Malicious Compliance

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/ILikeRoL on 2025-09-27 06:45:59+00:00.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Husum_Red_Pied

So in the late 19th/early 20th century, the Prussians occupied the area around Flensburg, which used to be Danish before. Under the new rulers, the locals were forbidden from flying red-and-white Danish flags... so they started keeping red-and-white pigs instead.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/LOUDCO-HD on 2025-09-27 05:09:18+00:00.

In 2000 I was part of a startup that was modelled after an existing company. We were sort of like a franchise, but without the internal administration. After we had been operating for a few months we were asked to sign employment agreements, and they had some pretty egregious policies, many that I disagreed with. The ones I disagreed with, were pertaining to anti-competition upon leaving the company, and also the ability to hold down a side job.

The final page of the contract made note that these policies and procedures would be enforced in the province of British Columbia, and was dated with the date that I was requested to sign it. Despite my disagreement with a number of the policies, I eagerly signed the contract.

We actually live in the province of Alberta. All they had done was use the contract they had from the head office located in BC.

About 3 months later they came, with egg on their faces and tried to pass the faux pas off as a minor oopsie, I wasn’t having it and refused to sign it, until we had negotiated better terms.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/wheresmychin on 2025-09-27 00:39:59+00:00.

In high school I was in a science class that I did very well in. I was top of the class and scored nearly 100% on every test and assignment.

The teacher assigned a big group project that would take about a week to complete with a team of four students. Groups were randomly assigned, and unfortunately, I was paired up with three kids who were barely passing the class.

In class we are given time to make plans together as a group to divide up work, examine the instructions, schedule times outside of school to meet up, etc. It was at this point my teammates decided to tell me that they weren’t going to do any work on the project. I asked why, and they said they knew I really cared about my grade, so they figured I would do it on my own.

They were so lazy they were banking on the fact I wouldn’t tank my own grade, so they could benefit off of my hard work when I inevitably got a good score on the project. I was pissed and said that was unfair. They dug in and said “Too bad. Now you either do this project yourself or you’ll get a 0%.”

Cue malicious compliance.

Now, I could have gone to the teacher and he probably would have sorted this out, but a better idea struck me. So I said “Fine, you win. I’ll do what you say.” They smiled smugly and thought that was that.

But you see, this teacher had a policy that at the end of the semester your lowest grade (excluding finals) would be taken off your record. So, if you forgot to turn in an assignment or did really bad on one test, you got a mulligan so it wouldn’t ruin your final grade. I had never done poorly on an assignment all year, so I never needed my mulligan. However, I knew that these shitheads all did. If they got a big fat zero on a crucial assignment, they would probably fail the class.

So, I did exactly as they instructed. I did no work on the project all week. Just sat on it and bided my time. At the beginning of the next week all the students turned in their assignments. My team watched as I sat in my chair, unmoving.

Finally one said:

CLASSMATE: Hey OP, aren’t you going to turn in the project?”

ME: Oh, I didn’t do the project.

They were shocked and asked why the hell I didn’t do it.

ME: You said do all the work or get a 0%. I choose 0%.

They were all royally pissed. They all had to do credit recovery over the summer. They hated my guts, but I couldn’t have cared less. It was the most satisfying failing grade in my entire life.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Gold_Au_2025 on 2025-09-26 21:56:03+00:00.

My pet peeve is poorly written policy. If you are going to go to the effort of writing the rules, you may as well do it properly and not get the intern to do it.

My wife came home one day and showed a printout of her company's new workplace fitness for work policy that had been sent to all employees to sign and return. My wife, being my wife, decided to run it past me before she signed because I am, well, me.

It was mostly an amateurish document that was ultimately a waste of ink and trees but did have a little bit to say about drugs in the workplace which was essentially "Do not come to the work under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and do not bring drugs or alcohol to work".

I told her not to sign until they at the very least defined what "drugs" were. Were they including Tylenol? Antibiotics? Ritalin? or just the illegal ones and recreational pharmaceuticals?

Fast forward a couple of days, v2.0 of the document is presented.

They fleshed out the drugs policy a little, basically using the dictionary definition, something along the lines of "A non-prescription substance which has a physiological or mood altering effect when ingested or otherwise introduced into the body."

