Malicious Compliance

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People conforming to the letter, but not the spirit, of a request.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/ecplectico on 2025-02-25 17:52:17+00:00.


I worked as a line cook at a prime rib/steakhouse restaurant. We also sold marinated chicken breasts. The breasts were submerged in the marinade in a short bin. We’d make the marinade in the bin and dump in a several dozen frozen breasts, put them in the walk-in refrigerator under the previous day’s bin containing unsold breasts from the night before.

Out of the blue one day, the manager says I have to start inventorying the unsold breasts at the end of the night. Closing the line down after working over a hot grill is tiring enough. The additional job of going into the walk-in, which was very cold, and fishing through the near-freezing opaque marinade for these limp breasts was a pain in the ass that I did not appreciate.

After doing it a few days and hating it immensely, I started putting fake numbers down on the inventory sheet. I still had to count them, because I couldn’t just say that there were 14 breasts when there might actually be 32. That would be so obvious that it would get me in trouble.

Instead, I’d take one or two off the real number one night, use the real number the next, then subtract one, then subtract two and so on.

That made the manager have to recount them in the morning.

It didn’t take long for the manager to call me into the office to complain. I just told him that I was doing the best I could fishing the things out of the dark marinade in the poorly lit walk-in, but that’d I’d continue to do my best. I was the best line cook he had, and I always worked hard, so he believed me.

Of course, I continued to miscount.

After a week or so of that, he told me that I didn’t have to count them anymore.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Greenlily58 on 2025-02-25 13:33:40+00:00.


So this recent mail sent out to US government employees sent me on a trip down memory lane.

Back in 2000, I was in an apprenticeship, which in my country lasts 2.5 to 3 years. About a year in, I got overwhelmed since all of my coworkers dropped work on me. My boss then put in two rules: 1. everything had to go through my instructor before I did anything. 2. I had to compile a list what I did every day and how long it took me.

While I enjoyed #1, I thought #2 was a bit too much. So I asked if they really meant everything I did. My boss said yes. So the first mail she got, looked like this:

  1. Turning on lights - 3 minutes
  2. starting computer - 1 minute
  3. turning on printer and other machines - 2 minutes
  4. preparing coffee maker - 3 minutes
  5. walking between offices in total - 10 minutes

etc.

Every single thing I did, except the bathroom breaks were listed. And the last was how long it took to write the mail.

The next day, she asked me to limit it to the most important tasks. Which I had to do for the rest of my time there, even after the boss changed. But they also made sure to give me exact instruction, because when they didn't, well...

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/SkwrlTail on 2025-02-25 10:36:53+00:00.


Meetings. Arguably a waste of everyone's time, a worthless imposition upon our finite existence.

But doubly so when one works nights.

Tonight gentle readers, I have a small tale of mismanagement and begrudging compliance with absurd requirements. The fallout isn't much, but I consider it a personal win.

So it came to pass many many years ago, when I was still less than a year working nights at this hotel, that the manager called a great and mighty meeting. All hands on deck! A mandatory meeting of great importance! New policies and practices! Lunch to be provided! All quite urgent, and very very mandatory.

I read the notice, and informed the manager that none of the topics to be discussed were anything I had to deal with during the night shift. Maintenance. Housekeeping. A Night Auditor cares not for these things. Could I in fact just skip the whole thing?

Nope.

Pleas that this would cut into my sleep schedule fell on deaf ears. Even if the meeting was functionally useless to me, it would be seen as unfair if everyone else had to show up, and I didn't. Be there tomorrow at noon or be written up.

Fine then.

This was before store inventories were easily searched online, so it took a while to make a few calls, but I finally found what I needed, twenty miles away. A quick shopping trip, then after work I went home for a short nap before the meeting.

My manager bounced into the meeting, ready to dazzle us with whatever speech he had prepared, only to notice all his employees stealing glances at the back corner.

There I was. Plaid pajamas. Dark blue bathrobe. Bed-rumpled hair. Dark bags under my eyes (I might have touched them up a little with makeup...) And upon my feet were a set of brand-new fuzzy bunny slippers that I had dashed to get for this very occasion.

The boss sputtered protest, but I pointed out that for me, this was effectively three in the morning, so his presentation had better be worth it.

Spoilers; it was not worth it.

Not one item of the meeting had anything whatsoever to do with what I did during the night shift. None of it.

Furthermore, the lunch he'd provided - an admittely lovely sort of fried rice chicken casserole thing - hit almost all the items on my (admittedly rather long) digestive naughty list. Onions, heavy cheese, jalapeños and bell peppers, with enough fats that my comparatively recent gall bladder removal would have noped out after one bite. So not even the free lunch.

As the event wound down, with everyone else eating, I went to my manager, looked him dead in the eyes (more or less, I was tired), and told him exactly what a colossal waste of my time this whole thing had been, and that I would not be attending any further 'mandatory' meetings. If there was something I needed to know, a memo would suffice, thank you.

And that was how Skwrl got out of attending meetings forever. There have been other meetings. I have not been invited to attend them. I did attend the manager's going away party though. That was nice.

Teal Deer; Manager schedules mandatory meeting during my sleeping hours, so I show up in sleepwear.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/ChickenPoxParty on 2025-02-24 21:48:06+00:00.


Not sure if I should just post the article or relay the info in it, but I'm trying to actually, non-malisciously follow the rules here, so I'll just type the story myself. Anyways, I thought this was a prime example of malicious compliance:

Basically, the Wyoming legislature recently passed an act which says no state employee can be compelled or required to use someone else's "preferred pronouns". The act, S.F. 77, is called the "Compelled Speech is not Free Speech Act".

