rSlash - r/Maliciouscompliance Fire Me? I'll Destroy Your Business!

Episode Date: June 17, 2022

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Welcome to our slash malicious compliance where OP gets their toxic employer shut down. Our next Reddit post is from punk tyrannosaurus. I love taking photos of people, so I was psyched when I got a job in a photo studio. It was a chain, so it wasn't like super high quality work, but it was still awesome. I took a lot of photos of very cute babies in particular. Well, the company had a three strike policy. Once there were three issues with you, you were gone. They made you sign off on every single one of the reports.

It didn't matter how much time passed between strikes. Once you got a strike, it never went away. Okay, doesn't seem like a great business model, but okay. And to be fair, I did get two strikes which were very reasonable. One day, I missed work because I forgot to set an alarm. It was a super irregular schedule, and it wasn't always easy to keep track of. I got my second strike because I accidentally scheduled a photo shoot for before the beginning of the next shift. I felt super bad for the mom and daughter who came in early for their photos and I helped them

sort everything out with a fee photo redemption and apology. But still, I got my second strike for that. Now for the last strike, I actually got two on the same day. Around Christmas, our store goes nuts! We have to have twice as many people working to keep things in order. During that time, I was training a new employee, helping her with her photo shoots, doing my photo shoots, running cash, taking passport photos, teaching the new girls all the rules, etc. It was a nightmare! What made it worse was that one customer submitted two

complaints that day about me. See, this customer felt that I was pushing her to buy photos. Literally, all this company cares about is pushing the photo packages, and I was instructed relentlessly to do it more and with more energy because I didn't make enough people feel they had to have them. So, great. I convinced the customer to spend money instead of just giving them free things. Just like the company was always yelling at me to do, and I got a complaint for that. Great. And then the other complaint was even more ludicrous. The customer felt that I was being too bossy with the other photographer.

The one who didn't know how to do her job yet, so I had to tell her how to do things? Apparently, I deserve to be fired for telling her how to do things. I was heartbroken. It's been a few years now, so I've gotten over it. But I was so happy working as a photographer. But here's where the malicious compliance finally kicks in. You see, because of my nature, I end up doing a lot of work that isn't actually my job because I want to help.

I enjoy feeling useful, but they're firing me because they don't want me to sell things or train people like they literally told me to do. So, for the last two weeks of my job, I just stopped doing all the extra stuff. I stopped counting all the money for the deposits. That was the manager's job, even though she hadn't done it in half a year since making me do it. This meant that she had to come in on days she didn't work just to do the deposits. I stopped actively recruiting customers, which is what you're supposed to do in your downtime.

You're supposed to cold call previous customers and prowl around the attached mall for people you can convince to get photos. The best tactic was always to find people with new babies, tell them how beautiful their baby is, and offer them a free print of one of their photos after a shoot. Almost no one passes that up because they have a wonderful photo to hold onto.

I didn't feel guilty doing it because it genuinely made people happy. I stopped taking meticulous notes of every interaction that was worth following up on. I used to make a note for the next shift about how customer X seemed interested but was unconvinced and that a simple reminder of the offer would probably be enough to get them to buy.

Or I would make a note about someone who forgot their passport photos and whether or not they paid already. And then, on my last day, the truest malicious compliance happened. They wanted me gone, so okay, I took my name tag and packed it away. I went to the photo studio and grabbed the kids toys that I'd bought to help get the young ones to cooperate. I cleaned up all the things that I had laid out neatly for easy preparation and put them back in storage. I cleaned up the counters to get rid of all the notes and passport photos that weren't claimed that day because that's what we were

technically supposed to do. Also, over the nine months working there, a number of issues had come up with the things that we worked with. For the passport photos, we needed a paper trimmer to slice off the edges quickly and neatly, and we had one when I started, but it broke. I bought the replacement, and that one broke too. Still, we needed one, so I brought in another replacement. We also got our stapler stolen. No worries, I had one at home that we could use. Also, the keys to the store were super tiny. The color of them was so bland that throughout the course of the day, they would get used and lost like 30 times.

