rSlash - r/Maliciouscompliance My Boss Called the Cops on Me for Taking a Vacation

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

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Welcome to our slash malicious compliance where OPs boss calls the cops on him to force him to come back to work. Our next reddit post is from disposable. I was the company IT department. I asked several times to be given someone to train as my backup, but they stalled and stalled on it. The time came for my vacation and I asked my boss who was going to handle my job while I was away. My boss said that I was supposed to train him how to do it. He had the attitude of how hard can it be. So for the week prior to my vacation, we went through all of my routines. He took copious notes and I thought that he'd do okay. The problem was the place that I was going had no phones, so if they got stuck, I couldn't help. I did give him the approximate location of where the cabin was. A few days later,

I'm out on a lake fishing with my kids and I see a police boat approaching. I'm not worried, I have permits and all the required equipment. The police pull up and ask for me by name. They said that my company had called and they were sending a plane to pick me up at a nearby airstrip. Apparently, I was supposed to get back ASAP, so I had to leave my friends and family as the cops led me to the airstrip where the plane was. I got to a phone at the airstrip, called in, and nothing had gone right. Hundreds of paychecks weren't ready, it was payday and people were really upset. For once, my boss was actually apologetic. I flew back and did five days of work in two days. They flew me back to the lake a few days later. After that, I negotiated another full week of vacation, plus free cabin

rental, and my boss insisted that I train a new employee. OP, you're a better guy than me because if they wanted me to interrupt my vacation to fly back and do work, sorry, tough luck, see ya, wouldn't wanna be ya. What I can figure out is, how do they recruit the cops to track you down? Like that's not an emergency. It has nothing to do with the police.

But what they do call 911 and say, you need to help me, I can't find my employee. He's on a lake somewhere. So they had cops drive around the entire lake, asking people, are you Joe Smith? Are you Joe Smith? Are you until they find Joe Smith? And said, you must fly back. We're arresting you. Citizen, you have to go back to work like, what? Huh? That's so weird. Our next reddit post is from young grandpa. For background, this took place in the 1990s when a 1.5 Mbibib's data connection would run you over $500 a month, and only the phone

company of a few very large data-centric companies would even dream of having a T3. I was working for one of those telephone companies in the central office where we troubleshot for those very lucrative services. There were four people in my department, making it one of the largest IT offices in the central office where we troubleshot for those very lucrative services. There were four people in my department, making it one of the largest IT offices in the state. One day, one of the four of us was out on vacation. The second of the four of us was out of the office for some reason, and the third of us called in sick.

That left me alone for eight hours with the workload of four technicians. Well, as a good employee, I prioritized and I got all the most important tickets done and all the most urgent new services installed. Everything do that day was done, but in the process, I missed my two 15 minute breaks and I worked through lunch. My supervisor came down at the end of the day to congratulate me for my good work and he was watching me fill out my time sheet for 9 hours. He started to get a little panicky and said that he couldn't approve overtime. He said that he would get in trouble.

I reminded him that I had just spent 9 hours doing the work of 4 people, which was like 32 hours worth of work, but he said that overtime wasn't approved. I said, one of my supposed to do then. I work the hours and my supposed to do then. I work the hours and I need to get paid. He suggested that I leave an hour early on Friday, so I agreed. Come Friday, I decided to take full advantage and only take a half hour lunch so I could leave at 3.30 instead of 4. Well, guess what? The vacationer and the sick person hadn't returned yet, so there were only two of us in the office. My coworker disappeared at around 130 or so.

I found out later that she was interviewing for a management position. At 3 o'clock, I got paid for a ticket that one of our very expensive T3s was down, and I had to join a conference bridge to assist in troubleshooting. I joined the call, but then at 325 I said, sorry, but I have to drop off. I'm not approved for any overtime. The night shift person will be here in a half hour to help. I dropped off the call, knowing the night person on duty had never worked on a T3 before. I hadn't even reached my car when my pager started blowing up. It turns out my overtime was approved, so please don't leave yet. However, by then, I'd already clocked out, so I just smiled and got into my car.

