rSlash - r/Maliciouscompliance I Dug Up My Dad's Corpse to Pay a Water Bill

Episode Date: October 22, 2022

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Welcome to our slash malicious compliance where OP brings a dead human corpse into a government building. Our next reddit posted from Zavara. My father died 20 years ago and he left me a tiny cabin house. He loved that place. He built it himself and tended to it religiously. After he died, I couldn't find it in my heart to visit, because every rock on the wall, every flower reminded me of him. My mother never cared for it, even when my dad was alive.

So within a few months, I realized that it would be a while before either one of us would be ready to spend time there again. As such, we called up the electricity, telephone, and water companies to shut off service to the cabin until further notice. While other companies complied without issue, the water company decided that this request could only be made by the person whose name was on the bill. Mind you, their fee was less than $2 a month. Repeatedly faxing over my dad's death certificate, as well as next-of-kin transfer of the

title, got us nowhere. Dozens of calls per month, several emails, in-person applications, smoke signals, interpretive dances, telepathy, et cetera. Nothing made any difference. Both me and my mother were entirely flabbergasted. So we asked around and found out that, indeed, the process is insolvable. And, albeit not technically legal,

people would just stop paying those fees and the water would get shut off anyway as a result. Kidding lawyers involved wouldn't be worth the money, so we took their advice. We just discontinued the connected bank account and never gave it another thought. Two weeks ago while at my family house, I got a call from the water company. They were closing in active accounts at the 20 year mark and my father's cabin was up. They did, however, tell me that there was a pending sum of 11 euros and 93 cents to be paid for the account to be closed. And also, the account owner themselves had to make the application to close the accounts. Once again, I mentioned the whole, you know that he's did, spiel, and I was passed over to a supervisor. But in a reminiscing demonstration of absolute absent-minded stupidity, the response that I

got was, unfortunately they have to show up in person as we need a paper copy for accounts older than X years. Otherwise we can't proceed. Now I don't know how common this is, but in my country, you rent the grave site in 3-5 year increments. My father's grave contract of 20 years had ended in August, and my mother decided that it was time to unearth his bones and surrender the site. As such, we had just been delivered a very respectful package with my father's remains, cleaned and curated. Anyone in my country who had ever gone through that process before would immediately recognize

that box for what it was. And what it was was great timing. Two days later, I went to the wider company's local office. I wore my purple silky goth outfit, dark makeup, and my oh so heath and jewelry, and I carried a large bag with me. I asked to speak to the same supervisor who luckily for me was in an open space area with their team's director and quite a few other people nearby. After confirming with her while was there she started telling me the whole he needs to be here in person thing again but I interrupted her and told her I know what you're

gonna say so I brought my father with me so that you can tell him that yourself. I plopped a Ouija board and a box with my father's remains on her desk and I loudly shushed the room. Hids turned, her director looked up with a, what the f***? Expression and the supervisor herself was frozen and wide eyed. I Placed my hands on the Ouija board and just as loudly started asking my father's spirit to communicate with me. Show me a sign that he was still there with us.

Reach out to me from beyond the grave! Everyone was silent. People walking by the door stopped and stared. I threw a few, Papa, can you hear me? And there is well for dramatic effect. In comedic timing that happens only once in a lifetime, I think a pin or something small fell down from someone's desk behind me, which against the silence was quite loud. Excitedly, I moved my hand to yes on the Ouija board, and proclaimed that I needed his help

in the form of his signature from the beyond in order to close this water account. Finally, the director snapped out of it and came over with, alright, can I help you over here? I think this is enough, but hell no it wasn't. I started gathering my things as I laid into him, how asking to speak in person with an indisputably dead man of over 20 years was beyond stupid. And if I had to put up with their idiocy, then they had to put up with the process required to get a hold of him.

I also mentioned that denying someone's legal title of claim was lawsuit worthy, so he immediately changes tune that I could, of course, close the account. He tried to bring up the fee, but I cut him off with, don't even think about it, and walked out. It's still early, but so far, there's been radio silence. My mother thanked me for handling it, but when I suggested that she should write to someone higher up about this, she just said, eh, not worth it, it's over now. What a missed opportunity for a water under the bridge comments.