So I bought a large blue fluffy keychain to attach to the keys with permission from the boss. We never lost the keys again, not one of us. Also, we had this sign that we used, and my boss accidentally dumped our coffee on that sign after she tripped one day. So I went out of my way to get a new one printed, bought a plastic sleeve for it and set it up with a cardboard backing so that it wouldn't break or get ruined. It was better than the old one. So of course, when I left, I took my sign, keychains, paper trimmer, stapler, toys, and notably the

shutter button. See, our camera had a shutter button attached that would allow you to move around while snapping photos. Again, this helped with little ones because they don't understand directions, so you have to be able to physically draw their attention somewhere. This cord had gotten frayed and not been replaced. It shocked me nasty enough to leave a burn, so I took it off the camera and brought my own in. I got a call the next day asking me how dare I steal the company supplies. I calmly replied that I had just taken back the items that belonged to me, and they

could keep the broken paper-trimmer that I had brought back in. I even bought them a box of paperclips since they didn't have a stapler anymore. The store closed down not two months later. Isn't it crazy how when you fire your hardest worker over things that you told them to do? Other employees are less enthusiastic about the chance of the same thing happening, and no one else worked nearly as hard to keep that store profitable as I did. Oh, and for reference, the other employee I was training and the customer felt that I was treating badly, she looked at our manager like she was insane when she found out that I had been fired.

She said that she knew for a fact that the only time that I had raised my voice was because it was too loud for anybody to hear me otherwise. That coworker actually apologized to me and said that she was worried that it was her fault. That employee then went on to have her own gallery show, leaving shortly after I was fired. Man, I read story after story after story of companies firing their number one employee and then suddenly their business does badly and it's like, dude, what did you expect? Our next Reddit post is from Joe Mondo. My grandmother was an immigrant who had to leave school at the age of 12 after her own mother

died. As the eldest daughter, it was her responsibility to take care of all of her younger siblings. Consequently, she never learned more than basic reading and math, and although she married and had kids of her own, she worked outside the home to add to household income, often doing cleaning and other low wage work. Of her own children, most were reasonable people, but her youngest daughter was a complete parasite. She had no problem taking whatever she could from her mother, even having her mother co-sign on debts and leaving her to pay them off.

Despite not having much education, my grandmother was a wise person in her own way, but not when it came to her own kids, and especially not her mooch daughter. She just couldn't stop letting her daughter misuse her. My grandmother ultimately became ill with cancer. Her kids took care of her, except for, you guessed it, the youngest parasite daughter. On her deathbed, my grandmother told her oldest daughter that she was worried about the mooch, and she relayed where she kept all of her money. It wasn't much, maybe 700 bucks or so, and then she told her oldest daughter that when she died, she was to give it all to the mooch. After my grandmother died, her oldest daughter

had to stomach giving her mother's last dollars to her miserable vampire of a sister. But to make it more tolerable, she decided to do it by sending it in installments of $10 a month. So that's what she did for years, just $10 a month, every month. Not enough to splurge on anything, not enough to even make a difference in our life, almost

as if it were nothing. I always admired my older aunt. She knew how to hold a grudge. Down in the comments, someone asked OP whatever happened to the parasite daughter and OP replies. She tried to munch off of her siblings, but wasn't very successful. She got my father to co-sign for a credit card or a loan or something, and then left him with $10,000 in debt. After that, he completely cut her off. She went on in her incredible low life way, always going from one skeezy guy to another. I hate to think that I have any jeans in

common with her. On the other hand, I have jeans in common with my other aunt as well, and that's something that I treasure. Our next reddit post is from Bowser Danger. This happened in 2018, pre-pandemic. I was working at a nuclear power plant in the mid-Atlantic. Once or twice a year, we would get a heavy snow storm, but we were far enough south of the local government wouldn't plow assault anything other than the main roads. The power plant has a policy during inclement weather that no matter how long it takes you to get to work, if you make it in, you get paid for the day.