I drove home and took my wipe out for a long overdue date night. Isn't that always the golden rule about overtime? Managers can never approve overtime when you need it. They can only approve overtime when they need it. They can only approve over time when they need it. Our next red appost is from Alilah. I moved to the Big Apple from LA in April and I signed a lease for an apartment site unseen. This apartment was the same price as my LA apartment, but while an LA 1350 gets you a master bedroom with a walk-in closet, private bath, and three roommates. But in New York City, for 1350, they turned

my closet into the bathroom, and I now weigh 135 pounds, thanks to the seven flights of stairs that I have to walk up every day. Some days, I would raise my arms to put on deodorant and scrape my elbows on the ceiling. One of my five roommates was a registered nurse, so there was that upside. The only saving grace was that this apartment was pet friendly and it had an in-unit washer and dryer. I hated living there, and after two months when my job said that I could work remotely, I packed up and went to the Caribbean. While I was there, I won the New York City Housing Lottery.

For the first time in my life, I could afford to live by myself in New York City of all places. I'd read in forums that landlords are usually pretty happy for tenants when they win and they let you out of your lease no problem. Okay, so I had to look up what a housing lottery is. And they explained it down in the comments. Basically, in New York City, when new construction happens, a certain number of units are set aside for a lottery for low-to- to middle income individuals to apply for. So essentially, it's just like super, super cheap apartments. And I guess probably through state legislation, they're required to like have some of those set aside for low income people. But there's so many applicants, they have a lottery. And if you win, then you get a really cheap apartment.

I think is how it works. Any New Yorkers out there, let me know in the comments what's up with the New York City lottery. So in my optimism, I sent my management company an email letting them know that I won the lottery and that I wanted to discuss terminating my lease early. They told me to speak to the brokerage to get my room filled. The brokerage told me that I would need to pay a broker's fee of $1,350 and still pay rent until they fill the unit. Or I could try to fill it myself. So I found a guy who was already applying with the broker for another unit. And he wants my room.

Then management says that if I want the guy that I found, I have to pay $1400. This is genuinely the worst apartment that I've ever lived in. And I don't feel right trying to get someone else to pay $1,400 for this room. I'm in a bit of a time crunch because the new guy wants to move in August first. So within 24 hours, I need to hire movers to take my stuff to storage, but if I don't get approval for management, then there's no point. So I need management to agree to let this guy take over my lease for my price. I tried to argue that a new price would be a new lease, and if they want to do that,

then they would have to release me from this lease and market the apartment at my new price point. They refused me and said that I should pay the broker's fee or forfeit my deposit and continue to pay rent until they get my room rented. I'm upset because management basically wants to make more money and assume no risk. I would end up still having to pay until they rent this awful room out to someone else. I tell them this is unfair and it makes no sense. Then management tells me that there's no lease takeover in the lease. I'm confused because I vaguely remember reading something about a $500 fee for a lease takeover.

Read your lease. We were doing you a favor before, but now we're only going by the lease. Management tells me. So I find my lease because I remember reading about a $500 clause. I never found the $500 clause because written on the very first page of the lease was a line saying that the lease ended on August 31st. Instead of management writing a one-year lease term, they accidentally wrote a six-month lease term. I'm elated because my move and date for my new place is August 25th, so I'm no

longer in a rush. All because management told me to read my lease. I give them a call and request the email address to send my 30-day give them a call and request the email address to send my 30-day notice of intent to vacate. Management tells me that I can't break the lease. I tell them I'm not breaking the lease, it ends next month. I send them a photo of the first page of the lease. He sputters and says, you know that it's a year-long lease?

That's a typo. As you know, I just took over managing the building and I inherited some bad leases. I never knew about this, but I gleefully responded. Well, I was doing you a favor before, but now I can only go by the lease. If the lease says that my term ends next month, then I have to honor that. He hangs up and is furious that this is happening. At this point, I'm no longer concerned about hiring movers, so when he calls me back at

8 p.m., I'm ready to tell him that I'll move out according to the lease, but he starts the conversation in a somber defeated voice. You can move out on the 31st. We just have to go according to the lease. We'll do a final walk through and give you back your deposits. And throughout all of this, I'm still in the Caribbean. My cousin will be subletting for August, and I'll be moving into my new apartment when I get back.

