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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/MediumSavings4968 on 2024-06-15 07:48:13+00:00.

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Not sure if this one counts as Malicious compliance but you guys tell me

So My dad (Born in the early 1950s) volunteered and enlisted in the marines (willingly i might add at the age of 17 near 18 ). He stayed in the marines for a "full tour" during the Vietnam war effort. but dad was disappointed to find out due to the surviving son clause he would never get to see battle. Dad worked hard as a missile tech, support and then he was reassigned to a desert base (not named). He was made part of a special operation group that tested out the latest weapon systems from the developers. 

So one day the Sargent (SGT). walks in and ask for volunteers to fire a band new radar aimed gun system. (Noted here that it was Radar-aimed, but still required for someone to sit in the chair and actually fire the thing.) it was designed for Anti-Air defense but they wanted to see if it could repel ground based units, or at the least suppress them. The room got excited as everyone wanted to be part of it, but nobody wanted to sit their keister in the firing chair. The SGT Screams at everyone saying there has to somebody in here whose good at aiming a gun. Suddenly everyone started recommending my dad. voices called out :

"get bobby (name changed for privacy) over there, he's the craziest SOB whom ever shot a gun"

"yeah bobby, he'll shoot anything"

"bobbys, the best aim out of all of us"

"bobby tests stuff like this all the time"

yeah, they pawned off the duty to my dad. My dad didn't know the difference and he liked shooting anything new and classified. (now declassified and way way obsolete.) The SGT. grabs dad and "nominates " him for the job.

So they drive dad out to the test site and was given the scenario.

SGT: Your target, marines, are somewhere in the distance. he points at a dot in the distance. what we have here is a fake contingency of troops, armor and equipment. tonight in the bles-sed A.M. you men will set this gun system up as fast as possible. then you will fire the weapon, giving it all hell! is that understood?

Dad & his team: sir, yes sir!

My dad and his team do some test runs just with the setup and then gets some shut eye.

So about 2 AM, the siren goes off. Dads team, half dozed but ready and alert, race to the to the equipment. They hook it to a jeep and drive it to position. they put it in place putting the anchors down. the gun comes online. dad gets his targets on Radar. Dad lets the gun go crazy on the target

Klak Klak Klak Klak Klak Klak Klak (etc.)

the gun fires whats feels like dozens of rounds. dad checks the radar screen and looks puzzled.

The SGT asks him: WHAT IN THE HECK HAPPENDED MARINE?!

Dad: well sir Im not at all sure. I shot the heck out of the target but according to radar its still standing there, its still pinging me back.

THE SGT: DID YOU MISS? DID YOU JUST GET YOUR PLATOON WIPED OUT! DID YOU FAIL YOUR FELLOW MARINES?! DID YOU FAIL YOUR MISSION?!

THE SGT: BREAK IT ALL DOWN AND DO IT AGAIN.

My dad and his team break it all down pull the system back to the base camp.

So about 3 AM, the siren goes off. Dads team race to the to the equipment again. They hook it up, drive to the position. they anchor and dad gets his targets on Radar. Dad lets the gun go crazy again.

Klak Klak Klak Klak Klak Klak Klak (etc.)

the gun fires more rounds. dad checks the radar screen and still puzzled. the targets remain. The SGT checks his the screen over.

The SGT: YOU JUST WIPED OUT YOUR ENTIRE BATTALION BY MISSING MARINE. I TOLD YOU TO NAIL THE TARGET AND DIDNT BRING ONE DOWN!

Dad: but Sarge listen Im almost certain were hitting it. by my calculation the targets should be Swiss cheese by now. I think we should inspect the targets first before we waste more rounds

THE SGT: YOU THINK? YOU THINK MARINE? YOUR ORDERED TO SIT IN THAT CHAIR A THIRD TIME AND WELL THIS TIME WE WILL BE A PERFECT RUN AS I WILL SUPERVISE THE WHOLE SHIBANG!

4 AM hits. My dad and the team are in perfect sync. If you slowed it to the slow motion, you would see them moving in the grace of any dance troop. the gun gets setup in the fastest time on record. dad aims and fires

Klak Klak Klak Klak Klak Klak Klak (etc.)

dad, warm in the chair says "sir were hitting it but

The SGT: FIRE MARINE

Dad: but sir ...

(OK Que Malicious Compliance.)

The SGT (Interrupting): I SAID FIRE MARINE! FIRE NOW!

Klak Klak Klak Klak Klak Klak Klak (etc.)

The SGT: FIRE TILL EITHER YOU EXPEND YOUR AMMO or YOU OVERHEAT! AM I CLEAR?!

Klak Klak Klak Klak Klak Klak Klak (etc.)

Dad's team reloads the weapon system as the ammo runs low again and again until the ammo is out. Id say it was a minute from overheating, at least by dads word.

Dad checks the radar. the target remained. The Sargent throws his hat and binoculars on the ground. (Don't know why he had them, it was night and the target even with the binoculars couldn't be seen. )

at 5 am and first dawn they drive toward the targets. the targets grow in size.

The targets ended up being : 2 Sherman tanks, two half tracks and a bunch of scarecrow dummies. (all originally headed for the scrap heap). with a brick wall that had been half hastily set up behind it.

everyone was surprised to find dads gun had turned them all into Swiss cheese. they were able to shine lights thru huge holes in the armor plating, the dummies were missing whole sections of their chests heads and other even knocked off their posts. The half tracks were all but nothing, and the back wall had huge divots. obviously the bullets had gone clean through the armor and hit the back wall.

Dad (murmurs smug) : think it worked Sarge. Think I hit it.

The sarge threw his hat to the ground and did a little rage dance upon it. (yeah this is about as close you are gonna get to fallout )

Another "detail" went out later that day to not only clean up the mess but they started running metal detectors over the sand around and behind the targets. the system had accurately hit its targets without bullet spray around the area. The metal detector team found bullets that had gone thru the wall. the weapon array went on to be scrapped before mass production. dad never got those details (Who knows budget, efficiency, Feasibility, who really knows, ). The gun's control and aim system would end up being used in a variety of systems later on until that became obsolete.

That Sargent gave dad every fire control job and testing system after that until he was discharged.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Remarkable_Table_279 on 2024-06-15 03:01:53+00:00.

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My sister told me this story about my niece's MC.

First, My sister "Jasmine" is a great mom to "Rapunzel" (niece's fav movie) ... even when niece was small she'd clearly tell her expected behavior for situations & clear communication. Rapunzel has always been very intelligent.

One of the expected behaviors is that if you bring something to the car you're expected to remove it. one day when Rapunzel was about 3/4 they were going somewhere.

Rapunzel: "Mommy can you please carry my doll for me?" "Sure honey"

They go wherever they're going...get home and Jasmine says "you forgot your doll"

"But mommy, you bought it to the car...I didn't"

Jasmine said..."that was the last time I fell for that...and yes I did bring it inside because she was right...I did bring it to the car and that's the rule."

