rSlash - r/Maliciouscompliance Karen Tried to Quit to get a Raise... So I Let Her!

Episode Date: February 21, 2022

r/Maliciouscompliance In today's episode, OP works with a toxic Karen who is terrible at her job. A new high-level director comes into the organization and immediately realizes that Karen is dead weight. Karen becomes enraged, and turns in her letter of resignation as a threat to try to get what she wants. However, the new boss HAPPILY accepts the resignation letter, and refuses to allow Karen to change her mind. You wanted to quit, Karen, so we're happy to see you go! Get Honey for FREE at joinhoney.com/rslash Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to our slash malicious compliance where a stupid Karen gets herself fired. Our next reddit post is from writes for doe. This isn't my story, but I was able to witness it in all of its glory because I used to work for one of the people involved. Years ago, I used to work at a state government agency where my boss was a political appointee. Her mom was a big wig in our governor's party who wrangled a political appointment for her daughter, which meant that she had some clout behind her. Let's call her Shannon. pointy. Her mom was a big wig in our governor's party who wrangled a political appointment for her daughter, which meant that she had some clout behind her. Let's call her Shannon. Shannon was not good at her job. At all! She was frequently out of the office for meetings,

as in two hour lunches, coffee with friends, a bit of shopping, etc. She was also a bully and a tyrant. She bullied her staff and would hold a threat of firing over everyone's heads to get them to do what she wanted. She wasn't a micromanager because she was never around enough to actually micromanage anything. And she was widely disliked throughout the entire building. This was a large agency, so to have a building were almost everyone to slight you took a lot of work. The problem was, as a political appointee, she was untouchable. The people who did have the power to fire her couldn't because of her family. Even the number three person in the agency couldn't do it, and he was a political appointee as well. But after a

year of mystery meetings and time spent out of the office, her excuses were catching up to her. The agency director removed her from her job and put her in charge of special projects. Anyone who's worked in a corporate job knows that people get put in charge of special projects because they were largely incapable

of doing their previous job. They didn't get fired, but they no longer had any power. This was Shannon's case. For a while, she seemed to get the message. She shaped up, didn't have any more mystery meetings, didn't disappear from the building for two hours, and she treated people somewhat nicely. Of course, it didn't last,

and Shannon returned to her old ways. Around that time, we got a new assistant director, we'll call her Trisha, who was also a political pointy. She was the number two person in the entire agency, and she was great to work for. She was very serious about her job. Trisha had access to Shannon's electronic calendar and saw what Shannon had been up to. She then crossed check the security logs to see when Shannon was in and out of the building. After her brief investigation, Trisha emailed Shannon with a list of dates and said,

can you tell me more about these different meetings you were having and why they took so long? Well, Shannon wasn't having any of that. How dare Trisha call her character into question! This was an outrage! It was so outrageous, in fact, that Shannon wrote a resignation letter and slammed it down on Trisha's desk. That'll show her! After a few hours, Shannon had time to think about what she'd done. She remembered that she had a one year old at home.

She also remembered that her husband was an unskilled truck driver who made eight bucks an hour, and she remembered that she was the primary breadwinner for her family. She went back to Trisha's office, had in hand, and apologized for her attitude. She said she was willing to try harder, and she asked Trisha if she could please possibly have her letter back. Pretty please. Trisha said, oh I'm sorry you're too late. I already processed that letter and sent it off to HR. I'm afraid I can't undo that. Do you remember in the movie the Incredibles when Mr. Incredible fought that giant ball with legs? The ball was so indestructible and powerful that the only thing that could beat it was itself. This was that moment. The previously untouchable

political appointee had just been fired by the only political appointee who had that power, herself. And rather than protect her and do her a solid, Trisha would not undo the self-termination. She just let Shannon be her own undoing. When news of Shannon's self-firing race through the building, you could hear the cries of, what are you serious? Followed by howls of laughter as each new person heard the story. Shannon was out, and everyone who had to deal with her was much happier than they had ever been in that job. I've heard stories of people getting fired by someone else, and I've heard stories of people quitting, but I don't think I've quite ever heard a story of someone firing themselves. Then beneath that, we have this story from Sam UC.

I worked with a supervisor who would turn in a resignation as a way to get a pay raise. It worked for years until we got a new director, a director who was not her buddy. The very first time that she pulled this stunt, he accepted and processed her resignation. When she came back to say that she changed her mind and was staying, his response was, oh no, you tended your resignation and I've accepted it. Your position has been posted. Our next red post is from G-Sync New. I worked for a big American technology and defense firm with tens of thousands of employees.

