rSlash - r/Maliciouscompliance "I'M THE BOSS SO I'M ALWAYS RIGHT!"

Episode Date: October 17, 2021

r/Maliciouscompliance In today's episode, OP goes head-to-head with an egotistical manager at a Red Lobster. OP knows that the manager is wrong, but this is Malicious Compliance so OP is more than happy to obey the manager's stupid instructions. OP complies, causing the restaurant to get hugely backed up during rush hour. Everyone in the restaurant blames the manager, who of course tries to pin the blame on OP. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to R-Slash, a podcast where I read the best post from across Reddit. Today's subreddit is R-Slash malicious compliance, where a worker gets two years of paid vacation. Our next Reddit post is from WB-John. My mother passed away several years ago, and this is one of her best stories. She worked as the head of a transcription department of a government agency. Whenever she would ask for time off, her boss would refuse. This went on for years, and her leave just accrued. One day, when she was about to turn 63 years old, she walks into her boss's office and tells him she's giving him two years

notice that she'll be retiring. He's very confused as to why she's giving so much notice. She then informed him that she's going to be on vacation for the rest of her employment because she had two years of leave accrued and she just walked out the door. Down in the comments we had this story from Cinderella. This is similar to what happened to my mom. She had worked for a hospital for decades and had amassed at least nine months of paid time off. She requested a raise, and her boss told her that he couldn't afford giving her a raise in his budget that year. So she found a better job and put in her notice. Then her boss found out that he was going to have

to pay her all of her paid time off, plus hire someone to replace her. Then he wanted to negotiate a raise. She told him too little, too late. Our next reddit post is from anti-shurger dependent. I attended university about 10 years ago, and like many students, I dyed my hair funky colors. When I returned home to my summer job, I had short blue hair. My summer job was in retail working checkout. One day my manager pulled me aside and told me their uniform policies said that I wasn't allowed to have the majority of my hair on unnatural color. I asked what a majority meant, and he said that I would be allowed to have streaks, but not my whole head died a new color.

So I went home with a box of brown dye. The next day I turned up to work with the majority of my hair brown, but my fringe, bangs and undercut were still blue. Because my hairstyle was so short, if someone looked at me from the front, like customers would be, then all they could see would be my blue fringe. My manager told me this was unacceptable, even though I pointed out that more than 75% of my hair was now brown. He said that I had to dye my fringe and undercut brown too, or he'd fire me. So I dyed them brown too, and immediately started wearing clip-in colored hair pieces. He let me keep those, but he was not happy.

I still don't know why my ability to serve people was affected by my hair color. Our next reddit post is from anomalous treasure. I work as a freelance artist doing advertisement, ticket, and program booklet designs for various police and firefighter events that give to children's charities. It's not consistent work, but it pays pretty well for what it is. The people I work with directly are a promotions company that was created to sell the advertisement space and tickets. I've been working for them for a long time.

Throughout COVID, these people were essentially my only source of income, so I had to put up with their BS. Mostly, I had to put up with hearing that check is in the mail for two or three months before it actually arrived. I convinced the owner of the company to download PayPal so I could finally be paid in a reasonable time. He was confused on how to use it, so I told him about Cashapp. I was paid through Cashapp only once before he said, I just want to keep doing this by the book. These websites are sending me to look scammy. Also, you don't work for me, you work for your union, and they're the one cutting the checks. I asked him, are you sure you really want to do that? And of course, he said, yes,

Q malicious compliance. He's become quite upset with me since he realized that doing it by the book actually gives me all the leverage. From that point forward, I began putting my logo watermark on every single thing that I sent him. The first time he experiences was with show tickets. He asked me to remove the watermark and send it to the printers because he was satisfied with the work. I told him the watermark will come off when there's money in my account. He told me that he can't start making sales until he has tickets to sell. Thus, he doesn't have any money to pay me. Oh man, that sucks! Better figure out how to pay me electronically then. Here's my Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets, my PayPal and Cash App info, as well as info for direct deposits.

