rSlash - r/Maliciouscompliance "You Suck!" "I'm Literally Ranked #1 in the World"

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

r/Maliciouscompliance In today's episode, OP works as an armorer in the US military. OP is good at his job... really, REALLY good at his job. He's so good at his job that the government did an audit a...nd determined that he was the #1 best armorer in the entire US military. So when an egotistical officer tries to fire OP, he happily complies. The military base IMMEDIATELY grinds to a halt without OP managing the armory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to our slash malicious compliance where Karen gets exactly what she asked for. Our next reddit post is from X-Minty. I had a decent job. The pay was weak, but it was easy and my team was really good with me. Then COVID happened, and all the managers lost sight that being a manager is a duty to serve your team, not a right to be power hungry. They'd post in chat, cruel, or nasty things about team members and fuel gossip. After witnessing this, I decided that I wanted out and gave my manager
Starting point is 00:00:30 the heads up that I was leaving and then went on my leave. I was told that no other job would be as good as this and that I would be lucky to find something better. This didn't go down well, and they slowly dissolved my department and made my team's life hell. I took a photo of the instant messenger and sent it to a colleague to whistleblow. Despite the fact that nothing that they were talking about was confidential, I got served with a cease and desist, with a threat to delete everything, or I would get legal action. Now, during COVID, I made many, many reports to make working from home a dot-l. A dot-l is a bunch of excel and Google Sheet documents that feed into each other.
Starting point is 00:01:07 This had a bunch of info on it that lots of people needed on the fly. These documents were used on a daily basis, many, many times. Well, okay. You want me to delete all my documents on my home and personal accounts? No problem. The next day, I had people asking me where all the reports had gone, and I just watched it all unfold. And the kicker, I found a job that gave me all that I was asking for, and a pay increase. Our next red-appost is from WTF. I was a manager, but I had a range time off to go duck hunting with friends.
Starting point is 00:01:39 The day before I was to leave, I was pulled into a meeting due to an emergency, and there would be a war room-style conference call with the other offices a day after. I had nothing to contribute nor deliver for this meeting. It was merely people with a higher pay grade than me, hashing out a problem, and then issuing directives. I said, no, I'm not canceling a trip that I planned for over a year, with friends that I hadn't seen in an incredibly long time to sit and listen to people argue. I got different replies from my manager and his manager.
Starting point is 00:02:09 My manager was pleading with me, but his manager basically said, show up or you're fired. I said, fine, I'll be on the conference call. It turns out that where we were duck hunting, I had cell signals, so I called in. During the meeting, my manager's manager called on me specifically to contribute. I figured he was making a point. I was talking and I said, hang on a sec, and my friends and I started shooting. It was quick, there was four of us, two 12 gauge shots each. I went back on to finish talking.
Starting point is 00:02:41 Someone asked me, was that shooting I heard? I said, yep, I'm duck hunting. Our regional BP asked, why are you on the call if you were off hunting? My reply was, I was told it's mandatory or I'm fired. My manager's manager began backpedaling and started saying that I was a team player and I knew the benefits. Basically, he was told, we'll take this offline. Down in the comments, we have this post from plethoraen. I took the weekly nationwide manager's call from a hot tub once. The VP asked, why do I hear water? I fast up, and he asked if I thought that that was appropriate. I reminded him that I traveled 90% of the time, and when I had a chance to be home and relax,
Starting point is 00:03:22 I was going to take it. He conceded the point and asked if I had any other input for the meeting. I suggested that not having weekly calls on Friday afternoon would be better for everyone involved. We moved the calls to Tuesdays. Our next reddit post is from ToasterMops. I just finished a big group project worth about 30% of our total grade. The groups were selected for us, so I didn't know anyone beforehand. So like any other group, there's always a slacker who just piggybacks off of everyone
Starting point is 00:03:49 else's work. This project spanned the entire length of the term, and this slacker just did the absolute bare minimum or nothing at all for each of our deliverables. So here comes the end of the term, and we have to submit our final report which had to include a video demo of our app, and this made up a significant portion of the term, and we have to submit our final report which had to include a video demo of our app, and this made up a significant portion of the marks. Of course, the slacker puts it off until the last possible minute to tell us that he's not home and he'll be busy the day of the submission. Our group is planning to record the last day because the rest of the project had to be finished
Starting point is 00:04:20 to demo it. So obviously, I'm pissed because this dude has just been a huge pain, but I tell him it's all good man, we'll just cover your part in the demo. He happily agrees because once again he won't have to do anything. Here's the kicker. In the requirements of the demo, every member has to be in the recording or you won't get any marks for that portion. Clearly this guy didn't read the rubric, so he thinks that he's getting a good deal. If you didn't participate in the demo, you get a 0% for that portion. I bet this guy's gonna be confused as to why his marks are so much lower than the rest of us. Our next reddit post is from the doomed hero.
