rSlash - r/Maliciouscompliance I Got $45,000 For Reporting My Boss To The Feds!

Episode Date: June 20, 2021

r/Maliciouscompliance In today's episode, OP works for a boss who thinks that he can get away with stealing software and using trial versions of programs illegally. When the bossman tries to screw over OP, OP retaliates by turning his boss over to the authorities. The boss ends up paying a $1,000,000 fine, and OP is rewarded with a $45,000 payout. Thanks for the severance package, boss! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to R-Slash, a podcast where I read the best posts from across Reddit. Today's subreddit is R-Slash malicious compliance, where O.P. Turks is boss and the paying him to just sit around and browse Reddit all day. Our next Reddit post is from Rintical. Last month, my manager dropped a bombshell. My company has decided to scrap the big project that my team has been working on for the past two years. We have to wrap everything up, and starting from June, we're all going to be moved to different teams.

Now, I'm a data analyst, and the company doesn't have any open projects that require a data analyst. So they looked at my profile, saw that I had some basic knowledge of programming, and decided to move me to the dev team. Both me and the dev team think this is an insane idea because I'll need lots of training before I become useful, and I don't even want to become a full time dev. But upper management hasn't bothered to ask for our opinion before making all of these arrangements. I immediately start looking for a new job, and as luck would have it, there's an extremely

high request for data analysts in my area. Within a few weeks, I have an offer in my hand and I give my notice. I'm in the EU, and my contract is very strict regarding notice periods. A resigning employee must give two months notice. This is entirely for the benefit of the company that will need to find a replacement. Luckily, the same applies when a company fires an employee. They have to give the employee two months notice. However, it is possible to shorten the notice period by mutual agreement. So when I sit down with my manager in HR, I tell them that I'd like to give only two

weeks notice and leave at the end of May. I tell them that I've already started wrapping up my activities before my move to the dev team, and I don't have any ongoing projects that I need to transfer to my colleagues. So, two weeks should be more than enough to finish documenting everything. They say absolutely not, I have to stay there for the entire two month period. Which is fine by me. My new job doesn't start until August and I don't mind being paid in the meantime. The only reason I suggested shortening my notice period was because I thought that I was doing the company a favor. I felt like I'd be stealing their paycheck if I stayed for two months, even though I didn't have anything to do.

But since they pretty much told me that I was being unprofessional or that I was trying to cut and run, okay. I'll take your money in exchange for sitting around doing nothing for a few more weeks. You may think, but OP, they're going to find some boring task for you to do. Well, they can certainly try, but the projects they're working on are so different from what I've been doing that I'm pretty much useless. For example, someone will say, can you do XYZ? And I will honestly answer. I have no idea what XYZ even is, but I'll be happy to help if you teach me.

At that point, they'll just say that it'll take too long to train me and it's not worth it since I'm leaving soon. So my working days now go like this. I show up at 9 a.m. sharp and go to my office, where I'm the only person since the others removed to different teams. I have a leisurely second breakfast. Check my email, then I send a message to our team's group letting them know that I'm free and ask me if they need

help with anything. Then I remote into my home PC and just play until lunchtime. I have lunch, coffee, and I chat with my co-workers. In the afternoon, I check Reddit, chat with my friends at their online, play a bit more, and I'm out the door by 5pm. By the way, they would like me to vacate the office so they can use it as a meeting room, but they can't until I leave. There are no empty desks anywhere, and the dev team already hired someone else and has no space, so... tough luck. OP, honestly, it's a shame you have to leave after two months, because that sounds like a dream job.

