breakfast, lunch and dinner on site where there are tons of options in walking distance at a lesser price. Up to and including stocking up things in the rooms for breakfast.

The kitchen was DROWNING in stock and BLEEDING money through the nose. The school being public, buying the food was not a very flexible process they could change week after week.

It only lasted a few weeks they came back to the old pricing structure, albeit a little higher (€65 per week I believe).

I still call it a win.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Glittering_Growth246 on 2024-05-02 04:08:29.

I was in a supervisory role as a charge nurse. I’d worked in this position for about three years. I had great reviews and earned consistent raises and performance bonuses. I approached my managers and requested that they agree to a flexible schedule if I worked on my masters degree. I wasn’t asking for time off I just wanted them to adjust my schedule when it came time for my practical rotations. They agreed as they wouldn’t be losing any productivity and would be gaining a nurse practitioner for the system.

About a year I started the program it became apparent I was going to need to divorce my wife. We’d been married for many years. It was quite a blow. I called the employee assistance program and got some therapy that was very helpful. My managers also suggested I apply for FMLA (family medical leave act) leave due to their concern for my mental health. I was very grateful.

I had been working for this system for a number of years and had many, many hours of PTO (paid time off) saved up. But I figured the FMLA leave would be a smart thing to be approved for in case court times were scheduled when I was working. I was approved for up to forty hours per week for a year.

About a year into my masters program it became necessary for me to step down from my role as a charge and take a staff nurse position. My main manager was livid. She took it very personally and stopped talking to me and greeting me. I was very hurt initially.

As my practical rotations were about to start I reminded my managers of their promise to be flexible with my schedule. They denied my requests for flexibility and began to schedule me almost entirely for the times I would request off. At first I was frustrated and very hurt that they did this. But I remembered that I was approved for FMLA leave. FMLA is a special form of leave and cannot be denied. As my managers were not keeping their promises it was with great satisfaction I began to call off every morning I needed to for my rotations. I didn’t give them any advanced notice because I was not required to. It was with even greater satisfaction I learned my managers began to have to cover my shifts themselves on occasion. As I had PTO hours saved up I still got paid as well. I finished all of my rotations in this manner and took a job at a different system after I graduated.

I worked at the new system for a few years before I was hired back at my old system as a provider. I loved seeing the look on my old manager’s face when I took my first shift at her hospital as a provider and not under her chain of command.

TL;DR don’t keep your promise of a flexible schedule? Fine. You’ll pay me anyway and have to cover some of my shifts yourself because I was approved for FMLA at your own recommendation.

Edit: four > for

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Edymnion on 2024-05-02 01:31:07.

So, not my MC, but I was orchestrating it with my wife.

Note: I am typing on a full keyboard and English is my primary language. Any typos or nonsense grammer are entirely my own damned fault.

So my wife has some health problems, and has fully certified and signed off on FMLA (thats the Family Medical Leave Act, for those not in the US this is the big time federal government "You do not mess with this" medical leave). Job knew this when she was hired, and they had flexible schedules so whenever she would have a flare up she'd just flex it. Couple hours off now, then she'd make the time back up later in the week. Boss knew this, was cool with this, everything was great.

Cue new boss coming in. Couple months go by, new boss tells my wife repeatedly "You're doing great! No notes, keep doing what you're doing!" Now, new boss is an oldschool boomer Karen, and my wife has two big brass ones and isn't afraid to tell a Karen to sit down and be quiet and refuses to take her crap. So, total shock to everyone, a few months later without notice or warning, called into HR.

HR tries to go on about the FMLA stuff, saying she hasn't been filing her FMLA claims and that she's scamming the company and blah blah blah. So she tells them "One moment, I know an FMLA expert with 15 years of experience. Let me call him. Hey honey, you got a minute?"

Yeah, did I mention I've worked with FMLA at a national corporate level for years and years? FINALLY came in handy! "No dear, FMLA counts as time worked. You've been flexing to make up your time, so it cannot be counted against your FMLA limit. If you need to take FMLA, its hours worked and does not need to be made up, under federal law. They can insist you use PTO alongside it, but they cannot tell you to make it up or they're committing a felony."

I could hear the dead silence on the phone. Wife finally speaks up "So, if the problem is that I haven't been properly applying for FMLA, I'll be happy to do so and stop making my time up. , I'm gonna have to push these projects back since I won't have as much time to work on them as I thought, since I won't be allowed to make up my time anymore. If you want to authorize some overtime, we can work that out."