Starting point is 00:05:00 I used to be an armorer in the US army. I was the person in charge of securing and maintaining all the weapons. I was stationed overseas at a base that only had one arm's room, and I was the guy who ran it. So, instead of just being responsible for the weapons in my unit, I was responsible for all weapons in the entire post. On paper, that's a job that's supposed to be done by an E6 with a 2 person support staff.
Starting point is 00:05:24 In reality, the position was chronically short-staffed. It was just me, an E4, doing the job of 3 people. Because the position was critical to the operations of a bunch of different units, I had to get a security clearance that was higher than everyone else in my own units. As far as I knew, there were only 4 people on the post with clearance high enough to do what I did, and they were all officers. This led to some amusing situations where I was accidentally called for security briefings that were way above my pay grade.
Starting point is 00:05:53 This sucked because I was on call all the time, and I had to go to work any time anyone needed a weapon. Being on call was supposed to be a duty rotation, but I was the only one who could do it, so I slept in the arms room a lot. I wanted to make sure that I had as little to do as possible, so I got very good at my job. How good? During an army wide review of the entire supply chain, my post was found to be the best run arms room in the entire army. I want a medal in everything. Then we had a change in command and the new captain hated that I didn't have to go on training exercises because I wasn't allowed to be more than 30 minutes away from the arms room ever.
Starting point is 00:06:36 Now the malicious compliance. This new captain was absolutely determined to take me on a training mission. She had somehow gotten it into her head that I was a slacker, which I absolutely was, but only because I was efficient and pissed off that I never got to leave the base. So she drew up a bunch of paperwork to sign the arms room over to a supply sergeant. I refused to sign the paperwork, because the person with all the ammo and the person with all the guns are supposed to be different people. Next, she tried to sign the arms room over to the Siop's company commander. I refused to sign because that commander had become a friend of mine, so I knew that he was
Starting point is 00:07:14 required to leave the base weekly for security briefings. Finally, she tried to sign the arms room over to our company supply lieutenant. I tried to explain to her that the lieutenant didn't have high enough security clearance, but she cut me off. She said she was tired of my excuses. Then she ordered me to sign and threatened me with an article 15. So I'm looking at what article 15 is and it says it's a non judicial punishment. And this is like using a lot of complicated terms that I don't fully understand, but I think what it's saying is that basically if a commander uses Article 15, then that commander basically just gets to decide that they're guilty and then administer punishment. So I guess it's a way for like people in command positions to like punish people who are doing
Starting point is 00:08:02 something wrong in like a wartime scenario where you don't have the time to take them to trial. I don't really fully understand it, but it sounds pretty bad, to be honest. Apparently they can throw you in jail, they can drop your rank, they can find you two thirds of your months basic pay. Cheese. Put you in jail for eight days, you can get extra duty. Okay, yeah, so Article 15 is a pretty big deal.
Starting point is 00:08:25 Anyways, back to the story. I signed the document, but I wrote under duress on the paperwork. She didn't even look at the signature, so I sent an email to the Warren Officer who was in charge of logistics for the area. He was the guy who had given me the award that I mentioned earlier, so he was pissed when he found out what was going on. Then I went on this stupid little weekend training exercise and basically enjoyed my vacation. That sequence of events happened on a Friday afternoon.
Starting point is 00:08:53 The chief didn't get my email until Monday morning. On Monday afternoon, my captain was relieved of command. I eventually had to testify at her disciplinary hearing. My second favorite part of the whole experience was a supply lieutenant who got a slap on the wrist for inadvertently obeying illegal orders because he had learned the regulations before signing. Saying, is it like that for you all the time? This has to change.
