rSlash - r/Maliciouscompliance "ANSWER THE PHONE!" "I'm deaf, but ok"

Episode Date: November 14, 2020

r/Maliciouscompliance In today's story, OP is faced with a truly frustrating customer service experience. A company requires OP to call in to cancel her subscription service. The problem? OP is deaf! She literally can't communicate with the representative over the phone. Her husband tries to explain that, but it just doesn't matter. They continue to insist to speak to the deaf person on the phone. Idiots! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Business notifications getting out of hand, buried under an avalanche of customer emails, texts, and social media messages? Keep your edge with Thrive Small Business software and never miss a message again. Thrive offers one solution to communicate, market, and run your business, but simply, small businesses run better on Thrive. Get Command Center for free today at thrive.ca. That's THRYV.ca. Terms and conditions apply. Free plans have limited functionality.

Welcome to R-Slash, a podcast where I read the best post from across Reddit. Today's subreddit is R-Slash malicious compliance where a student carefully falls to school's dress code. Our next Reddit post is from Hagenley. Another post on here reminds me of this story which actually happened to my sister, we'll call her Amanda. A few years ago, there was a big sporting event that all of my family wanted to get together and watch.

We decided to all get together in my sister's house to watch it. She needed to upgrade her TV package to include more sports channels which she was able to do online on the TV producers website. Great! We had a great day, watched the big game, and ate and drank far too much. The issue started when my sister went to cancel the subscription, so it's to not keep paying the higher rate for future months. Apparently, while you can upgrade your package and give the company more money online, removing the package was much more difficult, of course.

They said the only way to cancel the package was over the phone. My sister is deaf. So needless to say, this was an issue. My sister had been emailing and complaining to no avail. At the time this happened, my brother was temporarily staying with my sister and he called the company for her. The exchange apparently went like this. I'm relaying what my sister and brother told me.

My brother said, hi, I need to cancel the subscription for extra sports for my sister Amanda. The lady on the line said, I'll need to speak with Amanda. My sister's deaf, she can't speak with you over the phone. There's nothing I can do. I have to speak with the account holder if you want to cancel your subscription. You need to speak with a deaf person on the phone? Yes. And you don't see anything wrong with your current system. All changes have to be done by the account holder. Yes, exactly, and the only reason why this

was set up was because she was able to make these changes online. What you're saying is that she can't reverse the changes. All I can tell you is that I have to speak with Amanda. At this point, my brother was telling my sister what was being said and they came up with a perfect solution. Okay, one second, here's Amanda. My brother continued speaking and it's worth noting that he has quite a deep husky voice. I need to cancel my sport subscription. I think you're the person I was just speaking to?

No, I'm Amanda. You said you needed to speak with me? I thought you were deaf. And yet you insisted on speaking with me on the phone, so here I am. Please cancel my subscription. I have all the information you need to verify my identity. The subscription got canceled. I've used a pretty similar tactic myself.

These companies, they honestly don't know anything about you. They've got your name, your credit card info, and probably your address, but that's about it. So if you're living with a partner and your partner has something set up in their name, you can really easily change it because you have all of their information. My wife's name is Nicole, and I've had times when I've had to call up on her behalf to set something up. And inevitably they're like, okay, sir, we need to speak with the account holder, Nicole. Yes, this is Nicole speaking. Um, you're the account holder, Nicole.

Yeah, is there a problem? Oh, um, no sir, let me just confirm these details. Down in the comments, it sounds like a lot of people use my strategy, including this story from NitroStat. My mom was sick of trying to cancel a cable subscription, so I called up and pretended to be her. I used all her info. When the guy on the line said, your Mrs. X, you sound like a man.

I just inhaled and screamed through the phone. What the f did you just say to me, young man? He couldn't help me fast enough. Our next Reddit post is from Teacher Post. I'm a 16 year old female. And yesterday I emailed my teachers and told them that I'll be going to the hospital to get an infusion for a chronic illness that I have and a blood transfusion. And I asked if they would mind if I had my camera off for the class sessions.