OK, time for malicious compliance.

She signed and presented it to HR the next day and went about her work.

During the morning there were increasing amounts of confusion and frustrated loud voices in the office. Apparently it only took an hour before zero work was being done and there was a crowd of workers around the break room. The manager eventually zeroed in on my wife, apparently the only one who wasn't looking confused and asked if she had anything to do with stealing all the coffee in the break room. She admitted it was her, and pointed out the new fitness for work policy which prohibited the consumption of "mood altering substances" in the workplace. He tried to argue that it was "just coffee" but she pointed out that it was definitely mood altering substance, as per company policy and as such was not allowed to be on the premises without a prescription.

She'd made her point.

She retrieved the coffee she'd stashed in the store room, the office mood was altered, and the company actually commissioned a functional fitness for work policy based upon the published government guidelines.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Puzzleheaded_Data829 on 2025-09-25 18:58:56+00:00.

Long-time lurker, but I finally have something to share that’s happened within the last few months. I work as a senior graphic designer for a company for 5 years now. Originally it was only a team of 3: a marketing manager, a marketing executive, and myself. The former two have since quit, and you’ll find out later why. A huge part of my job is to handle a huge advertising schedule in a project management system (PMS) for which I design print/ digital ads for. Enter, my difficult micromanaging manager. He’s the VP of Sales and Marketing who’s been with the company for 30+ years. His way of quality control is to force all our marketing materials to go through an “approval process” in our PMS in which everyone else has to give their feedback and only then will my manager will give the final sign off once it reaches him. On top of that he insists on being copied on every notification for every single step of the way. So every single ad I produced had to be sent through our PMS while tagging the product managers and proofreaders. Those individuals would then comment feedback for changes needed, or if the ad is approved, they’d mark it complete and then send it along to the next person. It would end with this micromanaging manager, who’d have the final say on whether it’s good to be sent out or not. Sometimes the process would be flawless as everyone would approve it the first time with no changes needed. But when it got to my manager, he’d reject it and I’d have to do it over pending his remarks. The thing with our PMS is that you can see timestamps of when people viewed updates. He’s on our project board so he gets all the updates, and he could’ve easily interceded earlier and let me know if changes were needed to pass his check so I’d not waste my time. But because of the way he is, he only wants to see the final drafts after everyone else sees them. Everyone else always seems to move things along in a timely fashion, but when it finally gets to my manager he'd just let it sit and then you'd have to constantly check to see if he marked it off.

When I pushed back and stated how arduous this all is, his tone-deaf reply was to “have it done 3 months in advance.” He also insisted that the ads I produced have to look different each time for each publication’s insertion order. So after 4 years of handling all this by myself, I was barely meeting deadlines, and the quality of my work started slipping as I was making really stupid mistakes. Every few months I would ask my manager if we’re going to hire an additional designer for our department since we’re doing more marketing, and every year I’d hear, “It’s not in our budget right now.”

Things came to a head during one of my biannual reviews, where I told my manager bluntly, in front of HR, that we desperately needed to hire an additional designer, as there was no way for me to hit the “3 months ahead” goal that he keeps parroting. He actually asked me, and I quote, “Is it typical for companies to have more than one graphic designer?” I’m dead serious. I showed how I handled everything by myself as best as I could at that point, and I was getting burnt out. For those that may ask why I stay, they compensate me VERY well without having to commute into a major metropolitan city. A golden handcuffs situation, if you will. By the end of the meeting, my manager finally caved and gave me permission to hire an additional designer who started with us this past January. While showing him the ropes on our design systems, he told me the manager said something snarky to him along the lines of, “I never imagined having to hire TWO designers. You guys should have no problem being 3 months ahead on ads now.” Are you kidding me? Over the years, I watched my manager as he hired a plethora of account executives and replacements for our department, most of whom quit within months under his watch, but he’s going to give me crap for needing ONE designer after I made things work for 4 years by myself? I was so infuriated by his comments that I decided:

He wants ads done 3 months in advance? Okay, bet!