A constituent was testifying before a committee which was meeting to discuss the "What Is a Woman? Act", another ridiculous piece of legislature with a ridiculous name.

The constituent, named Britt, is called on to speak by Senator Tim French, a Republican who voted "yes" on the aforementioned S.F. 77. He is the chairman of this committee, and yes, he's a man who is cisgender.

Britt says: "Thank you Madam Chairman. As the Senate overwhelmingly voted--" before she is cut off by Senator French who does exactly what we hope: corrects her and asserts that he would prefer to be called "Mister Chairman" or "Chairman French". She of course reminds him of the recent act that was just passed, saying that she cannot be compelled to refer to him by his preferred pronouns or titles.

Obviously Mrs. French and other GOP lawmakers had intended for the spirit of this law to be an affront to trans people, and had hoped and expected that it would only be used to support disrespecting others.

EDIT: Non-AMP link to the article here:

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/scissorfella on 2025-02-24 21:28:32+00:00.


In 2021 I was working on a project with this manager called Mark who was a real stickler for the rules. He was the kind of dude who wouldn't allow chitchat in his team and loved an office day more than anything, despite the fact that our team was external and all of us lived crazy far away.

I've got a chronic disease which, at the time, was kept relatively under control with infusions at the hospital every few weeks. Seeing as Mark didn't want to chitchat, he wasnt aware that I live with this disease.

One day I was in the hospital, working from the bed with a cannula in one arm. We had our daily meeting planned and I figured it would be fine to call in without my camera, as they could still hear me just fine, and I didn't want to freak anyone out with the infusion line in the picture and whatnot.

I get onto the call and Mark immediately comments that he can't see my face. I tell him that I've not got my camera on today and don't elaborate, figuring that it's a 15 minute call and I could just as easily be driving or something. Mark responds by asking me to stay back on the call after we finish. I comply, and he chews me out for not turning on my camera, saying that it's a rule that we all need to show our faces.

Fine.

I turn on my camera and watch his face go from red to white, as he sees me in what is very clearly a hospital room. I tell him I'm uncomfortable being on camera while I'm getting treatment (also not elaborating on what it's for). His sweaty little face still brings me joy.

It was a really nice moment to bask in, and I think about it pretty often when I get managers who like rules just a little too much.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/texas1982 on 2025-02-23 03:19:10+00:00.


I saw this email from the Office of Personnel Management at Elon's request. He wants to know what you did last week. The "to" line is blank so it might apply to you.

To be safe, please send an email to hr@opm.gov with 5 bullet points of what you did last week. They asked kindly to not send attachments, but didn't say it was forbidden. They just asked not to.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/reddgrrl on 2025-02-22 19:31:28+00:00.


I used to work for a manager who was just terrible. All she was good for was approving time off.

She spent most of her work time planning her vacations, delegating her actual work, and taking credit for her employees work. And she would travel on the company dime to seminars and conferences and come back with no work related information to share but tons of stories about her vacation… I mean…her work trip.

She also did not believe in developing her staff. Opportunity for additional training, education, or certifications? Not for us. But she would go out of her way to take those opportunities for herself. And then give up on them as soon as she realized she would have to do the work.

I had requested some in-house training to that would have opened up some career opportunities for me and she kept making excuses for why I couldn’t get the trainings… it’s not in the budget, we can’t spare you, etc. Because she was my manager, it was completely up to her to approve it.

Well the training was $1500. And it included the tuition, the books, and the certification testing.

I finally gave up on asking and decided to apply to a graduate program in a related field to the training I wanted. Bc tuition reimbursement was a company benefit and didn’t require manager approval, I got accepted, and submitted my tuition reimbursement to the company for the following 2 years.

In the end, the company ended up paying for my graduate degree to the tune of 12k. All becuase my crappy boss wouldn’t approve in-house training for $1500.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Mighty-Marigold2016 on 2025-02-22 19:30:32+00:00.


I worked for a company years ago (rhymes with American Distress) that bought out another company (nicknamed Deathco). Our manager was actually booted out by corporate and replaced by the manager (we’ll call her Patty) from the bought-out company. We soon realized that she had some policies and expectations of employees that didn’t sit well with those of us who took the legal meaning of our non-salaried positions quite seriously.

Apparently, her staff meetings were held after work hours with everyone expected to stay and participate, but without overtime pay. Upon the first such meeting beginning at 5 pm there was a mass exodus of the original American Distress employees who were paid hourly. The looks on the faces of Patty and the Deathco employees were priceless!

The next day there was a memo circulated, stating that all future staff meetings would be held during the work day. 🙌🏼

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Outrageous_Lake_4678 on 2025-02-22 17:37:14+00:00.


The UK government asked Apple for a "backdoor" entrance into Apple's Advanced Data Protection (ADP) so the UK government can view Apple users' encrypted data. Apple said no, but then decided to completely remove access to this security tool option (ADP) from the market for Apple users in the UK.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/JWBootheStyle on 2025-02-22 01:34:24+00:00.


Not the typical story you find on here, but I think you guys will find it humerous.

For context I work in the Customer Service Department of a company that still does door to door sales.

Today I got a call from a gentleman stating that he was the President of his HOA and needed to add the entire HOA to our Do Not Visit list. I kindly explained that I would be happy to add his address but I couldn't not add any other addresses without the permission of the individual residents.

