Malicious Compliance

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Fit_on_my_sace on 2025-06-30 11:37:37+00:00.

Context: I’m a paramedic that works semi rural (1 hour drive to hospital). We work 12 hour shifts from 6-6. Commonly we would arrive at 5:30 so the off coming crew could go home earlier after handover of equipment.

Anyway. The 5:30 arrival time was a “gentleman’s agreement” so that the off coming crew wouldn’t have to attend a call out that would put them over their finish time and potentially breach their 14 hours maximum working time (Local driving laws can’t be working for more than 14 hours if your job involves driving, at 14 hours you must stop driving no matter where you are unless you have a critical patient).

Occasionally a job would come in during that 5:30-6 period which the new shift would take and then claim the early start as over time (standard practice here, normally never a problem).

One day the Manager sends out an email stating that no staff should be turning up early and starting work before 6 because it was costing too much in overtime.

So that’s what we all did. Every single crew which was 30+ staff. At the peak of winter which is usually one of the busiest times of the year.

It sucked finishing late a fair bit but making the boss pay us 2+ hours of overtime and giving them the headache of driving us back to station once we breached 14 hours instead of paying for 30 minutes was great.

After 2 months of haemorrhaging money in overtime payments, we get another email “You can now go back to the 5:30 arrangement”.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/LovelyKittenPetals on 2025-06-30 05:58:22+00:00.

This happened back when I was in school, few years ago.

I had this one friend. She was cool most of the time, but when it came to money, she turned into a human calculator. If we went out to eat and the bill was $19.87, she’d insist on paying exactly that and not a penny more. Never rounded up, never covered tax or tip and definitely never chipped in when we ordered shared stuff.

Anyway, one weekend we hit up a burger place with a few other friends. I spotted her because she forgot her wallet, again. Her total was like $12.63 burger, fries and a drink.

A few days later, she comes up to me and says, Hey, I’ve got your money. But I only have a twenty. Do you have change?

I didn’t.

So she goes, Okay, then I’ll just give you the $20. But I want my change back later. Exact change. I don’t want to be short even a penny.

I nodded and said, Sure thing.

So later that night, I swung by my dorm, grabbed this big jar where I dumped all my random coins, and sat there counting them out while watching Netflix. I made sure it was exactly $7.37 in dimes, nickels, pennies, and just one quarter for fun.

Next day, I handed her a sandwich bag full of coins.

She looked at it, confused and asked what it was.

I said, Your change. Exact, just like you wanted.

She never pulled that exact change stuff on me again. In fact, next time we went out, she rounded up and offered to leave the tip.

I guess Malicious compliance won.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/jasmantle on 2025-06-29 19:32:25+00:00.

This happened a few years back, when I was between jobs, a mini-recession was underway, and I wanted a who-cares job in a high-energy environment. I ended up managing a food stand at the local NHL hockey arena. In the stand there was myself (Stand Lead), one head cashier, a cook, a runner, and a number of cashiers.

This company started from the position that all their employees were crooks - sorry to be so blunt, but that was their reality. It was not an unfounded position - refilling beer cups and pocketing the cash from the sale was not a rare practice. I had two of my cashiers fired after secret shoppers caught them.

The trick was to do this with non-inventory items. At the start and end of a night I counted everything: Beer cups, the cardboard triangles on which pizza was served, popcorn bags, bags of potato chips, etc. Bulk items could not be counted: Popcorn, draft beer, nacho chips, etc. At the end of the night we garbaged the bulk items that cannot be carried over to the next night: Cooked hot dogs, pizza sliced, popcorn, etc.

We may have wolfed down a few items. "We're closed, I'm going to toss these three leftover slices in the bin, anyone want one?" I recorded the waste (three slices), but they may not have all made it into the garbage.

Apparently some suit envisioned that stands might loading up with extra food from the delivery folks, or cooking extra hot dogs. Manglement got their panties in a twist about us eating the garbage, and sent a memo that all waste was to be boxed up and carried down to the warehouse.

So we did as told. After counting the waste, into the box went a random assortment of pizza slices, hot dogs, and popcorn. It wasn't put in neatly. There was always lots of popcorn. Manglement probably didn't care about the popcorn, but the directive was vague so they got it anyway. The box was stuffed with popcorn. If the warehouse ever did anything with what was in that box, it would be a fermenting fly-infested mess by the time they got around to opening the boxes. At the after-work beer party the directive was discussed, none of the stand leads liked the assumptions made regarding our integrity, and they adopted the practice.

A month or two later I had reason to chat with the warehouse on another topic, and I asked them what they did with all the food waste that was brought down. Answer: We toss it right into the dumpster, we're not digging through that mess. "You never go in and count anything?" Nah, the suits tried to make us, but we refused, we already have full time jobs and they wouldn't hire anyone whose job description was to dig through garbage. It's just the suits trying to intimidate you stand leads.

I resumed binning my waste, and not lugging anything down to the warehouse. Nobody noticed. I passed the word. Neither we, nor the warehouse, told management. The empty suits never noticed.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/UnfoundedConfidence9 on 2025-06-29 07:55:40+00:00.

