rSlash - r/Maliciouscompliance [Regret Intensifies]

Episode Date: November 4, 2020

r/Maliciouscompliance In today's episode, we've got a telemarketer who won't take "no" for an answer, an entitled nurse who won't let OP call off sick, and a moronic teacher who asks his students to o...vershare in the classroom. What do they all have in common? INSTANT REGRET! If you like this content, follow for more funny Reddit stories! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Enjoy the classic taste of the holidays at Tim's with the new non-alcoholic Bailey's flavored holiday menu. Whether you're hanging holiday lights or driving up to your folks, you can enjoy your Tim's and Bailey's anytime, anywhere at participating restaurants in Canada. Welcome to R-Slash, a podcast where I read the best post from a cost-reddit. Today's subreddit is R-Slash malicious compliance where a teacher gets more than he bargained for. Our next reddit post is from I'm not sure. So in high school, I worked as a certified nursing assistant at a local nursing home. I only worked on the weekend because my parents wanted me to focus on school during the week.
Starting point is 00:00:35 Anyone in the health field knows that you can not work with the elderly when you're sick, because some elderly people can die from the common cold. When I was 17, I got really, really sick. I got sick on a Tuesday with a light cough, and by Friday, I was going into 10 minute coughing fits. The next Monday was Labor Day, and my regular doctor's office was closed all weekend. My parents decided that we couldn't wait until Tuesday, and we went to the ER. I had a bad case of bacterial pneumonia. For those who don't
Starting point is 00:01:05 know, regular pneumonia usually results from a bad case of the flu or another illness. But a perfectly healthy person can walk by another person with bacterial pneumonia who sneezes and breathes it in. It's extremely contagious. I was admitted to the hospital and hooked up to tubes. Turns out, I was also dehydrated from being so sick. Around midnight, I realized that I needed to call in six since I wouldn't be able to work the next three days. So I called the nurse's desk and told the RN on duty that I've been diagnosed with pneumonia. And I won't be able to work this weekend and most likely the weekend after due to the
Starting point is 00:01:40 possibility that I'll still be contagious. She told me. If you wanted to work a three day weekend, you shouldn't have volunteered to work. You can't fake a cop to get out of work in the real world, sweetheart. Then she hung up. I asked my dad what I should do. He took my phone and took a picture of me in the hospital bed. Then we got a sign note from the doctor and took a picture of that. He then told me to email those to the director of nursing for the facility. He did that and also told her what the RN told me.
Starting point is 00:02:10 The thing is, at this facility, any calls through the nurse's station are recorded to protect the facility from lawsuit or protect the residents from negligent caretakers. What she said to me on that phone call was on record. When I returned two weeks later, I learned that she'd been suspended for 8 weeks without pay for negligence. Why do I have a sinking feeling that that nurse is also the type of person who thinks that people who wear masks are sheep? Our next reddit post is from a non-farts a lot.
Starting point is 00:02:40 So for this post, it's important to know that a genogram is like a family tree but with extra symbols. For example, you might use a beer bottle to represent an alcoholic father and lines connecting each person. The type of line dictates the type of relationship. Close, mothering, distant, estranged, abusive, etc. I studied social work in school, and I found myself doing three genograms over the course of my schooling. One for intro to social work, one for sociology and mental health, and then another in my last year.
Starting point is 00:03:07 I have some not-fun family history in trauma, and so these assignments were never my favorite. But my teachers for the first two didn't press me to disclose more than I was comfortable with, and I wanted to be vague. One of those teachers even said that I could do a fictional family. The last teacher did not. See, one thing we learned was that bringing up a client's trauma outside of a therapeutic environment can be harmful. We were pursuing a bachelor's in social work, so we're not qualified therapists.
Starting point is 00:03:35 During intake and assessments, we learned to tell clients that they don't have to give us more details than they wanted to. There's a whole host of reasons behind this, but I'll spray you the lecture. I brought this up in class after the teacher assigned us an extensive geneogram with an accompanying five-page essay on what we learned about ourselves. A third of the class expressed the same concerns. The teacher's reasoning was, you might be doing this with your clients, and you shouldn't ask them to do anything you wouldn't do yourself.
