rSlash - r/Maliciouscompliance Won't Pay Me? I'll Leave You with $100,000,000 Debt!

Episode Date: October 19, 2022

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Welcome to our slash malicious compliance where a boss screws over an employee, so an employee screws over the boss right back. Our next Reddit post is from department killer. To keep it vague, my old company is a fairly large real estate investment company worth roughly $10 billion. I was part of a very niche mergers and acquisitions team that was typically always the black sheep of the company. It felt like anything we did was just a hassle overall, and it wasn't really worth the company's time to entertain these acquisitions anymore. I was part of this tiny team, three people, including myself, that closed over 60 deals per year, with 45-50 active deals at any given time.

Typically, each deal took about 4-9 months from start to finish, depending on the seller's competence level and organization. This was my first job out of college. I knew the career path that I wanted to take was going to be long hours and no vacations. But typically in finance, the salary reflects that commitment. Well, for this job, I was making $52,000 a year, working 80 hour weeks. So roughly $12.50 an hour for gross pay. After my first full year, I requested a 20% raise with the VP of the department. And I was given the basic inflation spiel and I got a 2% cost of living adjustment. I think it's important to note here that after I left this company,

I found out that same VP received a $2 million bonus. Fast forward a couple of months. Every year, the company has a meeting where the entire company of about 300 people meets at a hotel. They do this to give updates on what the company has done so far, where they're going, and for team building, of course. In reality, this was a multi-million dollar event to pat the backs of the executives that really don't do much in reality. As part of this event, anyone in the company is allowed to send an anonymous question to the CEO and he will read and respond to it if he thinks that it's something we're talking about. Just before this company event, five people had resigned from other departments in the company.

And each one of them almost doubled their salaries in their new jobs. So I asked the CEO the question, how do you plan to retain talent when there are other companies offering two times the money with half the workload? The CEO decided this question was hilarious and read it aloud laughing and responded. If you find that job using finger quotes there, you better take it. Goodbye! After being treated pretty terribly the last one and a half years, I decided this was the final nail in the coffin. I spoke to one of the recently resigned co-workers about his new company, and soon after a recruiter from his company reached out to me. I went through the interview process, and I got the job. I'm more than doubled my pay,

even after taking the 20% end of your bonus into account, and I even got a 10k signing bonus. The story doesn't end there. I gave my notice to my wonderful manager who taught me everything I know. She first tells me that she hates me because now she's going to have to take over my 19 current deals. But then, shockingly, she confides it after seven years of working at this company, she's ready to move on to greener pastures as well. I decided to call the recruiter who reached out to me originally and asked if there were any other open positions at the new company. She said that there were, so they interviewed my manager and she got that job as well one month later.

And keep in mind that we were part of a 3 person team, so 2 down, 1 to go. The final co-worker standing was not hard to convince, because he saw 52 deals suddenly pile onto his desk when he was already underwater doing the same 80 hour weeks that I was doing. I worked with him to spruce up his resume and get the wheels turning. After two interviews, he was given a job offer. After everything was said and done, all three of us ended up doubling our old salaries. The old company is now scrambling to replace us with over a hundred million dollars worth of deals that'll grind to a halt when my last coworker makes his departure.

My new gig doesn't feel like real life. I have a fantastic boss who respects my time outside of the office. To the point that he gave me two weeks off in between jobs to unwind after my previous role, my workload is only 30% of what I'm used to as well. My old manager got the same two-week treatment and is currently enjoying her time off and will start in the middle of October. And to think, if I was only given that 20% raise. Opie, if I were you, I'd be really tempted to send another anonymous letter to the CEO saying, Found that job, loser, see ya!

Our next Reddit post is from Revolution Friendly. I work for a small company, and we have a one-man HR department. We often get all sorts of memos detailing policies that sound good on paper, but never make practical sense. I think that maybe HR got all their education on YouTube or Reddit. Recently, HR implemented a new standardized testing for screening new candidates, which scores candidates on their skills in mathematics, language, logic, and a bunch of industry-specific questions. The idea is to weed out those

who present well on paper and in person, but in fact can't do most basic stuff. While this could be an excellent idea to weed out the morons who keep walking through the door, HR thought that it was an excellent idea to make everyone, including people who had already been working there for years to fill out the form as well. For the employee files, of course, HR gave out metrics for where scores should range for new candidates, sent us links to complete the tests and requested that they were completed by Friday. As we all know, HR never does things just for employee files. We suspect that HR is trying to get rid of a few crucial people who aren't great with computers, not fast on a calculator, but are, in fact, the beating souls of our workplace.