ETA; rapunzel is an adult now. She's a dancer...not a lawyer :)

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/boyinblack13x on 2024-06-15 00:57:20+00:00.

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So, years ago I worked at a 711. This happened during graveyard shift. On graveyard shift there's only one cashier on till And in my province, pre-paying for fuel was about 3-4 years was required by law, but a lot of older people Refused to prepay for their gas and would demand that they can just leave their card behind. Well, that's a no go. Considering the pumps were programmed that the pumps won't turn on until there's a payment or pre-auth. I can't simply "turn on the pump". Anyways, at around 4am, it was the stores morning rush and I had thos Karen come up with her drinks and food and wanted me to turn on the pump and wait until her husband was done pumping. I explained how pre-auth works for fuel but she was not having none of it. I'm starting to get a line up of people getting their coffee and food and etc. I explain again I can't simply turn on the pump and pre-authorization is super easy. She doubled down and said she's going to stand here until I turn on the pump so they can gas up and leave. At this time I'm getting annoyed and said, loudly "So, you're not going to prepay for gas and will hold upy line up?" She smugly said yes. So I grab her already scanned items that I bagged up and put away from her reach and stepped to the other till and stared serving the customer behind her and moving the line up to the other till. She was pissed off lol. And after serving 3 or 4 other customers on the next till she finally gave in and prepaid.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/VampArcher on 2024-06-13 15:47:44+00:00.

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For the longest time, my job has allowed us to take the full pay for completing work even if we finish early. For context, I am assigned a zone and I complete all jobs assigned to me in that zone by a time limit, at many different locations, I check in via GPS tracker to prove I'm at the location, they pay me milage and I make my own schedule. Each job has a time assigned to it.

Previously, they've always allowed us to claim the extra time. If I'm given an hour to complete something and finish in 45, I claim the hour. Our managers have always said this is fine, saying if we are turning in good work and we are skilled enough to complete it faster than most, we should not be payed less for it, all enforcing that would do is encouraging people to work slow as possible or waste time.

And it does. Now they say we need to use the full allotted time or take the cut in our check. One big problem is we are given way too much time, it's common for me to be given an hour to do something that takes 10 minutes tops.

My colleagues are not ashamed to admit they all run the clock, thinking it's bullshit they should be paid less than people who don't know what they are doing and stand around doing nothing, so they do it too.

I started doing it too, I've been doing this for 6 years, I can do the work assigned to me in a quarter of the time they expect, doesn't mean I deserve to make 25% the money I should make for doing the same work. Now I do whatever on the clock, go grocery shopping, go get lunch, take a nap, read a book, gossip, whatever.

I don't know if our new management will realize the policy is stupid, never enforced for a reason and literally cannot be enforced, but until then they'll be paying the whole district to run the clock.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Square-Ebb1846 on 2024-06-13 15:28:43+00:00.

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When I was young (think 5-6 years old), my parents had a “don’t leave the table unless you’ve eaten all your food,” rule. I was picky and I hated tomatoes. My mom would often make the rest of the family grilled cheese and tomato soup, but I would get chicken noodle. On this day, there was no chicken noodle, so I got canned tomato soup.

I told my mom before she served that I only wanted the grilled cheese (honestly, a sandwich and a bowl of soup was too much for my tiny body anyway). She gave me both anyway.

I moaned and groaned about how gross the soup was for a while. My mom told me not to get up until I finished my food. So I stayed at the table.

An hour later, my mom walked in and find me still at the table. She asked why I was still there and I reminded her that I wasn’t allowed up until I eat and I didn’t like the soup. She told me “just put some salt in it.”

Well, I was young. I didn’t know the difference between salt and sugar. So I made an educated guess…. My mom put a bit of the stuff in the white bowl into my cereal in the morning to make it taste better…That must be salt! I poured several teaspoons of “salt” into my soup. It was still gross.

Ok….it must be the other one. I kept adding salt and tasting until the shaker ran out. The soup was even more gross (gee, I wonder why?).

My mom came back in after another hour and again asks why I’m still there. I said “I tried adding salt, it didn’t help.” After two hours of refusing to eat the soup, my mom finally excused me.

As I was leaving the kitchen, my mom shrieks and asks what I put in my soup and what is all this goop at the bottom of the bowl. I just told her “you said to put some salt in it!”

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/sdvb on 2024-06-12 10:23:18+00:00.

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I'm from an Asian country and I've been living in a foreign country for some time and purchased my home here a few years ago. My hobby is play computer games/watch TV shows and I've spent a decent amount of money to set up my home for it - I have the fastest internet plan, subscription to all major streaming services etc. My daily life is work > grocery shopping > home gaming. Every single day.

My parents came at the beginning of the year to live with me as they want to experience the foreign life. They were disappointed when they found out their son does not have an active social life here and spend all his free time at home gaming.

They tried to make me more socially active by telling me what events are happening that I can go to, and how they've been going out every day and made lots of new friends. Well not really, I know they only go to two places - the shopping center for grocery, or the local community center where there are a bunch of retired people from our home country. My parents don't speak English I don't even think they know how to use the public transport here.

Telling me to go out and socialise has become the topic of our dinner talk every night and the tension (especially between me and my dad) has become more and more hostile. One night when they mentioned it again I decided I've had enough. So I started to be more 'socially active' by staying at internet cafe until 11.30PM every day. I also cancelled the internet at home.

They found out the internet is not working at home and notified me. I acknowledged it.

They asked me when is the internet coming back. I said its not coming back.

"What? Why?"

"Because I'm socialising every day. When I come home I go to bed right away. When I wake up I either go to work or go out socialising. I barely use internet at home so why do I need it?"

2 weeks later mum tells me they are going back home.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Korinin38 on 2024-06-12 07:18:54+00:00.

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Disclaimer

Non-native speaker, if you spot a mistake please put it under the designated OP comment to keep the comments organized, thank you. TL;DR at the bottom.

Setup

This happened while I was in middle school at a certain math tournament called "math battle". To tell the story, I need to first explain the rules. I'll try to do this as brief as possible.

The rules are similar to other math tournaments, with two main features. First - it's a team competition, and every battle goes between two teams. Second - every solution has to be presented by a speaker, and refuted by an opponent from the other team.

To get points as a speaker, you present your solution. To get them as an opponent, you refute the correctness of speaker's points by spotting mistakes in their solution and getting points for these mistakes in stead of the speaker.

When the speaker is done presenting, they have to say "presentation over". This is to avoid any confusion and interruption from the opponent, as any mistake noted before these words can be spotted by the speaker and fixed on the spot, thus giving no points to the opponent.

Overall, the point distribution is managed by the judge.

Story

As this is a team competition, there are rules that prohibit players from being in the same role more than twice. Because of this, our captain decided to delegate presentation of the extra problem they solved to me. They explained the solution to me (I got abt half of that) and sent me on my way to the blackboard.

In this state, the solution barely holds, and the opponent sees that.

When I start making mistakes, they interrupt my presentation to point that out.

As I'm aware of the rules, I try to notify them: "Please save your questions for after the presentation is over".