So I work in a pretty low stress job, which makes it absolutely hilarious that my boss demands that whenever we take our paid time off we "give a good reason"

Like, dude, why do I need to give you a good reason to take my vacation days? They're mine, I'm entitled to take them to dedicate the time to my new hobby of staring at the ceiling, it ain't none of your business.

Well I had planned to take a few days off to recharge after a (very relatively) intense work week. Unfortunately the boss thought this was a great time to send out a "reminder" email that if we intend to take time off we need to provide a reason & have it approved. This was a mistake on his part.

I went into his office, head hanging low, and started talking about my dad's cancer, how intensive chemotherapy was, I didn't make myself cry but I was putting that theatre class I took in college to good use, I might have even hit him with "and I'm just so used to seeing my dad as this strong, invulnerable guy, but... he's just human, y'know? And soon he might be gone... how do you even deal with something like that..."

Now by this point my dad had been cancer-free for years, so this was purely performative, but my boss just looked so uncomfortable, it was great. I wish I could say this caused the boss to send out an email saying we no longer needed to give a reason for our time off, but no such luck, instead I just kept coming up with other traumatic life experiences to justify my vacations. I think my grandma died 3 times these past few years, poor woman. I may have to come up with something new for when she actually does die. My boss still gets visibility uncomfortable whenever I come to ask for time off in person instead of via email, it's kind of hilarious to me.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Main-Ad7685 on 2025-06-29 03:59:52+00:00.

TRIGGER WARNING

I've been working at a poultry farm for about a year now (it's legal for 14 year olds to work in agriculture in my state), and I was always a hard worker who, in spite of my personal and brief legal troubles, was very productive and intuitive. As a result, I was very well liked by the management. The owner of the farm eventually acquired some more land, and the manager decided to break it down more, and appointed me as one of the assistant supervisors of the newly acquired chicken coops. I had this really annoying coworker who was always whining about "the patriarchy holding her back" and not being paid as much as the other workers. (She was just really lazy and spent all her time on her phone.) I overheard her trash talking me to a coworker, saying that she would have gotten the job, but that the owner passed her over because I'm a suck-up. Later that day (she didn't think I had heard her), she asked me for a raise (she thought I was easy prey because I'm young). I planned just to turn her down, but I had a better idea. Unfortunately for her, the guy who got rid of the waste had just moved out, and he earned about 3-4 dollars an hour more than the other workers. So I assigned her waste duty. We still work together, I'm still her (assistant) supervisor, but she's gotten real quiet about my management skills. As it turns out, you still don't want to screw over your boss even if he's 15.

(Yes I know most feminists aren't like that. I'm just telling the story as it was)

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Dr_Pillow on 2025-06-28 16:58:58+00:00.

I spent a few years at this company. The pay there is not as competitive and we all got measly 2–3% raises each year, nothing close to inflation levels. I had been in a starter position and still studying on the side, so I agreed with my boss already a couple years ago that I'd get a promotion once I graduated.

Well, last September I graduated, and asked for my promotion. I had looked over the worker union's salary statistics and the median would be around a 18% bump for me. I didn't expect to get that much because, besides them being a cheap AF, the economy was bad and they had just downsized like 15% of the staff in July. Luckily I had gotten myself into a strong position of being one of the only ones left with some unique skills, so I survived the downsizing. Anyhow, I show my boss a copy of the statistics and ask for the median.

Boss scoffs and proceeds to fight as hard as he can to justify lowballing me. He says several things baffling to me, not limited to:

• “damn, you’re rich bro” about my salary (no dude, I'm really struggling in this economy)
• “If I give you more, you’ll just spend more” (not your concern what I do with my well-deserved money).
• “no one at that level makes that much here” and that the statistics must be wrong. (I later went around the office to find colleagues in that level. First co-worker I ask? Earns exactly what I asked for.)
• Brought up some concerns about my 'communication', petty things like me not replying to a colleague's email for like 3 days (3 days during which I was off-site to give a course somewhere).

But my favourite thing he said was: “You can go look for other jobs to see how much others are offering, you’ll see it's not going to be any better”.

He lingered on my salary adjustment until December, "negotiating with HR", and then finally offers me 11%, which is around what I actually expected. But, there's a catch… next year I would not get the usual 2-3% salary adjustment like everybody else. WTF. I told him: "deal".

You see, I had taken his advice (or rather called his bluff) and was already getting quite far in interviews.

Come January, I land an offer from the top company in our field (think Google, Apple) offering me what would have been a 35% bump. I hit my boss with the news, he promptly panics. Says they want me to stay, they need me, my performance and development have been great, etc... but they can’t match that offer because “not even top management makes that much”. I obviously didn't believe him, but I said "I understand it's not fair that I earn more than everyone else, just do your best".

He runs to the top boss' office and somehow, within 30 mins, they magically found budget for a 30% raise. Perfect, now I had leverage to negotiate an even better offer from my future boss. After all, I had already made up my mind to leave long ago.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/raycostello on 2025-06-28 14:18:27+00:00.

