Malicious Compliance

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/golf-lip on 2024-10-10 21:49:44+00:00.

For context, i work at a Hotel with 1 maintenance engineer. Not a large hotel, so 1 is enough. Any regular day, he insists i call him about maintenance work rather than putting in a work order so he can just fix it and not have to go close out an order on the computer. This leads to me calling 4-5x a day. I call him for things like broken a.c.'s, hanging up a picture frame, cabinet door falling off. If its something easy like a lightbulb or clogged drain, i just fix it myself. Recently he took 2 weeks off work for a surgery. I tried to figure most things out myself, and only called him if i really needed assistance. Instead of 4-5 calls a day, i called him maybe 4 times the entire 2 weeks to let him recover and rest. I tried to fix most things myself and figure it out to not bother him.

When he comes back from his vacation, he sees something was installed incorrectly. A shower wall shampoo holder. I put it on the wall but did not grout it. He responded by saying, "if you want to do my job, let me know and i'll go elsewhere" and was generally petty for the rest of the day. Okay. I wont do your job for you.

Lightbulb out? Call. Phone unplugged? Call. Remote out of batteries? Call. Toilet not flushing? Call. Drain clogged? Call. Probably called over 20 times.

Do i know how to fix these things? Of course. But i don't want him to leave, so i'll let him do his job.

Edit:

1. It is a 3m sticky strip on the back of a plastic mount. He is upset i didnt caulk it. No major harm done or tons of work to be undone
2. We do track maintenance requests to see history and identify recurring problems to catch issues. He just prefers i call him rather than going online to check and close them because he isn't tech savvy. So im doing both.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/MooseyBee on 2024-10-10 21:43:42+00:00.

Years ago, a friend of mine was working as a research assistant in Germany. German is not her first language, but she was trying her best to learn it.

For one study, she meant to ask the patients to come to their weigh-ins and blood tests without having eaten anything. The German word for "shy" is schüchtern. The German word for "unfed" (literally "empty") is nüchtern. Of course, it wasn't detected by the spelling checker. And guess who made that small error in her emails to the patients?

You can imagine how shocked my friend was when her patients showed up and began joking with her; oversharing tiny details from their day, telling her about their bowel movements post-operation, and so on. Fortunately, it was only a handful of the hundreds of patients that she emailed who teased her about not being "shy" and everyone else who commented on it was kind.

Definitely a lesson well-learned :-)

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Poolofcheddar on 2024-10-10 16:04:21+00:00.

We had this coworker on our team. The best way to describe him is to use a Homer Simpson line: “everyone says they have to work a lot harder when I’m around.” Projects given to him usually were: not completed correctly, not entirely completed, or not even worked on at all. 

He violated security protocols, gave out equipment to other departments, and would occasionally disappear for hours. He would always have someone else to blame for his problems: contractors, staff in other departments, but the last straw for the rest of us was when he tried to throw his own team under the bus.

We all knew he was skating by because we’d fix his mistakes to keep everything else running. And admittedly, it’s hard to get fired from a state job. But after blaming us and having to hear about it? That was the last straw.

So the rest of us on the team stopped helping him, and we stopped fixing his mistakes. He wasn’t making obvious mistakes before. Now they were obvious.

The mistakes were piling up - and fast. We would collaborate with him only down to the bare minimum. He had no reason to blame us if our contributions to a project were completed and his weren’t. 

And then came the kiss of death: he took a week off. With him not around, everything that piled up started getting completed by the rest of us. New tasks were completed on top of that, and on time. Even my boss could not ignore the simple fact that the place ran smoother without him around. After he returned, everything started piling back up again.

So we came into work a couple weeks ago and it was announced that he had “left the organization.” Not one person was surprised. The thing that amazes me about this whole thing is that nobody coordinated it. None of us hatched a plan. We all just individually decided that enough was enough. You wanted obvious? You got it. 

It is impressive how much it takes to get fired for some people. My last two jobs both featured a teammate who essentially collected a paycheck and did nothing in return. At least my manager here had the balls to do what was needed. It’s also amazing that in the end, there’s less work to do with him gone because tasks don’t need to be done twice anymore.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Cabaj1 on 2024-10-10 09:14:38+00:00.

This happened 8-ish years ago. My school contains around 800 students spread over 6 years (12-18). In my school, there were 2 other people with the same first name as me (let's call it Peter). All 3 Peters were in the same class by pure coincidence.

We all followed the same language class & our normal teacher was replaced for a month by someone new to teaching. At the end of that month, we had to do a group presentation (+ powerpoint) about a piece of literature. We could make our own groups & we have decided to do a presentation together with all 3 Peters because we were all friends.

A week later, she realised she did not know our names and decided to do a minor addition to the presentation. We now have to add an extra slide to the powerpoint with our first name + opinion. So we did... With only our first name... All written the same way.

For some mysterious reason, we all had the same grade.

edit: fixed translation.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/DirtyDuckman53 on 2024-10-09 18:42:46+00:00.

One of the credit unions I am a member is offering a special offer on 6 months CD. The catch is that it has to be “new money”. Nothing from a current account.

So a few weeks ago I withdrew a significant amount from one of my accounts there and moved it to another Credit Union

Walked in with “New Money” today. Bought the CD & immediately following removed the same amount plus some ( interest) from a CD that had just matured…….see where I am going?

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Sigbac on 2024-10-09 17:59:33+00:00.

I have learned so much from this sub and now Im putting it all to use. I hope this is the right sub for this.