This helps a bit, though only a bit: the second I misplace a digit, I hear another correction. "Please save your questions for after the presentation is over".

At one point it becomes really irritating, as it's hard to present a solution when you barely understand it AND there is someone constantly noticing the mistakes.

When I'm almost done presenting the solution (now as full of holes as swiss cheese), I take about three seconds to catch my breath and try to say "presentation over" when at that perfect moment when I open my mouth, they interrupt me again.

Cue malicious compliance.

Instead of finishing what I tried to say, separating the section when speaker gets points from the section when opponent gets points, I decide to stand back and watch.

The opponent obliterates my solution, telling why it does not work, and the way it should've been solved. Instead of arguing, I simply say "You are right, that's how you supposed to do it, thank you".

And when they're done, they indicate the end of their rebuttal by saying

"I agree with the solution to the problem after corrections made~"

at which point I interrupt them with

"Oh yeah, presentation over, you may ask your questions now".

Not getting what I was implying, the opponent finished their rebuttal and returned to their team.

Now is the time the judge distributes the points.

Judge: "Ok, the corrections made by opposition are significant, thus worth-"

Me: "I'm sorry, but all the corrections from opposition were made during the presentation."

There is a brief silence in the room.

Judge: "... Oh, you're right. All points go to the speaker."

The most precious moments were when we heard the captain of the other team scolding my opponent for their impatience.

We won that battle, sadly not thanks to that maneuver, though that was the highlight of the game.

TL;DR

At this math competition, you don't get points for the questions you asked during presentation. Despite being reminded that, the opponent interrupted speaker several times, which led to them not getting the points for all the valid arguments.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Illuminatus-Prime on 2024-06-12 06:27:17+00:00.

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tl;dr: Another "Did as I was told and someone else caught hell for it" story.

The Setup

Back in late 2020, when everyone was working from home, I was tasked with upgrading office PCs.  This involved removing each hard disk drive (HDD), setting it aside, replacing the PC with a newer model that uses a solid-state drive (SSD), transfering all documents and images from the HDDs to the SSDs (with a special USB setup of my very own), and disposing of the old HDDs per the Project Manager's orders (e.g., "As you see fit").

Now, because there was no one else in the building (so I thought), I had all 20 new PCs lined up in the shipping area, with the old HDDs on a cart, ready to be copied over.

The assistant project manager (APM) walked in (maskless, of course), and wanted to know what the hell I was doing.  Before I could get three words out, he tells me to remove my mask because (he said) there ain't no "effing" covid (or words to that effect.

I stepped back, removed my mask, and tried again.  He interrupted me again to ask what the hell these hard drives are doing here.

I tried to explain, and he interrupted me one more time to tell me he doesn't give a damn about my excuses and to just get rid of them.

Just as I was about to try once more, he tells me he doesn't care how I do it, just to "effing" get rid of them -- "Throw them in the dumpster or take them home, for all I care!" -- and to get those PCs installed IMMEDIATELY.

Cue the Malicious Compliance

"Sir! Yes, sir!"  I put my mask back on and wheeled the cart of HDDs out to my SUV (parked near the dumpster), and loaded the crate into the back.  Then I went back inside and delivered each new PC as instructed.

(The old PCs had already been palletized and were slated to be picked up by an electronics surplus business.)

After all this, I drove home, prepared a pizza, cracked open a cold one, and started my weekend -- MY weekend.

The following Monday, I felt lousy.  The covid test showed positive.  I had already been vaxxed and boosted, so my doc told me to just stay home and monitor my symptoms.

I logged in remotely an sent the "I got it" email, then checked my inbox.  The first new email I saw was from the APM, re-iterating his orders to me almost word-for-word.  The second email was from the APM to his boss (and the rest of the engineering staff) claiming full credit for getting the new PCs installed in "record time".  After an hour or so, I started seeing emails from different people asking where their files were.

Of course, I did a "Reply All" and included a screen shot of the APMs first email.  All hell broke loose.  The dumpster had already been emptied by the time anyone got to it.  Important files were missing, and presumed destroyed.  The APM called me on speakerphone and told me to come in and fix everything.

Sorry boss, but I'm showing symptoms and my covid test is positive.  Unless you are willing to empty the building and then disinfect it afterwards, I had better stay home.  The APM's boss chimed in and told me to stay home, get well, and call if I needed anything.  Okay boss, I'll see what I can do about the eff-up from home.

I continued to work from home for that week, mostly copying each HDD's documents and images to the relevant PC.  Even though there were a few glitches, I was able to get everything back in order.

The Fallout

I told the APM's boss my side of the story, and received a token reprimand.  The APM was dismissed.  I retired a few years later.

No covid deniers were physically harmed during the execution of this malicious compliance.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Proper_Fact7866 on 2024-06-12 03:20:30+00:00.

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AITA for intentionally being petty?

So I am a builder. I primarily do high-end custom homes, 1-4 million price range. I am a female (34), which isn’t common in this industry, but I really love what I do and I am fairly decent at what I do. In the past my projects were primarily in rural areas on large ranches, but this particular project is in the middle of a large city, which means there are neighbors in close proximity, which is something new for me to deal with.

The neighbors around this area are some of the worse, entitled, nasty people you can imagine, and one of them is a celebrity and his wife (we will call her B), who is also well known. I haven’t personally had too much interaction with the couple. When B goes walking every morning I smiled and waved (which I do with everyone because this is Texas y’all) and she would always ignore me, which honestly is whatever. I not going to stop being kind because she is unfriendly, I honestly just started ignoring her.

My job-site has been really busy the last year, and most of my subs park along side the street in front of the house. We all park on one side, facing the proper flow of traffic. If someone happens to park on the other side of the street the neighbors call the cops or the city building official. I find this incredibly annoying and childish, but whatever. I have my guys move and it’s not a big deal.

That being said, I stop by my project every morning to line my guys out and check on work that has been done, make my lists, etc. Most of the time I park on the very right side of B’s property, which is just to the left of my projects construction drive so my guys have parking in front of the project house. I am not there long, usually 2-3 hours.

One day I was outside the house and a woman approached me. I wasn’t sure who she was, but apparently it was B’s maid. She informed me that I needed to move my car (which was on the correct side of the public street) or B was going to call the cops. I looked at her and said there was nothing wrong with me parking there. The maid then proceeded to tell me that B was going to charge me $500/a day for parking in front of her house. I laugh and told the maid I didn’t know they were that hard up that they needed to charge a parking fee for using the public street.

I went ahead and called the police to get “ahead” of the situation. He informed me there wasn’t anything B could do about me parking in front of her property, which I knew, but I could get a ticket for parking within 15 feet of a fire hydrant, which is on the property line between my project and B’s house. The office informed me I needed to be 15-feet away from the hydrant. I thanked him and he left. So I did end up moving my car…. I took my measuring tape and measured out 15’, which put my almost smack in front of B’s house. I decided to park in front of her front sidewalk for 2 weeks after that. Every time she does something rude to me on the street (which happens more than I prefer) I park in front of her house just to piss her off.