TL;DR: HOA harassed me about brown patch, so I seed bombed it with aggressive mint. Now mint has taken over the entire neighborhood and HOA can't remove it due to their own rules.

So this happened last year but the mint is still spreading and the HOA is still losing their minds, so I figured you'd appreciate this.

I live in one of those cookie-cutter suburban developments with an HOA that has nothing better to do than measure grass height and count dandelions. Behind my house there's this steep slope that's basically a dead zone - terrible soil, gets destroyed by sun, nothing grows there. Looks like shit but it's not my fault the builder graded it wrong.

Enter the HOA Compliance Committee (aka three retired Karens with clipboards).

They start sending me violation notices about "insufficient green coverage" and "failure to maintain community landscaping standards." I try explaining that it's an impossible area but they don't care. They want it green or they want fines.

I spend like $200 on grass seed - dies. Another $300 on sod - dies. Hire a landscaper for $800 who basically tells me "some places aren't meant to be green" then leaves. More violation notices.

Finally I'm browsing Reddit at 2am (as you do) and see this post for "Bad Apples Doublemint Seed Bombs" that claims to solve "impossible erosion problems." The whole thing sounds sketchy but I'm desperate and facing HOA fines, so fuck it - $35 for 5 seed bombs.

Here's where the malicious compliance begins.

The violation notice specifically said I needed to "establish adequate green coverage using appropriate plant materials for erosion control." It didn't say WHAT plants. Just "appropriate" and "green coverage."

So I read up on mint. Turns out it's actually EXCELLENT for erosion control. Deep roots, spreads aggressively, thrives in terrible conditions. Technically checks every box they demanded.

Friday evening I chuck all 5 seed bombs onto my dead zone like I'm lobbing grenades. Saturday morning I email the compliance committee that I've "deployed professional-grade erosion control featuring premium mint varieties selected for aggressive establishment in challenging terrain."

Sounds official as hell, right?

Plot twist: It actually worked.

Six weeks later my dead zone is GREEN AS HELL. Thick, lush, beautiful mint covering everything. The compliance officer does her walkthrough and actually COMPLIMENTS my "creative landscaping solution." Violation notices stop. I'm feeling pretty smug.

Plot twist #2: Mint doesn't understand property lines.

By fall I notice mint popping up in the common areas. Underground runners had snuck under the fence and were colonizing the neighbors. Spring comes and mint is EVERYWHERE - around mailboxes, along walking paths, even in their fancy entrance landscaping.

Here's the beautiful part: The HOA charter (section 4.2.7 if anyone cares) specifically prohibits "removal or disturbance of vegetation that originates from individual property owner plantings without explicit written consent."

They can't touch the mint without violating their own rules.

Current situation (ongoing chaos):

• HOA hired THREE different landscaping companies. All basically said "you have mint now, learn to love mojitos"
• Community Facebook group is 50% people complaining about mint, 50% people asking where to harvest it for cocktails "
• Last month's HOA meeting included 20 minutes of heated debate about "aggressive aromatic species management"
• They're trying to revise the charter but need 75% homeowner approval and everyone thinks this is hilarious

Best part: Karen #1 from the compliance committee now sends passive-aggressive emails about "residents who deliberately introduce invasive species" but can't name names because that would be "creating a hostile community environment" (section 2.1.4).

My neighbors love it. Free mint for everyone. The mailman said our whole street smells like a spa. I make mint juleps with ingredients harvested from the community mailbox area.

The HOA wanted green coverage. Mission fucking accomplished!!!!

EDIT: i keep getting dmed for sourcing, search bad apples seed bombs on ebay , they work way, way too well lol

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Fun-Heart2038 on 2025-06-27 19:37:43+00:00.

[Not a native speaker]

Many moons ago, I was a developer working in my first job, in a small software company. I had a 1-year contract and was developing an administrative system to process equipment tests and test results. I wrote it for the software company I worked for, who developed it bespoke for a customer. It was a long time ago, and almost all software was custom-made at that time.

The customer was nice and had a good IT officer on-site that could also develop, but had no time to do so, and certainly not from scratch.

When the end of my contract was coming near and the software was running, I tried to negotiate new terms but without an interesting offer. The job market was not good at that time, living was cheap in that area, and I guess they just assumed I would stay. I found however something else as I was young and did not really care about anything else than cool assignments with new technology.

So, at the last day, I shook hands and wished them the best. That did not fall well. They wanted me to stay, demanded me to stay, but under local law, walking in the next day meant accepting a contract with all attached obligations like a non-competition agreement, 8 weeks notice etc etc.

I walked out and a week later I got a threatening letter from their lawyer about abandoning post, misleading them, caused financial losses. Whilst I assumed they had little on me, even a little problem is a big one if you do not have money and quick access to legal support.

They wanted me to fix issues on the bespoke system as the customer made some tickets that no one could resolve, but I already started a new job. I did not have the source code anymore, no libraries etc.

Cue MC

I found a lawyer, who basically said: go and do it, commit to nothing, and this way you showed your good will. That is enough in this jurisdiction.