Turns out Karen Boss just didn't like the fact that my wife is Work From Home and she couldn't micro-manage her. Thought she'd get HR to help scare her straight. They were absolutely NOT prepared for someone to know more about their claims than they did.

Karen Boss tried a few more times to throw her weight around, each time my wife responded with some variation of "I am not legally allowed to do that, and I have been instructed by corporate to file all time as protected FMLA." Threats of discipline were met with "Go ahead. I'm the only one you've got who can do X job. I work here because I enjoy it, or at least I used to. Write me up if you feel the need, but please know when you do that will be the start of my 2 week notice." And she's stuck to her guns. Any time she needs to take FMLA time off, she does so. Files everything properly, and Karen Boss can just sit and stew because there's not a damned thing she can do about it.

Its been about a month now. Boss Karen has finally realized that she's got about as much weight as a feather, HR has gone completely silent, and things have overall gotten much better for the wife since she's got much less stress now. Karen Boss keeps communications short, direct, and to the point, just how my wife likes it.

Could they fire her for some unrelated reason once the current crunch is done? Sure, but she's already got bites from multiple other companies and we can afford to have her not work for a month or two if worst comes to worse. And we of course have a giant Cover Your Ass folder full of names and dates and everything else where Karen Boss tried to retaliate, made for a hostile work place, etc.

Know your rights, people, and do NOT be afraid to stand up for yourself!

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Flatlander77x on 2024-05-01 14:23:10.

Every now and then I get a little flashback to this situation and it was hilarious. Back in the 90s I was working for a small roofing company with only 2 workers and some kind of shed as the base of it. The shed was rented on a big yard with a few other businesses, pretty beat down, no toilet etc. One day loading stuff to the van I had to take a dump. NOW! Panic set in searching for a place to go but only got left with one option. I took a old bitumen bucket and went for business. Done, what now?? There was a little windows on the back of the building with a little creek flowing by. Saved natural habitat style. I just put the bucket outside the windows to find a place to get rid of it later when I heard a voice behind me yelling. The landlord... "WHAT DO YOU PUT OUTSIDE?? WHY YOU DUMP TRASH, I CALL POLICE!!! SHOW ME NOW!!" Ashamed I tried to say its nothing to care about and I would get it back in later and so on. He insisted to see it aggressively to a point where I thought fuck it, you want it you get it. Got the bucket in and let him take a look and smell of a wonderful mess of a beershit. And that's it, he gagged heavily so I started to laughed my ass off. He just nods, turns around and left. We never talked again about it, hehe.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/beebabeedabee on 2024-04-30 15:59:25.

I'm a traveling healthcare worker and my current contract is for two hospitals about 30 minutes away from each other. When I applied for this contract there was no mention on the posting of working at 2 hospitals, but the manager mentioned during my interview I would occasionally have to work at a sister hospital as well. I agreed that was fine, and when setting up my living arrangements I made sure I was closest to the hospital I was told I'd be at most of the time.

My start date rolls around and she's completely flipped things so that I'm now at the sister hospital the vast majority of the time and almost never at the hospital that is close to me. To make things even better, I don't have badge access or computer access at the sister hospital, and construction has closed down the road that I was initially taking to get to the sister hospital (construction is expected to last for almost the entire length of my contract), making my commute over an hour long each way (more than triple what it would be at the closer hospital).

I've brought up these concerns (via email, text, over the phone, and in person) to my manager multiple times and she's assured me she will fix the technological problems asap, but then I never hear back. When the next schedule came out, she has me exclusively at the sister hospital, so I email her to ask her if it could be adjusted because of the above troubles, she ignores my email until she comes into work to tell me "no schedule changes will be happening" and starts chewing me out in front of multiple coworkers for never coming to her about my technological problems...

Since then, I have started texting her every single day as soon as she gets to work asking if she has any updates on my access problems, and every single day she texts me some excuse as to why she forgot and why it hasn't been solved yet. Everytime I see her in person I make sure to bring up that she told me she would fix things and ask if she has an update in front of as many coworkers as possible so that she has to admit that she's apparently extremely forgetful in front of everybody, as well.

Not the craziest instance of malicious compliance but it does feel good to annoy the shit out of her with daily texts and constant pestering after she tried to embarrass me 🤷

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Manglewood on 2024-04-30 07:24:42.

Around 2008 I was a radiology assistant in a mammography unit - meaning I was the person who ushered in patients, showed them where to put their belongings, gives them the gown and instructions. Another part of my job was keeping the radiology station clean and tidy so that work surfaces were clear and sanitary.

