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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Fire_The_Torpedo2011 on 2024-06-09 21:22:06+00:00.
I used to work permanent nights.
On nights, we often had sickness at the last minute that no one was willing to come in and cover. So, we used to all help out one another. We didn't do it for the praise, or for additional money (there wasn't any!) , we did it because we were colleagues for years and there was no one else.
Inevitably, our work was taken for granted. The managers NEVER thanked us for helping them out of the shit, but they also started to assume that we would cover everything, so they made less and less effort to arrange cover for absence, even planned absence they knew about in advance.
On night, before work, I came into work and received a shitty email complaining about staff in our department using the computers of another department. Now, we had our own computers. The ONLY time my department ever used the other departments computers was when we were covering their absence. The email chain showed the other department complaining about us to my manager, who sent out an email to all the night staff in my department saying "from now on, DO NOT USE the other department's computers."
I was fuming, because as I said, we only did it to help out, and to stop the other department having to cover night staff at short notice. But I thought "fine, that's how it is."
The very next night, the other department is short-staffed again. The supervisor on that shift asks me to cover their department. I say no, I can't. I have been told not to use their computers by my manager.
The supervisor says "oh no, that's okay. You can use them." I say: "No, I can't. My manager told me not to, under any circumstances."
So she gets her manager to call me, the same manager who complained about us and say: "for this one shift (!) you can use our computers" as if she is doing ME the favour.
So I say: "no, I really can't. You are not my manager. I cannot defy my manager's instructions."
Because they can't get my manager on the line that late a night, another supervisor had to come in last minute and cover the shift.