I went to the software company to get the sources and libraries that I needed to work on the software. I informed them that I would go to the customer site to use as I needed their hardware and installation to see their issues on-prem & fix them right there, so the customer could sign-off and provide absolution.

The software company agreed and was probably proud of pressuring me into working for them for free, as a punishment for my betrayal.

I went to the customer site, sat with the IT officer in order to set up a dev and test environment, copied the source code, libraries, documentation and digged into my code. At the end of the day, the issue list was addressed. Before closing down, I explained that I needed to delete the source code when ready but that I was hungry and wanted to grab a bite, and that they should continue testing, just to be sure.

When I came back, the tests were successful. I deleted all source code etc, made pictures of what I did and emailed the report.

In parallel, the IT officer was labeling a portable drive and I saw a finished backup job on his monitor.

The customer never made a ticket anymore and did not extend their maintenance & support contract.

[Edit for clarity, my bad].

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Ashmunaday on 2025-06-27 22:16:06+00:00.

Right after finishing my training, I landed my first full-time job in quality control at a mid-sized chemical company. The team in the lab was five people - me full-time, the others part-time. The company always claimed that even though they were not part of the union, they still paid according to union contracts (I am from Germany, many industries are unionized and generally all employees get the contracted pay, no matter if they are members or not). It was good money at the time, I had no reference and no reason to doubt. Until I got engaged 7 years later. My fiancée had the exact same training, worked for a bigger company and they actually followed the union contract. The starting wage was the same, but real union contracts had pay raise after set times. This led to a difference in 600 € per month. I was a bit upset, to say the least. I was looking for a new job, but a 3-months notice period was too long for many possible employers. So, being frustrated and not really attached to my old job, I was free to comply maliciously in a way I would never recommend to anyone who wants to keep their job. I copied the part of the union contract with the wage table. There was a nice little relation between training level, tasks and wage ranges. armed with this and a secret weapon I asked for a talk with my manager. In his office I laid the union contract on his table, showed this nice little table and said something along the line: "You always tell people the this company pays according to the union contracts. Look at this, there is a gap between my skills and tasks, and my pay. It's a 600 € gap. So, to comply to your statement, there are two ways to fix this: First, I get 600 € more, Second, I stop doing many of my tasks. Which one should it be?" He wasn't thrilled. Said I was "really leaning out of the window with that statement" (a German idiom, basically: getting bold). I replied: "30% of your department's manpower is sitting in front of you. My fiancée is getting paid the real union wage and we are looking forward to move together, question is where, as we live 120 km (about 75 miles) apart. My biggest obstacle is my 3-month notice period." Then came my secret weapon: I pulled out a fully written letter of resignation and asked for a pen to sign it. Long story short: I got the 600€ raise. I stayed there for another year. So basically I was malicious and my employer complied. Hope this qualifies.

TL;DR: Boss said we follow union pay. I showed we didn’t. Gave him the choice: raise my pay or reduce my tasks. Had a resignation letter ready. Got the raise

P.S. I do not recommend pulling out a resignation letter unless you really mean it. I did.

P.P.S. Yes, this formatting is intentional. just to be safe.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/throwrathrowra on 2025-06-27 20:36:02+00:00.

This happened about ten years ago, but it still makes me laugh every time I think about it.

I was in my early twenties, dating this guy who was ridiculously controlling and full of himself. Classic narcissist. Everything revolved around him, and in his mind, he could do no wrong. You know the type. Anyway, after I caught him cheating, I finally hit my limit and told him I was done for good.

The way I found out he was cheating was the best part. I’d had my suspicions for a while, so I went through his phone. Sure enough, there were months of messages between him and some girl he worked with. Flirty garbage, talking about how he couldn’t wait to leave me… all that nonsense. But one text in particular had me rolling my eyes. He had sent her this the day before:

“She’s driving me crazy. She’s got me through the roof. I need you so bad, babe.”

Got me through the roof? Pretty sure that’s not how the expression goes. Your blood pressure can be through the roof. Your anxiety, your rage… sure. But unless you’re Spider-Man or a haunted Victorian child, you are not through the damn roof.

The next morning while he was at work, I texted him and said I was done. He kept pressing me to explain, but I never admitted I’d read his messages. I let him stew in his own arrogance until he finally realized I wasn’t bluffing.

By that point, he had pretty much moved into my house. So naturally, he wanted all his stuff back. He texted me something like, “You better have all my shit outside when I get there. And I mean every fucking bit of it. I’m not making two trips.”

Oh, don’t worry, sweetheart.

I gathered every last thing he had at my place, which included at least a third of his wardrobe, a pile of overpriced hats, two pairs of pristine Jordans, and an iPad. I stuffed everything (minus the iPad) into a trash bag, tied it loosely, walked outside, and launched it straight onto the roof. Some of his clothes flew out mid-air and scattered across the yard. Most of it landed on the roof and just chilled up there like it paid rent.

As for the iPad, I put it in a box and set it near the edge of the driveway. Not long after, a couple of teenagers walked by and peeked inside. I was sitting on the porch when one of them asked, “Is this yours?”

“Nope.”

“Can we have it?”

“Sure. Why not.”

