Malicious Compliance

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/F_Stop_Wide_Open on 2025-11-01 18:47:34+00:00.

This happened a few years ago, but it’s still one of my favorites.

I manage a small multi-unit building in NYC. One of the tenants, was the neighbor from hell, she complained about the people who lived above her on a daily basis, a married couple in their late 20’s and one of their siblings sharing a two-bedroom apartment. She would call the police, the city, and our office constantly about “excessive noise.” Every single time, the complaints turned out to be unfounded. Some were made when the upstairs tenants weren’t even home, and once, when they were out of the country and I knew they weren’t lying because when I called them their phones had that international ring tone.

The down stairs tenant works from home and insists that any normal daytime sounds between 9 and 5 are unacceptable and prevent her from doing her job. She decided to dig through city records and discovered that the upstairs unit was still listed as a one-bedroom. She immediately demanded that we evict the upstairs tenants for “illegal occupancy.” When we didn’t, she went straight to the city and filed a complaint. That move backfired on her mission to get peace and quiet. The city issued a violation and gave the landlord two options: either revert the unit back to a one-bedroom or bring it up to current code as a two-bedroom.

The owner, chose to bring it up to code. The upstairs tenants — the married couple and the sibling — were temporarily moved into another apartment rent-free while construction went on for over a month. Work started every morning at 8 a.m. sharp and wrapped up around 4 p.m.

Ironically, the couple had actually been planning to move out before all this. The old walls had some lead paint, and they weren’t comfortable staying long-term with that. But since the renovation completely gutted and rebuilt the place — new walls, updated wiring, everything up to modern standards — they decided to stay.

So now, the downstairs tenant who couldn’t stand “daytime noise” got to experience five straight weeks of hammering, drilling, and construction boots overhead every day. And when it was all done? It’s still a two-bedroom — with the married couple moving back in, and the sibling deciding not to return because the second bedroom was now being turned into a nursery for their new baby which was on the way.

Now she gets to enjoy the sound of a crying newborn and little feet running around all day.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/kittyqueen_gataorli on 2025-11-01 17:32:50+00:00.

Idk if this belongs here, so delete if it isn't. My first language isn't English so i apologize in advance.

I work as a cashier in a supermarket. I mentally scream every single shift because people really stress me out these days but alas, i can pay my bills. My workplace has a ton of rules; some stupid, some not. For example we have a minimum of 5 dollars per card transaction (yes ma'am, even apple pay), but personally i gotta say i only follow that rule when a manager is around... Or if the client is a real jerk. You understand.

There's a rule that i do understand: we cashiers can't accept a huge amount of loose change or change rolls without a manager's approval. We can totally accept something like 4 dollars in just quarters, but not that same amount in just dimes and cents; we have a Coinstar machine literally steps away for that. Well, guess what happened some days ago...

This oldish lady, who couldn't even grant me a "good evening" , wanted to give me her whole total in quarters, dimes, nickels and cents. Her totall was about $12 with some cents, so i couldn't definitely accept it. I explained the rules, what i stated before, and even offered her help to manage the machine but she refused and said that "money is money, you're just being a lazy bitch because you probably don't even know how to count".

I stood there, mentally insulting her, but physically still smiling, staring at her. She sighed and fetched a 20 from her purse but stoped. This lady suddenly had a huge grin, put the bill in her purse again, gave me a 10 and $3 in nickels, dimes and quarters. "You explained the maximum was 4, right?".

Now i wanted to scream, but i remained calm. I simply sighed and admitted defeat until i had the brightest idea. I was supposed to give her .67¢ in return and i made sure to open the roll of cents i had. Slooowly, i counted and gave her whole change in JUST cents. She scoffed and asked me "what the fuck is all this?!"

My answer? With a huge customer service smile I just answered "Money is money, right?" She just dumped it all in her purse, grabbed her stuff and walked away fuming. Oh well ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/jodrellbank_pants on 2025-11-01 15:43:39+00:00.

Recently, my company introduced a new process for supplying customers with expensive consumables. Previously, this process involved a lot of direct communication — numerous emails and face-to-face meetings with customers to understand their needs.

However, while I was on PTO, everything changed. Without any notice or consultation, a completely new system was implemented. My team, which used to handle about 65% of the previous process, had no involvement whatsoever in designing or approving this new method.

Now, instead of collaborating directly with customers and colleagues, I’ve been given a standardised form divided into four sections — one for me, one for Sales, one for Logistics, and one for Territory Assistants and Managers.

My section of the form is minimal: all I do is indicate how many boxes to supply. Critical details such as who the customer is, where the order is going, pricing adjustments, and preferential rates — information I used to manage — are no longer included.

To make things worse, customer details on the forms are often incorrect. I used to fix those errors in the system, but I no longer have permission to do so; that’s now handled by head office. Even though I know my customer base well and try to provide accurate updates, my emails now bounce back.

When I raised these issues, I was simply told to “follow the form” and not deviate. So I did. I completed my section, sent it to the designated address, and moved on. Nothing happened — until months later, when a customer called to say they were running critically low on consumables. I escalated the issue to my manager, but by that point, I had already submitted 24 forms without any feedback or visible results.

