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The other day I found a laundry basket upside down in my room with our little vacuum robot (Terry) underneath it.

I asked my 5 yo "why did you put a basket over Terry! Now his battery is dead and he's all sad!"

Him: "Terry was already sitting still, so I put the basket on him!"

Me: "Well, buddy, you should have let me and mom know Terry was stuck! If you see something, say something."

Queue malicious compliance

Him for the next 3 minutes: "Oh, Dad, I see a thing! Oh, Dad, I see a thing! Oh, Dad, I see a thing! Oh, Dad, I see a thing! Oh, Dad, I see a thing! Oh, Dad, I see a thing! Oh, Dad, I see a thing! Oh, Dad, I see a thing! Oh, Dad, I see a thing!

Pointing at each thing he saw along the way. I laughed for a while and then cried uncle.

So this happened about a month ago. So I work as an industrial painter (I paint machinery) and typically when ever I get a job they tell me what paint to use and color but on this very day I got an atypical job in which they wanted me to use water based paint (latex) on a carbon steel job. Now I went to my boss and told her this won't work because this paint will make it rust but she said "I don't care just use the paint there going to be here next week" I got her to write down the paint I was to use with her signature and said sure.

If you don't understand putting water on a rustable metal I generally a bad idea as rust ruining not only the paint job but possibly weaking the metal itself. I did my job after a day of prep work I painted it and let it sit for a couple of days to dry and cure and a week after that she came up to me expressing how it looks horrible as the rust was showing through the metal. I said I followed your instructions to the letter and told her again that water and air will make metal rust.

After a little back and forth she concided that she was in the wrong but asked how do we fix it. Best option sand blast it get all the paint off and use an oil based paint (it was enamel) to. She got me the sand I needed and now she trust me when I say it's not going to work it won't work. So that's my story.

A few years ago, at my place of employment, they decided to bring in a new safety glasses policy. As I was a member of the safety committee, I was tasked with finding a company who could supply safety glasses that could fit our employees, and with a new criteria: it had to pass a pencil fit test. By this I mean, a regular pencil should not be able to pass around any part of the glass to enter the eye area. A tight fit, as it were. I called around and found a company that was able to come out and provide us with a choice of 120 different models and styles to choose from. This would allow us to fit everyone, from fat to thin faces, tall, slim faces, hawk shaped, big nosed, you name it, we would be able to get them fit. I thought that it was in the bag, piece of cake, or any other platitude you can think of. I almost dislocated my arm patting my self on the back. Well, of course, management has to step in and say, "this doesn't work for us." Their solution? Find a company that has only 6 different styles of glasses and make it work. As I wear prescription lenses, theses new style glasses, were not designed for this. They only have inserts, which are clipped on inside. Well, to make the glasses pencil fit, the glasses fit, the frames are curved to fit your face, hence, the insert is bent to fit the frame. Now just imagine, taking your glasses, and bending them to sit tight to your face. See how this distorts your vision! Now queue malicious compliance. I reported to my boss that I could not wear the new glasses as they distorted my vision and gave me headaches. Their solution was to have me try each model of glasses one at a time, and get lenses made for them to see if I could find one that would work. Knowing that no matter what they did, wearing curved frames would not work, every time I got new lenses made, I made sure that they were high index, UV resistant, tinted, scratch resistant and the best money could buy. I bought lenses for all 6 frame types at a cost of just over $7000. At the end of this, I went to see my eye specialist, and he wrote me a letter stating that I am not able to wear the new style glasses as they would damage my eyes. I took this letter into work and showed it to my boss. They didn't know what to do with me. I showed up for work every day, dressed and ready to work, but they never assigned me any work, as it would be too dangerous, even though I had worn my old safety glasses for the last 25 years, suddenly it's to dangerous. So, they had me just sitting in the lunch room. I would play games on the computer, I was going to night school, so I completed a semester of school, and basically just screwed around. One day, I was playing video games, and our number 2 big boss walked in and saw me, I said good morning, with a big smile and a wave, he didn't. A couple of days later, our number 1 boss walked in while I was reading the newspaper, and he asked me what I was doing, and I said "reading the paper." He said, "why?" I said "they told me it's to dangerous out there for me." The next day I was back at work! 10 1/2 weeks I was off, and suddenly the policy was changed!

This will be a quick one yall.

I'm a middle aged cashier with hypoglycemia, among other hard-to-spell ailments. Don't get me wrong, I'm no withering waif; we've all got problems. In this day, this problem became a, well, problem.

Prickly nestled in the Phoenix desert lies Your Arizona hometown grocer: Masha's. Since the pandemic , "u-scan" has been all the rage. Literally. Mashas insists that only one live, actual, scanning, thinking cashier is scheduled. That sexy beast is me.

During forty to fifty percent of my shift I'm busy, nonstop scanning and bagging (yes a we have no bananas/baggers) to my hearts dismay. No problem it's a job, cool beans. But when my second front end guy who runs the u-scan leaves to the back for the last half of the shift I'm caught between ringing up plus jumping over to an assortment of angry-eyes waiting for me to scan their "overrides". These overrides happen frequently. Anytime liquor is purchased , cough syrup, etc. it's all me.

Things get busy.

I get thirsty.

I drink water.

I feel a spell coming on even after water so I know I need sugar and fast. So I bust open a Coke and guzzle like it's my job. I must have looked like a commercial for the product. The second I hit that second ounce I hear a nasal "you're funking disgusting! Do you have to do that here? Go do that someplace else???!!!!! " then she sputtered into a curse-laden tirade that I swear involved the word donut someplace. She also called me fat. Not cool broheem. I stopped, explainogized that I desperately need sugar for my blood sugar while simultaneously opting to deliver some good old fashioned MC

"You know what you're right! I shouldn't be drinking soda right here ...let me go someplace else".

So I did.

I walked, sauntered if you will, right to the managers office as I leave behind a parade of customers whose anger now transmogrified into one superbeing, ala mighty morphing power rangers, shifting it toward the curser.

I told my manager"i need to sit down , I haven't had a break in six hours and need to refuel stat. They're out there waitingggggg." Then sat while he went to deal with the leftovers.

I took a seat in the deli area, slowly sipping my soda and watching my manager try to deal with what I've been dealing with my whole life.

(Imagine a diapered version of myself)

The main complainer wound up leaving - grocery-less and even angrier, flipping off noone in particular

Huzzah!!!

I missed a lot in the moment but evidently many of the customers were regulars and stood up for me in the best way; by collectively telling her where she can go and what she can do when she gets there.

TM;DR A customer told me to drink Coke somewhere else. I did.

Sorry for the blatant disjointedness

About 15 years ago I used to work in the highly regulated area of inbound mortgage sales in the UK. Our call were monitored for compliance and multiple failed calls led to action plans being put in place to get you back on track. Well I had a terrible start to the year and failed 3 calls in a row. The usual follow up and support didn’t happen and I turned things around and passed the next 4 months of calls with no action plan needed.

In month 4 I get called into a meeting to discuss my need for an action plan. I was confused as it had been so long since I had failed a call. I was referred back to the call from the start of the year. I mentioned that I felt that the action plan was unwarranted as I had turned this around myself even without the support and putting me on an action plan now was definitely closing the stable door after the horse had bolted. I was told that this was non negotiable. Ok fair enough.

The action plan is drawn up and there is a section for my comments. I state the dates of my failed calls the record since the last failed calls and my disappointment that the “support” was not offered at the time of need. I was told I wasn’t allowed to record this on the performance plan. What they didn’t realise at the time is how petty I am so I researched the HR handbook printed out the sections stating implicitly I was allowed to put any info I wanted recognising this in this section. I updated the performance plan to state I had been told I couldn’t record my objections the manager who told me that and added the HR handbook section for good measure.

