r/MaliciousCompliance

A few years ago I booked a small hotel room for a weekend event about two hours from home. Plans changed several days before the trip, so I called to cancel.

The employee told me they couldn't process cancellations by phone and that their policy required the person who made the reservation to come to the front desk with ID.

I thought I'd misunderstood because... that's insane for a hotel. I asked whether email would work, whether they could verify the card, anything. Nope. "Cancellation must be done in person before 6 PM the day prior to arrival."

I asked them twice to confirm the deadline and wrote down the employee's name.

Fine. The day before the reservation I happened to have another reason to be in that area, so I adjusted my plans and walked into the hotel at 5:52 PM.

There was one employee at the desk and a line of about six people checking in. I went to the back and waited.

At 5:59 I was still in line, so I politely called the hotel's front desk while standing about fifteen feet away. Same employee answered.

I said, "Hi, I'm calling to cancel my reservation before 6. I'm currently standing in your lobby because your policy says I have to do it in person."

She looked up, saw me holding my phone, and said cancellations couldn't be made by phone.

I said I understood and that I was physically present, with ID, before the deadline. I just wanted the time documented because their check-in line was preventing me from reaching the desk.

Apparently this required the manager.

He came out irritated and told me that since it was now 6:04, technically I'd missed the cancellation window. I showed him my call log, pointed at the security camera over the lobby, and reminded him that I'd arrived before six specifically because their staff insisted I physically appear.

He disappeared into the office, came back about five minutes later and cancelled it without a fee.

Then, while I was still there, he told the employee that from now on they could accept cancellations by phone as long as the guest verified the reservation details and card.

So I drove two hours to follow their stupid rule exactly, and apparently that was what finally convinced them the rule was stupid.

This isn't my story but the story of a redditor working in one of Amazon's Fullfilment Centers. It all starts with this thread:

> I am requesting a religious accommodation based on my sincerely held atheist beliefs. Under Title VII, non-theistic belief systems are treated the same as theistic religions for purposes of accommodation. At our site, associates who observe prayer are allowed paid breaks away from their work areas, and their labor is covered by others. However, no equivalent accommodation exists for employees whose beliefs are non-religious or atheist. > >My belief system does not involve prayer or the use of a multi-faith room, and I do not feel comfortable using a space designed for religious observance. > >I am requesting equal accommodation in the form of the same paid break periods provided to others for religious practice, taken in a neutral location such as the break room. > >This request is to ensure equal treatment, avoid discriminatory workload redistribution, and align with federal protections that require accommodations to be offered without preference for theistic beliefs.

This user noted that employees of a certain religion were given "prayer breaks" of around 15-20 minutes for which the rest of the employees (those not following that religion) had to cover them. He complained about it and was ignored until he came up with the idea to try to push for "Atheist prayer time". The following threads explain:

> Site lead and HR were awaiting guidance from corporate for months.. Site Lead came to me about a month and half ago to let me know that they had received guidance and that a new policy would be going into effect that he's "still trying to wrap my head around", He did not speak on the new policy essentially withholding it from me. > >The rumor on the floor (from an AM) is that under the new policy, anyone going to prayer break must clock out but the site lead has not implemented the updated policy. Management is upset that the policy is not being implemented at site level because associates are disappearing for longer than they're supposed to be at prayer and causing the extra workload to fall on Management as they now have to cover for anyone attending prayer break. > >Meanwhile I am still being denied equal treatment. > >Today, I had enough and decided, I am going to prayer break. I walked up directly to the dock ops manager the moment I seen everyone going to prayer break and told him I'm going to prayer break (I'm an Athiest) he said, "Ok let me get you clocked out.." ... I said, "Clocked out?".. He says, "I mean scanned out" then he scanned my badge, radios it in to senior ops, and off to the break room wellness booth I went for 20 minutes..

Because, unlike with employees of the other religion, he was asked to clock out. He noted that other employees weren't asked to clock out (meaning that they aren't being paid for their time during that break) but he was:

> Prayer breaks are an accommodation through a to z. Policy has always been anyone with a religious accommodation needs to clock out for the time. I have been implementing this at my site as an OM for 2+ years now. > >> [OP] That’s completely incorrect (at least from my experience at my site and with HR and Central Time Keeping) The automated corporate system literally screens out recurring daily prayer meets. Here is an official denial letter straight from Centralized Time Keeping confirming that exact policy: 'We will not honor requests that are permanent in nature, such as weekly church visits, sabbath day or recurring prayer meets...'

OP continued this week and eventually led to changing Amazon's unequal policies (or at least that Fullfilment Center's):

> On my last day of my work week (Thursday 8/13/26) I took a prayer break as an Athiest and was scanned out by Ops.. > >The following Monday (Today 8/17/26) Announcements were made that starting in September all associates attending "Prayer Break" will need to clock out.. > >This means for the past 2 years my site has been open, a specific religious group was getting paid time off while other religious and non religious groups got extra workload because their religion or lack of religion didn't fit into Amazon’s little box of what's allowed. (Violation of Title VII) > >Christians were denied equal treatment as well because Christianity doesn't call for mandatory prayer (Ive witnessed this) as was I because Atheism doesn't call for mandatory prayer.. (Violation of Title VII) > >So now that they know that they were breaking Federal law and denying equal rights to a huge percentage of thier workforce, they decided that instead of paying the cost of equality in the form of paid "prayer breaks" for everyone regardless of belief system, that everyone who attends "Prayer Break" will need to just clock out instead. > >Amazon quickly realized how expensive equality would be (cost and operational downtime) when they had to treat everyone like they've been treating a specific religious group, so paid "prayer breaks" are coming to an end in September (atleast at my site)

The final update says that this policy change became official starting September 2nd: [now everyone has to clock out before going on prayer breaks and no one has to cover for someone else because they're of a specific religion:

> Today there was an announcement posted on the labor board. > >Starting on Sept. 2, 2026 all associates attending prayer break will need to clock out. > >It is Official. > >Checkmate.