So it's my birthday month, and while some stores offer their fidelity members / people with club card certain items (like the garden store let me pick out a little potted plant, perfume store gave me a free little travel size perfume etc) some stores only do a discount code, and only if you make a purchase (which is wild to me, Im in France and normally it's just a small free item no obligation, no strings at all just come in the store and pick it out)

For examole, I ordered some wooden Advent calendars for my kiddo to make while on the upcoming school break, and after I placed the order suddenly I get a "birthday" 5€ off my next purchase when I spend 20€ email. No problem, I had set my delivery for pick up in store so I just returned and rebought the items with the 5€ gift. Perfect. Thanks Reddit for the idea by the way

But the malicious part comes from the tack store. I got a gift card there and actually have had my eye on a some things for my horse so I went in, and saw that I have a 20% coupon on all items, but only starting next week, it's store wide. So I see the items I had wanted in the color I want, and there is only one of each item left, I ask if they will restock or can order me some if they happen to sell out before the sale. (this is common, they can order anything from their catalog so it's not rude to ask) cashier says no. Ok..? I ask if they can put items aside or if I can call in advance to see if it's stocked. No. This is so weird to me, Im thinking I have slighted this person because normally the sales representatives have no problems holding items for 24 hours. But she states company policy, and says she wont do it. Ok, that I can respect. So I ask about their returns and how long I have to return an item and what conditions...30 days? Super. I bought the items, and next week when my voucher becomes valid Ill be able to return then rebuy them. She actually smiled when she understood, we are both respecting company policy and its my perfect way to insure the items are stocked, plus now she can legitimately order more for her location.

Ahhhhhh compliance

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/RadRacer513 on 2024-10-09 15:07:04+00:00.

Worked at Company A for over 8 years, to the point I had no intentions of going anywhere else and planned to retire with them (in ~30yrs) as long as they kept treating me fair. Reviews came up and everyone in my team was given a lackluster raise, even though we had improved the program from years behind on contracts to delivering 2 months ahead. I had taken on tasks that should have been distributed across multiple engineers, but they didn't want to pay extra engineers so they became my tasks instead. After the raises were dished out, my team confronted our manager and told him how disappointed we were. His response was get a better job offer and we'll discuss things.

So I did just that; I found a better job at a smaller company where I would get a 20% raise and less responsibility. Once I had my offer letter I turned it in, along with a month notice of my resignation. Manager wanted to discuss what it would take to keep me; I met with him with a list of all my accomplishments (which he already had from review time) and told him I believe a better raise was justified. I told him 2 months ago, that's what it would have taken to keep me. Today, you have to beat this offer of a 20% raise and less responsibilities. He responded with he can't get anywhere close to that, I should have told him I wasn't satisfied, etc. He then went through the list of my accomplishments and stated how half of them weren't required for my position. Queue compliance #2. I asked for what was required of my position and did just that the remainder of my time there.

Now I've got a better job with fewer responsibilities and better pay, and a boss who doesn't try to gaslight them. Friends in Company A tell me how they still haven't shipped any new product since I left (3 months ago, so now they're behind), multiple people have already left, and the remaining people are looking for new jobs.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/bapeery on 2024-10-09 07:21:15+00:00.

I’ve been working with a home health agency for the better part of 9 months. I work 12 hour days with cases raging from complex to simple.

In that time I’ve worked 11 unscheduled doubles, and 42 additional twelve hour overtime shifts. I have used exactly 2 sick days. 1 for myself and 1 for my kid. I do not call out, I do not show up late, and I don’t do the corner cutting they suggest. I take vacation time on my off days. I’ve saved them on 3 specific occasions from failing audits.

I picked up so much because a) the money is nice, b) I legitimately care about the wellbeing of my patients, and c) they begged me.

You see, the company I work for likes to take on new clients without having enough staff to cover that patient. Then, they freak out and offer bonuses for us to pick up. These are governmentally contracted jobs with big DOE bucks coming in. If they can’t prove the patient is taken care of, they are fined heavily. Too many fines and they’re blackballed from taking new DOE clients at all.

This company is so poorly run, it’s a joke. They have 8 schedulers, but still send mass texts every single day asking us to pick up (these happen all hours of day and night). They often double book or randomly change schedules without informing clients or nurses. They also underpay for my area. Not much, but $4/hr is a big deal. They also won’t respond to your questions, calls, or texts for days to weeks at a time.

I’ve been looking around for a while and found a company that pays more, has good leadership, and they said they’d have me on the ground running closer to home if I just went through their hiring program. I agreed and have been an employee with them for about a month, just no hours worked yet.

Back to my Malicious Compliance.

I knew I’d be out of town for a couple of days and have 9 days worth of PTO banked. I decided to help them out and “ask” for 3 days off. I assumed that would give them enough time to fill my spot. I did this on Sept. 13. The days I requested are Oct. 12, 13, and 14. It’s a mini vacation for my family since I worked all summer.

Monday I received a nasty email about the final day for PDO requests being September 10. I let the manager know I was trying to help them out by giving them time to fill it. She shot back with how “selfish” of me it was to “leave her short handed”. She rejected my PTO requests.

Tuesday I showed up at the office to discuss this little frustration. I mentioned my exemplary work history and intention of making things easier for them. She slammed the table with her balled fists and said. “You will work those days. I don’t care if you have a trip planned to Australia, you’ll be there. If you don’t like it, you can just leave.”

It was her nasty smirk that set me off.

I stood up, took a mint and said “As you wish. I expect all my PTO to be on my next paycheck in accordance with our state’s PTO laws. I hope you can fill the opening on such short notice.”

The look of horror on her face was more valuable than the PTO.

In the past 24+ hours I’ve received 19 voicemails asking if I can come into work because they’re short.

Tonight is my first night with the new company. It ended up being $6/hr more, 48 minutes each way closer to home, and I get paid 40 hours even though I worked 36.

Be careful what you wish for. You may just get it.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Lazy_Bystander on 2024-10-08 20:37:58+00:00.

Obligatory English is not my first language and writing on mobile.