He insisted that he couldn't pay me before he had the tickets, so he agreed to a 50% price increase for me to release the files to him without pay. He actually paid me for that today. The second time this happened was with the show poster. The same thing occurred, only this time I was told that I would have to talk to the fraternal order of police about being paid since you work for them. They were very confused when I called them. An hour later, I got an angry phone call from the promoter's account, and I was paid by a direct deposit from the promoter's business account, not the cops account.

This morning was pretty interesting. He called me up while meeting with the police association to talk about cutting me a check for the last show that happened yesterday. During this call, he asked me about bank transfers, how to make a Bitcoin wallet, etc. And at the end, the promoter asked why my invoice stated that I'm no longer accepting checks as a form of payment. I asked him, are you sure you want me to answer this during this meeting? And he said yes.

So I told him while he was still on speakerphone with his boss, because you don't pay me for months when we do checks, so I now only accept online transfers. There was a little back and forth between him and the guy from the police association. It did not sound like Mr. Promoter was having a good time. I was told that I would get a call back about payments. Well, I did receive that call from the police association, not the promotion agency. They paid me via PayPal and apologized profusely. When I later got a call from their promoter afterward, he sounded very upset.

And he asked, why are you doing all this to me? Well, sir, you told me that you wanted to have done by the book, right? This is by the book. We didn't do it by the book before because I worked with you for years and your son is my best friend, so this is how it has to be from now on. We'll see how it turns out. I'm confident that I won't be losing any work, since the police associations, firefighters and other organizations have repeatedly told me how great my work looks and how I often work at half the price

of other freelancers. So I scroll down to the comments and the top comment on this thread is it's coming from Astrum Answer and he says, when will people learn that are you sure you want me to answer that means you absolutely won't like the answer and you'll be embarrassed if I actually say it right like this is what I said literally last video that's such a red flag are you sure you want me to do that like if I'm doing something and someone says that to me in that tone of voice I'd be like wait am I sure maybe I'm not sure the only the only bigger red flag if you ask someone to do something and they say sure can I get that in writing because I'm not sure I'm not sure the only the only bigger red flag because if you ask someone to do something and they say sure can I get that in writing because I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure. The only big red flag, if you ask someone to do something and they say, sure, can I get that in writing? Because if someone suddenly went to write down to do something, I'd be like, wait, did I just ask, just got to do something that's illegal? Am I committing a crime by asking him to do that?

So honestly, I don't know how people keep falling into this trap because it seems like a really obvious red flag that just makes you think, wait, am I screwing up here, because this guy seems really certain of something that I'm not aware of. Our next red post is from Reverend Bull. I used to teach intro to college courses. They were basically freshman level classes where we go over study skills and campus resources and how not to drive yourself nuts. It was a fun class to teach, especially for me. I loved deconstructing classroom norms. I usually started every semester in street clothes with a backpack, hiding among the students and complaining about the late professor.

Once for an exam, I offered the students any resource they wanted. After all, I'd made the test about interpreting information rather than memorizing it. If they could look up a term, then they'd be able to better reason their way around it. Most students brought books and notes, a few brought laptops and note cards. One student, however, came to my office hours

right before class. Mr. OP, what can I do for you? If I don't have access to a resource, you'll help us find it, right? Like in that library literacy unit we did? Of course, that's what I'm here for. You said that we can have any resource we went for that test, right? Yeah, that's what I put on the syllabus. What are you thinking? Great! Then I'd like the answer key to the test, please. I had to take a second, and then just grin, proud as can be. I'd push them all semester to think outside the box and carve their own way,

and this audacious little punk came up with a perfect plan. The student got her answer key, and because I'd also allowed group work, the whole class got it. Our next reddit post is from Names Row. This happened several years ago, and I am forever relieved that I don't work in a restaurant anymore. Solidarity to all you kitchen workers for the endless BS that you have to deal with. At the time, I was working in the kitchen as an assembler. This can be one of the most clutch positions on the line because you take all the food being prepared by the other cooks and organizing into tickets that can be taken out into the

