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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/ImpulseBimmer on 2025-02-26 18:09:26+00:00.
A few years back, I was contactor for a state agency whose job it was to 'advise' other state contractors on environmental laws, regulations, policies, and best practices.
Yes, Dear Readers, I was a contractor telling other contractors who, what, where, when, how and how much they could do their jobs. The only stick that I carried was that the agency that I contracted to was regulatory. I.E. It could impose fines/remediation. To make matters worse, I was a middle-aged clean shaven white dude with clean boots and a bright white hard hat showing up in a state-owned vehicle that was just as clean.
How this works is that my agency bills the other contractor with a set rate for hours. The other contractor had to work this cost into the contract with the state. I.E. the more hours that I worked, the more I cut into their profit.
One project that I ended up working on was a larger project with a national construction company. This was unusual as bigger companies usually had their own environmental compliance people. I had been working with that company for a little over a year when they broke ground. I email the lead foreman (whom I had not yet met) to let him know that I would be on site the following week. I get a response saying that to be on-site I had to attend the "stand-up" meeting at the yard every day that I was to be on-site. I, of course, let him know that had all my certs, both federal and state, and had already attended the company's bi-annual safety meeting and would not be at the "stand-up" meeting and that it would cost the company to have me attend. I cc'd my point-of-contact (PoC) with the company.
Yes, you all see where this is going. I was told that I "had to." No response from my PoC.
Cue malicious compliance. My time started when I walked out the front door. The yard was over an hour away (depending on traffic), plus the meeting (usually forty-five minutes to an hour, none of which was applicable to me), then travel to the jobsite (again depending on traffic), two hours, then travel back home. That added roughly four hours a day to my day, which meant that I usually went more than eight hours, which is billed at time-and-a-half, and well beyond projected time. Plus the milage and fuel on the state-owned vehicle. Oh! BTW, occasionally, the cell service would be terrible, and the hotspot wouldn't allow me to do my work on site, so I would have to do it at home...
I sent an invoice over to accounting every other week. (Also billable time.)
First billing cycle, nothing. Kewl. Second cycle I get an email from VP of Operations with the PoC cc'd demanding an explanation. I forwarded email, invoices, milage logs, and my timesheets, cc'd PoC and Foreman, to VP.
In less than an hour I get an email from PoC with VP and Foreman cc'd that I could do what I pleased, when I pleased, (including total stoppage of work on site!) and the only person that I was accountable to was the PoC.
Damn, I was wish that I could have been party to that conversation.
I took the spouse out to a nice dinner.
Edit: English is my first and only language and I still can't speak or write it. Thank you, u/DeeDee_Z