Malicious Compliance

Here's the mod post:

Dear Beloved Community,

We gather here today on our transformed Christian Minecraft server, and we have some news to share. Our mod team has made a difficult decision, one that may come as a surprise to some. Brace yourselves, for we are bidding farewell to our NSFW content.

Why, you ask? Well, let us shed some light on the matter. The winds of change have blown across the vast Reddit landscape, and the terrain has become treacherous. Alas, our valiant mod team can no longer ensure the safety and well-being of our members while navigating the realms of NSFW content. Fear not, dear friends, for this decision was not made lightly. We hold our community's best interests close to our hearts.

We understand that many of you have reveled in the spicy delights of our NSFW offerings, but worry not! We remain committed to fostering a vibrant and wholesome environment, one that embodies the spirit of this Christian Minecraft server. Together, we can embark on a new chapter filled with joy, laughter, and delightful SFW (Safe For Work) content.

We implore you, our cherished members, to embrace this change with open arms. Let us channel our creative energies toward crafting entertaining, funny, and uplifting posts that will warm even the coldest of creepers' hearts. Our mission remains unchanged: to create a safe haven for all, where respect, kindness, and good vibes thrive.

Though we bid farewell to our NSFW past, let us not dwell on what has passed, but rather look forward to what lies ahead. We stand united, ready to build an even stronger community, one that will bring smiles to faces far and wide.

Thank you, dear friends, for your understanding and unwavering support. Together, let us journey into this new era of our Christian Minecraft server and forge unforgettable memories. Praise the mods, praise the admins (maybe just a little), and let the SFW festivities commence!

With love and gratitude,

Moderators of the Christian Minecraft Server

[REPOST] Many years ago, I worked at a car dealership. The attached service garage was small and I was the only licensed mechanic.

I would occasionally have issues with male customers— they would second guess my diagnoses, watch me while I worked on their cars from the bay door, double check my work in the parking lot, etc.

I didn’t deal with customers directly and would often get my apprentice to pull cars in and out of the shop for me.

This morning in particular, we were busy. The lot jockey and apprentice were occupied helping wash cars for delivery and driving to a customer’s house.

The service advisor left a work order and keys at the parts counter, and I went out the front through service to get the car. It was in for a service campaign, which was an update done with a scan tool. It takes about 10 minutes.

The customer was planning on waiting and was sitting in service. When he saw me with his keys in my hand, he immediately stood up, alarmed. I was hustling so I walked right by him and out the door. I missed the following conversation, according to the service advisor (also female):

Customer: “Who is that chick? Is she going to be working on my car? I don’t want her working on my car.”

Advisor: “The other tech is out at the moment, so it’s going to be quite a wait until someone else can look at your car.”

C: “That’s fine. I’ll wait for a guy. I don’t want that chick touching my car.”

A, politely: “Understood.”

Cue malicious compliance.

The advisor comes to let me know, and I pull the car out and put the work order and keys back on the counter.

Half an hour passes. The apprentice is still away, and I am happily working on something else, bringing other cars in and out.

The customer is now watching each and every person who comes through the door.

The high school co-op student comes in to get something signed. The customer’s keys are still sitting on the desk. It’s been about an hour now.

C: “Hey— why hasn’t my car gone in yet? Can’t you get this guy to do it?”

A: “No, sorry. He’s just a co-op student so he is not allowed to drive the cars due to liability and insurance concerns.”

C: “Just get someone else to bring the car in and he can do the work. This was supposed to take 10 minutes.”

A: “Sorry, sir. He’s just a high school student doing his co-op; he’s not approved to perform warranty work. Only licensed techs and apprentices can do the recall.”

The car jockey returns. The advisor hands the car jockey a different set of keys, and he brings yet another car into the shop for me. The customer is becoming incensed.

C: “I’ve been sitting here for over an hour and I’ve watched 5 cars go in before mine. My appointment was for 8am, this is getting ridiculous,” blah blah blah.

At this point he says that he literally doesn’t care who does the recall, but that it has to be a guy.

The service advisor starts listing off the names of the men who work in the dealership, then saying why they can’t perform the recall.

“Well there’s Harmon, but he’s just the car jockey. He doesn’t know how to work on cars. Then there’s Jeet, but he’s about 17. I wouldn’t want him doing the recall, personally. I guess we could ask Mike— but Mike is the parts guy— he doesn’t know how to use the scan tool. The detailers are men, but they know NOTHING about cars… ”

The customer is fuming at this point, and demands to talk to the service manager.

The manager comes out of his office, and guides the customer into the garage. He’s pretty old school… lights up a cigarette standing at the end of my bay, and points at me.

“That’s my best technician. Those guys take orders from her. You can either wait for her to finish what she’s working on, and then you can ask if she’s still willing to do your work, or you can take your car somewhere else.”

The guy was pretty shook up at this point and he took his car and left, two hours after he’d first arrived. I don’t think we ever saw him again, which was not much of a loss, all things considered.

That manager in particular ALWAYS stuck up for me and took my side. The service advisor has this very dead-pan sense of humour. She knew full well it would easily be an hour before the apprentice would return from his errand, and that no one else could do the recall.

TL;DR: A customer brought his car in to the shop but when he saw me with his keys asked for a man to do the job instead. The service advisor happily agreed knowing full well there was no one but me to do the job. The customer ended up waiting two hours before leaving without getting his car fixed.

The Subreddit WellThatSucks has changed their rules so it's now only accepting vaccume cleaners

I'm sure someone was complying maliciously here, but I'm not sure who.

Everything in the store was on 'sale'. What they do is mark up the price, then discount it back to the normal price. For every single item in the store. So there are hundreds of these little printed standee signs everywhere next to each little thing.

Looks like management forgot to define a markup+discount to an item, and a programmer and/or sales staff just abided by the ridiculous 'everything must be on (fake) sale' directive.

The choice is between "John Oliver, Chiijohn, and their lookalikes bein adorable" and returning to normal.

The subreddit r/steam, about the digital game storefront, received as many other subreddits a notice to open the community again, or else the mods would be replaced by those who abide.

The mods followed suit posting the following automod message under every new post:

As ya'll likely know, we've been dark to support the blackout against reddit's antagonistic behavior towards its own userbase. The admins sent us a message today saying we must open or get removed, so here we are.