So I am a Civil Engineer that has done my engineering degree specializing in structural engineering. On top of that I did a specializing year in complex studies and design in a renown school in my country after my engineering degree. Dunno if that could give you an idea of my competences, but I was 2nd and 3rd respectively on the rankings for both these schools for a promotion of 120 people. As a consequence you could say, I am heavily specialized.

TLDR : classical first job with classical if you are not happy look elsewhere with a big downfall for the firm.

Cue the end of my studies, I signed a contract for the job I wanted before even finishing my studies. I wasn't rushed, pretty much interviewed for 5 jobs with 7 CV sent and 4 propositions.

The team I joined was 6 engineers including me specializing in existing structures. Think if a bridge or a dam has a crack they call us to come see on site and run calculation to see if everything is fine or not. Fast forward a year I integrated quite well, grew in competence and maturity. After the second, I have gone from the guy asking questions to the guy they came to when people needed answers. All was well, I got raises every year and bonuses with compliments, all the good stuff.

Stuff began to go bad after the third year. At the third year, I was more or less the go to guy for complex project and when people didn't find answers. As such, I asked to move forward from project manager to a more back position we call technical referent. Basically, you keep producing as usual but some of your time is dedicated to standard compliance for the team and answering deeper subject that are passed through the year. It is not something that existed in this firm but exist in a lot of firms here. I proposed this because at the time the team had grown to 12 people. Thanks to my participation in more complex project, we even had grown our sales by 30% in three years, we had raised more people as project managers. As a consequence, with basically two people taking the part I couldn't do when becoming a referent, it became a new possibility. Even my chief and the chief of my chief told me and wrote in my yearly review that a lot of the projects we had at the time were because I was here.

Anyways to become a technical referent, I told them I would need to get some formations to complete my technical knowledge, for which I proposed the subjects myself and even got pricing and contact for institutions. They agreed both in oral and writing but saying it might take some time, but they are interested in creating this position in the firm. You can begin to imagine where this is going.

At the fourth year, becoming more and more essential to the team, I was teaching and testing newcomers, everyone came to ask me questions instead of going to the chief, even the chief came to me. He even told me he didn't even comprehend (technical meaning) some of the technical report and calculations I made. Basically, I became the go to guywhen blocked or all is lost. Seeing nothing happening regarding the formations I asked for and the position, I asked to see someone from HR to discuss my career plan. Well, the HR interview was a dumpster fire, they got my name wrong, never heard of me, didn't get my file nothing so the discussion was rather void and short. To give you an idea, the firm is quite big here for our branch of the trade 500 people with 6 HR people at the time for all of us. Funnily, the HR I saw was the one who recruited me. Came the yearly interview after with my chief, I pretty much said I was beginning to have some doubt about their will to make me evolve. They did gave me a raise a bonus and told me they would do everything necessary to make me evolve as I asked.

Now at my fifth year, 3 people left, 2 for geographical reason to reunite with their family and one because they realized they technically couldn't follow the team and the projects we worked on. Nothing happened for me, I was more or less one of the 2 pillars of our team, but no formations, no evolution no nothing. Even had to fight to get a specialized computer for calculations. Try to run a complex FEM model on a 5 year old I5 with 8Go of RAM all day long and you will feel my pain. Anyway I ask to see my chief, I basically told him it has been two years nothing has been done please do something, anything. After this they asked me for a meeting with the chief of my chief, my chief and a chief from another division. First thing in the meeting, the chief of my chief says : so, I didn't read your file and am not aware of what is asked please explain again. This guy manages 50 people, yes 50. Fine, I explained again. After explaining, I was more or less crushed by two of them for one hour while my chief said nothing. Basically, I didn't make any effort, it is my job to answer everyone, I was asking for too much and stuff like that. To be true, at the tenth minute I shut my brain off. At the end I pretty much told them, if nothing is done I would begin to look elsewhere and many of the team which are looking at this situation might follow. They answered that I should look elsewhere if not satisfied but they will see to meet my demands, which is quite a contradiction.

Cue now 4 months later, where I was more or less treated as if I was sick and I would transmit it to them by the hierarchy. I was told on multiple times the grass is not greener elsewhere, you might not find something better but you might still want to look, and all the nice things you can imagine to keep someone.

I get along with everyone in the team, all (except my chief who was indifferent) were quite irritated with what was happening for me. To note most of them were taught by me at this point with their skills inherited from me too. Well, being fed up with my hierarchy, I did began searching thinking nothing would move. Indeed nothing moved. I sent 5 CVs, interviewed for 3 and got 2 propositions. And accepted one. Before going I told them that even if grass is not always greener elsewhere, you won't keep someone by threatening them and that people might follow what I have done if they are not able to recognize their talents. I got a nice job now more laid back, less hours, 10% raise, more advantages (including a car paid by the firm), national referent for my post and more.

Now the fallout, two people followed me in resigning three and six months later because they lost trust in the firm with what happened to me. From the 6 people left, three told me they would leave because of what happened. From what they said to me, the atmosphere is dead now, they don't have anyone to turn to for technical questions, no fun discussion at the job, no more technical discussions, pretty much a skeleton crew waiting to find better. To give you an idea, those guys are good, tried to recruit 2 of them myself but was refused because it is too far from their family, understandable. I do try to send them jobs offering I hear from and recommend them. When they are gone, the person with the most experience in the division except the chief would have 10 months experience. The medium experience time would be 5 months. They lost big contracts I carried. Some clients called me personally to asked what happened and said they will give them the benefit of the doubt but they told me they didn't trust my chief because he screwed them over in the past. I went back some time ago to say hi, I was told the sales have gone back to the level 5 years ago before I was in the firm (a decrease of 35% at the time in the span of 9 months with 3 resignation). Even my now past chief told me they now don't even try to answer projects involving calculations that seems a bit hard because they don't have the competences with me gone. Now the futur for the division seems hazy because they don't know where to stand because of the lack of competences (complex project, calculations, etc).

