Malicious Compliance

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Illuminatus-Prime on 2024-11-12 19:01:46+00:00.

tl;dr: Obeyed "the letter of the law."  Teacher could not object.

Back in the Dark Ages (e.g., before teh Interwebz or mobile phones), one of my algebra instructors forbade any of us from using electronic calculators during an exam -- he even wrote it on the blackboard in big letters (see Title of this thread).

So there I am, in the back row, whipping out the answers faster than anyone else in the class.  Teach comes up to me, holds out his hand, and demands I give him my calculator.  I hold up my Pickett slide rule and say, "Do you mean this?"

"I said no calculators during the exam!"

"You said no electronic calculators during the exam.  Show me where the batteries go, and I'll give it up."

He got a kinda thoughty look on his face and went back to his desk.  I continued the test and turned in my answers about 30 minutes before anyone else.

When I got my grade back, it was 98% (missed 1 out of 50 due to a slipped decimal point).

Of course, there were the usual calls of "Cheater!  Cheater!" from the other students, but eff'em -- they shoulda studied harder.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/chub70199 on 2024-11-11 17:45:49+00:00.

This didn't happen directly to me, but a person I used to work with a couple of years back.

We worked as system consultants and would travel to the sites we were assisting during the phases of the projects that required being there in person.

As travel costs for these trips would directly impact the budget of the project or were passed on to the client, we were encouraged to travel as lightly and plan as much ahead as possible, chosing the lowest fare within reason and not go overboard with the hotel and meals.

Most of the time this worked well enough. If something was out of the ordinary, usually a quick call to whomever to explain the reason behind it would clear things up, our expenses would be approved and we'd carry on.

Until the company was hired by this one customer. People there seemed to operate out of some parallel world where the constraints of the real world would not apply.

Anyway, the usual policy of being cost conscious also applied there and the controller from the customer made a point to let us know that they would not approve expenses our company or my “colleague”, who was a directly hired contractor, submitted, if we weren't mindful of costs.

It inevitably happened that we flew in for our first in-person meeting and, booking the lowest available fare within a reasonable schedule, meant we flew without checked luggage and showed up in button down shirts, dark chinos and black slip on shoes.

Not the most formal attire, but certainly not in pyjamas, and perfectly acceptable for every other client up to then.

Well, not for these people. We were taken aside and told that their C-Suite management was very taken aback that their provider couldn't even manage to show up in suits, proper shoes and an ironed shirt.

I was stumped, but my contractor colleague retained his cool and simply asked for a quick two sentence email with the requirement for suits, ironed shirts and formal shoes. The client surprisingly obliged.

Queue our next trip and when coordinating with my colleague to book similar flight times and the same hotel, things got interesting.

First, we were flying in the evening before, second, we were checking lugge, third the no-frills hotel a little further out of town, but close enough to the client's office wouldn't do this time.

Since they wanted formal attire without any creases, we'd have to check in trolley, because two suits and a fresh shirt for each day plus a spare weren't going to fit in our carry-on. And since we'd have to iron any creases out, we have to book a hotel that has ironing facilities, so the business hotel downtown it has to be this time. And the time spent ironing will be invoiced, or at least my contractor colleague will…

I'll skip over the uneventful meeting and go straight to when my company's invoice and the contractor's expenses claim got rejected. Since we had the email requesting formal wear, we argued that this was done at the client's request.

The controller wouldn't budge. So the contractor immediately stopped working for the client and told my management as much, recommending I do the same. After missing a deadline and a couple of remote meetings (all with a short but sweet answer that there was an outstanding payment), the controller relented, the C-suite dropped the dress code, and we dropped the client the moment the contract was done.

I have sine been contacted by them again through LinkedIn in an attempt to recruit me. LOL

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/SivrenR on 2024-11-11 07:32:35+00:00.

This one is from my early days when I was working as a technician for an internet provider company but it still brings a smile to my face when I remember it...and recently had a technician coming to install my internet and it all came back.

I was working mostly residential buildings and my job that time was pretty simple - come to the basement, find our distribution box, patch the cable to the right endpoint for the requesting flat, go to the flat, fix cable outlet when needed, verify cable is live (there is signal coming through and it is the right signal - this is somewhat important) connect modem, verify all good tell the happy customer the internet is ready to use and off I go.

One day I am doing my job again but got this know-it-all guy. Had to call him to let me in the building and it was a blast right from the start. First he told me he knew exactly where my company distribution box is only to lead me to the electricity provider box. Then he is absolutely sure his flat is number XX while the papers state YY and indeed was YY. There were a few more "helps" from his side which I skip to avoid this becoming a book. But eventually we are up in the flat and I am going to check the signal but the guy is like "come on, hurry up, need my connection, need to work on super important stuff".

I tell him I need to test the signal first but here he opens up my malicious compliance window - he says "you do not need to do that, just connect the cable, if the cable is live, just go and I will finish it myself". I still give him a chance by explicitly stressing that test will take some minutes only, but if it does not work, I will not be able to come earlier than in a couple of days. No, absolutely not, he can finish it by himself. Okay, my man, you've got it.

Already too long story, to make it short - cable was live, but the signal was from local TV antennae, not from our cable internet. This was actually relatively common issue at that time (older residential buildings, reused wiring, cable patching to "a wrong one") and was not so hard to fix once you knew what's wrong. I only imagine what the guy tried to make it work before calling our call center to schedule my visit again. What I know is I came to the flat 3 days later only to be greeted by his lovely wife which made me some tea and thanked me for being kind and fixing the problem.

To come to a closure - when a technician came to install my internet a few days ago I made him some tea and told him to take his time and do all that's needed. We had a little chat and guess what - the process and issues are still the same and recently he was telling his junior colleague why checking "if cable is live" is not enough.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/subWoofer_0870 on 2024-11-11 05:57:49+00:00.

In the early days of the British colony in Sydney, Australia, the authorities viewed the Church of England as part of the establishment, and required convicts to attend church every Sunday in an attempt to install “good morals”. This grated somewhat on those of the convict population who were from a Roman Catholic background (particularly the Irish).

As the colony developed, and grants of land were made further away from Sydney Cove (the initial settlement point), churches of the Church of England flavour were set up, and ministers appointed to preach to and pastor the locals. Fairly early in the days of the colony, a settlement was established at Windsor, about 40km/25miles northwest of Sydney Cove. Settlers farming on granted land nearby could apply to have convicts to work as farm labourers and domestic servants. These arrangements involved written contracts, specifying the responsibilities of the landholders and the convicts. These contracts included the stipulation that the convicts must attend the church service at “St Matthew’s Church, Windsor” every Sunday.

The Roman Catholic priests in Sydney did not take this lying down. In 1840, St Matthew’s Catholic Church was set up in Windsor. Convicts in the area of a Roman Catholic persuasion could comply with the letter of their employment contracts without having to be subject to that nasty Protestantism.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/fullerm on 2024-11-11 04:04:38+00:00.

I just remembered an incident of Malicious Compliance on my part. I was working at the best hotel in a medium-size city in the Midwestern US, as a night auditor. If you don't know, in many hotels might auditors usually work the front desk overnight as well as do some light bookkeeping/accounting work.