A senior executive who had worked there successfully for years was caught with a falsification on his resume. He was fired immediately, and a new policy was instituted requiring all employees to sign a form giving the company permission to query the college or university with their highest claim degree for verification. I have a doctorate from an old prestigious European university. An institution that I was quite sure would have no interest in such a query, but whatever. I signed the permission form and I attached a note warning the company that the university would probably ignore the request, which it did. About a month or two later, HR called me and said the university hadn't responded, as

I'd warned, but that corporate would accept a photocopy of my degree. Fine, I'm good with that. Remember the old prestigious European university parts? Well, my degree is a piece of actual parchment about the size of a throw rug, with a wax seal about a centimeter thick, and it's written entirely in Latin! So, I bring it into the office and photocopied one bit at a time by sliding it around on a photocopier window. It takes like 12 pages to get it all. I staple them into a pile and give it to HR, who reluctantly passes it on to Corporate.

Another month passes, and HR calls me in again. Corporate is complaining that your degree is written in a foreign language. Yep, I say, it's in Latin. Tell them to find a priest to translate it, and I walked out. I never heard from them again about it. Today's episode is sponsored by Honey. I don't know about you, but I do literally 100% of my shopping online. Because of COVID, I pretty much have to shop online because, yeah, I don't want to catch

COVID and die. But on top of that, I read stories for a living, so I can't afford to sound like this for three weeks straight. Don't you hate it when you get to checkout and you don't have a code to put in that little promo code box? With honey, you never have to leave that box empty. Honey is a free shopping tool that scours the internet for promo codes and automatically applies them to your cart.

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from I'm the one who this just happened maybe five minutes ago and I think it's hilarious I'm the facility manager for my building everything that happens to go wrong is my responsibilities so I make sure everything runs smoothly my boss made it clear it's my building and I was hired to not only keep people in line, but run everything. I'm not a dick, but I hold people accountable, forcibly, but politely. There was no facility manager for a long time before I came along, and both clients and employees ran a muck. In the four months I've been there, my boss has praised my performance and has gone to bat for me countless times since she's the best boss I've ever had. I've got a firm but fair approach and my reputation reflects that. I've got a Karen in the building and trust me the name stereotype applies. She's a counselor

for family services and has nothing to do with our business. She likes to complain about everything and she gives my boss a headache almost daily. She shares an office with another woman who's unfortunately picking up on her care and tendencies. She's basically a Karen in training. I've been doing a key card audit all week and I knew to leave Karen's key card alone because she's the only Karen in the building so her name stands out. I'm missing 75 key cards with lots of former employees having all-door access dating all the way back to 2015. I can't have that, so I deleted a lot of them,

especially if it had a wacky name or just a room number. However, I did delete Karen and Trainings card information because it wasn't under her name. Karen and Trainings just came by to tell me her key card wasn't working and Karen happened to be passing by and overheard it. I fixed Karen and training's key card and then I went to see if it worked or not. We found Karen waiting outside the office complaining to my boss that her key card didn't work either. Karen walked off and my boss rolled her eyes at me and I smiled and I told her I'd take care of it. After checking to make sure that Karen and training's key card worked, I went downstairs to check the system. I looked up Karen and wouldn't you know it? Her key card was completely fine. In fact, it showed that she had a master key card,

so I changed all of her permissions and I limited her back to just her room only. I went up stairs and got my boss's attention because her office is next to the Karen's office and I mouthed, listened and pointed. I opened the door and said, Hey Karen, I went ahead and checked your key card in the system. Everything's good to go. In fact, it said that you had a master key to the building and per the company's orders, since you're not a contractor or a company employee, I can't give you that access. So I had to revoke your status to this room only. Can't have you bugging people on official business, wink.

Thanks for bringing your key card to my attention. She started to object that she needed the master key card because XYZ and I was all, yeah, sorry. Maybe before, but I'm the facility manager. And you do not need access to everything except for this office, and if you do, it's outside your pay grade, so you have to come get me. Okay? Cool. Thanks. Bye! Then I just closed the door on her mid-sinnets. My boss was quietly lapping her butt off in her office and she gave me an air high five. Our next Reddit post is from more guns than hands.