Recently, while I’ve been off recovering from surgery, I received an email asking for the same data I used to provide under the old system. I’ve chosen not to respond — that information is scattered across old emails and records, and it’s no longer my responsibility. Ironically, the new process that was supposed to reduce costs and simplify operations has left three department heads confused and unable to proceed.

They don’t know the customer names, product details (we have 197 different products), or order history — only the number of boxes. The system they rely on can’t function without accurate data input, and since I’m now strictly following the form as instructed, that data isn’t being entered anymore.

In short, the new process has stripped away the practical knowledge and collaboration that once made the system work. It’s inefficient, confusing, and ultimately counterproductive.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/amerc4life on 2025-11-01 14:15:14+00:00.

This is gonna be a quick one.

My job used to be when you are done go home. The earlier you are done with your task the sooner you can go home. So I work skip my 30min lunch and 2 15min breaks to go home early.

Recently we got a new manager and they changed a lot of rules. Now we must keep going back out until everyone is done and our work load has tripled.

Now on to the Mc. I had finished my work fast with no breaks. Then helped someone else. I came back to the office already had 12 hours on the clock no breaks. The new boss yells at me that not everyone is done so get back out there. 1 person needed about 30 mins of help. But he was 20 min drive away. So even if i started driving now I would barely get there in time to help. I tried to explain this to the manager.

"Nobody goes home until everyone is done." Ok i jump in the work truck drive to a nearby drive through and clock out for lunch.

30mins of relaxing and eating a burger later. I clock back in and call the guy who needed help. He is done and the manager had called it a day. I go back to the office. The manager is there steaming (they tracked me on gps)but cant do anything cause I followed the rules.

I am never rushing this job again. Im gonna take my sweet time. Every single day is going to be 12 hours or more so might as well make it an easy 12 hours. Im gonna take all my breaks now too.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Working_Patience_261 on 2025-10-31 23:01:02+00:00.

I got voluntold for the job of switching a paper-based corporate learning to computer-based, including web based training. I did not have a desk or a computer, so I brought in my personal laptop. The boss objected and stated I needed to write a business case for a computer.

A week later I got the absolute minimum system that met the minimum requirements on the box. I started the painful process of converting a Powerpoint into an Adobe Captivate file. When it came time to compile the first file, the computer stated it would be three hours before it finished, maybe, so I headed to the breakroom.

The executive director for the project happened to walk in and asked me what I was doing there. “I’m staying not frustrated while waiting for the first draft to compile, should be about another two hours sir.” It was five hours.

When I showed up the next day, my computer had been upgraded to the then top model with dual monitors.

The next day, my fancy unit was on the boss’ desk, and I had his even older, slower computer. This time compiling was over ten hours. Back to the breakroom. Same executive walks in, I just smile, nod, and go back to my lunch.

The next day, I had two computers on my desk, the still compiling boss’ unit and my previously issued fancy one. The boss was cleaning out his desk having been sent back to frontline, non-boss work.

It felt so good to give that company the boot once the project completed.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Known_Delivery_3730 on 2025-10-31 14:34:58+00:00.

So I work at this boutique bakery in Portland, been there like 8 months maybe? My manager Dana is one of those people who's never actually baked anything herself but got promoted because she's good at spreadsheets or whatever.

Anyway we make these lemon shortbread cookies that are stupid popular. They're my recipe actually - I brought it from my last job and the owner loved them. The thing is, you have to chill the dough for at least 2 hours or they spread too much and get greasy. It's just how shortbread works.

Last week Dana decides we're "inefficient" and announces this new policy where all cookies have to be prepped and baked within the same shift. No overnight dough. No exceptions. I tried explaining the chemistry thing but she literally said "I don't care about your feelings, just follow the recipe card."

Here's the thing though - the recipe card she's talking about? She made it herself like a month ago by watching me work ONE time. And she wrote "chill dough 30 minutes" because that's how long she saw it in the fridge before I baked a batch. But that batch had been chilling since the night before. She just... didn't know that.

I tried to explain this. I really did. She told me if I couldn't "follow simple instructions" maybe I wasn't a good fit for the team.

Cool.

So yesterday we had a huge order. Some corporate event, 300 cookies. Dana's watching me like a hawk to make sure I do it her way. I make the dough. Put it in the fridge. Set a timer for exactly 30 minutes like her card says. Take it out. Start rolling and cutting.

The dough is still soft and sticky and warm. It's spreading on the counter. But I'm following her recipe card, right?

Bake them. They spread into these flat greasy puddles that all merged together. Had to scrape them off the pan in chunks. The whole kitchen smelled like burnt butter.

Dana absolutely lost it. Started yelling about how I sabotaged the order on purpose. I just held up her recipe card and said I followed it exactly. Even pulled out my phone and showed her the timer.

The owner had to refund the whole order. Dana got chewed out in front of everyone. This morning there's a new recipe card that says "chill dough 2-4 hours or overnight."

She won't even look at me now.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/markogreenway on 2025-10-31 13:26:18+00:00.