We had a policy that if you went over the amount that your credit card was authorized for, we sent a copy of your folio (essentially a receipt of your charges so far) to your room, and it was slid under the door by our overnight security staff. A guy from big coastal city was in town on business, and had overspent his authorization, so off the folio goes. At about 4:30 in the morning, I get an angry phone call from him asking why his receipt was sent to his room, so I explained the policy. His angry response was to demand that I authorize his credit card for $175,000. Yes sir, no problem sir. The unused portion will be returned to your credit card in 7-10 business days. That meant he had almost $200,000 held on his card for nearly two weeks.

I get in the next night, and my supervisor is waiting for me, and asked why I did it. Because he asked for it.

TL;DR: Angry hotel guest demands that $175,000 be held on his card. So I did exactly that.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Hieloun on 2024-11-10 16:54:45+00:00.

Hopefully a good one for you. Sorry for any mistakes as English is not my first language. A few details are changed for anonymity.

I work at a niche retail store located in the heart of town. Our customers are dedicated and often travel from afar just to visit us, so having a clear and accessible parking lot is crucial for our business. Unfortunately, our next door neighbours, a family-run landscaping and garden supply store, have been a thorn in our side for years when it comes to parking.

The tension between my boss and the landscaping store owner goes back over a decade before I joined, all over something trivial. I know the landscaper once complained about a tree on our side of the lot, which was unsightly for their customers. It was the pettiest neighbour drama you could imagine, but it festered for years.

The final straw came after the ‘rona, when the physical business in town started picking back up and our parking lot started overflowing with cars again, many belonging to the landscaping store’s customers. See, our two parking lots are connected. Ours is about twice the size of his, but the landscaper had decided to reserve almost all his spots for his landscaping vans. Ironically, those vans are rarely even there during business hours. As a result, his customers just parked in our lot, leaving us with few spaces for our own customers.

My boss, trying to be reasonable, approached the landscaper with a suggestion. Maybe they could adjust their parking setup to free up a few more spaces for customers, and that their vans were welcome to park in our lot, if their lot was ever full. But the landscaper shot down the idea immediately, insisting that it was “absolutely crucial” to reserve all of those spaces for his vans, even though they were rarely there during the day. The conversation turned heated, ending with my boss threatening to put up a fence to separate the lots and enforce parking. The landscaper, practically daring him, shot back, “Go ahead.” Probably knowing how expensive that would be. As you can imagine, it ended with both men storming off and not speaking for two years. Typical neighbour stuff.

Fast forward to recently, and we got a golden opportunity when a parking management company approached us with a proposal. They offered to install automated license plate cameras to enforce parking, allowing us to fine vehicles that stayed beyond a generous 3-hour free window, if they hadn’t paid. The setup would be free, we’d get most of the revenue and they would keep any fines issued. It was perfect, especially since we were losing spaces to freeloaders, wouldn't really impact the customers of the nearby stores, and if anyone had a good reason to park there for longer, then we could give them an extension at our discretion.

However, for the cameras to work, they needed to cover both our entrance and the landscaping store’s entrance. Being the considerate neighbour (again), my boss had the parking company rep reach out to the landscaper to explain the deal and benefits. But true to form, the landscaper didn’t even let the rep finish before kicking him out, making it very clear very clear that, under no circumstances, would his lot become a paid parking zone.

Instead of going through the hassle of putting up the necessary expensive fence, my boss had a better idea: big rocks. One of his construction buddies had a stash of leftover rocks from a recent project and offered to place them for a great price. The parking company even agreed to front the cost, to be repaid through future parking revenue.

On Monday morning, before opening hours, one of the buddy’s employees, a big, burly guy with arms like tree trunks, arrived with a truck and crane to place the rocks. The rocks were neatly spaced to allow pedestrians to pass with carts but completely blocked vehicle access. The landscaper stormed out, yelling and trying to intimidate the worker into stopping. But the worker, unfazed, calmly told him to step back for his own safety, which made the much smaller landscaper back down and retreat in frustration.

The rocks weren’t just a physical barrier. They quickly became a mental obstacle for the landscapers’s employees. Their muscle memory kept bringing them into our lot, only for them to realize too late that they couldn’t drive through anymore. We watched from our newly installed surveillance cameras, just in case the neighbour tried anything, trying not to burst out laughing as their vans ended up awkwardly stuck. They’d have to reverse out and go all the way around to their own entrance, only to perform a series of painful maneuvers to squeeze into their now much smaller parking area. At one point, we even caught one of their rushing vans clipping a rock while trying to maneuver. A little bonus for our viewing pleasure.

The next day, the parking company arrived to install the license plate cameras and set up the signage, which took a few hours. Throughout the installation, the landscaper’s family members were prowling around our lot, snapping photos and videos as if they were on a mission to find a violation. But the parking company was very professional, and had done everything by the book, so there was nothing for them to report. In the meantime, my boss was positively glowing with satisfaction as he helped direct the installation.

Here’s the best part: We noticed that the neighbour's family had started parking their personal vehicles in our lot, likely out of spite to mess with us. One day, my coworker saw one of the family members dash out of their store and sprint to their car. We thought it was odd at the time but didn’t think much of it until the following week, when the landscaper’s son came into our store looking a bit embarrassed.

Apparently, he had accidentally overstayed the 3-hour limit and received a $150 fine. The son practically begged us to waive it, insisting it was just a simple mistake. My boss politely responded, “Oh, I’d really love to help, but it’s out of our control now. The parking company handles all the fines.”

The look on his face was priceless. He left, shoulders slumped retreating back to their store.

Ever since, our lot has been blissfully clear, and our customers have had no trouble finding spaces. Meanwhile, the landscapers have been grumbling as they have a harder time maneuvering their vans, still trying to pretend they’re not bothered. As for my boss? He’s been smiling a lot more lately.

Sometimes, the best revenge is simply letting people get exactly what they asked for.

TL;DR: Neighbouring landscaping store took up parking, refused to cooperate. We followed their instructions and blocked off our lot and set up parking enforcement cameras. Within a week, they got fined, and came begging us to waive it. Boss simply told them it’s “Out of our hands.” Now, our lot is clear, and we're happier than ever.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/firakti on 2024-11-09 20:21:59+00:00.

Attenzione attenzione Karen & HOA combo alert...

So, I live in a pretty standard suburban neighborhood, and like a lot of places, it’s run by an HOA. A few months ago, I decided to buy an RV. It wasn’t anything fancy—just a used one—but I was really looking forward to taking weekend road trips and having the freedom to get away whenever I felt like it.

I parked it in my driveway, thinking nothing of it. But within a week, I received a letter from the HOA. Apparently, RVs aren’t allowed to be parked in the driveway or on the street for more than 72 hours at a time. The letter warned that if I didn’t move it, I’d start getting fined $50 a day. I wasn’t thrilled, but I wasn’t just going to give up my RV either.

So, I read through the rules carefully. The HOA guidelines said that RVs “must not be visible from the street or common areas.” That was it—no specifics on where or how the RV had to be parked, just that it couldn’t be seen. Well, if that’s what they wanted, that’s exactly what I was going to give them.

I called up a contractor and had a solid 8-foot privacy fence installed around my front yard. It was a simple wooden fence, tall enough to completely block the view of my driveway from the street. I made sure it was solid—no gaps, no chance of anyone being able to see through it. I parked the RV right up against the fence, hidden from view. Technically, I was following the rules perfectly, and I knew it.