Nobody can have a 5 out of 5 in all categories 2 years in a row. Markham has a 4 out of 5. Those were the words that my HR said to my manager when he put in my annual performance review for this past year. To explain a little background, I work in a niche part of research agriculture. I am good at my job, I do it well, and everywhere I go, I've made myself extremely hard to replace. Basically, I'm good at what I do, and it reflects. My manager is very open with me. He's the most transparent manager I've ever had. In fact, he shares with me certain details that I'm not supposed to know,

such as salary raises, bonuses, and stupid things that HR says to him in email. After another great year of research improving myself invaluable, which not only included two raises, resulting in a 25% salary bumble-bull together, a hefty bonus, a title promotion, being enrolled in a mentoring program, listed

as an extremely high performer by upper management, and being put in charge of advancing several field technology projects all while attending college, I figured that I'd killed it this year. I could not have finished this year any better. At this point, this was the end of my second year at this job. During my first year of view, my manager gave me fives in every single category, impressing not only him, but also several upper management seatholders, as well as the company VP. That's what led to my promotion and raises. During my most recent annual review, my manager was having issues submitting my review. After some emails

back and forth with HR, he explained to me that HR told him, No, buddy, you can have a 5 out of 5 in all categories two years in a row. Marker was a 4 out of 5. That was the general synopsis of the email. So, I did what I do best when I get petty. I asked my manager to forward me the email. I told him that I was okay with the 4 out of 5 rating and that I don't expect him to try to fight HR on it. Then I let the process stew for a few weeks. After the reviews were finished and sent back, they were accompanied with salary and bonus projections for the next year. And what do you know, my percentages were marked lower because I had gone from a 5 out of 5 to a 4 out of

5. Since the report made it seem like my performance was lacking, even though my actual performance never suffered, I was put in a lower category of A, B, I, P. This meant less money for me, which was not going to fly. I put together a report that included the email from HR, as well as the input from both my manager and my peers that was included in my review. put together a report that included the email from HR, as well as the input from both my manager and my peers that was included in my review. Then I emailed it to my VP, my director of marketing, and my director of research and development

with my manager and HR C-C'd. I wrote, Due to the failure of this company to recognize my growth as an individual, and mark me as slipping backwards when it was obvious that I hadn't, I will henceforth begin taking on only 80% or 4-fist of the current workload that I've been assigned. I have been absolutely committed to the work and projects that I've been assigned. In fact, I've been getting my station ahead on audits, various projects, and coming in under budget for the second year in a row.

But all of that seems to be overlooked when it comes to my annual review. All due to the fact that an employee can't be marked 5 out of 5, 2 years in a row. I believe it to be absurd that this is how my performance is being graded when I've had no complaints or issues from my peers, customers, or managers throughout the year. And in fact, they've been telling me the exact opposites. I look forward to my performance review next year to see how HR determines my new score. I sent out this email on Friday at 4pm right before I left. I got an email on Sunday evening from my VP with HRCC stating that my review had been

changed. On Monday morning, I had new income projection sitting in my inbox. Sometimes you just got to go to bat for yourself. Welcome to Corporate America, where managers, for some reason, punish their most valuable employees. Why? Our next reddit post is from Orlando Bloom. I sell phones and everything that goes with phones in a retail setting. The job has gotten frustrating because people who go into a retail store are often just people who can't figure out how to work a website and won't bother to read anything. This is true for my customer the other day. This woman comes in and buys an Apple watch and she wants me to set it up for her. I'm more than happy to do so, but it really just boils down to her needing to configure it to her specifications. Things like deciding which wrist it'll be set for. The lady demands that I just

do all the setup for her while she goes to get coffee. I insist that she stays because it's gonna ask her things that I can't answer if she's not there. She blows me off and tells me to just do it and that she'll be back. So I set it up and I just guess what she wants. When it comes to her height and weight, I put in 6'2'385 pounds. And I set it to notify her about her daily workout progress as much as possible. She's probably more like 5'5-130 pounds. She later came in mad that her watch keeps calling her fat, telling her that she needs to

walk more. I remember my grandma had an iPhone, and every like, I don't know, 2-3-4 months or so, she would call me up in a semi-panic because there was a little red one on whenever icons and she didn't know what it meant. And I would say, okay, grandma, tap the icon and tell me what it says. Um, it says Apple would like to update your iPhone, update now or schedule later.

What do I do? And I would say, okay, grandma, just tap update now, sit your phone down for about 10 minutes, and then come back, and then that little red one will have vanished. Easy peasy. Thank you sweetie. 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. to follow my podcast because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.