rSlash - r/Maliciouscompliance Karen Became Manager, So We Started Fighting Customers

Episode Date: March 30, 2021

r/Maliciouscompliance In today's episode, OP works at a fast food joint and a Karen takes over as a new manager. On her very first day on the job, Karen retreats to the office and completely ignores the business so she can watch TV. She was even scheduled to work the line that day, so all the other workers were working a man down due to her laziness. The workers eventually become too stressed out due to the toxic work environment, so one of the employees throws a milkshake at a customer, which leads the employees mass quitting. That Karen really messed up her first day on the job! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Where can a vehicle from Mazda's electrified line up take you? From powering up. To winding down. Electrify every moment with the 2024 Mazda CX90 plug-in hybrid. Learn more at Mazda.ca Welcome to R-Slash, a podcast where I read the best post from across Reddit. Today's subreddit is R-Slash malicious compliance where Karen gets herself fired on the first day of the job.

Our next reddit postage from the old angry anus. I worked in the logistics department of a fairly large company. My job is to check our system for orders that come in and to rearrange the shipping for them. When the orders come in, they include the date that the materials have to be delivered by. Sometimes, someone on the team makes a typo and inputs a wrong date, but it's rare. Our company is really big on having work instructions and standard processes for everything

we do. My instructions are to always deliver the shipment by the date in the system. There's this one coworker who has a history of inputting the wrong date. I've had to ask her a number of times in the past to please verify the date, and she would go in and correct it. This one time, there were a few dates that looked wrong, so I emailed her and asked her to confirm them. She flipped out, saying that she isn't making those mistakes anymore, and I'm wasting her time.

She reported me to my manager for not following the process or my work instructions. And he flipped out at me, saying that I'm going against our company culture, and that I'll be written up if I go outside the process again by emailing the material planner. A month or so later I see an order coming to our system. It's a huge order with a combined weight of 30,000 pounds. I check the delivery date and it needs to be delivered in 3 weeks to Colorado and it's currently in India. I know what project this is for and the delivery date definitely isn't right.

These materials don't need to be delivered for at least two months due to delays on the build site. The material planner never updated the need date to reflect those delays. So what do I do? I check the work instructions my boss wrote, and according to my boss's instructions, if an order can't make the delivery date in our system via ocean travel, then it has to go via air. And I sure as hell,

I'm not gonna email that dumb coworker to ask for a verification after what happened last time. So I get in touch with our logistics company and it's gonna cost close to $100,000 to fly the materials from India. That's $90,000 more expensive than if we had shipped it via ocean. I set everything up and once everything got loaded onto the plane, I sent that dumb co-worker the documentation.

Not even two minutes later, she calls me flipping out. I tell her that I plan to deliver the shipment by the date that she requested, and then their silence. After a long pause, I say, is there anything else I can help you with? She hangs up in my manager calls, also flipping out. I tell him that I did exactly what he told me to do, and I follow the instructions that he wrote.

He told me that I should have known better and that my job was on the line because of this. False. His job and the material planner's job was on the line because of this. False. His job and the material planner's job was on the line because of this. I did exactly as I was told, and I was just following the company culture. HR and upper management launches an investigation, and I'm clear to have any wrongdoing. I was specifically instructed to not go outside of the work instructions that my manager wrote. The material planer got written up, and my manager got in deep trouble because he forgot

to add an approval process for shipments over $15,000 to his wonderful work instructions, like his manager had asked him to. Our next reddit post is from PacRat. This story happened about two decades ago. Some background, my first job was at a fast food chain. I worked hard and pressed a store manager and got myself promoted. At the time I was 17, so I was promoted to team leader with the implication that I would get promoted further when I was older. I was still in high school, so I worked the evening shift from 4 to 12.