I am a maintenance tech at a food packaging plant. We used to have a petty cash tin and a shared company card for small parts, screws, zip ties, a tube of Loctite, random bits like that. New CFO arrives and sends a shiny policy, no purchases without a pre approved Purchase Order, every vendor must be in the system, no exceptions. Reimbursements without a PO will be rejected, in bold. Cool, I can follow rules. We cleaned the toolbox, logged every part, and I stopped grabbing stuff at Harbor Freight on my way in.

Friday, 4,32 pm, our shrink wrapper stops. Line light is dark, panel shows no fault, I pop the cover and the 5x20mm T2A 250V fuse is visibly dead. We used to keep a bag of ten, but stores got "consolidated", so the bin is empty. The part costs about 0.25 at the hardware store five minutes away, or 8 bucks for a pack of ten at Home Depot. I call procurement, nobody there after 4, phone goes to voicemail. I text my manager and the CFO, include a photo, part number written with a sharpie on the inside door, very helpful past me. Manager says use your card and expense later. I send him the policy screenshot that says "Purchases without a PO will not be reimbursed". He says he will talk to the CFO. I clock the line as down, send the crew home, open a ticket with exact times, cause, and a lovely pic of the roasted fuse for the file. Compliance achieved.

Saturday, 6,07 am, the CFO calls me, little bit of panic in his voice. "Just go buy the fuse, we are missing trucks." I say sure, please send me the PO number. He says he cannot issue one until accounting logs in on Monday. I tell him, happy to help once I have a PO. We had three lines idle all weekend because the shrinker is the last step, no wrap, no pallets. We missed 42 pallets to a grocery DC, paid overtime to re run on Monday, and got a chargeback for late delivery. Someone estimates the downtime cost north of 180k, I am not a finance guy, but the number had many zeros.

Monday, the CFO arrives with two coffees and a face the color of a ripe tomato. He hands me a small cash box with 200 dollars and a printed sheet of twenty pre approved POs for "maintenance consumables under 100". He says, please use judgment. I buy a 10 pack of the fuses, stock 8 in the bin, tape one to the inside of the panel with the part number, and keep one on my desk as art. I labeled it, "Price 0.25, lesson, alot more". Policy updated, headphones on, machines happy.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Public-One3608 on 2025-10-31 03:57:52+00:00.

I have just found this Reddit and realised I have to tell you about the biggest plonker I’ve ever met!

Around 15 years ago I worked on a sales team and we got a new manager, Kevin. No one warmed to him. From day one he strutted in like the second coming of Wolf of Wall Street minus the charisma. He couldn’t go ten minutes without reminding us how incredible he’d been at his last company. Apparently he smashed targets, broke records and worked his way up the ladder faster than anyone in history. If his mouth had a Fitbit it would have hit 10k brags before lunch, the man didn’t stop talking about himself, and made no effort to get to know us (the team).

At his first sales meeting he opened with a monologue about his greatness that could’ve qualified as a Ted Talk titled Why I am brilliant and you’re not. Then he laid into us about our sales figures. We were OVER target, but according to him, we weren’t “aiming high enough.” We were a pretty nice and upbeat company, so there were lots of raised eyebrows and WTF shared looks, like how do you bollock a team who are airways over target? Then he was so full of himself he actually said - I could hit that target on my own. So if you lot can’t smash it as a team, something’s seriously wrong.

One of my bolder colleagues said, Wow what a fun and educational idea! Let’s make it a competition, you versus the whole team! Everyone clapped and shouted a hell yea. Then as if fate itself wanted to join the fun, our director heard the commotion and walked in. My colleague announced Kevin’s going up against the team this month to keep us motivated and show us how it’s done! The director agreed it was a great idea!

The first week of Kevin vs The Entire Sales Team was like watching a live action version of David and Goliath, if Goliath was a middle manager with anger issues and David was literally everyone else.

Kevin strutted in on Monday like he was about to deliver a masterclass, but didn’t achieve a single sale, or the next day, or the next several after that. Meanwhile, the team was having the time of our lives. Even our new starter, Jonathan, a sweet, nervous lad who’d never done sales before, was outselling Kevin by week two. Every time Jonathan made a sale, the office would erupt like he’d scored in the World Cup.

By the third week, Kevin had entered what we’ll call his tantrum era. Phones were slammed. Headsets were thrown. At one point he even dramatically announced this system is rigged! Kevin didn’t make it until the end of the month, he left because he was “pursuing other opportunities,” which we all understood to mean fired for being spectacularly bad.

My colleague was right though, it was so fun and very educational, in our mutual hatred for Kevin, we worked harder than ever and smashed all previous sales records in company history, which felt extra satisfying being as this was Kevin’s main brag. I looked him up on linked in recently and his bio reads - World Class Sales Director, open to new opportunities, which I think probably means unemployed for being spectacularly bad and still full of himself, so it seems he didn’t learn much at all.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/vikingzx on 2025-10-30 22:56:57+00:00.