This happened quite some time ago now, but happy to get this of my chest. For newly hires and first job people, please, please begin to recognize your worth as soon as you can. It will help you so much to evolve and know when you are being screwed.

Thanks for reading, cheers.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/everybodys-therapist on 2024-10-08 18:49:15+00:00.

This happened a couple of years ago, but I was thinking about it recently.

I worked for a company doing their media design (graphic design, photography, live event AV, video editing, ect.). This company held big events and over my years at the company I was given more and more unrelated responsibilities until I was doing the jobs of at least 4 people. They also never helped pay for any materials so all of the necessary media equipment was paid for out of pocket. All of them had my name on them to make sure that it wouldn't get lost if I lent it out. Over the years I had accumulated a pretty impressive supply through second hand purchases and watching for deals.

By the time I hit my 5th year there I had thousands of dollars in high end equipment that was used for almost every part of the organization's promotion and event production. I think you can see where this is going.

One day I was brought into my boss's office and told that they would be downsizing and had found someone fresh out of college (with no real life experience) that will be taking over my job(s) as well as a few others. I was completely caught off guard. They then had one of the people from corporate follow me to my office to assist in cleaning out my stuff. He specifically said "take everything that is yours. you won't be coming back". So that's what I did.

They clearly expected the usual paper box full of some photos and a plant, but instead I had them hauling crate after crate of our media and event supplies to my car. I had a 2004 Ford Explorer at the time and by the time I left it was filled to the brim. With every box that we took out to my car my boss began to get more and more panicked. At one time he said "you can only take things that are yours" and through my sadness and anger I was able to find it in me to kindly tell him that every single thing I was taking was mine and that I kept all receipts if he wanted proof.

The final nail in the coffin was when I told him that I would need access to the arena's AV Booth and the catwalk. I still remember the fear in his eyes. We went and I unplugged all of my cameras that I had been lending to my events team, all of which were clearly marked with my name. I felt like the Grinch just walking around and taking all the random things in the building that had my name on them.

Driving away I was heartbroken that a company I had given 200% to in every way had picked someone younger and fresh out of college to replace me, but I won't lie, the smugness of watching their face as I stripped the place bare was worth it. Looking back on it, that was the worst and most toxic job I've ever had.

The company only lasted another year before they folded entirely and I like to believe that I had a hand in that.

And to think, if they had just compensated me fairly and purchased the necessary things themselves instead of forcing me to provide my team with things, they wouldn't have had to start from scratch.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/ongogavlogian on 2024-10-08 10:57:56+00:00.

A while back, I used to report directly to the CEO of a small startup. As it often happens in startups, things were hectic, and the CEO frequently used my slides and reports for her presentations, which I didn’t mind—until we got a new manager.

This manager really didn’t like the fact that my work was getting used by the CEO without their input. They became hypercritical of everything I did. Fine, I thought—if they want better slides, I’ll keep improving them. And I did, all while working on three major projects for clients.

Fast forward to a few weeks before my impending doom (aka layoff), and suddenly I’m getting feedback that they hated my work. All three projects that I had been working on for three whole weeks were no longer aligned with the company's direction. They were pivoting, they said. I was a bit annoyed, but okay—I moved on and cleared my backlog, including deleting all the slides I had made for those projects since they were "irrelevant" now.

Then came layoff day. Surprise, surprise—during the handover, they came to me asking for those slides. They were pale-faced and desperate. Apparently, someone higher up had no idea I was told to scrap them, and they suddenly needed them for the clients.

I calmly explained that I deleted them after the meeting where the CEO and my manager explicitly said we were going in a "different direction." Their panic set in. They begged me to help, even asked if I could stay on an extra two weeks to rebuild the slides.

My response? "F*** off. You have all the raw data and reports. Make your own slides."

The cherry on top? I later heard that all three clients bailed on their commitments because of how poorly the projects were handled.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/firecracker723x on 2024-10-07 22:21:44+00:00.

When I first got hired I started doing videos for my company because I thought it would help bring in business, for me specifically, but also to the store overall.

For the first few weeks, it was going fine. The staff were telling me how good I was at it, people were commenting that they'd come across the videos in public and on their FYP.

Then we got nominated for an award. Wonderful! They needed updated photos, and I, being a photographer by trade was asked by the general manager to take the pictures. I should've asked for payment, but foolishly did not.

Fast forward a few days and the general manager is demanding the pictures be sent to him ASAP. No thank you, no please, nothing but attitude.

So I decided that I wasn't going to volunteer to do anything out of my job description anymore.

A few weeks have passed and the owner asked me why I haven't been doing videos lately. I said "I haven't been feeling amazing." which my boss heard me say and commented "Well you better start feeling amazing soon."

The goddamn entitlement.

Today my boss walks up to me and tells me he NEEDS 3 videos this week and one of them HAD to be done today.

"A please and thank you would go a long way for my motivation" Boss- "Will you please (said sarcastically) do it so he (GM) gets off my ass?" "He, too, can utilize manners" Boss -"it won't go over that way."

So I smiled and said "k"

A few minutes later I'm on my way to do one of the videos and he walks by and in the most smart ass tone says "thanks again!"

Now, I did what he asked. I made the video. I uploaded it to our shared folder and texted him a screen shot of it in the folder.

Then I deleted it.

When he says it's not there I plan to act dumbfounded- "well where the heck did it go! "

Then I'll show him as I upload it again, and as he walks out I'll delete it again.

I'll play this game all day every day until I die. Fuck around and find out.

And before anyone asks, I'm already looking for another job.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/SnooEagles8908 on 2024-10-07 19:49:18+00:00.