He said to put his stuff outside. He never said I had to guard it.

About two hours later, he pulled up, saw his clothes strewn across the lawn and a trash bag dangling off the roof, and lost it. He started pounding on the door, furious, yelling, “Why the fuck are my clothes on the roof?!”

I swung the door open, looked him dead in the eye, and said, “Well, judging by the texts you sent your little girlfriend… apparently, I had you through the roof. I figured your clothes might as well join you. You told me to put your shit outside. You didn’t say where.”

He stood there red-faced, fists clenched, seething. “And how the fuck am I supposed to get my shit off the roof?”

I shrugged, smiled sweetly, and said, “Maybe your girlfriend can loan you a ladder,” then slammed the door in his face.

He did come back later with a ladder. Whether or not she loaned it to him, I couldn’t say. I stayed inside with the door locked and haven’t heard much from him since.

ETA: The one and only time I talk to him after the break up was the next day when he texted to ask if he could come get his iPad.😂 I told him the truth… That I sat it outside like he asked me to. If it’s not there, I guess someone stole it. Sorry. I don’t think he believed me because he threatened to GPS track it. I told him to go ahead. Don’t know if he was ever able to locate it or not because I blocked his number after that. Lol.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/BeautifulNadine26 on 2025-06-27 15:01:56+00:00.

This is for anyone who’s ever helped out quietly, until someone decided to get loud about it. So I used to fix my supervisor’s reports, not officially. It was just one of those unspoken things. I’d notice a missing total, clean up the formatting, swap in the right chart, stuff like that. He’d never say thanks, but he stopped double checking, so I figured he noticed. Then one day, in front of the team, he says I’m really need to stick to what I was hired for.

Next week, the report goes out with duplicate charts and outdated data. the week after? someone emails asking if the numbers are flipped. I didn’t say a word. He’s been double checking his own stuff ever since.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Icy-Computer-Poop on 2025-06-27 13:41:19+00:00.

I have always been the kind of person to arrive at work/events early. I hate the stress of running late, so I always allow more than enough travel time on my commute to avoid lateness.

I always stopped for a coffee first thing on my morning commute to work. It was a half-hour drive to work on the highway, so I liked to sip my coffee and listen to tunes to relax before work. Even though it's only a half-hour commute, I would leave for work an hour before my start time just in case there were any unexpected delays.

One particular day there's a massive jam on the highway. Now normally I get to work 20-30 minutes early because of the extra travel time. But this traffic jam was bad enough that it still made 6 minutes late for work.

Supervisor starts giving me shit for coming in late but having a coffee, publicly calling me out in front of the other employees. "Hey everyone, look at Icy! His morning coffee is more important to him than respecting his coworkers!" No amount of "I bought the coffee before I knew there was a traffic jam" would get him to stop hassling me. He wrote me up for being late.

Now, my company had a policy that less than 5 minutes late is ok, but 5+ minutes late means a potential write-up. Doesn't matter if it's 5 minute and 30 seconds or 2 hours late, the punishment was the same. However, supervisors were given leeway on this and were encouraged not to penalize people unless they were consistently late. I was almost never late, almost always early, but my supervisor decided to punish me anyway.

So fast forward a couple of weeks, another delay, and looks like I'm going to arrive at work about 15 minutes late. So, knowing that I'm going to get written up no matter what, I pulled off the highway, found a nice little restaurant, and had a leisurely 2-hour breakfast. Showed up at work 2.5 hours late, and got the same write up I would have done if I had been 15 minutes late, but at least I also go to relax and eat bacon.

I still showed up at work early 99% of the time, but every now and then there might be a delay that would mean I'd be 6 minutes late, or 10 or 15. Rather than take the penalty for a lousy couple of minutes, each time I'd extend the late time a couple of hours and have a nice, relaxing breakfast.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/cynical-mage on 2025-06-27 13:34:39+00:00.

This was back about 8yrs ago when I worked for the big green store in the UK. We were going through a belt tightening period; sales were down, no recruitment to replace leavers, ie circling the drain right before we parted ways with shmallshmart ahem. I'd been sent onto nights to evaluate and fix them. Came in for 10pm for shift start, and immediately got collared by my line manager who I had a mutual loathing going on with. He rants at me that I have to cut hours, pick a colleague, he doesn't care who, and send them home.

I have a little think about it, and pull in my three little minions. I explain the demands, but I also tell them that I think this is massively unfair, expecting one person to lose an entire shift. So I said that we'd all go home 2hrs early; that'd give them the 'saved' 8hrs, we'd still manage to get most tasks done, and who wouldn't be happy finishing early, right? So that's what we did.

Next evening, store manager pulls me in, asks me wtf happened? Morning crew turned up and we were all gone, and had to pull the AM delivery into the chiller by themselves. So I told him, told him my reasoning.

Turns out that the night team wasn't meant to be part of where the hours were cut. Seems Mr line manager was trying to hit two birds with one stone; free up hours for his shift, and also get me in trouble for failing my tasks. What actually happened was that my minions pulled together in solidarity, we nailed our shit, and by all being gone the following morning, we drew full attention to the shenanigans. We got apologies, and he got in trouble.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/BuffaloAgreeable372 on 2025-06-27 13:14:05+00:00.