Everyone at the office pretty much boycotted the test. When HR pressured the CEO to threaten our bonuses, we begrudgingly complied. HR wants to score us based on arbitrary standardized tests as a benchmark. Sure, we spent the next three days after hours working on the test together, one test at a time. At the end, we all scored 9 out of 10 in every category because we got some pretty right people helping out. And guess what? We forced HR to do the same test, and HR scored 5 out of 10 for math, and 4 out of 10 for logic. Our next Reddit post is from Mr. Saturday. First things first, the backstory.

I work at a large hub facility of a well-known shipping company with the main delivery trucks to deliver packages to homes and smaller businesses. The packages come with barcodes on the side, as well as small spot labels that allow someone to see the address in which truck they go on. We used to be given small scanners that would scan the barcodes to ensure we didn't put the packages on the wrong trucks, or get a package that didn't belong. Because sometimes the labels could be wrong, or a package could lose't belong. Because sometimes the labels could be wrong or a package could lose its label. The trucks were even fitted with sensors, so if you scan a package and try to walk into a truck where it doesn't belong, the scanner would start to whine. Now that that's set up, let's

introduce you to the main antagonist of the story. Allen, my former supervisor. Allen is a short skinny guy with a thin mustache and is a micromanager of the highest degree. He always walked up and down the trucks to watch us work, watched us from a distance, or close by with his arms crossed to get us to work faster. And constantly told us to grab all of our packages they came to us, despite the fact that they went around on a moving conveyor belt that literally loops them back around if we miss them. He would tell us to load up our larger packages as soon as we get them, despite the fact that it makes it harder to move through the trucks and place other packages on the shelves.

And he even hopped into some people's trucks to move around their packages the right way as in his way. I could go on and on about Alan, but today I'm here to vent about just one of these events, or we'd be here all day. So anyways, Alan had me and all the other package handlers of our area in a group texting chat to tell us our starting times for our next shift, as well as to compare our work speeds to each other via our scanning counts.

I assumed the point of this was to make us feel bad and work harder, but we don't really care. Around that time, the number of packages that we had incorrectly loaded onto our trucks had increased. And ever since then, Alan had been adding to his group chat messages that we need to scan every single package to make sure that we're aiming for zero misloads. This was annoying, but nothing too serious, at least I thought. So one day I'm working on the belt as usual, and my scanner suddenly decides to screw up.

I go to Alan and ask him if he could help me fix it or give me a new scanner. Instead he takes the scanner from me and tells me to keep loading my trucks without the scanner and to just use the labels on the packages. This isn't really allowed. So instead I just stack the packages in front of the trucks that I thought they belonged on so I could scan them once I got a new scanner. Halon eventually comes down and tells me to just load the packages onto the trucks normally and to stop stacking. This was frustrating, but I shrugged and tried to do it to avoid any real

conflict. That evening, Halon messages the group and lists out our speeds, with me at the bottom, and is once again spouting out that we need to make sure that we're scanning our packages before loading them. And he even comes to talk to me the next day about my number of mislots. I was angry of course, but at that point I was still fairly new to the job, and I didn't feel comfortable arguing with the supervisor. So I just try to continue with my work, making a mental note of always gaining my packages no matter what, so we can't pull this stunt again. I know where that this will be my malicious compliance later on.

Fast forward a few months later. Alan is leaving for a real estate job and is training one of the package handlers to be his replacement before he leaves. By that time, I'm fed up with all the micromanaging and pestering, and I can't wait for him to be gone. It's about the final week of his employment, I'm working the belt once again, and my scanner messes up and stops working. I hand the scanner over to Alan, and once again, just like before, as if he never even cared

about scanning, he tells me to just keep loading up the trucks. I smile to myself, and nod. So I continue stacking my packages in front of my trucks, waiting for the new scanner to arrive. Not long after, Allen comes back with a trainee at his side. He asked me what I'm doing, and I tell him that I'm stacking my packages. Once more, he tells me to keep loading my trucks, and this time I talk back, telling him that I'm not loading my packages without a scanner.