I am an engineer and was contracting for a company some years ago. Part of the work I was doing involved performing the same calculation for 24,000 different cases. This was all done in Excel, and having a formula in 24,000 lines caused the spreadsheet to slow right down and recalculate slowly.

I wrote a piece of Visual Basic that would take each one of the cases and calculate it and then paste the answer in the column but just as values.

It took a while to run, but then it was done and didn't slow the spreadsheet down.

At the client's request we were supposed to deliver all spreadsheets as macro-free workbooks.

I suggested that we keep a working copy in case we ever had to repeat any of it.

I was told "No, save it as macro-free".

So I did.

Fast forward about 6 months and I was no longer contracting for them.

I get a text message:

"Hi. Remember that piece of work you did with the macro?"

"Oh yes."

"We can't find the macro."

...

Yes...because I deleted it, remember at your request.

I suggested that I could come in and re-write it for them.

They said that sounded good.

I said, but I will be paid, right?

To which they said..."No, they just want the macro."

To which I said...nothing :-)

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/KQHele on 2024-10-07 15:13:43+00:00.

I'm a clinical nurse in physical rehabilitation in Australia. I will never forget a lot of our residents (junior doctors) for being brilliant, but one resident I will never forget because he was awful. One fateful Thursday, I overheard him complaining to the consultant and registrar, "It's boring here. There's nothing to do." I know it's not the most high-energy place to be, and it's definitely not for everyone, but I thought that was a little rude and snide, to say the least.

This same doctor, only a day or two later, was asked to rechart a prn (as-needed) pain order for a patient who was having a lot of pain for acute gout. We had already had to contact the Emergency Department Medical Registrar (we call them the ED Med Reg for short) overnight the night before for a phone order for her pain relief as there were no spaces left on her last prn order and, at the time, we did not have a doctor on call overnight at the campus I work at.

Instead of recharting the order, the resident (who, remember, was apparently so bored and had so little to do that he complained both the registrar and the consultant about it) instead chose to write a sticky note telling the nurses to "just call the ED Med Reg for a phone order if she has pain overnight" and stuck it on top of the patient's previous prn pain relief order. It would have taken him less time to rewrite the order. Not to mention as if the ED Med Reg doesn't have enough work to do in the literal Emergency department!

Seeing that note as the night duty nurse on charge and remembering that snide little remark of his made my blood boil. But it was, of course, nighttime and long past the resident's knock-off time. So when the poor patient inevitably had pain overnight, I had no choice but to call. The ED Med Reg just so happened to be the same doctor as the night before and, rightfully, was a little confused (and slightly annoyed) we were calling for the same phone order two nights in a row when surely the treating team should have written a new order during the day.

He asked whether we had asked them to do so, and I told him about the sticky note and even read it to him. I remember a beat of silence on the other end of the phone before he said, "Right." Before giving me the phone order. I thanked him, apologised for having to disturb him, and went to help my patient.

When I came on the next night, lo and behold! The resident had written up a new prn order. In fact, we never saw a sticky note like that again, and prn orders were rewritten in a timely manner. I don't know if that doctor ever got spoken to about his smug little sticky note, but I like to think he got a good talking to. Just because my patients aren't in ICU or ED doesn't make them and their health unimportant! They're still in hospital and deserve proper in-patient healthcare!!

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/RevolutionFriendly56 on 2024-10-06 19:12:25+00:00.

MBA, Master in Business Administration.

More often than not, those who possess such a degree are neither masters of anything, nor business savvy. Unfortunately, MBAs often possess enough fluency of buzz words, jargons, and acronyms that they fool many HR departments into believing they bring tremendous value. Their perceived value is often far greater than their actual value.

The company I work at was recently acquired. It was a profitable company with a great culture. This all changed when the new owners decided our company was absolute shit, and needed to be fixed with "structure, hierarchy, and order". A new CEO came on board, fired all the old managers, and hired someone with an MBA to manage the department I work at. The CEO is keen to "turn things around", and to ensure we obey, submit, and kowtow.

This new manager, Bob, is a company-man who came from the acquiring firm. Instead of understanding the who, what, when, where, why, and how of every person and processes, he began his reign of terror by ruling by fear, whether it's accusing us of inefficiencies and laziness (e.g. why aren't you staying later like everyone else), nitpicking our work, to micromanaging things he has zero understanding of.

He loves preaching about MBA management techniques, leadership, standardization, metrics in matrixes, AI automation, and anything that sounds good on paper. Note the term "preach" because that's all he does. He does not execute or lead, he just talks and "manages", but fails to understand.

Because of who Bob is, we all have become yes-man to his every will. We keep our head down, nod and smile, His fluent command of endless buzz-phrases, acronyms, and bullshit has us so awed, we mostly just sit and stare in silence. The highlight of every meeting is that he would talk to the very last second of the allotted time. But whenever a meeting somehow ends earlier than the allotted time, he would tell us "I'm giving you some time back". This implies that he owns our time when we're here.

Because Bob wants to be the center of attention, he's asked us to involve him with everything.

A hands-off manager who just loves taking credit for our work and micromanaging us, wants us to involve him in EVERYTHING? You bet we will comply.

From that day onward, everyone in our department asks Bob, in writing, for his thoughts on just about anything, from simple approvals to his input on complex design of processes he has no understanding of. Even for items that does not require his action, we CC him in order to keep him in the loop. Every correspondence, even with vendors about basic stuff like updating credit application details, will involve Bob.

Because Bob loves meetings so much, we invite him to talk at length in meetings about trivial matters that absolutely have no real-world consequences. We talk about everything he wants to get involved in. We know how much he loves listening to his own voice.

There is something so magical about being able to manipulate a manager into inundating ourselves with so much pointless papertrail, processes, and meetings. Not only does it ensure the manager is aligned in our day-to-day (so he would be responsible if something goes wrong), it makes the manager feel good about doing something, and it makes us feel good about doing nothing much at all.

