rSlash - r/Maliciouscompliance I Literally Caused an Explosion

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

0:00 Intro 0:08 Pressure test 3:35 Delete 7:14 Jeans 10:13 Enter 13:38 Camera on Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Our next Reddit post is from RearEngineer. Back when I was a junior engineer, I was working with a piping contractor supporting a gas plant project that was in the final stretch before commissioning. We were under intense pressure to hit deadlines and everyone was feeling the heat. One of my responsibilities was reviewing materials before installation, i.e. basic quality control to make sure that we weren't about to install something that would bite us later. Then the pipes arrived. These were large diameter, high pressure pipes for a critical gas line.

But the moment I saw them, I knew something was off. The mill markings didn't match the material certificates, and some of the weld seams looked rough. When we took a closer look, we found surface defects and laminations at the bevel. Classic signs of poor quality steel from a dodgy mill. I flagged it immediately. My lead engineer took one look and agreed. These pipes were not fit for their purpose. We raised it with the project manager, expecting him to do the obvious thing, reject the batch and order replacements from an approved supplier. But this project manager wasn't like most project managers. He wasn't an engineer,

he had a bachelor of commerce, and he had landed the job thanks to his uncle, a senior executive. He had zero technical knowledge and didn't care to learn. To him, this was just another job to push through quickly to up his bonus, and rejecting the pipes would cause delays, something he was desperate to avoid since it would probably affect his bonus. His response? The supplier says they meet specifications, so they meet specifications. Just install them and move on. I pushed back, explaining that if these pipes failed under

pressure, we were looking at a major incident. He waved me off. Just get it done. If it's a problem, the pressure test will catch it. Alright, mate. Let's see how that goes. The pipes were installed as is, and we moved on to pressure testing. I stood back and watched. As we ramped up the pressure, the pipe's weld seam split wide open and ruptured the pipe. The force of the failure sent a shockwave through the system, and a few of the pipe

supports even bent. The pressure test failed spectacularly. Now, instead of a minor delay to replace the pipes before installation, we had a catastrophic failure that shut down work for weeks. The entire line had to be cut out, re-welded, and retested. The supplier was blacklisted, and an internal investigation was launched into how the pipes had been improved in the first place. We were also forced by the client to bear the cost of this rework. As expected, the project manager tried to shift the blame. But my lead engineer simply pulled up the email chain where we had clearly raised the direct concerns.

Management didn't take long to connect the dots. The project manager was taken off the project immediately and was sacked a month later following initial investigation results and even his uncle couldn't save him. I never saw him again after that. Last I heard, he decided to pursue a career outside of the industry. Stories like this really prove the adage. Make sure you write it down, because if you don't, morons like this will try to push the blame to you. Our next Reddit post is from Meso Cesera. also the de facto IT guy for the three stores near me and had been heavily involved in setting

up a new point of sale system for their two most successful stores when they were swapped from one gas brand to another. The company had made me the super admin on all registers just for ease of transition. The owner's wife had been awful to me for the two years that I worked there. I got bumped to opener by her husband and she hated having a man be an opener. Historically, every single opener was picked by her and was a woman, but her husband came and fired the previous opener for theft, so I got a field promotion of sorts. The wife was constantly scrutinizing everything that I did, constantly calling me in the mornings

to be rude and berate me for a bunch of minor things that I did wrong. You used wet wipes on the area around the drink machine. I want you to use paper towels and spray. We were out of paper towels, and the spray we had smelled like a hospital anyways. I came in your store last night and there were three rows of Snapple Apple. You could probably increase sales by putting one or two of those rows to a different product. Even though the Snapple fridge was 100% handled by the vendor and we had signed a contract that we wouldn't change the layout of the product. Long story short, she was awful to me because I was a dude.