All of them said yes, except for my history teacher. She said that she needs to know that I'm actually in class. I tried to explain my situation and that I was uncomfortable with the class seeing me in the infusion clinic with my central line and all of my monitors. And for context here, a central line is basically a tube that gets inserted into your chest to administer drugs. My teacher basically said tough luck and then I need to show up for class. So the class starts and I log into the meeting and you can very clearly see the central

line in my chest. The IV pull with the unit can very clearly see the central line in my chest. The IV pull with a unit of blood and the monitors the good in my chest. I forget what they're called. My teacher looked visibly uncomfortable the entire time and emailed me after the class, saying that I made her uncomfortable, and what I did was completely unprofessional. I reminded her that she said that I have to have my camera on the whole time. Oh, P, that teacher was incredibly stupid. Clearly your teacher forcing you to keep your camera on was pretty unethical.

But then scolding you for following her instructions? O.P, you should write an email to the superintendent or the principal and say that your teacher basically forced you to share private medical information with the class. I don't know exactly what the laws are surrounding the situation, but ethically your teacher is in a lot of hot water with this one. What an idiot! Our next read it posted from Naboo to Boo. I'm gonna preface this with the fact that I have anorexia, so read it your own discretion, because this can be potentially upsetting. One day, I was hanging around in my school's biology lab, talking to professors, and my

academic advisor walked in. I just started treatment because I lost upwards of 20 pounds in two months and needed to get back on the wagon to stay in school. Since my advisor had walked in on the conversation, I was hoping to segue into bringing her aside to talk about extensions. Nope. She came into the conversation with, wow, I wish I could lose weight like that.

She rattled on about her unsuccessful dieting and her lack of willpower, not like mine. I lost it internally. Mind you, she was fully aware of my issues because I had taken medical absences and had to maneuver classes around treatment. That never stopped her from telling me that whenever I had french fries that I don't eat real food, here's where the malicious compliance comes in. I, in Jess said, do you want tips? She obviously jumped on that. Of course she'd love tips. The next day I sent an email with every single detail of behavior usage. How to restrict, how to vomit, lying to your friends and therapists, how to run a 5k

after not eating for days, etc. It got graphic too, with how to deal with vomiting blood, passing out in public, acid erosion on your teeth, and having your hair fall out. She didn't respond to that email, but she stopped talking about dieting in front of me for the rest of my time in college. And, man, I feel bad laughing about this, but the story is brutal. Down in the comments, we have a similar post from Queen Nibbler. My mom lost a ton of weight during the month after my dad passed. She just wasn't eating.

Whenever people asked her for a secret, she would say, I don't recommend the diet. When they pushed more, she would say, my secret is having my husband die suddenly, works wonders, really kills the appetite like nothing else. That usually shut people up. Our next reddit posted from Tandy Angie. Our junior high dress code was a pain. Most teachers didn't care

so long as the kids weren't distracting. The principal of the junior high, however, insisted on enforcing every single rule. A friend of mine wore a long sleeve shirt under a tank top. The principal insisted that she couldn't wear the tank top because tank tops were against the dress code. But she couldn't take off the tank top because her shirt was slightly see-through, another violation.

Instead of allowing her to simply wear the tank over a long sleeve shirt, she sent her home. I decided that this wouldn't stand. I studied every rule in the dress code to prove how stupid it was. I started off small and worked my way up. No open-toed sandals. This one was easy. I wore open-to to high heels. Nothing in the rules against high heels and the open toe rule only applied to sandals the way it was written. I'm sorry I'm laughing like it's been a while since I've been in high school. Is it normal for kids to not be able to show their toes in school? Like I'm sorry principal. I just can't concentrate with all these girls' toes around me. It's just so

hot. I can't listen to what the teacher's saying. Alright, back to the story. Why do I love getting my last minute gifts at Shopper's Drug Mart? Well, lots of stores, many open late, great flutton of gifts, and let's not forget the PC Optimum Points. I get gifts for them and points for me. And so can you. Go to shoppers, exclusions apply. These side marios all you can eat is all you can munch a soup, sell it, and gollic home moth. Sure, it must be tucked into pants. Belts must be worn through belt loops. I knocked

out two here by wearing a skirt. Scurrets are at least the one I wore had no belt loops and wasn't considered pants so I wasn't required to tuck anything in or wear a stupid belt. two here by wearing a skirt. Scurts, or at least the one I wore, had no belt loops and wasn't considered pants, so I wasn't required to tuck anything in or wear a stupid belt. Backpacks must be plain colored with no pins or excessive accessories. I picked up a briefcase from a resale shop and slapped it with every sticker I could find. Any random logo or inspirational sticker I had lying around got slapped on it. Technically, a briefcase isn't a backpack. No costumes allowed. I have verified this.