I’ll have to keep some details a bit vague.

I work for a just in time company and was on work assignment in Japan.

They had some strange approaches to prioritizing which safety items needed focus.

They also have a very specific method and format for problem solving. This is important later.

If you’ve ever driven in Japan, you know that some “roads” wouldn’t pass as a cart path most anywhere else, and most have very deep gutters that will shitmix your car right quick.

My company car was a gorgeous 87hp vitz. I still miss it sometimes.

When idling in drive, it hovered around 22-25kph. Sorry Americans, I don’t know how many hogcocks to the melted velveeta it is in freedom units.

The speed limit on the site was 20. The speedo for the vitz was in the center console and the driveway through the site is quite long and narrow. I couldn’t watch both easily.

One day, they had safety team members out in a literal speed trap. I got pulled over. Driving infractions are pretty serious and I am gaijin so they lost it on me (they flagged down lots of people, but only I got yelled at).

I had to write a shame letter and do a problem solving report for root cause and countermeasure.

Sure.

My reasoning was I couldn’t watch the speedo and the narrow lanes at the same time. The idle speed is too high to maintain safe driving.

Countermeasure: my beloved Vitz had a B gear (Jake brake for brake fade on mountain roads). In B, it idled at exactly 10.

They loved the report. It was shared with my working group.

The next time I was on site, I went directly to my car, got on the lot exit to the winding, narrow, single lane driveway and put it in B.

There was a huge line of cars behind my idling 10kph vitz with the guy directly behind me losing his damned mind. It took forever to get to the gate. Although, no one was speeding.

The next morning, my boss said there were many complaints about the white Vitz driving too slow. I said safety first, and I don’t want to risk another speeding ticket at work. He said I didn’t have to drive 10kph anymore.

Fuckin. Nope.

Every day I worked on that site, I drove exactly 10 in and exactly 10 out. I feel bad for screwing everyone else over, but if it’s serious enough to give me a speeding ticket and a shame letter, then it’s serious enough to be diligent about.

They made an announcement that the safety gestapo would limit safety audits to activity on site and that the activity was a great success in slowing down unsafe drivers. I think that was a tacit approval to go back to the old way.

Even then, 10kph in, 10kph out.

It became a running joke in my group though. I think they envied the malicious part of the compliance. They wouldn’t be so strident against authority as it “looks bad”. I’m a petty gaijin. I don’t give a shit. They would ask when I was arriving on site, I’d say I’m just pulling in. They would say, I see, we’ll see you in 25 minutes.

If I ever have to go back there, I will do it again.

Safety first.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/sof1abrooks on 2025-06-27 12:37:19+00:00.

A one year ago I worked mornings at a small grocery store. I lived nearby and usually arrived 10-15 minutes early to help set up brew coffee, straighten shelves, nothing major, just being helpful.

One day the store manager says that corporate wants to crack down on early clock-ins. "Don't clock in until your shifts starts, no exceptions."

So the next day I showed up at my usual time and just sat in the break room. Lights off in the store, no coffee, carts still all over the lot. Manager walks in at 7:59, sees the mess, and asks "Why didn't you do your usual setup?"

I just said "You told me not to clock in early."

From that point on, I was "allowed" to clock in 10 minutes before start. Funny how fast rules change when they cause inconvenience for them.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/LilMissYuna on 2025-06-27 04:17:56+00:00.

I was working part-time at a storage yard. The rule was always to check if anyone was still around before locking up.

One day my new supervisor pull me side. From now on, he says, “You lock the gat when you leave.

I asked, “Even if someone’s still in the yard?” He said, “Doesn’t matter. Lock it. Period.”

So a few days later, I saw him way in the back inspecting something. Didn’t say a word. Just locked the gate like I was told.

He called twenty minutes later, stuck and annoyed. I said, “You told me to lock it no matter what.” The rule quietly changed to. “Use your judgment.” And that’s exactly what I do now.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/ScarletHotFace on 2025-06-27 02:58:38+00:00.

Back when I was in high school, I lived with my extremely frugal aunt while my parents were abroad. She had this obsession with saving on the electricity bill. Fair enough but she took it to the extreme.

One day, she caught me walking out of the kitchen and scolded me for leaving the ceiling light on, even though I was going back in less than a minute. She said she didn't t care if I was gone for 30 seconds. When you leave a room, you turn off every single light. Got it.

I started turning off lights whenever I leave a room and soon I got used to it. Later that week, she was cooking in the kitchen, and I was helping her grab ingredients from the pantry which was technically a separate little room connected to the kitchen. I stepped into the pantry, grabbed the oil, walked out, and turned off every single kitchen light as I exited the room.

She shrieked mid stir like she'd gone blind.

What are you doing? I’m still here.

I said, Oh....I thought you weren’t. You said turn off every light when I leave a room and my muscle memory is already getting used to it.

It didn’t stop there. Anytime we were in the living room and I got up to use the bathroom, I’d leave her in pitch darkness. Once, she was even watching TV and I just clicked off the power bar on my way out.