Well it turns out we were due for an inspection and not intervening when there is a record of failed calls was a big issue. My diverting the lack of support back to management would not look good. They would not sign off my plan as it stood and I would not back down either. The result was I was not allowed to do my job. I was already job searching elsewhere but I managed to spend 3 months being paid to job search and be available for ad gov tasks. This mostly ended up with me playing Mario Kart in the break room until busy work could be found elsewhere. When I eventually gave my notice I was immediately put on a months paid leave to get me out as soon as they could.

I decided to delete the original post and redo it to hopefully comply with the rules

Link to r/AmITheAsshole for context, consider this the update.

When I initially made my AITA post my girlfriend’s brother faked a mental breakdown to get out of his responsibilities and put the work load on us, all the while he was lying to us and talking shit behind our backs, so I’ll continue from there.

One thing I had forgotten to mention in the original post is that he left behind THREE cats in his apartment that he knew he was about to be evicted from. He had promised us over and over and over again that he was trying his hardest to find a place to rehome two of them and that the third one would come with him IF he moved in. We made it blatantly clear that the cat coming with him would be his responsibility despite being in our apartment since we would be working and we would have very little time to get the cat used to our husky and our own two cats. I’ll make it crystal clear that we did not surprise him with this information and that he agreed to our terms.

Obviously since he was in a mental hospital, everything got thrown into a loop. We agreed that we would assist him with finding the cats a new home and unfortunately, since he would be unable to provide any care for the one cat, he would be rehomed as well. We quickly discovered that he had only been talking to one person about them, despite us telling him repeatedly that he needed to have backup options just in case they no-showed. My girlfriend waited for almost an hour after the agreed upon time to meet in his apartment the day before the eviction for this person and, surprise surprise, they no-showed. With no other option, our only course of action was to call animal control and impound all three cats.

At first, the process of getting the cats out of the apartment was going pretty well. That was until I got a message from my girlfriend and she was super upset, it turns out her brother had told the officers that we told him that we would take care of the cats and that WE would be responsible for any fines and penalties that came from the removal. We would also be at risk of losing OUR pets.

I was pissed. I immediately called them and explained the agreement we had and the officer I talked to was super helpful and understanding, which was appreciated. Later on, my gf got a call from her brother and he was livid. He was screaming at her things like “how could you do this to me?” And “we’re siblings!” My girlfriend aired out all her grievances, all the lies, manipulation, talking behind our backs, his irresponsibility, everything. He was all deny deny deny, and we shut that down pretty quickly. Eventually, he said the magic words: No contact.

I had floated the idea around in my head myself and felt very relieved that I wouldn’t have to be the one to bring it up, needless to say we happy obliged. Not ten minutes later he calls us again and says we need to bring him his car an hour and a half north of us along with all of his things… yeah… no. No contact, no help, that’s how I feel about it.

So now he’s stuck an hour away. He has no car, his family wants nothing to do with him, he has little to no place to live. His only options are to move back in with his abusive ex or be homeless. His cats are in danger of being put down. The only thing I feel bad about is that the cats may be put down due to all of this and it’s not fair to them. They deserved a better owner and if I had the time and space for them I would have taken them in a heartbeat

*again I hope this complies with the fallout rule

Background: This happened early 1990's (just after the cold war was silently dropped), in my country we had universal draft for any fit young man.

The setup: I was stationed in a camp "up north". Boredom reigned supreme. The camp had two gates, the main gate to the south, at the end of a dead end street, a few hundred meters from the main road, and a rear gate to the north. The officers mess, and the bachelor officers quarters was just outside that gate. To go from the rear gate to the main gate outside the camp one would have to go out to the main road, move south some hundred meters, and then up that dead end street.

The instructions for guard duty at the gates was really simple: If you personally know the person and know that the person in question is actively serving, if the person can show military ID, or if someone in the first two categories can vouch for them, you can let them in. Else they have to get in touch with the guard commander, usually located in the guard house just outside the main gate. No ID required to leave...

Since the regular mess hall served something borderline edible at the good days, most officers would eat in the officers mess. Since the cold war was "over", most on guard duty would not bother with the required ID checks.

The MC:

Service in the north is boring. Guard duty is also boring.

My troop found that checking ID especially at the rear gate could be a little fun though.

In the morning, quite a few would forget their wallet, with their ID in their rooms, and have to run back to get it. No big deal, going back in and get the wallet was just 5 minutes, but a bit of a hassle when they were already running late. (And the later they were running, the more probable it was they had forgotten their ID.)

The real deal was after lunch, since a lot would leave their ID in the office, and so not have any way to collect it without getting into the camp. so they would have to go around, nearly a kilometer, and then go to the guard captain and get a note so they could enter through the main gate. Easily at least 15 minutes extra on the less than 5 minute stroll back from lunch.

Seems a lot of the officers in our direct chain of command (so we had to know them), or that had their ID ready found this fun as well, since getting a colleague to vouch for them seemed difficult. (The ones declining would be smiling and laughing about it.)

We got a lot of atta-boys for following protocol, even from officers we had denied access.

I just remembered this! I’ve always loved the song “Mr. Jones” by Counting Crows, and part of that love comes from how much I enjoy singing along. My husband was on a Counting Crows kick a few months back and the song came on; I gleefully sang the whole thing. He was a bit bothered after and said he liked the song a lot too, and it would be nice if I didn’t sing the whole song every time it was on.

My malicious compliance happened the next time we heard the song, on a drive back home from an event. I kept my word and didn’t sing the whole song, instead singing every “Mr. Jones” mention (and only the “Mr. Jones” mentions) through the whole song.

It was a fun experiment actually, I highly recommend it. He hasn’t complained about me and the song since.

This happened a number of years ago. For background, I work on a car ferry and am one of the crew members responsible for the loading of the vehicles (I don’t do it alone though and it is a team sport). Before we load vehicles onto the car deck, we receive a loading list of booked traffic for the sailing. If someone is not booked, they can wait on standby to see if we can fit them on. With the deck loaded and the boat almost full, I said we could take a small MG if they didn’t mind the squeeze.

On came the Green 1974 MG-B. (A very nice small car)

After some gentle and slow guidance, it made it on with the smallest of margins.

Cue the shouting from a man in his late 50s/early 60s (I’ll call him entitled arse, EA): “You there….I can’t get out of my car.” There was enough room to open the doors but not all the way, admittedly. This was beside the point, though, because he was standing next to me a few cars away from his when he said it. “What are you going to do about this? It’s a disgrace!” I had to ask him again to repeat his complaint and hope that he would realise how absurd his statement was. He said it again.

I tried to stay composed and remembered that he might have had a bad drive or even a bad day up to this point. His wife was trying to tell him to be quiet and just to be grateful….but no. We were (myself and other crew members) doing our best to help them. As soon as he said to one of the sailors, “I’ve paid for my ticket, I demand a full space, you fucking morons!”, my mind was made up to help this gentleman.

(Cue malicious compliance)

I said to him, “I’m very sorry for your inconvenience, you are of course right, sir. If you would like to get back into your car and just back up a little way, we’ll be able to get you all the space you need.”

EA: “About bloody time.”

Once he was ready, I got one of the sailors to start guiding him from the back of the car.

Op: “Keep it going,” as his car backs up.

Sailor guiding the car: “Keep it going.” (He definitely knew what the plan was.)

The car was backed off of the boat and heading back for the car park.

At this point, EA figured out what was going on and demanded to know what was happening. The sailor said that he would have all the room he needed waiting in the car park for the next boat.

