rSlash - r/Maliciouscompliance Build a Fence? OK, I'll Build the Berlin Wall!

Episode Date: December 1, 2021

r/Maliciouscompliance In today's episode, OP has a couple of obnoxious neighbors who try to pressure OP into paying for a brand new fence between their two properties. They refuse to contribute any money to the fence, so OP takes some creative liberties by constructing a massive concrete wall that would put the Berlin Wall to shame. Oh, and he made sure to point the ugly side of the wall towards his neighbor's house! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to our slash malicious compliance where you have to be careful what you wish for. Our next reddit postage from NoSuite. My dad was a tire-build during Union Organizer and Detroit. At our local bank, there was always a sort of conscious condescension by the tellers for blue collar workers. My dad came in every week to deposit his check and take out cash for the week. He finished one visit, turned away and walked a few steps, then turned back to Teller that he got the wrong amount of cash. Before he could say a word, the Teller snoodily said, you should have counted before you left my window, I can't do anything for you now.

He smiled, nodded, and walked out with his extra 50 bucks. That was a good week for us. For reference, Gas was 19 cents a gallon at the time. The next week, he went to a different teller, and he waved at her casually in response to her frantic motions to come see her. Down in the comments, Baja Fan says, many years ago the same thing happened to me at a bank drive-through window. I counted the money then and there, and I told the teller that her count was off. She assumed I was trying to claim that I was short, but in fact, and I told the teller that her count was off. She assumed I was trying

to claim that I was short, but in fact I was trying to tell her that she had given me $10 too much. Her reply was, I don't make mistakes. Okay then, I just drove away. Our next reddit post is from IBS means no pizza. Our neighbors can be funny buggers. Nice one minute, moody the next. There was a rickety old fence between our properties that I owned. We'd patch it up a few times, but we never really had the money to totally replace 80 feet of bespoke fences. The neighbors have complained a few times about our fence. They have 10 dogs and they spent a lot of money on landscaping their garden. They demanded we replace the fence because they need a secure boundary for the dogs, but they made it very clear that they were not contributing to

the costs. It's not unreasonable, but the way they demanded this rub me the wrong way. Generally, in the UK, there are no HOA rules on old buildings, so I can replace a wooden fence with anything we like as long as it's on our land and not more than two meters high. So last month we got a quote and a range for a firm to replace the fencing. I informed the neighbors and picked a day they would be at work so it's not ruined the surprise. When they got home, they found the wooden fence and wooden posts had been replaced with six feet concrete posts and a wall of concrete panels. Now they look out of their kitchen onto what resembles the Berlin wall. place with 6 feet concrete posts and a wall of concrete panels. Now they look out of their kitchen onto what resembles the Berlin wall. I also made sure that the smooth face of the concrete panels point towards us.

We have bushes on our side of the fence, so we wouldn't see it anyway, but their side is right next to the patio area. They haven't approached us about it yet, but my husband told me that he could see the wife in her garden from his office window, and she had a face like thunder. Down in the comments, MaBamba says, put a watch tower up as well to add to that Berlin atmosphere. Our next reddit post is from GunDeadThunder. A few years back, I had to get a new social security card here in the US. I'm a UK citizen who was born in Japan, and I was naturalized as a US citizen when I was 17. I discovered when getting the card that, for some reason, they had entered my birthday incorrectly in their system,

and they said that I was a day older than I actually was. I tried to fix it over the phone, but they said I would need to come into one of their offices to fix it. Fine, I go ahead and do that, bringing my driver's license in both of my passports. I wait in line, finally get to a booth and lay out my case. I show them each of my IDs, which have my correct birthdays. Then I get told flat out that it doesn't matter. What's in the system is in the system. Only my original birth certificate would be accepted. Let that sink in for a moment.

I blinked for a bit, and then asked them to look at my passports to see where I was born. They looked blankly back at me. I smiled and nodded. Oh, sure thing, I said, with a Cheshire cat grain growing across my face. I'll be back here tomorrow to your booth with it. I'm guessing you're well-versed in Katakana, Hiragana, and Kanji, correct? What? They said, a little trepidation entering their voice.