I trained the new designer on our approach to the advertising schedule in the PMS and the ins and outs of the approval process, and we went to work. We both proceeded to BURY my manager in notifications as we churned out ad after ad after ad, pushing items through the pipeline with my manager receiving notifications on EVERY. SINGLE. UPDATE. When the tasks ended at him and we got no response, we set up automations to ping him every hour calling for his approval. We also would send detailed weekly reports stating our progress and also made it inherently clear to mention our goal was “to be 3 months ahead of deadlines.” 

By this past May, in time for one of my biannual reviews, my manager made an announcement. He announced my coworker, the marketing assistant, would be promoted to the vacant marketing manager position. Furthermore, they would now be handling the advertising schedule and be the final point person going forward. My manager also asked to have all notifications for him be removed, as “he didn’t have the bandwidth anymore” to monitor it and is taking a step back from overseeing us. We collectively broke my manager after only 5 months of doing EXACTLY what he asked, and I’ve got to say things have improved greatly so far. Our new marketing manager is very laid back, as we're still getting things done ahead of schedule and he is really good at what he does. We’ve also since hired 2 more additional employees for our department, and we’ve been steadily growing. My newly promoted co-worker recently joked with me and the junior designer about how he wanted to go over the advertising schedule for next year with our manager, but he elected to not see anything and fully trusted my co-worker to handle it completely on his own.

Funny how that works.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Common_Employee on 2025-09-25 16:00:45+00:00.

So this recently happened in my call center type job. My brand-new supervisor, promoted for all the wrong reasons, wasn’t exactly qualified. I could write a whole post on that but the gist is she only got promoted because she was friends with the boss and is always giving him advice on the women he dates.

Anyway, we had a Teams chat where we kept each other updated and asked for help with things. Normal procedure was simple: if you stepped away, we would typically just type “brb” so everyone knew you weren’t available for calls. Did this for years with no issues.

Well, new supervisor decides that’s not good enough. She needs to assert control and dominance. She announced to us in, one-on-one convos, that we all had to start giving specific reasons for why we were stepping away. I told her I wasn’t really comfortable announcing to the entire team every time I had to use the bathroom.

She basically shrugged and said, “It’s the rule. We need transparency so I know what everyone’s doing.”

Ok? We've had no issues for years, but whatever she says goes I guess.

The very next time nature called, instead of a boring “brb,” I typed: “BRB. Going to go poop in the bathroom.”

Immediately she pmed me in Teams saying that was “not professional.” I reminded her she told us to be specific, and I was just following directions. After that, others started joining in. Some favorites were:

• “BRB. Gonna stand in front of the urinal and do an impression of a water fountain”
• “BRB. Going to blow my nose to try to dislodge this giant booger.”

Within a week, the supervisor started telling us we didn't need to be so specific when stepping away from our desks. Like, yeah, we know.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/LilacSoba on 2025-09-25 07:08:41+00:00.

When I was around 10, my parents had a rule. If the TV is on, your little sister has to be allowed to watch too if she wants. I usually wanted to watch cartoons, and she always wanted those annoying sing along shows. Arguments every day.

One Saturday morning, I turned on the TV, plopped her down in front of it and immediately put on a wildlife documentary about ants. I sat there with the remote in hand, patiently explaining every single scene to her like it was the most exciting thing in the world.

She lasted about 6 minutes before running off. My dad poked his head in, saw her already running off to play and asked why the TV was still on. I told him shee didn’t want to stay.

I don't know if my parents knew what happened but for some reasons, my parents quietly dropped the “you must include her” rule for the rest of that summer. Cartoons were mine again.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/NoriGaze on 2025-09-25 06:58:01+00:00.

When I was a kid, my mom had a rule that if anyone opened a bag of chips or cookies, they had to share with everyone in the house. Fair enough, until I realized I could use it against the rule.

One day I wanted cookies but didn’t feel like splitting them with my brothers because they inhale everything. So I took the rule literally. I grabbed the family pack of cookies, walked room to room and gave one cookie to every single person. My parents, my three brothers, even left one on my baby sister’s high chair tray. Then I walked out to the yard and gave one to our neighbor who was mowing his lawn. Even the dog got one.

Now since everyone had been given their share, the rest were mine to eat in peace.

Mom couldn’t even be mad because I technically followed her rule. My brothers and mom still bring it up and laugh about it whenever we talk about childhood loopholes.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/UnderwoodDX on 2025-09-24 23:57:55+00:00.