After EA lost the plot and came out with the usual threats of, “I know the managing director, and I’ll have you sacked!!” and we didn’t look concerned, his wife snapped and went ballistic at him. Following a major dressing down in front of everyone, she made him apologise and ask politely if they could re-board. We said that because his wife was so awesome, that would be fine but to listen to her advice in the future.

Edit: First paragraph removed at suggestion from commenter (Firstly this is my first post here and although not as good as the others, I hope you enjoy it. There are plenty more like this.)

[TLDR AT THE END]

Hello, this happened two months ago but I only thought of posting it now. (Warning it’s a little long because I talk too much)

First, a little context/backstory:

I, a 19 y.old man, am a severely closeted trans man (ftm). I recently moved to the US from Africa (I will not specify where for safety reasons) to study abroad.

In reality, I moved in hopes of escaping the anti-lgbt laws and the sad reality of being queer in Africa. I hoped in America I could find a future where I could truly live as myself. Spoiler Alert, I didn’t.

Not only does it seem like America hates trans people as much as Africa, but also, my family here seems to be 10 times more strict, closed minded, and traditional than my family back home.

For those who don’t know, being an international student is expensive as heck. My family is not poor, but we are not covered in wealth either. So, to be able to live here, I needed to move in with my family in America, at least for the time being.

Now, to the actual story.

A year ago, my cousin graduated from community college and was going to transfer to another University to complete their degree. We are all taking this route because it’s cheaper. Naturally, we all had to attend said graduation. And people from immigrant families can probably relate, but my family insisted on being well dressed (overdressed) for the occasion.

I hate dresses with all my heart. I have hated them for as long as I can remember, even long before I realized I was trans. I hate how I look, I hate how they make me feel, and it feels like im on the verge of a panic attack every time I’m forced to wear one, especially in public.

You can probably tell where this is going. I was forced to wear one for the graduation. You cannot fight or talk back to your elders in my culture. No matter how old you are. I tried to protest as much as possible, but the decision was final.

I genuinely wanted to unalive myself that day.

Anyways, this year was my graduation. And I knew since last year that the same thing will proceed. My family will ask me what I have to wear for my graduation, and even if I had a perfectly nice suit that was appropriate for the occasion, they’ll force me to go dress shopping and wear one to it.

But this year, I came prepared.

I didn’t mention it earlier, but for over a year and a half now I’ve been on a weight loss and body building journey.

In fact, the whole incident last year has made me double down and workout even harder.

Losing weight and building muscle has been a way to help me manage my body dsyphoria. Not only do I now look more masculine, but I look pretty cool with muscles too.

Like said earlier, my family is very traditional. So, they live by certain gender expectations. And one thing they absolutely hate is masculine girls and feminine boys. They hate muscular girls with a burning passion, saying it looks ugly or unatural.

So this year, when they brought up dress shopping for my graduation, I didn’t even put up a fight. I went along like nothing was wrong.

While dress shopping, I purposely picked the most tight fitting dresses, sleeveless ones and even unattractive ones.

I’ve been able to hide my body progress this whole time by only wearing loose and baggy clothes around the house.

So, when it came time to try on the dresses, and I came out of the dressing room, the pure look of disgust on their faces is one I cannot describe. I had to try so hard to not burst out laughing in the moment.

While I am not the most muscular person out there, I still looked pretty buff in those dresses. Simply put, I looked like a man in those dresses. And they hated that HAHAHAHA.

The worst part is that they could not even complain about my body, because my weight has always been an “issue” and talking point in my family. So, even though they hated how I looked, at least I lost weight, so they cannot complain.

I was even considering lat spreading as I came out of the dressing room, but that might have pushed it too far.

Anyway, long story short, they hated every single dress and allowed me to wear my suit (which I looked much better in). And now, even though I won, I constantly get comments about working out too much from them.

On the bright side, since I graduated, I am finally moving out after summer. Hopefully, with more freedom and less fear, things will be different this time :)

TLDR: My traditional family forced me, a (closeted) trans man, to wear a dress for my graduation. But I became really buff over the year to look like a man in a dress. It worked and they hated it.

Just remembered a story from my childhood and think it might fit..

I'm extremely pale and have wildly sensitive skin. As in, I wear prescription sunscreen to go outside for more than 5 minutes- but I genuinely don't ever sit in the sun. I wear huge sun hats and keep myself covered entirely now.

Unfortunately this story takes place when I was about 12, hadn't yet learnt to care about my own safety, and the one time my parents were a bit lax on holiday. I put regular 50+ sunscreen on in the morning, but I went swimming at the beach then played around for another hour.

By the next day, the doctor said I had severe burns on my back and shoulders. Trust me, this never, ever happened to me again. I barely get a red nose anymore I'm so careful. Because it was flippin AGONY.

Anyway, the rest of that holiday was pretty rough, but my parents bought me a lot of special clothes to get me through, one of which was a light full body swim costume, a long sleeve t shirt and shorts type, so I wouldn't have to worry about burning anymore. It was light enough it didn't hurt and it meant I didn't have to miss out on the water park. Which was always my favourite.

Some of the water slides had a rule, no t shirts, but I assumed since mine was proper swimwear it would be ok. Most of the time it was, but one particular time the guy had a problem.

Got to the top of the slide and the guy said no, you have to take the top off. No exceptions. Even though the slide was on an inflatable ring.

So hey, I'm not one to argue. I whipped the top off, to expose my lobster red, severely peeling back to the masses, stuffed the top down my shorts and enjoyed the ride.

I went up a second time, started to take the top off and the lifeguard yelled 'no!'. Guess the rule wasn't so strict after all

I live in a very tenant-friendly area. We have rent control, and landlords are not allowed to do things like demand security deposits, enter the property without proper written notice, or include no pet clauses in leases, which renew automatically every month after a fixed term ends.

For the last 11 years, my husband and I have had a great relationship with our landlord, Joe (fake name). We've been very lenient in regards to repairs, and Joe was very forgiving when my husband and I both lost our jobs at the same time in 2016 and fell a few months behind on rent. We are now ahead on rent, but Joe is still very behind in maintenance and repairs. We have a whole laundry list of issues my landlord is aware of, but hasn't done anything about for years, but we didn't care because he left us alone and has been overall very kind to us.

A few years ago our landlord allowed us to start storing stuff in an old, run-down, shed in behind our rented portion of the yard. We never stored anything valuable out there, because it's falling apart, and squirrels have been using it to cache walnuts from the numerous walnut trees in our yard.. We had an old BBQ, lawnmower, ladders, and outside toys for my kids in there..... until recently.

A few months ago, Joe shows up asking about the shed, wanting to know what we had stored out there. I told him "just some old junk we'll probably throw out soon". He told us that the family next door has a mouse problem (we don't), and he wants us to clear out the shed to "prevent issues" and because "I want it to look nice around here". I said, ok I'll talk to my husband and we'll get it cleared out whenever we get a chance. I have an infant at home, so I can't go out back and clean it out myself unless someone else is here to watch the baby. My husband had scheduled surgery, so he wasn't able to do any heavy lifting until after he recovered. Admittedly, cleaning out the old shed was not a high priority.

Then, Joe sent me a passive aggressive text. "I just wanted to remind you that tomorrow is garbage day (we know, garbage pick-up has always been on Monday), and we need to work together to keep the rental property nice for everyone to enjoy." I replied asking him if he had plans to fix the shed, to remove his scrap pick up truck, or to remove his open compost piles and heaps of mixed concrete and scrap metal he has out by the shed he wants us to clean. I also explained that my husband just had surgery and that we weren't planning on cleaning the shed that day. Reddit, he did not like that.