I have to admit that I was just done with Alan, so I let my anger get the better of me. I raised my voice, which was getting a bit shaky because I have a very hard time dealing with anger, especially after dealing with Alan's BS for so long. The trainee tries to settle the situation and tells me to keep stacking the boxes and they'll get a scanner right away. But he was interrupted by Alan telling me once again to load my trucks. This time, louder. I flatly responded, no. And so we went back and forth for like a minute before I eventually tell him to get it to me in writing because I am not getting fired over this. This seemed to get Alan even more mad, and eventually he tried to pull the head supervisor card.

He asked me if I would like him to go get the head supervisor to try to intimidate me, I guess. I told him, go ahead and get him. So Alan and the trainee walk off. A few minutes later, the trainee comes back with a scanner in hand, apologizing, and telling me to just get back to work. I didn't see Alan for the rest of the day, and if memory serves, the rest of his final

week as well. So you basically tricked this guy to reporting to his own boss that he was telling his employees to violate company policy. How did he expect that was going to go when the obvious solution is to stop being a douchebag and just go get another scanner. Our next reddit post is from Turboiv. I bought all the ceiling fans in my home from Home Depot. I wanted them all to match throughout the house.

I even bought Home Depot's in-house brand because I wanted to make sure that I would have easy access to parts should anything happen to one. Well that time came, and one of my fans had the light panel go out. I took the light to Home Depot and told them I just needed a new light to replace the one that went out. I tried looking on the internet for a replacement, but there were only knockoffs that were unclear about whether or not that it would work on my fan. The customer service agent just started yelling out to some guy named Rico about 50 meters away. Rico came over, took one look without any prompting or even opening up the fan and said, you have to go through

the manufacturer for that part. I told him, that's why I'm here. Home Depot is the manufacturer. This pissed Rico off. He said, well, there's nothing you can do because we don't sell those. So I asked, how do I replace a light bulb on a product that your company makes? He said, you have to buy a new fan. Cume delicious compliance. I said, cool, I'll do that then. So I bought a new fan. I removed the light panel from it, replaced my light panel, put the old one back in the

brand new box, and returned it. I told the customer service agent that Rico said that I could return it if it didn't work out for me. She completed the return and I got my new light bulb from Home Depot. If you Rico and the rest of the idea to meet that bad decision at Home Depot, when you hear the worst fact about light bulbs is that we already have the technology to make essentially infinite lasting light bulbs is that we already had the technology to make essentially infinite lasting light bulbs, or at least light bulbs that last way, way longer than the light bulbs that we currently have. However, light bulb manufacturers intentionally make all their light bulbs

burn out after a certain amount of hours because obviously they want you to buy more light bulbs. Our next Reddit post is from Farm MediaOaker. I work certain live events, and a lot of my work is making sure crew members and staff receive a credential to be allowed past security. Back in February, for a huge event, I spent one morning going back and forth from our remote office to the security gates when I would get word of the next employee coming up. As I stood there waiting, a person on our staff who I didn't know showed up. Security tells me that he can't get in without credentials. Since I'm literally the person in charge of credential access, I ask him over the phone, are you here with company such and such? He said, yes, but I don't need your help.

I'm in touch with such and such, this other employee who I happen to be sitting next to in the office downstairs. Oh, okay, I say back. He's just too good for me to talk to him. He thought that he was better than me, so I decided not to ever look at or deal with him again. As he stood waiting at security, I ended up going back and forth about five times to let other employees with the credentials in my hands. At this point, he's fuming and he wants to ask me for help, but it was way more fun to tell him that he just needs to talk to the person that he was in touch with, who's still in a meeting for another hour.

That was our Slash Malicious Compliance, and if you liked this content, be sure to follow my podcast because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day. podcast episodes every single day.