So this happened while I was working at a convention center that was ... not a good place to work. They sucked. Manglement was absolutely poster-boy MBA idiocy 99% of time, and that other 1% was trying to figure out how to make it 100%. For example, they hired a security guy to keep homeless folks from crashing on our couches ... then tried to fire him when the "homeless problem" just "went away."

Yeah, this type of genius. The type that thinks everyone not in an office with an MBA is below them. Something they made clear abundantly. Even as they constantly failed to figure things out like "You can't stick 12 ten-foot tables in a row that's 100-feet long. Yes, the application let you make the room larger, but we lack that space-time bending technology."

Anyway, they were the type of people who believed that the menial peons of lesser departments should NEVER be relaxing. Work for the purpose of pointless work! Getting a job done better or faster just mean getting penalized. So one day, about six months before COVID, they hand down this new rule.

Our job was setting up and taking down sets, as well as cleaning, both for events and in general (they let the janitorial staff go and folded those jobs into our department to save cash). Well, they decide that there are two new rules we need to follow.

1. Always be cleaning. We are to clean on a loop, endlessly, even on floors that aren't in use that day, so that the customers can see how busy we are keeping things nice. We did the loop, and no one's come in? Do it again. Top to bottom. You should never be off your feet, you lazy peons! So lazy!

2. We were no longer allowed to leave cleaning materials, carts, vacuums, etc, anywhere but their assigned location, which was now a back room on a bottom floor. If anyone asks you to do anything, you have to go put all that back. NO EXCEPTIONS. We pointed out this was stupid ... but we're just laughable idiots who couldn't get a business degree. What do WE KNOW about work? HAH!

So ... we complied. And suddenly, everything was late. Get a call to get some chairs? Well, I was cleaning unused tables on another floor. I have to pack everything up, put it away on the slow elevator, then I can go do that. Even if a customer asked me. Suddenly we're getting complaints that everything takes too long. Manglement even protested a few times "What were you doing on that floor?"

"Cleaning. Like you told us to."

Did they learn? No. In fact, a few months later they took away the break room. We could still have "breaks" (it was the law). It just wasn't supposed to be in the building. To prevent "laziness." Meanwhile, we were still endlessly looping on cleaning, then taking five or so minutes to pack up every time we had to do something, then another five minutes to unpack and get back ... sometimes several times in a few minutes, making three quick errands for an event take a half hour.

They didn't learn, but we complied, much to the complaint of everyone.

Then COVID hit, they took the PPP loan, and fired everyone.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/RelativeSalad1409 on 2025-10-30 22:04:06+00:00.

Been waiting for this one

My partner and I own a small 8 person company that shares a building with only a daycare. Our company consists almost exclusively of higher-level professionals (a couple lawyers, CPAs, etc.), so most have their own large office plus, a couple of common areas, conference rooms, a nice kitchen. All in all, it’s about 3,500 sqft which is obviously a lot for 8 people, but necessary for our line of work.

Due to the size of the office, the lease has a parking provision which grants us exclusive rights to all 24 parking spots. This is somewhat important (to the story not our work we only need 8 + clients). Also, important is the daycare’s parking lot only consisting of about 10 spots in front of the building.

The parents would use our lot to drop off as the daycare’s lot would be mostly full with their staff’s cars and even some of their staff would park in our lot. I didn’t mind at all. We had over a dozen empty spots each day, and it was nice to have the (mostly) happy children around in the mornings/afternoon. Until a month ago. I started coming in a bit later at the same time as daycare drop off. Our lot was crazy with parents/kids walking and parking, so I used their lot like they have done with ours for years. First day, no issue. Second day, the manager saw me get out and gave me a piercing stare. A week later or so, I did it again, and my car was towed. Not a warning or word from the manager/anyone at the daycare to me or our office.

I went to the daycare to ask if they knew it was my car(it is a very distinctive old blue truck) and if some kind of mistake had been made. The manager came out and said it was not a mistake, and in a very rude demeaning tone her exact words were along the lines of “unfortunately we can’t have the liability of non-staff and parents within our lot and I’m sure the parents don’t appreciate having to walk further either or an unknown adult like you in the lot” she looks me up and down and I am a totally normal looking 30 year old male, I think at least. “Don’t you have some reserve spots in the back? You should really park there and let us park here.” With an eye-roll, she walked off.

I was happy I held my tongue in front of the children considering how f—king angry I was, knowing it was not the time for that conversation. A couple days later I told the manager, while we were outside the office that I wished she would have come to me before towing my car and costing me $600, asked for an apology, and said since we share the backlot and the parents take up almost all of our spots in the morning and afternoon, can I park in the front lot the occasional morning the timelines align. She flatly said no - and basically gave me the same speech she gave last time, at least not commenting on my appearance this time.

I left things for a week, thinking it was over. Until again, I had nowhere to park one morning. Having to wait 10 minutes for parents to filter out of our lot lest my car be towed, and who do I see but the manager getting a spot in my lot before me even. I decided to comply with the manager’s wishes then and developed a plan. I contacted the building owner, and said(or more accurately lied) that due to compliance reasons with a state license we’re applying for, we need to have a gate installed with employee/guest pass access only on our parking lot. Our company would of course cover the cost. Same day approval from landlord. Installed two weeks later.