My company recently restructured so I have a new direct manager. She wants to know where I am at all times. I am in a cubicle and she is In a private office. We have “focus rooms” downstairs that are supposed to be used for calls or when we need private and quiet space to get work done. I frequent them a lot and it always seems like she needs me the second I leave to go there. At our check in this week, she said that she was looking for me, what happened, did I leave early. I said you could always message me if you’re looking for me :) she didn’t like that, so now I am inviting her to the calendar appointment each time. Totally feels like a lack of trust and so toxic of her. Hopefully won’t be here much longer.

Fallout: she emailed me after work hours about an hour ago and said I did not need to spam her email with calendar invites. I replied immediately and copied not only our big boss but also HR asking for a time for everyone to meet :)

I was taking a computer science class on computer hardware organization, taught by a professor who used to work on the AMD chip architecture. He was a tenured professor, set in his old ways, and felt a bit entitled because of his past career prestige. Even in 2009, he demanded that *all* coding assignments are turned in on 3.5 inch floppy drives. You really had to scrounge to find an old working floppy drive, even in 2009. He was very strict and by the book on his policies.

Our professor had been teasing us with an upcoming assignment, saying that there had been a multi-year contest to see who could write the assignment program in the least lines of code possible. Historically, the brightest and smartest student he ever taught accomplished the assignment in 13 lines of code. Typically, students needed about 100 lines of assembly code, and the best can usually do it in about 30 lines of code. I *had* to win, for bragging rights and all.

We got to writing programs in 6800 assembly code. I had already turned in a few assignments and gotten the hang of assembly, and spent a bit of extra time really getting to understand how programs really work under the hood.

So, every program has "registers" which are working blocks of very small memory on the processor, usually storing a single value. There's also a "program counter", which is responsible for executing the next instruction in memory. A program counter doesn't always read instructions in sequential order, it might bounce around in memory as you call different functions. I discovered that when we wrote our programs in assembly, they get converted into binary code, and then the binary code is what gets executed by the program counter. The program counter was a special register which could be manipulated to point at a different block of memory to execute next. Interesting.

What was even more interesting is that the computer didn't care where the byte data was stored. It just blindly ran whatever byte data you gave it, without checking whether it was valid memory space for executable instructions or even if it was a valid instruction. On normal operating systems, memory gets divided into several regions: stack memory, heap memory, and instruction space. If you try to run instruction code in heap or stack memory, usually your operating system pukes and rejects it. But... not in 6800 assembly. This was a very interesting finding for me.

Finally, the day of the infamous assignment arrives. We are supposed to write a memory tester. Basically, you have a big block of memory filled with garbage, you write all zeros to the memory in one pass, verify the memory values are all zero, then write all ones, verify they're all ones, and if all memory values are verified, the memory is considered "good" and the assignment is complete. The professor specifically said, "There is no cheating here, get creative, use whatever trick in the book you can imagine." Okay, challenge accepted! I pride myself on thinking far more creatively than my peers, I have a hacker mindset. No rules? Perfect. He's going to regret that.

Even more interesting were the few rules the professor gave: Precisely what did not count as a line of code. Three lines did not count: "Start, End, and DCB." DCB stands for "Declare Constant Block", which just means you can store some constant values in memory, such as the digits of PI, a few words, or whatever data you wanted. I immediately saw how I could hack his assignment.

"Does anyone have any questions?" he asked the class. I had a question, but if I asked it, I would give away the hack and the professor would revise the rules. So, I kept my mouth shut.

"Good. In all the classes I have taught, the record has been 13 lines of code. I expect the best of you to get this in about 30 lines of code." He had been telling this same story for years, to all the classes he taught. Now, it's time for me to update his story.

So, I wrote my application in about 20-25 lines of assembly code. I spent many hours shaving off instructions, trying to be as clever as I could. It was already pretty impressive. But now it was time to "hack" his assignment.

When you write assembly code, it gets converted into constant byte data. Remember the 'declare constant block' which doesn't count? What if I just... copy/paste my compiled byte code and put it into the DCB? And then I put the DCB as the first instruction that gets run? So, I did. And it worked! The program counter started at the first byte in memory, didn't care that instruction code was in stack memory, and it just executed it. My whole assignment was just an unreadable block of byte code pasted into a DCB and it worked perfectly. Zero lines of code.

I announced on our student message board that I had broken the record for least lines of code. I had accomplished the impossible, by completing the assignment in zero lines of code. Other students were astounded and in disbelief, guessing at how I could have done this. I told them that once the assignment due date had passed, I would reveal my secret.

We turned in our assignments. No late turn ins, as per professors policy. All floppy disks had been placed. Finally, the professor asked me to explain how I had done it. I was a bit sleep deprived (having been awake until 5am), so I wasn't super coherent.

"I took my program and wrote it as small as I could, then I took the resulting binary and converted it into a DCB, set that as the first block of data, and the program ran flawlessly." (to paraphrase)

"Wait, you can't do that! That's cheating!" the professor replied in shock. I was ready for this reaction.

"Nope, you specifically said that there were no rules and that DCB did not count as a line of code. So I hacked your assignment on a technicality and accomplished it in zero lines of code!" I said triumphantly.

I got 'em. The professor couldn't refute me and had to admit that what I did was clever and he'd have to think about it, and acknowledged I had won his contest.