Around this same time "The Secret" was huge and my co-workers were all WAY into it. For those who don't know, it is a ridiculous pseudoscientific method pushed by Oprah Winfrey that promised you can get whatever you want simply by visualizing and asking the universe for it. The ugly side of this fairy tale thinking is that if bad things happen to you it's your fault because you invited it by putting bad energy out into the universe. I found it wildly inappropriate that health care professionals believed that breast cancer victims had caused their own cancers through negative thinking. I fought with a few of the radiology techs about it but I was completely outnumbered so I tried to just keep my head down, focus on patients, and do my job (which included tidying up their O magazines, Secret books and other Secret-related materials so that they would leave strewn all over the counters).

Since they all hated me for not being in their Secret clique, they decided to hang up on me and go to the managers with complaints about my attitude. I was called out of work into a disciplinary ambush meeting where I explain my side of things. One of the higher-up managers totally agreed with me and actually defended me, but at the conclusion of the meeting I was told not to touch anyone else's stuff because there were complaints that I was "shoving magazines into the corners" and threw away someone's copy of The Secret (I really wish I had but I actually did not do that - it was a complete lie).

So by complaining about me, my idiotic co-workers effectively took away the part of my job which was cleaning up after them. I was no longer allowed to touch their magazines so they piled up two inches deep on every surface, plus empty bottles and yogurt containers, used napkins, cafeteria trays, popcorn detritus, and all sorts of other trash. The work station looked like a landfill. They would be absolutely seething about it and glaring at me but I would sit there reading, happily doing absolutely nothing about it since I wasn't allowed to touch their stuff!

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/JJBHNL on 2024-04-29 15:57:26.

I was reminiscing about this and wanted to share it. Not sure it's really malicious compliance but I'm still proud of this.

One year in elementary school we rotated little club like studies, one quarter you'd learn about computers, another in this case was chess & checkers. After learning the basics we had to hold a point based tournament and the winners would get a bag of candy. One half did checkers, the other chess, and if there's a tie both winners would get a bag.

Cue our 8 year old candy hungry brains.

We kept close track of the scores, played to win almost until the end, then we checked the score and let the person win that needed to for the points.

End result: everyone had the exact same score and we each got some candy

Edit: typo

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/woolen_goose on 2024-04-28 06:10:27.

TLDR I ruined my boss’s personality test he pretended would be anonymous but we knew he was going to use it to profile employees he didn’t like.

Story: Had an evil middle manager boss who eventually lost 1/3 of the team in under three months. I had been there longer than him, before his position was built out. He was a really gross one, like psychological abuse and also openly commented on a 16 year old celebrity being “hot” when was 36.

Anyway, when he was onboarded, he pretty quickly assessed which employees he couldn’t bully and started trying to make our lives harder.

He started doing some “anonymous” reviews and tests. Not surprisingly, some anonymous feedback was super negative for the people on his shit list even if we were high performing or project leads.

I finally had enough of attempting to talk it out head on. He always denied everything and even once actually asked me if I was on drugs (wtf) during a 1:1.

This was / is a HUGELY FAMOUS tech company.

Anyway, he decided it was time for another round of anonymous testing. This time a personality test.

I answered every question imagining I was him. Every single one.

To nobody’s surprise he was like “surprise we are going to all reveal and see which result we have on the screen now yay!”

I matched him perfectly. The only one. He got the absolute psychopath result but it also says like “entrepreneur and celebrity” so he would have been thrilled but-

He knew we were very different, yet somehow we had the exact same result. Out of like 20+ possibilities. When he pulled up the results on screen his face dropped. He stared directly at me, immediately breaking the character who was excited for sharing the “secret” results.

I watched him choke down his anger as he pretended to go down the list, now unprepared. Every other sentence out of his mouth suddenly was how unreliable these tests can be and that “you never know.”

As he dug his hole deeper, explaining backwards regarding this time wasting team wide meeting for his stupid exercise originally intended to single out some folks based upon a personality test, I finally found my opportunity. I smiled at him.

I smiled with eye contact.

No words, everything was said there.

I watched him die inside and he still had to fill 25 minutes of his stupid meeting or call it off.

I have another malicious compliance story about him (he was an absolute clown, I bet I have more if I think harder) but this is my fave quiet little moment where I ruined his total concept of self in one second by doing exactly what asked of me: waste my time to take his stupid personality test.

(ETA typos)

ETA 2 I may have joyfully shouted “yay [boss name ] !!!! We’re twins!” when he pulled up the results.