I drove in early that first day after install. I tell you the mayhem was well worth it. Watching from the corner window gave me a perfect view of it all. It started with daycare staff pressing all sorts of keys on the gate to try and get in; trying to park where they have for months, years even. Then their lot filled up completely. Parents started arriving. A staff member had to stand at the gate telling parents there was now no access. Their parking lot was basically congested with parents double parked taking their children in. Other parents parked a quarter mile down in another lot at the park our office overlooks. I eventually went down, to give the manager a nice little wave and walked back up to my office. She gave me a piercing stare that just made me grin ear to ear.

I guess she sent the owner a rather angry email about parking rights to the backlot afterwards and how it’s crazy one small office gets the entire thing. Apparently, she did not know we had all of it. He said him and I may have to discuss the parking provision in the future and he also did not know the lease gave the entire back lot, but it’s not a big deal to him. (Not sure why he let me put the gate in) Regardless, I still have 2 years left on my lease with another option to extend an additional 5. So no plans on moving anytime soon from the office or my 24 parking spots.

P.S. it’s an office building next to a park and residential homes. I am in no way endangering these children since they now walk through a quarter mile of grass and playground to get to daycare. There’s not even a street to cross from that lot. If anything I made the days of the employees and parents better in retrospect (actually not sure employees can park in the playground lot for that long).

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/dlhoff432 on 2025-10-30 15:09:58+00:00.

So I work at Home Depot as a lot associate. My main job duties involve collecting carts from the lot and being on call to help customers load heavy items into their vehicles. Since I’m typically the only lot person scheduled during my shift, this means I’m running back and forth trying to help customers and get carts. It really is a job that needs two people (one on each end of the store), but it’s just me.

Now I can usually handle this, but when I’m assigned other projects on top of that, it’s too much. On one such day, the head cashier (supervisor) who we’ll call Karen (usually a nice lady, but has Karen tendencies as you will see) told me that Kyle (ASM) had such a project for me. He wanted me to clean out an area at the side of the store and move a bunch of carts there. This was going to take at least a couple of hours because the area was such a mess. And since this was during the summer when the store was busier than usual, I would be constantly interrupted with loading calls and trying to maintain the lot.

This is where the malicious compliance comes in. Kyle wanted me to focus on cleaning that area which I did. It ended up taking 5 hours (bear in mind that I also answered several loading calls during that time).

The problem? I didn’t spend any of that time collecting carts so after those 5 hours, the lot was a huge mess of carts scattered about. Karen was not happy about it (as she gets really picky about the lot being free of carts). But I looked her dead in the eye and told her that I was just doing what her and Kyle told me to do.

I then went on lunch while associates from other departments had to round up all the carts. After that, Kyle never asked me to take on other projects.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/ZZiggs124 on 2025-10-30 14:46:36+00:00.

I work in premium customer service at a bank, where we serve the bank's higher-value customers. This usually gave us more freedom because, unlike in traditional customer service, the focus is more on quality than quantity. However, since regular customer service team leaders took over the project, our freedoms have become more restricted. We were accused of time theft because we didn't log out for two minutes to go to the bathroom. All of a sudden we had to report whenever we are not productive.

Many of us were threatened with warnings that could lead to us losing our jobs, and even if we just needed to talk to other colleagues about a customer case, we had to let them know, otherwise we could be accused of unproductive behavior. And well, we complied. A little too ambitious. Every time we went to the bathroom, we reported it to our project managers by email. Every time we went to get a drink, we reported it. Every time we took a break, we reported it. Every time we talked to a colleague about a customer case, each of the two colleagues reported it separately to the project managers by email. Every time we left our computers, no matter what for, we reported it by email to the project managers' mailbox. After a while, the project managers' mailbox was so full that even important emails were overlooked because there were too many of them. The project managers were completely overwhelmed. And shortly afterwards, the rules were abolished again.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/RegexIsEasy on 2025-10-29 08:11:07+00:00.

12-13 years ago, on my very first job, I was hired as a network administrator at a newly established state-owned company. Everything was new there, including processes to request office accessories.

So I was settled in a office room with bare minimum office accessories. So I wrote down several simple items to request them from support department (at then, it was just a guy, later it turned into a ~30 people department).

Items included simple things such as, Facial tissues, cloth hanger (it was winter and I had nowhere to put my jacket), headset, 3 colors of pen, and a white board and markers and wiper.

The support department guy took a look at the list and continued with excuses about each item:

• Facial tissue are not for non-managers,
• Pens you can request only blue, once a week, if you bring the previous empty pen,
• White board and it's accessories are also for managers, So is the cloth hanger (like, non-managers are not allowed to have a jacket?)
• and for the headset, he just laughed, like, welcome to a state-owned company young one.

I just realized how different are desks of non-managers and managers, it was these simple things. And I really didn't care spending myself, I just was wondering why others haven't yet. So the next day I came with a facial tissue box with a beautiful design, a really good short cloth hanger for near my seat, good pens of all colors, and a light white glass as white board + some markers to hang behind my chair, my own gaming headset, and a nice plate full of my hand chosen sweets.