For those of you browsing this subreddit on non-official apps (Reddit is Fun, Apollo, Sync, Boost, etc), they will break on July 1st due to reddit's new policies. We're opening back up but will leave permanent stickies in the subreddit and threads to keep folks in the know.

Our Discord [contains link to https://discord.gg/steam] server is active, don't forget to check it out.

Good luck and god speed.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

On visit, you quickly notice there is a community wide effort to focus on the literal topic of the given name and post about vapors, steam trains, and kitchen appliances. While posts about the gaming platform get downvoted.

[REPOST]

I work in a helpdesk hotline for an international company of around 50.000 employees. To understand why I felt such glee when our head of IT called about needing her password reset, I'll have to explain a bit of backstory.

We've been handling the 1st level servicedesk for all sites around the globe, mainly Europe, North America and Singapore for the better part of a decade now. As you can probably imagine, working in a contractor-based helpdesk (meaning we're not part of the actual company but instead are employees of the call center) will involve a lot of sucking up. New tools are introduced for the users to utilise but they're complete shit, borderline useless and lack features the old software had? Suck it up. Process is unclear, nonsensical or just plain dumb? Suck it up, you can give feedback, but we're sure as hell gonna ignore the heck out of it.

So after around 10 years of sucking up and working with what we got, our service department got outsourced to the cheapest competitor available. A real slap in the face against us. No helpdesk is ever perfect (especially since we’re all underpaid unmotivated IT grunts), but we always thrived to meet our targets and get work done. Subsequently, everyone hated the change of IT service providers, except for company treasury. Service quality plummeted, most of our guys lost their jobs and only half a dozen of us still work in our original jobs since the new IT Service is so ludicrously bad, our rampdown has been delayed for close to a year now so at least SOMEONE knows what they're doing and gets shit done in 1st lvl servicedesk.

You can imagine the jaws dropping when the architect for the whole IT restructuring got an award for her work in saving the company money (which they probably lost again due to every OTHER department having significantly more IT related issues that are just not being solved). It was no fancy, well-known award, but it involved red carpet and a gala. For basically ruining IT service.

So this award winning architect of IT-doom calls me this one night, because she's forgotten something basic: changing her password before it had been expired for too long. She is now on an important business trip to oversee the last regions we're servicing being converted to the new service provider. And now she couldn't get any work done, because she couldn't access her laptop.

As I mentioned earlier, the tools and processes we have to use are bonkers. Sometimes you could work around them. But in my case, I was too happy to tell her: "nope, I can not generate a new password for you since you haven't accessed the password self service tool before." Dumbfounded, she replied "What? You can not reset my password, because I have not accessed the password tool previously, which I now can not do because I don't have a valid password to access the tool with?" I smiled to myself as I continued: "Exactly that. Since we've lost our tools to reset passwords manually, the only other alternative is sending an automatically generated email to your manager, who will have to bother resetting the password for you." A realisation struck her then. These managers of hers...are all just one step below the CEO. They're in the executive committee, busy people. And I would need to send them an email, asking them to kindly run after the password reset for her to do her job. All because she ignored her frequent password change prompts. It was glorious. Sure, I still knew a way of resetting the password manually. But I sure as hell wasn't gonna put my ass on the line for that to happen. Wasn't allowed by the process, too. "Isn't there any other person you could send this mail to?", she asked. And I confirmed, sure, I could, to the manager one step above that. Which would mean the CEO himself.

She was not amused.

She refrained from threats, but when customers ask for your name with clenched teeth, it's usually not because they're smiling so hard. In a frantic tone, she declared all of this process to be nonsense (nonsense we had to work with over the last 7 months, so yeah, no shit) and all but ordered me to send her the password manually to her private phone number. To which I calmly replied, miss, as head of IT and processes, of course you know I'm not allowed to do that. In addition to not having the technical means." The rest of the call was fairly straightforward. She'd promise to send me a mail with an exception authorisation so I could reset the password for her in particular. to which I told her if that's what she intends for us to do: set passwords for anyone claiming to be head of IT and almost threatening me. I mean, I know it was her since I knew her voice as our head of IT's and the phone number matched, but still. After a bit more skirmishing she brought up the "YOU'RE REFUSING TO HELP ME" argument to which I countered the only possible thing left for me to do is open a ticket for the 2nd level and have them figure out a way to get her a simple password. She ended the call angrily soon after.

The ticket about getting her a password is still not resolved by the way. Guess we're not the only department with a grudge against her.

(full disclosure - I posted this on reddit about 6 years ago, just saw it while I was deleting my reddit posts and thought I would port it over)

So I'm at this grocery store that I've just started going to. They have one of those free rewards card programs which I'd just signed up for the day before.

Checkout cashier is a grumpy woman. She doesn't make eye contact with the customer she's checking out, and she's constantly talking to another coworker. As it gets to my turn, she tells her coworker: "last one!"

So after scanning my items, she asks me for my rewards card (which would give me about $8-12 off for that purchase). I don't have it, so I give her my phone number (which I'd seen other people do). She tells me my phone number isn't in the system.

Me: "Oh, but I definitely signed up for the rewards card before."

Her ("C" for cashier): "When?"

Me: "Uh... 2 or 3 days ago?"

C: "It's not in the system yet."

Me: "Oh. In that case... can I still get the rewards discounts?"

C: "No, I need your rewards card for that."

At this point, the lady behind me offers to let me use her rewards card, so I take it, thank her, and give the card to the cashier.

C: "That's not yours."

Me (getting annoyed): "I know. I have my own, but it's not in the system and I don't have it now. It's a free rewards card. What's wrong with using her card?"

C: "You can't do that."

This was the point where all the cashiers were changing shifts, so her coworkers were leaving and new ones were taking over.

C gives a long, audible sigh and says: "My shift is over. If you don't have a rewards card you have to pay the full price. That'll be $X."

I suddenly have a stroke of brilliance as I remember how painfully slow the registration process was for my rewards card.

Me (smiling now): "You know what? I lied. I don't have a rewards card. But I'd like to sign up for one!"

This supermarket had a weird system for keying in the rewards card number - customers filled out a form on the spot and the cashiers filled in everything on their terminals. It took forever.

