rSlash - r/Maliciouscompliance Steal My Plane Seats? Enjoy Watching Crying Kids!

Episode Date: July 15, 2022

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Welcome to our slash malicious compliance where a stupid boss shuts down his own company. Our next reddit post is from i'm jjjzmi. Back in my mid 20s, I used to wait tables at this restaurant in my hometown. The money was good and I got a long well with everyone there. Usually after our shift, a few of the servers would sit at the bar and have a few drinks to wind down. You figure, why go to a different bar when there's a bar right here? We always tipped well and nothing was ever an issue. Until one day when the owner out of nowhere decided that employees weren't allowed to drink at the bar anymore.

Now I completely understand this is a normal rule in other bars and the owner was well within his rights, but I just didn't see where this came from. I asked the manager if we did anything wrong to warrant the rule change. The manager said the owner was just being a dick. He told me that he tried to talk him out of it because there was no reason, but the owner just wanted to make his presence known. Okay, he's within his right to do that. However, what he didn't count on was Thursday night and my friends. Back then my friends were in a punk band and they had practice every Thursday night.

I would work every Thursday night and they would meet up with me at my bar and grab a drink with me after my shift. And usually, they'd bring their girlfriends, friends, and whoever else was hanging around. My friends pretty much made the bar's Thursday night as busy as any Friday or Saturday night. And when I tell you we could drink, oh man we could drink. And of course, everyone tipped generously. So when I told them that I wasn't allowed to drink at my bar any more after my shift, they were as pissed as I was. My buddy Bob was like, wait, so there's no point to go to your bar and then for all of us

to go to another bar after you're done so you can join us. We might as well just go to a different bar and then you can meet up with us after. It was the most logical solution. There was another bar around the corner. So come Thursday around 9 p.m. I'm finishing up my shift as my manager approaches me. He looks at the empty bar and asks, hey man, are your friends on their way? They're usually three drinks in by now. I reply, Oh, actually, they're four drinks in. They're at the bar around the corner.

My manager is dumbfounded. Wait, what? Why are they drinking here? I calmly tell them, Well, they want to drink with me, and I'm not allowed to drink here. Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a pint of beer waiting for me around the corner. I walked out and joined my friends for a fun night.

Now I must admit that I do feel bad for the bartender who usually work Thursday nights. She had no part in this decision and her tips suffered because of our move. But that's on management, not me. After a few weeks, the owner noticed the dip in sales on Thursday nights and said that we were allowed to drink at our bar again. However, the damage was done. We found out that not only did the bar around the corner have all the beers that we usually drink, but they were also much cheaper. We also struck up a great friendship with the bartenders. We found our new hangout spot, so there was no reason to go back.

Oh well! Down in the comments, we have a similar story from Glenda. I had this same situation at a restaurant that I worked at. After the restaurant portion of the establishment closed, a great many of the servers would head to the bar area to drink, feed the jukebox, dance, and generally have a good time. Some workers would even come in on their nights off to socialize. Well, the owners thought this was low class or something, and forbid any server from being in the bar at any time. So, we all stopped, and we found another place to hang out.

A few weeks later, management said that we need to stop this silly boycott and start spending more time at the bar. You see, a great many of the bar's patrons enjoyed the after-hours ambience and started to drink and dance with the servers. After the servers left, the bar patrons did too. The boycott remained in place. The restaurant and bar closed down a few months later. Oh man, don't you just get tired of story after story of these stupid idiots who looks at a group of people spending money at your business and things?

Hmm, people giving me money? I better put a stop to that. Our next reddit post is from Yarnwunder. This happened almost 20 years ago. I had been working in a restaurant and I had just finished a Saturday day shift. It wasn't common to get Saturday night off because that was our busiest night and the boss was making me feel like I should be offering to do overtime because they were being kind to me.

On the last hour of my shift, I started feeling awful. By the time I got home, I was exploding at both ends and really miserable. I was hoping that I would feel better the next morning, but I still felt awful. I doodifully phoned in sick because I couldn't be around food until I had been vomit and diarrhea free for 24 hours. My boss immediately assumed that I was hung over and threatened to fire me for letting everyone down. I said, fine, because I'm not about to go into work. At the time, my roommate was helping the same restaurant out because they were short of chef.

He goes into work and is telling the boss how sick I am. He didn't know that I had been threatened, but it meant the boss phoned me back and said that if I could provide a signal for the day, I wouldn't lose my job. At the time, my job was paying me about 300 euros a week and a doctor's appointment in signal was going to set me back 100 euros.