The evening manager was a good guy who also worked hard, and as a result, he had gotten promoted to a store manager position at a different location. Since they needed a manager and I wasn't old enough, they hired a new manager who all called Karen. So Karen has hired and started shadowing the current night manager learning the ropes. After two weeks, the evening shift manager departs and she takes over. This is where the story really starts. I normally get to the store about 30 minutes early. One of my responsibilities is to make a position chart, which tells the workers where they're

gonna be working that night. I need to hand it off to a manager for approval before posting it. As I arrive, I notice one of our night shift workers is already there. We'll call her Gin. Gin is sitting in the lobby, crying, and being consoled by the other employees. I always found her to be a bit manic, but she was a nice girl. She had a rough home life, so I didn't hold it against her. I came to find out that she just had a huge fight with her mother, which ended with her

getting kicked out. So she was effectively homeless. It was a good reason to be upset. I asked her if she needed the night off, and she said no, she needs the money. I couldn't disagree with her, so I headed off to get started. So given what I know, I make a position chart and place Karen on the register and Jin on their fire where she can get help if she can't focus. I walked to the office to hand off the chart at the night manager, and I was surprised that she wasn't there. Normally, he's in the

office at least an hour before his shift starts to make sure everything is ready. That's when I remembered that this was going to be Karen's first night alone and I groan inwardly. This is going to be a trial by fire kind of night. The day manager is there but there's no sign of Karen. It's now about 10 minutes to the start of the shift and even the day manager is wondering what's up. I feel in the day manager about Jen, show her the chart and ask if it looks good. She agrees and I said that I'll post a chart for now and Karen can sign it when she gets in. I had just finished posting the position chart when Karen chose up looking frazzled. She hid through the office without saying a word to anyone.

Meanwhile, people start getting into position and get ready for the shift. A few minutes later, Karen walks up, pulls my position chart and replaces it with a new one. Again, she walks off without a word. According to the new position chart, Jin is working the drive-through when Karen is working nothing. Her name isn't even on the chart. She has another employee working two positions, and the whole shift working effectively one person shorts. What the f? I hid to the office where Karen in the day manager are talking and ask for clarification. I say there must be some kind of mistake. No, that's right. But you're not working in a position and this other worker is working two positions.

Well, how am I supposed to be in charge if I'm working a position? You need to be in a position, you're accounted for in the labor calculations. Well, I have six years of management experience and I've never needed to fill a position to get the job done. Things are going to change around here. We do things MY way now. Now she just spent the last two weeks shadowing a manager that walked her through every step of the job. She knows she should be in a position and why.

This shouldn't even be a question. She just wants to spend her shift sitting in the office and everyone knows it. At this point, the day shift manager and I are sharing a horrified look at each other. I tell Karen that she's gonna have to move people around if that's what she wants because it's her plan. She gives an exasperated sigh and heads off to do just that. I turn to the day shift manager and plead with her to call the store manager and let her know what's going on.

She agrees. I head back to the line and start working. A short time later, the day shift manager pulls me aside and says that, according to the store manager, it's Karen shift, so she's in charge. Karen makes all the decisions, then the day shift manager left for the night. The store then proceeded to implode in spectacular fashion. Less than one hour in, the employee working two positions is so overwhelmed that orders are taking three times as long to get out. The drive-through is backed up with college guys stuck at the window trying

to flirt with Jin, who is having none of it and is getting more annoyed by the minute. As the wake gets longer and longer, customers are becoming more and more erotages they get to the window and they're taking it out on Jin. Things are starting to get out of hand and Karen is nowhere to be seen. I go to the office to let her know that we need help and I find her watching a portable TV. I start to tell her what's going on and she cuts me off. She tells me to get back on the line, do my job and stop bothering her. I was about to try to explain and when I just thought,

you know what, screw that. Cue malicious compliance. Your Hone could use a little extra. A bit more. Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. Or maybe a whole lot of. Add some extra. Oh, oh, oh.