I got a form and filled it up. I gave a fake name, email, and phone number. I made my name and email as long as the maximum number of characters, and even gave an optional (fake) address.

I stood there smiling as the cashier (who looked like she was about to blow) typed in everything.

By the time I was done paying, she looked like she was going to murder me regardless of the fact that we were in a large supermarket.

As she hands me my new rewards card, i tell her as I walk away: "Nah, you keep it. All the information I gave you was fake anyway."

I had to rush back to my apartment with my groceries to make my next appointment after that, but man i felt so good for the rest of the day.

WELCOME!

Hi everyone! Thanks for joining us during this exciting time in the fediverse. Like many of you, I too am a refugee of that other site. I started this community because I really liked reading its equivalent on the other site, and thought it was a good community to replicate.

In one week, we’ve grown to >7k subscribers (~5.3k on lemmy.world and ~1.2k from the next 5 largest instances)~~In just 3 days, we've grown to >2,800 subscribers (~2.5k on lemmy.world and ~300 from the next 5 largest instances)~~, so I thought it's time I addressed some issues.

NAVIGATING THE FEDIVERSE

If you're new - no need to have a detailed understanding of the fediverse. Just dive right in, and you'll learn the rest along the way.

Step 1: Join an instance. Don't overthink this, any one is fine. Think of it as an email provider - there are slight differences, but you can send/receive emails to (almost) anyone with any provider. I recommend lemmy.world and lemm.ee

Step 2: Find communities. Click on "Communities" and change it from "Local" to "All". Subscribe as you see fit.

Step 3 (Most Important): Post! Contribute wherever you feel like.

"WHAT CAN I POST?"

As the sidebar says, anything that involves "conforming to the letter, but not the spirit, of a request". This is usually to the detriment of the requester, but I recognize that may be hard to judge all the time.

For now, this includes text posts, images, videos and links. All I ask is that the "malicious compliance" aspect should be apparent - if you're making a text post, be sure to explain this part; if it's an image/video/link, use the "Body" field to elaborate.

For now, posts/images about events that did not happen to you or anyone you know is fair game, as long as it happened. Fiction writing is a good skill, but not encouraged here.

You'll notice that I said "for now" a lot. That's because I wouldn't be surprised if the rules changed over time. If we do change the rules, it will be done in consultation with you guys, and with advance notice. Which brings me to...

FEEDBACK

I'd love to hear your thoughts on how we can make this a better place. If there's anything you're unhappy with, or if you just have suggestions, please post them in this thread. If you prefer, you can also message me.

OTHER COMMUNITIES

I'm also adding a shoutout here to two other communities I created:

• [email protected]
• [email protected]

Feel free to join and participate if it's of interest to you!

I honestly don't know if this is allowed here but I thought this is malicious compliance at its finest.

If you don't want to drive traffic there I'll repost what the mods posted below:

POLL: Decide on the future of /r/Pics!

Hello, /r/Pics subscribers!

Boy, what a whacky time we've all had lately, huh? Reddit decided to kill off third-party applications, a protest got planned (and possibly exploited by bad actors), the site showed up in the news, various communities started opening back up, others decided to stay inaccessible, and then the CEO of Reddit implied that a bunch of moderators would be removed from their positions!

Crazy, right?

Anyway, we – the so-called "landed gentry" – definitely want to comply with the wishes of the "royal court," and they've told us that we need to run the subreddit in the way that its members want. To that end, we figured that the only reasonable thing to do was directly ask how you'd like things to progress from here.

Which of the following should we do?

1. Return to normal operations

2. Only allow images of John Oliver looking sexy To be clear, if people choose the second option, screen-grabs from videos will be allowed (provided that there aren't any visible logos, inserted graphics, or other digital elements present). You could – if you wanted to – look through episodes of Last Week Tonight on YouTube, find moments featuring John Oliver at his sexiest, then post images of those moments here.

It's entirely up to you! Whatever the /r/Pics community decides is best, we'll respect!

Vote, friends! Vote now!

(You can vote by upvoting either of the comments in the thread below.)

Voting has now closed.

Our final tally is as follows:

Return to normal operations: -2,329 votes

Only allow images of John Oliver looking sexy: 37,331 votes

It would seem that the community has spoken!

Henceforth, /r/Pics will only allow images of John Oliver looking sexy.

(Said images must adhere to all of the community's other rules, including those mandated by Reddit.)

Happy posting!

Almost 15 years ago. Not my MC, but I worked at the same company for several years leading into it. None of the glory is mine, and I am not any of the named or fired characters in this story.

The setup needs some backstory for the MC to fully marinate, so bear with me for a moment. Tl;dr at the end.

Cast of Characters:

• Mr. Wheatley: VP of Technology. The protagonist, at least in his eyes.
• Lamprey: ~~Lead Developer~~ ~~Career Backstabber~~ Director of IT at time of MC, and sycophant attached to Mr. Wheatley
• Bottom: ~~Director of IT~~ ~~Manager of Systems~~ Guy who gets demoted every time Lamprey or Wheatley's knives need sharpening. He stubbornly refuses to quit despite the messages being sent, which is why he earns this moniker despite my like for the guy.
• Chad: Originally our phone guy. Dispenser of MC who enters late into the story.
• Chadette: A floor manager. Single mom with cancer and two sons that she struggles to provide for.

I once worked IT for a callcenter selling a morally questionable study product. The scam isn't obvious when you're interviewing for the position, but once you start walking the halls long enough people start talking and you learn what's really going on. The company has changed its name and product several times for legal reasons since I left, a fact well-known to us worker bees helping our later employers verify that the shithole company listed in our work history actually existed at some point.

In addition to the questionable nature of the product, the company itself was basically a bingo card for corporate corruption. Shipping department pocketing the difference between standard and expedited shipping if the customer requested expedited and was within a certain mileage of the package carrier? Check. President knocking up his executive assistant behind his wife's back? Check. Friends of that executive assistant being given casual walks around the block while being told to keep their faceholes shut about what they know? Check, and probably because the CEO is the wife of the President. Oops?

