rSlash - r/Maliciouscompliance Cunning Soldier VS Stupid Commander

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

0:00 Intro 0:11 Internet 10:48 Comment story 12:33 Legal tender Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Or go to rakuten.ca to get more for your money. It's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. Welcome to r slash malicious compliance, where someone learns, don't mess with the IT guy, especially if that IT guy is also a soldier. Our next Reddit post is from Tosspot. Many moons ago, I spent my youth in the army. I worked in communications, and I spent some excellent years doing dumb stuff with some of the best guys and girls you could ever meet. One of those years of my misspent youth I was deployed to a hot and sandy location. The length of deployment was unusual for me because most deployments in the British Army

are six months. After my initial deployment they requested volunteers to stay behind and train people. At this stage in my career, I had been lucky enough to jump from deployment to deployment, and I was loving the extra money that that gave me, so I happily volunteered to stay. I was tasked with supporting one of the logistics headquarters. I had run that detachment earlier in the deployment, and I was happy to return because it was far away from the main headquarters and all the bored adults and seniors that the headquarter brings.

Think sweeping the desert, that kind of thing. Our little detachment was an oasis in a sea of BS. It was just six guys and girls with me as the detachment commander. I was a corporal at the time. The isolated nature of our group meant that anyone sent there had to be able to operate independently, be very adaptable, and open to improvise to support where required. The higher-ups also liked to send us the troublemakers, but due to the nature of our deployment, they could only send us people who could also do their role.

So, I ended up with all the best and most interesting scum of my unit and it was amazing. Within weeks we had a patio and a rock garden set up. We had a barbecue pit, shower area and gym. We set up a deal with the local civilian contractors where they would give us beer in exchange for help in vehicle and generator maintenance. The best part is that our area was restricted entry, so no one could get in without authorization. That spared us from surprise visits from annoying officers. The headquarters we were supporting was regularly rotating its senior

non-commissioned officers and officers from the deployments. They would do their minimum time to qualify for a medal and then they'd get replaced with someone new. It was a scummy practice that eventually got shut down, but not until much later in the deployment. The latest rotation brought in a new quartermaster. This new guy was a prick, full of his own self-importance. He hated that we had this little island of tranquility within his eyesight. I'd see him pacing outside of our fence line when he first arrived, unable to comprehend that he wasn't allowed to just

walk in. By this point, I had been at this location for about 6 months, and I was thoroughly past the point of caring at all. This quartermaster hated that he had to deal with me, a lowly underling, and me and my crew were outside of his chain of command. One day, he absolutely lost his mind because we were barbecuing half a goat and we had invited a few of his guys to join us after work for some beers and delicious goat wraps. He went off and got some military police to come and shut us down. I told them to piss off, that they were getting into my restricted area and I don't care who sent them. Apparently, the next day, this quartermaster was apoplectic.

The guys who worked with him warned us that he was determined to bring my deployment to heel. His solution was removing our welfare package that we were issued through his department as a favor from his guys for some services that we were providing. That consisted of a small fridge, a TV, and the equipment we needed to watch British TV. This was roughly the conversation. OP, it appears that there's been a paperwork error and you were given one of my welfare packages by mistake. Okay sir, I'd be happy to fill that in. Shall I drop by your office?

You can drop by my office and bring the package, but you'll be filling in any paperwork. If there's anything else I can find that isn't 100% correct on the paperwork, I'll be shutting that down as well. You may not be under my authority, and I may not be able to enter your little compound, but I'm gonna bring you to heel, son. Every resupply demand, every transport request, better be completed correctly. I'm gonna make your lives hell with paperwork and admin. Cue malicious compliance.

I'm sorry to hear that, sir. I'm sorry you feel the service that we provide isn't good enough. The old quartermaster was very happy with the services that he was getting from us and sent over the spare welfare package as a thank you. Are you sure it's the paperwork that's the issue here? Are you not happy with the phones and the internet that we're providing you? I have no complaints regarding the communications. You just need to complete the correct paperwork and have it authorized by me. At this point, it is very clear that he is never going to authorize the return of the welfare package and is very smug about it.

Okay, sir. You are of course correct. Paperwork is essential. Are you giving me attitude, Corporal? Not at all, sir. I'm just agreeing with you. To be clear, you're happy with everything else that we provide to the headquarters, right? You just want me to complete the correct paperwork? That's correct, Corporal. No problem, sir. I'm happy to oblige." I delivered the welfare package back to his stores. His guys were very apologetic. I told

them not to worry. You see, that welfare package was a thank you for all the extra phone lines and terminals that we had provided for the previous quartermaster. This equipment expanded his unit's working capacity. Most importantly, I had run phone lines to the soldier's sleeping areas so that his boys could call home without using their limited welfare phone cards. I'd also laid some precious unfiltered internet lines too. Internet for deployed units is very rare, and unfiltered internet is almost unheard of for British units. What I was providing was immense value to lonely squaddies, and it was also without paperwork. So as a quick aside here, I don't exactly understand what OP is talking about

here. I assume what he means when he says unfiltered internet is, you know, adult content for lonely soldiers who are around basically mostly dudes all the time. But I don't know, I could be wrong. If there's any UK soldiers out there, let me know down in the comments what he actually means. When I got back to my deployment, I flicked a couple of switches, turning off all the connections that there weren't paperwork for. I waited for the inevitable.