Today is my gf’s 17th day in a row working in some capacity or another. Tomorrow, we leave for a wedding out of state. She blocked off the entire afternoon in her schedule. Her boss, a notorious micromanager, stalked her calendar and wanted to know if my gf planned on putting in PTO for the time off. My gf responded no since she worked 6 hours on Sunday and has worked so much overtime in the past two weeks in order to meet the deadlines that the boss had placed on her. My gf’s boss then had the audacity to remind her that employees needed approval to work outside of their scheduled work hours. My gf plans to stop working any overtime immediately (she’s salary) and when her boss wants to know why something is not completed on Monday that she asked for, she can point to the chat where her boss reminded her that employees need approval to work outside of regular business hours and she was not granted that approval. That blade cuts both ways.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/ProFriendZoner on 2025-09-24 23:28:16+00:00.

Worked in retail in between jobs way back when, early '90's. Yea, I'm old, get off my lawn.

It was December, major Department Store that is no longer around, I know that doesn't narrow it down, sorry.

Anyways, they tried to cram as much product on the floor as possible, to the point that you couldn't walk through the aisles and had to twist and turn to get past the fixtures set up with product. I casually mentioned to a supervisor that if the Fire Department ever came in they would close us down for the hazards and lack of egress. She was highly stressed and blurted out to me "You know what? Then call the Fire Department!" I held my hands up and said "Easy". She assigned me my duties and that was that.

Well ... she DID tell me to call.

On the way home I stopped by a government building that had all sorts of agencies in it. Told the receptionist my plight and she pointed to a phone on the wall. Tell the operator I want the FD and they would patch me through to the stations non emergency line.

The Fire Chief himself answered. I told him how crowded it was and what the supervisor said.

He had a good laugh and said they'd "check it out".

I was off the next day but heard about it when I got back.

Fire chief and a station house full of firefighters show up to do an inspection.

He tells the store manager that egress is being blocked and he'd have to remove a lot of the fixtures in the aisles.

Store manager says he has orders from corporate, fixtures stay.

Fire Chief assures him he will win the argument.

Store manager stands his ground.

Fire Chief "Alright boys, close them down!"

They evacuated the store (all 3 levels) and closed all entrances ... in December ... prime Christmas shopping season. Although it wasn't a weekend day it was during the week, but still.

Store manager tried to protest and suddenly the Sheriff's Department starts showing up.

Long story short, they were closed for 5 1/2 hours while the Chief, Store Manager, and employees rearranged the store to acceptable levels.

The supervisor never treated me differently so I'm guessing she didn't remember the conversation. The Store Manager, surprisingly, did NOT get fired by corporate but corporate was not happy.

About a week later I'm working with the store manager and supervisor when she asks why we can't do something a certain way? The Store Manager replied "The Fire Department won't allow that." and that was it.

I worked there a few more weeks before getting a job that almost got me killed in a workplace shooting. But that's a story for later.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/WasWawa on 2025-09-24 05:13:04+00:00.

I've waited about 2 weeks to post this, and to gather my thoughts to be as concise as I can. I'm sorry if it's a bit long.

I've spent more than 10 years in my current position, and really liked my job. I thought we had a really good working relationship, my boss and one colleague, in a small company of about 150 people.

I am within 5 months of retiring. 2 years ago, I met with my boss and his boss for my annual performance review. My boss began to enumerate every single error I had made. The micromanaging I had dealt with from both him and our boss had caused me to spiral into some serious anxiety attacks, leading me to some very disturbing thoughts, for which I received counseling and medication. The counseling was very helpful, and gave me tools to cope, and things got better.

It's important to note that I had been considering retiring for quite some time, along with another colleague, whose story can be told another time. We both of the same age group, and both considering retirement in the near future.

When I realize that he was going to pick apart every little thing I did, I cut him off and told him that I had a better solution, that I would just retire.

There was one solid minute of science. Time that sometime, that's a long time on a zoom call.

I told them I would be willing to come back part-time or on call as is needed until they could fill my position.

Meanwhile, my colleague, 4 months older than I, decided to retire sooner.

She retired a few months later, and I switched to 3 days a week.

They hired a new guy to replace my colleague, and he's wonderful. I would adopt him if I could. We had a great team for about a year.