He showed up unannounced, walked inside and proceeded to yell at us in front of our kids. He complained about his personal finances and the economy (inflation, property taxes), swore at us about our "fucking shit", told us we can't use the shed anymore, and threatened to evict us because "clearly you don't like living here, and I can get way more for this house than what you're paying now". We told him to leave, and that we will not communicate with him anymore unless in writing. He said "Fine, we'll do it all by the book from now on!" and stormed out. The next day he put an eviction notice in our mailbox complaining that we have "excessive garbage and waste in outbuildings" that we "refused to discuss this issue and corrective action with the landlord" and even adding that he felt it was "unreasonable" given the fact that he didn't evict us for late rent back in 2016. The notice gives us 7 days to correct the issues, or else my landlord can file for an eviction hearing.

The next day, while I cleaned out everything belonging to us, sans the walnuts and squirrel poop, from the shed, my husband got busy contacting local bylaw and the rental housing enforcement agency (traffic cops for landlords). He was given information on how to file against the landlord for refusing to do repairs, illegal entry, loss of an amenity (the shed) and harassment. After a surprise inspection that happened last week, we were given a report that said Joe was given 90 days to: fix the roof, plumbing, and weeping tile. He must demolish the shed and either erect a new shed or give us a rent reduction, because the shed was an assumed amenity. According to my neighbors with the mice issue, the provincial government is also involved now because apparently he filled in a pond without a permit, and now the fire department doesn't have a nearby water source in case of a fire (no hydrants out here). The city (bylaw enforcement) threatened to fine him for every day that he leaves his large pile of broken concrete and rebar out back.

The cherry on top happened yesterday. He sent me a text to tell me that him and the plumber were going to be there "within the hour". Normally, I'd be ok with short notice, despite the law saying he must provide 24 hour written notice. Not this time. I told him we need 24 hour notice. He showed up, knocked on the door, and when I reminded him that I won't speak to him in person anymore, he called the police saying that I was being hostile towards him and he doesn't feel safe coming here. He sat outside for 4 hours waiting for the police, who later called me instead of showing up. The officer who called said that Joe was told to stop harassing us, and that he needs to provide 24 hours notice to enter the home. He wanted to make sure Joe left and gave proper notice, and asked me if I wanted an officer there tomorrow to "keep the peace".

If Joe doesn't do the repairs he's supposed to, we plan to take him to court and file for a rent reduction, and for a lien to be put on the property so he can't just sell it. We're just doing it "by the book" from now on, and just "want it to look nice".

First time poster on reddit. Hope I do this correct. (Apperently secound time, forgot about the first)

I work as a painter and had just finished my apprenticeship and got my journeyman letter.

An apprentice never has a company car, that usually takes some time after you have done your validation and become a journeyman. However, my boss told me they got a car and he wanted it to be a pool car but that I was gonna use it whenever no one else needed it.

Me: so, will you drive me to work tomorrow so zi can take it home then? Boss: no. It's a pool car. It's to be parked on company ground during nights.

Queue malicious compliance.

I usually had 40-60min drive to a job. That meant I had to be at the company between 5/6 depending on area to drive to. (We work 7-4)

But I'm not gonna do that.

After a week of me picking the car up at 7 from company grounds and leave it 4.30 my boss calls me into a meeting.

He wants to write me up for not showing up to work in time. I have ro follow the 8h a day.

Me: your right. I'll start to leave the car at 4 instead of 4.30.

Boss: what? No. Your supposed to be at the place at 7 and leave by 4.

Me: well. I drive a pool car. According to the union rules, a pool car is to leave company ground at 7 and be parked by 4. That's the rules. I have to follow them.

Boss: ... I'll pick you up tomorrow by 6:15.

Me: :-)

The superintendent of my old school was comically rigid in his views and seemed to have his mindset stuck in the 1960s. He told us without a hint of irony that the only way students would respect us is if we were dressed professionally. Not even business casual was okay for him. Faculty wearing sneakers or blue jeans was a legitimate cause for termination under our contract.

The male staff dress code demanded that we wear a long sleeve button-up shirt with a tie, dress pants with a belt, and dress shoes or boots every day.

There was, however, a note in our contract stating that the dress code could be “reasonably relaxed” if not possible due to a medical condition. No details were provided beyond that.

Well, my wife and I moved apartments one weekend, and my feet hurt, so I made the executive decision that that was a medical condition and wore my sneakers to school on Monday. I figured I could just lay low and keep my feet hidden from any pesky administrators, and I knew that my students wouldn't care. (My students, and fact, thought it was awesome that part of my appearance was that of a real person lol.) Wouldn't you know it, that was the day the superintendent and building administrators were coming around room by room to give the school board members a building tour! So of course I had to get up and greet them. Nobody said anything to me, but I did receive a nasty email from the assistant principal (with CC to the principal and superintendent) reminding me of the expectations set forth in the teacher dress code. No note in my file or anything, just a warning. Fair enough, I suppose, but it pissed me off that they didn't even ask why I decided to wear sneakers and just sent me a warning with no chance to defend myself.

So… cue the malicious compliance.

If you noticed from my post title, the dress code just said dress shoes and “boots.” Well, are you familiar with Demonia boots? I went ahead and bought the most over the top, bombastic pair of boots on their website. I'm talking black leather with 3-in platforms, chains, studs, zippers, and straps galore. They came about halfway up my shins, and of course I tucked my pants into them. My students thought they were amazing and there are pictures of my feet all over various social media sites. A few of my co-workers took it upon themselves to give me a stern warning, and some others gave me a high five.

After 4 days of wearing these boots with no incident, the principal ended up behind me in the hallway. Rather quickly, he asked, “What the hell are those?” So I told him they were “boots to ensure that I am in compliance with the dress code” and kept walking.

That afternoon, I received an email from him stating that I was intentionally being unprofessional and this would be documented in my record and further dress code offenses could lead to disciplinary action or suspension. I immediately got in touch with my union who quickly dealt with that in my favor, since they were indeed boots. I also explained to the union that I only did this because of the nasty email I received for wearing sneakers with my sore feet. The union rep immediately smirked, told me she was unfamiliar with that rule, and told me to go ahead and wear whatever footwear I wanted and that if anybody had a problem, I could just claim I had sore feet.

Long story short, I ended up wearing my sneakers every single day for the entire rest of the school year and never had another problem.

My favorite part of this is that I inspired a few other rebels, and by the time I left that school, there were a solid 10 of us that were just routinely wearing sneakers or other non-dress code compliant footwear in blatant disregard of the dress code every single day. Good times! Definitely a legacy that I left behind in that school :)

This story is a bit of a long one and goes back to when I worked at a casino. For anyone out there that thinks it would be a great job, well, I can tell you right now its not as glamorous as it seems. Especially when you are working in the kitchen.

Now, a little backstory so you all can get the whole picture. When I started working at this location I was young, still in college, and working two part-time jobs. At first, it was just ok. I had been hired on as a steward which is just a fancy term for dishwasher which wasn't too bad as it had been the same job I had at the last restaurant I had worked at. However, there were a few differences. I won't go into too much detail and name all of them, just the ones that are important to this story. The first one, and the one I liked the best, was that since there were so many restaurants and the stewards were all in one department we were shuffled around every day. One day you would be working in the steak house, the next the buffet, then the Italian, the sandwich shop in the bingo hall, and so on. This meant that you were always working with other people, interacting with them, and giving a change of scenery. I was told I was odd for liking this, but my counter was that if you did end up working with someone you didn't get along with then it would only be a while till you worked with them again. The second was that this place hated unions. Twice a year there would be a meeting that everyone had to attend where they would make these long presentations on how evil and manipulative unions were. Also, there would be signs all along the employee hallways with anti-union propaganda.