But of course, things didn’t stay quiet for long.

One of my neighbors, Karen (yes, the classic “Karen”), had already been vocal about not liking the RV in my driveway. She was the first one to send me a complaint about it, calling it an “eyesore” and saying it was “ruining the neighborhood’s charm.” She even knocked on my door, demanding I move it. When I told her I was following the rules and had made sure the RV wasn’t visible, she left in a huff, muttering something about how the HOA would take care of it.

Well, the HOA did respond—but not in the way Karen expected. A few days later, I got a letter from the HOA saying they had “reviewed the situation” and found no violations. They acknowledged that I was in compliance. But Karen wasn’t having it.

Over the next few weeks, she went around the neighborhood, complaining to other neighbors about how the RV was still “ruining the community’s aesthetic.” She was convinced the HOA just hadn’t caught on yet, and she started rallying people to get the rules changed. She even went as far as knocking on doors and asking neighbors to send complaints to the HOA about my RV.

I started getting passive-aggressive comments when I ran into neighbors. One said, “I’m sure the HOA is going to change the rules soon enough.” Another just sighed and said, “This isn’t what this neighborhood is supposed to be about.” But every time they complained, I just smiled and said, “I’m in compliance with the HOA’s rules. I’m not doing anything wrong.”

But Karen wasn’t done. A month later, she went straight to the HOA board, trying to rally a group of neighbors to push for a rule change to make sure no RV could be parked anywhere in the neighborhood. She got a couple of others on board, and they started sending in complaints about how my RV was “ruining the neighborhood’s curb appeal.”

So, the HOA called me in for a meeting. I was a little nervous, but I knew I wasn’t doing anything wrong. When the HOA arrived, they started walking around my yard, looking for the RV. After a few minutes of confusion, one of them finally said, “So, you’re still parking the RV here?” I nodded and pointed toward my driveway, where the RV was hidden behind the fence.

I told them, “Yes, it’s still here, but as you can see, it’s not visible from the street. I’m following the rules exactly.”

The HOA reps stood there for a moment, looking frustrated, because there was no way they could argue with that. After a long silence, one of them sighed and said, “Well, I guess we can’t do anything about it if it’s not visible.”

That was the end of it. The HOA couldn’t do anything more, and Karen and the other neighbors had no legal ground to stand on. But Karen wasn’t ready to fully give up.

A few days later, Karen sent me a message. “I guess you win this round,” she wrote. “But I’m watching you. I’ll be keeping an eye out for any mistake or violation, and when I find one, I’ll be right on it.”

I smiled to myself. She could keep watching all she wanted—my RV was hidden, and I was in full compliance. After that, things quieted down. No more complaints, no more passive-aggressive comments. Karen may have been eyeing me, but there was nothing left for her to do.

TL;DR: HOA told me I couldn’t park my RV where it was visible, so I built an 8-foot privacy fence to hide it. Neighbors complained, but after the HOA confirmed I was following the rules, they gave up. Karen sent me a message saying, “I guess you win this round, but I’m watching you,” but that was the last I heard. Now, my RV is still parked, hidden from view, and no one can do anything about it.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/jblumensti on 2024-11-09 15:58:24+00:00.

A key part of academic publication is peer-review. You send a paper out, it goes out for review, the reviewers provide comments to the editor/authors and it is published if the authors meet the requirements of the reviewers and editor (the editor has final word). It also happens that a big part of academic evaluation is whether your work is cited. This inserts a conflict of interest in the review process because a reviewer can request citations of certain work to support the claims, thus the reviewer can also request citations of the REVIEWERS OWN WORK. This boosts citations for the reviewer.

The editor should prevent this, but sometimes that doesn't happen (i.e., the editor sucks or is in on the racket). In this paper, apparently that happened. A reviewer demanded citations of their own (or a collaborators work) that were wholly irrelevant. So...the authors "complied":

"As strongly requested by the reviewers, here we cite some references [[35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47]] although they are completely irrelevant to the present work."

Hat Tip: Alejandro Montenegro

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/clhharrison on 2024-11-09 05:34:32+00:00.

Story takes place in the Latter half of 2022 in the UK. Names and company changed/not mentioned due to NDA and overzealousness on behalf of company.

Part One: The Issue Begins.

I worked at a major tourist attraction during this time, and we got thousands of customers every day. Part of our attraction was outside, and we had expanded part of the outside to accommodate new parts for the attraction. In order to blend with the theme of the new section, a brand new brick pavement was installed in the area.

Upper Management had at the time a tendency to not think things 100% through, and this was no different. The big thing was that it was decided NOT to install an anti-slip surface on the brick pavement. Now we were in the middle of Summer, and it was a particularly dry Summer, but nonetheless when it isn't dry we got a lot of rain and a lot of snow and frost. We need that anti-slip surface. We told Upper Management this, and as per usual, fell on deaf ears.

Winter comes far too soon, and with it all the rain that was meant for Summer and to make up for a dry Autumn. And the Winter of 2022 was bad for the UK. Temperatures fell to single digits, and then negative in the Celsius. With the cold came a permanent frost over the brick pavement, and the beginning of malicious compliance.

Part Two: The Compliance.

The first slips and falls heralded us to the idea. At the time the company required us to write in paper Accident and Incident Reports about everything if something bad happened. Now anyone whose worked in tourist attractions we've all seen kids fall from being too excited and we often do a polite to see if blood/gore/missing limbs are present, and if all is good we just ignore it. No one likes paperwork. Not to mention due to Upper Management's distaste for us we had to take the long way to the offices where the paper was to fill it in, and get someone to cover us while we filled it in. Upper Management hated us being in their special offices and not out with the paying customers.

It is worth mentioning in their defence, our Lower Managers and Middle Managers were on our side, because even THEY knew what Upper Management was doing was utter nonsense. So they saw what we were doing and agreed with it. What happened was every, single, slip, that occurred outside on the impromptu ice rink that was the brick pavement we would report. That's about 15-20 minutes of us, in the warmth, not freezing our butts off, writing about how someone had slipped in the exact same manner as the last 10 people, all in plain view of Upper Management. I liked to believe they began working from home more due to us being there in their office. I learned from one of our Lower Managers that is a dear friend that the stack of reports handed to Upper Management was measurable in inches. I do not regret saying I was one of the top 3 contributors to that pile.

Part Three: The Bare Minimum Response.

Upper Management finally began to make efforts to 'fix' the situation. They decided to just cordon off the vast majority of the brick pavement with temporary (ugly) barriers, and put down anti-slip mats to make a path for the parts of the attraction that they wanted visitors to walk in. They thought they had won. We knew better.

Anyone who has worked with tourists knows that tourists are a special breed of stupid. Told not to touch the very important items? They will touch. Told to keep their kids near and not let them wander off? I think the record for no lost kids was 4 hours. And so these barriers that everyone is required to respect? Well clearly it doesn't apply to me! Each time we told people not to go underneath these barriers they looked like deer caught in the headlights. And the barriers were just low enough that kids would duck under and run straight onto the ice and onto their butts. Even more Accident and Incident Reports rocked up as a result, and all Upper Management would do is tell us low barely-above-minimum-wage earners to do a better job policing this part of the attraction.

