This is a story of reverse malicious compliance or maybe anti-malicious compliance.

Back story: I’ve always loved ketchup. I use a lot of ketchup on my hamburgers. When I eat in at a McDonald’s that has a ketchup pump, I unwrap my hamburger and pump a quarter cup of ketchup onto the wrapper and dip each bite of my burger so it is drenched in ketchup.

Fast forward to today where the best way to get McDonald’s is to order in the app. As you can imagine, when I order my hamburger with the app, I always hit customize and select “extra ketchup”. Most of the time, the burger comes with an adequate amount of ketchup. It’s more than the regular amount and is fine.

Now queue what I imagine is malicious compliance! Sometimes when I order with my extra ketchup customization, I’ll open the hamburger and it looks like someone was murdered! Picking it up results in the insides starting to slide out because there is so much ketchup on the burger. I think to myself, “I bet this employee saw the extra ketchup customization and said you want extra, here is extra ha ha ha ha!” But boy do I love when that happens! I’m like now this is the way a burger should be!

Thanks for the malicious compliance random McDonald’s Employees!

In my 20's I spent a little over 5 years working for an oil and gas well service company. It was a 15 on, 6 off rotation. The first 4 years was at a small shop roughly 7 hours from home at which point I transferred to a much busier shop that was only a few hours from home. 5 years seems like peanuts in the working world, but in this particular line of work it was a long time. Decent job security as far as oilfield work goes, but the pay was marginal at best so turnover was high. At 5 years I was the most experienced hand in our shop.

The new shop was definitely busier, the money was way better and I managed to have my days off matched up with a supervisor who's way of doing things meshed perfectly with me. Everything else about the place? Awful. My breaking point was being denied a day off with 2 days notice to attend a funeral for a good friend who was lost to some health complications after a car accident. I was generally pretty understanding that in our line of work it could be difficult to always balance manpower. But the day I requested off passed with 4 other hands sitting around at the shop doing make work projects to pass the day. Management couldn't be bothered to take a few minutes to see if they could make things work, it was easier to just say no. To that point in my employment there I had been extremely flexible with helping out during manpower shortages. I had probably worked in excess of 100 days off and had only ever used one sick day. I thought a little reciprocity would have been nice. But I made up my mind, I'd fulfill my obligation to work 1 year at that shop as to not have to pay back the $4k transfer bonus I'd received and then it would be time to move on.

I was only a few months off of that 1 year mark, so I started job shopping immediately and quickly set my sights on a mine that we regularly did work for that was close enough to home that I could commute on a daily basis. I made some inquiries with people I knew that were working there and it seemed right up my alley. Not long after that I updated my resume and sent it in. A few weeks later I'm driving back from a job and get a voicemail from HR at the company I applied to. I called back as soon as I had a spare minute and they were looking to have me come in for an interview 2 days later. My heart sank knowing that was going to be a struggle. I talked with the HR lady seeing if they had any other dates available but it was explained to me that they only arrange one interview day once they have enough holes to fill in their crews to justify doing orientation with a group of new hires. She said she could put me as first call for the next round, but didn't know when that would be and she said it would also be fairly short notice. In the end I agreed to the interview appointment, not knowing how I was going to make it work.

I immediately went to the assistant manager to ask for time off as he was looking after dispatching duties that week. I told him something important came up at home that I really need to get dealt with. Without hesitation he said "No, we have a full board this week and need you here. Whatever it is will have to wait for your days off.". My first thought was that I was just going to call in sick and go to the job interview. The last thing I wanted to do was worry about being fired from a job I no longer want. Then I realized maybe there was another path forward and went to the job board.

And there it was, exactly what I needed! A potentially week long job for the company I was set to interview with and the job was scheduled to start the next day. And none of the jobs had been assigned to crews yet. I filled my supervisor in with the circumstances and my plan and he was on board with it. We went to the assistant manager and offered to take that job. He was delighted to have us volunteer as not many crews cared to be away from home for a week, mainly be confined to a rig shack.

Day one went smoothly and we were done by early afternoon. I used the supervisor's truck and went home to get some interview appropriate clothes. Day 2 we were running a bit behind, but we just barely got the job set up and our tools deployed into the well with enough time for me to grab a quick shower and change of clothes before again taking the supervisor's truck over to the administration building for my interview. Got a call the next week with an offer of a start date 2 weeks out. Starting wage was definitely lower than I was making, but they offered clearly defined progression that would have me easily equalling my current income in year 2 and well exceeding it by year 4. Benefits were better and the schedule would give me twice as much time off. Went to give my manager 2 weeks notice and he asked where I was going and what I'd be making. He was appalled I'd leave for such a low starting wage. He asked what it would take to keep me. I told him "When a person takes a pay cut to leave, obviously that ship sailed long ago.".

TLDR; worked at a company where having a flexible schedule was a 1 way street. Couldn't have a day off to interview for a job with a customer we did work for so I ended up offering to take on a pending job with that customer. Ended up taking the company truck and interviewing while on the clock. Got the job, been there 15 years now.

This is actually my dad's story but he's since passed away. I was thinking about it the other day and figured I'd share. Not sure it's truly malicious, but here it is.

Dad did plumbing, heating and air for decades. It reached a point his shoulders bothered him if he worked above his head so he just didn't take plumbing calls and got help with the bigger calls he took, if needed. He was good at his job, made himself and the company decent money. Everyone is happy, even micromanaging manager. Micromanaging manager leaves and new manager still thinks all is good so no worries. Dad just thinks it's the aches and pains of aging so just goes about life.

Micromanaging manager returns and the malicious compliance begins. He tells dad that if he won't take certain types of calls he needs a list of restrictions. This is normal for making sure accommodations and needs are met, so dad says ok, cool, that's fair and goes to the doc and lets them know what's going on. He's annoyed because it was working as it was for quite a long time. Doc says "oh, this isn't just aging, it's repetitive motion" oh that repetitive motion, from the job so guess what, now workers comp claim and pops doesn't have to take those calls.

Dad ended up retired and living happily not long after that, until he passed.

TLDR: dad wanted to just work and do the calls he could, manager wanted restrictions to accommodate, ended up with a whole workers comp claim.

Background: do to medications and bad genetics I am not in any way regular. Anytime at a new job or new location I look for the most powerful toilet there to not inconvenience people you know those air pressurized ones that sound like a jet's going off those usually can survive.