Everything worked out in the end, all because I read my lease. Our next Reddit post is from YarnTags. I moved to a new state to take a high school teaching job in a rural town. I liked my fellow teachers and almost all of my students, but this was a small town with the usual assortment of outdated attitudes. One student was particularly lazy. Her parents both worked in the small school district. She rarely turned anything in on time, and what was turned in was generally rushed or incomplete as if she'd gotten the instruction second hand. Somehow, though, she had straight A's in all of her classes. I quickly figured out why. When she turned in a late, incomplete assignment, and I very generously gave it a D, her overall grade and class dropped to a B. I was called in the next day to a meeting with the principal

and both of her parents who immediately complained that I was being unfair and capricious with my grades. They accused me of not giving students the instructions, so I showed them the instruction paper which I passed out and went over in class. They accused me of not giving her specifically a copy, but I remember handing it to her and I told them why. At the time, she was making out with her boyfriend when I was trying to go over the instructions. They didn't like hearing that part, lol. They accused me of not being clear with the deadline, but that was in the second line of the directions.

They accused me of not fairly grading her work, but when I showed them her work, they clearly hadn't seen it before, and they wondered whether I'd gotten assignments mixed up before I showed them her name on it. The principal asked me to change the name in the grade book. I asked whether or not the student would have to redo the assignment first, but that was declined by her parents. I understand why my principal caved. It just wasn't worth trying to fight two employees in a small rural district already struggling to recruit people. So, I went back to my classroom and changed the grade of every single student to a 100 in my grade book. No special treatment.

Even the students who hadn't turned in a single assignment got a perfect score. The fallout. Many students asked me why their grade changed, but I never addressed it. I would just brush them off by saying not to worry about it. Though, clearly clearly rumors were spreading like wildfire in the small school, because even the secretary and the principal asked me about it later on.

I only said that, yes, I did change that student's grade. The principal looked like he wanted to ask me about why I changed all the grades, but he just shrugged and walked away. He never interfered in my grade book after that. The students, parents, transferred her out of my class, and her boyfriend also transferred a day later. I don't know why parents do this type of thing, man, all you're doing is setting your kid up for eventual, inevitable failure. Our next reddit post is from Ace of Spades.

I'm a little fuzzy on exactly when this was, but for loose context, this took place around 2018. We were living in this little two-story in a subdivision in an upstate South Carolina, which my parents still own. My family just had a full run of renovations done on the house, kitchen remodel, new floors, wallpaper removed, new paint on the walls, etc. The folks who painted did an especially good job, and since they were a small local business, they wanted to know if they could put a little sign in our yard for a few days' advertisement.

You know, those little plastic-type yard signs, nothing bigger fancy. My dad was happy to oblige, and he showed them where to put it to avoid the sprinkler system. Everything's great! Two days later, a letter arrives in our mailbox. It's from our homeowner's association. According to the bylaws, no signs can be placed in a yard for more than 24 hours. We hadn't been planning to leave it up for more than a few days. Maybe a week at the most, but to be told that supporting a small business was an eye-sour came well out of left field.

This is the part where I tell you that my father, despite being a very considerate and respectful man, has something of a problem with authority. Especially when that authority is arbitrarily telling him what to do on his own property. So the first thing he does is pull out his copy of the neighborhood by-laws. He and my mother both look over it, and lo and behold, the quoted passage says, no signage or similar mode of advertisement is to be displayed in a yard for more than 24 hours. Not one to go down quietly, my father took to combing through the applicable section, looking for any loophole that he could find, and he found it in the word yard.

Two or three days after that, one of the ladies who worked for the HOA came down to our house to personally ask us to remove the sign. She and my dad stepped out on the front porch, and they must have been out there for nearly half an hour. I don't think I heard him say anything other than the occasional mm-hmm or yes, ma'am, until the very end. You see, the sign was no longer in our yard. It was in the flower bed. Other parts of the bylaws, even in the section they had cited, distinguished the flower bed as separate from the yard. And since this particular clause mentioned the yard alone, the flower bed must have been fair game. And he told this woman as much, without so much as knitting his brows or raising his voice. The sign stayed in our flower bed, perhaps out of spite, for nearly another month before

we finally took it down. That was our Slash Milicious Compliance, and if you liked this content, be sure to follow my podcast, because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.