My school considered a costume to be anything only worn for a certain period of time or for a certain reason. If you wore it all day, it was an outfit not a costume. I abused this one so badly. Once a week, I dressed up as a lawyer, a clown, a hippie, a Shakespearean actor, a superhero, a cameraman, etc. Complete, of course, with as many accessories as I could handle. So long as I never took them off, this made Jim class interesting. They were considered part of a costume. I ended up letting kids pick out what I would dress as each week. No crazy hairstyles. I kept my natural hair colors and kept the styles of something that was at least popular at one point. Beehives took forever, but that was the most satisfying. Bonus points

of I could find pictures of adults who were still wearing their hair like that currently. Shirts aren't allowed to have logos or prints, only patterns and consistent designs. Consistent designs was my loophole here. No print, fine, but consistent print made specifically to look like a design. At this point the principal was going mad and she didn't let this one slide. She insisted I change, which I expected. Jim Shorts must touch his students' knees or be as long as their fingertips. Guess whose fingertips reach about three inches below her but? Me. I went from wearing a shirt that said bite me all over it to an outfit that included short shorts, but my shorts were still longer than my fangers. I even offered

to change back into my other clothes. At this point in the year we were almost done with school. Other kids were following my lead and we were driving the principal mad. I decided to kick it up a bit further. I attacked what should have been the most basic rules. No sunglasses. Rose-colored glasses aren't considered sunglasses because you can easily see through them. Still, the principal jerked them off my face and insisted I wouldn't get them back until the end of the day. No tank tops.

I wore a dress with spaghetti straps. It wasn't a shirt, so it wasn't breaking a rule. Belts must be plain with no dangerous materials. Plain it must be, so plain I went. I wore a shoe string as a belt. I wore a braided yarn string as a belt. I even wore a spandex band sewn to my pants as a belt. No crocs.

Crocs are not the only rubber shoe my friend. I found every off-brand crock I could get a hold of. Finally, at the end of the year, I wore one of my most outrageous outfits. I wore a see-through dress over leggings and a shirt that barely classified as a t-shirt. I wore shoes with a 4-inch cork heel. I had on fake glasses, they had no lenses, and a 4-inch wide headband. I wore bangles up to my elbows and ankles on each foot. I had a box to carry my books in that was decorated with blinking battery-powered fairy lights.

I walked right up to the principal and gave her a smile. Kids paused to see what would happen. I waited to see what she would say. We'd had this conversation all year. She would point out the rule that I broke, and I would prove how I didn't. She's sighed. The principal said, fine, but if even one teacher says you're distracting the class, you change clothes. We shook on it. The only thing I had to ditch was most of the bangles. They kept clinging while I wrote. In the end, I ended up getting the dress code rewritten and amended, and the principal implemented a new procedure where dress code violations were not sent home. They were noted, and students had to wear a piece of duct tape indicating the specific

violation. If you forgot about, you put a piece of tape on as a belt loop. Kids only started to get in trouble after three dress code violations in the same week. Since she lightened up on the dress code and how harshly it was punished, she stopped having trouble with kids breaking their rules all the time. It worked out for everyone. All these school dress code policies were administrators think that young teenage boys are getting all thirsty over toes and shoulders reminds me of a story I read a while back.

I forget where it was, but OP had like a major foot fetish and a really hot teacher. And one day the teacher wore these open-toed sandals and OP was going crazy over them. So when the teacher came over to another student, OP stealthily pulled out his phone and took a picture of the teacher's feet. But he forgot to mute the sound, so it made that loud. Quick! Sound! The classroom was dead silent, so everyone, including the teacher, heard the photograph.