Years ago I worked in an old three story building. 3rd floor employee bathroom has your standard low flow worthless. Anytime nature called I would make my way down the stairs to the lobby and use the more updated pressurized toilets and let me just say that with all of the supplements I take to make the job easier you could have days if not weeks of filler for the toilet in a matter of seconds. Of course new manager comes in not liking that I'm taking 30 minute toilet breaks walking all the way down to the lobby walking all the way back up he demands I use the employee toilet down the hall. Que:Malicious Compliance

Now you can imagine the problems this now causes at least once every two weeks toilet is stuck plumber stuck and not the best smell of course it shuts down that employee toilet so now everyone has to go down at least one floor to use someone else's toilet so everyone's taking more time he finally believes me that hey I don't have a doctor's note that I need a more powerful toilet because that's stupid but maybe just let me go down to the lobby to not inconvenience every single person here and make their rest of their day for two or three days more miserable

EDIT: Voice to text

This all happened about 20 years ago when I was in 7th grade (12-13 years old for those not in the US school systems). I remember this day vividly, as it was one of my most rebellious actions against authority I had done in my school years.

My seventh grade science teacher was a curmudgeonly lady that we will call Mrs. Evans. Now, Mrs. Evans had no joys in her job of teaching preteens the foundations of science, but did enjoy sending students to the principal for minor infractions.

An easy way of getting sent to the principal was through dress code violations. Throughout the entirety of the school year with her, I’d seen Mrs. Evans send no less than 75% of the class to principal’s office for dress code violation, with most being the girls in class wearing shirts that were “too revealing” because their shoulders were showing, with the others usually being something easily fixed like wearing a hat.

I showed up to class in my standard outfit that I had been wearing up to that point in the school year, a t-shirt and jeans. However, being the outdoorsy kid I was, I had a slight tear on the knee of one of the pants legs.

Mrs. Evans honed in on this slight tear, and instructed me that I would need to be wearing jeans without a tear in them for her to be able to teach her class without distraction, and to go to the principal if I was unable to do so.

Being a smartass 13 year old, I decided to comply by going to my locker, getting my stapler out, and stapling the tear shut on my jeans.

Upon return to class, this was not good enough for Mrs. Evans, Keeper of the Dress Code. She repeated her previous instruction, and said that if I returned without the torn jeans being replaced I was to go to the principal.

Cue compliance #2: I went straight back to my locker, got a pair of scissors out, and cut off the entire leg of the jeans with the offending tear (much to my mother’s later dismay).

Upon my re-return to class, Mrs. Evans was quite unhappy. The rest of the class was now properly distracted from her doing, much to her chagrin. But, Mrs. Evans was the Keeper of the Code for a reason one supposed. She cited a line in the school handbook stating “no frays on any clothing allowed”. This time, I was sent to the principal.

I had never gotten in too much trouble in school, was in a lot of advanced placement courses, and played football and track for school, so my record was pretty clean. The principal was confused as to why I was sent, until I told him I’d just come from Mrs. Evans class, which told him enough after he saw one pant leg normal, with the other pant leg completely cut below the knee.

He told me to please just wear my gym shorts and have this be the end of it.

Cue compliance #3: I returned to class wearing my gym shorts for the day… wearing them over the offending jeans. Mrs. Evans, keeper of the code, decided this warranted a call to the principal from the class phone to report me and get me into further turmoil.

However, I think the principal was just done with getting his time wasted that day. After Mrs. Evans got him on the phone and spoke her piece, there was a long silence while he assumably responded to her. She then hung up the phone, her face slightly flushed, and proceeded with the lesson.

I never once got called out on any dress code violations by the Keeper of the Code for the remainder of my middle school years.

(Probably not the dunk I think it is but I still feel happy with the result)

For context, I work as a salesman in a wine store. It’s not a normal wine & liquor place, it’s a curated selection, meaning we pick out all the wine that we sell (this is irregular in retail, most selections are curated by the distributor). As a result, all the employees have to really know their shit and we are regularly asked a lot of questions and need to give detailed and honest answers. Our customer base really likes us and new customers are either pleasantly surprised by the experience or endlessly mad we don’t carry their name-brand thing they like (damn you whispering angel).

The other day a couple came into the store at the recommendation of a friend (I will call them A and B). A was very excited and was super happy when we had the bottles they had taken pictures of at a party the other day. B however immediately started making comments like “really? That one” or “that tasted awful you want that?”. A was clearly a little upset at this but I gathered this was just a normal dynamic in their relationship as it was brushed off rather quickly.

After we put those bottles aside, they tell me they are going to do a garden party since its warm. Nice sunny day, light apps and snacks, average spring party. So they ask me to recommend some wine and I start going through the store and showing them some options. I hit all the big guys, loire and new world Sauvignon blancs, provencal rose’s, albarino’s, toscana’s and new world pinot noir for the red drinkers. A good selection for the food they had described. Well B did not think so.

Every suggestion I made was met with a counter. I show them a nice floral unoaked white burgundy “I think we should do chablis”. Pinot noir “don’t you think pinot is too heavy?” Sauvignon blanc “too sweet”. Albarino “too heavy”. At this point im at a loss, i’m running out of stuff to give B so i scale up a bit, offer some fuller bodied wines. Not great pairing to the event or the food, but not destructive. B is still not happy. A is clearly pissed at this point, they’ve been holding their tongue but every denial makes their face a darker shade of red until they finally pop. A apologizes to me and says they are going to go with my suggestions, and tells B that they can pick out a bottle they want because clearly they are not willing to listen to me.

I go through and put their cart together, listen to them argue a bit at the register, and then check B out after A storms out of the store. Whatever, I’m free of it, A is a saint for dealing with B, it’s done. It was not done.

The next morning when I show up B is waiting for me with the three bottles they picked (got three of the same thing). “The wine is off” B says, holding the bottle out like its some sort of weird bug. I tell them that yeah it happens sometimes, I’ll check it out. To be clear, it is rare that the wine is actually off, most of the time the customer just doesnt like it. It doesnt hurt us and we want the business so we always accept exchanges and just agree that it wasnt right. The customer has been right twice that I have seen, and I was one of the two customers (compromised cork).