I had set up their POS system because I was somewhat tech savvy. I was made super admin on the new registers they had. I was desperately looking for work when I found a temporary IT job, which led to my current career in IT. I got a new job offer and gave her husband my two weeks notice, but I never told her because I did my very best to avoid talking to her unless necessary. When she found out that it was my last week, she legitimately lost her mind. She gave me a ton of stuff to do and worked me to the bone until 2pm on the last Friday I worked.

Finally, the time to depart forever came, and she personally came with an office worker and stood by me and asked me to delete my account from the register. I knew that I was super admin, and I'd been told if I ever left to convert the account. She had also been told this, but she had long since forgotten about it. So I said to hell with it and complied, then went to the other store and did likewise while she watched. I go about my life, start my new job, and end up about three weeks in when I get a frantic voicemail and like 20 texts and calls from her. I called the office worker who stood

over my shoulder with her and got the scoop. She basically couldn't change any prices at all when the new beer and soda prices started rolling out and her new opener had just let it pile up because she didn't know how to do it and they were going to have someone come train her. They had a bunch of items that were like 5 or 10% below the price that they were supposed to be at. Margins on cases of beer are low and this was nuking their profits. Once I thought it over, I texted her and said, ''You asked me to do that.

It's on video and we have three witnesses. I found out later they ended up spending $6,000 to get the company back out to fix the issue. The boss's wife legit had a Facebook page at one point with people planning to poop on her grave when she died one day. To be clear, she's still alive. So I wasn't the only person she was awful to, but I do feel like I got one up on her and it feels good. Our next reddit post is from mouseg. This happened many years ago. I worked for a top US banking institution. In our building, all the other departments were allowed to wear blue jeans on Fridays. My manager decided that

our department had to wear business attire on Fridays. To be clear, we had no customer-facing presence. Also, our department processes checked deposits from ATMs, and they came in mesh bags from the armored couriers. They were usually quite filthy and were frequently wet in bad weather. So when our manager told us that we couldn't wear blue jeans on Fridays like every other department, the entire team was upset. Here's where we cue the malicious compliance. The next Friday, I went to my closet and found the most mismatched outfit I could put together, sticking completely to business attire.

We're talking pastel floral print shirt with pants with bold colored stripes. I put it on and proudly walked into the office. My manager just happened to be on vacation that week, so nothing was said about my ridiculously mismatched outfit. Fast forward to next Friday. I once again chose the most hideous combination of an outfit that I could put together. Once again, I walked into the office with my head held high, confident in my business attire. Imagine my surprise when I walked in and everyone on my team had hideous

combinations of clothing. As you can imagine, my boss walks in and sees everyone in their various hideous outfits. The look on her face was priceless. All 15 of us in hideous outfits, but all meeting the business attire dress code. She pulled us all into a meeting and told us that our attire was entirely inappropriate for a business environment and that she would have to write each and every one of us up. I asked her to pull up the company handbook and read the definition of what it said as business attire. She read it and it said something like like clean and pressed business attire consisting of slacks, skirts, or dresses, and clean pressed shirts and blouses. It went on to say something like no blue jeans, t-shirts, ripped or clothes with holes, no

sleeveless shirts, and no athletic or gym shoes. I asked her where in the guidelines does it say anything about whether the outfits matched or not. She couldn't find anything and said that she would have to contact HR to discuss with them what her options were to write us up. Needless to say, none of us were ever written up. She did, however, say that we still needed to dress in business attire. Word quickly spread to other departments about her forcing us to wear business attire. The next week, two departments around us decided they would also dress up in hideously mismatched clothing.

The managers of those departments quickly got in touch with our manager and put pressure on her because they didn't like how their employees were dressing. Our manager called us into a meeting and told us we could wear blue jeans on Friday going forward. Malicious compliance wins! Our next reddit post is from InfiniteSalary. A few years ago, I worked armed security at a hospital. The Greater Health System owned three large hospitals, each with a 24-hour trauma center.