TLDR: we complied with our managers' obsessive need to be in control, we created meaningless work for all of us, we kept the manager so busy with emails we're all doing nothing much, and as a result, everyone is busy and become unfireable...

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Prestigious_Store_22 on 2024-10-06 12:51:11+00:00.

When I was working at the gym many years ago a friend of mine came in to work out.

It was a slow time of the day, so very few people were working out and the gym was a small one.

The area was split in two parts, divided by a fairly large U-shaped bar.

One quarter was filled with a few benches, dumbbells and barbells, and the other area was filled with machines.

My buddy was a really nice guy, but tended to overestimate his abilities.

Recently he surpassed the magic milestone of a 100 kg bench press and his plan for this day was to repeat this.

I am very aware of his abilities and asked him if he wanted me to spot him during his bench press.

It’s always recommended to use a spotter when bench pressing with weights nearing your maximum.

He said: “No, I feel really strong today, so I don’t need a spotter.”

I asked: ”Are you sure?”

“Nope, I really can do this so I don’t need your help for this.”

I offered to spot one more time but, he was very sure he could do it without me spotting him, so I went to the other side of the bar area and just waited.

It did not take long and I heard some groaning and puffing and eventually he shouted my name, asking to help him.

So, like the good friend that I am, I hurried to the other side of the bar where I found him with the barbell on his chest, very helpless.

I laughed for about 10 seconds and then I removed the barbell from his chest.

We had a good laugh together after this and he never learned.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/LongHaulinTruckwit on 2024-10-05 13:39:47+00:00.

In 2003 I returned home from my first year of college. I had decided to switch schools and degrees, and attend a local Music technical college instead.

I moved back into my parents home and drove into the city each day for classes. In order to save on parking, I purchased a permit to park in a churches lot. This lot was about 10 blocks from the school, so I had a decent walk each day.

About a week into classes, I was on my walk, smoking a cigarette, when out of nowhere a homeless man appears right next to me.

He looks as you might imagine. Late 50s, messy salt and pepper hair, flannel jacket, snow pants, work boots with no laces.

He leaned in and asked "Hey buddy, can I get a smoke?!"

Now, I was 19 at the time, and a bit cocky. I was gonna give him one but he had to work for it. I told him he could have one, but he would have to walk with me to class and keep me company while he smoked it.

He agreed and off we went. We exchanged names, and asked each other basic questions about our lives. The normal pleasantries.

About a block from school we tossed our butts and he leans in again and says "Hey Buddy, I gotta ask, got any spare change? " I replied "sorry, but I don't keep change on me."

(At the time I tossed all my spare change in some glass milk jugs I had in my room. )

So we parted ways that day.

I kid you not, 2 weeks later this man had memorized my class schedule. Every. Single. Day. This man would meet me at the corner. Ask for a smoke and walk me to class. Every day asking me for change. And me having none.

This continued for almost 15 months! (The school I went to didn't have summer breaks.)

So now it's just a few weeks away from graduation. It's the end of winter. I'm getting ready in the morning for class. I put on my leather trench coat, grab my book bag and head for the door. I look down at the floor and see 2 glass milk jugs overflowing with change.

I look down at the huge pockets in my coat, then back at the change jars.

I'm gonna do it!

I take each milk jar and turn them upside down into each pocket. You have no idea how much 2 gallons of change actually weighs. Then I head off for school.

Things start off like normal. He meets me at the corner. I give him a smoke. We set off.

I'm trying my best to step lightly, as to not make my pockets jingle, and I can't look him in the face because I don't wanna totally lose it. We finally get to the end of our walk.

We tossed our cigarettes. He turned to me and said, "Hey buddy, I gotta ask, you got any change? "

So I turn to him and say, "OK. I'm gonna make you a deal. I will give you ALL the change I have in my pockets if you promise to NEVER ask me for change again. DEAL?"

He nods his head in agreement and holds out his one hand, palm up.

"No you don't understand" I said "I have a lot of change. " So he holds out both hands. Cupping them together.

"No" I said, " You don't understand. I have A LOT of change.

He stands there with a questioning look on his face, so I grab the bottom of his sweatshirt, and pull it up, and make him hold it like a hammock.

I then proceed to start shoveling handfuls of change into its sweatshirt. Handful after handful and his eyes are getting wider in sheer disbelief.

Just when he thinks I'm about finished, I SWITCH TO THE OTHER POCKET! more and more change. It's sound is echoing between the buildings, and BOTH of us are laughing uncontrollably.

I finally finished. He thanked me and waddled off like a pregnant woman, and I went to class.

The next day was bright and sunny. I park my car at the church. I'm walking, big smile on my face. He meets me at the corner, also with a big smile on his face.

He leans in with a huge grin and says, "HEY BUDDY! Can I get a smoke?!"

*long pause *

"Yea Buddy, you can have a smoke."

TL;DR) Homeless man bums cigarettes off me for over a year. In an attempt to get him to buy his own, I played myself.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Fairly_equal_toasts on 2024-10-04 03:45:00+00:00.

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I (F33) live in a regional coastal town in Australia, and used to work in a great little family run cafe. Think great coffee, yum food, beautiful garden courtyard, and mostly wonderful customers.

One summer, during school hols, on a heaving Sunday morning, I was zooming around doing a quick dish run and started clearing some empty mugs from an older lady (60s) with her 2 young grandchildren. She had just received her breakfast and was adding condiments to her 2 pieces of toast.

She stopped me and said “I’m just looking at the menu and I can see that I paid the same price ($3) for each of these two pieces of toast, but … they aren’t exactly the same size”.

I look at her toast and they are both large, but one is approx. 10% smaller than the other, so I assume she’s just making convo and I smile, say “yeah”, continue grabbing items.