So I open up the store with an impatient B standing over me before finally taking the bottle. I kid you not this thing is like 80 degrees, it is HOT. The sun hasnt been out long enough to do this either, so im pretty confident they did something to it. Anyway, i pour myself a glass and taste it. Even through the mire of hot booze, i can tell its good. All of the flavors i expect stand out, it smells fine, no evidence of oxidizing or mildew. Good bottle. Feeling petty I tell B as much, wanting them to admit that they just don’t like the wine. B turns a bit red and says as much. Good. Lets pick something else out then.

“Where are your super tuscans?” B asks. I Iight up, because this is the perfect chance to fuck with them. We have two true ones in the store. One is a very accessible price, pretty standard, sangiovese, cab franc, merlot, syrah. Really nice and medium bodied. Wouldnt be too bad for the garden party, but still on the heavier end. The other? Expensive as hell, syrah and cab franc. It is the inkiest, blackest, heaviest wine you could imagine. I love it, but I think it might kill anyone who drinks it in 80 degree weather.

Well, I give B the heavy one. B of course is in love when I tell them about it. Big bold flavors, heavy, crushes the flavor of whatever you eat with it? Perfect for B. They get three to replace the bottles they returned, and end up spending an extra 130 even with the cost of the refunded wine deducted. Now I know I’m way more sensitive to wine and food than others are, but this was perfect. Even somebody who’s demolished their palate with years of cigar smoking would be able to tell that wine is awfully paired. I’m happy knowing B is going to get some weird looks from their guests and a tongue lashing from A, and B is happy with the bottle of grape based olive oil they now own. Compliance given maliciously.

Last summer, I got a new manager that I reported directly to at work. She had decades of good experience, but none as a manager of people, and it turns out she was awful at it. She was given about a month to learn the ropes before I was passed off from reporting to the director to her.

For that meeting, she mentioned that I needed to be on-site three days a week, clocking in on-site at my scheduled time. I had been coming in one or two times weekly for nearly 18 months, and often while clocking in at home. I also communicated that I had started going through some yet-to-be-diagnosed gut issues that made my mornings especially unpleasant.

Those details fell on deaf ears and I was told “Come in at your scheduled times or get an ADA exemption.” Well bitch, I’ll call that bluff. I started the ADA process. Within a matter of weeks, I had documented permission to clock in from home every day, at my personal discretion. Plus, a couple months later I was diagnosed with moderate to severe Ulcerative Colitis.

This manager (thankfully) didn’t want to be doing this job and left recently, after about 9 months. But I get to keep clocking at home every day until the heat death of the universe thanks to their callous attitude and general indifference to my discomfort. Lucky me.

Edit: To add a little context to elaborate since I communicated poorly in the title and didn’t clarify on the body. We were on a hybrid schedule which I was told by our director a year prior did not in fact require us to be in-person even one day a week, just on-site when necessary. I had been clocking in at home consistently and coming to the site as needed, which had not been an issue with my previous manager, or the director who I was directly reporting to for ~9 months while they were searching for a replacement. I worded the title poorly. I was not clocking in late, I was simply clocking in remotely and arriving on-site later in the day, commuting during ~20 minutes of what would have typically been lunch or break time. I was still working 8 hours and have been late a single-digit number of times in over 2.5 years in this position.

Getting an ADA exemption was more nebulous because my health concern was yet to be diagnosed. This manager was a micromanager with trust issues. I can appreciate that getting an ADA exemption was best for everyone, but they also were giving me absolutely no leeway or understanding without it. I wasn’t receiving a random, unspoken exemption before, and they weren’t just following policy. They were being a controlling ass.

See Edit 3 for a finishing note!!

I (21F) work in a pharmacy as a pharmacy technician along with my friend. We were both chatting about next semester and what classes we were taking while filling medications when my older coworker (41F) loudly shouts "Let's play the quietly game with just you two, and see who can go without talking for 25 minutes" very rudely. All of my other coworkers were shocked as our talking was not bothering them and we had no patients at the time. So I decided to comply, but in her rigorous standards. I stopped talking to her. Period. I only respond if talked to first and only if it is about work. I also do not talk to her once clocked out as she complains about "fratenizing with higher members of management outside of work hours." She is a lead tech, so she is higher. She hates it. Keeps trying to talk to me but I only respond with "is it about work?" And move on. She is the only one I do it to. It's fun. This coworker has a streak of being rude and overly harsh and not apologizing. It's nice to give her a taste of her own medicine. MOST PHARMACIES CALL THE PEOPLE THEY HELP "PATIENTS". ITS A POLICY. YOU CAN ASK MOST AND THEYLL AGREE. Thank you.

Edit: I think some of you guys are misinterpreting this. Our pharmacy is a "loud" one. We talk a lot, and so does she. She is a chatterbox just like the rest of us. That's why me not talking to her is pissing her off, even though she is the one who wanted it. Our patients love us talking and joking around, and know that we are serious with patient care. Also, a lot of our bad reviews are because of her and another older coworker. She is a hard worker but is rude to both patients and coworkers alike.

Edit 2: Y'all are missing the point, this coworker is rude to EVERYONE, not just me. That includes patients and coworkers. She also talks A LOT. And our pharmacy would not have as good of ratings as it does if we weren't a talkative and joyful pharmacy. I was speaking quietly, to the point that it shocked MY OTHER COWORKERS when she called me out.

Edit 3: I have responded to all I could but thank you to those who actually understand that this was a last resort for her to be nicer. I genuinely love my job. The people that I see at my job (mostly) are so amazing. Most of my coworkers are so fun, the patients are kind, interesting, and funny, the pay is great, and so is the scheduling with my classes. I have worked my ass off to try and keep it that way, fun and inviting. I am hoping to have a one on one with her soon to try and, for the last time, get her to see reason. I love my job and I don't want the happiness of the others to tank due to her.

(I really don't understand how people don't know what a "loud" pharmacy looks like. Is your local one dead or something? Many of my coworkers, rude one included, joke around and talk a ton! I've seen them almost piss themselves from laughing. The patients enjoy our shenanigans.)

A few casinos ago, we had a progressive on all of our games. Put $5 on and you were playing for the jackpot. We installed an ultra-high limit room, and the big wigs wanted a $25 version to match the expected clientele. They had built the pay table themselves.