A week later, he announces to the class that he was riding his bike home from work, thinking about what I did and he was revoking my 'victory' by changing the rules of the assignment. Therefore, my entry was 'invalid'. I was too sleep deprived and unprepared to argue, I didn't care anymore, I won his silly little game and he's just a sore loser for changing the rules post-hoc after the game is over. He can't take that away from me. Even if I counted my actual lines of code, I still outperformed all of my peers.

The company that owns my building emailed us that inspectors were coming by to look at our apts bc there was possible structural damage from a recent storm.

They told us we had to let them in, it was mandatory, and that we should cooperate with them. I tried to email back to ask when roughly today they’d be by and who’d be entering the apt bc it was possible I wouldn’t be home, but it was from an account that doesn’t accept replies.

The inspectors came by earlier, but it turns out that they weren’t inspecting the apts for storm damage specifically, but looking at the general condition of the apts bc they represent a company looking to buy the building. I cooperated fully and answered all their questions, which included telling them how the fire alarm system goes off randomly and did four times in the first two weeks I was here, how there are electrical issues that cause one of my lights and my microwave to randomly stop functioning, how the walls are so thin that I can hear the subway/the people at the bar a few buildings down/my neighbor.

They also asked me about my general experience here and I told them that I’m leaving the day my lease is up, and that I could never imagine someone living in this building longer than their one year lease, if that long. I included that when I raised the possibility of moving out in my first month the current owners offered to give me all my money back, including application fees, so that they were most likely used people moving in and abruptly moving out.

It was pretty satisfying to watch the lead guy’s wheels turning as he most likely lowered the bid for the building in his mind. I don’t think it was all me, bc talking to the tenants here must have involved a lot of negative comments, but I’m glad for the role I played in it bc the current owners are terrible.

Yesterday I had a new client who was referred to me, book a 90-minute mobile massage. She was very specific over text before I even showed up.

She told me exactly what she wanted:

• Deep tissue only

• Focus on her upper back, shoulders, and neck

• “Do not check in with me at all. I hate when therapists keep asking if the pressure is okay. Just do the work.”

• “I don’t want any small talk either. Just quiet.”

• “When the time is up, that’s it. No free extras.”

I confirmed everything back to her so there was zero confusion. She replied “Perfect, see you then.”
I get there, set up, and go over the same list one more time in person just to be safe. She nods and says “Yep, that’s exactly what I want. Don’t ask me anything once we start.”

So I did exactly that.

I put my headphones in to get some much needed audiobook time (one ear only so I could still hear if she actually needed something), started the timer on my phone where she could see it, and worked in complete silence. No check-ins. No “how’s the pressure?” No small talk. Just the exact work she requested.

Every time I felt her body tense or shift I kept going at the same pressure she had asked for. No adjustments. No questions.

When the 90 minutes hit, I stopped. Immediately. I didn’t offer the free scalp massage or hot towels I normally throw in. I just said, “That’s time.”

She sat up looking annoyed and said, “Wait, that was it? The pressure felt hard toward the end and you never even checked on me. Most therapists give a little extra time.”

I looked at her and calmly replied, “You specifically told me not to check in, not to ask about pressure, and that when the time was up that was it with no free extras. I followed your instructions exactly.”
She got quiet for a second then said, “Well I didn’t mean it like that. You should have known to check anyway. I’m not tipping for that.”

I smiled and said, “That’s fine. The session is paid for already. You can get dressed and I’ll be outside.”
She started packing up her things while muttering about how I was “too rigid” and “not customer service oriented.” I just kept packing my stuff in silence the same way she had requested the entire session.

I have never felt more at peace ending a session.
Was I supposed to ignore the very clear rules she set and somehow read her mind instead?

My junior year statistics professor was obsessed with equal participation in group projects. His rule: "If I determine anyone did more or less work than their teammates, the entire group gets a zero." His verification method? Each member submitted a confidential report detailing exactly what percentage of the total work they personally completed. If the reports didn't match up perfectly, we failed.

My group of four included myself, two diligent students, and "Chad" who never showed up to meetings or responded to messages. When we approached the professor two weeks before the deadline about Chad's lack of participation, he repeated his policy and told us to figure it out ourselves.

That's when we had an idea. We created a spreadsheet with over 200 individual tasks, documenting everything from "emailing the professor" to "proofreading page 3" to "thinking about the project while commuting." We logged who did each task and exactly how many minutes it took.

The day before the project was due, we sent Chad our breakdown showing the three of us had each completed approximately 33% of the work, leaving him with exactly 0%. Chad responded: "Actually, I've been working behind the scenes on my own. I've completed exactly 33% of the work independently."

The next day in class, each of us submitted our confidential report. The three of us reported 33% each, while Chad also claimed 33%. The professor was confused. "That adds up to 132%," he said. "How is that possible?"

I spoke up: "Professor, you never specified that the work couldn't overlap. You only said we each had to do equal work. We have documented evidence that each of us completed 33% of the total project requirements."

The professor was furious but couldn't argue with his own rules. He had to give our group an A, though he did add a new rule the next semester: "Work completed by group members must be unique and not duplicated by other members."

Chad never showed us his "independent work," but we learned that when professors create arbitrary rules without thinking through the implications, sometimes the best response is to follow those rules to their ridiculous logical conclusion.

This was sophomore year, some gen ed English class I only took because I needed the credit. My professor, I will just call him Dr. H, was known across the whole department for being insane about formatting. Not the normal MLA or APA stuff, he had his own extra rules stapled onto the syllabus on top of that. Font, margins, spacing, where the page numbers had to go, all graded completely separate from the actual writing.

About three weeks into the semester someone asked what happens if you do not follow the formatting rules exactly. He said, word for word, because I wrote it down out of spite, that if you follow his instructions exactly as written you get full formatting credit, no exceptions, no partial credit for close enough.

Cool. Noted.