She stares at me and says again “they aren’t the same size, but I paid the same for each of them, that’s not really fair?”

I realise she’s serious and start telling her that this is because we use a local, handmade sourdough from a beautiful wood fired bakery baked literally just 7km away. The loaves are rustic not factory perfect. She’s not having a bar of what I’m saying, insisting she’s paid the same price and she wants two piece of toast the same size. This is when my incredulity ends and my petty steps in. Cue malicious compliance.

“Fine, I’ll be back in a couple of minutes”.

I take her toast into my boss (F33), tell her the story, and she’s like “say no more friend, I’ve got it”, proceeds to cuts two equal size slices of bread from the smaller end of a loaf, and toasts them perfectly.

I then have the pleasure of taking two pieces of obviously smaller toast to the lady, and say ‘here’s your two pieces of toast - the same size!’. The look of shock, turn anger, turn embarrassment on her face was absolutely delicious.

You want to behave like a toddler then you can eat like one too.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/MediumSavings4968 on 2024-10-04 00:35:10+00:00.

A quick story about my uncle. So I was telling a story about my Best friend and my dad brought up this funny story. My mother’s brother (who passed years and years ago) was a foodie and a great chef. This guy loved to eat. It was like his calling. Anyways, 

Mom n dad took uncle to a seafood restaurant. Nothing famous nor fancy. They happen to be pilot testing an “all you can eat buffet” Thursday. "All you can eat" are four words My uncle will go all out for. My uncle saw it as a challenge. Its this really all I can eat?

(malicious compliance) Almost immediately as they set their coats down, uncle went to the buffet. Uncle (as dad tells it) heaped on the food. His first plates were of the “try one of these, try some of these”, and so forth. He essentially sampled one of each of the items on the table. Round 2 he does the same sampling .By round 3 he still waltzing to the buffet while poor mom and dad are trying to finish their round 2 and considering desert. Round 3 uncle focusing on his favorites. Mom and dad sat for nearly 2 hours for him to get up to round 7. By then the restaurant had reset the buffet table twice, uncle was focusing on his favorite filets and anything fried. The manager had approached my father and asked if could calm my uncle down. It was a 3 dollar buffet he was loosing profit on at that moment. Dad said “you said it was all you can eat right?”. At the least by then My uncle was done and ready to leave for cocktails. Mom and dad left quietly with uncle with a good laugh. 

The following Thursday uncle was there with his wife and they were sitting down. Now, we had two foodies that loved food. After they both cleared the buffet for the 2nd time they were asked to leave by the manager. The following Thursday and the one next after, my uncle and his wife showed up for the buffet again. The next month the seafood restaurant decided to discontinue the Thursday buffet. 

When the next owners took over 3 decades later, that restaurant they considered bringing back the buffet. When my father overheard that. My father warned them and told them about my uncle. Did they listen? No. By then my uncle was out of the Chef’ing biz and now focused on eating. You should have seen the gleam in my uncle's face when he heard the seafood restaurant brought back buffet lunch. He cleaned them out for a month and the restaurant yet again retired the all you can eat buffet. 

After the passing of my uncle (passed from diabetes complications) Dad had a chit chat with the owners of the seafood restaurant. Dad said to him frankly “It’s safe to run the buffet table again”. They brought back the buffet table that year. My uncle's picture is on the walls of that restaurant. A picture of my uncle, and the tower of plates in front of him. 

When I think of this story I think my uncle is in heaven right now. Maybe in god’s kitchen in front of a stove, either that or the only guy up there dancing with a subway sandwich in his hands.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Sweet_Speech_9054 on 2024-10-03 15:21:39+00:00.

I’m posting this because it was my idea but I didn’t do it.

My coworker has a daughter in sixth grade (elementary school in our school district) and she is kinda popular. He wanted to give her a good birthday party because his other two daughters kinda stopped spending time with him in middle school and he kinda wanted a last hoorah. She chose to do it at a roller skating rink and he went all out, renting the whole place out for the party. She invited most of her classmates and some other friends and family.

After giving out invitations she got a letter to deliver to her dad and return signed. It said that students must invite all students in their class or none at all. This apparently is a school anti bullying policy.

The problem is that some of the students are very problematic. One is a racist kid who has made threats about bringing guns to school. The other has behavior issues and once threw a chair at a group of students, sending two to the hospital for stitches. There were some other students she wasn’t close with but willing to invite in order to comply.

When he told me about this I asked, did you have a security deposit or something on the roller skating rink. He said it was a $200 deposit for damages. I told him to require a $200 deposit from those kids if they want to come.

It worked, the kids obviously weren’t going to pay a $200 deposit and the party went off without a hitch.

ETA: the invitations were emailed to the parents. One of the teachers overheard and that’s why they made her invite everyone.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/mdlapla on 2024-10-03 13:06:50+00:00.

Back in my days working for a Big5 consulting company, we were mandated to attend several courses.

The one that relates to the story was called "corporate image" and was about looking the part, being well dressed and such. Being that the company had a "strictly suit" policy, the idea of the course was kind of an indoctrination to the Barney Stinson's school of dressing.

I was having a particularly rough day that day so we could say that my attitude towards the course wasn't the best, and I sat in the back.

The guy in charge (let's call him Corpo) starts the course by showing a video of a guy, wearing flip flops, bathing suit, t-shirt with surfer logos, badly trimmed beard and ponytail explaining some technical stuff in the most boring way, stuttering and showcasing a poor knowledge of the subject.

After the video finishes, Corpo asks if we think that the guy is a good communicator and that the message got through. Everybody says no, Corpo asks why. People starts saying that he doesn't look the part.

Then Corpo asks me. I reply: "because he's boring as a white wall and doesn't know the subject well enough".