Starting point is 00:04:02 The teacher also didn't give an answer when we asked him if therapy resources would be provided if this brought up any students past trauma that they wanted to talk about. Oh, and of course he added. This will only be shared with me and is 100% confidential unless you choose to share. My family is literally nobody else's concern, and I don't want to share any of my deeply personal business with this guy. The assignment didn't bother me as much as the hypocrisy of it all. I said, between class assignments and therapy, this will be my fifth genogram. Could I turn one of those in and be given an alternate assignment, but he wouldn't budge.
Starting point is 00:04:38 He said that I didn't need to disclose anything that I didn't want to, but he followed it up with. But I expect you to take this assignment seriously. And when I turned in a rough draft with about as much information as I was willing to disclose, he said that it wasn't detailed enough. Alright, douchebag, it's show time. I have a lot of family trauma that is not mine to disclose. And I rarely ever disclose it.
Starting point is 00:05:02 At least not with anyone who would ever meet my family. My family is embarrassing enough, but definitely not as bad as some. But I put every single nasty detail in my genogram and wrote about it. Then the following week, the teacher asked if any students would like to share their genogram if they're comfortable. My hand shot up.
Starting point is 00:05:22 I'll spare you the details, but I basically gave the class a content notice to allow anyone to leave who may be triggered. This is a common thing in social work school. And then, I just shared all of it. All the relationships and why they're screwed up and why I hate my dad and why my sister resents my mom and all of that. I cheery smile in my face the whole time. The teacher uncomfortably thanked me for my bravery. A few students shifted in their seats, feeling uneasy. Other smiled. Then my friend volunteered to share. She didn't like the assignment either, but she's not one to argue with
Starting point is 00:05:58 teachers. Her presentation trumped mine. This girl had a really messed up family, and by the end, she was right in the face and everyone was super uncomfortable. The next person to volunteer to share was a girl who was in foster care. I'm not even sure if her sharing was malicious compliance, but hers was the most uncomfortable to hear. She started to cry at the end. Another student who also grew up in foster care started to tear up. The teacher cut us off after that. Another teacher overheard what happened, and the following week,
Starting point is 00:06:32 we had some serious discussions in class. All the students who shared their dinner gram were referred to the school's mental health center, LOL. Another teacher I had a good relationship with checked in on me and I told her what happened. I can't tell for certain what went on, but it created a stink in their department. It's been several years since I graduated, but I heard there's now an alternative assignment for the genogram. OP, that's really messed up, and I actually felt angry on behalf of you. What that teacher did was super unethical and unprofessional, and I'm glad he got a dose of his own medicine.
Starting point is 00:07:05 At Salesforce, we're all about asking more of AI. Questions like, where's the data going? Is it secure? Are you sure? Are you sure you're sure? Get answers you can trust from Salesforce at AskMoreVai.com. You went past business casual,
Starting point is 00:07:20 spent all night practicing that presentation. You rolled up to the office ready to rock that 9am Until you remembered it was off site When you need to look good showing up late own it with the all-new 2024 Chevrolet tracks RS Our next credit post is from the NEP in the mid-2000s. I worked for a small printing company Our commercial work was on large lithographic machines But we still had office printers and a number of staff in you a lot about them.
Starting point is 00:07:48 I don't think a single one of our office printers had been purchased new or even working. The owner just bought lots of broken office printers for not a lot of money and then franken signed them into working ones. We didn't often buy printer paper because we just cut love doors from the factory to suitable sizes for the office. Overall, our office printing costs were extremely low, despite the fact that we printed tens of thousands of pages a year. I was a general office dog spotter, among my duties was fielding calls for the director. He would never take calls from cold callers, and I was allowed to describe myself as whatever job title they wanted to hear to deal with them.
