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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/El-Fearo on 2025-07-23 00:34:06+00:00.
Hey there,
just wanted to share my compliance with you. Its been a few years but i still am proud of it.
Background: I worked in it in a medium sized company. We were a team of about 20 persons, with always 2 specialists for every topic. For example server / database and mine - network and firewalls. Due to laws in our country we had a gentlemen's agreement with our company. As noone could be forced to be on call pretty much 24/7 every 2 weeks, but the company needing exactly that they paid us about 500€ per month, and we would be on call - but with less harsh rules (you were supposed to call back in a larger timeframe, it wasn't expected that you could start working within a specific frame etc.). The calls were not frequent so this was okay for us. Every team was called like 2-3 times a year, so it was decent money for a psychic burden, more then for real work.
The problem: I was the new one. So I worked there for several years and my boss just left me out of the agreement. At the beginning it was ok, because I wasn't called and also wasn't able to help immediately. But after 2 years my higher boss blatantly stated "well if there is a problem, we'll just call him" to other colleagues and my direct boss when it came to my partner going into vacations or illness.
The first problem: As you might expect I was pissed. And low and behold, the time came and they needed help from the whole department, because there was a computer problem with all systems. The higher boss didn't even have the balls to call me himself, he made one of the other colleagues do it. I answered and it was hard to leave them hanging, but I declined, knowing everyone would have more work with less people.
The Solution : After being set into such a harsh spot, I chose to solve the problem myself. You don't want me on call? You won't be able to call me. I switched my mobile number, only giving it to my direct partner, who also agreed with it being unfair, like my direct boss. He would simply lie that he didn't have it either if he was asked. Everyone knew I was pissed, so they agreed with my solution. Then i turned off my home phone, which I didn't use anyway and gave hr the number of my parents, telling them to only contact me, if there was a real problem, nothing just work related. And then I waited. And waited.
The Crashout & Aftermath: And then my time came. Colleague was out of country on holiday. I had a nice weekend. On Monday I came in and everyone was like: everything crashed on the weekend. Turns out the firewall as main gateway had a network interface going up and down. Noone even had a login expect my colleague and me. They had to get a specialist from the support to help them, which cost them the whole weekend to solve this, meaning critical calculations didn't run as planned. I was immediately called into my boss (unfortunately not the higher one again) office. He instantly promoted me to being on call, no matter the consequences. Everything with HR and the bigger boss would be done afterwards, I just had to make sure I was on call when leaving the building this day. So I went ahead and gave them my number, and after that I was never even questioned about it again.
Bonus for me: Other departments always were pissed about our "free bonus money" and I was the only one who always just went ahead and told everyone I would actually give it up again, if I had my personal freedom and space back.
I actually prefer my space over the money. Left some years afterwards for a 8-16 it job without being in the constant awareness that someone might call. The money might sound great at first. But about 3000€ per year for always having your work in the back of your head just isn't worth it for me.
Hope you enjoyed my MC
Have a good one
Edit for clarification: 500€ a month, at about 42% tax rate. It's quite usual to make it simple and just half the initial income. So it would have been around 3400€. Nothing was split, every one on call got the 500