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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/FMLitsSML on 2025-09-11 21:02:45+00:00.
TLDR at bottom, generally SFW.
In a previous role I came across the epitomy of manglement. A young twat who'd been smarmy enough to work his way into a leadership role, without ever having to actually do the job he was managing. Unsurprisingly, he was less than effective. To use his words, we were the "skilled team" that worked for him. He was "in the management".
There are a few stories I can share about this dick (including one where he said I was too attractive to do my job, but that's for another time). This particular anecdote was when the previous leader left, and we ended up with him. Our new leader was quite particular about his role. He wasn't just a leader, he was a PRODUCTION LEADER. He was quite insistent we called him by his job title - to the extent that he moaned when we said "oh, the gaffer says xyz" - nope, it must be "the production leader says xyz". Please respect his job, thanks.
I assume this was his pretentious effort to seem important. Remember I said he'd never worked the job before? He never quite understood the details of what he was asking, and you could see his eyes glaze over and his mind wander to KPIs and metrics whenever someone said "uh, that won't work, we need to do abc first before we throw this job onto the machines". For the most part, we just worked it out ourselves and did what we could, and explained what we couldn't. More glazing over and thoughts of metrics and checkboxes followed.
His general demeanour didn't really sit well with us, especially how he thought he was better than the grunts working the job. The one thing that sticks in my mind is that the previous boss (who had retired) used to say "our team", the new guy said "my team". Small difference but it speaks volumes.
So, we decided to maliciously comply. You want to be called by your job title, sure. We can do that. However, we abbreviate everything. Including your job title, Production Leader - Operations.
That abbreviated to PL - Ops.
Which abbreviated to Plops.
I can't take credit for the nickname, but it spread super quick. The malicious compliance was embedded. Within 36 hours, every shift knew that we had to follow Plops' orders.
(For non-English speakers, "plop" is an onomatopoeic way of describing the act of passing faeces).
Plops was obviously quite unhappy with his new nickname. Just imagine the most nasally voice ever saying "I am a PRODUCTION LEADER" to a group of guys, most of which had been in the trade since before Plops was born, and you've got a good idea of how well respected Plops ended up being.
For the rest of his short career in that role, we called him Plops. It infuriated him. To give you an example of a typical incident, three of the shop floor guys are stood in the middle of the factory talking. Plops sees this and walks over to chastise them for not working.
Plops: "Excuse me, gents"
Guy #1: "What's up, Plops?"
Plops: "I'm a Production Leader. Why aren't you on your machines?"
Guy #2: "We're trying to figure out how to do the job."
Plops: "What? Aren't you trained for this?"
Guy #1: "We are, Plops. Been doing this for 24 years."
Plops: "But th-"
Guy #2: "The problem is, Plops, we have 4 sets of tooling available. Each job requires 2 sets of tools per machine, and as there are 3 of us, we would need [pauses sarcastically to count] 6 sets of tools."
Plops: "Nobody told me that!"
Guy #3: "Yes, because we normally split the job out by individual tasks. #1 can process the tasks that don't need tooling, then split the tasks between #2 and #3. It doesn't matter what order these are done in, so we split the batches 2:1 then swap. Do you have a better solution?"
Plops: "Umm... no, do that."
Guy #1: "Thanks for your advice, Plops."
Plops walked away looking very red, with the guys bursting out laughing whilst still very much in earshot.
Plops complained numerous times, and the chief of production told us off in a very half-arsed way. We later found out he also hated Plops for consistently bringing his nickname up and expecting something to be done, often telling him that this wasn't a school and to just play along and it'll naturally go away.
Fast forward to one day when Plops was late for a site-wide meeting. He entered the room, to be met with two or three voices chastising him with comments such as "what time do you call this, Plops?" and "good grief, it's Plops o'clock". Turning a now-familiar shade of crimson, he opened his mouth, but then noticed the Director of Operations (Dops?) stood at the front, having paused his speech. Plops shut his mouth, and quickly found a seat. The director continued for a bit, before pausing to ask if anybody had any questions.
Plops' hand immediately shot up. "Apologies for being late, but I had a question about the half-year business projections given the ramp-up in production. Was this already covered or is this a good time to ask the question?" This question had absolutely nothing to do with anything we did, and it was painfully obvious Plops was just asking the question to seem even more pretentious than he normally was.
The director replied, "Not a problem, er, Plops. Maybe save that one for the end."
This was too much for everybody else, who burst out laughing. The director didn't know who Plops was and had assumed that was his name. The director innocently asked, "oh, is that not his name?"
Someone explained it was a nickname, he was called John. The director apologised and Plops, presumably trying to hide his embarrassment, said "um, don't worry, it wasn't an important question".
After the meeting Plops excused himself and we didn't see him for the rest of the day. He was back in the following day, with an even more sour face than normal. We were all still giddy about how the director had called him Plops, so we just gave him a wide berth.
A few days later, when the atmosphere had calmed down, Plops announced at a meeting that he'd accepted a similar role at another site and would be transferring in the next week. We then found out that Plops had complained yet again (about a director, no less!) to the chief, who had now got fed up of having to baby the kid, and had had a quiet word with the director. Said director, presumably wanting to save face a little, advised that another production lead at a different facility was going on maternity leave so Plops could be parachuted into that role fairly easily. They then had the best part of a year to find somewhere else for him.
We weren't sad to see Plops go, but he "forgot" to bring in cakes on his last day. So, one of the guys who'd worked with some of the staff in the new facility made a phone call. From what I understand, Plops' outgoing counterpart introduced him at one of their morning meetings and invited him to speak. He said "Good morning, I'm John and I'll be taking over from Lisa whilst she's off. I am an experienced production leader so I'm hoping we can keep the wheels turning whilst Lisa and I make the transition. Wishing her the best with the baby and for new parent life."
A chorus of voices came from across the room. "Well said, Plops."
We eventually got a new production leader, who'd worked in a similar role at another company. He seemed to be a decent guy; at his first meeting, he introduced himself and brought in a crate of home-made samosas. He said he didn't want to intrude on our workstations unnecessarily and thus asked everybody to pop into his office at some point in the next day or two to introduce themselves and have a 5-10 minute chat. I was nominated by the guys to go first, and report back how he was. I summarised his personality with one observation, before I'd even sat down. I walked over to the office door and knocked. He waved at me to come in, and as my gaze went upwards, I noticed the new sign he'd put on the door.
"Plops Office"
TLDR: New boss insists on being called Production Leader. We work in Operations. Put the two together - Production Lead, Operations. We abbreviated it to Plops, much to his disdain. He forgot to buy leaving cakes so we made sure the nickname followed him.
[edited to add the final paragraph, above the TLDR]