My chair looked PERFECT! I really mean it. specially when all other desks in other rooms were just copy-pastes of the same sick idea. It was even looking better than managers desks.

by the end of that day, every manager and non-manager that came to my room, their first impression was, looking jealously to everything for several seconds, and then ask me how did support department gave me these items? my answer? just normally, with some proud in my tone, replying, "The company's rules are written by beggers, These are my own and It costed me nothing to make my room look like this".

The next day, support department guy came to my room and told me, take all your own stuff home, I will give you the same as everyone.

I replyed but I'm not a manager,

He said we changed the rules, everyone deserves these things now

Edit: Napkin to Facial tissue

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Important-Lime-7461 on 2025-10-28 17:36:02+00:00.

Years ago, I worked at a department store that was known for gimmick promotions. This particular promotion was spend $50 and get this frying pan for $5, it was a quality item worth more. But, one per customer. Management stressed that because they didn't receive a large quantity. One day a lady says I spent $150 can I get 3 if them. Politely I said no, it's one to a customer. She throws a hissy fit and demands to see the manager. I call him and he arrives chats with her then tells us to give her 3 pans. OK, he leaves another customer comes up and asks how many can I get? My reply was how many can you carry, my coworker said we can't do that, but I did and did that to every customer that asked.We ran out of pans quick. Manager became more thoughtful about embarrassing employees in front of customers after that.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Sweet_Suggestion1998 on 2025-10-28 11:33:40+00:00.

So this happened when my sister was in 1st year of HS, and our HS is really close to the city stadium so on sunny days we would go there during PE. Now this happened in mid September so it was still sunny but you could feel that fall was aproaching.

So this teacher told all the girls to be near the wall and play volleyball while the guys played football, ok, no problem they have done this before. Our stadium is near the river, and while they where playing my sister hit the ball a little to hard, so it went over the wall, across the street and fell into the river, and as it was floating it got stuck on some branches on the other side of the river.

The teacher saw that the ball was missing, and when he asked where it was, they explained to him what happened, and he was furious, he started yelling at them, and told my sister to go fetch it, and everyone loked at him like he was crazy and she asked him "Sir, are you telling me to go into a river" and he was like "Yes you should learn how to take responsibility for your actions", and when she said "No way" he started screeching how he is gonna get her expelled cause she destroyed school property, how the school is gonna sue her for her miscounduct, how everyone in her class is gonna get detention for the rest of the year, how our family is gonna have to pay for the damages (keep in mind thes guy was also our uncle), and many many other things.

At this point my sister realized that this will never end so she decided to bite the bullet and just get the damn ball. The river was maybe 7-8 meters wide and around knee level deep, so she took her shoes off and went in, but not without screaming the whole time from the top of the lungs just how cold the water was, and questioning what she did to deserve such punishment, and her classmates even started cheering her on like "You can do it, don't give up", while the teacher was screaming at everyone to shut up. Also a few meters down the river is a bridge and people started to gather on it to see what was going on.

When she finally got the ball and stared coming back she tripped and fell, so now she was wet from top to bottom, her hair, shirt, sweatpants, everything, and she got so pissed that when she got out she threw the ball into the teacher with full force (she was a basketball player) and hit him in his stomach, and screamed at him "Are you happy now sir" and i guess at this point he realized that he f*cked up really badly that he didn't even argue with her, but just told the class to start packing and go back, and he left.

Luckly she was able to find a shirt and a hoodie from her friends but she had to keep the wet sweatpants on her, and when they got back to the school, the whole class went staright to the principal, and the lady was like "What happened" and they told her everything, and she was so mad, and told her secretary to bring the teacher to her, but after a while she came back she said that they can't find him, and the principal was like "What", and the other lady was like "He isn't in his office and they only found the ball", so now it became i school wide search for this dude, and after almost an hour of searching they found him in the boiler room, and the principal started screaming at him, asking him if he was insane, how dare he endager and threathen a student and lastly why didn't he get the ball himself. He desparatley tried to make the "Needing to take resposibility" excuse, and the principal lady was like "Well if you are so keen about this, then take responibility yourself".

He was suspended for a month and later fired because they found out that he was sending inapropriate texts to some students, and when my parent's found out they were livid they went to his house and berated him (and my dad even punched him once) and to no ones suprise, no one in the family wanted anything to do with him. I found out later that he moved, and fortunatley we didn't hear from him again, but this also makes me question just how can a lunatic like that even work with childern.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Asleep_Radio1750 on 2025-10-28 02:22:57+00:00.

Told my landlord the toilet wasn’t and needed some caulking added to it. Or the plunger to be fixed/adjusted. His wife said okay my husband will check on it. To my surprise I come home to carpeting penny nailed right on top of my existing tile floor. Nails driven through the carpet, through the tile and down into the sub floor. Needless to say the toilet is leveled now because he stuffed carpeting under it to level it off..

https://imgur.com/a/yEebcmZ

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Imaginary-Sea-482 on 2025-10-27 07:12:32+00:00.