Part Four: Wake Up Call.

Schoolkids! Oh how we loathed schools, mostly teenager ones. Little kids no more than 5-10? Oh they were delightful, we were happy with them. The main reason was because the teachers, who are still responsible for the kids no matter what, actually followed our guidelines! So naturally we liked the little ones, and were genuinely more concerned for them than normal.

We all then had our moment of fear when it was reported that a 7 year old boy had slipped and fallen on the ice, no doubt having been playing with classmates and unintentionally not seeing where he was going. That didn't save his two front teeth chipping and a call for our on-site first aid team to come and help with the blood. Luckily he seemed alright beside the fact the tooth fairy was going to be paying double that night. But for us, Lower and Middle Management, it was the final straw. I wish I had taken a photo of that Accident and Incident Report for posterity, the number of people co-signing it.

Part Five: The Fallout.

Nobody wants a lawsuit and that kids parents had grounds to do so like nobodies business. The fact a child had been injured from negligence did not look good on Upper Managements part, and it wasn't as if they could pretend nothing had happened. Everyone had been telling them about the risk, and when it got to the Big Wigs, I can only imagine what was said.

Miraculously and within 2 days of the kid's teeth, they put an anti-slip surface on the brick pavement, at what was probably more of a cost than had they just done so in the Summer. The barriers were removed, and the number of paper Accident and Incident Reports dramatically decreased. They finally also got around to installing tablet devices with which we could fill in reports without needing to drop position. Our lives were made easier, they got an earful, and that kid probably has a fun story for when he's older and has kids himself.

I'd like to say Upper Management learned their lesson and took our words on board for future endeavours, but that is like expecting the dog to not poop on the carpet after the first time you shove their nose into it. I no longer work there for other reasons, and many of the people who joined in the act of Malicious Compliance have since gone elsewhere. But for nearly 3 glorious months, you had never seen a department work together like ours in that way before or since.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/50_Many_Questions on 2024-11-08 15:18:03+00:00.

I’m a high school English teacher. I have two major annoyances when it comes to kids doing work.

First, a lot of kids don’t read or listen to directions. Assignment instructions are written on their papers, and I read them out loud, but I still have students asking me “What are we doing?”

That’s no big deal, though - it’s a pretty normal thing to deal with as a teacher. The real issue bugging me is students cheating on writing assignments using ChatGPT. I’m pretty good at spotting AI-generated essays. But the problem is that when I try to accuse students of using AI, they deny it. They act outraged that I would accuse them even though we both know they’re playing dumb.

I usually just give them a zero and move on with my life, but there’s always the fear that one of them might take the issue to administration. If they did, I’m not confident that admin would back me up. It’s hard to prove something is AI-generated, and these days, the higher ups are more likely to side with the student.

So I hatched a plan. I gave an open-ended creative writing assignment. The directions said to “write a story about anything you want” and then answer some questions about the story you wrote.

The thing is, when you ask ChatGPT, “Tell me a story,” it always spits out the exact same story - about a girl named Elara who lives in the woods.

”Once upon a time, in a small village nestled between rolling hills and dense forests, there lived a young woman named Elara. She was known throughout the village for her curiosity and sense of adventure, always eager to explore the world beyond the familiar paths of her home.”

So, in slightly smaller print under the instructions, I wrote ”If your main character’s name is Elara, -99 points.”

Lo and behold, I got one or two kids turn in a story about a girl named Elara who lives in woods. When I turned back the papers with a grade of 1/100 (because I find that it stings more than a zero), the kids predictably asked why. And all I had to do was point to the instructions that they didn’t read. There was no need to mention AI. We both knew what they did.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Angie_Reiden on 2024-11-07 23:58:26+00:00.

I work at a mid-sized company where most of us have small desks in an open-plan office. Our workspace was never fancy, but it was our own. Many of us had personalized our desks over time with small things that made us feel comfortable like family photos, little potted plants, motivational quotes, even those cheesy stress balls from random company events.

Enter our new manager, Sheila. Fresh from a more "formal" corporate environment, she came in with big ideas about "professionalism" and “efficiency.” Her first big change? An immediate “no personal items” policy. Sheila sent out an email announcing that desks must remain “professional and distraction-free” and warned that any personal items found after a certain date would be removed by her.

People were frustrated, but we complied. We packed up our things, took home our photos, plants, and every little touch that made our desks feel like ours. But Sheila wasn’t satisfied. She started walking around the office, critiquing anything she deemed “unprofessional,” including practical items like sticky notes or even labeled drawers. She wanted a uniform look, free from “clutter.”

At this point, we were fed up. We decided to take “impersonal” to a whole new level.

We spent the next few days systematically removing anything that added personality or function to the space. First, we took down the labels on drawers and cabinets that marked where supplies were kept, after all, they could be considered “personalized.” Then, we stripped the whiteboards bare, removing all schedules, task lists, and helpful reminders. My coworker Sam, the office organizer, removed all the color-coded tabs and replaced everything with blank, unlabeled folders.

Our workstations became soulless. But we didn’t stop there.

We noticed that even the company provided items, like the ergonomic mouse pads and wrist rests, weren’t uniform, so we tucked them away in drawers. Some of us even swapped out our ergonomic chairs with the plain guest chairs, as the ergonomic ones seemed a bit too “individualized.”

Soon, our workspace looked like a cross between a sterile hospital room and a call center with zero personality. It was, in Sheila’s words, “totally professional.”

Sheila was pleased at first, but then the consequences of our “impersonal” compliance started to show. Without labels or visible reminders, no one knew where anything was stored, leading to endless back-and-forth and wasted time hunting for supplies. Simple tasks took twice as long, with people digging through unlabeled files or searching for the right folder in the sea of plain, identical folders.

Clients visiting the office remarked that the space felt "cold" and “uninviting,” noting that they missed the usual welcoming touch. Morale in the office dropped, and everyone was noticeably disengaged.

After a particularly rough day where Sheila herself got frustrated searching for a stapler, she called an emergency meeting. She admitted that maybe we’d gone a bit too far, and that we could “reintroduce a few labeled drawers and some plants.” One by one, employees brought back their family photos, potted plants, and other small touches that made the office feel alive again.

By the end of the day, our workspace was back to normal, with a clear message sent: sometimes a little personality and comfort go a long way.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/veybi on 2024-11-07 07:00:47+00:00.

Right after dinner, my 3 year old asked to play video games. We started introducing him to some games, and he loves Sonic already. Since he behaved very well during the whole day, it was fair to let him play a bit, however we told him that first he should brush his teeth.

He, as a good toddler, immediately protested and asked to brush his teeth while playing. We kept telling him no, that he first need to brush and after he gets to play. After a quick back and forth, the following dialogue happened:

Lovey wife: - Bud, how would that work? You don't have enough hands to hold the controller and the toothbrush at the same time.

Him, with the logic and confidence of a 3 year old: - Yes I do!

Her: - No, you don't. You have two hands. You need two hands just for the controller and another one for the toothbrush.

Him: - I have three hands!

Her: - No, you don't.

Him: - Yes, I do.

Her: - You know what, if you show me you have three hands, I will let you play and brush your teeth at the same time.

Him: - OK.