He proceeds to tell me that he is the President and I am going to do it because they voted for this. No sir I will not! He hangs up on me.

Calls back 10 minutes later assuming he will get a different person, but we are a small company and I am the only one on the phone. I patiently explain to him that our system does not allow us to enter an address without a unique call identifier and even if I try to enter more than one address, I will get an error message that the address has already been added even if it hasn't. He begrudgingly admits defeat...Or so I thought.

I received no less than 120 calls today from this HOA all asking to have their address added. I got nothing else done and am emotionally exhausted. I had to shut down the chat feature on our website and when I left today I still had about 50 unanswered voicemails.

If I wasn't on the receiving end of this I might actually respect the HOA for this move.

Edit to correct spelling errors.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/blueboy714 on 2025-02-21 12:13:15+00:00.


I'm retired now and have many MC stories - but this one is my favorite.

I was manager of a programming department with 2 dozen people reporting to me. Once in a while we'd have more work than we had programmers and my staff would bust their butts to get the work done.

I asked the division head if the company would buy lunch for my staff as a thank you for their hard work and was told no the company wouldn't do this.

I decided that wasn't right and decided to spend my own money on a dozen pizzas or a couple dozen subs. As management I received a nice bonus every year - thanks in no small part to my team's hard work.

Fast forward a bit and I scheduled a 2 hour meeting a couple times a year. The first part was training and the second part was lunch for my programming team.

The building I was in had about 200 people in it and they smelled the pizza/subs/lunch. When the lunch meeting were done people starting asking my staff where they got the pizza and they were told that I paid for them out of my own pocket.

I did this a bunch of times until the division head got an earful from other managers that my buying lunch for my staff was making them look bad. The other managers didn't think they should have to pay for lunch out of their own pockets (there were 8 departments and mine was second largest one).

After a couple years of this the division head made the "brilliant" decision to set aside money to be used by each department manager as they see fit for thank you gifts, lunches, etc.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/klabitz on 2025-02-21 07:15:24+00:00.


xscreensaver is a Linux X11 screensaver and the Android version basically does nothing except show some animations. The author JWZ was forced by Google to write a privacy policy in order to keep the app in the Play Store. So he complied and wrote one: XScreenSaver: Google Store Privacy Policy

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/larrybatman on 2025-02-21 02:38:12+00:00.


I worked for a major car company in the deep south as a financial analyst. Sat in an open cubicle.

A couple of the holier than thou types loved to complain about anything to HR. So one weekend I volunteered to work the booth at a car show. Free admission after I spent an hour handing things out. It was first thing in the morning and still quiet so I got to talking with the marketing women who were there. The company hired them to go all over the country to these shows.

They had a poster with our car and the four women I was speaking with in bikinis. I got an autographed one. Come Monday, I hung it up in my cubicle. Lots of murmurs from the holy crowd.

HR stops by right before lunch and asks me to take it down because they have had complaints that it's offensive. I point out that it's our own company's advertising. I ask them if they want to call what our company does offensive.

Left that poster up until I left a couple of years later.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/StatusTap5615 on 2025-02-20 22:26:18+00:00.


This was a few years back when I was active duty military. Officer in the healthcare side of things. Overall loved my time in, but the beauracy of a huge organization like the military eventually wore on me.

As a healthcare professional I would often use my days off to “moonlight” or work in private practice since the money is way better. This is perfectly acceptable in the military and most providers do. There’s some hoops you have to jump through but most commanders are fine with it. They often do it themselves.

Unfortunately, people come and go and we ended up with a first sergeant that liked to stick it to the officers whenever he could. So there was a time that I submitted leave for a day I was supposed to work in private practice and he denied the day off on a technicality. I don’t remember what it was, maybe I submitted a day late or something like that. I wasn’t going to let this stop me though.

I quickly reviewed our sick call policy and made sure to download a copy of it. Officers were treated with quite a bit of leniency and there was no requirement to report to work or submit a doctor’s note unless you were out for 3 days or more. This was what the policy stated. Also important is that this was the experience of every other officer in the unit. No one did anything more than call in sick if they were to miss a day.

So the day that I requested off rolls around and I unfortunately development the sniffles and called in sick. First sergeant is not happy and he tells me to report to sick call and submit a doctors note. I told him sure, just show me the policy that says I have to do that. We went back and forth on this all morning while I was working at the private practice. He kept reiterating that I needed I note, l kept telling him that I feel he’s unfairly targeting me in a way that other officers have not been.

He finally came back with “the commander says you need a doctors note, so you need one.” This was not something I could argue with, at least not in the moment. In the military if the commander says to do something you pretty much have to do it.

Cue malicious compliance… due to a weird quirk, my private practice office and house is an hour from the base I work at. There is however a base in the town where I live too. I had previously been stationed there but got moved down the road and didn’t want to move the family so I just decided to commute. So rather then drive all the way to base where I work, I devise a plan to go to the one more local to me.

By this time it’s close to lunch and I have about an hour before my next patients at the private practice. So I quickly drive to the hospital ER and as I’m walking in I start to convince myself of how “sick” i feel. By the time I walk through the doors and check in I’ve got a pretty good show going and tell reception that I’ve been throwing up all morning and can’t keep anything down. Nurse says “yea you don’t look too good” which I’m not sure how to take.