It took about four days of bumping into furniture before she said, Okay, maybe use common sense.

I still turned the bathroom light off every time she used it though because I wasn’t in the room after all.

Took a while before my muscle memory returned to normal.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/jylppy81 on 2025-06-26 19:47:02+00:00.

Compulsory notes: English is not my first language, but it is my son's.

This just happened less than five minutes ago...

My son is turning 9 tomorrow. We've had some trouble putting him to sleep during his summer vacation, and I was steering him towards sleep right now. I asked if he'd brushed his teeth and gone potty to get ready to bed. He said yes, so I asked him to "put your head on the pillow, please". He went to his bed, took the pillow, and held it in his hands, resting his head on top of it, and started heading towards the living room...

I couldn't do anything but laugh for a solid minute, and then went to get him from living room, and added to my previous statement: "Go to bed, and put your head on the pillow, please."

Moments like this make a dad proud!

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Mesoposty on 2025-06-26 18:43:00+00:00.

I’ve always told him no, and that I gave you a fair price. He always asks and I’ve asked him too not too many times . The other day he asked if we could do anything about the price when I handed him the receipt and I said “SURE!, let me rewrite the receipt “ I went to my truck and quickly rewrote it for 10% higher and took it back to him. He looked at me like I was crazy, I told him you asked if I could do anything about it and that all I can do. He asked for the original receipt and he quickly paid that one

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/VelvetXGlimmer on 2025-06-26 14:37:47+00:00.

I am part of a small hiring team at my workplace and I take my position very seriously. Sometime ago we were looking to fill a key role that required someone sharp, organized, and ready to work under pressure. We had a solid shortlist after several interview and then my department supervisor pulled me aside. He told me, flat-out, to hire one candidate in particular. Not because she was the best fit but because he wanted me to, i later heard through office rumors that she was an “almost-girlfriend,” basically Someone he had a thing for and was trying to impress. He said I should but just make it work and he will take the heat if needed.

I refused at first, showing him her results of the interview. She was one of the least ranked. She was late to the interview, vague answers, couldn’t explain basic industry terms. But he wouldn't listen and said it was a direct order. So, I did exactly what he asked, I hired her. Gave her all the support I could. Even offered extra onboarding help. Within a month, she accidentally sent a confidential client file to the wrong company. Then she once approved a purchase order for 10x the budgeted amount because she obviously didn't read through all those numbers. It was from one wrong to another. We lost a major client over the email slip. Another pulled back on their contract due to delays on her end.

When upper management started asking questions, my manager tried to dodge responsibility. But HR already had the hiring records. I made sure all instructions including his were documented which was intentionally incase a situation like this came up and it did. He was reassigned within the quarter. She quietly disappeared not long after. Turns out, hiring your crush isn’t as cute when the company starts bleeding money.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/DreamKitsch on 2025-06-26 14:15:00+00:00.

I helped my 10 year old daughter set up a lemonade stand in front of our house last weekend. She was really excited. She had a small sign, a cooler with ice, and a simple recipe consisting of fresh lemons, water, and a bit of sugar. Most neighbors were friendly and supportive. But then came one older woman from down the street who is famously known for unsolicited opinions and advices. She took a sip, made a face, and said, “Not enough lemons. Real lemonade should be more sour.”

My daughter looked a little sad, but we just said thank you and let it go. The next day, the same woman came back. Bought another cup. Same thing sip, frown and said the lemons still wasn't enough. I had to do something about it because my daughter became less excited about her little lemonade business, so i helped my daughter make a special batch just for the old lady. Less sugar, lots more lemon juice, and even extra lemon slices floating in the cup. Just as i predicted, the woman came back the next day. She took a sip and her face twisted like she bit into a whole lemon. She didn’t say anything this time. Just gave a small nod and walked away. She hasn’t come back since, I guess we blew her mind.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/SmellyCat0007 on 2025-06-25 19:32:42+00:00.

Back in 9th grade, I had a teacher who was super strict. One day during class, I got punished for "talking too much" even though it was actually the guy next to me who wouldn't shut up. I tried to explain, but she cut me off and made me write "I will not talk in class" a hundred times after school.

So the next day, I decided to follow the rule to the extreme.

I didn't say a single word in class. Group activity? Silent. She called on me? Just shrugged. Asked if I understood? Nodded. I even ignored classmates during pair work.

She got super frustrated after two days and asked what was going on. I said, "You told me not to talk in class… I'm just making sure I don’t get punished again."

Let's just say the "no talking" rule became a bit more flexible after that.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/PyroPhan on 2025-06-26 04:52:28+00:00.

In light of all the generic AI slop trash this sub has been flooded with, I figured I'd give my MC story that I've been holding onto for a while. It's been many years since I worked for the company this relates to. But if you have any knowledge of the industry than you know it's an acronym for Ahhhh, My Ride.

