rSlash - r/Maliciouscompliance Be Careful What You Wish For!
Episode Date: December 7, 2021r/Maliciouscompliance In today's episode, a stuck-up worker at a company thinks that she's so valuable that company would crumble without her. That also gives her the confidence to go around treating ...people like garbage. When the opportunity arises for her to switch her job to a contract-based position, her boss is more than happy to maliciously comply. Then, he just doesn't renew her contract! Turns out, the boss had been looking for a way to fire her for years, and she just handed him a good excuse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
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Welcome to our Slash Milicious Compliance, where an abusive employee gets herself fired.
Our next reddit posted from Zero Gravity.
This isn't my personal story, but it happened to have friend at his company, and I thought
that it was hilarious.
The main characters on my friend Patrick, a 26 year old guy, Ali, a 29 year old girl,
and the boss who's an older guy.
Patrick and Ali worked at the same company in the same division under the same boss. Ali was abusive to all the employees in the division, but especially to Patrick,
because he was a talented newcomer and he didn't suck up to her. Her bullying tactics included
taking credit for other people's ideas, convincing Patrick that other people in the division didn't
like him, attempting to ruin the careers of anyone who didn't suck up to her.
And last but not least, trying to get Patrick fired, which she almost succeeded in doing.
She was so horrible to Patrick that his mental health suffered a decline.
Everyone was vaguely aware of Ali's behavior, but she hid the worst parts of it, so it was never quite obvious or bad enough to get her fired.
Plus, she was also popular with the company's clients
who did know how awful she was
and she was a favorite of one of the top people
at the company.
Ali seemed untouchable.
Until several months after the Patrick
almost got fired incident,
when the company started having a conversation
about moving some of their employees
to contract positions.
Becoming a contractor would have its pros and cons.
Contractors would have to pay their own health insurance and would have no job security.
But they would also be allowed to work for other companies.
It was a great move for someone who was well known and wanted more visibility and options,
but a lousy move for someone lower on the totem pole.
Ali, who was somewhat a benarcissist,
who believed that she was destined for greatness,
waltz into boss' room and told him
she wanted to switch to a contractor position.
She believed the company couldn't get by without her
and would continue hiring her while she also got
to work for other companies and gain fame
and visibility within the industry.
The boss was all smiles and pretended to be supportive
of her.
This is a great career move. Think of all the options you'll have. As soon as the paperwork was signed,
he never hired her for a single contract, and her future with the company was ruined.
Ali eventually found employment elsewhere, but it wasn't as good as the position she left.
Patrick found out the second part of the story years later.
Because of what Ali had told him, he was under the impression that no one was on his side as good as the position she left. Patrick found out the second part of the story years later.
Because of what Alie had told him, he was under the impression that no one was on his side
and that his co-workers and boss actually liked Alie more than him. But they hadn't.
It turns out the boss felt that his hands were tied because Alie was a favorite of one of
the top people at the company. But as soon as Alie gave him an out, they allowed him to never
have to work with her again,
he took it. Our next red posted from Sandervant Senti. All right, so for a bit of context,
I was raised in both the Netherlands and Spain, and I moved to Austria a few years ago.
This allowed me to pick up quite a few languages along the way, but to this day, my language
of preference is English since it's the one I used the most in my day-to-day lifestyle.
About two years ago, I decided I wanted to give the tourism sector a shot.
My German wasn't the best yet, so it seemed perfect to be able to work in a multicultural
environment.
In this hotel, we had this cantina area where employees could eat their food and spend
their breaks.
It was a great spot for socializing.
After about six months of working there, I figured this was really not what
I wanted to do with my life, and I thought that it would be a smarter decision for me
to get a college degree and do something that I truly love, which I can happily confirm
ended up being the right choice. But I would have to wait until summer was over to enroll
in the next semester, so I planned to work halfway through summer, then quit to start
studying and prepare for my first semester at university. After a staff meeting, I felt pressured to share the fact that I was going to announce
leaving later that week to HR.
Of course, the one HR employee that was there took it as a personal offense that I wanted
to quit.
She called me into the HR office and asked me a bunch of questions, and I responded very
mathematically about how I came to my decision and what my plans for the future were.
So, at the end of the conversation, she decided to tell me that she would rather not have me speak English in the Cantina area with our co-workers since it was disturbing the German-speaking environments.
I couldn't believe what I was hearing her say, but okay, I agreed.
So, for the following week, as promised, I didn't speak a word of English or German
during my breaks with my coworkers.
Just Spanish, Dutch, Catalan, French, and Portuguese
with all the fellow immigrant coworkers
I'd become friends with.
The best part was seeing her pissed off face
when she heard me talk and dutch
with the gym of the hotel
who happened to also be from the Netherlands.