It had a couple of smaller county hospitals and dozens of clinics scattered across three states. I worked at one of the bigger hospitals and dozens of clinics scattered across three states. I worked at one of the bigger hospitals in a bad part of town. There were legitimate security threats on a daily basis here. One day I was told to stand at the main entrance and keep staff out. I was like, huh? Apparently some middle management person wrote a new policy that staff members are to enter and exit the building through the west entrance only.

The main entrance was to be used by patients and guests, and they didn't want employees cluttering the main entrance because god forbid people see medical staff upon entering a hospital. My job was to stand at the door and tell nurses, doctors, cafeteria staff, facilities, janitors, etc. to use the west entrance. Anyone who refused had their name written down and would be reprimanded later. Now I had other stuff to worry about, like fighting in the emergency room. Or people running to the helipad and taking a selfie with the life flight patients. Or dudes on PCP yelling at the wheelchairs.

Or the woman with dementia who wandered off and can't find her room. You know, actual security problems. The main entrance posting was a waste of my time and it dragged on for several days. Until one day, I saw a man wearing a suit leading a gaggle of important people, all in business attire. The ringleader had an employee ID badge and was speaking enthusiastically to the group. They were heading straight for the main entrance. I said, sorry folks, gotta use the west entrance.

The rang leader said, what? Hospital policy, all employees must use the west entrance. We're gonna use this entrance. He points to the door behind me. Okay, but I'll need to take your names down. Your supervisor will be informed. The ringleader stares at me like I'm the biggest idiot alive and holds his ID badge in front of my face for an uncomfortably long time. I took his name down and the name of every single member of his gaggle with painful slowness.

I should add, they were all very polite despite my obvious lack of cares to give. Shortly after, the security supervisor arrives. The supervisor said, how's it going? I said, not bad. I have a dozen or so names and I show him the list. He says, is that? He points to the ringleader's name. I said, I don't know.

His badge said, Chief Something Officer. He looked important. Chief Executive Officer? Yeah, I think that was it. My supervisor quickly walked away. It turns out, the CEO of the health system was bringing a group of potential investors, the aforementioned gaggle, for a tour of the place. He was never informed of the main entrance policy change and was greatly embarrassed

to be stopped at the entrance of his own hospital by some rent-a-cop. Suddenly, as if by magic, staff could use the main entrance again, and I could return to actual security work. OP, writing up the CEO of your company is such a power move. I love it. But, you know, props to the CEO. Despite him being surprised, as you'd expect, he did just let you do your job. Our next Reddit post is from ScissorFella.

In 2021, I was working on a project with his manager, Mark, who was a real stickler for the rules. He was the kind of dude who wouldn't allow chit chat in his team and loved an office day more than anything, despite the fact that our team was external and all of us lived crazy far away. I've got a chronic disease, which at the time, was kept relatively under control with infusions at the hospital every few weeks. Seeing as Mark didn't want to chit chat, he wasn't aware that I live with this disease. One day, I was in the hospital working from the bed with a canola in one arm.

For those who don't know, a canola, if I'm pronouncing that right, is one of those plastic tubes that goes into your arm that administers medicine. We had our daily meeting planned and I figured that it would be fine to call in without my camera as they could still hear me just fine and I didn't want to freak anyone out with the infusion line in the picture and whatnot. I get onto the call and Mark immediately comments that he can't see my face. I tell him that I don't have my camera on today and I don't elaborate, figuring that it's a 15 minute call and I could just as easily be driving or something.

Mark responds by asking me to stay back on the call after we finish. I comply and he chews me out for not turning on my camera, saying that it's a rule that we all need to show our faces. Fine! I turn on my camera and watch his face go from red to white as he sees me in what is very clearly a hospital room. I tell him that I'm uncomfortable being on camera while I'm getting treatments. Also, not elaborating on what the treatment is for. His sweaty little face still brings me joy. It was a really nice moment to bask in and I think about it

pretty often when I get managers who like rules just a little too much. God, workers are so dumb with cameras. I've got an editor who edits all these videos. I haven't seen his face or heard his voice in something like three years. And we get the job done together just fine. That was r 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.