Starting point is 00:09:18 My favorite part was the full bird colonel in charge of the hearing asking my former commander. Your soldier was awarded for being the best at his job in the entire army. After he refused your orders the first few times, why didn't you start asking questions? Down in the comments, someone posted a quote from, what is apparently a famous German chief of the German army around 1933. I divide my officers into four classes as follows. The clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious, I appoint to the general staff. Under certain circumstances, you can find
Starting point is 00:09:59 to use for someone who is stupid and lazy. A man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite nerves and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be gotten rid of for he is too dangerous. OP, it sounds like you're the clever and lazy type. And yeah, I guess this guy was right because you were literally number one in the entire US Army. How many people work in the US Army? There were about 142 million US civilians employed in 2017 compared with 1.3 active duty service members in the US Armed Forces.
Starting point is 00:10:41 So if you can include all the civilians working, we're talking literally like 150 million people. And you were number one in your position. Our next credit post is from Rusty Bathtub. So my brothers and sisters basically ordered me and my wife to buy their children, our nieces and nephews, expensive gifts for Christmas because according to them, we're well off. We're not really well off. We're
Starting point is 00:11:05 just financially responsible. But since they asked for it and it's already on the budget, we decided to be vindictive this year. So for the most amazing Christmas, our nieces and nephews will get 5 tubs of Play-Doh which sticks to everything. 5 packages of multicolored kinetic sand, which gets everywhere. Five tubs of gooey slime, and five packs of easy fill water balloons. Also, age-appropriate Nerf guns and safety glass. This should be a fun Christmas. Down in the comments, it's people just absolutely piling on with the most obnoxious gift ideas that Reddit can come up with. People are pointing out that missing from OP's list is anything that makes a lot of sound. So like a fireman truck that makes a loud siren noise, or a karaoke machine, or a harmonica,
Starting point is 00:11:56 or a guitar with a really loud amp so they can blast it through the house. Also a lot of people recommending stickers for really obvious reasons. Apparently there's a toy called Yellies, which is like a little spider thing, and it goes faster the louder you yell at it. Why would anyone make this thing? Our next way to post is from Cinnamon Bun Bun. I do a lot of fly-in, fly-out travel for my job. Usually I'm so busy with work while on-site, or I'm stationed somewhere with food options that I don't want to waste my calories on, so I don't eat anything the whole day or I just buy a coffee.
Starting point is 00:12:40 Our employee expenses policy at work is 30 bucks a day, which is mostly fine. But there are some high cost of living cities, and sometimes my meals go above that policy because there's not many options. Especially if I want to eat healthy, which is important when you're constantly on the road. Plus, so many airports have completely shut down their food courts and haven't reopened them yet, so there's hardly any options but fast food. So I submitted my expenses one month, and I went $1.50 over the daily limit because I treated myself to a coffee that morning as well as lunch, because I was tired after the god-awful early flight that I had to take. The company had recently changed their policy,
Starting point is 00:13:21 and now a different set of people are proving expenses. The previous people didn't mind me going over by a few bucks because it balanced out with trips where I didn't eat anything, but this new group was absolute sticklers and rejected the expenses, citing that I was over the daily limit. I tried to argue that I had 10 other visits that month in which I didn't eat a single thing, but still they weren't budging. It really left a sour taste in my mouth. Now, every single visit I force myself to spend as close to 30 bucks as I can because screw them.
Starting point is 00:13:54 My husband is thrilled because this means that I now bring back slightly squished but free food for him. I feel bad for wasting food, but often I just buy a meal and eat a few bites and then throw it in the bin. However, the expense policy is 30 bucks a day, and by God I'm gonna stick to it now. While in the past I might have built like 100 bucks for the entire month because I didn't bother to eat, I'm now billing twice or three times that. I also used to push myself to keep working all day, but now I religiously
Starting point is 00:14:25 take my 30 minutes to go buy some food. So that's 30 minutes less work they're getting from me too. That was our Slash Milicious Compliance, and if you like this content, be sure to follow my podcast because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.

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