And indeed, I did exactly also be from the Netherlands. And indeed,
I did exactly as she told me to.
O.P., that's good malicious compliance, but I'm kinda surprised because we have a really
common phrase in English to use in that situation. It goes, go f*** yourself.
Like someone's gonna try to micromanage you in your last week. Like what are you gonna
do? Fire me? Okay, I just get severance pay. Please do.
Our next reddit post is from OneMuse. When I was 12, my family and I went on a camping trip with my
mentally abusive pill of an uncle and his family. One day we went to a beach that was a five-minute
walk from our campsite. I got there first and it was super windy, so I spent forever struggling to
get my towel to lay still. Now, when I say that it was windy, I mean it was whipping up sand windy, and any sort of
movement since sand flying through the air. It was great! When I finally got settled,
it wasn't long until the rest of the group started filing onto the beach with my
butthole uncle leading the way. My uncle decided to lay out his towel about three feet from where
I was sitting. As soon as he finished, he looked at me and demanded that I move myself and my towel somewhere
else.
To this day, I can't remember what his reason for making me move was, but I can tell you
that it was absurd and I was thoroughly annoyed.
So I got up and grabbed my towel in a very aggressive manner, causing a wall of sand to fly
up and slam into my uncle's face.
I'm pretty sure he wanted to kill me that day, what with all the screaming about how I
did it on purpose and got sand in his eyes and mouth.
But I swore up and down that it was an accident, so the rest of our family believed me, and
they told my uncle he was acting insane.
By then, everyone on the beach was staring at us, so he had no choice but to stop making
a scene and
hate me in silence. I most definitely did it on purpose. Our next reddit posted from
at Regina. At the time, I worked in a cafe spread across three floors, so my day generally
consisted of 10 hours of running up and downstairs. I had slipped on some spilled motor oil in the
car park on my way home, and my ankle had bent underneath me. I had initially assumed that I had slipped on some spilled motor oil in the car park on my way home, and my ankle had bent underneath me.
I had initially assumed that I had just twisted it, but several hours later it was still
throbbing.
As well as swelling up so much that it looked like I was hiding a pair of golf balls under
my sock and turning a deep shade of purple.
Since my next shift started in less than 12 hours and we were short-stapped as it is, I
didn't want to call in sick, but I knew there was no way I'd be able to stand and walk on that foot
for a whole day. I called my manager to explain and ask if I could.
A, switch to the register for a few days, which involved much less walking. And B, borrow
one of the bar stools to sit on behind the counter so I wasn't putting too much weight
on my foot.
I figured this wouldn't be a problem, but I was wrong.
My manager insisted that he wouldn't sign off on me having a chair without a signed
doctor's note verifying my injury, even after I sent him photos of my wrecked ankle.
Since my general practitioner was already closed, I went to the 24 hour walk in clinic.
An X-ray and a lot of poking and prodding later, the doctor told me
I had to ice it every few hours until the swelling went down, and keep all weight off of it
for at least a week, and wear a brace for another two weeks after that. When I explained what I did
for a living, the doctor presented me with a lovely note explaining that I shouldn't be at work
at all for at least seven days. I wish I could have seen my manager's face when
I called to explain that I didn't need the chair at all, because actually I wouldn't
be at work for the rest of this week and most of next week. Doctors orders. Funnily enough,
I was never asked to produce a doctor's note again for the rest of the time that I worked
there.
Our next credit post is from Emotional Thunk. My neighbors were were selling their house and they'd been screwed left and right by the
buyers. For background, my neighbor learned that he was being relocated to another city.
He and his partner started working out the details and their house went on the market
and was quickly closed with a deal pending. If you've never bought a house before, closing
can take between 45 and 60 days with things like inspections, repairs, etc. So they started that process.
Their buyers came off sweet, but they quickly turned sour. The people they hired to inspect
my neighbor's house were family members, and they came away with a huge sheet of things
to be repaired to knock down the price. Many of those repairs they demanded be fixed at my
neighbor's expense by a different contractor, despite the fact that my neighbor is himself a contractor.
Then they started sending people to the house unannounced, which is totally illegal, and
showing up to the property on their own.
The nail in the coffin was that my neighbors had been strung along for a full 10 days
longer than they should have been because the buyers kept threatening to back out of the
sale, despite having already signed paperwork without their knowledge.
It was all very shady.
As part of the contract, the buyers said my neighbors had to take, quote, all personal
property and debris, claiming a financial penalty for cleanup if there was anything on
the property that the buyers thought counted.
So my neighbors spent a lot of time cleaning out yard debris, multiple dump runs, etc.
But as the purchase was almost finalized and all this shady stuff started happening,
they had an idea.
While one of my neighbors is a contractor, the other works in legal and has for 10 years.
She looked at the contract and local home purchase regulations for the definition of personal
property.