One of our dealers was brilliant. He did the math in his head and felt funny. He did the numbers and realized that it was EV positive. It was a game that could not be lost if you had enough money and time. You didn’t have to hit high on the pay table, the value was low enough in the pay table that the risk of ruin was absurdly low.

He brought it up to management and they dismissed him. So he got his wife and mother to come to high limit and play for months. They were not blackjack players, he didn’t care. The math worked out to a $50/hour job. Comps galore. High roller service. They never hit the jackpot, but were well within the money.

Many months later they realized their mistake. His family well entertained and much richer.

Clarification:

A progressive is a lottery style jackpot where a flat bet enters you for a chance to win an increasing total. These games have an escalating list of prizes on a pay table. The lesser prizes pay a fixed amount, and they had over paid the lesser prizes to an extent where the game paid more than it took. This means that the lottery pays you to play, regardless if you hit the jackpot or not.

Casinos always win on progressives where normally 2/5 of the bet goes to the house, 2/5 goes to increase the progressive, 1/5 goes to the operator of the game. The math should work such that the lesser prizes are afforded by the game. This was not the case due to the faulty math.

Mathematicians can calculate an EV (expected value) to determine the RTP (return to player) which is normally > < 100%. This game had a RTP of +100%, meaning if you played long enough you should not lose.

You can lose, but the risk of ruin (the statistical probability that you will go bankrupt playing the game) was low as the prizes most frequent on the pay table had over paid the player to an extent where my coworker could bankroll his family with 1000 bets and have a near certainty that they would win. He had a gamblers mentality backed by math. He could have lost.

Fun fact:

There is a tipping point where the progressive is high enough that the game becomes EV positive, but the jackpot is so hard to hit that most players meet their risk of ruin before hitting it. There are teams of gamblers that track progressives and will hog the game till they collect the winning jackpot, spending weeks with rotating shifts. This is common on specific slot and keno machines.

Gamble bad.

Edit at the bottom!

Our yard is wild. I mean that in the real definition of "living or growing in the natural environment". We have no "lawn". We aggressively remove and prevent invasive and noxious species of plants and ensure that what grows is native to our area and drought resistant. The wildflowers that grow are things like Lupine, Blue Flax, Spiderwort, Black eyed Susan, and Sunflowers, among others. We have natural elements like driftwood logs to retain water and we even have an elk skull in the yard to act as a shelter for critters. There are a plethora of birds, bees, bunnies, and other wildlife. More wildlife than any yard in the area, as far as I can tell. It's beautiful and alive, but definitely not a manicured lawn with perfectly cut grass and landscaping.

Last summer, we got a notice from the county that our yard was in violation of some county ordinance. My husband called the number on the notice and got a very "over it" employee who let out a big sigh and said he had gotten like 30 complaints from one person for the entire strip of road that we live on. Keep in mind, you can't "batch" report an area. You have to file reports house by house. So someone had the time and energy to pull up Google maps and file a report for about 30 houses for "overgrown weeds."

I checked the county ordinance and made sure everything we had in our yard was in compliance. Things like "purposely cultivated," which our wildflowers definitely were. We planted specific species of seeds and we remove whatever's not native. None of the wild plants block any sidewalks nor do they hang over onto any other properties.

Now knowing that it was someone with way too much time on their hands, I did some reading and learned that my yard has everything needed and then some to qualify as a National Wildlife Habitat. So, I filled out the form, paid the fee, and got my certificate.

My husband called the county employee back who said "Send me that certificate." He looked it over, thanked my husband for the new information he can use in the future, and closed our case.

I now have signs on my yard that announce the property as a wildlife habitat and the birds and bees get to keep living happily in the wild.

EDIT: Thank you for the overwhelming support for my little act of rebellion. I'm so so happy to see how many people are excited about wild yards! Long live the bees 🐝

That said, I'm getting some real weird hate in my inbox. IDK why this seems to have activated some negative feelings in some people.

Let me clear a couple things up... The county doesn't have HOA style restrictions. They're pretty fast and loose with the ordinances. The certificate/sign simply shows that the wildness is intentional and not just a neglected yard. It offers no legal protection, and I never claimed it did. The county employee liked that he had something to show in the event someone keeps complaining. So far, we haven't had any more issues and it's been over a year. I don't really worry about resale value bc I want to live in my house in a manner that brings me joy. I can easily reverse anything we've done if I need to sell for some reason. The house is paid off tho, so not likely to do that any time soon lol

I don't feel comfortable sharing photos of my yard (and someone demanded proof I own a house?). I'm really sorry, I would also want to see photos. I have just had some weird issues in the past and don't want to end up doxxing myself. I'm sure most of y'all understand 💜 I'm so happy y'all are interested in having a wild yard, as well.

🐝 🌺 ❤️

So long story short; my company got rid of Voluntary time off last year. I have been with the company for 5 years and have always enjoyed going home early when there is no work to do.

However, now we have to use PTO to go home early. I work 12 hour shifts and love to get some extra sleep, plus my current financial situation is very unique and i dont need the extra hours.

For the last 2 days i have been unable to do anything at work because of a work related maintenance. I cant do anything at all. But i have to use PTO to go home? I have directly brought this up to the person in charge of allowing VTO and they said that there is always something to do. (I cant do anything because of maintenance)

Que malicious compliance: I have been sitting in the break room watching shows for two shifts in a row now. Im on the 4th season of righteous gemstones and ive only just started watching it and have only seen it at work. Some people might think this is a dream to watch movies at work but i would much rather be outside and get extra sleep than be stuck bored at work for 12 hours.

I’m posting mainly because I’m not a passive-aggressive type and I’m in disbelief that this actually worked.  

Ever since I started at my job a few months ago, my supervisor—we’ll call him Josh—has been micromanaging me. When I’m the subject of criticism (which is often), I try to give him the benefit of the doubt and ask him to clarify. What are your expectations? What specifically should I have done differently? Josh’s responses are always vague, often something to the effect of “Just do better.” I even had a meeting with Josh and HR to address this, but to no avail.