I used to work at a grocery store in the past My supervisor got obsessed with the parking lot carts being perfectly aligned. He told us, You don’t clock out until every single cart is straight, touching, and facing the same direction. It was a windy night. Every time we fixed one row, another shifted slightly. He kept saying, Do it again.

At 10:45 p.m., we were still out there. Finally, I pulled out my phone and recorded him telling us not to clock out. Sent it to HR. Next morning, HR said we should use our best judgment in windy conditions.

We aligned the first five carts perfectly and went home.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Impressive-Age3025 on 2025-10-27 06:50:04+00:00.

In high school, my math teacher accused me of cheating because I finished tests fast and didn’t show enough work. She said, From now on, you must show every single step or you’ll lose points.

So the next quiz, I filled an entire page for a single equation breaking down even basic arithmetic: 3 + 4 = 7 → 7 × 2 = 14 → 14 ÷ 7 = 2 → Therefore.

She had to grade five pages for what was a 10 question quiz. It took her two weeks to return them.

Next test, she said, Just do what’s necessary to show understanding.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Economy_Panda_3338 on 2025-10-27 06:23:08+00:00.

I worked at a call center where management decided our personal touch made calls inconsistent. They rolled out a mandatory script every word had to be read exactly, no improvising.

The first customer I got was furious because his order was delayed. I started reading: Hello, valued customer, my name wen is and I’m here to ensure your complete satisfaction today!

He interrupted, yelling, Are you serious?! I had to say, Sir, I understand your concern, please allow me to finish my script.

It took 7 minutes before I was allowed to address his actual issue. He hung up. I documented the call as per script.

By the end of the week, our call times tripled and customer complaints doubled. The script quietly disappeared.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Icy_Cress1442 on 2025-10-26 22:47:39+00:00.

I originally posted this in r/traumatizeThemBack and it was suggested that folks in this subreddit would enjoy my story too.

This was from a couple of years ago when I worked at a small cafe. It had a soft serve machine that served vanilla and chocolate with a nozzle in the middle to serve both flavors swirled together, and there was this one customer who always made a big deal about the soft serve he ordered.

He would come in just for the soft serve and there was always something wrong with it. He would ask for toppings and then complain that it was either too much or too little and then ask us to serve him a new cup with the right amount. As if this nitpicking wasn't annoying enough, one day he decided he wanted both flavors so my coworker served him the chocolate vanilla swirl.

The guy said it was wrong, that he didn't want the flavors mixed together so my coworker served him a new cup with chocolate on one side and vanilla on the other. The guy then says it's still wrong, that he wants the chocolate on the RIGHT side of the cup. My coworker was a 17 year old kid who got all flustered, apologized and then served him a new cup after struggling to figure out which side of the cup was the right side.

After that, I made it my mission to make sure and help this guy the next time he came in. I didn't have to wait long because he was back the following week. He had a smug smirk on his face and asked for a vanilla and chocolate soft serve so I got him a vanilla and chocolate soft serve with each flavor on a different side. I slid it over the counter to him, he looked at the cup and his smirk disappeared.

I asked if anything was wrong and he said no but then a second later the smirk was back and he said that he wanted the chocolate on the right side of the cup. I told him "ok, no problem sir" and turned the cup 180 degrees. I looked him straight in the eye, gave him my own smirk and told him "there. The chocolate is on the right side now. Anything else I can get for you today?".

His smirk disappeared again and didn't come back this time. He said "no, it's fine. Thanks.", he picks up his cup, I charge him for his soft serve and he leaves without another word. The minute he's gone my coworkers burst into laughter and I told them that if he ever tries pulling that right side stuff again to just do what I did, that we weren't going to waste anymore soft serve on him.

That guy didn't come back after that day, at least not during my shifts there. Maybe he figured out we weren't going to let him mess with us anymore. Idk what his deal even was. Maybe he just enjoyed complaining and watching us bend over backwards for him. Whatever it was, I was just glad I was able to traumatize him enough to not come back.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/lorgskyegon on 2025-10-26 22:45:48+00:00.

I used to work at an upscale-ish cafe. I was a supervisor and in charge of the bakery section (there was also a kitchen and a coffee bar). Now Mother's Day was our biggest day of the year by a huge margin. Like it would be close to triple our daily sales for a regular Sunday. Most mid-grade holidays would also be busy. And after every big holiday sales day, the sales the next day would be around 50-60% of normal, so I would order about two thirds of my regular order for that Monday.

Now our owner was somewhat absentee from our store. She owned five locations, four of which were in the same city. Ours was the outlier, in a smaller location about two hours away. She spent almost all of her time at the four locations and maybe visited us once a month. This month, she just happened to come on the day after Mother's Day. I can add that of all the employees, only the assistant manager liked the owner. Even the manager couldn't stand her.

She saw that my bakery case was somewhat low and asked why. I explained that the day after holidays was always slower and I ordered less because I didn't want to waste money. She told me never to do that again. She in fact told me to double my normal order.