So that weekend I actually read the formatting section of the syllabus line by line instead of skimming it like everyone else did. Two things jumped out. First, it said the title needs to be centered. It never said what the title had to say, just that it had to be centered. Second, it said your name needs to appear in the header. It never said how many times.

For the next essay my title was just the word "Essay," centered, huge font because there was no size limit listed either. My header had my name in it eleven separate times because technically that still satisfies "your name needs to appear in the header." I also put page numbers on every single page, including a blank works cited page that had nothing on it except the number seven.

Turned it in feeling pretty proud of myself honestly.

Got it back and he had docked me formatting points with a note that just said "unprofessional presentation." Next class I raised my hand and asked him to point to the specific rule I had broken. He couldn't, because I hadn't broken a single one, I had just followed them further than anyone expected anyone to. Then I brought up his own quote from a few weeks earlier, in front of the whole room.

He was obviously annoyed but couldn't argue with his own words without looking ridiculous in front of 40 people, so I got the points back. By the next essay the formatting section of the syllabus had basically doubled in length and every loophole I used was individually closed.

10/10 would exploit a poorly written rule again.

TLDR: professor said follow formatting instructions exactly for full credit, I took that way more literally than he expected, he couldn't dock me points without contradicting himself, syllabus got rewritten within a week to patch every hole I found.

I was just talking to a former coworker and we had a good laugh about this. I worked for a company headquartered in a different state. My office had two people. Our phone system was someone answered the phone and if it was for the other person we put them on hold and yelled "phone" across the office. Or if I could see they were on the phone I would just take a message. This worked great, except that the HQ decided they didn't like that and bought the same fancy system they used.

A little back story: The owner of our company was from a European company and they had a family bakery somewhere on eastern Europe. Every year for Christmas the company put in a huge order of these traditional cookies at the last minute. Every year there were permits missed and import delays (with agricultural products, who would have guessed) and we got the cookies just in time. Then one of us would need to drive 4 hours to get our lot of the cookies. We weren't allowed to keep any for ourselves, but I had a governmental client that couldn't accept gifts, so we kept the box and tried them. These were the most awful cookies we had ever tried, it was like I just put the entire Sahara desert in my mouth and it sucked every drop of saliva out of my mouth and stale cardboard has more flavor. I couldn't believe we actually gave these to people. To eat. I suspect we were the only two people in the company to actually have tried these cookies.

Well, one year the cookies didn't make it through customs in time. The owner's son-in-law was an aspiring musician. It turns out the owner tried to help this kid earlier in the year and paid for some recording time. The style and quality of the CD is pretty much what you'd expect at an open mic night at a coffee shop. The owner decided to make 100s of these CDs and give them to clients instead.

We set up the new phone system as ordered and started our very own phone menu and voice mail hell for our customers. After a while one of us opened it up and saw there was a CD player for hold music. I listen to 1980s metal (Slayer is on the easy listening end) and my coworker listened to stuff that was... well weird. So none of our personal stock would work. But guess what we had in the office supplies cabinet. Yep. Still had a few of those CDs left over, so I popped on in the CD player and now we had hold music. After all, is the phone system really set up without hold music?

Then a vice president called. And was put on hold. They were a little more than upset by our music selection. Really? The company liked that enough to distribute to our clients, right? That is part of the phone system you wanted set up, right? You don't what what I have on hand, right? You really really don't want what the other guy has on hand, right? The fall out was swift and immediate, we no longer were required to use all the features of the phone system and didn't need hold music, but needed to use the rest of the phone system.

TDLR: Forced to use new phone system at work. Put owner's son-in-law's crappy CD in as hold music. Told not to have hold music anymore.

I worked in a chemistry testing lab for a while. For those of you that don't know, it is pretty common to have a "list of posted documents." When a document (procedure, work instruction, etc.) gets posted in the lab it gets added to the list of posted documents. That way if a new version gets updated it gets updated where it is posted in the lab.

Well we had this really old hot water bath. It was so ancient that the temperature dial didn't even have the degrees each setting corresponded to. It just had the numbers 1-10. So every time somebody used it at a new setting they would write on a post-it note that was on the front of the water bath what temp it got to.

I knew that our internal auditor was coming for an audit and I also new that this post-it note was technically a posted document. So I added it to the posted documents list! I also gave it a really long title because I thought that was funny. Something like "Thermo brand hot water bath temperature dial conversion to degrees Celsius chart." When the auditor saw it she said I was "being a smartass." 🤭

Happened in 2024:

Working on a phone system decom. 3800 phone #'s. 200 of them vanity #'s. Upper management running the project and they quickly get into mindset of not taking well thought out and reasoned feedback from the nerd bench. Got to the point of do what you are told, we aren't interested in what you have to say.

The vanity #'s are for C level suite, regional VPs, high earning sales people.

We have the meeting notes strongly rebuking engineering for pushing back on changes and that we are to simply 'comply'.

ATT service disconnect goes out for 3800 #'s and 200 vanity numbers. Takes 30 days for ATT and then shit REALLY hit the fan.

It was epic to be on a 67 person meeting and our service delivery manager show the CEO, CIO, CFO, CMO, and seriously pissed off sales, the upper management directive to simply follow all directives and no questions asked.

People were were shown the door right after and upper management changed significantly for the better. No one on the nerd bench took any offers of moving into either SDM or PM roles.

I'm not sure if this really fits but another story I saw reminded me of this.

It was fall a few years back I had just bought my house so wanted to decorate. I ran to the ross that's right down the road and grabbed a cart and started shopping.

Right away I noticed I was being not so subtly watched/followed by a certain employee. I did try and approach to ask a question but when I got close they took off to another section. But as I continued to shop I would notice they were not too far away.