Provider sees me quickly and diagnoses a stomach virus. Asks me why I came in for it and I day commander made me for the note. He’s irritated by that but used to it. I’m about to be let go when he decides since I’ve been throwing up he should get some fluids in me and orders an IV. I glance at my watch and I have about 30 minutes left in my lunch. And with the busy morning I hadn’t kept up on my fluid intake so I figure, why not. So they hook up the IV and I chill on my phone for the next 20 minutes getting nice and hydrated.

Unfortunately my lunch was almost over and the bag is only about half empty. Cut to me unhooking the bag and squeezing the remainder in to the sink. Hooked it back up. Nurse comes in and sees it’s empty and I’m on my way. Doctor’s note in hand, nice and hydrated and in plenty of time to finish my schedule of patients after lunch.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Prestigious_Store_22 on 2025-02-20 21:46:59+00:00.


A little background first.

I (now 45m) used to be a military driver in the Dutch navy a long time ago and at some point I was stationed at a little navy base, meant for physical rehabilitation of navy personel. With little, I mean a base with less than a few hundred people. My function was to drive patients to the military hospital (CMH), to drive groups of people to the swimming pool, etcetera.

When I was at home in the weekends, I would do my workout at my regular gym, but on workdays when finished with my work, I would train in a small gym on-site where I was stationed, because I would stay on base during the week. I was about 21 years old and I was preparing for my very first bodybuilding contest, so I was muscular and working out a lot.

At some point the gym manager, a marine sergeant, told me that somebody at upper management was offended by my looks and that I was no longer allowed to wear a tanktop during my workout. My tanktop was wide fitting and purely functional and seemingly nobody was ever bothered by me wearing it, at least that's what I thought. I argued with him about how unfair I thought this was and pointed towards a fellow gym goer who was also wearing a tanktop and asked the sergeant why this guy wasn't told to not wear a tanktop during his workout. This man was athletic and in a fair shape, but not bulky and muscular.

The sergeant (I got along with him very well) agreed with me, but told me that the officers in charge ordered him to tell just me, and 'orders are orders'. He agreed with me though, but higher-up already decided, so he felt that he did not have a choice. At that point I just took my loss and finished my workout.

The next day I found the perfect solution and took one of the shirts we got in our (in dutch) PSU (Persoonlijk Standaard Uitrusting), what roughly translates to 'Personal standardised gear'. This shirt was a stretchy, slim fitted, white shirt, so I decided to wear that for my next workout.

When I arrived to the gym, the sergeant shook his head and told me that this was not what the officers in charge would appreciate, so I told him this was what the Navy gave me, so it cannot be wrong. My body was much more on display compared to the tanktop. The tight fit showed everything, especially when I was sweating. I was fully compliant with the dress code and nobody would be able to dispute that. The sergeant laughed because he knew I was right, but told me the officers probably would be pissed.

I kept doing my workout like this during that week and after the weekend the sergeant told me with a smile that higher-ups retracted their order and to please start wearing my tanktop again.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/eaglesong3 on 2025-02-20 01:34:15+00:00.


I do client interviews all day, every day. 6-9 appointments a day. Every single one starts with the same script. It's an entire page of text 3.5 minutes of regularly paced speech. I, however, have always had a great memory. So I have it (and several other standard scripts) memorized.

Every manager in my past has been impressed by this. My current manager (who I with all sincerity fear is developing memory issues herself unfortunately) decided to take offense at this and reported it to her supervisor who then took the issue to our policy department who insisted the script must be READ...from the page.

This irritates me because I have it so well memorized that I am able complete other actions on the client's cases and review reports and such while I recite.

My my compliance? I now sit there with the script in hand...held upside down...with my eyes closed as I pretend to read it.

If anyone calls me out on this, I swear to the Almighty that I'm going to request a braille version as a "reasonable accommodation" and I'll just sit there sliding my fingers around on it while I recite.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/dvdmaven on 2025-02-19 02:50:19+00:00.


I was working for a major aerospace company and one day a Senior Executive VP was at the entrance harassing people that were a few minutes late. "The job is 8-5 with an hour for lunch!" Fine. Then he got on the PA system and announced the same. Fine. 4 pm staff meeting. 5 pm hits everyone except our manager stood up and walked out. One of the last ones out the door said, "The job is 8-5 with an hour for lunch!" So, staff meetings were moved to 3 pm.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Recent-Patient-6449 on 2025-02-19 02:41:18+00:00.


So we have a fairly loose system at my work, where we're allowed to do other things if there is nothing else going on at the time. We also have a fairly even split between customer interactions and paperwork that needs doing.

The coworker who works next to me is an older woman with some views I find 'antiquated' at best, so I already didn't like her, but I was content to keep my mouth shut and not talk about that sort of thing at work (even though she likes to bring up her views such as calling people with schizophrenia drug addicts). Live and let live, trying to get along at work, whatever.

Now while there isn't anything going on, I tend to work on creative endeavours. Admittedly, there has been some times where I've been stressed out and done this instead of administrative work, although I always put it down the moment any customer interaction (in person or over the phone) needed to be done. This was wrong of me, I'll own up to that. She pointed it out (and I will admit I didn't like her scolding tone and found it condescending, but I was willing to ignore that) which was well within her rights to do. If it had ended there, I would have no problems.

The thing is, she has a habit of chatting, a LOT. Up to half an hour at a time of chatting and doing nothing else, not admin or customer interactions, leaving it all to anyone else at the desk (usually me, as she sometimes chats to the other person at the desk). She also makes long personal calls, not only booking in medical appointments but shopping around for the best price for these.