Getting paid to sit around in browse right at all day? Sign me up. Well, I guess actually now that I think about it, that's kind of what my job is now. Our next credit post is from Aloy's My Co-Pilot. About four years ago, I worked for a company that provided behavior services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We did individual counseling, parent training, data analysis, etc. Think highly specialized mental care and support for in-home and community settings. Anyway, after two years of working there and getting another certification, I asked my

boss for a raise. I was newly divorced and raising three kids, so I really needed the money. I've been working over 10 hours of overtime a week just to stay afloat. My boss also knew about my situation. My evaluations were great, and I'd been told that I'd be promoted to a supervisor soon, so my boss had to have known this conversation was coming. This man looked me dead in the eyes and said that he knew that I wanted to make more money and my reviews were great, but he wanted to make sure that I was loyal to the company mission. He told me that he can tell when people

are just looking to make more money, and we tell those people to go work somewhere else. He wanted to make sure the new supervisor would put the company mission and the families we support first. He told me that he couldn't offer me a raise at this time, but he would get back to me. No date was set for a follow-up meeting or anything. I started applying for new jobs that day. Within two weeks, I had found a new position making double the salary for only 40 hours of work a week. As it turns out, I was being severely underpaid. Shocker, I know. The day that I handed in my two weeks notice, my boss and the owner were in a meeting about promoting me.

Of course, no one said anything to me about it beforehand. They sent me an offer, which I politely declined because it sucked. Then they tried to hire me on as a contractor at a rate that was at least 25% lower than every other contractor rate in the city for my position. So I turned that down too. My boss and the owner were both shocked that I rejected their offers, especially since they were willing to offer me, quote, so many perks. They said that they were giving me an opportunity to become a great leader in the company and

believe that I was a great clinician who would do so many great things within their organization. I reminded my boss that he's the one who told me to go work somewhere else, and then I stopped responding to their messages. OP reminds me of my old boss. I asked him to give me a promotion, and he said that he would, but then just never did it. And then after he fired me, I became a pro YouTuber,

and now I make more money than he does, so, heck! Our next Reddit post is from the potato fairy. I worked for a small company for six weeks at the end of 2020. My boss fired me with no real explanation when I was off sick with COVID. I have ADHD, so I wasn't hugely surprised. However, I was surprised by the timing and the fact that this was done by email. I asked for more clarity. I was never rude to him. I just told him that I wish he done by email. I asked for more clarity. I was never

rude to him. I just told him that I wish he'd called me so I could get some feedback. He got really mad and proceeded to write a long list of my shortcomings, some of which were overexaggerated and some of which were false. He then said, if you want to take legal action against me, let me know. I didn't, so I just left it and moved on. Fast forward to today. My old boss just called me from a private number asking how I was. I was taken aback because we've had no communication since then. He said, someone's reported me that I'm using unlicensed software. Was that you?

Because I know that we left on bad terms. I said that I had no idea what he's talking about. He seemed to think that I was devastated that he fired me and that I would have good reason to report him. No matter what I said, he was convinced that it was me. He even accused my dad, who works in IT. I didn't even know that he was using unlicensed software. I said, I feel like you're unfairly accusing me here, and he raised his voice and shouted, Why do you always play the victim? Stop playing the victim! It sounded so rehearsed, I honestly had to hold back laughter. Then he said, I'm not accusing you, but did you do it?

Looking back, I believe the software he used was unlicensed. We only ever used a student version of Autodesk, which is illegal when you're running a business. This, combined with his accusation, tells me that my boss was, in fact, breaking the law. I was so pissed off by his accusation that I reported him to both Autodesk and the software alliance. He'll have to run an audit and likely face a huge fine. He thinks I reported him either way, so what harm could one more report do? Okay, so I know that using pirated software as a business is bad, but it isn't exactly clear to me how bad that is. Luckily, down in the comments, Bapper 111 shares a story that shows just how bad that is. A large, tool-dye mold shop got hit hard for the same thing in 2005 after they screwed with one of their employees.

The shop had around 50 workstations and all workstations except for one were using pirate versions. They also installed 12 pirate copies of CAD. Every station had bootleg copies of Microsoft Office. Some of their pirated programs are not cheap and they're industry specific. So, the guy they fired was the IT person and he knew where the bodies were buried. After they tried to screw this guy over on a Severance package, he decided to get even. He sent the software alliance a list of every pirated program and the workstation it was installed on. In the end, the company was

fined almost a million dollars and the guy got a 45,000 dollar reward. Also, the company was fined almost a million dollars and the guy got a $45,000 reward. Also, the company had to install legit legal copies on all stations. Our next reddit poster from Sujitwater. So let me set the scene. I'm a software engineer. I used to work for a pretty big company that specialized in developing software solutions for their client.