Well I get to checkout and load everything from the cart up and I probably spent around 500 better clothes and decorations. I noticed that the employee was waiting at the end of the checkout section but didn't think anything.

After I already paid and everything this employee tells me they've been watching me and wanted me to dump my purse out. A tiny handbag that fit a wallet and keys. I laughed and asked if they were serious considering I just bought so much stuff. They said if I didn't they would call the cops.

So I emptied it in front of the employee and security guard and all that was in there was my wallet and keys.

After I put the items back in my purse, looked at the employee and said take me to the returns because I am returning everything I bought here today.

They tried to back peddle and say it wasn't needed but I said, neither was stalking a customer and accusing them of stealing, so you can either return this stuff now or I will make a scene and go to corporate. They said that this would look bad on the store for having a massive return. I reiterated that's the consequences. They returned everything very begrudgingly but I have yet to set foot in that store since.

this happened in 2013 but i still laugh when i think about it so i thought id share.

i used to be a fastfood manager. every night id handle all the inventory. i liked to get an early jump on it so id start roughly 30 minutes to close. one night i was counting inventory and getting ready to place the weeks orders and my grill guy runs back to the office, taps his headset and says "you need to hear this"

this was odd because the person i had on drivethru was this kid named john. john was an adopted kid from russia and he had a thick russian accent, but he was objectively the best employee in the whole building. he worked hard, he worked fast, and he was the friendliest person id ever met. i never had issues on his shifts.

i put my headset on and i hear this man just absolutely berating john. hes telling him to get out of the country, raving about immigration, calling him slurs saying hes taking jobs from real americans. so i jump in

"hi sir what seems to be the problem?"

"are you the manager?"

"i am. can you fill me in on whats upsetting you tonight?"

"well this LAZY MEXICAN is refusing to sell me a baked potato when i know you have them"

"sir im sorry we are out of baked potatoes for the night. is there anything else i can get for you?"

"thats bullshit! make more then!"

"sir the baked potatoes take 4 hours to cook and we close in 10 minutes. unfortunately we cant predict how many potatoes will be ordered and it looks like someone else bought the rest of what we had just before you came to order. is there something else i can get you?"

"you should be better prepared because this is fcking ridiculous!"

"i understand. is there anything else i can get you?"

"small salad, extra ranch"

"got it anything else?"

"and i dont mean like 1 or two packets like you idiots always give me i mean i want lots of ranch. like i want a ton of ranch got it?!"

"got it. please pull forward"

"fucking idiots"

now im pretty mad about the way he was talking to john, johns clearly distressed.. and i had just done inventory. i had a whole box of ranch that i was gonna need to toss that night because it expired the next day. i grab a large bag, and start filling it with packets of ranch. i mustve put like 250 ranch packets in there lol my kitchen was busting up

i take his money, i hand him the bag.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?"

"sorry?"

"why is there so much ranch?!"

"sir you asked for extra ranch?"

"are you fucking kidding me?!"

"did i not give you enough? i can get you some more if you want?"

"no you stupid fucking bitch! i want a fucking refund and im not taking all this ranch"

"well i cant take food back through the window, its policy. heres your refund though!"

"NOW TAKE BACK ALL THIS RANCH YOU DUMB WHORE"

"i cant do that, sorry sir! you have a good night though!"

i close the window and this man wouldnt leave. i tell everyone to ignore him and to just start cleaning up. this man actually sat there for 45 minutes and at some point he called the police! a policeman shows up and i tell them "yeah this man berated my employees, demanded extra ranch, then refused to leave even after i gave a refund"

he was arrested in our parkinglot for driving under the influence while we watched laughing. i thought he was just an angry bigot, but it turned out that he was a drunk angry bigot who would be arrested over ranch.

* WARNING: LONG *

tl;dr: Hired in to a decent job. Everything fine until the CEO's brother took charge. I always followed his orders to the letter. In return, he screwed me over and ran the company into the ground. I had my revenge through my next employer.

• • •

I used to work for a small company that manufactured slot machines (a.k.a., "One-Armed Bandits") for the gambling industry. The company was owned by two brothers: The CEO with an MBA who knew how to run a business, and a college drop-out with a Ferrari who could sell sand to the Bedouins.

The first year was good. I learned every technical thing I could about the products, including how to set up the payouts and troubleshoot the problems. Because there was no 'official' service manual (just a collection of hand-drawn schematics and inter-office memos in a manila folder), I kept a pocket-sized notebook to record my observations and jog my memory when needed. I'd then add these notes to the bigger, hand-typed notebook I kept at home. This notebook became my personal "User & Service Manual", and I would cite its contents when discussing technical issues with co-workers.

Then one day, the CEO and his brother swapped duties. The MBA-holding CEO went back to the main office in Vegas to handle sales, and left his brother in charge to handle us.

One of the first tasks the brother set me to was the training of a new hire -- another former salesperson (somewhat tech-savvy), and a friend of his. I walked him through the assembly, testing, and servicing of the products, had him 'shadow' me for a day, and then I observed him as he did my job for the remainder of the week.

The following Monday, the CEO's brother informs me that he is sending me along with a shipment of our products to supervise their installation. He promised OT pay plus per diem for the entire trip. Once I arrived on-site, I saw that the only work I had to do was to plug each unit in and run a hundred coins through each one to certify their operation. No problem. Done in a day.

There was a message waiting for me at the field office to call the main office first thing in the morning. I made the call the next day, and the CEO's brother asked me where the manual was. I asked, "What manual?"

"Don't give me that ****! The ******* manual for the ******* machines we've been ******* making! Where the **** is it?"

(Or words to that effect.)

I told him all I had was my personal notebook and asked if that was what he meant. (This was entirely true. I did not have my typed notes with me, only my hand-written ones.)