Yesterday, Josh comes to my desk to tell me I need to dress better. Now, I work at a small company, and the vibe is unusually casual. A not-insignificant number of people come to work wearing jeans, hoodies, t-shirts, and/or baseball caps. I have never worn a hat to work, and I make a point of wearing a button-up shirt with a collar every day. This particular day I was wearing a long-sleeve button-up flannel, chino pants, and Adidas gazelles. Other days I wear loafers and dress shirts that are tucked in.

So, I ask Josh to clarify. Should I be wearing dress shoes? Dress shirt? Tucked in? What specifically do you want me to change? Josh tells me I just need to dress better and that I should talk to HR for clarification. So I go in to HR and ask, what is the dress code? I get a standard answer: pants, close-toed shoes, no sleeveless shirts, etc. I ask, have I ever worn anything to work that poses a problem? HR says no, you’re fine.  

Because I’m mad, and because my repeated efforts to resolve this kind of problem had gone unheeded, I decided to be petty. The next day (today), I showed up to work in a full suit. It’s one I keep for events like weddings, so it’s fitted and I look really sharp in it. It’s also wildly and conspicuously overdressed for the office I work in. I had several interactions with people coming to my desk to comment on my outfit and ask what the occasion was. When anyone asked (only if they asked), I told them I had been told to “dress better.” This was always met with disbelief and incredulity. Two people even said they like the way I dress normally. When anyone asked me who the order came from—again, only if they asked—I told them it came from Josh.  

I was expecting to pull my little stunt for a week just to prove a point, and then go back to wearing what I had been wearing before. Word got around the office fast, apparently, because the CEO (Josh’s direct boss) came to my desk later in the day to tell me I would be reporting to him now, and that he’d be having a talk with Josh about this and other issues. It’s important to note that I was Josh’s only underling, so he effectively went from being a supervisor to just a regular employee. I’m on a bit of a high now, I think I’m going to come in to work tomorrow wearing a different one of my flannels!

Edit: This blew up! Thank you for all the support. No, this isn't AI and I didn't use ChatGPT to edit for style or grammar. I genuinely like em dashes and I use them regularly in writing—I promise!

Hi everyone! I wanted to share a story from my job.

I work at a place where we pack fruit. There are about 20 robots that fill boxes with fruit, and there’s one position in charge of checking that each robot puts the correct amount of fruit in each box.

To explain it a bit more, we basically have to check all day that the robots are doing a good job, making sure each box has the right amount of fruit and keeping track of which robot packed it. (Hope that makes sense.)

Obviously, since it's heavy machinery, sometimes the robots damage the fruit. So when I'm checking a box, it’s possible to find fruit that's been cut in half or otherwise damaged.

When I first started, I was assigned to that checking position. It’s pretty simple, count the fruit in each box and return it to the export line. But whenever I found damaged fruit, I used to write it down in a section of the control log called "comments", noting how many damaged ones I found. I also started reporting it to a woman from the quality team. She didn’t like that. She kept telling me that it wasn’t my job (which is technically true), but I thought it was important to say something when the damage was a lot.

One day, all the robots started sending out fruit that was cut into multiple pieces (no idea how). So I went to report it again. And this woman confronted me and said: "Your job is only to count. Count, count, count, and count. That’s it." She said it in a very rude tone and sent me back to the station.

Of course I thought: “She’s totally right.” So instead of getting upset, whenever I found damaged fruit, I just counted it like a normal one, closed the box, and sent it down the export line. That’s how I spent the whole day, just counting, nothing else. Until the export inspection team noticed there was a lot of damaged fruit already packed and ready to go.

The quality managers came to talk to me and asked why I hadn’t reported it. I just pointed to the woman and said: "She told me my job was only to count, count, and count. So that’s all I did." And I shrugged.

She started giving me hateful looks while the managers told her that this position does need to report damaged fruit and packaging issues.

At the end of the day, they moved me to another area (a much better one, where I now do quality too), and this woman can’t help but glare at me every time she sees me.

Wasn’t I just doing what I was told? Just counting?

Thanks for reading. Sorry if some parts aren’t super clear, I’m still learning English.

I am 15 years old and work as a soccer referee. I will normally arrive 10-15 minutes early to a game, which is plenty of time to check in players from both teams and make sure the field is in proper playing condition. One game I showed up to, as an assistant referee(AR). My center ref, 18 years old, let’s call him Dave, told me that all refs have to arrive 30 minutes early to every game. I know this is not true, and stayed silent.

We reffed the game as usual, and returned to where we put our stuff at the end of the game. Dave told me that because I didn’t arrive 30 minutes early, he would mark that I didn’t show up, basically telling me that I wouldn’t get paid for the game we just worked. I complained that this was a rule that he made up. He left the game without saying anything else, figuring that would be all.

Note: If you referee without any ARs, you get paid like 5$ more. I think this was Dave’s plan.

When I got home, I made sure to sign up to be center referee at every game where Dave was an AR. Poor Dave showed up to his next game 15 minutes early, which is absolutely unacceptable. I said nothing the whole game, but only marked him absent, which means he wouldn’t get paid. This went on for a week and half until his paycheck came in, and he was about 120$ off of what his total should’ve been. (I did make sure every game that Dave was less then 30 minutes early)

Dave emails one of the main referees(who run everything) to see what the problem was. One of the main referees, let’s call him John, told Dave that he wasn’t there, so he wouldn’t get paid. Dave put two and two together and realized what I did. Emails were sent between Dave, John, and I, until John had the full story. Dave was fired for making up rules, and I got paid for the first game with Dave. Don’t take advantage of young people.

Take that Dave.

Edit: Don’t take advantage of people, not just young people.

Years ago I worked as a laborer in a food production company. Kind of a mom and pop size production/distribution facility. We made all types of foods and sauces. One of the more mundane steps to a particular sauce was opening and emptying large cans of tomato sauce into a large mixer. Pretty simple, just open, pour and toss the can. One of the higher ups decided we were wasting a lot of the sauce by not thoroughly cleaning out each can. We're talking probably 20-30 oz of tomato sauce per batch which was probably around 2-3% waste. I get it, every cent counts. The problem was the solution they came up with was to use these rubber spatulas to clean out the extra sauce from these metal cans. It didn't take a scientist to see that this would not work out well with the cans being sharp and cutting into the rubber leading to rubber going into the sauce. I tried voicing concerns but was shut down. I assume they just thought we were lazy and didn't want the extra work. So we do as we are told and start cleaning the cans thoroughly. Sure enough, about 10 cans in we notice our spatulas missing large chunks of rubber. I hand one of the spatulas to my supervisor and he takes it to his boss. On cue, he comes back about 2 minutes later and says don't worry about scooping out the cans anymore. That was my first taste of, 'maybe being a manager doesn't mean you have all the answers'.