I was sent on-site to the client, which was a big Malaysian bank to play the role of a front-end developer. Basically, I was making their internet banking website. They already had back-end services set up for a mobile application, which we were to also use for their website. There was one big problem. You could only install the app on one device. This meant that if the customer logged into their app, they wouldn't be able

to log in through the website. As anyone can tell, this was a big problem. I tried to tell this problem to the app developer and the project manager, but they told me that I don't know what I'm talking about, and it stopped disturbing them and just do my job in nothing else. So, I sent an email detailing the whole problem to both of them and their bosses. As expected, nothing happened, but my butt was covered. Fast forward two months, and the client reviews the architecture for the website and finds out about the problem. They call a meeting, and they absolutely blast the two guys above their boss.

They claim that they're just back-end people, and they don't know the difference in behavior between a website and an app, so it was my job to let them know. So, they bring me in to ask me why I didn't let them know about this problem, and that because of me, this project has been delayed two months, and the company has incurred huge losses. I calmly tell them of my meeting with those two idiots, and showed them the email that they ignored. What happened next was a glorious explosion, and they always consider my suggestions now. The aftermath, after two months, one of them was replaced and transferred to another project. The project manager quit IT, and last I heard he was trying to set up an organic farming business. Our next reddit post is from Internal Car.

At the time of this event, my wife is one of the top tier flight attendants for our country's national airline. Strictly speaking, any of their flights adonable ports in the USA or its territories aren't required to follow all of FAA rules. However, whenever they flight a port regulated by the FAA, they're expected to follow those rules to the T. Of course, it doesn't always work out that way in practice. On this occasion, my wife is just landed from Europe at her home airport in South America, only to learn that she's being turned around

for a round trip to New York City. She protests. By the time she lands in New York, she'll be well outside the FAA rest period rules with all the consequences that could follow. Her supervisors don't care, they need her on that flight right now, so a way she goes. But my wife knows that the flight to New York isn't the real problem, it's the return trip that will be pure misery. Passengers flying home from New York tend to be extremely entitled. They're coming from New York, so that makes them somebody now. They'll refuse rank service when it's offered, and then when the flight attendant is three or four rows further along, they'll push the call button and order a

drink. They'll keep an attendant hopping back and forth the whole flight for stupid little things. Many of these things they could actually do for themselves. My wife is tired, and she knows that dealing with this entitled crowd on the return trip is gonna be the worst. As they get to New York, she's told to check out an in-flight movie for the return trip. She was told to pick a movie that was interesting enough that people would be too busy with the movie to bother the fly crew that much. Cue the malicious compliance.

As she looks over the options, she finds the perfect film. A film that will keep the passengers riveted to their seats. Frankly, given the nature of this film, she isn't even sure why it exists in this cartridge format used on planes at this time. Perhaps because this format is also used on yachts and cruise ships, I don't know, she orders it.

Once on board, she keeps the movie a secret. She knows that once she pops in the movie and it starts to play, the system in use at the time can't be stopped. But any time before that, it could be thwarted. Mid-flight, as the plane is well out over the ocean on its way south, she pops in Airport 77. For those who don't know, the film is about an airplane crashing in the ocean and passengers and crew trying to escape with their lives from a hundred feet underwater. The results are immediate and absolute. While there are many white knuckles, no one seems inclined to press their call buttons. And my wife has a very quiet uninterrupted rest for the remainder of the flight home. The aftermath.

As she's de-boarding, one old lady is heard saying that she will never fly on National Airline again. When my wife was called out for her movie choice, she feigned ignorance. She claimed to have thought that it was the much more comical airplane movie and that the name was lost in translation. My wife was given a three-day suspension, which for her is a much needed rest. Oh, and she'll never be allowed to pick the InFlight movie ever again. OP, after that movie, and did your wife should have been like, oh my mistake, this movie is completely inappropriate.

Here, let me put it another one, Snakes on a plane. That was our Slash Militious Compliance, and if you like this content, be sure to follow my podcast because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.