It didn't take long. The first visitor was one of the privates letting us know that he had been cut off mid-call back home. I apologized and explained what was going on with the quartermaster. He understood, he wasn't happy about it, but he understood. He went off muttering about douchebags who can't leave well enough alone. The next person was one of the quartermaster's corporals who I always have a lot of time for. She asked what was going on with the communications. She was also in the office when I had that

conversation with the quartermaster earlier. She and I had a bit of a chat about how much of a douchebag he is and then she asked what I was going to do. I explained that, as per the quartermaster's request, we're following his example and doing things by the book. As such, I've turned off all services without the correct paperwork. She… she looked at me knowingly. So what does that mean? she asked. I explained that the only services that I'd been ordered to provide were for the headquarters. For everything else, they would have to make requests directly to me, and it would have to be approved by division headquarters as per orders.

I had just turned off her group's access to the internet, so I handed her a copy of the request forms to be completed in triplicate since I didn't have a photocopier and they couldn't send it to me by email. She had a bit of a chuckle and went back to her boss, paperwork in hand. You see, the only orders I'd been given were to set up 6 lines for the headquarters. The other 30 odd lines that I'd laid on top of that were essentially me just being a good bloke and supporting the mission and deployments as they grew around the headquarters. This was initiative and adaptability on my part. But now, all 30 of those lines were off, so I had a steady stream of visitors throughout the day wanting to know what happened to their phone and internet. I directed them all to

the quartermaster who had the paperwork. My last visitor was the operations captain. He was a great bloke who had spent more than a few nights in our compound with a beer and just talking shit with us. He was one of the very first recipients of a private line and internet. To be clear, this operations captain outranked the quartermaster. He asked me what was going on. He was pretty well connected, so he knew that there were shenanigans afoot. I told him the situation and his face dropped. Leave it to me is all he said and he went off. 30 minutes later, the quartermaster was back at the entrance to my compound with my welfare package. The operations captain was with him, looming over him as only a regimental sergeant major can. I said, hello sir, how can I help? The quartermaster said sheepishly,

hello corporal, there seems to have been an error and we found your paperwork for the welfare package, so I'm returning it with my apologies. No need to apologize sir, easy mistake to make. So are we good? Well, is the other paperwork moving forward? There's no need for all that." He looked over his shoulder at the operations captain. After all, we're all on the same team here.

We are indeed, sir. I look over my shoulder and give one of my guys a nod. I told him, I think you'll find that everything is now back as it was. Excellent. Um, thank you very much, corporal. And off he went. The operations captain stared daggers at him as he left He just gave me a nod and confirmed that drinks were still on for the next day and toddled off back to his pit

I was never bothered by the quartermaster again You know guys a reoccurring theme on this channel is don't mess with the IT guy, right? Because they have access to everyone's files. They know what websites you visit it just seems like a really dumb fight to pick. But messing with the IT guy who literally has control to your only tether to civilization, the only way to call your mom, to contact your girlfriend, to scroll on TikTok to watch YouTube videos, your sole access. OP basically has the keys to the kingdom

and the quartermaster decides to pick a fight with that guy. Man, what a doofus. Quartermaster, the dude must have a quarter of a brain. Also, down in the comments, we have this story from ITMerc4Hire. I was a comms guy for an American unit and I have a similar story. We were deployed and we provided a media server with terabytes of movies and TV shows. We usually had new releases within a couple of days of them arriving in theaters and new TV episodes the day after they aired. We provided access to the drive to anyone in the unit who asked to give them a bit of taste of home while they were deployed, but we had controlled access via the active directory. Downstairs from our office was the motor pool.

Our guys were able to walk down, check out a vehicle and go run their errands. When you're in 120 degree heat, an air conditioned vehicle made these trips much more pleasant. We made sure to keep the vehicles fueled and reasonably clean given the conditions. Anyways, a new officer arrived to take over the motor pool and he had a stick up his butt about paperwork and keeping the vehicles clean. And by the way, it's nearly impossible to keep a vehicle 100% clean in a dusty environment. One day, one of our guys returned a vehicle and it had a bit too much dust on it for the officer's liking.

So he took it upon himself to restrict this person from checking out a vehicle for a week. Our guy came into our office and told our officer what happened. And collectively, we all decided that the motor pool didn't need access to the media drive for that same one week period. It took all of 30 minutes for the motor pool guys to come to our office to report that they were having issues with the media server. Our officer and their officer had a conversation and between them it was decided that our reasonable efforts to keep the vehicles clean were sufficient. And that it's probably not the best idea to have a dick measuring contest with the comm shop. Our next reddit post is from Nighthawk.

When I worked at a gas station in the late 1900s during graveyard shift, I had a guy come in and buy a candy bar with a $100 bill. I said, really? You don't have anything smaller? I'm just trying to break the hundred. Don't be a jerk! Fine, just this once. A few days later, the guy comes back in.

He grabs a candy bar and I see that he has smaller bills in his wallet. Instead, he puts a hundred on the table. Sir, I told you last time that it was going to be just this once. I see that you have a five dollar bill. This is legal Tinder, you have to take it! Okay. So then, I reach under the counter and pull out two boxes of pennies. It's 50 cents to a roll, $25 to a box, and each box is 17 pounds. Here's 50 bucks in pennies.

Do you want the rest in nickels? What is this? It's legal tender. I can choose to give you your change however I see fit. So do you still want to break the 100 or the 5? I'm calling your manager! She gets in at 8am sir, but doesn't take any calls until 10.