To your holiday gatherings, when you add ice cold coke to your cart, Coca-Cola. Real magic. Embrace the holiday season with a Starbucks Red Cup in your hands. Your favorite festive sips are back and it's time to make every moment just a little more magical. Whether it's enjoying some meat time by the fire sipping a Toasty Chestnut Prairie lean latte, spending an afternoon with friends on the skating rink, sharing peppermint mocus, or closing up for family movie night with hot chocolates

and caramel brulee lattes. There's a holiday flavor to save her for every moment. Share in the joy and sip on some magic all season long with the Starbucks app. I turned walk back to the line and watch the chaos unfold. 30 minutes later, a customer at the drive-through is giving Jin an earful about how long she's been waiting. The customer calls Jin worthless, and Jin goes off. Jin takes the large strawberry milkshake next to her, throws it at the lady, and calls her a fat, ugly grunt. The customer and the inside of her car are covered in pink goo.

Everything went so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Then this lady starts screaming. Jin closes the window on her and walks calmly to the back. The lady peels around the front and comes in the front door screaming for a manager. I go and knock on the office door. Karen appears, looking pissed and annoyed. She tries to snap at me, but I tell her she has a customer at the front asking for the manager. Karen rolls her eyes and heads towards the front asking for the manager.

Karen rolls her eyes and heads towards the front, oblivious to what's waiting for her. I went to the back of this torn found Jin huddled up crying again. I tell her to pull herself together and head back to the front when she's ready. I head to the front where this purple face lady is screaming at Karen about dry cleaning and a poultry cleaning. And I want that girl fired! At this point, I can see that Karen has finally realized that things have gotten way out of control.

She's trying to calm this lady down, but this customer is having none of it. Eventually, Jin comes back up to the front, and this lady starts in on her again, calling her all kinds of nasty things. Karen just stood there and let this woman berate her. Jin just kind of deflated in front of us. Watching her crumble like that just broke something in me. I walked over to Jin and said, just quit, you're better than this job, and you can do better. She looked up at me for a moment, then smiled.

She lifted her chin, walked to Karen and said, I quit, handed over her name tag and walked out. Karen started apologizing to the customer, who now seemed slightly satisfied. Then Karen started bad mouthing gender her, saying how she was a terrible employee and how we were all happy that she was gone. That's when I decided that I was better than that job too. I looked at Karen and said, the only terrible employee here is you, and I walked out. Two other employees walked out right behind me. We all met with Jin in the parking lot

and went to IHOP where we sat and speculated about how Karen was getting along. Jin told me that that was the first time in her life that anyone had ever stood up for her. The next day, I got a call from the store manager asking for an explanation. Apparently, Karen had struggled the entire night with service. Afterwards, she had been there most of the night trying to clean and prep for day shift and had done a piss for a job. The story she had told the store manager was that Jin and I had planned everything with the intent of setting her up because we didn't like her when we wanted to see her fail.

Karen had basically blamed the entire incident on Gin and I. The store manager told me that she was investigating to get all sides of the story, so I told her my side. A few hours later the store manager called me again to inform me that Karen was no longer employed there, and asked me if I would be coming in that night. I asked if Jen was getting her job back, and the store manager said no. That whole debacle with the milkshake wasn't something she could overlook. I said, and then my answer is no. The store manager was surprised. She tried to negotiate with me. I told her that my prize was Jen getting her job back, and she said that she couldn't do that,

and that was that. And if you're wondering how Jen turned out, I married her that my prize was Jen getting her job back and she said that she couldn't do that, and that was that. And if you're wondering how Jen turned out, I married her. We are very happy and we have four kids together. Our next reddit postage from Phoenix. When I was a senior in high school, I started working as a cashier at a grocery store. While this wasn't my first job, it was my first job as part of a union, and I learned about some of the pros and cons of unions. It was mostly pros, like regular raises, breaks, holiday pay, etc. We had this woman who was basically our human resources person, and we didn't get along from even before I worked there. I'll call her Sally.