Then last spring, something happened. I have no clue what, my colleague agrees with me that something shifted with the boss. He became very cold, distant, not engaging, and our meetings were very short.

I asked him what was wrong, and he would not answer, saying that everything was fine.

I kept my head down, mouth shut, did my job figuring I've got 5 months left and then I can get all my social security.

Then I get called into a meeting that was everything short of a written warning. It seems I had had the audacity to take some initiative when my boss was in the hospital tending to his wife who had given birth to their baby.

All correspondence had to come through him. I acknowledge this notice, which also included a few shortcomings on my part, and resolved to do better.

2 weeks ago, I came in to an email saying that from now on, he was assigning my work, and I was to notify him 30 minutes before I was finished with the task so he could check it for, "A few outstanding issues and polishing" (which had never been defined ) before I could give it to the person who requested it.

I found myself going into the worst anxiety attack I had ever had. I think this is as close as I ever got to a nervous breakdown.

I could not think straight. I decided that now was the time. I responded to his email about giving him 30 minutes notice with an attached resignation.

In that resignation, I notified him that I would be leaving my position at 10:00 that morning.

It was 9:30 when I sent it.

He wanted 30 minutes. I gave him 30 minutes.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/DareAffectionate7725 on 2025-09-23 15:59:45+00:00.

It has been nearly a year since I shared this post about my experience following instructions a little too precisely and thought I write an update on how things are. TLDR at the end.

Since then, not much has changed, which is, in itself, the story.

Very little work has been completed over the past year. We continued to have our weekly meetings, though they rarely produced any concrete feedback or approvals. No further tasks were pursued beyond what was written in my job description. I stayed the course, remained meticulously compliant, and waited for guidance. No more proactive ideas, no creative concepts, and barely any initiative beyond the occasional clarifying question, which, of course, was promptly redirected to my manager and left in limbo.

My last remaining colleague adopted a similar approach, albeit with a bit less subtlety. Eventually, he was let go.

After his departure, I was handed some of his tasks, but my approach remained the same. Any ambiguity was returned to sender, and any progress was delayed until proper feedback arrived, which more often than not, never did.

A few months later, a new hire joined the team. I observed his onboarding from a safe distance. To say it was chaotic would be generous. There was no structure, no documentation, and very little support. Watching him navigate that mess reminded me just how deeply the dysfunction had taken root.

At some point, the process became even more rigid. Any emails to upper management now required prior approval. Even basic updates were subject to scrutiny, which further slowed communication and progress.

And now, today, comes the inevitable next chapter.

Management has decided to restructure the department again. My manager was dismissed. No replacement has been named, and no direction has been given. Just myself and the new colleague remain, both unsure of what happens next.

For now, I suppose I will continue to do what I now do best.

Wait for feedback.

Fallout

At this point, it is unclear what the future holds. With no leadership in place, no updated responsibilities, and no clear communication from above, both of us are in a holding pattern. We have not been given new objectives, nor have we been told what to expect.

There is a quiet irony in all of this. The culture of waiting for feedback, of needing permission for every small step, has now left the department entirely unable to move. Leadership created the bottleneck, then removed the only person who was technically holding the valve.

So here we are. Two employees, minimal instructions, and absolutely no feedback.

Business as usual.

TL;DR

Continued to follow orders to the letter after being told to "wait for feedback." Did exactly that, no extra work, no ideas, no initiative. One colleague got fired, I picked up some of his tasks, but kept the same slow, approval-dependent approach. New hire came in, onboarding was a mess. Even sending emails to higher-ups required prior approval. Today, management restructured, fired my manager, and left the rest of us with no direction.

Still waiting for feedback.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Wakemeup3000 on 2025-09-23 12:23:05+00:00.

My work has very little interaction with others for the most part. Basically you come in, do your work, and go home except for a meeting or two during the day. Pretty straight forward.

New manager comes in and wants everyone's schedule so she can keep track of the comings and goings. 'Your breaks and lunch need to be scheduled the same every single day and taken on time' according to her memo. My morning break is at the end of the team's 15 minute huddle.

A few days later the huddle is running long so I got up and left the room after 15 minutes. She must have thought I was using the restroom but I was sitting in the break room which she noticed when she walked through at the end of the huddle.