Now I had been in this job for four years by this point and I knew that bakery section inside and out. Also at this point, only the manager and one of the cooks had been there longer than me. Even the manager told me that things were always better when I was there. I always stayed late to cover call-ins, often came in on my day off if they needed me. I even once drove a catering delivery 90 minutes each way to satisfy a loyal customer.

I told the owner that today was a special circumstance and that doubling the order would lead to a lot of food waste and recommended that we not do it. With my regular daily orders, we usually ran out only near the end of the day, barring unforeseen circumstances (like someone coming in and doing a big pastry order without notice). This was from a lot of trial and error over the years and I changed my order up whenever things looked like they were changing.

But she insisted, even after the manager also told her that our regular order was fine. I tried again to tell and she just told me to do it. My manager also said it by that point. So I did it. I doubled my regular order. After about two weeks, she emailed me and asked why we were throwing out so many pastries every day. I told her that she told me to double my order. At that point, my boss says, she wanted to fire me. My boss convinced her that she needed me to help run the store (which she probably did). So I wasn't fired, but I lost my position as bakery lead. I was still a supervisor who mostly worked the bakery section, but I no longer ordered product. Still the same wage, but I was switched from mostly mornings to mostly nights.

While I did miss my morning regulars, I also enjoyed making the same money for less responsibility. About six months later, the manager quit to go back to school and the place went downhill fast. As I said, everyone working there hated the owner (except the asst. manager, who had quit about a month before this for a new job). As soon as this happened, I started looking for a new job even though I hated changing jobs. So did a number of others. Everyone was loyal to the manager, nobody to the owner. I took a supervisor job at a nearby restaurant and never looked back. I'm told by some coworkers who are still there that it became difficult to get through the day without me and the manager there and we lost lots of sales for over a year before they started picking up again.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Wander_willowz on 2025-10-26 08:09:23+00:00.

I worked part-time at a fast food place in Texas. We had a manager who was weirdly obsessed with rules. Once, she announced that we were only allowed to wear official work uniform items, nothing extra.

My problem is that the restaurant’s AC was always broken, and I usually wore a plain black baseball cap to keep sweat out of my eyes. She told me to take it off because it wasn’t official uniform.

I reminded her that the sun hits directly through the front windows and I’d be dripping sweat over the fryer. She didn’t care. Official uniform only, she repeated.

So I took off the hat. Within an hour, sweat was literally running down my face and into my eyes. I had to keep stopping to wipe my forehead, slowing everything down. Orders backed up, customers got irritated, and she finally asked, “Why are you moving so slow?”

I replied and said, Official uniform only.

By the next shift, she magically approved hats for everyone.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/RichardRoma1986 on 2025-10-25 04:36:33+00:00.

When I returned home from a deployment and found a job, I was having lingering stomach issues that wouldn’t be figured out (anxiety and such) for a few years later. My nerves were shot, and thus, I went to the bathroom after eating or drinking an energy drink. So…HR had a meeting with me and wanted to document times I went to the bathroom. No one said anything about work. Around this time, I needed to do a procedure…here comes the malicious compliance: I sent an email from Thursday to Friday detailing every single time I went to the bathroom, doing prep.

I eventually was let go for missing work due to some SI things I was dealing with (cops were called, we watched Narcos together, wife had to come home from work, it was fantastic, not). Anyways, at least I can take solace in the fact someone, somewhere, had to read a log about…my logs.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Icy_Neighborhood5575 on 2025-10-24 18:28:19+00:00.

I've worked several retail jobs and by far the worst position/ task/assignment is the fitting room. People are crazy rude, weird and entitled. One of my favorite ways to teach these people a lesson was when we had to count them in and out of the rooms. As we welcome them in, we would count the number of items they had and give them a tag with a number on it. Then, they would come back and have to hand me the tag, and their items. The number of times these people would just leave their hangers, or the stuff they didn't want to buy on the floor or the benches of the fitting rooms was ridiculous. I would always very politely send them back and then smiling, like I'm stupid as f***, I would sit down the items that they were going to purchase then dump everything that they had left on the floor on top of it while I rehung and counted to make sure they had the same numbers of items leaving as they did. The sighs of frustration and impatience was so rewarding.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/FewKitchen8744 on 2025-10-24 14:19:39+00:00.

When I was a dog groomer I was a pretty passive person in my everyday life. I hate conflict and I almost never fight back, even when clients treat me like garbage. But one day I finally snapped.

This client (older white guy) walked in and immediately started talking down to me the second he heard my accent. He made me repeat myself over and over, acted like I was beneath him, and complained about prices I don’t even control. Just pure attitude for no reason. His dog, on the other hand, was a sweet, adorable pointer. I loved him.

While leaving, the guy mentioned they were going hunting the next day. Big mistake.

Normally I’d use an hypoallergenic shampoo with no scent to avoid interfering with the hunt. But this time I reached for the strongest shampoo I owned and the most aggressively, longer lasting dog cologne I could find (the dog had no allergies and the owner never asked for unscented products). Treat me like crap? Fine. Your dog is about to smell like a prostitute in a victorian brothel.

I even sprayed the leash so the scent would last longer. Good luck hunting anything with a walking bottle of cologne next to you.