Starting point is 00:08:22 An office printing management service had gotten our number. They were offering a completely managed service where they loaned the machine and supplied the consumables, took care of everything, and you just paid for a print. Great for some companies. Expensive and unnecessary for us. When they first started calling us like I'm telling them, sorry, we aren't interested, please remove us from your list, or we're a printing company. We don't need managed printing services. Please take us off your list. This must have gone on for months, and I
Starting point is 00:08:51 was getting annoyed that they wouldn't take us off the call list, and started spending more time trying to explain to them why it was pointless and a waste of both of our time to keep calling us. I explained the information above, but the caller was convinced that he could save us money regardless of all of that. I guaranteed him that he couldn't, as I doubted that we paid more than a penny a page. Naturally, he didn't believe me. As far as he was concerned, if I was answering the phone, I was the office junior. No one important answers the phone. Who had no idea of how much printing actually cost. And I was just who stubborn and or stoop to put him through to someone who actually mattered. And if he persisted, eventually he'd get
Starting point is 00:09:29 through to the right person who would reward him with a juicy contract. This same conversation was had at least once a week for the next month or two. He's desperate to let me set up a meeting. Besides, he says he can take us off the list once he's set up a meeting with a decision-maker. Right, fine, sure. You can book a meeting for one of your representatives, but I can guarantee it'll be a complete waste of their time. I scheduled them a meeting with the office manager, me, on our Friday afternoon when I'm the only one in the office, so I won't be too busy and it won't be a diversion.
Starting point is 00:10:01 The reps arrive, I show them into the office, and they're clearly thinking that we spend a lot on printing because we have so many freaking printers. And I gave them a rough idea of how much printing we do in the office. They give me their enthusiastic spiel about all the advantages, focusing on the costs. They want to sit down with the figures and see what they can save us. They ask me if I know how much we spend at the moment. I say, I'm not completely sure. I think it's around 100 to 200 pounds a year. Nah, it'll be a lot more than that with the amount of printing you do. Is that just the paper?
Starting point is 00:10:33 No, that's the ink in the toner. Well, there's the paper, too. To be honest, we mostly cut down leftover paper from the factory, or sometimes suppliers will give us a few cases for free. Okay, right, so what about the initial cost of the machines? If you average it out after the lifetime of the prints, rather than just considering it as a capital expenditure, it could make up a significant portion of the printing costs. This photocopier, for example, it's a few years old now and you're looking at about
Starting point is 00:10:59 12,000 pounds to replace it with a similar spec machine. So with our service, you can avoid that capital expense. The owner buys them broken and repairs them. Most of these printers only cost a few bucks, except the photocopier which I think costs a 700 pounds. Right, so when you need to replace it, I hazard a guess that he'll do exactly the same thing again. And the ongoing maintenance costs?
Starting point is 00:11:24 I just found at him. Then there's a cost of loss productivity and downtime to consider. He's trailing off at this point. It's clearly part of his rehearse feel, but he can also see downtime as an issue when we bizarrely have more printers than computers. There's absolutely no point in us being here, is there? Nope, I'm afraid not. That was repeatedly explained to the guy who set up the meeting. But he said that your company won't stop cold calling until we agreed to a meeting, so here you are. The rep agreed that it was a complete waste of time.
Starting point is 00:11:55 We had a bit of a frustrated laugh about the call center. And he says it's not the first time they've been sent on completely pointless meetings because the call center folks get their commission based on the quantity, not the quality of the meetings they set up. They don't bother giving me their quote, and I never heard from their company again. I actually went through something really similar to this just yesterday. I signed up for this website that tracks all your spending because I want to get a better idea of where all my money goes. The service is free, but they had this additional service that they tried to get you to sign
Starting point is 00:12:24 up for, and ever since I signed up for that site, they've been calling me every single week trying to sign me up for my free consulting phone call. So after weeks and weeks and weeks of getting phone calls and emails, I was finally like, fine, let's just do it. So we schedule the call and the guy goes through all my finances and talks about options. And he's like, so if you're thinking about investing some of your money, I'd really like to set you down with your wife and go over all of your financial options. And I say, yeah, that's not going to happen. My wife's not interested and I don't want to set up another meeting with you guys. And he's like, well, then why do you sign up for this call then? I said, because you guys keep calling me and this was the only thing I could think of to get you to stop calling me. And he said, oh, well, I wish you told me that 20 minutes ago.