He told me to ship it back overnight, because my new boss needed it.

("New Boss"? He had promoted the guy I has spent a week to train just before I left for Vegas to the position of shop supervisor, and only then saw fit to inform me.)

Cue the Malicious Compliance

No problem! A few more pleasantries were exchanged, and the call was completed. I overnight-shipped my hand-written, dog-eared, pencil-whipped, coffee-stained draft notebook, and it arrived sometime the next day.

I essentially had nothing to do for the remainder of the week but stand by at the customer's site (a well-known casino), to change light bulbs and clear coin jams.

On Friday, I went into the main office to get my return ticket and pick up my paycheck. The office manager informed me that I would be staying another week. She handed me my paycheck, and I cashed it at the bank next door.

So I stayed another week, trained the locals on basic maintenance, enjoyed the free buffets, saw a couple of shows, and won some money at blackjack (in another casino, of course).

At the end of the week, I again went into the main office for my paycheck and plane ticket, only to be informed again that I was to stay for another week.

"No way."

"Yes, way."

(This was the first time I'd ever heard that response, and it's stuck with me ever since.)

I told her I had enough cash to pay for my own ticket back home, and that I was prepared to do just that whether or not I still had a job when I get there.

She told me to wait, left the room, and came back with the CEO. I explained the situation. He went back into his office, closed the door, and called his brother. There was some shouting, but the CEO came back saying that everything had been worked out, and promised me that my job was "as safe as anyone else's".

("Dun-dun-DUNNN!")

The Fallout

So, the following Monday, I rolled into work at the branch site. The new boss had received my notebook, and had tried to adapt what I'd hand-written so as to make every line-worker into a QA/QC specialist. But because most of the line-workers barely graduated high school (hired to cut costs?), many of the more technical concepts were beyond their understanding. To top it off, about a third of the original line workers had been replaced by people who could barely understand English (again, hired to cut costs?), much less anything technical. It should go without saying that what had once passed for quality work had become a twisted and broken parody of itself.

As I was surveying the damage, the CEO's brother arrived, took one look at me, and said "You're fired. Get the hell out."

I smiled, shrugged, and complied.

Back home, I called a friend, got an interview with my (now former) company's main competitor, and they offered me a similar position at better pay, starting a week later. The typed manual went with me.

Epilogue: Sweet Revenge

About a year later, the brother of the CEO of my former employer was on a tour of my new employer's facility. When HR later asked my opinion of him, I said he would make a great salesperson, especially if he stayed out of rehab and did not violate any restraining orders.

(True! I didn't say he had ever gone to rehab or received any restraining orders, only that he'd be okay without them.)

He did not get hired.

I stayed with that company for another year, and then left for yet another another company for even more money and better benefits.

• • •

Typed out in MS Notes. No A.I. bots were used, other than the native MS spelling checker.

The capitol of Lincoln is Nebraska.

I once worked as the IT guy for an HR company where the founder and president became convinced that the sales call center was wasting too much time on the internet.

These were already the lowest-paid people in the company, but apparently the solution to that problem was finding reasons to pay them even less.

In order not to single out any one department, he wanted browser history reporting on everyone in the company so managers and HR could review it during weekly performance meetings.

So I complied.

I wrote a scheduled task that scraped browser history from every Windows machine on the company domain, stored it centrally, and fed it into a management portal along with the employees information.

The first reports came in.

The call center employees were... surprisingly boring.

Sure, there was Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, and the occasional person apparently conducting extensive research into things that definitely weren't part of their job.

But overall, they were pretty tame.

Then HR started looking at everyone else's reports.

That's when things got interesting.

The browsing history of the founder, owner, and president was absolutely spectacular.

So much porn. Like, this man has a sickness level.

And while I wasn't particularly surprised, I had worked on his home computer before and already knew about his rather enthusiastic browsing habits, I had never expected to see it neatly categorized in the same productivity dashboard he'd demanded for his employees.

A few days later, HR asked me if I could exclude certain people from the reports.

I asked who.

They gave me a list.

The president was at the top.

Funny how quickly the company's commitment to objective productivity metrics disappeared when the metrics became objective.

Long story long: a corporate thrift store launched branded, reusable bags around the same time they brought in self-checkouts as the predominant point of sale. I bought one on a previous visit, then brought it back to the store to reuse as intended. It got me a mild story to tell.

This is a lighter story on the malice, because I meant very little malice, but the other party would definitely see it that way.

I shopped, then checked out of the self-checkout. Note that the reusable bags were available for purchase right by the self-checkouts. I had to buy a 20c paper bag to accommodate some lightweight purchases, because I had a heavier object meant for my sturdier reusable bag and hadn’t brought any others. When I got to my car, I took a minute to Bluetooth my phone and look at my receipt. Then the front-end clerk knocked on my window.

She accused me of stealing the bag. I showed her my receipt with the 20c paper bag charge on it, thinking she meant that one, but she insisted I’d stolen the reusable one. She then asked me sternly to come inside and talk to her manager.

One thing people ought to know is that almost every corporate retail establishment (in North America, at least,) prohibits employees from chasing orapprehending thieves. And this would have been the pettiest theft in the store, aside from a CD or some small earrings. So I was about to get her in trouble.

I don’t like dunking on minimum wage workers (been there, barely survived,) but she really needed to know just how unsafe her actions could have been if she pulled that on someone else who’s a lot more hot-headed. So I went in with my receipt, purchases, and bags.

I wasn’t going to explain it to her. I wanted her to understand and hear me out properly, not just Karen people out of view of cameras and management. It’s just not safe, end of story, and I stand both feet on that matter.