dining room. Accordingly, it's often a bottle neck for food leaving the kitchen. If you have a slow assembler, then cooked food dies under the heating lamps. Grilled salmon dries out, fries become soggy, linguine Alfredo hardens into concrete, really horrific stuff. It is imperative that food doesn't sit in the window. I was working a weekday lunch shift, which is normally pretty slow. We must have provoked the wrath of the restaurant gods on this day, though, because out of nowhere,

the store got hit with a tsunami of customers. I could just barely make out the other cooks through the clouds of shrimp scampi, fire grease, and cheddar bay biscuits flying through the air. I knew that a shit storm was headed in my direction and I began putting empty plates in the window to prepare. On the other side of the window coordinating the servers was my manager, Gruntface. I should use this real name actually, let's call him Bob instead. Bob was a bit hyperactive and he had an irritating tendency to micromanage kitchen processes. A problem compounded by his not knowing how the f*** to run a kitchen. When I began putting empty plates in the window so that the incoming interstellar-sized

wave of seafood at something to land on, he stopped me. What are you doing, Bob asked? I'm putting the plates in their sides in the window because we're about to have a very high volume of food coming through, I replied. Well, this is Red Lobster, and here we do things the Red Lobster way. We plate the food when the food is ready, and we do not put sides on early. I tried explaining that the Red Lobster way was designed by sentient suits and ties physically incapable of holding a spatula. That our sacred way, as dictated in the good book of employee training, had died in the

trenches of last year's Inlish Rim special. That while I did appreciate this job, I wasn't prepared to die an honorable death at the hands of this rush just because of the red lobster way, but Bob wasn't having any of it. Bob insisted that I take the plates out of the window and only pass in plates and tickets that were 100% completed. Knowing full well that Bob's bad planning was flying us into a storm of shit, I put on a feces-resistant raincoat, rub some vix under my nose, and brace for impact. 30 minutes later, the window was chaos!

Finished food was left dying in the wings of the window while I played it up one finished ticket at a time. Bob was equal parts confused and furious, like a toddler whose toy was suddenly taken away. What's the food waiting on? He cried, gesturing towards a shriveled up steak and its associated sides. Well, that order is waiting on some fried shrimp, and you told me I need to wait for the ticket to be complete before I played it up. Why is the ticket missing fried shrimp, and you told me I need to wait for the ticket to be complete before I plate it up. Why is the ticket missing fried shrimp?

Unfortunately, I'm not manning the fryer, sir, so I don't know. This continued for the better part of an hour. It seemed like every ticket was missing one little thing that kept it from leaving the kitchen. After the rush had passed, Bob approached me with a twitchy, nervous energy of a coaked-up boxer. Well, that, or a hyper-caffeinated insecure manager who needed to assert his dominance over the underpaid crew of some bunk-ass seafood restaurant.

Can I speak to you in the walk-in for a moment, OP? Sure thing. We stepped into the walk-in cooler. So what happened back there? Bob asked, arms folded, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He said that we should follow the system, and we did. I replied, mentally noting that he was standing in front of the walk-ins only exit. But there were a lot of missed items on those tickets.

We had food dying in the window. I saw it. Yeah, it was pretty bad. So, why was the food missing? I don't know. I wasn't cooking the window. I saw it. Yeah, it was pretty bad. So why was the food missing? I don't know. I wasn't cooking the food. I was assembling it. I'm the assembler. This line of questioning continued, with Bob trying to somehow pin this catastrophe at the last hour on my willingness to comply with his orders, while I blithely insisted that I did exactly what was asked of me. After not being able to move past this point for several minutes, Bob made some sweeping statement about doing better next time and left.

Incidentally, the next time I was assembling and Bob was on the other side of the window, nothing was said about the red lobster way and the rush went much smoother. I guess we ended up doing better after all. Opie, I'm pretty sure that the reason why he brought you into the freezer was because everyone in the front of the house was complaining to him about the slow food and he obviously blamed the entire kitchen staff. But you were the one and only person in the entire restaurant who knew the real problem, which was this guy's stupid directive. And since he knew that you knew that he was the problem, he had to lay down the law and make sure you know that he's in charge here.

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. single day.