I did try to be polite and tell her that she was right to pick me up on slacking off before I brought up that it would be good if she could be aware of just answering the phone while she's talking about non-work related things. I don't know, maybe my tone was off, but she very much did not like that. Admittedly when she IS paying attention she's faster to get to the phone than me, so she does take a lot of calls. My issue is when she isn't, and I'm basically working solo. She got even more condescending and told me to 'not even go there' with her.

So I decided, fuck it. She's right, admin needs to get done. So now instead of multitasking (which I was sure to do even when I was not slacking off, doing admin until I saw someone come to the desk or until a phone call came in, taking care of that and then returning to admin), I'm going to focus hard on what I'm doing. I'm working on a form and someone comes to the desk? She can stop what she's doing to help. I'm checking data is accurate and a phone call comes in? Well she made sure to tell me how much better she is at taking calls, so she can keep being better than me and take it.

Obviously I'm trying to balance this with not impacting the customers too much. If it's a long form I will put it down to help them after a minute or so, if no-one else has. I won't leave a call ringing more than a minute and a half, that sort of thing. When I do finish the bit of admin I'm on I'll help the person or take the call. But I'm not pushing myself to make it easier for her to chatter away anymore.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/RustAndDirt on 2025-02-17 19:00:52+00:00.


20+ years ago now, I worked at a landscaping supply business driving a dump truck. I've been a software engineer for most of the time since, but at that time, well, mistakes were made and I spent a few years driving a truck. These were single axle trucks, 26,000Lbs gross. We often overloaded them by about a ton. Mascoutah was on the edge of the area we often delivered to and we occasionally took rock or mulch to the Highschool there.

I arrived one day with probably four or five tons of top-soil. If I recall correctly I had to drive around the school and find someone. I suspect I had been instructed on where to meet people and those people weren't there. I asked after the name I had on the delivery ticket -- it was written on there like I should know who they were -- when I found someone behind the school and was informed that it was a math or physics (I don't recall but something STEM related) teacher I was looking for. I think I asked that person if they could find the teacher for me. Eventually I met the teacher and three or four students in front of the school. I didn't know any of them. I might have still been 19 or 20 at the time and I looked young. It wasn't rare to be forced to find people for a delivery and everything was normal so far.

I got out of the truck and was told that the dirt was to be dumped into a planter they had been assembling with decorative blocks around the sign for the high school. It was out, maybe 50' into the grass between the road and the parking lot in front of the school. I hesitated, and might have managed to say "um" before being interrupted. I was going to say that "the truck would leave marks in the grass." The truck, at 12,000lbs empty, was heavy enough that it would compress the dirt and even though the grass would only be flattened, it would leave a trail anywhere the truck went, likely an inch or two deep that wouldn't go away anytime soon. The tracks would be conspicuous.

I don't recall if I got more than one syllable out before I was interrupted with a condescending tone, initially from the teacher, and then from one or two of the students. I tried to speak again, and again I was met with a mix of disbelief that I didn't understand the instructions, and further attempts to explain what they wanted me to do as though I was five years old or didn't speak English. I believe I attempted to speak two or three times before giving up.

I acquiesced, got back in the truck, and proceeded to drive out into the grass leaving ruts that the grounds keepers would regret for years to come -- the grass will be cut off level above these ruts but you'll still feel them when you drive over them with a mower -- I backed the truck up to one side of the planter and dumped dirt in until it was piled above the small semi-oval retaining wall and I was signaled to stop. The sign was in the middle of the planter which meant that the pile was only on one side. The other side was pretty much empty. I expected that we would want to drive to the other side of planter -- when you dump enough piles of something you get a feel for what it's going to take to fill a space -- but after being told to stop, I got out to suggest that they would want more dirt here to fill the entire planter. Again I was not able to finish a sentence. I attempted to tell them that when they spread the dirt out in the planter it wasn't going to be anywhere near the brim. I also would have been willing to stay while they moved some dirt over to the bare area so we could dump more in without spilling out onto the grass. It was clear they had no use for anything I might have to say. The disrespect was clearly intentional. I'm not sure if there was some perceived slight or if this was just a wolf pack who did this to everyone.

I was told to go dump the remaining soil -- there was probably two or three tons left in the truck, it could have been put to good use in the planter still -- out in a row-crop field back behind the school. Here's another intricacy of working with a dump truck you might not intuit: dirt doesn't spread evenly out of a dump bed. Most trucks have chains for the gate that allow you to meter how quickly the material comes out of the truck. These work great with small rock and gravel. With material that's more prone to clumping, you set the chains such that the gate can open wider and be less prone to clogging but, for dirt and mulch, it effectively just doesn't work. It hits the gate, compacts a bit, and is clogged. Then you can't release the chains because there are thousands of pounds of material pressed against it... you have to dig it out which is a lot of work even with gravity helping and of course the whole exercise was futile from the start. Thankfully these people didn't know to ask or I'm sure they would have directed me how to do my job and then I would have been faced with either arguing with people who didn't care what I thought or setting the chains and then spending 10 minutes unclogging the gate of the truck.

You might guess there's too much nuance in that to convey in a scenario where I've yet to be allowed to finish a sentence. We weren't having a conversation, and these people were enjoying this for some reason. This was a long time ago and I don't remember much of what was said to me but I do clearly remember one kid slowly explaining "Just take the truck over there and drive while you dump it out." -- Or something to that effect -- With hand gestures, like you would explain something to a child. By this point, I wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire, so I wasn't inclined to expose myself to any more of this noise.