Fine, if you're going to assume the worst about me when I'd never phoned in Sick before, you got it. I got the grumpiest doctor who was pissed that I made an appointment for this when he had actual sick people who needed to see him. The doctor signed me off for a full week. Instead of just covering one of my shifts, they now had to cover five of my shifts, and I got a week off paid. And down in the comments, we have a post from an actual doctor. I absolutely hated it when patients would come into my emergency department. Wait for

hours and hours while they're exposed to who knows what from other waiting people, all for a damned doctor's note. So hell yeah, I'd give them a doctor's note. Mr. Smith has reported feeling unwell. He should be off work for two weeks. I would write nothing about a diagnosis, treatment, symptoms, any of that. Because in the US, the workers' boss is not entitled to that information under healthcare privacy laws. I had a couple of low-level managers call me up to try to discuss the patient with me,

but that was not happening. And I told them that in no uncertain terms. Malicious non-compliance at its best! Our next reddit post is from Vorin. I'm a woman. Part of my job is to visit foster children monthly, and ideally to build a positive relationship with them. This can be hard because I have a limited amount of time, and're scared of new people and they get bored really fast. A couple

of years ago, one of my favorite foster families got a pool and all the kids could talk about was showing me their new pool. I mentioned in passing to a supervisor on my way to the visit that I was looking forward to playing with the kids in the pool. The supervisor made a face of concern. I told her that I'd gone out and bought a particularly covered-up and conservative swimming suit for this visit. She said that, regardless of the style of the suit, it would be unprofessional of me to wear a swimsuit on the job. All five of the kids were really broken-hearted when I told them that I wasn't allowed to wear a bathing suit. That was quickly alleviated when I jumped into the pool wearing my office outfits.

I don't know if that ever got back to the supervisors, but I did end up being that family's favorite social worker. Down in the comments, we have this sweet story from Pretend Panda. When I foster parented, our favorite social worker was the one who showed up every visit and just pitched in. Laundry Day, he helped sort and fold and he talked homework, Nintendo and Xbox and told endless jokes, many of which were in fact funny. Getting ready for a bake sale?

He'd be sitting at the kitchen table mixing butter and sugar, arguing chocolate versus butter scotch chips and why nuts are or aren't acceptable in brownies. Breakfast for dinner, he volunteered to man the waffle iron. Kids are bored, let's go skateboarding or for a walk to a milkshake place and play basketball. We need to fund some kind of budget activity. He made sure to engage the kids and make really clear what the process was gonna be like

and what the chances were. He treated the kids like being in their lives was a privilege and it was just wonderful. Business notifications getting out of hand, buried under an avalanche of customer emails, texts, and social media messages? Keep your edge with Thrive Small Business Software and never miss a message again. Thrive offers one solution to communicate, market, and run your business. But simply, small businesses run better on Thrive.

Get Command Center for free today at thrive.ca.. That's THR-YV.ca. Terms and conditions apply. Free plans have limited functionality. Our next Reddit post is from Pula Fortis. So more than 10 years ago, I made the mistake of booking a connecting flight on American Airlines. I was traveling alone with two toddlers, so I booked three seats next to one another. As we check in for the first flight, they give me the six boarding passes, and I'm upset to see that we're spread out over a whole section for the second flight. All middle seats, of course. This is on a different airline from the one that I booked the tickets on, so they claim that they can't change it. So as the first thing during layover, I go to the counter and they say,

oh, we can't do anything, they'll fix it at the gate. I rush to the gate and they say, sorry, there's nothing we can do, the stewardess will take care of you. Of course, I made it a point to be at the front of the line, all while trying to entertain cranky kids. The gate person knew about my issue, but told me that families with young kids

won't be seated early, so it won't help me at all. Eventually we board, and one of our three rows has two seats open. I drop off my two kids in these seats and I go to find the store-tice. She says, oh, there's nothing I can do. You'll just have to ask the third person yourself if they can move. The lady, who's standing there waiting for her seat, grumbles but agrees to trade seats. The gentleman will not move no matter how much I plead.