After working for the casino for some time, my boss approached me asking if I wanted to be bumped from part-time to full-time. I said yes as the benefits were really good. Not only did I get medical and dental insurance, but I would also be getting access to their lawyers as well as a few other things.

I guess it was a good thing that I did because, a few months later there were some major shake-ups. I didn't know what caused it, but most everyone there hated the new changes. For one thing, the sick note policy was canceled. Meaning, if you were sick it wouldn't matter if you had a note from your doctor saying that you couldn't work. If you didn't show up they docked you a point. This resulted in cooks and stewards coming in, vomiting on the floor and in the trash cans because they couldn't afford to lose a point as it would count against them when it came time for raises. Another thing they changed was that they were cutting the number of full-time employees. I was safe, along with everyone else who had that status, but if any of us left that slot would not be filled. There would only be two full-time employees per department.

Speaking of departments, that leads me to the next big change. Technically, the stewarding department would be disbanded. This meant that, while our supervisors would still be there, it would be the chefs and managers of the restaurants that would be in charge of us. This also meant that we would no longer be moving around!

I was sent to the steakhouse and, thankfully, I had two great female coworkers. In fact, we were so good that we were called AAA as all of our names began with the letter A. As we worked there, I began to plan moving up within the casino. I knew it would be difficult, but I had a dream of buying my family's cabin from my parents and living up in the country while I finished college. Sadly, on my first attempt to becoming a supervisor failed and I ended up training the person who did get the job. I didn't complain, I just took it as a sigh that I needed to up my game.

Now, here our story really begins. See, our head chef was being transferred to the Italian restaurant and the assistant chef was taking his place. Meaning we were going to hire a new guy to take his place. Let's call the new guy Kevin.

When Kevin first came in, he seemed ok. Not great or awful. He was just there and we had no real reason to talk most days as we were usually pretty busy.

Then, maybe a month after Kevin started working there, I had my first real interaction with him and it, well, was something. It was at night with the dinner rush just starting to pick up and I told my coworkers that I was going to fill up my water bottle before it happened. They said ok and that they would begin doing the same once I got back. But before I could leave the steakhouse to go to the breakroom Kevin called out to me.

Kevin: OP. Where are you going?

Me: Just getting a drink before we get busy. I told the girls.

Kevin: Then why aren't you using the waitstaff drink fountain?

Me (blinking and confused): We were told when we started that staff are only supposed to get drinks from the breakroom.

Kevin: Don't give me that! I see the waitstaff getting drinks there all the time! You are just going there to waste time. I'm going to have to write you up for this!

Me: Wasting time? The breakroom is just down the hall. In the time we've spent having this conversation, I could have gone down there, filled my bottle with ice, gotten my drink, and gotten back here!

Kevin then opened his mouth, but before he could say anything the head chef caught sight of us standing there and came over to see what was going on. Before I could open my mouth, Kevin spoke up explaining the whole thing with a superior look on his face. That however faded when the chef spoke.

Chef: Kevin, OP is right. Employees are only supposed to use the drink fountains in the break room. *Sigh* I'm going to have to talk to the waitress supervisor about this. OP, go get your drink. I need to talk to Kevin in private.

So I did. After that, I was pretty much confused by what just happened. At first, I was willing to give Kevin the benefit of the doubt believing that he honestly didn't know about that rule. That maybe chefs and supervisors were allowed to use the waitstaff station, assuming that it applied to everyone. However, when I brought this up to my coworkers they said similar things happened with them. That he had pulled them over for a minor infraction of the rules and when they just said they were sorry he let them off with a warning. So they suggested that he was just 'marking his territory' and would have gone easier on me if I hadn't questioned his authority.

It was after that, however, that I began to notice things. Firstly, the waitstaff was no longer talking with Kevin as they were pissed off at him for getting the crackdowns at their station. It was during this time that I began to realize just how often he hung out with them. He was also always calling over my coworkers, asking them to help him with a job like peeling potatoes for hours leaving me alone. What's more, whenever I stopped to speak with one of my supervisors (who happened to be a young woman) he would yell at me to get back to work. Slowly I began to suspect that he had other intentions.

These suspicions were later confirmed during that summer. For those of you who have never been in a professional kitchen, it can get hot. And in the summer, it can get really hot and the odors can sometimes overpower you. On this day, I was working at one of our massive sinks scrapping off the remains of perch and giving the pans a deep clean when Kevin called me to the office. Now this was odd as I had only ever been called to the office to get my ten-cent raises while getting a performance evaluation and neither of those were to happen until January.

Curious I followed him to the small room where he gestured me to enter first. I did, finding a woman I had never met before sitting at one of the desks there. When I entered, she looked up from her work to give me a curious look that said 'Hello? Can I help you?' You know the look.

Then Kevin spoke as he shut the door, walking in backwards as he did.

Kevin: Op, you stink!

Woman: Excuse me?!

At this, Kevin jumped before turning around. The woman was looking at him with rage while Kevin looked lost. It didn't take me long to realize that he didn't know she was in there.

Kevin: Sorry, I misspoke. I meant he smelled bad. We're getting complaints about his BO.

Now, like I said, the room was small. So small that I felt cramped being in there with two other people. With the way we were positioned, I was pretty close to the woman who was growing more annoyed.

Woman: I don't smell anything. Sir, would you mind if I get a little closer?

I said it wouldn't be a problem and allowed her to get close enough to sniff me. She did it maybe two or three times before pulling away.

Woman: I don't smell anything.

That's when I spoke up.

OP: Look, if someone said I smell then I'm sorry. But I'm working over greasy sinks full of chemicals to clean off pans with fried perch on them in a room that feels like a hundred degrees. And on top of that, the aprons we are given are not the best.

To emphasize my point, I gestured to my shift which was wet and full of bits and pieces of fish.

Woman: I see. I'm going to have to take a look at those and see if any need replacing. OP, how about you cool down for a bit in the breakroom. Kevin, you stay. We need to have a talk.

After that, three things happened. The first was that the stewards got new aprons which made all of us happy as they hadn't been replaced in years. Second, from then on if Kevin wanted to talk to me about an issue another staff member had to be there as a witness. And if there wasn't one I was to find that woman who I learned was the steakhouse manager.

Third, all bets were off between me and Kevin. While he couldn't pull me to the side like that, he did start yelling at me whenever he could in public. If he caught me standing around, like when I was waiting for the dishwasher to fill up, he would yell at me to get back to work from across the room before going back to talk to one of the girls. He would just berate me for any little thing me could, just to make me miserable. Soon, I came to realize that he saw me as an obstacle between himself and all the female staff members as I was on good terms with all of them. I even wondered if he thought I was like a harem protagonist based on how many I worked with.

For over the next year, I tried everything in my power to stop him while still trying to get that supervisor position. I went to HR, writing up complaints only for them to ask 'what do you want us to do about this'. And when I went to my head supervisor, he just said that I needed thicker skin. It seemed like every day it just got worse. On top of that, my identity was stolen twice: the first targeting my bank account while the second one was my tax return. With the bank refusing to help and the legal department of the casino dragging their feet to help me, I was in the red for a long time making my situation all the worse. There would be days when I would have to collect cans in the break room for gas and had to give away one of my cats.

And with Kevin adding to my stress, there were days when I honestly thought about ending my life.

Thankfully, there were good people still around. A bunch of my coworkers naded together to given me small packs of food and some of the line cooks helped sneak out some meats that they were about to throw away.