Also, down in the comments, we have this story from K. Wampus. My aunt got in trouble for doing something similar. The phone company pulled a similar stunt, insisting that only the account holder could close the account. Otherwise, the bills would continue. She mailed them an official copy of the death certificate, along with a baggie of ashes from the fireplace, and a note that, since they didn't believe the death certificate, or any of the legal documents naming her executor of his estate, perhaps they'd like to take it up with the

account holder himself. The bank freaked out on law enforcement got involved. So now, my 68-year-old hippie aunt has an FBI file. Um, I think it's probably not that bad. I want to say that I read somewhere that sending human remains through the mail is a crime, like a federal crime, and since it's through the mail, that automatically makes it federal, which means the FBI would get involved. So it sounds like a big deal, but it's probably not that bad. Our next wedded post is from virtual meeting.

I once wound up working for a company because it bought out small competitors, including my employer across multiple states, and then smushed them together into one big firm with lots of clients. Each of us had different retention bonuses to stop us from just walking out. The whole thing was a shit show, so the CEO appointed a new VP to lead my division, Big Boss, as well as a new HR director. Big Boss was really interested in my work. He told me face to face that I was doing all the right things for promotion, big things, etc. However, others started demanding Big Pay raises to stay, and big boss was

pretty pissed about this because it screwed up his finance metrics. He gave in a couple of times, and then wrote a memo saying no pay raises were permitted outside of an annual review. The HR director told everyone that they wanted honest opinions about what was wrong and how to fix them. Then started sniping people who told the truth and blaming them for the issues. We're off to a great start. So big shock, I didn't get the promotion. A couple of insiders had told me that the big boss had just bad mouthed everyone who was up for promotion to justify not offering any.

I met with them and said that if I wasn't promoted, then maybe I wasn't a good fit and I should just leave, but he disagreed. He said that I was a great asset and he would figure something out. My manager came back with the HR director's offer. It pushed the retention bonus further into the future. It added some withheld stock perks and some pay raises that would build over multiple years. And Big Boss would support me for promotion next year. Basically nothing now, but maybe something in the future. The shrug as my manager handed the offer to me said everything.

Big Boss then got a surprise opportunity to personally make a sale at a client that he knew and impress our CEO. We had no experience in this client's area, but I had a reputation as being versatile and I was available, so he asked me to hit up a group of four contractors and make us look like a team of experts from the company. I decided that this was a dead end, and since they were about to pay me my retention bonus anyways, I agreed to take a similar job at an unexciting but stable competitor. I wrote the big boss my two weeks notice. I said that it had been a pleasure working with him.

In my industry, it's standard to get quitting people off the premises ASAP, especially when they're joining a competitor. So I was a bit surprised when he told me to carry on with the client, and don't tell anyone that I'm leaving. The truth was, he had nobody to replace me with. Apparently, he then went to the HR director in my manager and lost his mind when it turned out that I never actually signed his new retention offer. He tried to blame a couple of people for telling me not to sign, which wasn't true and upset them as well. The HR director then met

me for an exit interview. And from what I heard, they were all pretty stressed because so many people were leaving. And their number one job was to retain staff. I told them everything was amazing and I love this company, but the other job offer was a huge opportunity for me. Then they said that since I was quitting, I wouldn't be getting my retention bonus or my performance bonuses. It's just industry standard Then they said that since I was quitting, I wouldn't be getting my retention bonus

or my performance bonuses. It's just industry standard, they said. I explained to them that the wording on my contract was very clear and I had met every requirement. They said that didn't matter because that wasn't what the words meant. And if you want to argue terms, get an attorney. So I kept working at the client for the next two weeks. I told the contractors that I was leaving and I asked what help they wanted. But they wanted to promote themselves to work directly with the clients, so they were happy if I kept out of their way. I just met colleagues for coffee and caught up on old times, talked about my new employer,

what would be their final straw and so on. A couple of days before I was due to finish, the client lead asked me if we could help them out on something. Well, I wasn't allowed to tell them that I was leaving, so I replied, unfortunately, Big Boss has said that I'm not permitted to discuss my future with you, so you'll need to ask him directly. The client immediately knew what was happening, and was fuming that Big Boss had kept them in the dark. Even more so when the client found out that no replacement had been identified. Then, as the HR director had requested, I took an employment attorney friend of mine out for lunch.