Honestly, if she had just come to me in the beginning and asked me nicely not to park in front of her house, I probably never would have again unless absolutely necessary. But the fact she was ok sending “her help” to threaten me really pissed me off. AITA for keeping this going? I don’t like when people think that they are “above you” because they are well off. I know billionaires that have better manners than this chick.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/a_dreamer on 2024-06-11 23:43:10+00:00.

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A few years ago, I was living in an apartment complex on the third story with no balcony. At this point, I'd been living there for almost four years. The third story was the only floor that connected to the other half of the building for fire code access to two staircases. There are some steps about halfway to the other side that I'd smoke cigarettes sitting on. I'd always take the butts with me and swept every couple of days. I was a good neighbor: no noise, cat-sit for the guy across from me, taught the old Russian guy how to use his appliances, helped people move furniture in and out.

A new couple moves in. After smoking a cigarette on those stairs in-between, new neighbor guy comes to me and says, "Hey, sorry to bother you. Do you mind not smoking here; we can smell it in our apartment." I say, "I'm so sorry - yeah, no problem. It won't happen again." We both go inside and that night I walk down to the first floor each time I wanted to smoke.

The next morning, I get a call from the apartment complex saying they received a complaint that I was smoking on the stairs in the connecting walkway. I admit that I did do that and have since started going all the way to the parking lot. He says, "Oh, you don't have to do that. Any stair landing area is allowed smoking. Pretty much anywhere except where you were." "Okay, thanks!"

I started smoking on the stair landing that forced them to walk past me and was closer to their apartment. Speaking to me as a person: I walk the three flights. Complain to the complex after I fixed the problem? Not going out of my way anymore.

EDIT: All outside door access apartments.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/JazzyCher on 2024-06-11 22:57:52+00:00.

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Not sure this really counts as MC but figured it's at least worth a (somewhat horrified) laugh.

When I was maybe 4, my brother (6ish at the time) and I were dropped off at our Aunts house for the weekend. Mom and Dad dropped us off Friday afternoon after lunch, with plans to pick us up Sunday night after dinner and take us straight home to bed.

We loved these sleepover weekends because Aunt had game consoles, board games, a massive playground in the condo complex, a huge pool, and best of all bunk beds!

Friday night my brother and I discovered that Aunt requires her kids (don't remember their ages exactly but F was probably about 5 years older than me at the time, and M was only a couple years younger than her) to eat a full bowl of veggies before they're allowed the main course. Friday night was a bowl of green beans (unseasoned, bland, steamed, soggy greenbeans) before spaghetti & meatballs and chocolate cake.

I hated veggies by themselves, and refused to eat the green beans. I refused them at dinner, I refused them at breakfast, I refused them at every single meal all weekend until my parents showed up to pick us up to find me vomiting water because that's all she'd let me have.

Now, my parents would often save uneaten, refused veggies/food for the next meal, but if we refused it two meals in a row, the next meal would be different. Aunt refusing to feed me for over 48 hours was completely unacceptable, and my parents never let us stay at her house without them ever again.

Bonus: a few weeks later my mom made green beans, seasoned well, and mixed in with some rice, peas, and other goodies, and I practically scarfed it down. Mom called Aunt from the kitchen wall phone (2000/2001) and told her "All you had to do was put them in some damn seasoned rice!"

I still don't like most veggies by themselves, but there are a few I'll eat alone as long as they're cooked and seasoned well.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/TheGrandmasterGrizz on 2024-06-11 20:46:51+00:00.

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Context: I work in flooring installation, commercial mostly, usually carpet or vinyl tiles, have been doing this for 10 years now.

I got a work order to do a head office for a large developer, it was carpet tile but with a pattern/lines/border.

I start installing and just as I get the first tiles out after laying the glue, the "big boss" comes out.

He says I'm doing it wrong.

I was absolutely stunned, I looked at him, looked back at the tiles I had just put down, looked at him again and asked, "What?"

"Those numbers on the back of the tile are the sequence order, you need to follow the numbers." He replied.

What he is talking about are God knows what, part #s, serial #s, lot #s?

They have nothing to do with installation so if I actually followed whatever he was saying it would look like a mess not the intended pattern.

I tried explaining this to him but he wouldn't have it, he got frustrated and called the head office, who in turn called me and said to just do it how he wants it.

So I did.

As I'm finishing up he comes back, takes one look at it and says "I don't like it."

I smiled and said "I don't care, that's how you wanted it." Packed my stuff up and left, he didn't say another word to me.

Few days later I hear that he called the head office asking for someone else to come redo it the way I had original intended to do it, so they sent me again and I got paid to remove the work that I just got paid to install so I can get paid to install it again.

Needless to say that he didn't come out to make small talk the second time.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/commonly_known_BS on 2024-06-11 19:28:24+00:00.

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First of all, English is not my first language so I apologise in advance for spelling and vocab errors. And I am not sure if this exactly falls under malicious compliance, but I wanted to share it anyways.

This story is kind of a short one concerning my mum. Quick info for the setup: the house she lives in now was formerly rented to our grandmother who died around the time my parents got divorced a couple of years ago. My parents had built the house in 1990 at around the same time as an older woman did on the neighbouring property. Let's call that woman Rita. When I was a toddler, we lived in the same house as my grandmother but then moved. I still remember that something was always a bit odd about Rita and she was... particular. Her house smelled stale and of old shoes stored in a wet basement, and she had been a teacher before retirement, a strict one judging by her personality. Her whole property is fenced in and at the front gate there is no bell. As far as I know, you'd have to yell and hope she was home if you'd wanted something from her or climb the fence. This is something I haven't figured out in 28 years yet.

Rita always had her own opinions and was strange when it came to cars from visitors or even vehicles from the plumber or handyman parked in the tiny cul-de-sac our houses were located around. When my sister and I got old enough to drive a car and we'd park at the side of said sul-de-sac or there was a birthday gathering, you could bet all your money Rita would get her car out of her garage on her property and park it outside of her fence as well. Everyone would have to squeeze their car around hers then. She does it to this day. Just to make a point, I guess.

When my grandmother died and my mum renovated the whole house to not have it remind my mum of her (our father had been pressuring her to get out of the old family house and move into the one our grandma died in barely 8 weeks before) Rita would give her unwelcomed two cents about how it was different from how it was for nearly 30 years. She would ask what my mum would do with the flowers and plants "my grandma had loved and tended to all those years" when my mum remodeled the garden as well and if she thought my grandmother would like the changes since the house and garded did not resemble its former appearance. You know, statements you just don't want to hear during such a difficult time.

To cut this story short, Rita did many more things in her own form of demonstration of disapproval or she would phrase criticism like a well meant comment.