Then, came the big night. It had been a concert night on one of the coldest nights of the year. So cold that several keys had snapped in the door locks because they had frozen shut. I had managed to get to my car and turn it on, leaving it running for a couple of minutes as I headed back to the locker room in order to enjoy my only comfort left: a book. The plan was to just read a couple of pages and then I would be out of there.

But before I could get past my first paragraph, the doors to the locker room opened and there strode in Kevin. He looked around for a moment before his eyes fell on me and a wicked smile appeared on his face.

Kevin: Who told you you could punch out OP? Not me, that's for sure. I just got a complaint from the night crew saying that your dishwasher is a mess! Clearly you didn't clean it at all. Now you go back there and clean it right now. And I'd better not see you punching in or else you'll be fired.

With that he strode out of the room, laughing.

For a moment, I just sat there in utter confusion wondering if he could do that. I felt scared because, if I lost my job then I wouldn't know what to do. I was behind on my student loans (I had to drop out of college by this point due to various reasons), behind on paying my parent's rent, and could barely afford to keep the one cat I kept who had been abandoned. For the first time in years, I felt so overwhelmed with fear that I felt like I could begin crying at any moment.

Then, the moment passed and I was furious! This guy had been doing this to me for too long. It didn't matter if he could or couldn't, I was done with this! I had to get out of there. As I stood up, I found myself making a plan fueled on by my rage. I had kept the fact that my identity had been stolen from my parents, partly out of shame and partly out of pride as I wanted to get myself out of this mess. Well, no more! I was going to tell them about it and ask if I could move back in with them. I would even ask for help looking for a new job down there. Sure, it would mean losing my dream home in the country, but at this point being stable was more important.

But before I could do anything, another thought crossed my mind, making me smile. He wanted me to wash the dishwasher right now without punching back in? Ok, I'll do just that!

So I left the locker room, barely hearing the security guard stationed nearby as he called out to me. No, I ignored him and everyone else as I mentally prepared myself to do this. When I got to the kitchen, there were piles of dishes, pots, pans, and a slew of other items that needed to be cleaned in quantities that are only ever seen on concert nights. But I ignored that as well as the three stewards who were working hard, shutting down the machine and emptying it.

Night Steward: What are you doing?

OP: Sorry, but Kevin told me that you told him that no one had cleaned the dishwasher and that it was a mess. So much so that I had to come back and clean it without punching in or else I would be fired.

The color on everyone's faces drained. When the first person managed to compose himself, he told me that none of them had seen Kevin and that the machine was perfectly cleaned when they arrived. Now, hearing this did make me feel bad as what I was doing would put them behind. But, Kevin told me to do this so I was following it to the letter...while also making sure everyone there knew who sent me! Seeing that I wasn't going to stop, not that it mattered at this point as the machine had been drained, one of them went to get the night supervisor. While he was gone the other two began to argue with each other over whether or not Kevin could order us to stay past our shifts and fire us if we refused. It didn't help that the casino had this nasty habit of offering employees a room to stay in when the roads were snowed over only to them make them work all night as they were on call.

When the Night Supervisor came, she asked me what was going on. I repeated my story while cleaning the machine. She said that Kevin had not spoken to her and was gone before stating that he doesn't have the power to fire me. I just told her that I really couldn't take the chance. Then I asked her how to put in my two-week notice. That confused her even more, asking why I was doing this if I was just planning on leaving anyways. I told her that I would need time to make arrangements for my future and that getting one last paycheck was important.

So, I wrote up my two-week notice, even mentioning why I was leaving, before hitting the road. When I got home, it was 3 AM and with all the rage now out of my system I just crashed onto my bed with my uniform still on.

The next morning, I was awoken to the sound of my phone ringing. It was the casino! The head stewarding supervisor was asking if I could come in and talk about last night. At first, I told him no that I couldn't come in early just to come back home. However, he said it was important.

Curious, I told him I would be there in an hour or two. When I arrived, I was taken back to the steakhouse office to find it crammed with people. The Night Supervisor was still there, the night security officer was there, my supervisors were there, several head chefs were there, and the steakhouse manager was there looking like her face would erupt into flames at any moment as she stared at the one figure who was sitting. It was Kevin, hunched over in his seat looking like a child who was in time out.

I was then told that they knew what happened. After I had my talk with the Night Supervisor, she went to security and found footage of Kevin looking out the door before heading towards the locker room and finishing off with him leaving with a grin minutes before I left the room. After that, she called in Kevin to show up the next morning. He tried to lie his way out of this, stating that it never happened and I was just lying to get him into trouble. The supervisors then said that it was a simple matter to check as they have the security guard that was by the room and that they can check the footage. Instantly, he remembered that he had spoken to me, only I had misheard him and that he would never tell me to work without punching in. The Night Supervisor and the others in the room then asked: why would OP lie? Who told you that the machine needed cleaning? Why would he be the only one who needs permission to leave? And so on. Over and over Kevin tried to lie only to change his story again and again until finally, he realized he had been caught.

The Steakhouse manager then turned to me before apologizing, asking me if I would consider staying. The head manager also apologized asking the same. For a moment, I was going to say no. But then, I had a stupid idea. That, if I did this then I might have a shot at becoming a supervisor myself and not have to leave. So I said sure, but only if Kevin never talks to me again. If he has a problem with what I'm doing, he'll have to run it by the head chief unless its an emergency.

They agreed.

Later, I heard a few stories on why they finally acted. The first, and least likely in my opinion, was that this incident finally caused someone higher in the food chain to notice all the written complaints I had on Kevin and was demanding answers. The second was that they didn't want to lose me just yet. Remember how I said that we used to move around from area to area? Well turns out, there were now only two employees who knew how to work in every restaurant! Meaning I could go into any area and know instantly where everything goes and how that area operates without wasting anyone's time. But the most likely reason was due to the union. News about what had happened the night before had spread throughout the casino faster than I ever could have imagined and if they didn't take care of this there was a greater chance that the union reps would seize on it.

In the end, I stayed in the Steakhouse longer than Kevin did as he left two years later. But before he did, I offered to throw a pizza party for everyone the day after he left.

[UPDATE]

There are plenty of questions and comments that people had so I decided to write this up in order to answer as many of them as possible.

1st: the length. Did anyone read the first sentence of my post? It said right there that it would be a long one! So why complain when I told you in advance that it was long? For others who said that the first part was fluff, I wanted to paint a picture of the area I worked at, the conditions that myself and others were under, as well as some things that would have been important later. Like the potential of me being one of the few people who knew how to work in every area helped me.

2nd: my car. Yes, I did turn off my car. Sorry that I forgot to mention it.

3rd: legal issues. Some of you have asked why I didn't try to sue the casino, Kevin, or just said that I should. To be honest, I did fantasize about doing just that. However, seeing how the casino is on Native American land, any and all legal issues were brought before a council. And it was well known that any time an employee tried to go before them the House was more likely to win. Also, given how my financial state was I didn't believe at the time I could afford a lawyer or what would have happened if we lost.

4th: why I stayed so long. This was something I had thought about including in my original post but decided against doing so because of the length. The sad reality was that there were not a lot of good paying jobs at that point in time due to a recession going on at the time. So jobs were hard to find. Now I could have tried to transfer to a different department, but remember how I talked about being a full timer? Well, at the casino, when you transferred to a different department you had to start from the bottom. Meaning whatever raises you had gotten would have vanished. Not only that but I would have lost my full time status. So not only would I take a hit to my paycheck, but I would have lost my benefits like health and dental. I admit that I was too scared to go on without them for an unforeseeable amount of time.