Being a private ambulance company, they acquired the contract to provide transport of patients to the hospital when they call 911. The city/county pays a flat rate in the contract to make sure that an ambulance responds and arrives on scene within 8 minutes and 59 seconds from the time of dispatch. On top of that, our company was allowed to bill the patients insurance for the transportation and cost of treatment. Given our location, that is a pretty reasonable criteria. Per the contract, we were allowed to have 10% of our response times to be what was called "Late Response" meaning we arrived on scene 9 minutes or later. This on-time vs late ratio was what we called compliance. 98% compliance, we're golden. 89% compliance... emails started going out and phones started ringing.

The thing is, we had to maintain DAILY compliance. We could have ZERO compliance from midnight to 3am, but as long as the compliance picked up and we met 90% or greater by midnight the end of the day, we were considered compliant. BUT here's the real kicker. Our management was the ONLY entity responsible for reporting compliance to the county. And that means numbers were scrubbed and fudged upside-down, left and right. They used special "delays" or exemptions that would drop the response times from the reports and consider them "outliers". Generally used for if an ambulance is delayed by a train crossing, construction, severe weather conditions... etc. But management abused these delays in their reports to maintain compliance.

Now, being responsible for the safety and care of critically sick or injured people you'd think that they would adequately staff the ambulances to handle the population of our service area and throw a little extra staff on top just to be safe and make sure they could handle anything that happens, right? Haha. No. They're trying to make money. If they can maintain compliance with less people, they did it. Hell, even if they couldn't make compliance, they'd use the delay exemptions to make it look like they were compliant. But, it's not like anyone was auditing them anyways.

We were simply understaffed. We constantly ran at what's called "Level Zero" in which the level refers to the number of ambulances available to respond to calls. If corporate had their way, if you could run a Level Zero constantly and still make compliance, we would be operating at peak efficiency, and the shareholders were happy. We were pressured to unsafely blow through stop signs and red lights, drive faster than reasonably necessary. Hell even our supervisor taught us the trick of using the cruise control to bypass the speed limiter on our trucks.

We were tired, over worked and spent more time driving in high-stress environments than the DOT would ever even let truck drivers get close to. We complained to the union, we tried whistlblowing to the county, but nothing changed. We'd had it.

The contract renewal was coming up. We had to be perfect with response times and look good so we could secure the next 4 years of service. But we all agreed. Enough was enough. We started following the laws regarding code 3 driving (lights and sirens) we stopped at every stop sign or red light, we drove no faster than we deemed safe for conditions... we sand bagged the ever living FUCK out of our response times and drove compliance straight into the ground. Unless the response was absolutely critical, every belly-ache and stubbed toe (which was 90% of our calls) we took our reasonable sweet ass time getting there. The exemptions couldn't even mask the failure of our compliance. 2 weeks in and many many meetings with supervision, they couldn't write us up for being safer and they started to staff more ambulances to regain compliance in time for the end of the month. It lasted a while, but I sought out employment elsewhere and haven't looked back since. I miss the job, but not the company.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/False_Ad_555 on 2025-06-26 03:32:45+00:00.

About 20 years ago I was applying for food stamps, and during the process I informed the caseworker that I made a few bucks a week collecting and returning 5 cent soda cans. She informed me that I had to call her and report this as it was extra income. So the next day I did, 9:30 a.m. "hi, this is me, I found a nickel can." 10:00 "hi this is me, I found another can." 11:00 "hi I found another can." That afternoon when I made my 5 call, she told me I no longer had to report my "extra income" I never heard anything more about it.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/SignificantLab3509 on 2025-06-26 03:30:17+00:00.

A few years ago, I worked in logistics for a mid-sized warehouse that shipped expensive industrial equipment. One of our newer managers—let’s call him Brad—wanted to “streamline processes” and said everyone needed to stop “wasting time double-checking outbound shipments.”

Now, the company policy clearly stated we were to verify model numbers, serials, and recipient info before shipping. But Brad, in his infinite wisdom, told us in a team meeting:

“From now on, you ship what’s on the top of the pick list. No questions. No double-checking. That’s the new standard.”

I asked for clarification:

“Even if the model or serial doesn’t match what’s in the system?” Brad: “Correct. Just follow the list.”

You got it, boss.

Fast forward two days. I notice a $12,000 part at the top of the pick list meant for a customer in Ohio, but the serial doesn’t match the order. I bring it up. Brad, overhearing, jumps in:

“Didn’t we just go over this? Ship what’s on the list.”

Cool. I slap the wrong serial sticker on it, scan it in, and ship it out.

Four days later, chaos erupts. Customer is furious. Wrong part, wrong serial, and now they’ve missed a major contract deadline. Refunds are demanded. CEO is looped in.

Brad tries to throw me under the bus, saying I should’ve checked. I pulled up the email from the team meeting summary he sent out…

“Employees are no longer required to verify serial numbers. Ship per pick list.”

Guess who got written up? Not me. Guess who got demoted two weeks later? Brad. Guess who got praised for “following procedure to the letter”? Yours truly.

Edit:

Apparently someone was so deeply moved by my use of punctuation they reported me to Reddit for “mental health concerns.” Just want to reassure everyone — I’m not spiraling, I’m just good at writing and bad at tolerating stupidity.