Otherwise, you have to take a vacation day. I, like a majority of the workers, live in the closest large city, which is an hour away. The drive to the power plant is half interstate and half hilly, curvy, country road. I wake up and see that we've gotten about 10 inches of snow overnight, and I text my supervisor to ask if I can work from home. I have my laptop with me, I don't have any work going on that I would need to be inside the power plant for, and I'd mostly be reviewing paperwork all day. My supervisor tells me the policy for inclement weather and that he was at work already and the roads weren't that bad.

I reiterate that I would just be sitting at my desk doing paperwork when I eventually get in. He is hearing none of this and tells me that I'm not allowed to work from home. I need to drive 50 plus miles to work or take vacation. I didn't even bother to respond and decided to take a vacation day. I head to a local store about a half mile away and pick up some snow sleds. I'd like to note that the roads were bad. I was driving a 4x4 and I had some trouble getting too and from the store. My wife and I do some sledding in the neighborhood, have some hot chocolate

and some other classic snow day activities. Around 11, I get a text from my supervisor. OP, are you able to come in to work? Hardly anyone showed up because of the snow. There's a document that we need reviewed and we really need you here in case we need someone to do something in the power plant. I tell him, sorry, but I'm taking vacation today as per the policy.

He tells me that he's emailing me the document to review and he can sign it for me if I approve. I replied, I would take a look at it if I could, but my supervisor told me that I wasn't allowed to work from home. He never responded to that, and I never heard anything about it, but I didn't have to work that day, which was nice. Bonus Militius Compliance I'm a salary employee, but I didn't have to work that day, which was nice. Bonus malicious compliance. I'm a salary employee, but I have to record hours worked on a computer program. Our real HR policy says, if any employee works any part of the day, they'll be paid for the whole day.

So I put in 10 minutes of work time for the time that I was texting my supervisor, and I didn't have to record any vacation hours. He approved my time sheet for 10 minutes of work, and I saved't have to record any vacation hours. He approved my time sheet for 10 minutes of work and I saved a day of vacation. Our next reddit post is from our WeeSow. I'm a nurse at a large hospital. The floor that I worked on was selected to be the COVID unit during the first and second waves. More nurses than not were catching COVID. So whenever I got an inkling of being sick, I would call out and get tested.

Now, if I tested positive, then I would get two weeks off without penalty. But I tested negative, so I returned to work. I got called into the office and got a verbal warning because I had one too many sick days. I said to my manager, you realize that we're in a pandemic, right? She says, yes, I know that, but we still have to stick to the original policy. When we clock in, there's an electronic message that pops up on the time clock that reads, during the pandemic, we need to self monitor ourselves and by clocking in, you're declaring that you're fit to work. There was no adjustment to this policy, even though we were a COVID unit during a pandemic. So I would either have to lie about feeling sick when I clock in or call out and get in

trouble. Here's where the malicious compliance comes in. I had always picked up a lot of extra time in a sister department, not because I needed the extra money, but because the hospital was always short staffed. My manager didn't like the fact that I picked up extra time in this other department. She wanted me to pick up extra time in our department. So she said, as punishment, you can't pick up extra time in the other department for 90 days, which is the length of my disciplinary period. You should be responsible enough to pick up extra time in your own department. So since I didn't need the money, I didn't pick up any extra time in that period.

I got called almost every single day to ask if I could come in because they were short staffed. One of the reasons they were short-staffed was because our sister unit was even more short-staffed and the nurses on my unit were getting pulled over to go work there. If only more nurses picked up extra time in that other unit. Hmm. At the end of the 90 days, I was told that I could pick up extra time in the sister department again. At which point I handed in my two weeks notice and told her that I accepted a position at another hospital. She then told me that because of my years of service, I had to give four weeks notice. I told her, nope, that's just a courtesy, so I'll extend the same courtesy I got when

I needed to call out sick. Man OP, you're a better person than me. I really don't understand why people give a two weeks notice to their toxic managers. Like if I've got a boss who's always giving me a hard time, then when I win a quit, see ya, wouldn't wanna be ya! That was our Slash Milicious Compliance, and if you liked this content, be sure to follow my podcast

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