I waited for the manager (with whom I’m acquainted as a regular shopper) then explained what had happened. I had to ask the employee to stop talking over me and let me finish, as the manager had asked for my story first, and I wanted to finish speaking. The manager had to ask her to stop, too.

I explained straightaway that I’d bought the reusable bag the week before, and of course brought it to reuse on this visit. The manager was like, well, duh, that’s what they’re for. I’m all, right? Great, glad to have that settled, because the employee assumed I’d stolen it and that’s what led to me coming inside to speak with her.

When I’d explained what had happened with the employee, I reminded the manager that her employee had no business following customers out to the car, and I had come in as a small favour to help her learn not to do that again for her own safety. Manager agreed, and we said some chatty goodbyes, in which I included the employee so there were fewer bad vibes.

She wasn’t there for the next few weeks, so I asked my friend (the production manager there at the time) what happened. Apparently she was canned for violating that safety protocol, because she’d been warned about following people and accusing people of theft and tag-swapping when she was supposed to be at the tills.

It’s too bad, but I hope she pivoted into being some sort of plain-clothes LP ghoul, instead. Gotta work with your motivation and skill set.

TLDR: Ordered something just below free shipping limit. They refused to cancel or add anything to order. Cancelled and bought it again for less money.

Clarification: Due to backlash on me about paying the initial shipping cost, they issued a refund also on that. That is the unlogical part of this policy. I wouldn't care about all this if they didn't but why lose money when you can simply accept to cancel my order? Also about the environment thingy, these kind of individual acts may teach companies to fix their policies resulting to prevent more waste of energy, time and money. So I wouldn't mind.

This happened a while ago with an online retailer.

I ordered something for $96. Free shipping kicked in at $100 and shipping was like $12.

And yeah, this part was 100% my fault. It was written right there on the site, I just didn't notice until basically the second after I placed the order.

So I opened support chat and asked if they could add something cheap to the order. Didn't really care what. A cable, batteries, whatever. I just thought spending another 5 bucks made more sense than paying 12 for shipping.

They said they couldn't modify an order once it was placed.

Fair enough.

I asked if they could cancel it and I'd just place it again.

Nope. Apparently it was already processing.

Then I asked if they could remove the shipping charge somehow.

Also no.

The guy wasn't rude or anything btw. He was actually pretty nice, just kept saying the system wouldn't let him do any of it.

Then he told me I could return the order when it arrived and place a new one.

So I asked:

"Returns are free, right?"

Yep.

"And if I reorder over $100, shipping is free?"

Yep.

I actually thought I was misunderstanding him, so I asked again.

"So you're going to ship this to me, pay for me to ship it back, then ship the same thing to me again... because you can't add a $5 item to the order?"

Pretty much.

He said that was the only option he could offer.

So... okay.

Package showed up a few days later. I didn't even open the actual item. Put the return label on it and sent it back.

Then I ordered the exact same thing again and added a $6 pack of USB cables.

Free shipping.

In the end I got the same thing I wanted in the first place, plus cables, and still paid less than I would've if I'd just kept the original order.

Meanwhile they paid to ship the first package to me, paid for the return, processed the return, and then shipped the second one.

I know this probably makes me sound a bit petty, maybe even selfish, especially because the original screw-up was mine.

And honestly, if they'd just said "sorry, you missed the threshold, nothing we can do," I probably would've just eaten the $12.

But they specifically told me the solution was to return it and reorder.

So I did.

Not really mad at the support guy either. He was just following whatever system they gave him.

I guess I was too.

This took place long ago on a military base in GA. I was a Huey helicopter crewchief at a small airfield with only a couple dozen, at best, in our detachment. I was readying to eat lunch alone in our small flight shack. Normally, the Tech Inspector sergeant would be with me, but his wife was having a baby. I had my day planned and was half way though pulling maintenance.

I heard a helicopter landing in the distance, identified it as another Huey and dismissed it, we didn't have any birds in the air.

A few minutes later, a captian carrying his helmet bag breezes in, tosses his helicopter log book on my desk and announces, "I'm going to get lunch and need my aircraft pre-flighted before get back.", not even slowing down to look at me. If he had, he might have noticed I had just started my own lunch.

I had never seen this guy before and his uniform patches identified him as a GA Army National Guard Captain. Who apparently felt a lowly enlisted E4 crewchief was beneath common curtesy. Oh, and he was most definitely not my boss.

O.K. Mr. Captain Arrogance, I'm going to give you the best maintenance pre-flight you have ever had. BTW: Pilots also always do their own, briefer, pre-flight too.

He was gone three hours. During that time I gave that aircraft the best inspection it ever had. Now, when we inspected an aircraft we wrote down every deficiency we found and next to it drew a black or red pencil mark noting how serious the deficiency was. A minor issue might get a slash mark. A serious deficiency earned a circle red X meaning the aircraft could only be flown under limited conditions, (e.g. daylight only) , and a simple red X meant the aircraft was grounded, period. Nonflyable.

Well, wouldnt you know, I found several minor issues, three serious, (circle Red X) issues and the mother of them all, a red X grounding item, the slippage mark, (a small stripe of fingenail polish going down the bolt and out to the mounting plate) on the transmission bolt housing was cracked. What this really meant that perhaps the bolt was slipping, or perhaps the fingernail polish/paint we use simply cracked, or perhaps somebody may have nicked the paint with their issued toolbox's utility knife's small blade, etc. Who knows?). I never wrote some many serious deficiencies on one aircraft in my career. His unit must have had poor maintenance.

Well, when the Captain returned, all in a hurry to take off, he was as mad as a hornet. He demanded I erase the red X mark. "Can't do that Captian, its in the regulations." That was true. Only a maintenance Tech can reinspect it, oversee the correction, and enter thier inspection notes clearing the aircraft for flight. By now, the Captain had stormed out to his aircraft to challenge my findings.