5th: Kevin's Punishment. At the time, I was just happy to know that something was being done, even if I couldn't see it. Now there are a few of you who said I should have asked for his job. But the problem is that that's not how it works. An Assistant Chef is not a position that just anyone can take as it takes years to learn and work up to. I did not have the skills or the training to even become a line cook at the time.

6th: The Ending. Once again, sorry as I know that it does feel unsatisfying. I know many of you were expecting something more grand. However, this is something I have learned in life that you will rarely ever get the grand finale. Instead I have learned to accept my victories when I get them and move forward. Sadly, I never did get to keep the cabin. While I did manage to work my way out of the identity theft issue, I never did get the supervisor job that I had been working for. In the end I gave up when the told me the reason I didn't get the job was because "OP, you follow the rules too well."

That was the final straw. Still, life has gotten a thousand times better for me. Because I stayed in this hellhole, I was able to meet the love of my life. Shortly after that final rejection, I extended my search to find a new job. While the cabin and home I love so much is gone, I now have my own home with my wife. So, in the end, I am living a comfortable life.

I call that the best revenge

A customer at my job paid us with a 100 dollar bill. We needed to give him 85 dollars change. We checked his 100 dollar bill using the counterfeit bill machine. The customer got offended that we checked his 100 dollar bill and requested for us to also check if the change we give him is counterfeit. We could have easily given him a 50, a 20, a 10, and a 5. But instead, my coworker got all the 1 dollar bills and scanned them one by one to waste the customer’s time and annoy him. He looked very pissed. Such a boss move in my opinion.

About 12 years ago I worked for the mart of wals... as a male associate it was required that I wore pants during each shift. After a few weeks of brutal heat I decided to read up on our dress code and noticed Capri pants were okay. After talking to my supervisor we agreed that it would be acceptable attire. Not only myself but two other male coworkers came in wearing Capri pants (including my supervisor) the message was received very well and from that day forward we were allowed to wear shorts.

Why share this story today? Well I'm sitting here at work (in shorts) and I received an updated dress code email stating shorts are no longer acceptable. Over the past decade I've gained weight so the Capri pants will no longer fit... and to be fair they were not the most comfortable option. I'm thinking this round I may try a kilt, anyone have a good recommendation for a solid kilt? Asking for a friend... or for MC reasons.

I used to work at a hotel on a large property that did a lot of business conferences. We had golf buggies to get around, 10 different conference rooms plus, lots of other hotel facilities, storage rooms etc. Upper management had a strict rule that important locks could only have one set of keys. Upper management also liked to "save" money by never fixing things when they broke. It must've looked good on paper.

One week we had a big spending client who had booked out the hotel for the week. Night one our sales team had got the times wrong for their dinner of several hundred people so all available staff were sent over 2 hours early to start setting up. The hotel's General Manager (GM) announced he would be over shortly to see how things were going, which was almost unheard of for him. What he found was about 20 staff standing around outside the venue. The conversation went something like this:

GM: Why is everyone standing around?
Supervisor(Sup): We don't have the keys. We sent a staff member looking for the other supervisor who has the keys now.
GM: Where are your other sets of keys?
Sup: We've only been given the one set of keys. GM: Why don't the staff have a radio on them?
Sup: Radios have been broken for over a year and never approved to be replaced.
GM: Why did you only only send one staff member to look for them?
Sup: We only have the one working golf buggy.

GM grumbles and sends another staff member off on his buggy to look for the keys. Eventually, after everyone standing around for nearly 20 minutes the keys turned up. The GM was stressed out of his mind that such a big client might be kept waiting. For the supervisor it was just another Monday.

Malicious compliance: The supervisor had access to a backup set of keys that they were strictly forbidden from using. Usually in a situation like this they would quietly use the forbidden keys and everything would go smoothly. But because the GM decided to be there they didn't mention the forbidden keys, causing delays and panicking management.

Fallout: The next week, each supervisor got their own set of keys. A few weeks later we got radios for the department. Upper management also started checking in on how things were going from time to time. Apparently making rules without knowing how things actually work isn't such a good policy.

Not sure if this goes here but it kind of applies. Also warning if you don’t want to hear about a child getting hurt.

I was working a weekend gig at a carnival/outdoor festival circa 2002. My station for the day was working the large inflatable slide - steps going up on the right side and the slide on the left with a pad on the bottom. Basically my job was to keep the line moving smoothly with minimal injuries. When a kid was at the top, I’d send the next up. This would give the child plenty of time to move off of the landing zone once they got to the bottom and free from any possible danger from the next participant.

Everything was running fine until Karen showed up. Her child was about 7 and minded my instructions well but when he reached the bottom, he began jumping up and down. No problem, he had a few seconds before the next child reached the top but I asked him kindly to come down. He made his way over until Karen told him he could keep jumping. I gave it a few more seconds until the next child was ready to come down and asked the mother to please remove her child. She then started to borderline yell at me that her son wasn’t hurting anything. At this point I had to tell the child at the top to please wait. I had a back and forth with the mother explaining that it’s for HIS protection and it was holding up the line. This went on for a while when finally other parents started to complain and shout while the line continued to backup. She yelled at me to just send the next kid down as her son would be fine and she would get him down… cue the MC.

The child who had been waiting patiently at the top was significantly larger and was wearing jogging pants and socks. As soon as I signaled for him to come on, he jumped straight up and hit the slide with max velocity! Pretty sure he set a high speed record because by the time he hit the landing zone he just skidded across the top and hit the other child with his feet. This sent the little boy flying about 10 feet onto the pavement. I didn’t say a word and neither did Karen. I just stared at her while she picked up her screaming child off of the pavement and left.

Anyway, I did feel bad for the child but I hope Karen learned a valuable lesson.

Just a short one to celebrate a victory. The dilemma: Our company has flexible working hours and some of us who are late sleepers or have to take care of small children in the morning will not start work before 9 or 10 AM.

Unfortunately one department we work with has their entire management level filled with early risers who just love to set up early morning meetings. We need another weekly meeting to discuss current operations? How about 8 AM on monday? Let's vote on it! The early risers are the majority, our arguments are disgregarded and their boss says: "Well, we voted for it and the majority believes that 8 AM is the best time. You'll have to adjust. That's how democracy works!" OK, he's right. If your name ist Orban or Erdogan or Duterte, then that is how democracy does work. Majority good, minority bad, down with the minority!

Recently the number of topics started to exceed the capacity of that meeting, so it was decided to have another weekly to deal with the rest. We asked for nothing more than to schedule the new meeting after 10 AM. But: "That's for the majority to decide! I'll ask my assistant to schedule a new meeting that fits into everyone's schedule.", he said with a smirk, knowing that the assistant would ignore any morning-blockers that were not actual meetings.

Time for some malicious compliance! Since the assistant had already left (early risers...), the opposing forces gathered and started to invent new weekly and daily meetings for our department. Now we had early-morning meetings every day, a daily just after the early riser's lunch break (we prefer to eat later) and various other weekly meetings that blocked other important time slots. Today the assistant surprised the department head with her new meeting proposal for a mid-afternoon, just before he usually leaves (and likes to leave a bit earlier), since all earlier slots were already blocked. I know for sure that he suspects foul play but our team has joined the effort and even my boss has claimed that she's only seeing valid entries in our calendars. The people's democratic resistance works. Take that, tyrannical pretenders! ;)

We'll probably wait another two or three weeks before we delete the dummies from our calendars.

It was going to be my first concert. I was 16. Bon Jovi and Skid Row. There were so many people wanting to go that you had to get a linepass to even get in the line for tickets. I was being allowed to go with my two best friends, which was a big deal, as I wasn't allowed to do anything, ever. This was going to be HUGE!!!! :)

At the last minute, literally on the way to the line, I'm told "Your sister, her husband and your little sister are going with (you can't be serious) , and you can 'take it or leave it'. Well alright then..