Whoops! Our next reddit post is from Prokastinator 3000. A friend of mine lived in a pretty big neighborhood with a pretty strict homeowner's association. He was the first house at the bottom of the hill that you saw when you drive in. He asked and was allowed to add a garage to his house and did so, signing it with Cedar Planks.

It looked great. His HOA disagreed and told him the by-law stated that all exposed walls must be painted. He tried to appeal but was shot down unanimously. So he checked the by-laws further and found that while it was stated that all exposed walls must be painted, there was absolutely no mention of any color restrictions. By the time he was done, each plank was a different primary color and there was nothing they could do about it. They were furious with him and he laughed his butt off.

Our next reddit post is from Rambo Robertsons. Background, when I was 16 while working as a background grocery store we got a new manager, we'll call our Lisa. At least I had a very, I'm right, you're wrong attitude. She didn't care if she was in the wrong, but you better do what she told you until she changed her mind. If you spoke out against her, you would end up on her blacklist and she would do her best to get you fired. Generally, the bagger is the lowest position in the store. We collect cards from the lot, put away items, stock, clean bag, and somehow we're always

at fault. Q-A-Lisa. I had an early shift, I clocked in, started morning duties, and I heard in the loudspeaker. O.P., please come up to aisle 6. That's the frozen island seafood. I came in and Alisa gives me a smile and asked me to grab a bucket and scrub brush. I was going to pull up the bottom aluminum floor panels at the bottom of the freezer and melt the ice that accumulated around the fans.

It shouldn't take longer than 30 minutes, she said. She wanted to make sure that I used cold water since we didn't want the temperature sensors to go off. Anything over 42 degrees Fahrenheit would set them off and corporate would call. I say, let me make sure I have this right. You would like me to fill the bucket with cold water and pour it on the ice in the freezer, while the freezer is set at 19 degrees Fahrenheit? At least it stares at me like I'm stupid. And for all my non-American fans out there, 19 degrees Fahrenheit is negative 7 Celsius.

I inform her that this isn't gonna work. The water will freeze and just create a mound of ice. I suggest using hot or practically boiling water while watching the temperature. Alisa gives me a firm no and the threat of writing me up if I disobey. So I start malicious compliance. I've already figured that no matter what I do, I'm likely to get in trouble.

To get the water, I had to fill up the bucket in the meat department sink. The meat manager asked what I was up to and I told the story with all the details. The meat manager is scratching his head and he heads over to call Alisa. She confirms and I hear a bit of arguing. The meet manager comes back, gives me a smile and says to do as I was told, he backed me up. So, for the next hour, I must have put about 200 gallons of cold water onto the freezer fan. I stopped and moved to the next fan each time the compartment was filled to the brim with ice.

I got four compartments done before she came to check on me. Instant rage. Alisa went from white to red real quick. It was also the first time I'd ever heard a manager cuss. What the f is this? How the f could you screw up something so simple, said Alisa. I just said, I did exactly what you told me to. I took buckets of cold water and poured them on the ice around the fans.

Right as she said, she was going to write me up, the meat manager came over after hearing her cussing. The meat manager saw the ice filled compartments and mentioned that I should have used hot water. This sent Alisa over the edge. Up to my office now, you're being written up. The meat manager did what he said he'd do. He stuck up for me. The meat manager mentioned that he double-checked with her about what she wanted me to do and that I was complying with her instructions.

She went silent for a moment and it was like her head was going to pop off. She just took a deep breath and muttered, FIX IT and walked away. The meat manager gave me an extended industrial hose hooked up to hot water. The water in the meat department can get up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit to kill bacteria. The ice was gone in 15 minutes and since apparently the freezer temperature measured as a whole it never went above 34 degrees Fahrenheit. Alisa avoided me for a week afterwards. I knew that I was on her blacklist, and for the next 8 months, she tried to write me

up for the most pitiful reasons. Eventually, I was given a written warning for leaving 9 minutes early with approval from the front-end manager who was friends with Alisa. At that point, I knew that I would get fired for BS reasons eventually, and I just quit with that my 2 weeks notice. Well, it's like what they always say. Revenge is a dish best served, cold. That was our Slash Milicious Compliance, and if you liked this content, then check out my Patreon where I published episodes that were banned from YouTube. Also, be sure to follow

my podcast, because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day. day.