It was in this environment that the protagonist enters the story. We shall call him "Wheatley". Wheatley is an IT enthusiast (particular emphasis on this word) and stakeholder in the company who had recently returned from setting up a chemical plant in a country known for its lax safety standards. For reasons unknown to us worker bees, Wheatley had decided that he wanted a position of leadership over the IT department. The powers that be granted his wish, inserting a "VP of Technology" above the Director of IT.

• Bottom is the Director of IT. Intelligent, but occasionally pensive and nervous when pressured. Despite these tendencies, he will usually stand up for what he feels is the decision with the most objective merit. Poor guy never stood a chance.

• Wheatley has a doctorate. Some of you working under douchebags probably know where this is going already. Wheatley wanted everyone to know that he had this doctorate, as evidenced by his insistence in correcting any employee who did not address him as "Dr. Wheatley". He will be henceforth referred to in this post as Mr. Wheatley. Mr. Wheatley is an abusive narcissist who is convinced that he is a comedian and knows technology better than the people reporting up to him. His standard joke is to scrutinize the opinions of employees multiple rungs beneath him and joke about firing them. These "jokes" are always given a halfway serious delivery that communicates to the target that he is in fact halfway serious and could have them defenestrated if the mood suited him. He has an unhappy marriage and occasionally unleashes his scowling daughter on the mostly empty cube farm where IT resides, whereupon she crayons on those cube walls in a desperate bid for attention from the father who is too busy palling around with the executives upstairs or making a nuisance of himself in front of the worker bees who would rather be spending time on their actual jobs.

• Lamprey is the lead developer and began palling around with Mr. Wheatley during a transition between buildings. When we arrived for our first day at the new location, we learned that 1) Bottom had been demoted into "Manager of Systems" (a role created specifically for his demotion) and 2) Lamprey had been given the Director title in his place. Questionable, but okay.

So begins their reign of terror.

In his new role, Lamprey is a standard issue IT egoist who knows a few things and has let this get to his head. This self-assuredness is what won him a seat at the table of Mr. Wheatley. He does not like having his authority questioned, regardless of the merits involved in the opposing arguments, and will ensure that a disciplinary slip lands in your HR folder the next day if you fail to follow his direction on implementing something to the letter. (warnings? what are those?)

Chad is hired around this time. He was brought into the systems team to help wrestle with the phone system, but also dabbles with Linux in his spare time. He is not an actual Linux guy and makes sure people know this. For reasons unknown to Chad, Mr. Wheatley immediately takes a shine to him. It's probably because Chad has a good sense of humor, but also because he's not as worn down as the other worker bees and able to keep a smile on his face while laughing at Mr. Wheatley's shitty jokes, all the while hating his guts just as much as the rest of us.

A few months pass. Chad strikes up a relationship with Chadette, a single mom with cancer struggling to provide for her two sons. They are both cool people and this was a genuinely awesome thing. This was, unfortunately, one of the few high notes that year for their mutual work friends.

• One of the two guys in helpdesk who everyone knew had a baby on the way gets laid off with no notice.
• Disciplinary slips continue to fly on a whim, including to an employee who worked a night of unbilled overtime at his own discretion to try and make a solution work after Lamprey decided that he didn't want any more time being spent on it. (incidentally missing a call from a friend who committed suicide that night)

Needless to say, morale in the IT department is at an all-time low. So what does Mr. Wheatley decide to do out of nowhere? Demote Bottom again! Chad is stunned with disbelief when he (the phone guy!!) is promoted to manager over Bottom and the Linux admins, who he previously reported to. Bottom is no longer a manager at all, and his direct colleagues are people who have been with the company prior to the VP of Technology role even existing. He stubbornly refuses to quit despite this, but this is the last straw for some of his colleagues and they bail out of respect for him even if he is unwilling (or unable?) to do so for his own pride.

The MC

Chadette is still fighting against cancer, and some days are much worse than others. Chad had started living with her recently, and occasionally comes into work late because he is helping to get her sons to school.

For this next part, it's important to understand that most IT employees enter the building through a side entrance that is closest to the server room. It is immediately adjacent to a stairwell, and only leadership and IT have access to badge through the door. For this reason it is generally a low traffic area.

One day, Chad arrives late from dropping off Chadette's sons and finds Mr. Wheatley standing on the other side of the door waiting for him. It is very deliberate. It is at this point that he drops a quip that is stunning, even with his well-entrenched reputation for being a shiteater.

"You know, at some point, you really need to think about what is more important..."

Chad is stunned into silence with disbelief for a moment. Did he hear that correctly? He knows that Mr. Wheatley is aware of the extenuating circumstances, so is it actually possible that he just said that out loud? It takes a moment to process, but Chad was given his name for a reason in this story, and he has balls of steel.

"OK"

Chad turns right back around, walks back to his car, and drives home. Message received, motherfucker.

When Chad doesn't show up to work the next day, it probably begins to sink in with Mr. Wheatley the extent to which he just fucked up. Particularly since the only person who is good at wrangling the phone system has ditched -- arguably the most important person in callcenter ops. To his credit (unless it was because something broke), he waits two weeks before he finally gives Chad a call on his cell. Wheatley plays it cool with Chad and starts with making small talk, completely ignoring the elephant in the room. Everyone is cordial. Once Mr. Wheatley has a good sense for the temperature and determines that hands are not going to emerge from his phone and repeatedly slam his face into a wall, he finally broaches his main reason for calling.

"So, when do you think you're coming back to the office?"

Chad could get justifiably quite angry here, but he's already thought this through ahead of time.

"That was my notice." click

A few months later, I'm hanging out with Chad and Chadette at their house and this story is relayed to me over showing him BlazBlue multiplayer on PS3. They were awesome people who deserved each other, and I couldn't be more proud of how he chose her over one of the biggest workplace douchebags I've ever had the displeasure of encountering.

Bottom finally quit sometime after this if I have my timeline straight. Poor Bottom. :( Eventually there was a near full turnover of everyone who had been in the IT department since before Mr. Wheatley joined the company, and he got grilled for it. Lamprey was still there because, well, he's a goddamn lamprey.

tl;dr

IT "enthusiast" with partial ownership in company has a VP position created for himself over IT department, erects a hegemony of asskissing around himself, demotes a director twice until he is no longer a manager at all, lays off an employee expecting a baby with no notice. Douche canoe finally gets his comeuppance when the most vital ops employee quits without notice after being told to choose between work and his girlfriend with two sons and cancer. Eventually there is a full turnover of IT, minus the sycophant who got promoted for his asskissing. Get fucked, Mr. Wheatley.