As my passports clearly show, I was born in Japan, so my birth certificate is in Japanese. Oh, they look down sheepishly at their desk for a moment. What was your real birthday again? I told them, and with a few keystrokes, suddenly there was no problem fixing my birthday anymore. I left with a new appreciation of having a birth certificate written in a foreign language. Our next reddit post is from Greenypie. I used to work at a supermarket, and at 9 a.m. on a Saturday the following went down. Good morning, would you like a bag?

The customer said sarcastically, no, I'm going to carry all these by themselves. It may have been my underpaying job, the rude tone, or the fact that I was just so tired of customers being nasty, but I decided to go along with it. Okay sir, no problem. I then proceeded to scan all of his shopping and charge him. The man paid and stood there blankly, staring at his groceries for a moment before looking at me. Where are my bags? Oh, I'm so sorry, sir. I thought you said you were going to carry them. Well, obviously I can't carry all this without a bag. Oh, okay, well, in

that case, I then went through the usual, do you want a single use or reusable backspiel? And then, wouldn't you know it, we were out of the bags that he wanted, so I had to call a manager over to bring some bags to me, which always took ages in the supermarkets. The customer then had to dig out his wallet and card to pay for a tiny number of bags, and then I handed them to him with a smile and a receipt. And then I just watched him while he bagged his own groceries, scowling the whole time. Normally, I would scan and then bag, but he didn't want bags to start with, so I didn't offer

and he didn't ask. All in all, this 5 minute transaction took a good 15 minutes, and he never pulled that scent with me again. I have no idea what he thought would happen while he watched me scan everything and pile it up in a very obviously non-bagged heap, but hey, he said no bags. Our next Reddit post is from Always the Noob. Shortly before COVID brought all manner of traveling work to a screeching halt, I was finishing up a job and getting ready to book my travel home. Normally, everyone would just fly, and in my case, that meant a nice short trip of about 2 hours in the air. However, this particular location and the route back home for me had an extremely scenic train

route that took about 12 hours. And as a bonus, I could get a sleeper car for a pretty cheap price, less even than the flight. I asked my boss if there was any reason I had to fly instead of taking the train because the latter would save the money and he said to be fine. I didn't waste his time or mind by mentioning any of the above details. I simply booked my ticket and immediately sent in the receipt for reimbursements. Not 20 minutes later I got an email that said, WTF is this. I thought you said that you were going to book travel that would save us money. What do you think that you're doing booking a sleeper car? You're not one of the big shots here. Send me a new receipt for your coach class accommodations.

Okay, as you wish. Cue malicious compliance. Since this happened so quickly, I was able to cancel my $150 train ticket without issue. And since there was no way I was taking a 12 hour train ride in coach instead of a 2-hour flight, I booked my air travel like I normally would, and immediately sent in the $450 receipt for my coach class flight. I got yet another email asking me what the hell I was doing. Now I'm pretty good at booking travel, and I know how to find good prices. I knew that there wasn't a cheaper flight to be had, so I wrote back, sorry this is the

cheapest coach class flight I could find. If you can find a better one, please let me know before the 24 hour cancellation window closes and I'll be happy to book that instead. Clearly frustrated, my boss told me to stop playing games, cancel the flight, and just book the damn train ticket. I didn't. I took the flight home, and I got reimbursed for company policy for my coach class flight. Down in the comments, Mario Almada has a similar story. I did the same thing. I booked a bus ticket for a 10 hour bus ride home. It was an executive type bus that caters to business crowds. I'm

talking all first class with huge chairs that lay all the way down to sleep. I got an email within minutes of booking that my company was not paying for first-class accommodations and it just booked coach. So I turned around and booked coach flight home and the ticket went from 190 to 450 dollars. F*** them. Our next Reddit post is from No Thanks I'm All Good. Reading another malicious compliance post about phone companies reminded me of this. This was a good many years ago now.

