rSlash - r/Maliciouscompliance I Cost My Boss $40,000 By Obeying Him

Episode Date: December 4, 2022

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Welcome to our slash malicious compliance where a hot shot new manager makes a $40,000 mistake. Our next Reddit post is from the Jan. At our company, the workday ends at 4pm. I've worked here for four years, and ever since my first day, it was normal for people to clock out at 4pm. Guys on the production floor usually shut down their machines at 3.30pm, clean the station and go to showers and change in a normal clothes to be ready to clock out at four. Recently, we got a new factory manager from headquarters.

Man, how he flipped out, when he found out that people stopped working 30 minutes early to clean their station and change clothes. He called a big meeting and told us middle management guys to tell people that 4 pm is not the time to leave, but the time to stop working. He was thinking that he was being smart, but he overlooked the rule that employees clock

out only when they leave the building. This was a company rule that we had for safety reasons. Basically, that means that the only unpaid thing at our work is smoking because smoking is only allowed outside of the compound. So for the past three weeks, people were turning off their machines at 4pm and then taking their sweet time to clean the workplace and hit the showers, usually making 40 to 60 minutes of overtime per day. Today, the new manager found out that over 100 people will have 20 hours of overtime each

and he has to dish out nearly $40,000 extra on salaries. Meanwhile, there isn't enough production work to cover those costs, because all the machine cleaning and showering was done past regular clocks and can't be counted towards production. The new hot shot from headquarters is now running around the compound,

trying to figure out how to justify why suddenly under his command. The company needs an extra 2000 man hours when for the past 10 years it never did. Man, I feel like 50% of all malicious compliance stories start out with. So we got a new boss recently. Our next reddit post is from Lentesta. In 2019, I moved from an apartment complex

in celebration Florida to a condo. As usual, when you move out of an apartment, you get a final bill, which includes your last month's pro-rated rent, deduction for damages, security deposit refunds, and the like. We paid it. The next month, I get a call from my wife who says that we've got to follow up bill in the mail from the apartment management company for two cents. She and I are both in tech, so we

laughed that this company's IT department didn't catch the edge case of spending 50 cents in postage to collect two cents in revenue, but it happens. My wife prints out a copy of the bill. I grab two cents from the change chart. The apartment complex is on the daily drive, so I swing by the office. I walk in and tell the manager that I want to pay my last bill. I say, it's two cents, here's the bill, and I have the two cents if you want it. The manager says, we don't take cash. Nothing else. There was an awkward pause. I say, I don't expect you to take cash. I expect us both to have a laugh about how silly computer systems are, and for you to write off the two cents because it would cost you more to process the payments. She says, I'm not going to do that.

Again, awkward pause. I say, so you want me to write you a check for two cents and mail it, and you're going to process that check? The manager says, yes, send us a check and we'll process it and then walked back into our office to end the conversation So I go home and set up an automatic monthly bank payment to my apartment complex for three cents and then Because I'm a programmer. I write some code to send a letter once per month saying I'm so sorry I've overpaid my bill. Please send me a check for the overpayments. Also, I use an online service that sends postcards at ridiculous sizes up to 18 inches by 24

inches, figuring this will be my escalation strategy. So, on the first of the next month, I get a call from the apartment company's regional manager. After introducing himself, the next two minutes were the most sincere, oh god we made a mistake, please don't do this again, we'll never contact you again. A apology that anyone could have hoped for. I stopped the automatic mail code and I never heard from them again. Did I spend several hours on malicious compliance for two cents? Yes. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Man, down in the comments, we have this INSANE story from the Naughty Dog, which isn't

like super elaborate, but it's just such like a 2022 modern day story. A long time ago, I bought something at Sears using my Discover card. I wasn't happy with my purchase and returned it the next day, but my bill had cycled with a $0.00 and 0 cents balance, so of course I ignored it. The next month I got another bill for $0.00 and 0 cents, and it had a nasty note about being late and paying right away. I assume that there must have been some sort of rounding error, like the interest was less than one cent, so the bill rounded down to zero, but it was still non-zero internally which caused the nasty language. I called them, and they said there was nothing they could do because the bill was zero dollars.