Edits: Neglected to mention that there had been a full turnover of IT under Mr. Wheatley's watch, minus Lamprey. Age of Blazblue on PS3 used to better approximate when this happened. Importance of MC wielder's job function.

I've been lurking on the reddit sub for many years, but I finally have a story I'm excited to tell!

This is a story from a few years back, before the world went to shit.

I was working for a company that was mid-sized. We traveled a lot to meet clients, and had an expense policy. But because it wasn't a huge company, the expense policy was more of a guideline than a strict rule. Everyone knew each other, and we all acted sensibly.

I was supposed to attend a client meeting overseas in the UK. This was a somewhat last-minute request, and I had a personal vacation planned a few days after - also to Europe, but a different country. When I started looking up flights for the client meeting, I realised that instead of paying for my flight back home, it was cheaper for the company to just pay for a flight to bring me to my vacation destination. The catch was, I had an interval of 2 days between my vacation and the meeting - and I would need a hotel room paid for as well.

In the past, I would've just told my boss and he'd be ok with it. But the company had hired a HR director 2 months back. So I presented my plan to my HR director. I showed them the cost of flying me back home, compared with the cost of paying for 2 nights in a mid-level hotel while I worked remotely, and then flying me straight to my vacation. The latter would save them a fair bit of money - and as a bonus, I cut down on travel time.

The HR director didn't take kindly to my proposal, and accused me of trying to "game the system" to get 2 extra vacation days. He scolded me for taking advantage of the company, and told me to follow the expense policy "to the letter".

Did I mention that our expense policy wasn't very well written, and was more of a guideline than a strict rule? One example was the section on land transport. I can't remember the exact wording, but it said something like "we will cover the cost of flights to the nearest airport and subsequent car transport".

Most of us knew the spirit of the policy, and we'd fly in to a reasonably near airport and take a train or cab. Sometimes that meant flying in to a hub that was further. In this case, it would have been way cheaper to fly to London and take a train to the client's city for about $50. But hey, the HR director said to follow the policy "to the letter", didn't he?

I booked a flight to the nearest airport. It was literally twice the price of a flight to London - and we're talking thousands of dollars here. But hey, I'm just following the policy. Instead of taking a train to the city centre for $5 or less, I also took a cab, which turned out to be $40 or so. Gotta follow the policy, which doesn't cover trains!

When I came back from my vacation, I found out that my expenses had been flagged (no surprises there, it was way beyond what previous visits cost). I was called in to speak with the HR director about the issue. I simply pointed out to him that I had not been following the expense policy to the letter in the past, and I had learnt my lesson after the last time I spoke to him, so this time round I religiously followed the policy, and I would continue to do so in future.

HR had to spend a few weeks rewriting the policy. Because my expenses were out of the norm, the HR director had to get our CFO's approval to cover part of my expenses so they didn't have to explain it to the client. The CFO was pissed at the HR director for breaking something that had worked for years. I left after a year or so, but I heard the HR director was slowly pushed out and left a few months after me.

To understand the context: this happened around 15 years ago, when automation was still somewhat new.

I was working as a sales representative. My teams consisted of 2 people: me and C. We had a competition with other teams across the business and I was determined to win as the price was quite a nice bonus. Our job: who had the most sales won. There was a second price of who reached the most customers.

I was determined to win so I thought what I could do best to make sure me and C were most efficient and came up with some simple automation solutions (simple excel macros) and templates, that would decrease our time to type and generate a customer offer from around 15 minutes / offer to 2 minutes. Also I realised I was better at admin stuff and C was better at talking with people. So for 6 months we were amazing. C was taking order after order from new and established clients, I was processing them. I was finding new potential clients and passing over the list to C to contact them. I was still taking orders myself but only from established clients as I had no time to create rapport with new ones. We were taking and processing around 25 orders/ day between ourselves. We were the best team by far.

But we didn’t win. We were disqualified due to my automations because they considered them cheating. C got mad at me and told me that my automations caused us to loose, and he could achieve the same high number even without them. So I decided to stop using my automations, and to stop processing both of our orders. I was doing about 7 orders/ day now, C was doing around 9. I was leaving work at 5, C would work overtime until half 7.

After 2 months of this I was pulled in a meeting by the Sales Director to discuss my teams decrease in productivity and motivation. I told him it is caused by me not using my automations. His reply was that young people are always looking at a screen thinking it could solve their issues. He also reprimanded me when for not having team spirit and not working overtime (unpaid) to help C. Hearing that, I started laughing hysterically and couldn’t stop. It got so bad that the Sales Director got a panicked looked on his face and started scrambling for a glass of water hoping the cold water would help calm me down. It didn’t. I gave my immediate resignation and left out the company building still laughing. The receptionist couldn’t understand what was going on with me leaving and laughing and later told me I looked like a crazy person in that moment.

I blame the stress of that situation…

A few years ago I was working as an international buyer for a manufacturing company.

My boss was a difficult woman to work with as she would jump to insults and would make you feel small and insignificant, but the pay and the benefits were good compared to the rest of the market.

It was a large company that could forecast their orders with at least 3 months in advance. When the orders got processed, they were being sent out to the Production Planning Team and to the Buying Team. My job was to make sure the Production Dept was constantly supplied with the necessary materials so they could continue their work. My orders were stable with very few fluctuations in them so it was mostly the same order repeated to the supplier each month.

The conflict started when I noticed in our warehousing software goods from my suppliers appearing on overstock, a 8 months worth of overstock, millions of euros, which should’ve been impossible. I tried flagging it with my boss who concluded that it was my job to manually check the stock in the warehouse. I did, for 3 days, manually checked box by box. The pieces weren’t there. I tried flagging it with my boss again, trying to explain that it has to be a bug in the system. She called me a dumb cow who can’t count. She sent me again in the warehouse to manually count everything, but since I was a stupid cow who couldn’t count, I was given a helper. We each started to count from different sides of the warehouse, box by box. Checked the numbers after: our counts were off by one box. We both went to my manager to tell her that the materials weren’t in the warehouse and it was an error in the system.

