rSlash - r/Maliciouscompliance How I Outsmarted a Dumb Customer

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

0:00 Intro 0:08 Sick 5:54 Contract 7:18 Yes 9:17 Contract again 10:29 Mistake Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to R-slash Malicious Compliance, where OP shows that actions have consequences. Our next Reddit post is from Icy Computer Pop. I used to work as a researcher in an inbound call center. I loved the work, and the company was fantastic when I started. But after four years, they got bought out by a big international corp. Within weeks, the company went from being fantastic to work for to just another terrible, tense work environment where the bosses take advantage of the employees. One quick example of how badly they nerfed the bonus structure was one particular bonus went from being able to earn up to a thousand extra dollars in three days to a single $50 Boston Pizza gift card.

Previously, all employees got paid various bonuses under this scheme, but in the new system, only one person gets the gift card. And they had the nerve to get mad at us when the new slap in the face bonus failed to motivate anyone. I was good at my job, and not to brag, but I was the most productive employee on the floor. We were given 15 days of paid time off to use every year, which according to our employment contract and company Handbook were to be used for sick days, mental health days, and other personal reasons. No explanation was ever asked for. Use them as and when you will. I always made sure to use up all of my paid time off by the end of the year, as it didn't bank. Previous management encouraged us to do so, and also there was no bonus for

not using it. I follow the company rules, always gave plenty of notice, and only once left the team dangling with no notice. I got seriously ill that time. The new management takes over, and right away, they start trying to intimidate us into not taking paid time off. I hear a lot of this from my fellow employees, how when they call in, the supervisors have started grilling them, challenging them, saying, you don't sound sick, etc. A lot of intimidation and bullying. So by the time that I need to use pay time off day, I'm ready. I call in one day and tell them I won't be in tomorrow. They want to know why, so I tell them I'm not feeling well. Their voice grows immediately cold and they get a rude tone. You don't sound sick to me. Being a smart ass, I said. Not even doctors try to diagnose

illnesses over the phone, but they kept trying to push me. Can you come in this afternoon? You don't sound sick. You've been using a lot of sick days, way more than other employees. I got tired of being treated like a criminal for obeying the rules, so I got a recording app for my phone. Next time I felt sick, I called into work. I say hello, give them my name, and say, by the way, just so you know on my end, this call may be monitored or recorded for quality purposes. Because I'm recording the call, and I think it's only fair to let them know. The supervisor gives a perfunctory laugh, then says, so, why are you calling in sick? You don't sound sick to me. I'll put you down as sick for the morning, but you'll be in in the afternoon.

I informed them that, no, I'm calling in for at least one day, and I'll update if I don't feel better. She says, oh, okay, it's a she, I've been giving a stupid guy voice. No, I'll put you down for half a day. You can call in again if you don't feel better. Once again, I say no, restate my position, and tell them that's that. She gets really pissy and starts insinuating that this might cause me to lose my job. Why do you take so much more paid time off than the other employees? I take what my employment contract says I'm entitled to. No more, no less. Well, you should have been a better team spirit. We'll have to review this with HR. She had a threatening tone, classic bullying

playbook. I'm off the next day, so I come in for my following shift, and I'm told to go see HR. I sit down at Art's desk in HR. Art is very much a corporate HR lap dog. He starts going on about how they're going to have to review my employment contract and consider whether or not going forward I'm a good fit at the company. Now, in case I seem too calm in this scenario, bear in mind that while I do prefer to remain at the company for the time being, I don't care if they want to fire me. I'm very good at my job. I've had several job offers from competing companies, so the threat of being fired doesn't phase me. While Art is berating me, I take out my phone and start playing the recording that I made when calling in sick.

Art stops, starts to get annoyed, then realizes he's listening to a recording of an employee verbally berating and intimidating a worker for exercising their contractual legal rights. He excuses himself and is gone for about 10 minutes, before returning visibly angry but restrained.

He tries to dress me down, scare me, intimidate me into thinking I'd violated the law with an illegal recording. I told him that, working as I did, as a professional researcher, I had, to no surprise, done my research. And single-party consent is all that was required. He shifted gears, started saying the recording didn't count, because the supervisor thought that I was joking. I wasn't. But she thought that you were, and she was wrong, so it doesn't really matter what she thought, Art. I told her the truth,

she made a mistake, and recording my own phone conversations is 100% legal, and admissible. Art leaves and returns a few minutes later even more red-faced. You can go back to your desk. I did as instructed, and that was all I ever heard again about using my paid time off. Whenever I called in from then on, they were always very precise and professional. Their tone was as cold as a politician's promise, but that was a lot better than the bullying from before. Hey, pro tip about being in a one-party consent state, you don't even need to tell someone else that they're being recorded. You can just record it.