The next month, I got another bill for zero dollars and zero cents, and it had some threat about my account going into default, and maybe closing the card unless I paid $0.00 and 0.00 immediately. So I wrote out a check for $0.00 and 0.00 and mailed it in with a stub. Maybe 10 days later I got an apology note and they returned my $0 check. Wow, it was really nice of them to return that check. How would you have made it through the month? How would you have paid rent if they didn't refund you, OP? Our next reddit post is from Kajit Kennedy.

I first started working at the age of 17 as a housekeeper, cleaning condos in downtown Toronto. It wasn't a bad gig. The building was under construction, so there was quite a bit of dust, but other than that, it was fairly easy work and at the time I was getting above minimum wage. I was the only cleaner in the building, but I was good friends with the security guard and I would hang out with them on most of my breaks. They were all smokers and I noticed they would take small breaks so if I happened to be near them when they were taking a smoke break I would hang out with them. My boss was a sweet guy,

but he did casually mention that smoke breaks are for smokers only, and I couldn't just hang out with them. On my next break, I sat down with the security guards, and they joke that I should just have a cigarette in my hand, but not actually smoke it. That's when I decided to be a little creative with my malicious compliance. The next day, I came in to work with a small pack of sparklers. I kept them in my pocket and when I saw the security guards taking a smoke break I went out with them, pulled out a sparkler, lit it up, and just kind of stood

there with them as a sparkler went off. We all had a good chuckle about it. The boss saw me and came outside, probably to talk to me about not taking a smoke break if I wasn't a smoker, but he saw the sparkler in my hand. The security guards pointed out that, technically, I was smoking because the sparkler was producing little bits of smoke. The boss laughed it off, apologized, and said that as long as I get my work done, I can take smoke breaks with the others with or without the sparklers. This top comment from additional theory. I always thought that if smokers get a 15 minute smoke break, then the rest of us should get a 15 minute break to cry in our cars.

Our next reddit post is from Canadian Cosmic Entity. So I live in a pretty small city by American standards in Canada of about 250,000 people. People joke that it's a giant small town, and it's hard to go somewhere without knowing someone who either knows you or has heard of you. I run a small contracting business that maintains properties for seniors, thank grassmoing, tree trimming, etc. And the winter, there isn't a lot going on, so I lay off the summer crew and usually bounce around to different companies to help them with their snow removal.

Over the weekend, I was called by the biggest company in my city to help with hauling snow to the city snow dump, which was a job with lots of hours involved. I had never worked with their crew before, but I quickly got along with everyone except for the company Grump, which was expected. Of course, the company Grump is the one working on this weekend loading trucks. After the first location, he gave me some cash to get us coffee. I meet him at the next location and hand him his drink. He takes his drink and notices that it's wrong.

He gets out of the bobcat and throws the full, extra large coffee into the distance, which gets caught by the wind and sprays me with coffee all while cursing me out. I decided to let it go. Everyone's been working long hours, and well, some people in construction are just giant man children. I offered to grab him another coffee and he declined. I went back to my truck to drink my coffee and talk to the other driver in my truck when the grump comes over to our truck and complains about his coffee. This is after I offered to get him another. Shortly later, I realized that I had

his change in my pockets. Knowing this guy, I'd better return it. I walk over to the bobcat to give him his money and let him know that if he did that again, there'd be problems. We had a few words before he told me to shut the F up, get back in my truck, and do what I was told, and if I did, stuff like that wouldn't happen. So, I did. I went back to my truck and did as I was told. Little did the grump know. He's been on thin ice, and I was told by his boss to let him know if we had any problems with him. Furious, I jumped in my truck, called his boss, and went home. Not even 20 minutes later, I get a call from his boss telling me they fired him and they're begging me to come back.

Moral of the story is treat each other with respect, especially in the workplace. Hey, look, alright, I don't want to like defend this guy's behavior because throwing a coffee into the wind is a really sucky thing to do it's for each childish but I'm kind of on his side OP. You said this guy gave you cash to get everyone coffee. So he bought the entire team coffee. You get his order wrong. He gets upset about that which okay it's an overreaction. So your response to that is to steal his money and get the guy fired? So I don't know, am I off here? No one in the comments is taking the other guy's side.