She went mental, pulled me in a HR meeting, and started complaining about me. I signed my resignation, but they asked for a 2 weeks notice so I agreed.

First day:

My boss had me cancel all future orders from our suppliers and to cite us having an overstock as being the issue.

Made a stuffy manual for my replacement

Second day:

Called all carriers and told them to hold the goods they had in their warehouse due to be delivered for as many weeks as they can (and to invoice my company for warehousing), since with 8 months overstock they couldn’t possibly fit anything else in their warehouse, right?

Called all my internal contacts and told them what happened. Called the helper I received to count the materials and told him to have his count ready to be sent out to the Financial Director at a message notice.

Third day:

Got my replacement trained in everything. My stuffy manual had 250 pages. She was “trained” in most of it that one day and had the manual for the rest. My replacement got also warned by my colleagues regarding my manager’s tendencies to yell and insult. She was expected to start the next day and do everything on her own from start. She resigned at the end of the day.

Fourth day:

My manager got straddled with my responsibilities since my replacement bailed. I spent my time writing a nice report for the Financial Director.

At the end of the day my boss came over and told me since she has been doing all the work herself then she doesn’t want to see my face around the office anymore. I wished her well and on my way out sent out my report to the Financial Director and my colleague sent in his counting paperwork.

I wish I was a fly on the wall the following Monday when they realised they had zero material for the week to work with, or for the following week, or the one before. They also got high snow for a week or so and the trucks couldn’t reach them.

I got a phone call a few months later from a higher up manager to discuss with me the possibility to return to work for them. I asked them what happened and I found out my boss got sacked.

After I left, the following Monday Production flagged the lack of materials with my boss. She tried contacting the suppliers but she was told that the orders had been cancelled due to us having an overstock. She tried contacting the suppliers, and they told her they had no empty truck to deliver since all of our orders have been put on hold, so they got re-assigned. The factory was shut for a month due to weather events and lack of goods, they lost customers so the upper management decided to call in an investigation. My report, my colleague’s, the testimonials from colleagues and suppliers, together with my (erased by boss but recovered by sys admin) email proved there was a leadership issue within the team.

[REPOST]

My father died on Father’s Day 2012. He was divorced and living alone, and I am an only child. So that means that I had to wrap up all of his affairs. This story centers around us trying to get his utilities canceled.

I called in to see what we had to do to get them to cancel. The lady I spoke with on the phone said to send in his certified death certificate. I sent in the certified copy of his death certificate the next day. The next month got another bill. I called again and a new woman answered. She said that because I wasn’t on the account that she had to speak with the account holder. I informed her that the account holder was dead but she wouldn’t budge. I had to make an appointment with a supervisor so she could speak to him herself in person.

I showed up at the board of public utilities with another death certificate and HIS ASHES IN THE CLEAR BAG that they returned his remains in. I plopped them down on the center of her desk and said when she talked to him to tell him that I loved him for me. The woman went pale, flew out her chair, and called the cops.

When they showed up she claimed that I had assaulted her. And yes my dads remains were still sitting in the middle of her desk with the death certificate. The cops questioned me as to why I would do that. I told them the story. The supervisor’s boss was called in and they all stepped away from the desk for a private talk. While they were talking the cops came over to talk to me. They said that I shouldn’t take human remains out in public, but there was no laws that were broken. I said that I agreed with them that it was extreme, but she insisted to speak with him in person. By then they were done talking between themselves. The supervisor’s boss kissed up to me and got it taken care of.

But the story isn’t over yet! I had to call back a few days later to get utilities back to the house in my name. When the person on the phone saw the address and my name, I was immediately put on hold. The supervisors boss that finally helped me got on the phone. She sucked up to me and waived all of the fees that come with setting up utilities. Just as the call was ending, she informed me that she was again so sorry for the employees lack of compassion. She said that the employee was terminated and again she is so very sorry.

TLDR: Ignorant employee asked to speak to dead dad. Had a meeting in person, brought his ashes, got her fired.

[REPOST]

Happened this morning. Even though I made a complete and full stop at a 4 way stop, I get pulled over by a police vehicle, lights flashing, the works. I turn my dash cam around to face me and whomever goes in front of the driver side window.

I roll it down and ask "what seems to be the problem officer?" Officer looks at me the way one would look at a sticky piece of gum stuck to the bottom of one's shoe. "You didn't make a complete stop." he says. I adjust one of my hearing aids (lost part of my hearing due to being a touring session musician previously) and before I could speak, he firmly orders "Sir, take off your earphones when I'm talking to you!"

I take both hearing aids off and look at him. I can read lips a little but we're both masked so I can't understand what he's saying. I communicate in sign language simultaneously while speaking verbally "I'm deaf and I didn't understand what you just said. Can you communicate to me in ASL (American Sign Language) please. He points at my hearing aids that look like Apple Air Pods, motioning me to put them on. I respond "Yes officer, without those I can only communicate in ASL. Please instruct me in ASL and I will be compliant in every possible way".

He looks at the dashcam that's neatly pointed squarely at us and mumbles "For fuck's sake". He then motions for me to to go, giving me 2 thumbs up. Needless to say, I rolled up the window and drove away as fast as legally allowed.

Couldn't wipe the smile off my face all day, Lol.

[REPOST]

As part of the plan to return to office post covid, my company has done a lot of re-designating of who can permanently work from home, who can hybrid, etc. I really wanted to work from home full time. I hate the office with a burning passion - it's distracting, it's a long commute, there's no benefit to being there, so on and so forth. I'd just rather be at home.

Well when we thought May was going to be go back to office time they started giving out the new designations. I got designated as in office full time. It made no sense to me. I work on a team of 8 people and each of us is in a different office somewhere in the country. I've literally never been to an in person meeting or needed to do in person work in 3 years at this company. Every single other person on my team got designated to work from home. So I brought it up with my boss and asked to work from home. When I started at this company and lived elsewhere I got to work from home for 4 months before I moved and the past 14 months during covid have been at home, so 18/36 months at the company have been WFH. What I was told is that I go idle too often in chat to trust to work from home.