Every single time the huddle ran long I'd leave after 15 minutes. She finally asked about it and I replied that my break was scheduled and needed to be taken on time. She said that means within reason and not to walk out of meetings. I asked if she was going to amend her memo.

She didn't amend her memo, I didn't change my routine. This continued like a pissing contest for the 6 months she ran the department until she transferred. Next manager turned huddles into team meeting bullet points for the day and we all went back to normal.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/stentordoctor on 2025-09-22 01:58:13+00:00.

I learned this lesson when I was 14 years old and I will never forget it. I went to 6th grade camp where everyone goes to the wilderness and has a bunch of fun playing water sports or biking around the mountains but... I didn't get to have any fun because every piece of sporting equipment cost money. Knowing that my sister is going to be in the same situation, I saved for a year and gave her the money to have fun... She comes back, I excitedly ask her what she did and she said "nothing, everything costs money." I mentioned the money I gave her and she spat back in my face that "money after being given has no more leash." (I paraphrase).

I never gave her money again but also, I LOVE telling that story because it's the truth, "once a gift is given, the obligation of the receiver is complete."

She was really annoyed one day when I was telling that story and she venmoed me $100 to stop telling the story. I don't say anything until the next opportunity I get to tell the story. And boy, do I tell it with enthusiasm and eye-contact with her. Of course, she got mad because she "paid me back" and I responded with... "Once money is given, my only job is to receive and nothing more."

How about you guys? Any hard lessons you learned from your siblings? Doesn't have to be MC although preferred.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Mynky on 2025-09-21 19:03:23+00:00.

Specifically the word revert, people have started using it to mean “get back to me”, e.g. Please review these slides and revert with comments. It does not mean that, it means return to original state.

I got an email asking me to change some corporate details on the website “and revert”. Now this middle manager was notorious for treating people like shit, and I had been victim in the past. So I did just that, made the change, pushed it. Grabbed a screenshot. Reverted the changed and pushed that out too. I then replied to the request or saying it was done.

Queue lots of confusion, he tried to throw me under a bus, bus I had receipts that not only did I do the change he requested, but as per his email I also reverted the change.

He stopped using revert incorrectly from then on.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Top_Decision_6718 on 2025-09-20 23:08:17+00:00.

Don’t want me to wake you up? Fine, I won’t.

I have a coworker who constantly falls asleep at her desk. I’ve always tried to help her out by quietly waking her up before the boss makes his rounds.

One day, she got annoyed with me and snapped, “Don’t wake me up anymore!”

Okay, fine. You don’t want me to wake you up? I won’t.

Next time she was snoozing at her desk, the boss came walking by. I just sat there, minding my business. The boss noticed, woke her up himself… and now guess who’s got a shiny new write-up on their record?

Not me.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/pumpkinpav on 2025-09-20 03:15:56+00:00.

So I have this coworker, A, whose honestly kind of awful. She's rude and lazy and people have not only quit because of her but quite a few customers have stopped coming in the morning because of her. She also acts like she's manager when shes definitely not. Anyway, one of her jobs is to take the deposit to the bank everyday that the owner of the liquor store is unavailable.

And now I need to back up a bit. So, as embarrassing as it is, I just got liscence like three months ago. So, obviously even now I'm a still a new driver. Well, like a week after I got my liscence, she throws the deposit bag down in front of me and starts going off on me about she's sick and tired of going to the bank and I need to do it. We got inti a little argument about it because, again, only had my liscence for a week, and there was a lot of construction in the area. Basically I just wanted a day I could ask someone to go with me so I didn't freak out too bad about the construction. She was pissed. But I did exactly that and from then on I started taking the deposit to the bank. I mean, why wouldn't I? It got me out of regular work for a half an hour, it was great.

Here's where the compliance becomes malicious: I think she forgot how nice it was to step away from customers and stocking for a little why because she eventually started telling me, oh I'll go to the bank today, you don't have to. Everytime I would just respond but how not big of a deal it. Nothing to throw a hissy fit about, certainly. It got to the point she complained to our manager about it. Our manager, who knew about the fact that I had just gotten my liscence and how A had instantly gotten onto me about the bank, just told her, "You asked her do it, she likes doing it, I don't see the problem here."