My husband's phone bill had a spelling mistake. I never really paid any attention to it because it never really caused any issues. Until it did, of course. The mistake was simple. Think Rod William instead of Rod William's type simple. One day, we move states and put in for mail-reader-action. Now or I'm from, mail-reader-actions have to be exact, so that bill never got forwarded. And in all the chaos that goes along with moving, it never even crossed our minds that the bill had never arrived or been paid. And inevitably, my husband's phone got cut off. Once we realized what happened, we were all ready to fix the mistake, pay the bill, change our address online, etc. But no, it can't be that simple. You see, to change

the spelling mistake, we had to provide proof of my husband's correct name. But for any name change, they need name change documents such as a wedding certificate or other official name change documents. Which my husband doesn't have because it's not a name change, it's just a spelling mistake. For some reason, his license or passport wasn't good enough evidence. We asked what we can do to get this fixed, and they offered no help or resolution. They just stonewalled that there was no possible way to fix the incorrect spelling. Okay, cool. At this point we were getting cranky. Not gonna help us with what should be a simple fix.

Fine, we won't pay the bill then. They responded that we had a contract, we had obligations, they had debt collectors, etc. We simply replied, but who are you gonna go after? And they replied, you of course! My husband, looking comically confused, said, but my name's not Rod William, and I'm not gonna pay his bill. Good luck finding him. If you happen to send me my own bill though, I'd be happy to pay that. I have to imagine the phone rep had a shocked Pikachu face.

And oh, look, the spelling mistake got corrected immediately. Man, when it's your money at stake because you're the one who's gonna go to collections, they're not willing to do anything. But as soon as it's their money at stake, then suddenly it's so easy to fix the problem. Our next reddit post is from Moby Dick.

I worked for a hotel chain restaurant as a bus boy, and I had lots of other little side jobs besides working the floor. Mostly helping to move stock off of pallets, stuff like that. Sometimes I would clock out a little late if shipments came in later, or if it was a busy day and large shipments always guaranteed another hour on the clock. We got a new manager who looked at my time card during her first week as new manager. She was real aggressive with me, asking me why I clocked out so late. So, what's up with this?

You're playing video games on the clock for an hour? Hmm, just hanging out and getting paid? I explained that I was unloading pallets and she said, you're a bus boy, that's not your job. You clock out at nine. We have a payroll to make, and we can't do it with people working extra hours because they didn't work hard enough during their shift. Okay, fine. Finally, about a month later, it was summertime, and we got this really late delivery of a bunch of dairy items. The head chef received everything, and it had me start unloading it. This happened at 8.45pm. I told him, Chef, just to be clear, the manager said I had to clock out at 9. The chef said, but I need this

thing unloaded. Well, I've got 15 minutes, and then I get in trouble if I'm not clocked out. Do your best. 8.46 pm, I go get the dolly. The dolly had been taken by the banquet people, so I find it and start moving stuff. 853, I load the first load onto the dolly. 858, I unload the dolly and go back to the pallet. At 859, I stopped what I was doing, left it all there, and walked directly to the punch card machine. 9pm on the dot, I punched out.

The next day, I got a call from the hotel's general manager asking me why I left all the dairy on the pavements. It was left out overnight, and hundreds of dollars worth of stock was spoiled. I said, well, I had to clock out at 9pm. The general manager said, did you think it was a good idea to leave all the milk outside? No. Then help me understand why you didn't put everything away. My manager was very specific that I was not to clock out late to unload pallets.

She said it's not my job. Did it occur to you that the chef needed to know this? Well, I told him I had to clock out at 9 p.m. We've lost hundreds of dollars and wasted all this food. I would just like to go back to the way it was, instead of having to clock out right at 9 p.m. on my evening shifts. Don't do this again, just clock out when the job's done.

The outcome was that nobody ever mentioned it, and from then on I clocked out when I needed to. It's not a real juicy outcome, but it was still nice to have that happen. That was our slash malicious compliance. And if you like this content, be sure to follow my podcast because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.