So, the day comes when my mum orders big metal plates (around 1x2 metres) with long stilts to hold them upright just at her side of the fence to Rita's garden (the fence is low and doesn't block the view). This sort of metal is supposed to oxidise as garden decoration and with a second purpose of creating a divider while the hedge was still growing. Here in Germany there are many regulations for everything, some more sensible and logical than others. One of them is that for such metal deviders to be installed, you need your neighbour's approval when they are 2,00 metres high or higher and located between your properties. My mum had no intention of asking Rita because she would say no (not that Rita asked when she planted her stuff right at the fence and it grew into my mum's flower beds) so a family friend dug up the holes, filled them with concrete, and errected the metal dividers at exactly 1.99 metres height. This way, my mum was complying with the laws and would have easily denied any accusation if Rita would have taken issue with the new additions. They were under the 2 metre mark, after all.

When I came over for a visit after their installation, my mum proudly showed them to me and told me why the exact height was so particular. We raised our wine glasses to this brilliant idea and each time I see the metal dividers, I am reminded of how mischievous my mum can be if she wants to and how Rita has to look at oxidised metal plates from her side of the fence.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Admirable_Pause_4774 on 2024-06-11 17:17:39+00:00.

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So I'm not sure if this counts as Malicious Compliance but I'll post here for now.

At my previous job I worked as a Peer Trainer (essentially, I was required to do my assigned job to it's full capacity while also teaching everything to the newbies straight off the street. Not only did I agree to do this I had volunteered for it. So this isn't a story about overwork. 👍)

I worked in a large room where there were 5 stations of machines all lined up in a row from one wall to the other. All stations do the exact same thing just with their own bugs and hiccups. One wall wasn't even a wall but a giant window that looked into the breakroom. I have major anxiety about being snuck up on or watched without my knowing. Enough to cause sudden anxiety attacks that can last for hours or until I can remove myself from the room/building and sleep it off. (I hate it, it's super inconvenient.)

Thankfully this isn't an issue for the most part because since I know the triggers I can avoid them or set up precautions (like sitting with my back to a wall) and my coworkers are usually understanding and don't sneak up on me.

This window also proves to be a distraction for the trainees because they will try to look for and interact with their friends who are in the breakroom. I get that the job I was training them for was boring as heck, 12 hours long, and on the night shift but we were working on large machines that needed to be watched at all times in case they jammed or broke. (Which was often)

Thankfully my station was the 3rd one away from the window so I could easily keep everything maintained.

The Problem was (as it always seems to be in these stories) when a new supervisor moved to our area of the building. He was put in charge of station 1 and station 2. (I'm assigned to station 3) And technically speaking station 1 was supposed to be the "training station".

I had previously made a verbal agreement with his predecessor and the Training team that I could stay on #3 because of the previous points.

Without asking or even giving me a heads up I came back to work from a vacation day to find that I had already been reassigned to section 1, despite the protests of my coworkers in my absence. (Not to be that person but there was a reason the Training team was so willing to bend the rules for me. I was REALLY good at my job. I was the go-to person to ask when something broke and even Maintenace couldn't fix it. I've been told by my own leads that they refuse to let me transfer off their team without my insistence.) So a sudden and unprompted transfer like this was commonly considered extremely rude and was usually used as a punishment.

I figured that, as I had never met this new Super before, I would just go talk to him and strike up the same deal as I had with all his predecessors for 4 years. I even had the lead for station 1 come with me to confirm my case and act as witness. (she knew me well as an operator because I'd come over to help her fix her machines ALL THE TIME.)

I quickly realized that he was not going to budge on the transfer, so I told him calmly that I was ready to quit being a trainer that day and to have the extra pay cut off immediately. It's not like I was gonna lose my job and the trainer pay was less than a dollar more an hour. I was doing this because I wanted to, not because I needed it. He was shocked.

We eventually agreed that I'd finish training my current trainee in my area while he looked for someone else and until my request to quit training made its way to payroll. Cool.

Apparently NOT cool. He came back 3 days later saying (with no proof or paper) claiming that HR said I had no choice. This bothered me for a few reasons. First, he did not call me into a meeting for this, he, despite my many warnings to him about my anxiety triggers, snuck up behind me with a group of supervisors to deliver the order. Second, none of the supervisors with him were actually ones in charge of me in any capacity. My lead, direct supervisor, or ANY of the Training team that I was under were not there. (I want to make this clear; this man was not my boss in any way. He was assigned to the training section, yes, but had no authority over the trainers as Trainers. So if a trainer was operating on a different section, he had no authority.) The third thing that bothered me was that instead of looking for a new person like he promised, he took the time to find a way to force me to do what he wanted.

As soon as he and his group appeared out of nowhere to quite literally surround me and block me in, I could already feel that stupid fight or flight kick in. I could barely keep my brain together enough to actually register what they were telling me. I could only agree in hopes that it would get them to leave sooner hoping that I might be able to calm myself down and get in control again. (I really hate causing a scene.) When they left, I went to break, before I moved to section one.

Finally, this is where the malicious compliance comes in. Despite my best efforts I could not calm myself over break. So when I went back and moved to sit beside the giant window, the added anxiety of THAT hit me pretty hard. Just like I had warned.

So I decided that since this came with a full and repeated warning from my end, I wasn't going to do anything to mask the anxiety attack this time. (I don't have them often and usually do my best to minimize the burden they cause to the people around me. This results in a few silent tears and lots of fidgeting and a bit of pacing.) This time however I just let it happen, we're talking rapid frantic pacing, red faced and tears streaming down my cheeks, strained breathing and digging my nails into my arms and hands.

My poor trainee had no idea what was going on and I was unable to teach her anything because I will go Non-Verbal when my anxiety acts up. (Which means I'm completely useless as a trainer!) When my coworker got back from his break (a prior trainee of mine and an old sweetheart) he covered me so I could go home.

After a few calls and texts to my leads and coworkers, I used up some PTO and didn't come back in until I was no longer officially a trainer and could transfer back to my area.

That supervisor was fired a few weeks later due to multiple complaints on top of being caught in the act of fucking a coworker INSIDE the building. (She got fired too, much to the joy of everyone else. She was a Karen and a suck up, and yelled at two of my very young and nervous trainees for following orders she didn't understand. Honestly, they're a match made in hell, and I hope they ended up happily together so no one else would have to suffer their attention.)

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Icy_Pineapple_8014 on 2024-06-11 17:08:49+00:00.

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I'm not 100% sure if this clears the bar for malicious compliance or whether it's just senior management suffering the outcome of their own decisions.

I was a project manager working in a multi-million pound business where the single use products were typically $100k+. The items typically sat in store for decades until required or they eventually became life expired and had to be disposed of.

My remit was a slightly unusual one within the company as I was responsible for the post delivery support, for which there wasn't a great deal of need given the nature of the items. The bulk of the work was taking randomly selected units out of store and destructively testing them to check that they were ageing as expected and inferring from those results that all the rest of the stock were still sound and fit for use, if required in an emergency.

However, very occasionally items did get damaged during storage, special tools were lost, or someone drove a very heavy tracked vehicle over them. Our group was tasked with servicing these small value orders.