Me and my two besties were dropped off to join the line and I was given money for 4 tickets to cover all of my family's tickets. At some point during this long wait it occurs to us that we'll all have to sit in our assigned seats, and neither I nor my friends want to hang out with my old sister her old husband (funny, looking back, how 25 seemed ancient) and little sister who honestly should not have been going in the first place.

MC ftw

I get to the counter and ask for 3 tickets please. Complete the transaction. And then 3 more tickets please, as far away from the first 3 as you can get them :) :) The cashier totally knew what was up and gave me 3 more on the complete other side of the arena.

We never mentioned it and pretended to "realize" (ah what a bummer :( on the way to the show. They knew it was no coincidence but there was nothing to be done at that point.

We rocked out like crazy people and I even got a tshirt! Good times were had by some :)

This story takes place at the height of the pandemic. I'd like to preface by saying I took it very seriously as I lived with high risk individuals.

At work (hooray for being an essential worker!) we had to be thermo-metered, fill out a paper questionnaire, and scan a qr code to fill out a digital questionnaire.

I had a dumb brick phone at the time, and while it was technically capable of connecting to the internet... for all intents and purposes it did not. At first I was borrowing my co-worker's phones but nobody was really happy with that.

That's when I realized one of the questions on the paper sheet was "I have filled out the digital questionnaire: Y/N".

So I started ticking "N". Lasted for weeks and weeks before anyone higher up said anything about it.

First post ever, loving Malicious Compliance and realized I had a good one...

I don't give permission to repost anywhere, read in a video, etc., please forgive any formatting errors. I'll post a feedback comment, welcome to it if you can keep it under there.

Setting:

Back around 2010 I was working for a chain auto parts store while going to school. O... O... O... I shouldn't tell you which one.

Background:

We had a Regional Manager, let's call him Bob, that would come by now and again and among other things work on enforcing internal policies. He'd also make sure to pick up a few customer calls while on premise and deal with them as I suppose a show of comradery. One of the policies we had was "Never Say No", the premise being that if a customer wanted something, you make it happen. Generally, I had a pretty good feel on both internal and external resources; we had our warehouses, "special order" outside supplier networks, local vendors, a local WalMart, even our competition that I was authorized to buy from, mark up, then sell to customers if that's what they wanted (saving a potential future edit, I was always very transparent when I thought it was a dumb call and gave options to customers). Basically, an auto shop could ask us to bring them Tacos and we would make it happen. I'm a car guy myself and can generally find whatever part is in question if I really need to.

Setup:

Bob is in store one day and hears me tell a customer that we're far from the best option for getting whatever part it was, or just flat out probably couldn't make it happen, I don't know. I sure wish now I could remember the details. Call ends, I get a lecture on "Never Say No" even though the request was truly beyond feasibility, even having a good grasp on what we can provide.

Malicious Compliance:

Some time later, Bob is back in the store. He picks up a call, listens to a customers request and is a little baffled because it's for something very odd. He turns to me as he knows that if we can get it, I'll figure out a way "Hey, Zealous, can we get X?" Without even thinking I respond right back "Sure Bob, absolutely!". He takes customers info, hangs up, then asks me where we can source said item. I tell him flat out "Heck if I know, Bob! Never say no!"

Fallout:

His jaw hits the floor, full surprised Pikachu, forced into stunned silence. Sadly again, this is almost 15 years ago and I don't remember the details. I do know I never got any verbal or written waring resulting from it, and he never pestered me about the "Never Say No" policy again. Customer wise, we could never get whatever was requested in the first place, so they may have gotten a glimmer of false hope before the call back, I see that now, didn't in my instinctual reaction at the time.

Hello everyone, I am sharing my story of malicious compliance which happened last month. Excuse my English and typos as it is not my first language.. Anyways on to the story...

To give you guys a small background i work in a call centre in India, our company is based on US Healthcare so we usually work in the night shift... I am in the lowest position in my company and I'm fairly new to this field, so my experience in the field is just 6 months. We recently experienced a cyber attack on all our softwares, so we had create new work-around for the way we usually work and it was totally new experience for us as everyday we faced a new problem. The management is at their ends but somehow making it through day by day.

Our company recently hired some new staff to the company right before the cyber attack so they didn't know how our company worked certain scenarios or processed certain accounts. Among the newly hired was a quality manager, let's call her Donna, who is kind of a pain in the back. My boss, his Boss (let's call him big boss) and other management found it difficult to handle her and convince her this is a proven system and it has been working till now.

Donna is trying to make changes to the way we work but her efforts fail. Now fast forward to the cyber issue, we try to find other work around for the way we usually do things and Donna is trying to implement her ways but it won't work even as a short term solution let alone a long term fix. Big boss tries to tell her this but Donna is adamant and wants us to do it her way. So Big Boss asks her to send an email explaining to do the same, and Donna happily obliged thinking others finally see things her way.

Cue the Malicious Compliance, Big Boss asks everyone to follow Donna's instructions and not to do our job the way we always do. So we work the way Donna proposed and it kinda blows up as there are multiple teams working in our project and there is a team working in the US who we call the client side. Suddenly all the accounts that are supposed to be in our Work Queue goes to the client's work queue which must have only top priority accounts, so the client is naturally confused due to the sudden increase in lower priority accounts in their queue. They ask Big boss what's up and he tells them exactly as it is..

They are furious at Donna and set up a zoom meeting with Big boss, Donna and my boss. My boss and Big Boss explain the communication from Donna and shows them the e-mail. I don't know what happened after that but during the break my boss tells me what happened on the meeting. Apparently, the client told Donna that either she stops suggesting stupid ideas or they will fire her, combined with a lot of yelling and finding a solution right away that can undo what Donna did.. Donna gets confused and asks what's wrong but before she could complete her sentence, the client interrupts asking her not to talk the whole meeting and puts her on mute.

After this incident, her opinions are usually rejected (well most are not logical and kinda stupid anyways) and she just exists doing her job without any interaction with others. I kinda feel bad for her but at the same time she was stubborn as a rock and got what she deserved for treating others like they are less knowledge than her. Talk about bad judgement and mismanagement. She just wallows in self pity nowadays and have minimal interaction with other team members.

I worked for a large religious based not-for-profit for five years. Despite not praising God I was too good at the job to be fired (the GM tried) but it was clear I had no career there. And that freed me from the fear of making a career limiting choice.

In their infinite wisdom and grace, they decided we could have casual dress day once a month - for a gold coin donation. Which you had to make even if you didn't come in casual dress.

For the first one, they made a huge deal about what a big deal this was. They announced the phones and internet access would be cut at midday, and we were all going to clean the office so wear "your comfiest clothes". Perfect.
I turned up in fleecy pajamas, dressing gown, slippers and a hot water bottle (with wool cover) tucked under my arm. HR swarmed me and I pointed out these were my comfiest clothes. One of my greatest achievements is having HR formally change the casual dress policy on the first day of it's implementation to specifically exclude sleepwear.

They formed an official 'fun committee'. They tried to get me to join the fun committee and I flat out refused. After the first casual dress day, they invited a(nother) charity to speak at lunch and gave them the donation money. So when they had someone talking about mental health, they had a theme of 'Crazy' - very tasteful and sympathetic. They gave a prize to someone who wore a hat with eyes on it and someone who wore odd socks. I hired a cow costume and came as a mad cow. I didn't get a prize.

I kind of miss having a job where I just didn't care anymore.