Anyway, she hates me, but that's nothing new. She hates everyone we work with outside of our owner. I know this is all very petty, but I have to keep my mouth shut about her most of the time, so a little malicious compliance went a long way for me.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/JoeyJoJo_Senior on 2025-09-19 10:52:16+00:00.

At our work, time sheets have to be filled in every fortnight on a Friday, by close of business, to be processed first thing Monday morning.

Our manager was a really chill woman who would sign off on timesheets Friday morning, and then send them to payroll before 5pm.

She went on leave because her daughter was having a baby, and we got some young dude to temporarily fill in as manager.

This guy was a total d-bag. One of the things he did was insist we complete time sheets only AFTER we’d worked our fortnightly hours.

This meant we had to work until 5, then get our timesheets signed, and then get them to payroll.

Except payroll closes at 5. Which meant we couldn’t get our timesheets to payroll until Monday morning, and they’d be processed late.

So we decided we’d take our time filling in timesheets, a lot of us hang around chatting on a Friday because there’s a bar across the road that does cheap drinks 6-7pm.

So we’d leisurely do our timesheets, and dbag manager would have to hang around to sign them all. One week we didn’t give them to him until right before 6pm. He was PISSED.

This lasted about 6 weeks. I guess something got flagged somewhere that our whole department wasn’t getting paid on time. Dbag manager was quickly identified as the culprit and given the boot. They ended up getting one of my coworkers to take over until our real manager came back.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Ancient_Chocolate809 on 2025-09-18 21:26:26+00:00.

So I work for an agency, and ever since I started 8 years ago I've always had my own computer equipment like keyboards, mice, etc.. and no one has questioned it, not even IT. I get moved to a new small shared office, bring in an extra monitor from home so that I have 3 monitors, and get to work. I receive a call after they "investigate" my office saying it's against policy to use home equipment, despite me having done so previously and IT being aware of it. Immediately I make a list of all the stuff I'm using that the company should then provide for me, like headphones, a docking station, and monitor for working at home.

I unplug my monitors, mousepad, keyboard and mouse, plug back in the companys hardware and slow down my work output drastically. I then take the monitor they gave me and plug it in to replace the monitors I had to take down, and look at them with a shit-eating grin when management came to check if I complied. Well you get what you wish for and now since my work output has dropped, they're forced to re-balance the workload.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/jules083 on 2025-09-18 11:01:27+00:00.

Story takes place in the 60's. Grandfather in law was a WWII vet, was a POW in Italy, got out of the POW camp and rejoined his unit then continued the war. So a verified badass.

Worked the railroad at a steel mill. Just locally moving cars and setting up the train, moving stuff from one plant to the other, that kind of thing. The mill was on either side of a river with a rail bridge connecting them, and the main rails ran right through both sections of the mill. So when he came through with a lot of cars it would temporarily close the roads in the mill.

He would get a little overtime quite often just by the nature of the job. Couple hours or so per week. When it's shift change time but you're driving a train you need to finish up before you can run the engine back to let your relief take over. So of course the mill decided to make a 'no overtime, no exceptions' rule.

It took him a couple weeks to get it timed just right. At 3 pm his shift was over. He parked the engine right by the timeclock, clocked out, and went home. He said there was almost 2 miles of cars hooked to the engine. Went through the section of mill he was at, across the river, and into the other section of the mill. All the track was owned by the mill, so it didn't effect the actual railroad. Just the mill.

The mill bosses wanted to punish him, I forget the details, but the Union shut that right down. Nothing happened and the rules changed the next day.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/NoriGaze on 2025-09-18 06:14:29+00:00.

This happened a few weeks ago at the café where I work. New manager came in a couple months ago and decided we needed to fix professionalism. One of the first memos she sent was basically: “Name badges must be worn on the chest and be clearly visible at all times. Failure to comply will result in progressive discipline.” She meant business, multiple managers had been sending reminders and she even stood by the pass watching people like it was her personal hobby.

Normally I wear the standard little magnetic badge clipped to my apron pocket. It’s visible when I’m standing straight, but it disappears behind the tilt of the espresso machine or when I’m leaning over the pastry case. Rather than roll my eyes and risk a write-up, I decided to follow the rule to the letter.