I had them sign for the delivery, and then drove around the school and into the field. I felt a little bad for whoever farmed this field so I actually did try to make it work as well as possible. I also doubted they had permission. I drove about as fast as I was willing to drive in a recently tilled field, and started raising the bed. As topsoil is wont to do, nothing happened until the entire mass started sliding and essentially landed in the field in a large pile. You could tell that -- if you knew what you were looking at -- the truck had been moving when it was dumped but it was still a pile that someone was going to have to deal with.

I drove past the school a week or so later on another delivery. I was curious to see if they had gone out to the field to get some of the nice sifted top soil when they realized the planter was barely half filled, or to maybe use it to patch the ruts in the grass. There were still obvious tracks leading to the newly constructed planter. The planter was half filled with dirt leaving the back of multiple courses of block exposed. And the large pile of dirt was still standing out in the field. The planter stayed that way for years, I don't know if anyone ever fixed it. The entire complex was apparently demolished and has been replaced with a new building now, I moved out of the area a long time ago.

I'm not entirely certain that this was "malicious" compliance. I wasn't trying to be malicious, but I wasn't going to argue with people who were being both insulting and borderline-hostile. I held that job way too long, maybe 6 years, so I certainly had more bad or weird encounters with customers (like the time I guess I disappointed a couple trying to have a deliveryman three-way?) but this one was one of the worst.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/mightbedylan on 2025-02-17 02:43:31+00:00.


My work has one of the most ridiculous attendance policies I've ever seen. They are very stingy with exceptions. One particular rule that I've always found especially annoying is that you get double points if you call out before or after your weekend. This has never made ANY sense to me because I can't control when I need to miss work? Plus because I work weekends my days off are in the middle of the week so our slowest days are actually my Friday. Already im incentived to take days off during our busy days. Make it make sense.

Anyway there's been some bad weather lately and I live a bit away from work, plus I'm usually off after midnight. So if it's icy at all I'm very hesitant to call in. The thing is I've been kind of low on my points (was sick a couple times last year including COVID* plus had a few instances I was late due to car trouble. They only give points back after 30 days of perfect attendance so any car issues reset my point counter.)

The weather has been iffy the past couple weeks and there's really bad snow expected this Tuesday, technically my Friday. If I decide it's not safe to come in, I would be double pointed.

However, there's a fun loophole: If you take multiple days off you don't get any further points for additional days off. You just get points for the first day you miss. So, know that they means? It means if I call out tomorrow on Monday, and then extend my time off to Tuesday, I only get 1 point.

I literally get less points for missing two days rather then 1. Somehow, this seems reasonable to the higher ups. I was complaining to it to my supervisor who said "I understand it is frustrating but at some point you have to take personal responsibility for you points"

Oh well, I don't make the rules. Guess I'm getting a 4 day weekend. Gotta save those points. 🤙

*Side note: just to really hammer home the point of how dumb this policy is, I literally got pointed for having COVID AFTER BEING TOLD BY HR I WAS NOT ALLOWED TO COME IN.

AND IT WAS TUESDAY SO IT WAS FUCKING DOUBLE POINTS.

WHEN I WAS LITERALLY NOT ALLOWED TO BE AT WORK.

Stupid. Immeasurably stupid.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Wide_Trip8392 on 2025-02-16 20:31:01+00:00.


This happened almost 15 years ago when I was still living in my home country. I worked in a warehouse that served as a distribution center for a supermarket chain. A very famous one, by the way. I was an inspector in the shipping department. Basically, the sorting section would bring to the docks the goods that the store had requested, and we would prepare and load the shipment onto the truck.

In the shipping department, there were assistants who did the manual work (assembling the loads on pallets, wrapping them with stretch film, and loading them onto the truck), while the inspector checked whether everything being sent to the store was correctly labeled and secure for transport. Additionally, the inspector entered all data in the internal system, sealed the truck, and printed the load summary for the administrative department to generate an invoice.

Of course, inspectors also helped the assistants with the heavy lifting. Most of the time, this didn’t interfere with our main responsibilities and actually sped up the process, especially since our shift, the afternoon shift, had an issue with trucks arriving late. Many times, we wouldn’t finish everything on time, leading to overtime and sometimes having to leave the remaining work for the night shift, which wasn’t ideal since each shift had its own list of stores to attend to, and this delay affected them.

Each inspector worked with at least one assistant, but sometimes more, depending on their workload. Some inspectors had more stores to handle that day, some stores required extra loads, or other situations that called for additional help.

We had a supervisor who had been with the company for many years and had worked in the department before being promoted. The job was great, and everything ran smoothly, until a crisis hit another department, leaving it without a supervisor. Management decided they needed someone experienced to lead that department, so they transferred our supervisor there. In his place, they promoted someone from another department who had no leadership experience.

Our department was running well, with no need for drastic changes. But our new supervisor didn’t see it that way. One day, I arrived at work, and as usual at the beginning of the shift, the supervisor printed out a sheet listing the stores to be handled that day, along with which inspector was assigned to each one. So far, so good, he made some changes, but nothing too concerning. However, before we started working, he called the entire department for a quick meeting.

In this meeting, he announced that he had reassigned which assistants would work with which inspectors and showed us a printed list. To my surprise, there was no name next to mine. In other words, I was expected to work without an assistant. I protested immediately. I don’t remember the exact details of the discussion, as it happened a long time ago, but basically, his idea was that as other assistants finished helping their assigned inspectors, whoever was available would come help me, something that already happened naturally, as we had a strong sense of camaraderie in our department. Plus, no one wanted to be seen by the bosses standing around doing nothing. But it wasn't enough, it would overburden me.