So I don't know. This story just feels more malicious than it does malicious compliance. You know what I mean? Wow, no one in the comments is taking the other guy's side. So I have a feeling I'm going to get blasted in the YouTube comments. Look, I know that what the guy did was mean that he shouldn't have like yelled and cussed out OP and like throwing the coffee not at OP but in the wind. But still is that a reason to steal from the guy and to get him fired just because he was having a

bad day and throw away his coffee that you got wrong even though he bought your coffee. Fire him I'd be pissed off too. I wouldn't be pissed off enough to throw my coffee into the wind because I have more self-control than this guy, but still, I'd be irked about that man. I found one comment. Babbles says someone can't even get a simple coffee order correct, and it has three downvotes. Babbles, I'm with you. Our next reddit post is from BubbleHeadMaker. I was a team lead for some folks at a big internet service provider. Basically, we took the orders it sales made and provisioned circuits to facilitate the customers needs.

We had a guy that we'll call Ginger. He was overly dramatic and very hotheaded. When we got orders, they were assigned round robin style, unless they were specific customers that only me or another senior guy handled. This meant that sometimes I'd be skipped because my customer's orders came directly to me. Ginger was after me in the assignment order, and he would get mad if he got to an arrow. Each order took 2-3 minutes to process, so getting an extra was no big deal. Ginger was in a special mood one day, and I got like 15 orders from my assigned customers.

This meant that Ginger kept getting orders and the perception was that I didn't get any. So he gets order number 3 and says, that's it, I'm out of here and leaves. The manager was less than thrilled but he was out on vacation the next day and said, let me know if he comes back tomorrow. Tomorrow, Ginger is back, and in a worse mood. I walk over to him and tell him the boss is out on vacation and I'm filling in, and I've got a bunch of new orders, so he's getting everything new that comes in. He tells me that if he gets too many, he'll quit. I say, acknowledged. It happens like five orders

later. That's it. I quit. And he storms out. I call the boss and tell him. He says, I'm on vacation. Take care of it. Sure thing, boss. I contact HR, tell them that Ginger quit without notice and walked out. In a few minutes, his badge, access, email, etc. are all turned off. The next day, I see Ginger arguing with security about his badge

not working. I walk up and say, Hey Ginger, I didn't expect to see you here. My effing badge doesn't work. Yeah, that happens when you quit and walk out. You aren't employed here anymore. I nod to the security guy as I badge in and get on the elevator. I wonder what happened to Ginger sometimes. Down in the comments, we have this story from Near High. This happened to my wife's coworker. This girl was drama that had been concentrated and given a corporeal form to torture humanity with.

She would sabotage coworkers. Like she would answer the phone using my wife's name and then act rude to the customer in an attempt to get my wife fired. My wife caught her and went to management, who basically admitted that this girl had made a sexual harassment claim against someone in management. So unless this girl was caught doing something wrong on three cameras and with a live studio audience, she was untouchable. One day she comes up to a manager on duty and makes some obtuse demand. He

declines and she says, fine, I quit. Thinking it was a threat. Two other workers heard it, and this manager just had to look at them, and they nodded that yes, they'll back them up. The manager took this girl's resignation in that second. She tried to backpedal, but two other people said they heard it too, that she quit. HR immediately filled out termination paperwork. They wanted this trouble, gone. Our next way to post it from Zor Galacticus. So, we have this big company wide meeting every year where the CEO comes in and discuss profit margins, raises, plans for the future, etc. It lasts for about an hour, sometimes more. Meanwhile, our work gets backed up while we're stuck sitting in this meeting, and we always

end up working over time. Well, this year, the Boston Art Department says that this meeting counts as our lunch break. I give my coworker the look and we glance around. It seems everyone is in silent agreement. So we all show up to the meeting with our lunch boxes and proceed to casually eat lunch at this corporate meeting. All 60 of us from our department. After a few minutes, the CEO stops his speech and asks why we're all eating lunch.

Our supervisor claims ignorance. I speak up and say that our boss said this counts as our lunch, and I am not skipping my lunch. My boss tries to deny having said that. The CEO asks if anyone can verify this, and everyone raises their hand. Guess who got an official reprimand from the CEO himself? One more of those, and the boss is out the door. You know, normally I would say props to the CEO for reprimanding the boss, but if this out the door. because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.