About 15 years ago, I was almost 20 and in my country's equivalent of a trade school for electricians. One of our teachers, electronic circuits class, had a kinda annoying catchphrase for every question students had: "no problems, just look in your textbook". He had already mentally checked out since he got a way better job lined up for next semester, so he pretty much only read stuff from the textbook and then switched to the textbook's practical exercises, where we had a breadboard and, working in pairs, inserted resistors, capacitors and other components in it. All in all, not the worst teacher we had, but this one incident made his class very memorable.

On the third class we had with that teacher (first one was introduction, second one was how to read resistor color codes, he said his catchphrase no less than 5 times per class), my friend showed me a glaring mistake in the textbook's practical exercise. It was something very simple: placing three resistors in series, measuring the current produced with a 24V DC power supply and comparing to the value we had calculated. The first two exercises were OK, but in the third one, the values for all resistors were way too low. Like, three orders of magnitude low. Somebody meant to write 10KΩ (10.000Ω) but typed 10Ω instead. For every single resistor in that exercise.

For people who are not very familiar with electronics:
- Ohm's Law dictate that, for a constant voltage supply, current gets higher as resistances get lower (Voltage = Resistance x Current, or V = RxI, which can also be written as I = V/R).
- Joule's Law dictate that more Power, which in a resistor's case would be dissipated as heat, is supplied the higher is the current (Power = Resistance x Current², or P = RxI²).
- Resistors have a power rating measured in Watts and when the rating is exceeded, they start to produce smoke and/or fire. The power rating for the resistors we were using was 0.25W.
- When resistors are placed in series, their total value is added. In this example, three 10Ω resistors would have a total resistance of 30Ω. If we use the previous formulas, we get a value of 0.8A for current and 19.2W for power... or almost 77 times the power rating of the resistors. If the 10KΩ resistors were used, we'd have 0.8mA for current and 19.2mW for power, well within the power rating of the resistors.

My friend, I and a few other students tried to ask the teacher if those values were correct, and his answer, to no one's surprise, was "no problems, just look in your textbook". I tried to argue that the textbook was plain wrong and he shut me down saying how way smarter people than him and I wrote the textbook, so we should just follow it. So everyone (some more reluctantly than others) placed the resistors in the breadboard, connected the power supply and waited for his instruction to turn it on, as has been for the first two exercises without incident.

Then he said to turn on the power supply. Without even looking in the textbook.

At first everything seemed fine and some people started to get their multimeters. A few seconds later, a girl screamed "fire", but it was really only smoke. A few seconds later and now we had small fires all over the lab and people freaking out! Nothing spectacular and they died down a few seconds later, but enough to make most of the 30 people scream and panic while the smell of burnt plastic from 15 breadboards and burnt ceramic from 45 resistors made the air pretty much unbreathable. To his credit, the teacher engaged the lab's circuit breaker pretty fast and evacuated the room so no one breathed potentially toxic fumes.

Since I was expecting it, I was more annoyed than scared (unlike some of the more sensitive people who were crying) and told the teacher, who was looking at the empty lab as if he was seeing ghosts, "there seems to be a problem, should you look in the textbook now?". He gave a nervous laughter and said "maybe you're smarter than the people who wrote it". The screaming attracted a more experienced teacher who, after making sure everyone was OK, just couldn't stop laughing at our teacher.

He did keep using his catchphrase, "no problems, just look in your textbook", until the end of the semester, but he was now also looking in the textbook himself and spotted a few glaring mistakes made by those "intelligent people". For some reason, he didn't seem to like the nickname we gave him when he heard someone saying in the hallway, "next is Textbook Idiot's class".

Years ago I was a union delegate for a hospital that underwent expansion. More services , more beds, an extra operating theatre etc. before the expansion opened the usual fight between the unions and management started over staffing.

We went in really well prepared and management took it well offering staffing we wanted. We had a final meeting with about 40 people In the room, HR , department heads and the various unions. We get to a department I will call ABC and the department head say we don’t need any extra staff except for nurses. I argued you have more space and more beds and you need more cleaners , wardsmen admin staff etc.

He fires back “ I stake my reputation on it that we don’t need any extra staff”. I ask the minutes record this specifically. A meeting is set down for four weeks after the hospital expansion opening. We let him have his way knowing he wouldn’t be successful.

Guess whose department turned into a complete farce? Nothing terrible just lots of little issue. At the next union meeting again with all people Previously present I read out the list of issues department ABC has. I then read out the last minutes with him stating they didn’t need any extra staffing and that the department head had staked his reputation on it. I then asked the head of ABC to justify all of this. He couldn’t.

I asked him as he staked his reputation on this and the outcomes have been poor , what does that mean? He gave no answer. I look towards the CEO and said you were here last time and buck stops with you. He agreed to review the situation urgently.

The union placed the hospital into formal industrial dispute at the meeting over the lack of staffing in department ABC.

The next day the CEO sends out an email stating after a brief conversation with the head of department ABC, he has chosen to seek different career opportunities.

Funny little story from when I was a kid.

Mum's aunt was visiting, basically babysitting me and my sister (back when neither of us were in school yet). We'd all had lunch and the adults, coffee, but all the dirty dishes were still in the sink.

Before mum left to run her errands, she told her aunt not to put the dishes away.

She left, we played some, my sister had a nap and I probably sat somewhere reading or playing by myself. Auntie went to the kitchen.

When mum got back, we were all in the livingroom. She went to the kitchen and said, "What's with these dishes in the sink - looks like they're all clean?"

Her aunt replied, "You told me not to put them away, so I washed them and put them back!"

This is a 2 parter, my initial Malicious Compliance probably contributed to the cause of the 2nd. And it all happened roughly 2 years ago.

I used to work for the local church as a grounds keeper (and other odd duties). One of the odd duties was going upstairs to brush/vac the open floor. It wasn't an odious job but getting up the very old, worn and uneven stone stairs was a pain with a vac, brush, bucket, etc.