I tried to argue my case, but I couldn’t convince him. Other inspectors were also left without assistants, but they were relatively new to the company and didn’t say anything, probably out of fear of losing their jobs or something similar.

Well, since I couldn’t change his mind, I accepted that I would be working without an assistant. I took the signs for the stores I was responsible for, found available docks for them, placed the signs on the dock gates, noted on the printed sheet which stores were at which docks, then went to the dock of the first store I would handle. I leaned against the wall, crossed my arms, and waited. Goods started arriving, but I didn’t touch a single box. The dock filled up, and I didn’t move an inch.

After a few hours, the supervisor walked through the department to check on things, saw the state of my dock, and asked why the load wasn’t being prepared. I simply said, “I don’t have any assistants, how am I supposed to prepare the load?” and remained standing with my arms crossed. Eventually, some assistants came to help me, and when they did, I helped them with the heavy lifting. But soon, the inspectors they were originally assigned to needed more help, and of course, they left my load behind.

By the end of the shift, one load was ready to be loaded onto the truck, but another was only halfway done. I placed the paperwork with the load details in a visible spot for whoever would finish it and left. As I was leaving, my supervisor asked about the loads. Without turning around, I told him where the papers were. He asked if I wasn’t going to finish them, and I didn’t even respond.

The next day, he called me in for a meeting. When I arrived, the manager was also there. They asked me what had happened the previous day. I replied, “Nothing that I remember.” They brought up the incomplete loads. I explained that my shift had ended, and I couldn’t stay for overtime, so I left the information for whoever would finish the job, and I even told the supervisor where the papers were. Then, I took out my wallet, pulled out my timecard receipt, and showed them that I had clocked out at the designated time.

They mentioned that I had spent most of the shift standing with my arms crossed. I responded that I had done my job, which, as stated in my contract, consisted solely of verifying the load, supervising assembly and loading, entering data into the system, sealing the truck, and printing the load summary. Nothing beyond that. I continued by saying that anything else I might do during my shift was purely out of goodwill to help the assistants and speed up the work. But on the previous day, I had chosen to exercise my right not to perform those extra tasks because I felt unfairly treated by my supervisor, who had not assigned me a dedicated assistant. That would have significantly overburdened me with tasks I wasn’t paid to do.

The manager simply looked at the supervisor and said, “He needs to have an assistant.” Then he turned to me and asked me to leave. The two of them stayed there for quite a while. That same day, I was assigned an assistant, and we never spoke of it again. Nothing like that ever happened again.

The new supervisor’s stint lasted only a few months before he returned to his previous role. He had put too much trust in employees he was friends with, but who weren’t very competent at their jobs, and that was his downfall. Our old supervisor came back to his position, and everything improved again.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Lordfresa on 2025-02-16 10:19:14+00:00.


Lately I have been reading so many stories about fast food or restaurant workers giving customers exactly what they ask for and this started me reminiscing about the time I worked at BK. I was in my 20s at the time. Mind you this was way back in the 90s when our minimum wage was barely $6 an hour, nothing compared to our $20 fast food minimum wage today. (California). So one day I was working in the back making food when I heard a male “Demanda” (this was before we called them Karen’s) yelling at the cashier. She was young and this was her first job. He was saying “I want F’ing extra everything and I mean extra everything, whenever I F’ing order extra I never F’ing get extra” by this time I already had a planned set. He wants extra everything he will get extra everything!! The cashier she comes around almost in tears asking if I heard that, I respond yes and that not to worry I will take care of his food and hand his tray out. She said thank you and went to the back to wash dishes and to calm down. I proceeded to make his Whopper started with the top bun, one thick layer of Mayo, about 2.5 hand fulls of lettuce, 6 tomatoes, then for the patty, let’s put a 1” layer of pickes (normally got 4 but he got about 20-30) thick layer of ketchup, thick layer of mustard and finally a 1” layer of onions!! I slowly and carefully wrapped the burger and placed the burger next to a Double Whopper on the slider. The look on my coworker’s was great. His whopper was so much taller. I placed his sandwich onto the tray with a full thing of hot fries called his number and he walked up. I smiled and said Enjoy your burger sir with extra everything I absolutely made sure. Turned and walked away. He went and sat down, I watched as he opened his burger, did a double take look up at me directly into my eyes as I smiled and he just slouched in defeat and ate away without saying anything. Suffice to say the moral of the story is 1. You get what you ask for and 2. Never ever mess with the people that make your food!!!

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/axiljan on 2025-02-16 08:39:18+00:00.


I bought a Playstation 5 for my cousin back in my home country last year. I live in the middle east, and whenever I visit my family in my home country I often go with gifts.

I recently started on my first, some what well paying job and decided to get something nice for the family home. I got my little cousin brother a PS5. (My cousin is 16)

We had been playing on my account due to the lack of games in his, we hadn't had time to go and buy any that he liked yet. And his mom wouldn't let him go and buy any for himself till after the week of his exams which were a couple weeks after I had to return to the middle east.

The trip was nice, my cousin was very happy with the gift. We'd spend a few hours at night playing against each other on FIFA.

Now, this one time my cousin was at school and I decided I'd hop on one of my games and finish the story.

The game I was playing was God of War Ragnarok. Apparently it was one of the games he wanted to play.