Basically we have a company wide IM system that shows you as available, idle, or in a meeting. If you don't touch your keyboard for 5 minutes you show as idle. So they've decided to use this as a measure for who is working and who isn't. The thing is, like many people in many types of jobs, I don't have shit to do for a full 8 hours every single day. The amount of work I have to do on a typical day takes 3-5 hours of actual attention. There simply isn't something to do ALL the time. My performance numbers actually went up working from home, by all objective KPI numbers I'm a better worker at home. In fact, in the KPIs that I don't flat out lead the team in, I come in second. There isn't work to do that I'm neglecting or procrastinating, when something comes up I simply do it until it's done or until I can't do anymore due to waiting on someone else then stop. And I've done that method long enough that my work queue stays empty because I worked to get my queue down to the point where when something comes up I can immediately address it and be done with it. But because I have other ways to spend my time in down time instead of messing around online at my cube pretending to be working meaning I show idle more often, I'm a worse worker apparently. I was told if it weren't for that they would let me work at home.

So I wrote a 6 line powershell script that virtually inputs the period key every 4 minutes that starts running every day at 8am and stops at 5pm. So now I literally never go idle. I do the same amount of work and still read books, watch tv, and play video games on the side. But I have a shiny green check next to my name all day.

Because of covid complications they eventually said no going back until after labor day. I just had a meeting with my boss and he said over this time they've noticed I go idle a lot less than I used to so they're changing my designation to work from home, all because of a little icon in some software. This concludes my TED talk on why low to middle level managers are the dumbest, most useless do-nothing positions in all of corporate America

EDIT: I do not need to be told to buy a mouse jiggler for the 30th time. I'm aware of what they are. This cost me no money and achieves the same thing. Why would I pay to achieve an effect I've already achieved for free?

EDIT 2: A lot of people are understandably asking for the script:

$dummyshell = New-Object -com "Wscript.shell"
$dummyshell.sendkeys(".")

That's the backbone of the whole thing. There's different ways to implement it with for loops or scheduled tasks or whatever, that parts up to you, but that's all the powershell needs at it's core to accomplish this. A lot of people have pointed out that sending Insert or F13 instead of period would be better so change that up if you want.

To all the people commenting that I'm a shitty employee and obviously trying to insult me over it: I wish I could make you feel just how little I care. To all the people implying a work day isn't valid if you aren't at 100% capacity from 8 - 5, keep it up, you truly are an ideal employee...to them. Enjoy the taste of leather, bootlickers

Edit 3: Some of y’all would be pissed as fuck if I explained the concept of firefighters to you

[REPOST]

I worked at a company that gave out exorbitant amounts of vacation. Anyone who worked there for 25+ years received 8 weeks of vacation and 2 weeks of personal time. This was a family owned company, but rather large. We ran 3 shifts totaling 250+ people.

Enter Jimmy. Jimmy was a grissled old man, he started at the company when he was just 20, now he was 63 and gave absolutely zero shits. Jimmy also knew how to make a specific part for our product, him and one other higher up in the office.

One day the plant owner comes out and announces he's selling to a corporation. He's older and ready to retire, he promises that there will be very little change and wishes us all well.

The new company comes in and immediately goes after many of the great benefits we had. The first thing they do is cut everyone's max vacation down to 4 weeks, and do completely away with personal time. Anyone who's maxed out had until December 31st of that year to use it up, and they wouldn't pay it out. They then go into the office and clean house, firing anyone who's close to retirement. Including Jimmy's back up.

But they also do away with one very important rule. You no longer have to get vacation approved, you can just call in and take it.

Jimmy is pissed, and they know it. They realize he's the only one in the building that can do his job now. So they hire a new kid for him to train, most likely to permanently replace Jimmy. So Jimmy does what anyone would do. He calls in the first training day for the new hire, and lets us know he's going to use all of his PTO at once, and promptly takes 10 weeks off.

We had a back stock of parts he had made, so it wasn't too unnerving. But for 10 weeks, Jimmy went and applied to other jobs, found one, and started.

Fast forward 10 weeks, Its the day Jimmy is supposed to return. He doesn't. For two days they try calling him, and even go to his house. He's nowhere to be found. Finally on day three he calls and resigns, and they lose their shit. The parts he makes are specialized and patented by the original founder, you can't just hire someone off the street to make them. What eventually happened was they had to contract the original owner to come in a teach some new hires how to make them, and when he found out what all they had done it pissed him off. The last I heard he charged them a 7 figure contract to teach them how to produce the parts, and they had to pony up, or close down.

Moral of the story, don't fuck with people's vacation time.

Edit: Jimmy made and electronic control module that was sealed and stayed fixed in a poured unit made of a two part epoxy.

Edit #2: Jimmy didn't exactly "Miss out" on a seven figure contract and had zero chance to take one. He left, said fuck em and moved on. When they contacted the previous owner and explained the situation it was basically a "you need my help? It'll cost 1mil." Type of conversation.

Thanks for building up this community here! I used to love reading it on reddit. I have a story from many years ago, I'm not a good storyteller but I'll try!

I used to work in a motel. Some guests are chatty, some are just curt. That's fine, some people came off a long drive and just want to sleep, I completely understand. But some people were just plain rude for no good reason.

I was doing an overnight shift when a man came to check in. I could already tell he wasn't nice by the way he threw his ID on the counter. When I was processing his reservation, he was tapping his fingers on the counter constantly. His assigned room happened to be pretty far away from the main lobby. Once I gave him his keycard, he took a look at the room and said "this room is too far away. I want a room that's nearer.

I checked the system, but we were pretty full up that night and there wasn't anything closer, not even if I cleared him for an upgrade. I told him we had no rooms that were closer, and he starting cursing at me. "Come on, look harder, don't be stupid, you didn't even try". Ok, rude again but whatever. I know how to use the system and I can see we have nothing left, but I pretend to click around a bit (sometimes that helps calm people down) and say "sorry, no, there really isn't anything". He cursed me and went to get his bags from the car.

I saw him unload a few bags. He struggled a bit and tried to carry everything, but finally he gave up and left one bag on the ground beside his car.

As he walked past my counter, i started to ask him if he needed any help with his bags. Mind you, it's a motel and we don't have porters so I was just being nice. I pointed at his bag outside and started to speak. I got as far as the word "Sir" when he cut me off and said "don't touch my bag!" Well alright then, I wasn't in a particular hurry to anyway.