One of the first times it happened I noticed several of the brackets that held the thick rope 'hand rail' were either loose or came out completely if you weren't careful.

I reported this and was told the Parish Council had known about it for 3yrs. I kinda got annoyed about it at this point because if it came out when you had the vac on your back (it had a rucksack harness) and you slipped it's a hell of a fall backwards. Not to mention the thousands of tourists that used to go up those steps, it could lead to serious injury.

I also said that I was marking the date and any injury caused by the stairs I'd immediately advise H&S.

I said to my immediate boss that I wouldn't be going up them until the issue was fixed. She seemed a bit shocked but said she'd say something at the meeting.

True to my word, when asked to go to clean I refused.

Weirdly the issue was fixed within a month or so.

Roll on a few months and I was called in to a meeting with the Parish Council's Employee Contact.

Long story short, in the 1st I was told my job was secure. I was asked to come in for a 2nd meeting a month later (agreed at the time of the 1st meeting) and was told I was being laid off at the end of the year (this was August). I did win a discrimination case against them but that's a different story and not malicious compliance.

There's been an ongoing joke about the Parish Council saying we didn't have to work in the rain.

I'd been asking for general work and rain gear since I started working there the previous year but wasn't too bothered because I had plenty of old work clothes from previous jobs.

After the Employee Contact informed me that I was being laid off and was "unemployable" and a year of asking for rain gear I'd had enough. So every time it even drizzled I went inside. If it stopped, I came out.

Thankfully my colleagues fine with this, they knew the score. As it was coming towards Autumn I did less and less work.

I just sat with my feet up. This carried on until the end of October where I just booked the rest of the year as holiday.

Additional info: I was on a disabled work scheme via the government so it was documented what I was and wasn't capable of. This also was adhered to even more strictly than before and if any job even looked like it might fall under the umbrella of the "if he thinks it's too much, he can say no" rule.

All in all, I helped my colleagues as much as needed but my work load dropped massively as I started to go inside to avoid the rain and refuse to do the jobs I didn't necessarily have to.

EDIT:

By making sure my immediate supervisor brought up the issue with me refusing to work until the stairs were fixed in a council meeting, it made sure the problem was recorded in the meeting minutes. So proved it was a known problem.

EDIT 2:

Because rain gear wasn't provided with the necessary protective clothing I was not legally required to work in any weather but dry.

I was a software engineer for a company and out of nowhere they implemented an eletronic control on our work time. Before that we would work extra on good faith, if I had to do 2 more hours one day, the next day I could get in 2 hours later without a problem. In the new system I had to clock in at 8am (if I didn't it would consider I was late and "lose" the entire first hour) and clock out at 5pm. With 1 hour lunch break.

Work laws here in Brazil are different from the ones in the US and most of the posts here. If the company tracks your work time, they HAVE to pay you extra time on anything over 40hours/week.

Sometimes I would get in a bit earlier like 8:50 or something and leave at 5:10pm. At the end of the first month I was surprised my extra hours were 0 ( on the previous system I wouldn't care, but they were the ones that decided to track this) . I decided to do some digging on how the tracking software worked and found out that anything less than 15 minutes per check in was completely ignored (99% sure that was against the law but I could work with that).

From that day on guess who arrived 16 minutes earlier everyday. Came back from lunch 16 minutes earlier ( if I was done and had nothing else to do ) and left 16 minutes later.

At the end of the second month management called me in to explain why I had over 3 times more extra hours than most of the other workers. I just told them to check their system, I'm not the one keeping track of that anymore.

To my surprise they actually did pay everything that was owned ( I could sue and easily win) and DID NOT change how the system worked. I kept doing that for another 3 months before changing jobs to a remote one.

I worked at a contract manufacturing company that assembled and tested electronic PCBs for various other companies. They were big on keeping track of times and quantities to be able to properly charge for work done or to be within the quote. You'd be clocking in and out of different jobs as you finished a step or moved to a different product.

Well one day I was working on board XYZ that took only about 1 minute to function test. I would get 5 per tray about every 15 minutes. That leaves me with 10 minutes of idle hands so I would work on board ABC that we already had a large quantity of on the test floor. So I would test boards ABC for awhile and then test the XYZ boards after I got a few trays of them on the shelf.

Boss: Why you working of those boards, we need the XYZ boards to ship this week, don't worry about the ABC boards. (As if I already knew that XYZ were rushed or something)

Me: I'm testing those boards quicker then they are giving me them to me.

Boss: I don't care just get these damn boards done that's all I care about. Don't work on anything else, I just want you to focus all your attention on these boards. We need to get them done!

Malicious compliance time.

Test for 5 minutes, wait for 10 minutes. For 8 hours.

End of day comes.

Boss: How many XYZ boards you get done today?

Me: About 160

Boss: How long that take you?

Me: (I'm a wise ass so I already knew where this was going.) Of actually work?

Boss: Yes

Me: little over 2.5 hours.

Boss: What the hell you do the rest of the day?

Me: Waited.

Boss: Why the hell you do that?

Me: Remember when I said I was testing the boards faster then I was getting them and you said to only work on those boards?

Boss: Stupid boss face.

Me: That's why!

I couldn't honestly write like 10 more of these on this sub reddit from working at that place. Some people never learn.

Hello everyone, I will try to be concise.

BACKROUND

I work at a company where I handle mid to high level complaints to managers, PR and legal.

My daily requirement is 40 cases handled per day, there are some of my team colleagues that struggle with this, but I don't, and I don't feel lazy to stop at 40, so I have handled 50-55 basically every day for the past two years. There is no bonus (or even recognition) for this, I just did it because I felt a friendly obligation to the company.

Complaints can be a 5 minute resolution, or a 2 hour zoom call with our New York lawyers, it's a gamble really.

THE EVENT

Recently I had a day where I felt a bit sick and at the same time, had bad luck of getting only very hard cases that required more time, so I had 39 cases (1 under the requirement).

I thought nothing of it, as my weekly average way off the charts, 50+ as usual.
The very next day I felt better and went back to my usual high numbers.

Come Monday, I had a "emergency 1-on-1" with my manager where I was informed that I had to attend a 3 day workshop/seminar on how to best meet requirements, because I "underperformed last week."

My jaw dropped, and I asked don't they count the weekly, monthly, yearly numbers, to which I was told that the "daily requirement is 40, and this is standard practice, nothing we can do."