Immediately leaves the couch and goes towards the dinning table. Grabs a sticky hand toy that he got for Halloween and brings it back.

• See, now I have three hands!

It was almost impossible not to lose it laughing, especially seeing the proud smirk in his face... He got to play the game while we brushed his teeth, as a reward for creative problem-solving.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/ResultDowntown3065 on 2024-11-06 23:14:18+00:00.

Another post reminded me of this story.

My mother was a nurse. She worked in the same medical/surgical unit for almost 30 years. Every year a new set of Medical Residents would come through. They were mostly nice and eager to learn from everyone, including the nurses. However there is always an outlier.

One afternoon, one of the patients on the floor had an issue. I am not sure what it was, but it had to do with some treatment that a Resident ordered that was not agreeing with the patient. No problem, because this is not the first time this has happened in the history of this said treatment and there is a written protocol on how to make adjustments. The seasoned nurses have seen this before and have made changes to this order hundreds of times. T

The nurse in charge did the adjustment and all was well. However, when the prescribing Resident found out, she went batsh*t crazy, yelling at everyone about usurping her authority. Then she said that any changes to care for her patients had to be approved by her first.

Ok, game on.

For the next week, this Resident was paged for Every! Single! Solitary! Thing! especially when the Resident went on nap break during 36-hour shifts.

This went on for two weeks because the Resident complained to everyone thinking that people would side with her. When she saw that the Sr. doctors or her fellow Residents wouldn't back her up, she gave up and let the nurses use their judgment.

Never mess with the nurses/

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/FlopShanoobie on 2024-11-06 22:38:02+00:00.

At the end of every year we have to do this ridiculous self appraisal as part of our performance review. Normally it's 3 or 4 questions based on your goals for the past year: did you accomplish your goals, what roadblocks did you overcome, how did you become a better employee, etc.

This year I got a new boss who, instead of the usual 5 goals, assigned me 25. Yes, a total of 25 highly specific goals for me to accomplish throughout the year. Since January I've been knocking them down and moving to the next one, or working on long-range projects that included multiple goals. I did really well, all things considered, and even got a promotion. Nice!

That brings us to the annual performance evaluation. I had a lot of goals–25 of them, if you recall. My plan was to write a short essay that broke down the year by quarter and outlined all of the goals I met and a short description of how meeting that goal helped the team make progress. Clean, simple, and complete.

Except my boss has this form. This form includes six sections with 4 to 7 questions per section, for a total of 33 separate questions ... per goal. That's 825 questions. Each question requires at least 150 words to be considered complete.

He handed me the evaluation packet last week and said I needed to turn it in my Thanksgiving. After getting a couple of questions into the thing I realized it wasn't just asking for narrative, but data and analysis, sometimes multiple data points per question. I spent two entire days just completing one goal, which comprised 12 written pages, two spreadsheets, and 14 separate graphics. Doing the math I realized it was going to take me 48 business days to complete the remainder. I asked my boss if this is really what he intended and he said Just do it like I said.

Sure thing.

I cleared my calendar through Thanksgiving. Not one meeting. Declined all project requests in Asana. Turned on Busy in Teams. Turned on auto-replies in Outlook. For a full month.

When my boss' boss - our VP - came by and asked why I wasn't responding to any requests or responding to email I explained the situation. What's funny is he said, "Yeah, he's a real stickler for detail. I guess he needs to learn how to deal with reality. Carry on!"

I'm up to about 130-odd written pages. This thing is going to be bigger than my dissertation! And he STILL hasn't come by to ask why I'm not coming to meetings anymore. Maybe this really is what he wants - a team lead doing useless paperwork for 6 weeks. Whatever. They're paying me.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Cryptid-Fan on 2024-11-06 19:57:55+00:00.

In my early 30's, I (now 40F) worked for a university as a Project Manager. We were state funded, and therefore every nickle of spending had to be run through our department Accountant, who was not terribly well liked. She was very nit picky, would demand documentation on some expenses but not others, and would be very condescending when she "had" to send stuff back for correction (aka done to her liking, it had nothing to do with being incorrect). Rumor had it that she only got and stayed in her position because she was related to a board member. That being said, I got used to her shenanigans pretty early and just did my best to get my purchases through her as quickly as possible so that I could continue my projects.

About a year into my employment, I was handed a project that had been initiated by our Director. It was a 5 year training program that was described to me as "The Director's Baby." My Manager got it off the ground and then passed it to me to maintain for the remainder of the program. I threw myself into this program not only because I enjoyed what I did, but also the Director was cool as hell (I'm still friends with him on socal media) and I wanted the program to succeed for him.

I had a Project Coordinator that worked with me for detail stuff like ordering supplies and working with facilities (my focus was on budget, content, and working with the clients). After she and I had run several successful training sessions under this new program, we needed to order more supplies of standard training stuff like pens, note pads, name tags, etc. Something else we regularly used, per the Director's request, was boxes of tissues, which for some unknown reason was not something we could get from our office supply vendor. My Coordinator had been buying them in bulk at a warehouse store with her purchase card and then storing them in the basement, only taking what we needed for each training session.

When she went to submit the receipt for the new container of tissue boxes, the accountant lit into her about how tissues were not an approved purchase. Even when she showed the accountant an email from the beginning of the program showing that the director has requested tissues be provided to the participants, she stated that the Director didn't make or enforce the purchasing policy (which is technically true). When my Coordinator, who was normally a very bold and brassy lady, came into my office looking defeated and told me she was going to have to take the tissues back unless the accountant received "sufficient written justification", I got pissed.

I could have pushed the issue up the chain, but I didn't want to bother my Manager or the Director with this nonsense. Instead, I decided to do what I do best, be annoying. One thing I am good at is writing extremely detailed bullshit. I can elaborate on any detail, no matter how small. I'm especially good at it when I'm mad. So I popped myself down in front my computer and, in one go, wrote a five and a half page email (we did a print preview to see exactly how long it was) on why we needed boxes of tissues for this program. I never put in there "because the Director said so", but I listed off every other possible justification and then wrote a mini essay on each of those points. My Coordinator was sitting in the corner of my office giggling as she watched my hands fly over the keyboard.

I sent the email around noon. Just before quitting time, my Coordinator stuck her head back into my office to let me know that the tissue purchase had been approved in our system. I never got a reply to my email, the Accountant never said anything to me or my Coordinator, but my Coordinator never again got pushback on buying boxes of tissues.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/El_Baramallo on 2024-11-06 19:16:38+00:00.

I am staying at Japan. I don't speak Japanese.

I went down to the front desk at the hotel I'm staying at, and as I often did throughout this trip, pulled out my phone and asked Google Translate what time did breakfast start.

Clerk reaches for his phone that was charging in a nearby table, but his hand pauses midair. He glances at another clerk, returns to his seat at the front desk, types something in the computer and picks up at the printer.

He then hands me a printout from Google Translate's webpage saying "it starts at 6am"

Now that's an employee who has been scolded for using his personal phone during work if I've ever seen one!

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/melentop on 2024-11-06 18:40:56+00:00.