She was laughing her butt off when she saw the contracts. She said they were some of the worst-worded contracts she had ever seen. I was 100% right. They did owe me the bonuses, and the HR director was just hoping that I gave up. She helped me draft some legal documents, tacked on a bunch of additional fees that she reckoned we could argue I was owed, and I sent them off. I left the company without ever speaking to Big Boss or HR director again. I bumped into one of the contractors in a parking lot and he told me the project had completely imploded. They replaced me with another contractor a month after I left. But at that point, the other

contractors had stopped working collaboratively and were competing with each other to win contracts with the clients. Two of them got terminated for performance issues. Another quit, and the client decided not to continue using my old companies, so they took up the only remaining specialist contractor direct. I caught up with a former manager for coffee, and they said that Big Boss became increasingly paranoid about all the people resigning, and started trying to run office loyalty tests to identify disloyal staff, which, of course, made even more people resign. Allegedly, the CEO was getting angry, because the financial and sales metrics were getting

worse, and the big target client that he'd heard about had turned into a huge embarrassment. Eventually, I also received a satisfactory offer from the company's law firm. It wasn't a huge settlement, but I was happy that I'd seen it through. My attorney friend said that she knew the firm, and it had probably cost them triple the amount that I'd asked for in legal fees. I wish I could have seen Big Boss' face when he signed my check. I checked LinkedIn a few months later, and the HR director had been terminated. One colleague still working at the company said that it was officially because there weren't enough permanent employees to justify them staying.

Big Boss then vanished a few weeks later. His office was just emptied, and nobody spoke about him again. I still work in the same city, but I haven't seen either them again. And if I did, well, I was told to keep working, not to tell the client what was happening, and to get an attorney, so that's exactly what I did. Our next Reddit post is from Carl the Wellend out. When I started working at my new company, we had used all assigned parking spots in the adjacent parking garage, and I was given a spot in a building a couple of blocks away.

When I got in early one morning and had to be let in by security as the building wasn't yet unlocked, I talked with the security guard briefly, and this started a bit of a friendship. After a week or so, he asked me why I always come through their front door instead of through the parking garage, and I explained the situation. He ended up giving me one of the extra spots that was assigned to the security staff. I was only allowed to park there Monday to Thursday because they needed that spot for cleaning crews on Friday. This spot was only about 20 feet from the pedestrian bridge to the building, so it was a

pretty nice setup. We also have two company visitor spots in the same adjacent lot. However, they're on the top floor, they're exposed to the sun, and they require walking down three flights of stairs to get to the pedestrian bridge. We've had a senior engineer visiting from a different office for the last two weeks, parking in a visitor spot. On Tuesday, we went to our cars together, and he saw where I was parked. Well, when I got to work yesterday, he was already in my parking spot. I parked

in one of the visitor spots, and I let him know that he needed to move his vehicle out of my spot, or his car might be towed. He told me that it was fine. Don't worry about it. It was a company parking spot, and I could just stay in the visitor spots. I told him that I really didn't think that was a good idea, and I tried to explain, but he brushed me off. I followed up with an email letting him know that that spot was not least by our company, but that I just had permission to park there until the spot opened up in the garage. Well, come lunchtime, the senior engineer comes storming into my office. Apparently, the security guard saw the vehicle parked

in my spot was not my awful civic, but rather a Tesla. So he decided to have the vehicle towed. I'm not exactly sure what came of this, and I bet that I'll find out later today, but I'm happy that I sent that email to cover my butt because that senior engineer outranks me by a considerable margin.

And I do not need someone thinking that I left them high and dry out of spite. 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.