Starting point is 00:13:11 I was thinking to myself, well, now both of our times have been wasted. Our next Reddit post is from Successful Medicine. I'm a 30-year-old male and the shelter I've been working at for a couple of years now is over 30 years old. And it's quite notorious for keeping things that way. The daily notes are physically kept and binders. 80 style punitive measures are imposed on clients in conflict, and the electrical panels are labeled with cards that went through a tie-bredder.
Starting point is 00:13:39 You get the idea. The floor supervisor, who's been in that position for over 20 years, emphasized that even though jeans were allowed, we needed to strictly adhere to the dress code. This meant button-up or collar shirts, no logos, only long pants or dresses, no hats and luster outside, no visible tattoos, etc. In other words, dress nothing like the vast majority of the people we serve. We're meant to dress the way that THEE should aspire to dress, said the supervisor. I was told that other staff, including staff above my pay grade, have long hated the dress code, and unsuccessfully tried to change it for years.
Starting point is 00:14:13 None of them are bold little douchebags like me, though. Given my previous experience with underserved populations, I also knew this was a terrible idea. Generally speaking, what people in these communities lack is financial resources. They make up for it in their abilities to read people and navigate emotions. If they think you're an authority figure or acting in authentic, many will just outright write you off. And for the most part, they have a pretty good social and emotional radar.
Starting point is 00:14:40 The dress code said that min shirts must have visible buttons or a collar. I sewed two buttons near my hip on a plain t-shirt and wore that. They said nothing the first time, but later they had a meeting where they weren't pointing out anyone in particular, and updated that specific part of the policy to prevent me from doing it again. Next, I work at Prius. After all, nothing about pants length was mentioned either. That time, the code was updated and we were informed by an email. Still no one on one conversation about it. A few months in minor malicious compliance this later, our workplace gave us logo t-shirts
Starting point is 00:15:13 with the institution's name and website on them. Hooray, we thought. At least we'll get to be able to wear t-shirts now. Nope. After a week of several co-workers wearing the shirts that they gave us, we got an organization-wide email that the shirts didn't comply with the dress code and shouldn't be worn during work hours. Knowing me as the office rabble ralser, several pissed off coworkers came to me independently
Starting point is 00:15:35 to ask how they could rebel. Enter this story's biggest malicious compliance. As a minimalist, I had no desire to hold onto a shirt that I wouldn't wear. We had no input on the design and colors of the shirts, and I simply didn't need it taking up space in my closet. The most reasonable alternative would be to return the shirt and explain that, so I did. Co-worker 1 was moving soon and didn't need an extra thing to pack, so she also turned hers in. Co-worker 2's partner hated Dark Green, the shirt's color, so he turned his in. This happened with 25 different employees, with some borrowing others' excuses.
Starting point is 00:16:10 After five days, the supervisor had a box with two dozen shirts sitting in his tiny office. He actually has to keep them on his desk, and I can hear him bumping his hand against him when he uses the mouse. Three months later, they're still there. He knows those shirts are an F FU that lives in his office. He can't donate them to the shelter due to some other ridiculous handbook rule about organizational spending. And he bikes six miles to work,
Starting point is 00:16:35 so driving them home was in a reasonable option. He tried putting them in general office storage, but his boss said the shirts are the supervisor's problem since he ordered them. Currently, he's just stuck. We know it bothers him, but he knows that he can't bring it up since it's his own rules that prevent us from wearing them. No dress code changes so far, but the top of the year meeting regarding our handbook has dress code on the table. Three of the people who return their shirts are part of that
Starting point is 00:17:02 advisory board of five. I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll finally get rid of some of those dumb, short-sighted elements of our dress code come February. That was our slash malicious compliance, and if you like this content, then be sure to follow my podcast because I put on your Reddit podcast episodes every single day. Stay.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.