Long Story. I've worked aviation EMS as a pilot for many years after retiring from the military. Great, stable job and still serving the local communities, so a sense of pride and community service is maintained. In the last few years, corporate decided that our flight volume was such that a second helicopter be stationed, co-located, with us as we we're consistently one of the top performing bases in the company. Long story short, a different type of helicopter with different capabilities was to be co-located with us. Said new aircraft had a mix of a sister company ownership and our company nurses and medics. Odd setup. Different companies under one umbrella, but different rules for the crews. Crew=Nurse and Medic.

As a top performer, in the mean time, our base was given a newer, much faster aircraft with the hopes of increasing our already stellar productivity. We were always first call as the other base/aircraft was on reserve. Massive animosity ensued as our base would get 3-5 flights a day while the reserve, more capable aircraft was on hold for possible turndowns. Nurses and Medics all employed by the same company. Regardless of WX, our base was first call and often did back to back to back calls while the other, newer, more capable base/aircraft sat on reserve even on sever clear days. More animosity.

Fast forward to one of the nurses on the sh*t end of the stick being promoted to boss of both bases as far as base operations and facilities are concerned. Changes made and equitable flight volume distribution changes in effect and now the workload is much more even and honestly, fair.

But quick changes come with a reality check. Dope deals were made behind the scenes between and the two air bosses agreed who would take what flight and when. This information didn't trickle down to my me or my other pilot who work the opposite shift. That's important since we pilots generally show up 30mins or so early to help avoid late flights where we can't bring the crew back. We have strict flight time regs we have to follow per the FAA or certificate action can happen. Read, we stop flying forever.

Background set for non-aviation folks, I walk in one day, 30 minutes early as usual and hear the tones go off. Flight request. I take it and we complete the flight with no issues...except the flurry of phone calls I get asking why I took it. Reminder that the new "rules" on which base takes which flight when are beyond me. I'm confused by the question and politely tell them to F off because I literally just did my job.

As the new base boss was still on the flight schedule for the day, I was elated to have a face-to-face about it. I was reemed about taking crews on overtime. HUH?, WHAT?, EXSCUSE YOU? That has NEVER been a thing in almost the decade I've worked here. We get the patient were they need to go, overtime be damned. THAT'S OUR FUCKING JOB.

Cue malicious compliance: Ok, if paying overtime is now a thing, I'll comply. If we get a flight request that even remotely looks close to having overtime being payed, I'll call her for approval before accepting. Don't want to piss off the mythical bean counters in lieu of potentially saving a life.

This is not, by the way, a normal process to take a flight and I will not decline one over it, but I've enjoyed waking the boss up at all hours of the night over it. I didn't start this, just complying. I've asked for written guidance on new policies, but until then, the 3am call will just keep coming.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Lickawall483 on 2024-11-06 16:20:19+00:00.

About 10 years ago I have applied to work at a retail store selling different tech. It is a rather large chain in the UK and can get pretty busy, especially after 5pm or during holidays/sales. When I applied for a job I wanted to go to computing department as I was very passionate about different builds and had some experience in building my own PC, instead I was temporarily placed on white goods (fridges, washing machines etc) for training even after I have admitted I know absolutely nothing about them. But no, apparently this knowledge should have been inherited through my genes since I am a girl, so I must know about them and be very good. So I bit my tongue and waited as I needed money and was fresh out of uni.

About a few months in I have realised I am not going to be transferred to the computing department, no matter how much I wanted to. My sales were good but the managers wouldn't budge as they were scared I might advice something wrong.

It was a start of a school term and the store was getting petty busy. A couple came in wanting to buy a PC for their teenage kid to game on, I wanted to help them as a fellow gamer myself, but got rudely pulled back by my manager and was told unless we are assigned to a specific department, we are not allowed to help customers or advice them. So he fetched another colleague who carried on assisting the parents. As it was quiet in my department I was doing some tidying up around the store and heard the colleague trying to sell the parents one of the apple PCs saying they will be great for gaming and all professionals use them (at the time we had a bigger commission from apple brand). Let me tell you they are not the best machines for gaming and if you are into heavier games they are likely not going to run that well or be incompatible with the OS.

I don't know what else the colleague said, but the parents believed him and got an iMac for the kid. The manager was very proud of the colleague and told me to use him as an example of a good sale for the store. I have told him I could have topped it and the customer will come back with a return, but was told again not to go to computing department. Cue malicious compliance.

A few days later it was a busy day in the store, especially PCs due to back to school sale. A few people were off sick due to being overworked so the computing department had like 2 people on the floor, including the work colleague who sold the iMac. The parents came through the door with the pc they got, which usually means something broke down or they want to return it. They saw the guy who sold them the PC and started heading his way. He saw them too and decided it is time to go on lunch, leaving one colleague on the floor in the department.

The parents are visibly getting angry and try to go to the till, but after being in the queue are told to catch another colleague from the tech department as we can't process refunds at the till for large items.

The parents approach me as I don't have much to do and ask for help. I would be happy to do so, but remembering what the manager said I had to tell them I can't as I am not allowed to do anything with the pc department as it is a store policy. The parents approach more colleagues and keep hearing the same excuse. Obviously they are getting more and more angry so are other customers who want to buy something but can't since only people in computing department are allowed to sell stuff for computers. They try to grab the only person on the floor, but he is already busy with other customers and can't assist them while the other colleague responsible for the sale signed out for the day and the other is late. In about 20 minutes there's a massive queue by the tills of angry customers demanding to speak to the manager. The poor person at the till has no choice but to fetch the store manager and floor managers due to the amount of angry customers.

They are trying to shift the blame on us, other store colleagues, but I mention about what the other manager said about not touching anything in tech department or help customers as we are not authorised and since it is a company policy and we haven't received the training we have to comply. Of course it makes customers even more angry and feel like their time is wasted, resulting in a commotion by the tills and further delays for other customers.

I am unsure how the entire situation ended, as I was grabbed by an older lady to help her, but that day we had a lot of complaints on different websites about the policy and "store staff refusing to help as it is not their department" and we had a few "brainstorming" sessions after how to reduce complaints with none of the ideas taken on board.

You would hope they would learn something and change the policy, but no. They gave extra training to the people already in computing department and allowed other colleague to sell smaller items like mice, keyboards, consoles, games, printers but not the laptops or pc or vr, resulting in more complaints. Last time I have been there to buy my mum a new laptop (had a voucher) the situation seemed to have stayed the same, as we ended up waiting around 45 minutes for someone to push the sale through. At least I got a chance to complain to the store manager as well telling him everything I think about that store policy.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/My_Brain_Is_A_Rental on 2024-11-06 09:40:01+00:00.

When I was in high school I wasn’t very good at writing essays in English. I knew all the concepts but flushing out a few pages of BS wasn’t something I could do in 45 minutes of class time.

For a few weeks we had a student teacher completing her Prac block. Knowing that kids circle substitute and student teachers like sharks she didn’t take any shit but overcompensated and more than a few of the kids in my class checked out or outright antagonised her. This just made her more hostile to the smart ass teenagers we were.

For me, check out was when I tried to answer a question about the use of a very specific term in a poem about WW1 soldiers. The author used “wheeled chair” instead of “wheelchair”. I put my hand up and gave some interpretation that made sense and I was always told there’s no wrong answers in these sorts of discussions. As a reward for participating I was treated to a fairly harsh “No. You’re wrong”… noted.