That afternoon I went to the office supply store and bought a large magnetic backed poster board. Back at work I neatly wrote my name in big block letters, like, 6 inches tall and below it in smaller text I wrote the policy..

Name badge must be worn on chest and clearly visible at all times.

I attached the giant badge across my apron so it covered my whole torso. It was impossible to miss. Tall customers could read it from square footage away. Regulars laughed and called me “Sign Girl” in a loving way. New customers asked if we were doing a promotion. The best part was that every time my manager walked by, she stopped, squinted, and read the policy printed on my badge out loud. Then she looked up, looked at me and just left.

No one could say I wasn’t complying. No write-up, no lecture. A couple of days later the manager called a short team meeting about professionalism and dress code and opened by saying, “I can see everyone is taking the policy seriously.” We all looked at each other and silently high-fived.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/concettababe on 2025-09-16 07:09:14+00:00.

i work the nightshift as a cashier at a 24/7 convience store. my shift is from 10 pm to 5:30 am. usually my coworker and i switch tasks. like shes at the counter while i help the cusotmers.

lately ive been dealing with constant headaches so i asked our manager if icould take a night off. but instead of approving it, she snapped

"if you dont like the scheddule, amke your own"

so i did.

I skipped two nights, then worked only 4 hours on the third night, and took another night off after that.When I finally came back, she scolded me, saying, “That’s not what I meant.” I told her, “Well, you said make my own schedule, so I did.”

Now the whole staff—whether day shift or night shift—is asking if they can customize their schedules too. Funny how she suddenly cares about “clear communication.” Shoutout to our manager of the year, ma’am knows-it-all.

ps: i did put my phone to dnd so that i wont notify with her calls and texts. also our manager only go to the store every Monday. (i asked her Monday night. my working days are Monday to Saturday)

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Neat_Laugh70 on 2025-09-13 20:54:37+00:00.

This was a few months ago when my youngest was still nursing. I was at the zoo just enjoying the day with my family. I've always been super open with my kids about the fact that mammals make milk to feed their babies and they drank milk too when they were babies. My youngest got hungry so I found a bench out of the sun to feed her. She's happily nursing away right. Cue Karen who walks past me. She had to be in her 60s or so. She proceeds to tell me that there are children here and to cover up basically. So I reach into my diaper bag and pull out a knitted hat that's basically shaped like a boob. Like nipple and all. "Is that better ma'am?" I ask. Her eyes got super wide and she practically scurried away

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/PandoraWinters on 2025-09-13 07:15:34+00:00.

Long time lurker and first time poster on this sub. Sorry for any mistakes, English isn't my native language.

So I used to work for this terrible manager in a pharmacy, let's call him Edwin. He was the kind of guy who wanted is to greet every client in an insanely busy store. He was the type that wanted to introduce a color wheel for when I made creams and such and he was an overall terrible person. Edwin was the type that didn't let me go to a funeral of a friend of mine who died at 23 and the next day he could leave because he had to walk his dog.

After a few years I was done with all that shit. The last figurative drop? Him giving me this lecture in front of our patients when I was late because a bus broke down and I couldn't let in. He told me... Work hours are from 9 to 12 and from 1 to 6:30.. got it mate.

I stopped going to the lessons we got from people during my break. And got on at exactly 9 to clock in. When he commented that I usually was early. I told him. "You said my hours are between 9 and 6:30. No exceptions?" Gave him a confused look.

So whenever I was helping a patient. I would drop everything and stop at that exact hour. He fired me, I went to the union and was paid for 2 more years by this pharmacy. Later I learned, that during Corona... He made his people work with that virus. So what did I do? I called my counties FDA and told them all about it. The pharmacy is still shit down.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Sven_Svan on 2025-09-13 05:24:57+00:00.

There's a tiny guy that lives downstairs from me that has the napoleon complex bad.

He is a bad neighbor in every way imaginable. He plays loud music once every few days, but he is way too old to be doing that (mid forties).

Anyway the first time I went to talk to him about it, he said he would stop and he did for a few weeks. The second time I went to talk to him about it he said "youre gonna have to take it up with the landlord" and closed the door.

So I did. He got a 100 euro fine. He was not happy about that. :D