To enable us to do this, one other person and I were authorized to produce quotes up to a value of $1k without us needing to go through the full commercial approval process. We just had to keep the Sales and Finance depts informed. Oversight was maintained when/if the quote was accepted and a formal purchase order raised.

The full approval process was designed for the main company tenders and required a detailed breakdown estimate of manhours and bought out equipment, a cashflow analysis, risk register, milestone payments etc. etc. The value of these contracts was usually in the tens of millions, and hence required a formal review and sign off by the MD or Finance Director as a minimum.

The MD of our firm moved on to greater things within the corporate group, and rather than promote from within, corporate parachuted a new guy in who was known to be hot on financial control. One of his very first acts was to cancel my ability to sign off minor orders. Instead he insisted that they go through exactly the same process as everything else, which I could sympathise with, but the datapack required was completely and utterly over the top for our minor orders.

We did petition the MD to be allowed to produce a streamlined datapack and a relaxation on Director level sign-off but this was rejected. It was at this point that we may have drifted into malicious compliance.

We started to produce the full datapacks for every little order, as required. We did however conciously make no attempt whatsoever to group like items together or encourage customers to do the same. We made no attempt to make the new edict work in any sensible way. Instead everything was done separately. A customer needs a new o-seal because one has split or been damaged? 12 page datapack detailing the whole shebang and then a meeting with the MD or Finance Director to obtain sign-off.

It became an informal competition to see who generated the lowest value order requiring sign-off. I should also point out the standard terms of the existing support contracts precluded the costs of bidding being included in these orders.

I'd like to say that sense was seen and a streamlined sign-off process adopted, but it wasn't. The MD just told us to stop bothering him and rely solely on the Finance Director for sign-off instead. It was still going on over two years later when I left.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/eqsoge on 2024-06-11 14:46:09+00:00.

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I used to work in a workshop were sheds were produced for farms and businesses. I was brought on as a general labourer whose tasks were to clean and maintain the yard and workshop, clean and spray steel and to load up the truck with any completed sheds.

When I first joined the company there was 3 other workers there who had their own jobs to complete, one persons job was to make flashings for the sheds, one person would run the saws and fabricate any plates and cletes needed and then there was a welder.

Slowly but surely the other workers began to quit due to finding better paying jobs in different company’s and eventually I was the last worker there who had to run everything by myself which I had no issue in doing as I prefer to be able to work by myself.

So one day I needed welding wire and normally it would of been the bosses job to go and pick up any materials or supplies I needed but on this day the boss was away delivering a shed so I went out of my way to go and pick up the welding wire myself so I could get a job finished that was behind schedule but issues arised when I informed the boss that he needed to pay me back for the wire as I had to pay for it out of pocket but I was told that I shouldn’t be doing anything that’s not written in my contract and that I won’t be getting the money back for the wire as he never agreed to pay for it.

So I went back to my original duties that I had when I first joined the company. After a few days of this he came into the yard screaming at me as there was no sheds being manufactured and I told him that he better get hiring as I won’t be doing anything out of my jobs description like he stated for me to do.

After 2 weeks of this he hired a new worker who had no idea how to do anything and he tried to get me to train him but I wouldn’t as that was going out of my jobs description. This went on for about 3 weeks before the company ended up going into liquidation to due to the boss failing to file accounts for the past 4 years.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Unhappy_Wolf_8611 on 2024-06-10 22:15:51+00:00.

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I rent a room in suburban Phoenix. The landlord lives with me. We've been getting highs of 110 and lows of 90. I work in the evenings at a factory while my landlord works during the day.

I've been setting the AC at a comfortable temperature of 85 during the day but my landlord stopped me from doing so. He said that using the AC at 110 costs too much and damages the AC unit. I told him I'm happy to pay extra, but he wouldn't budge.

What's more is that my landlord himself turns on the AC when he arrives home, and sets it to 70. He says that since it's only 90 outside, it's doesn't cost much or damage the unit.

Now, I grew up in Sudan without an AC. I know a lot of survival tricks but these are best suited for stone houses, not furnished and carpeted ones. However, I care more about my landlord's wishes than his house.

Here's what I do.

I walk around with a wet towel drapped on my neck. The water gets into the carpet and might eventually cause odors, but I must obide with my landlord.

During daytime, I sleep by wetting my t-shirt. The water gets into the mattress and might eventually ruin it, but I must obide with my landlord.

I open the windows and hang a wet mesh to let a cool breeze in. It might damage the window sill and attract some bugs, but hey, the company is nice.

I also take long, cold showers throughout the day.

The cherry on the toping is that I got this room off Craigslist and didn't sign a lease. It's all cash and the landlord only has a bond of $100 (which he'd probably never give back even if I left the house in an immaculate condition). I think Imma just bail if he ever catches on.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Er0v0s on 2024-06-10 20:34:32+00:00.

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In my sophomore year of high school our English class had to write an essay about a book. Can't remember which book, but it doesn't matter. Well when our essays were handed back, no one had gotten a good grade on it. The teacher told us that we had to revise our essays based on the corrections we were given and then turn them in again. She wanted 3 copies, the original, the revised one with corrections we made highlighted, and a final copy without the highlights. I look at mine and compare it to everyone else's essay, everyone else has the teacher's comments written in red, things underlined, stuff crossed out. Mine just has my grade, it was a D. So I talk to my teacher after class and ask her what I needed to fix since my essay had none of her comments. Her response was that I had to rewrite my essay. Again, I ask what do I need to change to get a better grade. She tells me that it wasn't good and I needed to rewrite the entire essay. Cue my malicious compliance. I rewrote my entire essay... word for word... TWICE! One for the highlighted copy and one for the final draft. I highlighted random words and sentences on the highlighted copy, but again, it was the same as the one that was given a D. A week later we get our grades back and mine had improved to a B. The annoying part was that I couldn't even call her out on it because my school has a plagiarism policy where you can't submit the same assignment twice because that would be cheating.

Sidenote: this teacher also wrote on a different book essay of mine, "did you even read the book." When I had gotten yelled at for reading that same book in her class instead of listening to her teach.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/pimilpimil on 2024-06-10 08:56:13+00:00.

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So I (30F) has been working with this company for 3 years already. I work on retail and our managers are always micro managing and will write us up each time even just by breathing 😂 (jk) but you can tell that's how they are up our nose all the time especially I was once written up for eating during my lunch break in our shop (that's for another story)

Now on to the original story. My day offs are scheduled every Thursdays and I was already feeling ill days before my day off, I had waited until my day off to rest and hope I could feel better but when the end of my day off comes, I still feel sick so I informed my boss if I can use my excess hours and not come to work the next day since I am so sick. Just for context, our company never pays for our overtime but expects us to work 12 hours of everyday and per day they will give us 2 hours excess and since I never requested until that particular day, I had racked up 120 excess hours overtime which can be used for dayoffs etc.

I had only requested a 1 day extra off which would amount to 10 hours to be deducted from my long extra hours accumulated but my boss threatens to write me up if I don't provide a doctor's note and she informed me that even if I will provide one, she won't deduct it to my hours.