Now, the issue was he saw me playing that game on his PS5 when he returned home from school and went ape shit.

His words were "Don't touch my PS5!" He meant when he's not around because he wants to play the games himself, and not get the saves messed up or something.... but he didn't mention that at first.

I told him this was my account, the saves are already on the cloud and connected to mine. He can get a fresh start on his account later, it's not a big deal.

He said he didn't care. And repeated that he didn't want me to touch his PS5 when he was at school.

I tried to explain once again and he screamed at me that "If that's all it is, then get your precious account off my PS5!"

At this point, I was done with his tantrum anyway.

Cue malicious compliance.

I deleted my account from his PS5 and told him I won't touch it anymore. He was smug about me "taking the L" then...

But later that night when he got around to try and play the games..... well, all my games were now locked out on his account.

He tried to access my account, but well ... that's no longer on it. He doesn't know the password, and I have 2 factor authentication anyway. He even went on the store to check the price of the game he wanted to play but well... What money was he going to use to buy them?

Finally he came up to me and nonchalantly 'asked' me if I want to play FIFA together again. I smirked internally and responded that I won't touch his PS5. He can play on his own.

He tried to 'convince' me that it'd be fun, and said that he can beat me in a few matches and all that.

I said the same thing. I am not touching that PS5 again.

He realized finally that he'd be effectively locked out of playing anything except "Astro's Playroom" for the next couple weeks if I don't get my account on it again.

His mom knew what had happened, and had asked me to not put my account on it again anyway. He needed to focus on his upcoming exams....

So I didn't. No matter how much he begged me I let him stew with no games, with the PS5 teasing all the while I enjoyed the rest of my vacation with the rest of my family.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Whyysoseriousss on 2025-02-16 08:22:34+00:00.


I'll try keep this short, we have always had a bonus system at work, as long as you carried out your expected duties without issue, we got a bonus that was a fixed percentage of your sales over the month.

Cue new buisness manager:

Removes the existing bonus system as we're being paid extra just to do our job, fair enough I always said this needs to be reworked.

He puts in a KPI system, so each month he will look at each individual member of staff's lowest sold products over the previous month and set us a percentage target to get our bonus. Doesn't sound too bad right? Well here's the kicker... every product every member of staff has been given are low value products. So we are taking 3/8 less money per member of staff now as staff are 'downselling' to hit these KPI's.

I did warn them that not optimising the KPI system will result in people downselling to hit these KPI targets which is exactly what has happened.

Make the company money or ensure you get your bonus? Difficult decision that boss.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/boppityboopi on 2025-02-16 04:10:00+00:00.


Hello! I have no idea how to start this off, so I'll just give the context, and jump in. (Also bit of a trigger warning, i do mention blood and drool but that's about it)

I (24f) had been seeing the dentist more often because I now have insurance. The last time I went to a dentist was when I was about 14 or 15.

My dentist said a lot of my teeth are salvageable, but I did need to get a lot of teeth pulled (7 to be exact)

It took a couple months to get my teeth pulled and everything, and when it did. Oh my lord. The front desk lady told me I'm gonna be on antibiotics, and pain medication.

I'm still kinda recovering, my gums are still pretty sensitive, but overall fine.

My brother (27m) was my ride, so i called him, fresh out of surgery, and he's like "You done with surgery?" I responded yeah, but my mouth was stuffed with guaze. "I have no idea what you said, but I'm assuming you said yes."

He came and got me, and the nurse and my brother had to help me in his truck. We went to the pharmacy, but they were on lunch break, after waiting 30 minutes, their lunch was over.

My brother left me in the truck, and went into the convenient store.

He was in there for A WHILE. Like 15 minutes. To most, that doesn't seem long, but to me, since the anesthesia was beginning to wear off, I was squirming in discomfort.

While my brother was in the store, the pharmacist was giving him a really hard time. Telling him that they need my ID, and all that fun stuff.

Cue the malicious compliance.

My brother walked out, told me everything and I began to cry, just picture an adult woman with baby face, swollen, delirious, in pain, and fresh out of surgery looking like she was trying to do the chubby bunny challenge. Anyway, my brother, took me out of his truck, and he had to guide me.

So all the customers in the store, all they saw was a scrawny twig, dragging a barely concious noodle to the pharmacy.

He sat me down in one of the chairs, and I handed him my ID.

The pharmacist was about to give him a hard time again... but he then pointed in my direction.

All he saw was a lost adult, drooling and bleeding, clearly out of it, fresh out of surgery.

And the look on his face. Was just... glorious, he handed my brother my medication without much complaint, and we left.

And before anyone gets onto my brother's case that he didn't need to drag me into the store. I wanna make it clear, even then, I did not care about how silly I looked. I was too busy thinking about pink axolotls on stairs, and how bad I needed a nap. Even looking back, I chuckle about it.

EDIT:I look away for like 15 seconds and this garnered a lot more traction than I thought.

So I wanna clear a couple of things up: We're not mad at the pharmacist or anything, mildly annoyed at most.

We did not know that the pain killers would be narcotics.

Since I always pick up my dad's medication, none of us saw any reason as to why they suddenly need my ID for my meds. Then my brother dropped me back at the motel, (story for another day.) I just plopped onto the bed and my brother gave my dad my meds to make sure i took them. My das saw that the meds were narcotics, and he explained to us what they were.

Was I listening to that conversation? Hell no, I was out like a light.

Sorry for any confusion and poor wording on my part.

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