I came in from my interview, and Sally wasn't there and it left work for the day. I remember apologizing and saying, I must have mixed up the days. Is there any way you can find out which is the correct day for my interview? But the manager on duty advised me that I was correct because they had checked the calendar in our office and she had written it down. So this guy, the front end supervisor and the other manager who came and to start the shift all interviewed me and hired me instead. I later heard through the grapevine that she was working two locations and really wanted to be hired full time at the larger store which would have been a promotion for her. However, she was placed full time

at our location only and didn't get promoted. Her missing my interview was the final nail in the coffin for her as this was just one of a long list of mistakes that she made. She was always making excuses for why I couldn't put in to be transferred to another department when they were hiring people for those departments even though it was lower pay. Even so, I came back to work there over my winter break for college and also summer break. Here's where my malicious compliance comes in. Our union states that after a waiting period of about three months we get holiday pay for working Sunday and holidays. We were also entitled to a raise every six months, and being away at college is not supposed

to affect that since we joined the union before leaving and come back on our breaks, and we still owe union dues during that time. I got my first paycheck stubbed for the summer, and I noticed that I didn't get my holiday pay for working that Sunday, nor my raise. I spoke with a co-worker who advised me to speak with a sore manager. This manager was one of the ones who interviewed me and always looked after his staff. He said that he would fix the mistake and get me the money that was owed to me. As far as the holiday pay, though, that was something that only Sally could do since

she was in HR. And he suggested that we go to see if she was free and speak with her. She spoke to us in a condescending tone about how it was union policy that I had to start my seniority all over again, and that I had to re-earn my holiday pay by being there for three months. My manager pointed out, as did I, that I should still technically qualify for the holiday pay, but she just kept saying to me, it's union policy. My manager calmly tried to negotiate with her and get her to correct the error, and he

even stated that other employees hadn't had to go through this. I finally just raised my hand to silence them both. I said, okay, so you're saying that I can't get my holiday paid even though it was before I left to go back to college at the end of January due to union policy, correct? Ah, yes. She said with a long dramatic sigh that was meant to say, like I've been telling you, I nodded, grinned and stated, but Union policy also states that I don't have to work holidays or Sundays, and that I can't be penalized for refusing to do so, correct? My manager grinned at me like he was very proud of me as he saw exactly where

this was going. Well, um, yes, that is true. Sally said, looking a bit nervous. Okay, well then, here's the compromise. Since Union Policy states that I can't get holiday pay for working Sundays and holidays for the rest of the summer, I just won't work Sundays or holidays, and as per Union Policy, I'm allowed to do this. She immediately started laying on the charm about how I'm such a great worker, and we really need you to be there to help us out on Sundays and holidays. But I pointed out that they had plenty of other employees who were getting holiday pay, and I would be glad to return

to working holidays and Sundays once I got my holiday pay for doing so. My manager commented that we needed to change the schedule and casually mention how this was going to be hard because he now had to take me off next Sunday and Monday because Monday was Memorial Day. And the store would just have to make it work if they couldn't find anyone willing to come in. One Sally had left for the day, the manager called me up to the office. I walked in to find him and another manager there grinning ear to ear and telling me how proud they were of me for how I handled that situation. On Memorial Day and the 4th of July, I got a call asking if I could come in because they had other people call out sick who were scheduled. I just calmly explained that I was no longer working Sundays or holidays and that Sally could explain

why. Before the end of the summer, she found a new position in Quidd, and the new HR person was much nicer. One of the first things a new HR person did was fix my holiday pay. This lady has such stupid logic. By her doing that, you pulled out of Sundays and holidays, meaning another person who was being paid time in a half had to come and work in your place. So, it's not like she was saving the company any money, because at the end of the day, still a time in half person was working.

So at that point, why wouldn't she just reverse her policy, because all that really accomplished was being down one potential worker? I mean realistically, I can tell you why, because she's egotistical and too proud to admit that she was wrong, so she stuck to her guns like an idiot. That was our slash malicious compliance, and if you like this content, check out my Patreon where I publish extra episodes. Also, be sure to follow this podcast, because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.