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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Diss1dent on 2025-06-06 20:51:14+00:00.
A slight note: This occurred some years ago. I had a beer today with an old colleague who reminded me about this story.
**
At the time, I was already looking for another position, working for a smaller consulting firm. The workplace had gotten increasingly toxic, mostly thanks to a manager who thought condescension was a leadership style. So I wasn’t exactly invested in going above and beyond anymore — just doing my job, keeping receipts, and planning my exit.
There was this one process that had always bugged me — manually entering identical data into two different internal systems that don’t talk to each other. This only occurred when working on one specific type of client work. Completely redundant. Easily automatable. In any normal setting, I would’ve raised it immediately and pushed for a fix.
But here? I knew better. I waited a few weeks, made sure it was a repeat pattern, and then casually brought it up in a team meeting:
“Hey, just noticing that I’m spending 10–15 minutes per entry copying the same data between platforms. Hour per week. Feels like a time sink — should we look at streamlining it?”
Her answer? “That’s your job. If you can’t handle it, maybe this role isn’t a good fit.”
Got it. Loud and clear.
So I kept doing it. No automation. No shortcuts. Just religiously entered everything by hand, tracked my time, and stayed quiet.
End of the month rolls around, and leadership gets the usual KPI report — one of which is “Time Spent on Non-Value Tasks.” Most team members clock maybe 4–5 hours.
Me? 20 hours.
Suddenly it’s a fire drill. Execs are asking why one person is tanking the report. My manager tries to throw shade, saying I “didn’t flag the inefficiency.” So I politely forward the Slack thread with her quote and timestamp.
Didn’t get an apology. But funny enough, the process was quietly changed apparently two days later.
Also funny? I accepted a job offer the next month.