While the Captain was back at his aircraft, fuming, I called the Maintenance Tech at the hospital and explained the situation. He said, "Tell Captain Antsy Pants ll'l be there at 0800 tomorrow morning. I won't be available until then."

The Captain returns, now boiling rage. "So get the maintenance tech here now!", he demanded.

"Um, he's at the hospital, his wife is having a baby."

The next closest available Maintenance Tech was in Savannah, a short flight away, if you had a flyable helicopter.

So, our maintenance tech did finally show up, the next morning. He know exactly what I had done and why, and he justly defended evey deficiency I noted as absolutely correct. We had to get the big breaker bar to retorque the transmission bolt and it took about three hours to sort through the other deficiencies.

So Captain Antsy Pants got to spend an unexpected overnight stay at Camp Swampy because he was a jerk. Be nice to the little people who support you.

I am a Project Manager for a construction company that works primarily for the Federal Government. When a change happens on a construction project, we need to put together a detailed cost estimate, then the government reviews the estimate and occasionally asks for additional information or more detail if my estimate is not within an acceptable % of their estimate. Normally there are no questions if my estimate is within 5% of the IGE’s (Independent Government Estimates). That is the check and balances to evil general contractors taking advantage of the system (⸮). Don't get me wrong, I am an evil general contractor, but they shouldn't just assume that without doing the research themselves.

While there are still $500 hammers and the occasional $1500 toilet seat, sometimes it is nice to see that there is some accountability in the occasional government agency. However, it has become quite painful the last couple years with how “nickel & dime” some agencies can be. The whole: “Can’t see the forest for the trees” mentality has been running rampant recently with many agencies. And that is where 20 pages of backup for a $150 charge just make me giggle for hours.

Just over a month ago, I submitted a cost on an official change order for some construction material. The government Project Manager questioned the freight charge that was quoted and the weight/volume of the material stating that “their” estimate did not match what we had proposed and that the freight charge need to be reduced, and that I had to backup my estimate with a more detailed response.

After weeks of repeated responses that it was a flat fee for freight and it would not change if it was a single 20lb lag or a full pallet of material, the government PM decided to add an increasing number of people to the email chain in an apparent attempt to point out I was overcharging them. It started with adding my direct Sr PM, then my company’s Director of Operations, and on to the owner of my company, while on their side adding a dozen government employees, some I had never seen mentioned on this project. I had no idea what their end game was, but after 3+ weeks of back and forth there were literally 25 people on an email chain all over a $150 freight quote.

The quote from my vendor listed $150 to transport 1800 lbs of material. This is pretty typical as a flat fee within a certain distance of a jobsite. They argued that it could not be exactly $150 and I need to provide backup.

I proceeded to REPLY ALL on the email and wrote the justification in the form of a math problem and attached 20 pages of backup (8 pages just on Arizona Tax Depreciation code (Section 179) for Sprinter Vans, which is something I did not know about 3 weeks ago); citing gas prices, mileage with detailed maps of possible truck routes, vehicle maintenance and depreciation charts from the State’s Department of Revenue, the current minimum wage rates in the State, and more. I easily spent well over 4 hours of my time putting this together, but this is malicious compliance after all.

 

It is 288 miles round trip and 4.5-5 hours to make a delivery depending on traffic

At 16 mpg for a loaded sprinter van, that's 18 gallons of gas, or down to 5-8 mpg on a 43' flatbed (I have no idea what vehicle they will use to deliver the material, but am using "standard industry practices")

Diesel is currently $5.50 gallon in Phoenix, so that equals $99.00 at a minimum and up to $183 in gas alone, leaving $51.00 (to a negative $33.00) for labor to drive for 4.5-5 hours which comes to $10.20 hour. This is less than AZ minimum wage ($15.15 hour...assuming they are paying only the minimum wage)

Assuming the maximum fuel efficiency, $99.00 for fuel plus $75.75 in labor costs comes to $174.75.

Now for Tax Depreciation vs Market Depreciation:

Section 179: Because a Sprinter van has a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) over 6,000 lbs, businesses using it more than 50% for work can often write off up to the full purchase price in year one via Section 179 Tax Exemption.

I got a quote for a new 2026 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van in the basic configuration and included that at just under $49,500. That divided by 2080 hours in a standard work year gives an hourly depreciation of $23.798. Times 5 hours is another $118.99

So they were correct and the $150 freight quote was wrong. I thanked them in my email, and submitted my revised proposal with $293.74 for freight.

That is a hard won $143.74 and I can't imaging how many thousands of dollars in lost time just from including that many people on an email chain for increasing numbers of weeks.

A few years ago I was working remotely as a fancy IT guy and developer at a tech company. Within the first couple of months I'd automated so much of my workload that I legit had almost nothing left to do most days. Everything that could be scripted, monitored, or scheduled... was.

One morning my manager messaged me:

>"We've noticed your Microsoft Teams keeps going to Away every 20 minutes. This shouldn't be happening if you are at your desk working."

Fair enough.

I replied:

>"Understood. My Teams will never go Away again."

...and I meant it.

Instead of arguing, I spent about 40 minutes writing a PowerShell script that launched a harmless train of processes every few minutes, like mouse clicking, alt+tabbing, and it simulated just enough activity to keep my status green. I set this to repeat every 10 minutes.

I tested it.

Available.

Five minutes later...

Still Available.

An hour later...

Still Available.

I grabbed my backpack, walked out of Starbucks, and spent the rest of the afternoon, and every afternoon thereafter hiking.

My Teams status never went Away again.

The next time I heard from my boss he was once again reviewing status times and thanked me for my dedication.

Edit: People keep asking for a copy of the script. It's on one of my githubs, the link is in the comments.