So I comply and went to doctor and take a medical note and was given a 3 day recommended rest and sent it to my manager. Now she has no choice but to let me have additional 3 more days paid sick leave and I won't be back to shop until Monday instead of just giving me a day to rest 😂

Now Saturday comes and the shop has a lot of issues without me and my reliever is having hard time coping from work so my manager calls me and I didn't respond to any of her messages nor calls and just rested well.

Monday came and I reported the company to Labour claims and the company was forced to pay me that 120 hours overtime 😂

Checkmate!

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Fire_The_Torpedo2011 on 2024-06-09 21:22:06+00:00.

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I used to work permanent nights.

On nights, we often had sickness at the last minute that no one was willing to come in and cover. So, we used to all help out one another. We didn't do it for the praise, or for additional money (there wasn't any!) , we did it because we were colleagues for years and there was no one else.

Inevitably, our work was taken for granted. The managers NEVER thanked us for helping them out of the shit, but they also started to assume that we would cover everything, so they made less and less effort to arrange cover for absence, even planned absence they knew about in advance.

On night, before work, I came into work and received a shitty email complaining about staff in our department using the computers of another department. Now, we had our own computers. The ONLY time my department ever used the other departments computers was when we were covering their absence. The email chain showed the other department complaining about us to my manager, who sent out an email to all the night staff in my department saying "from now on, DO NOT USE the other department's computers."

I was fuming, because as I said, we only did it to help out, and to stop the other department having to cover night staff at short notice. But I thought "fine, that's how it is."

The very next night, the other department is short-staffed again. The supervisor on that shift asks me to cover their department. I say no, I can't. I have been told not to use their computers by my manager.

The supervisor says "oh no, that's okay. You can use them." I say: "No, I can't. My manager told me not to, under any circumstances."

So she gets her manager to call me, the same manager who complained about us and say: "for this one shift (!) you can use our computers" as if she is doing ME the favour.

So I say: "no, I really can't. You are not my manager. I cannot defy my manager's instructions."

Because they can't get my manager on the line that late a night, another supervisor had to come in last minute and cover the shift.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/crazygay4hire on 2024-06-09 20:09:28+00:00.

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I (35m) used to work at a hardware store that rhymes with blows. About ten years ago I was a sales associate out on the floor. One day I decided to get my industrials pierced because as I knew the policy I noticed the front end and a few managers had piercings that did not fit in the policy so thought it was a bit lax. After I got the piercings I got wrote up for not following policy. So I researched the policy and purchased a blows beanie so I could meet all dress codes while covering them up. I still got wrote up and I started disputing with HR about it because they were covered and I was following policy even though they were ignoring policy on the front end and allowing them to have face peircings. After a few weeks of fighting it ended up going to HR outside of the store. District HR calls me in for a meeting with a few store managers and the local HR. HR and managers inform me that even though they are covered blows still has a no piercings above a certain amount, location, and size policy even though they can't see them and I need to get rid of them because they say it's a safety hazard. In comes my compliance questions. I ask how they know I'm wearing and breaking policy if they can not see them. They say they have the right to ask me to take off beanie if they think I have them in and that they notice them in my ears when I'm walking into my shift. I repeat with a slightly different question. "So does that mean your going to make me whip my d*ck out every shift to make sure I don't have my c0ck peircing in? Are you going to make everyone take off shirts to verify no one is wearing nipple piercings?" HR started backtracking real fast. (I actually don't have a c0ck peircings or nipple piercings, but they didn't know that). After questioning the policy and arguing they couldn't enforce what they couldn't see without sexually harassing people to fit their policy. HR ended up dropping all wright ups and two weeks later blows changed the piercing policy to allow more piercing options and dyed hair. I like to think I helped with that policy change.

TLDR; HR wrote me up for peircings I had covered. I fought them with inappropriate piercing placement questions. They ended up changing policy.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/ZacZupAttack on 2024-06-09 18:41:12+00:00.

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Used to sell cars, one year I sold a V6 Premium Mustang to a client, who became my friend. Lets call this guy John.

John was a good guy, a troubled guy, but a good guy. He liked to drink. I liked to drink too, he loved his Mustang from me, and that's how we became friends. He bought the car from me, we when out drinking together, became friends.

Johns drinking got worse...a lot worse. John story doesn't have a happy ending. Long story short John drunk himself out of a job, ended up getting evicted and moved in with his parents at 50 years old. Obviously John was no longer making payments on the Mustang.

The Mustang sat in John's parents garage. Which made it super hard for the repo man to get. One day John is telling me the bank is trying to repo the car, but he hates the bank, and he is going fuck them over and never let them have the car. Thinking I go "What if I buy the car?" John goes "What ya mean" and I tell John since he's active repoession I can try to buy the car from the bank at a super big discount. John tells me he still owes nearly $30k on this Mustang and its not worth anywhere close to that. And I tell John I would have no intentions of paying anything close to what the car is worth. John tells me if I can buy the car from the bank, he'll hand over the car to me, I tell him if this happens I'll give him some cash.

So I contact the bank, get to the bank manager and tell them I'd like to buy Johns vehicle, and I'm willing to pay $7k for the car. The car is worth closer to $20k. I get told my offer is absolutely insane and there is no way they'd ever accept that offer. I tell the bank that's fine, that's their business.

The bank calls me back, and asks me if I know where the car is. I tell them I do, they ask me where it is I tell them its in a locked garage. The banks know they can't break and enter into that garage to get the vehicle and as long as its there...they can't really touch it.

I tell the bank "$7k, you give me the paperwork for the vehicle I'll worry about the rest" they go "That's not even close to what its worth" and I go "And your not even close to getting the car"

A week passes, the bank calls me up "We'll sell you the car if you pay us $10k" I go "I'll go up to $8k and thats my last offer" bank goes "Deal"

I wire over them $8k, they give me the title/etc all the paperwork.

I call up John, tell him I just fucked his bank for over $20k and they are going take a massive loss on his deal. John and I plan a time for me to come collect the car from me. I go down there, give John $300 for his troubles and take his car.

I drove that car for a year

I sold it for $16,000

TL:DR I used my inside access to a vehicle to bend a bank over the barrel and buy a car for well under book value

O yea car was in good condition too, John drinking had gotten to the point where he never drove, but he didn't have money, the car had been sitting in the garage for about 6 months when I got it. Ran great, had no issues with the vehicle.

John passed away from liver failure about a year later. He refused to get sober, he was offered lots of help.

O yea I also carried risk, had John had a change of heart that car could have set in his garage and there would be little I could do to get it out. I could have ended up with a title to a Mustang I can't access.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/LaTommysfan on 2024-06-09 16:40:06+00:00.