Turns out that, besides the obvious, light bulbs also count.
They went through and removed every light bulb they could find, except ones that were installed
as part of fixtures.
The sellers had to purchase nearly 200 bucks worth of light bulbs as part of their move-in,
which they didn't discover until they showed up with moving trucks.
Our next Reddit post is from Crow.
I was at the doctor's office today, and I had to bring my 15 month old twins with me.
These kiddos do not enjoy being cooped up in a stroller, but letting them wander around
isn't an option because they'll both immediately bolt in opposite directions.
They have clean diapers, they've been fed and hydrated, so at this point any fussing
is just stroller-related crankiness.
In preparation for having to wait a while and wanting to be considerate of others who
were in waiting room purgatory with me, I pack the diaper bag full of endless snacks and sippy cups.
Sure enough, five minutes in my twins lose their mind. So I instantly start giving them snacks
and also walking back and forth in the very, very large waiting room. I'm in the back of the waiting
room, so I'm not even close to being in anyone's way, and as long as I'm pasting, the twins will quietly munch away on their Cheerios.
At one point I stop pasting, and this is where some cranky old lady decides to weigh in
on my parenting.
I hear a huffing noise and look over at her, and the second we make eye contact, she says,
Oh my god, you have got to stop walking up and down that back area.
You're making me dizzy. Also you really shouldn't be feeding them that much. Just sit down
and they'll relax too. Watching toddlers really shouldn't be that hard, huh. Thanks.
Firstly, while my girls are very healthy, they were preemies born at 3 pounds and still
very tiny, so I'll feed them all the damn Cheerios I want.
Secondly, I'm not doing this for my benefit, or even the twins benefit, but for the benefit
of all those around us.
And at that point, I just didn't care anymore.
Now for the malicious compliance.
I took her advice and sat down, right next to her.
There were tons of empty seats elsewhere, by the way. They instantly
start screaming their heads off, and what do I do? I just pull out my book and start reading.
Anyone who's ever been seated next to a stranger's baby having a meltdown? Close your
eyes. Imagine that awful moment, and now double it to account for twins. Within five minutes,
she looks like she's about to snap and suggest they
might want to snack, to which I calmly reply. Now, I really shouldn't be feeding them that
much, and then calmly turn the page of my book. 10 minutes later, my name is finally called,
and this lady looks like she's ready to give up on life. I, however, have read my first
chapter in ages. I guess watching
toddlers really isn't that hard after all. Our next reddit post is from deleted. Back
in my warehouse days, there were occasions where the customer service manager would ask
for myself and a few warehouse workers to help him re-deliver and reinstall our repaired
sofa for a customer. The day of the delivery, the customer service manager pulls me aside and warns me that
this lady is extremely difficult and aggressive. In this instance, she ordered a leather sofa in a
high-quality leather, paid top dollar, waited 22 weeks, and on delivery decided that she didn't like
the color. Now, normally, the company doesn't do reorders for things like this, but this lady made
such a fuss and complained so much that the General Manager made an exception.
We get to the home and our contract driver was starting to unload.
The customer has chosen a massive 3-seat recliner with a metal frame and a bracket on the
bottom.
Normally, the metal bracket comes with special plastic stoppers that go on each foot of
the frame and each edge of the metal bracket so that no damage will occur to the customer's floor. As we
carefully navigate the sofa into this lady's lounge room, she starts loudly
complaining that us warehouse workers are dirty, stupid, lazy, and too slow. We
begin to unwrap the lounge and this lady is getting impatient. She starts
complaining to the customer service manager.
How much longer is it gonna take?
The manager reassures her that we're taking our time
to ensure the sofa is unwrapped and in perfect condition.
We also notice this lady has light wood and floor boards,
so I immediately move to start placing the stoppers on the floor.
This woman starts shrieking.
Why is he touching my lounge? Is he breaking it?
I say, no, miss, I'm just
don't talk to me. Get your filthy hands away from my lounge. I just need a few seconds to
put these rubber. Put my lounge down now or I'm calling your manager. I shoot a look to the
customer service manager and he just shrugs. We place the sofa directly onto the floorboards
and we can already hear a scrape.
The customer service lady hands the lady his paperwork.
She signs off on a successful delivery, signing off that we've assembled a lounge as required
and placed it where she wants.
This lady smirked at us and plops herself down onto the lounge.
There's a scraping sound as the metal frame digs into the wooden floorboards.
We just grab all the plastic packaging and make our way back to the store.
Guess what was waiting for us?
A customer complaint.
According to this lady, we damaged her very expensive floorboards.
The customer service manager shows where this customer signed off in a successful delivery
and that we assembled and placed the lounge to her satisfaction.
She got exactly what she asked for. That was our slash malicious compliance and if you like
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