So we have to complete an essay on what we’ve learnt the last few weeks and the question is along the lines of “How did the author make you feel when reading (text)?”. Me, having mentally checked out of English class, not being good at that sort of thing and being the shitty kid I was wrote out a couple paragraphs summarising the message of the text and saying that I didn’t feel anything when reading it.

The next Monday we get our essays back and I’ve got a 5/25. More than I thought so those two paragraphs must have been pretty good. The prac teacher takes me outside and goes on about how she’s disappointed and I could have done better and how everyone else wrote two or three pages but I didn’t get half a page done. It all seemed pretty disingenuous to me because she hadn’t shied away from telling me or anyone else when we were wrong. She asked why I wrote that and I replied that I genuinely didn’t have an emotional reaction to it. Why lie? She then says I have the choice to either take the fail or rewrite the essay next class. “Ok, I’ll take the grade. No point wasting time”.

Her face dropped a bit and she took a while to reply “Really? Are you sure?” “Yep, I’m no good at this sort of thing remember. I didn’t get it right in class so why would that change overnight?” Defeated, she sent me back to class and went next door for a few minutes. A little while later I was called out again to speak with my actual teacher. She asked me why I didn’t think I could do better and what didn’t I understand about the question. After talking for a while she said that I will HAVE to retake the essay with a new text and question. One that was worded so I couldn’t just say “I didn’t”.

In the end I wrote around two pages and passed, just. The prac teacher was there for another two weeks or so and I noticed a few things. First, she didn’t react with outright contempt when someone gave an answer that wasn’t what she wanted. Second, she didn’t try try to play a game of wits against any more self sabotaging teenagers.

Bonus story about my actual teacher. She was younger and really nice but now that I’m older I think she was a one of those sensitive but naive sorts of people. We had to come up with a tv pilot episode and read it out to the class. One kid read out the first episode of Burn Notice word for word. Top marks and a heap of praise

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/NewtonsFig on 2024-11-06 00:28:53+00:00.

My sibling is super awful sometimes. Said sibling not only sued me for control over my late parent’s estate, but they stole and sold off all kinds of belongings. They also did this while parent was alive. Stole, I mean. Sibling couldn’t be bothered to even bring parent a milkshake when they were dying. I had to relocate in order to care for parent. Sibling also tortures animals, mostly cats and did so to my own beloved fur baby who I had to send over the bridge shortly after parent died.

Anyways, moving on - just trying to pain the picture lest the reader think I’m an awful person for what happens next.

Sibling had agreed that I could have parents ashes and I let sibling have the flag that was presented for military service.

Suddenly many years after parent died sibling decided they wanted some ashes. I on the other hand feel strongly that the remains should remain intact. No pun intended. Also, it brings me peace and comforts me (as weird as that sounds) having remains nearby.

So, after much thought and discussion with a lot of awful words back and forth I relented. Sibling even got family involved who don’t understand our dynamics and sided with sibling.

Anyways….sibling may or may not now have my late kitty’s ashes on their mantle and may or may not believe they are my parents.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/FapDonkey on 2024-11-05 21:55:15+00:00.

recently told this story in another thread, and was told it would do well here? Please feel free to delete if it doesn;t meet the sub rules/subject.

I was raised in a devout Roman Catholic family, who sent myself my siblings to Catholic-run schools from Kindergarten through high school. For this to make sense, some basic understanding of Catholic religious doctrine is needed (I'll keep it brief). Catholics practice something called the sacrament of Holy Confession. The belief is that if you confess your sins to a priest, and truly repent for what you've done, the priest has the power to forgive your sins in the eyes of God. Most churches will have things called "confessionals" for this purpose, while some newer ones are small rooms with chairs, teh classic confessional is like a small closet, with the presit sitting in a closet next to you, separated by a privacy screen. Usually confession will be held after a morning daily mass service; one or more priests will set up in the conrfessional, congregants will go in one by one and say their confession, etc.

Now, the bond of the confessional is aboslutely sacrosanct within the church. Think of it like lawyer/client privilege. A priest is NEVER EVER supposed to share anything they learn int he confessional, nor act on any information they learn. Priests have been executed by their government for refusing to testify in a trial about something they hear in a confessional. If a priest is found to have broken this bond, he will be defrocked (basically kicked out of the priesthood), and could possibly even be excommunicated (kicked out of the entire church, shunned, rejected by any devout catholic etc). Its a BIG DEAL. So much so that the policy for priests is that even if they later learn something through "normal" means that they originally first learned in teh confessional, they are not allowed to act on that information (lest it even give the impression to the person who confessed that the priest was breaking the bond of the confessional). This last part is important.

Well sophomore year my Catholic high school had its administration taken over by the Salesians, a religious order (brothers/monks) who are dedicated to educating chidlren. Our new principal was a Salesian priest, and started holding daily mass in our campus chapel every morning ebfore classes. He really encouraged folks to go. Despite his efforts, never realy took off. Would just be the usual 1-2 super devout teachers, maybe a particularly religious student or so. Then one Monday morning, right after homeroom, we hear the not-uncommon announcement over the PA "Will the following students report to the principal's office immediately....". Most of the time this happened when those students were getting disciplined for some weekend shenanigans (at a private school, so we could be punsihed for that sort of thing). Someone threw a raging kegger, someone's aprents found out, called the school, and now everyone involved was getting punished. This is when I had my epiphany.

Next Monday morning I was at morning mass, bright an early. Right at the front of the line to go into the confessional afterwards. Sat down with Father Jim, and confessed to him in GREAT detail all the toruble I and my friends had gotten up to over the weekend. Where we went, who did what, and to whom. EVERY THING. The first time I think he was kinda surprised, gave me some acts of contrition to perform, said the absolution, and sent me on my way. I think the first few times he was actually pleased with hismelf "I'm really starting to each these kids". But I'm pretty sure that by midway through the semester he'd caught on to what I was doing. every now and then he'd make a sly reference or crack a smile. But he coudln;t stop me lol!

You see, by going and confessing EVERYTHING we did over the weekend to our principal first thing Monday, I was putting ALL that info into the bonds of the confessional. Anything I told him there, Father would never be able to act on, without risking serious consequences. If he got to his office, and his first message was from my friends' mom explaining how she'd caught us all drunk as skunks smoking cigarettes in the alley behind her house. He could thank her for hte info. But he couldn't punish us for it. Becuase I'd already told him 20 minutes earlier alllll about it in the confessional.

This tradition lasted all the way through senior year/graduation. Served me and my friends well. Some other folks must have figured things out as time went on, by the time i graduated the monday mass sessions were always well attended, and father had to start doing them earlier to save time for all the confessions he was hearing before classes.

I don't know if it was me or Father that was guilty of the "malicious compliance" here. Did we play him, by going to confession like he insisted, but for our own selfish reasons? Or did he play us, doing some 4d-chess shit? I mean, after all, in jsut 2 years, he somehow managed to get dozens and dozens of high school students to start regularly attening mass before class, and going to confession weekly... Win win? lol

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/bkwormtricia on 2024-11-05 01:44:41+00:00.

Back in the dark ages my town public schools required females to always wear a dress or a skirt and blouse, even in the snowy New England winters. Froze my tush walking 1/3 mile to the bus stop and standing there waiting! Boys were supposed to wear dress pants and collared shirts.