Why? Because you have a right to record your own conversations. Our next Reddit post is from everybody Wang Chung. I'm a teacher in the inner city. I found myself coming in five minutes late for a week or two. I was supposed to be there at 7.10. My daughter's daycare was having construction done, so I had to park across the street and drop her off.

I got reprimanded, and I had a mark on my file for not working during contractual hours. You're paid to work from 710 to 222. Fine. Once school is out at 202, I usually open up the weight room and let athletes work out, give some advice, and I watch them until about 315 when their coaches get there. Kids love it, I love it, coaches love it, I never ask for pay. But my contract is done at 222. One day, for only one day, I posted on our webpage that I wasn't going to be there. And what happened? That same day, numerous phones were stolen from the locker room, so the cops came. The wait room door was broken open.

Kids were running through the halls and ran into a teacher sending her to urgent care. My admin calls me in asking why I wasn't watching them. I was told to work my contractual hours, and I'm only paid until 222. I used to watch them for fun. It was unofficial. The next day, the whole district gets an email for a job posting. After school wait room coach. The admin asked me to apply.

Now it's costing them money. Our next Reddit post is from Crest Mecca. I am, by nature, someone who agrees to things. Not because I'm a pushover, exactly. More that I just find it easier to say yes and adjust than to push back and deal with the fallout. My girlfriend Claire found this genuinely frustrating. For roughly two years, she made it her personal mission to get me to say no more often. You're allowed to have preferences.

Stop agreeing with things you don't actually want. Just say no sometimes. It costs you nothing. She meant it kindly. She brought it up maybe once a month, sometimes more. She even framed it as personal growth, said that it was something she admired in people who could do it cleanly without guilt. She was so consistent about this that it started to actually rewire something in me. I began to notice, then question, then occasionally declined things. Small stuff at first. I said no to a friend who wanted to borrow my charger for three days. I told my cousin I couldn't make it to his thing. It felt so. strange, but Claire was genuinely proud every time I reported back. Then, in late February, Claire's friend needed someone to watch her dog for eight days while she visited family. Claire asked me if I could do it, and I want to be clear that I thought about it for a real amount of time. I considered the dog, the eight days, the fact that I don't particularly enjoy dogs in my space for extended

periods, and the two years of dedicated coaching I'd received on this exact type of moment. Then I said no. calmly, without guilt, no long explanation, just, I don't think that works for me. There was a pause. Claire stared at me. I watched her go through several expressions in about four seconds. She started to say something, stopped, and then said, that's not what I meant. And I said, very gently that I understood, but that she's been a really excellent teacher, and I wanted her to know that lessons had stuck. The dog went to a kennel. Claire has not brought up me saying no since February. Our next Reddit post is from Dardis.

When I first joined my company, they had a number of offices in the nearby city. Because they wanted to essentially force us to work in whichever office they wanted, they added a line to my contracts saying that I could work anywhere in the city. Years later, and those other offices had closed down. There was now just the one. That clause was removed from the contracts for anyone else starting at the company. Then our department got outsourced to another company. As part of UK law, which makes transfer of people between companies easier,

they had to take my contract as is, which they did. They then decided to reallocate many of the people to other parts of their company, throughout the country, expecting you to commute sometimes hours away, except me. That part of my contract, still present, meant that they could only send me somewhere within the local city. And they had no other offices there, so, I stayed. Years later, I'm insourced back and the company tries to send me to the other side of the

country for a few days to work. I tap on my contract once again. There's something refreshing about being able to use a contract clause, initially added to force me to do something for them against the company. Our next Reddit post is from Brightrick. Back in the 1990s, I was an independent designer for a few different printing businesses in the south suburbs of Chicago. Back then, computers were fairly new and print shops were still old school. Those inserts you found in newspaper, they were still hand-lettered back then. I would design brochures and flyers, laser print proofs, scan photos, and so on. Anyways, one of the print shops had a customer who always found an error, would demand a new proof and not authorize the job until he signed off on the new proof.

Every single time. This line is crooked, this word is too dark, and so on. So we came up with a solution, I would do two proofs. One was the original, accurate one. The other was an obvious intentional mistake. He'd catch the first mistake and ask for a new proof. He'd be told to come back in an hour. He'd come back and we would show him the second proof. He approved it every time. So if you demand there's always a mistake, here you go. That was our slash malicious compliance, and if you like this content, be sure to follow my podcast because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.