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Sil worked as a partner in a large health care consulting company which was then bought out by a larger firm. As far as the negotiations for the buyout one of the provisions was that the incoming partners could not be layed off. The new company apparently didn’t want the healthcare consulting part of the business that was my sil’s main focus so they wouldn’t allow her to write new contracts. She had a very good reputation and knew a lot of people in the industry so she got a contract signed for millions of dollars but her company refused to let her manage it so it was canceled. So for the next 12 years she didn’t have any work to do, she would only go to the office for postage and printing. She spent the afternoons going to the movies or playing golf. Every now and then she would have a meeting with her boss who would try to convince her to quit, she would always say the company was not offering enough money. She eventually got to the mandatory retirement age and was forced to retire.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/WithoutDennisNedry on 2024-06-09 15:39:19+00:00.

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I posted this as a comment in another sub and someone DM’d me, said y’all would like to hear the story. I hope it fits here. TL:DR at the bottom.

I have a very good friend who maliciously complied her way into getting paid for essentially doing absolutely nothing for 19 months.

It was a government job, no surprise there. She and her colleague worked in a state office that kept track of plague cases among prairie dog towns. They were super busy trapping and testing all summer but once winter comes, prairie dogs hibernate so they ran out of work. They told their boss via email there was no more to do for the season that first autumn and their boss responded by telling them to stand by for reassignment. So… they did. For months.

They didn’t want to be accused of theft by just clocking in and out and leaving so in the very beginning, they organized some storage spaces (very slowly), cleaned their office several times, organized paperwork and that sort of thing. When they ran out of shit to do, they started sleeping, doing school work, sudoku, what have you. Initially, they slept in turns so someone was always available if anyone came to check in on them but when it became obvious no one was coming, they stopped bothering.

By summer the following year when the prairie dogs came out of hibernation and she thought her work might resume, the whole office (all the employees, in every department) received an email from someone high up informing everyone that particular department had been cut. Don’t know if it was unfunded, or they got all the data necessary the previous summer, or that particular pet project of some politician was forgotten about, but somewhere along the line, the state fish and game axed the project for whatever reason.

Nothing was mentioned in the email about her job status so her and her coworker continued to go in and do nothing.

She’d tell me about making a giant binder rubber band chain and roping two office chairs together facing eachother to sleep in the seats (she’s only 5ft tall so she fit relatively well), making a “nest” under her desk, and moving the large-ish copy machine out of its cabinet and sleeping inside.

They made sure the security people saw them periodically throughout the day and they were on camera, anyone above them paying attention would have noticed but no one ever took the time. They dodged folks in the other departments for fear they’d get told on and just minded their own business (they rarely had much interaction with other employees anyway).

Eventually, she ran into her “boss” at a show and she asked my friend where she had found new work. My friend didn’t lie and said she still worked there. Where? Where you left them. She said you should have seen her face when the lady put the pieces together and realized what was going on.

The jig was up and she and her colleague were let go that following morning via email before they went in. Because they had technically worked there for so long (I think two years was the threshold), they both got a little severance package.

In case you’re wondering, they got to keep their pay since: 1. they had proof they informed their boss they had no work and she clearly saw the email and responded, 2. they still showed up, 3. they did exactly what they were told, and 4. it wasn’t their job to make sure they actually had work to do. They both qualified for unemployment to boot.

Neither of them used the unemployment since they had both been feeling like the gravy train was sure to derail any day so they had new jobs lined up.

TL;DR: My friend’s job became obsolete. When she informed her boss she and her colleague had no more work to do, she was told to stand by for reassignment. My friend “stood by” for 19 months and got paid to do nothing until she ran into her boss at a show and her boss finally figured out what was happening. My friend and her coworker were quietly let go with a little severance package.

•Edited to add: thank you all for your stories! I had no idea it was so common to “misplace” employees that continue to get paid. Y’all are opening my eyes. Keep ‘em coming!

The quote from Independence Day comes to mind as I read your comments:

“You didn't think they actually spent ten thousand dollars for a hammer, thirty thousand for a toilet seat, did you?”

It’s not Area 51 all that money is going to, it’s forgotten and redundant government employees!

•Edit strikes back: I got my friend’s permission to tell her story of course, and she asked me to include some more things they did with their time while “standing by” (she doesn’t Reddit):

-One autumn, he and her colleague decorated the shared nap hiding spot (a walk-in storage closet) with miniature Halloween decorations and then re-enacted scenes from Hocus Pocus.

-She spent a whole lot of time editing Wikipedia for grammar.

-She learned to knit. Then she learned she doesn’t like knitting.

-Her colleague downloaded plans from the internet on how to make a personal flying device (think: jet pack) and tried to make it with office supplies at 1/16th scale. They knew it wouldn’t fly, they just wanted to see if they could build what it would look like.

-During Christmas, they wrote all new jingles about how bored they were. There were 14 completed songs in total and they recorded them on a little mini tape recorder she still has.

-Her colleague went to night school (evening school, really) and did his homework during the day. By the time they were finally let go, he was just shy of becoming a paralegal. He did finish school and went pretty much straight into a job and all these years later, he’s now a real estate attorney. Good for him!

-“We invented Uber and Lyft.” That is, they worked out a solid plan for a non-taxi ride service that would work based on ordering a car via the internet (this was before smartphones).

-She wrote a bunch of serial killers in prison and told them how disappointed she was in them. She never received a reply.

Thanks again for sharing your stories! Y’all are outstanding humans and you have a fantastic day. :)

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/freckles42 on 2024-06-09 07:48:55+00:00.

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When I was in high school 25 years ago (ouch), I had the same math teacher for both junior and senior year. She was a hard-ass and a riot. She liked that I was good at math; she did not like that I did not give a crap, study, or do my homework for math class. I still got As on my tests and quizzes, which were the vast majority of our grades. I had, in fact, done the math and realized I could go all year without doing any homework and still get an A, so long as I participated in class regularly.

Anyway, one of the rules for our math tests was that we were normally permitted to use a freshly-wiped TI-83 calculator. However, for some of our tests, she warned us that we were not going to be permitted to use any kind of electronic calculator for the test. She gave us a sheet with the instructions for the test, what was being tested, etc.

I heard that, immediately spotted a loophole, and heard a challenge being issued.

Went home and asked my father — an attorney, so also a fan of malicious compliance — if he could show me how to use his scientific slide rule. It was the same make/brand that NASA used on the Mercury and Apollo missions, so HIGHLY accurate, and he had it because he went to a prestigious tech school (think MIT-quality). Once I had the hang of it, I happily brought it to class for the test a few days later. I sat in the front row (assigned seating) so she saw it immediately.

‘Freckles42, no calculators on this test.’

‘Miss, the sheet you gave us says no electronic calculators.’ I handed her the sheet she’d given us at the beginning of the week.

A long silence.

‘Do you know how to actually use that?’

‘Yes’m.’

A sigh. She asked me to demonstrate with a quick equation. I did just fine and she finally just shrugged and said I’d still have to show my work.

I would have had to anyway, but it was good to be able to confirm my answers were correct, which was the entire point for me, really.

Next test said, « No calculators besides your brains and your fingers are allowed to be used on this test. » I’m guessing she didn’t want someone to turn up with an abacus.