In high school, Student Lockers were in the school corridor, and the rules said we needed to remove coats, boots and other outdoors/weather gear there before entering the other rooms. So I and some other female students hatched a plan. When it got cold we wore pants to school under our skirts - and removed them while standing or sitting in the public corridor.

Teachers and Principle got upset, but warm pants (corduroy, lined, wool etc., were specifically listed in the manual - they were of course thinking of the boys!) qualified as weather gear. When they said to go to a bathroom to change, I pointed to the student rulebook saying weather gear had to be removed before entering the other rooms. More and more girls copied us, and they hated girls maybe accidentally flashing underwear while changing (it could even accidentally happen pulling down pants worn over skirts, and pants crushed the required neat appearance of the skirts), so we won the battle - pants instead of skirts were allowed all day in winter.

Which we then stretched to rainy days in spring (half the days, in MA) and finally they gave up. We could choose to wear pants any day. Which soon devolved to jeans and such for everyone.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/rosepriestess26 on 2024-11-05 00:33:53+00:00.

It's something I say all the time. I've got the goody-two shoes reputation, which is mostly true, but I also tend to be creative.

One of my favorite instances was from my senior year of high school. Take into account, I'm already a legal adult at this point, and am going to be moving out in a few months anyway as soon as college starts. But as long as you're still in high school, you're still a kid, at least as far as the teachers are concerned. Hell, they even had us getting our parents permission for slips and stuff like that. Not exactly a great way to prepare us for the world, but I digress.

I had started a job at a local vet clinic over the summer. I mainly acted as the go-for, grabbing things from the back, folding laundry, filing, and what have-you. I've always been a bit of a compulsive savor, and many of my paychecks went straight into being able to afford senior trip when it finally came around.

There are a few things you have to understand about my hometown before I continue on with this story. One, it was incredibly small (less than 2000 people) and also very religious. This meant that, even though we went to a public school, there were still a lot of strange rules to follow, and you best believe that dress code was sexist. Two, there were only a few people in my grade that actually cared, and thus we were the only ones who actually WANTED to go on the senior trip. The rest of the class was pretty annoyed at having to take their finals a week early, but it's really their loss for being boring.

Anyway, we were going to be in California for this senior trip, which meant the ocean and a hotel with a pool (that also turned out to be salt water). One of the rules was that we weren't allowed to wear two piece bathing suits.

Now, I don't really agree with sexualizing oneself too much, but if you want to look good and you feel comfortable in it, go for it. I quite like my crop tops and bikinis very much, thank you, so I was pretty annoyed with this rule, as you can imagine.

Fortunately, my mother has always been a little bit of a rebel, so when I came to her complaining of my problem, she had the perfect solution: a one-piece with a cutout. That way no one could get mad at me, because I was still following the rules.

We went shopping a few days later, where I found a gorgeous red suit that hugged my body nicely. There was a small stitch on the side connecting the two ends together, but other than that it was about as close as you could get to a bikini without it ACTUALLY being a bikini. I still have this bathing suit, and it's become one of my favorites.

In the end, it didn't matter, as a friend of mine ending up just wearing a sports bra and shorts to swim, and the only two chaperones left us alone at the hotel to go shopping or whatever it is that chaperones have to do. Still, it was the thought behind it. I don't tend to be rebellious, but little things like that make me feel some sort of weird pride when I do them. So of course I often go out looking for rules that I can find new ways around. There's no fun in being a goody-two shoes ALL the time now, is there?

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Imherebecausebored on 2024-11-04 19:12:28+00:00.

Update as promised.

Bit if an anticlimax really. I was prepared to drive around finding somewhere until the van van out of juice and needed rescue, potentially wasting the whole day and prompting a change of policy.

What actually happened was my line manager saying “try to find one and see how it goes.” Sadly the 2nd one I tried worked with the fuel card and I only managed to waste about 40 min filling up including the time it took to find it. I guess the network is improving.

This would only be about 48 hours a year on charging if thats a consistent time. Which is an insignificant amount of money to the company.

It did however cost about £20 which only gave me 100 miles range so it’s now just about more expensive to run than the diesel vans.

Original text below;

“So, background, I drive an Electric van for work, which is one of the few in the fleet of give or take 400 that are ICE cars/vans. I charge it at home using a smart plug to calculate usage then submit mileage via the tracker along with a photo of the plug and my most recent electric bill to calculate what l'm owed back. I do have a company fuel card but its not accepted at probably 99% of fast chargers near me, and none of the local slow chargers, and maybe 0.05% chance my job site will have one I can use. Last Friday head office sent out an updated policy for milage/travel/expense etc. claims that states electric vehicles can now only be charged using the provided fuel cards I messaged my line manager on Friday telling him that on Monday he can find me driving around trying to find somewhere to charge the van then sitting there waiting for it to fill up which will leave me good to go for the next two days, before having to repeat the charging dance. Still no reply. I start work in 12 hours. I have jobs scheduled that are not movable without big complaints. I will be sat in my van trying to find a charger before my ~ 20 miles i had left in Friday run out. My travel time is contractually paid. Im gonna be paid for at least half a day just charging a van at somewhere that costs far more than my driveway. If I can find one the fuel card works at.”

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/simo289 on 2024-11-04 10:50:11+00:00.

A couple of years ago I worked customer support for an investment and pensions dept of a larger company. Basically, answer the phone and help customers who don't understand something about their account or need to access features usually reserved for their accountant.

I had only been with the company about 3 months, had finished my training, and recently been cleared to take calls unmonitored. But a supervisor was still listening back to 3 or 4 of my calls each day, just to check.

It was coming to the end of the tax year, so the lines were super busy open to close, but a lot of the calls I was taking were for pension or ISA withdrawals or deposits, so all I had to do was check a few details then drop the customer in the call queue for the relevant dept. Due to the high volume and relative simplicity of these calls, I was answering 20-30 a day. After a week or so I got a message from my team leader telling me I was taking too many calls, so the number he was checking wasn't a high enough percentage to be indicative of my performance. Ok, fine. Starting the next day I would take a call, pass the customer on, then sit and twiddle my thumbs for ~an hour, all while the queue is getting longer and longer (we're talking 2-3 hours on hold), then take another call and repeat.

Fast forward another couple of weeks and I have a perforated review with my team leader. He says that my verification of customer identities isn't up to scratch with company standards. I explain that 1. I am meeting the standards that were laid out in our training and that all further advice and guidance had been completely contradictory, or so vague as to be meaningless. He tells me that when I come in tomorrow I need to log in, mark myself as 'in training' (so I won't receive any calls), and wait to hear from him about next steps. So the next morning I log in to my work laptop and wait to hear from him. For 5 days, I sat in my spare bedroom/office playing video games, all while logged in, marked as 'in training', and waiting till hear from my team leader.

The next week, I get a message from a manager 2 or 3 steps above my team leader asking why I haven't taken a single call in 5 days. I explain what my team leader told me, sent screenshots of emails etc, and said that I was waiting to hear back. She said she would look into the situation and get back to me. Cue another week of video games and naps on company time.

I ended up getting made redundant and taking the balance of my annual leave before anything got resolved because the company outsourced 90% of the call handling to India, but those 2 weeks were great!