I had other things to do, so I forgot about this until a few hours later. When I came back, I realised that his bag was still there. He'd forgotten about it.

Well, he said not to touch it, didn't he? Not my problem then. To make matters worse, it rained for a bit that night. Not a heavy downpour, just a bit of a drizzle for a few hours. But that was enough to drench the bag.

When the guy came out for breakfast next morning, he didn't even realise he'd forgotten his bags. I was handing over my shift and my colleague was asking me about the bag outside. The man saw my colleague pointing and his eyes widened in between bites of cereal. "THAT'S MY BAG!" he roared as he ran out.

When he came back in, dragging a bag that was thoroughly drenched, he started yelling at my colleague and me. He's never seen such irresponsible staff, he's gonna complain, etc etc.

I muster up the sweetest smile I could and said "Oh I'm so sorry sir. You told me specifically not to touch it last night, so I did my best to keep an eye on it for you."

I had a really enjoyable drive home that day.

So I once made the mistake permitting a client to store some (say a dozen) boxes of financial records in my home for a couple of weeks. By 'permit', I mean they just dumped them there, and I didn't physically restrain them from leaving. This is in Vietnam, where you are required by law to keep your corporate records for 35 years. The government already had a copy of these records, this was the company's copy. It's things like tax invoices, contracts, audits, expenses, and so on -- you hold on to them to protect yourself from incorrect claims.

Two weeks turned into over a year, they had accumulated quite a collection of unpaid invoices, and I had halted all work for them long ago. Needless to say, I was not pleased with the boxes all over my house and the lack of responses about it. As you may know, in Vietnam our houses are not so big -- I think mine is under 25 square meters. So this was beyond absurd.

Eventually, I was gloriously told "to just do whatever", in writing. So rather than go to the dumpster, I sold the boxes of paper to a scrap dealer for VND 10,000 (about USD 0.50 at the time). Not because I'm petty or anything -- it's important to recycle and save the planet, right?

Fast forward a couple of years, I see their company license has been revoked -- they failed to pay some tax or other. Probably because they didn't keep any records to work out what taxes to pay...

If the director ever steps foot in the country again, newer laws permit the authorities to withhold their passport until taxes are paid -- and the authorities can quote any amount they want, since they have the only copy of the financials :)

I see no need to volunteer that particular piece of information. Time makes fools of us all, but some people faster than others.

[REPOST]

Several years ago I worked front desk at a privately owned hotel (non-chain) that had been a Days Inn five years prior.

The only way to book a reservation was to talk to the front desk staff. No online reservations, no third party reservations. About 50% of our rooms were sold to walk ins.

One holiday weekend we are booked full. Our elderly elevator is having some trouble with all the traffic and spooking guests so I close it and call for a repair man but it's 10 o'clock at night so I'm not expecting anybody until the next morning. All of our guests are checked in, our accessibility rooms are on the same floor as the lobby, so I'll just help out anyone with their luggage if they have more and put up a sign saying so.

In walks a woman I don't recognize from check-in. She plops a piece of paper in front of me and then goes and gets lots of luggage. The paper shows her with a reservation at Days Inn at this address for tonight for a tenth the price we were selling before being fully booked. She comes back to the desk likely thinking that I have been checking her in all this time.

"I regret to inform you that we do not accept third party reservations; we are unfortunately are already booked for the night"

"I have a reservation! It's right there! I paid good money for it!"

"Ma'am, I believe you, unfortunately you are not in our system because we don't take third party reservations. They sold it to you fraudulently."

"You are just trying to steal my money! I have a confirmation number right there! I handed it you."

"Yes ma'am you handed me a reservation to a Days Inn. We are [hotel name], gesturing to a sign"

All of the signage inside and outside the building is correct.

"Also, this is for a fourth floor room, we only have three floors."

"I stayed at this DAYS INN last year on the fourth floor!"

This argument continues for a while with me keeping my cool, informing her that we are booked, all of our rooms are full, me insisting that we don't have a fourth floor, not Days Inn, don't take third party reservations, etc. Eventually she screams at me that I am going to take her to her room on the fourth floor, that she paid for, right now! I don't respond, just stare at her with a blank face until she slaps the desk and screams "Now!" again.

I don't mime making a room key, but I do grab my huge key ring and we both load ourselves up with her excessive luggage and climb the stairs. Once we get to the third floor I gesture to the third floor sign and tell her it is the third floor. I then use my maintenance key to unlock the door to the maintenance stairs which are not lit and she trudges up behind me not saying anything. I open the floor to the tarred roof and walk outside. "and here is the fourth floor, I hope it is as nice as the last time you stayed here" I drop her luggage and go down the stairs back to the front desk.

Honestly, had she been nicer to me I would have tried to help her get a room at a different hotel and submit documentation to try and get her a refund (or charge back) from the third party but since she screamed at me I left her and her luggage on the roof. Plus, she insisted she had stayed on the fourth floor, so that's what she got.

EDIT: There was an option at the bottom of the stairs to go straight outside inside of coming by the front desk. I didn't see her again and she wasn't there when I went to lock the roof back up on my midnight rounds.

[REPOST] Years ago, I was the CTO of a software company that was perhaps the worst run company I've ever seen. It was run by a "chairman" who used to be a flight engineer, and who had no experience at all in the software industry. One day, in his expansive wisdom, Mr. Chairman decided that we were going to give his friend (a local pastor) an office. I was ordered by Mr. Chairman to make it impossible for anybody ("Even you!!!") to access any of Mr. Pastor's files (because, y'know, privacy and stuff). I attempted to point out a couple of problems with that scenario, but was immediately shut down and ordered to do what I was told.

Now, this particular person had... well, let's call it a quirk. When anything went wrong with his computer, his solution was to format his C: drive. (Yeah, I know...) The inevitable happened, and Mr. Chairman ordered me to restore all of Mr. Pastor's files from the backup (which we normally did... ahem... religiously). I looked at him innocently and said "What backup?" It took possibly five seconds for steam to begin pouring from his ears, and for him to start screaming, "YOU MEAN YOU DIDN'T DO A BACKUP??? WHY YOU....!!!!" and so on. I waited for him to finish, and then asked him politely how he proposed that I do a backup of files that I'm not allowed to have any access to? The silence that followed was glorious.