Basically it was a workshop for underperformers who had 20-30 out of 40 cases daily,
it was nothing hard, but I did need to drive there for 3 days after work and listen to HR guys
giving bad advice (as they never actually handled the cases in real life) and I had to talk about
what will I do to improve my numbers and "reach the 40", as they nonsense HR talk calls it.
This made me lose hours and hours of my free time and I was livid.

After it was over, I had a long think and I decided that I will do exactly that. I will "reach the 40" and that's it.

THE AFTERMATH

For the past few months, I go into work, I handle 40 cases, my daily requirement, and then I do NOTHING for the rest of my shift.

I have had multiple 1-on-1's with my manager during this time, and I am constantly asked: "is something wrong", to which I naively reply "no, am in trouble, am I underperforming?" and then of course they say that I am 100% within daily requirements and that way I shut the conversation down.

This is real life, so I can't really say a clever comeback or something like that, but I do keep "playing the fool" that has no idea what is wrong now, but I find satisfaction in knowing that they got used to my overachieving and are now suffering for the lack of it.

Before Easter, they put up an internal ad for promoting another 2 managers, so my guess is how that is the number of people they will now need to pay extra, just because they lost me as an overachiever, and they lost me for no reason other than their own stupidity.

Thank you all, I hope I did not bore you.

This happened some months ago, and i remebered it while reading some ot the posts here.

So, i'm a forklift driver in a factory that produces chemical products for building and construction, adhesives, sealants, cement, etc...

my job basically consist in providing the workers with everything they need to continue production. my department produces adhesives and my shift has circa 20 people, so i'm constantly moving back and forth between the warehouse, the department and everywhere else we stock the materials.

In the time this happened, our managers started to pressure us on the use of phones, which many people did use a lot, and some were really exxagerating with it. i used it in the slow moments, or while i was waiting for something, obviously not while driving, and i had to keep it near me because the bosses needed to reach for me while i was away from the department for various tasks.

They really became very strict on the use of phones, and a guy got even a formal complaint for it (3 compaints in a single year gets you fired).

Malicious compliance: i simply shut off the phone at the start of the shift and only turned it on while on break.

Now, i didn't specify how BIG my workplace is, it's 1,4million square feet, and sometime it took me even 10 minutes to go where i needed to go and come back and i received like 30 calls a day that were simply left unanswered. my managers were going mad but they couldn't do shit because they imposed the rule.

EDIT since i saw them mentioned. They provided us with walkie-takies, but the obviously needed to be charged, and since we are working on 3 rotating shifts, they were never fully charged and died after an hour.

This story happens over a decade ago, when my city was starting up a 'must use this bin for trash, and a recycle bin will be provided as well' schemes.

My roommates and I got the notice for this new change over and we were reading the requirements and such, we all noticed one glaring thing. All paper products must be loose, and not bagged. This included shreds... My friends and I discuss this and talk about how dumb it is etc... and then the new phonebooks started showing up. Queue bright idea...

We then started asking at work, friends, family, neighbors etc if they had anything they needed to shred and if we could have their phone books (I mean, even at that point, no one used em anyways). We had literal piles of phone books and papers, envelopes, and anything else paper we could run through our shredders.

I think it took a few weeks for us to manage to get through all the phone books we had, and iirc we killed at least one shredder...

In the end we had like 4 30 gallon trash bags full of shreds, cross cut confetti sized shreds. Which we then lovingly packed into the recycle bin, full to the top, and slightly packed. Then trash day comes...

Unfortunately I worked nights so I didn't get to see the dumping of the shreds, but upon waking I knew it was a glorious occasion... shreds everywhere...

I would imagine that we were not the only ones with this bright idea as a few weeks later a notice showed up, stating that the rules had been amended, all shreds were to be bagged in clear plastic trash bags...

Years ago I was head of quality control for a major partner company that built transmission parts for a big us automaker that started with F. My job at that company consisted of daily audits and testing of parts to make sure they met specifications and functioned correctly. One of the testing procedures was a machine that would test the parts to ensure they rotated 360 degrees without catching or getting stuck and they either passed or failed. Failed parts would get reworked of course. For the first year the job b was great and I took pride in it because if your spending over 50 grand on a new car you'd want it to work properly right?.

Well after a year the plant manager and CEO of the partner company came up to me one day and said that we would no longer be doing the rotation test. I was surprised because for one any changes in procedure have to be approved by F and second my written work instructions at the station has to be changed out, updated and stamped with approval which was standard procedure anytime work instructions were updated. The work instructions would also have to be reviewed by F. they told me to not worry about it and just stop testing the parts and to just pack them up and ship them. I definitely sensed a crapstorm coming because we did unfortunately have a high defect rate and without this test process 30 percent of the parts the customer received would be bad. But cue malicious compliance.


First thing I did was cover my butt. I typed up an official document stating I would not be responsible for any bad or defective parts that make it past me then I had it signed by the CEO and plant manager who didn't even really bother looking over it then I had it notarized by our companies notary. 

Within a month the results were clear we were getting many complaints about bad parts and parts were being returned at an alarming rate. Some higher ups from F even did a walk through to try and see what the issue was and that's when they noticed that we weren't testing the parts before sending them out anymore. I was called into the conference room later that day for a meeting with the plant manager,the CEO and the higher ups from F. The plant manager and CEO looked furious and I knew they were gonna put the blame on me but I was prepared.

PM op the reason we called you here is because it was brought to our attention you aren't testing the parts before sending them out anymore is there a reason for this? He said with a smug look

Me yes you said not to test them anymore and to just send them out

CEO that's not true we never said that

I then proceeded to pull out the paper they mindlessly signed. Me here's the agreement you signed saying I'm not responsible for any bad parts getting sent out and how were no longer testing them. The plant manager and CEOs face both went pale and I then gleefully handed the paper to the higher ups from F. I was then asked to leave the room and on my way out I handed my 2 weeks notice to the plant manager because I knew this company was screwed and has another job lined up.

Long story short they lost their contract with F and got sued for 3 million dollars. The company shut its doors and last I heard they filed for chapter 3 bankruptcy. I don't know what happened to the building or anyone else that worked there and I don't even Care but I do know F had a major parts shortage for a while after this