CUME ALITIOUS COMPLIENCE. I thanked him for allowing me to relax. He gave me a confused face. Then, I opened up my backpack and started giving things to him. This is the portable DVD player that should keep the older one entertained for a while. Here are books to read the younger one. These are the snacks. Make sure you feed them on the way up. Otherwise, their ears will hurt. You can come and get me for bathroom runs and diaper changes. As I got ready to thank him again for volunteering for child care, he gave up and took the other seats. I have no idea what I would have done if he had still stuck it

out. I wasn't going to have my toddler sit with a stranger when I can't see what's going on, but luckily he didn't call my bluff. Our next reddit post is from New Expression. I worked in customer support for a tech firm, and if I may say so, the company is good at it, and I'm good at it. We have the customer satisfaction stories and data to prove it. Our customer support is what gives us a competitive advantage in our marketplace and makes us very profitable. One day I get a phone call from a customer. I say, Hello, my auntie cuts me off saying, I want to talk to third-tier support.

Okay, we have a process for that. What seems to be the problem? No, you don't understand. I don't want to talk to you. I want to talk to third tier supports. Actually, I do understand. You want to talk to third tier support, and I'm in the process of setting that up. But there are a few questions I have to ask you first, and if I don't get the answers to those questions, then third tier support just won't take your call. So what seems to be the problem? He explains his problem to me

Have you tried doing X? No, you don't understand. I don't want to talk to you I want to talk to third-tier supports. You know the guys who aren't working from a script I assure you sir that I am not working from a script. Have you tried X? Yes, I did. Now may I talk to a third-tier support? Okay, well, have you tried Y? Yes, I did. Now may I talk to a third-tier support?

My problem isn't on your script. There is no script for this problem. I'm asking you this question because I thoroughly understand our device and I know from previous experience what might be the problem. Have you tried doing Z? What makes you think that Z is going to solve this problem? Well, I've been doing this work for a couple of years now and I have a pretty good idea of how these things work, so I thought that Z might solve this problem.

Look, I have a master's degree in computer science. I want to talk to somebody in third tier supports. Now I don't want to disrespect computer scientists because CS is a hard field to get into. But everybody should understand that there's a big difference between computer scientists, computer programmers, system administrators, database administrators, network administrators, cyber security analysts, program managers, and customer support people. Computer scientists do research on artificial intelligence, algorithms, compiler design, large databases, and other theoretical topics. Computer programmers, on the other hand, write computer programs.

So this guy might be a really good computer scientist, but that doesn't mean that he knows anything about network administration or system administration. Those are completely different specialties. Someone who says, I have a master's degree in computer science. I don't need to talk to you. Knows a great deal about what he knows, but he doesn't know what he doesn't know. I said, just try to do Z.

And if it doesn't work, then I'll give you third tier support. Promise, promise. I can hear him typing away in the background, swearing and cursing. I can hear when he hits the return key because he hits it hard. Then he picks up the phone and says, it's working now. Great. Do you still want me to escalate you to third tier support? Then I got a torrential outpouring of expletives.

Since this is a family channel, I won't give the details, but rather leave it to your imagination, gentle reader. Then, he hung up on me. And wouldn't you know it, he filled out a customer satisfaction survey, and I got straight zeros. I got called into my boss's office, and we had a conversation about the call. My boss was upset, and I can't say that I blame him because he also gets graded on our survey scores.

He called in some third tier support people to listen to the recording, and they said that I did everything right. They said that I didn't deserve that rating. They also said that there was no way that I deserved that abuse and that the survey should be tossed out. Unfortunately, the rules are the rules,

and that score counted. As a out. Unfortunately, the rules are the rules and that score counted. As a result, I lost my quarterly bonus and a couple thousand dollars. However, the big boss felt awful about the whole affair, so he and his wife took me and my wife out to dinner at the most expensive restaurant in town. We had a lovely time. At the end of the meal, I noticed that he paid for the meal with his personal card, not the corporate credit card. I asked him about that. His response was golden. He said, I'm in a position where I could probably get away with it, but that wouldn't be right. What happened to you wasn't right either. This dinner is my way of making it up to you the best that I can, and I figured if I'm gonna do that, I might as well take my wife and your wife along. Why not?

I love that guy, I worked for him for years. I would have preferred to have gotten the couple thousand dollar bonus, but the acknowledgement that I had been screwed was a good second place. O.P. that's kind of like a feel good ending, but if I were in your shoes I wouldn't have accepted that. If my company really forced me to keep that zero score review, then I would go straight to Glassdoor and give them a zero score review. That was our Slaunch Milicious Compliance, and if you liked this content, be sure to follow my podcast because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.