Corpo doubles down: "don't you think that the way he's dressed has something to do with it?"

I say: "if he's good, knows his stuff and communicates well, we could be fully naked for all I care".

Everybody laughs, except Corpo. Corpo starts a full 15 minute rant about how looking the part, how wearing a suit is the most important thing because it makes someone believable and trustworthy and bla bla bla.

I interrupt him once to say "lawyers are among the most untrustworthy people on earth and they all wear suits" he continues his rant by saying that "nobody would trust a lawyer without a suit" and bla bla bla.

OK, so this is how we roll, suits are the most important thing and this is how you expect us to reply. Fine, I will comply.

Fast forward to later in the course. He shows footage of Steve Jobs and Steve Ballmer talking, engaging with the audience and being, generally, well regarded as good spokepersons, while wearing their typical outfits, which, guess what, are not suits.

When the QA about the Steve's videos start, I say "They don't look trustworthy, two of the top 20 rich people in the world and they wear something that I can buy for like 40 bucks at any shopping mall? where are the suits?"

Corpo by then is kinda furious with me, but I've managed to engage the rest of my colleagues into my side of the equation so we start arguing who's more trustworthy, and if the brand of suit goes directly proportional to the trustworthiness of the guy.

Examples go from Pat Riley with his Armani suits to Don Corleone with his taylor-made ones. Corpo has lost the class, and everything ends prematurely when someone asks "wait, are military suits trustworthy or not?", Corpo gasps thinking where the conversation could be heading and dismisses us ahead of schedule with a "OK, you've all passed this course, I think we'll end it here".

TLDR: Corporate baboon tries to equal wearing a suit with being a good and trustworthy spokeperson, it backfires spectacularly.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/MinervaJB on 2024-10-03 02:40:46+00:00.

I used to work on the retentions department of an ISP back in the day. While many people called genuinely wanting to cancel their phone service, just as many knew that retentions was more than that. The ISP, let's call them RedPhone, had two different departments. I worked on Retentions 1, where we did a lot of fixing bills and offering small discounts and slightly cheaper phones to customers who said they wanted to leave. Retentions 2 was for customers who were in the process of porting their numbers, and the worst thing they offered was a 50% discount for a couple of years with a decent phone for free.

This happened roughly ten, maybe 12 years ago when roaming was straight up highway robbery.

Let me introduce you to "The Executive". I got the call, I did my little introductory spiel, and I immediately discovered this guy was the most entitled POS I'd ever had the displeasure to speak to. He said he was a very important executive who travelled a lot for work, but the bill he got was ridiculous and I had to solve it or he was going to cancel his service. I muted him - so he heard nothing, but I could still hear what he said, and while I checked his account, I could hear him gloat to his girlfriend that he's getting the bill credited because he knows how to play the system.

And he was an a$$hole, but he wasn't wrong. This guy was a pro at playing RedPhone. He had the highest phone plan the company offered, which was around 90 euro at the time for one line, but paid 30 euro per month because he had discounts from both departments stacked on top of each other. His plan allowed him to get what at the time was a super expensive phone for basically nothing at Retentions 2. He'd gotten the super shiny customer status and the super shiny customer service line (which usually meant a customer was averaging a 300 euro monthly bill) despite his 30 euro ARPU because he complained about how the delocalized customer service sucked.

He was also not wrong about his bill being ridiculous. He'd visited several EU countries, got a 600 euros bill, called customer service, and said he had not known that roaming was so expensive, no one had warned him when he told us he was travelling overseas. The company had a policy that the first time a customer complained about something, we could refund them, particularly if the complaint was that the customer had not been informed about extra charges. So the rep informed him about roaming costs and refunded him all of the roaming charges, leaving the bill at 30 euro.

Second month comes around, he kept using the phone overseas, got a 1500 euro bill. He calls customer service, they tell him they can't refund him again. He says he wants to cancel his account then, and gets transferred to me.

He was demanding that we credited his roaming charges again, because if we can do it once we can do it again, and also because roaming prices were abusive (he did have a point there) I told him I couldn't do that, so he wanted me to open a claim and escalate it. I refused again because there was no one to escalate to, he wasn't going to get that credited. He insisted he wasn't hanging up until I escalated the issue because he wasn't informed, and if I kept the call going for much longer he was going to charge the company for his time because he was a busy man.

At this point I'd been working there long enough that if you were nice or even normal I would try my damndest to help you, but if you were a d*ck? Sorry, can't do, get lost. Customer refuses to hang up, I can hung up. This guy, though? He'd gone past being a d*ck into total c*ntwaffle, and I was pissed off. I couldn't be a d*ck back, but he'd been f*cking around and I could make sure he found out.

So I told him that okay, since he was so insistent I would open a claim to refund him the 1500 euro bill, and muted him while I opened the claim. The a$$hole was again gloating at his girlfriend about how clever he was because he was going to get this bill refunded too. Meanwhile, I was copypasting the notes from the previous month's claim, where the rep had written: "I've informed customer of roaming charges in all the countries he told me he could be visiting (list of European countries)". Also, stacking discounts? Very much not a thing. He had to spam the Retentions 1 call centers with calls until he got a newbie lost enough to apply another discount over his Retentions 2 discount.

And he had not read the terms and conditions of the accounts, but I had. Trying to defraud the company was grounds for service termination. I got the claim number, flagged down my supervisor and told her to please send it to headquarters in the daily report so fraud could examine the account.

I told the guy that the claim had been opened, but also that since it was obvious he was trying to abuse the company's policies, the claim had been flagged to be reviewed by fraud and it was likely his account would be terminated. He went from entitled to worried in two seconds and asked me to close the claim. Sorry, dude, can't do, you wanted a claim open, now it's open.

Yes, the customer was fired.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/weepninnybong on 2024-10-02 18:19:48+00:00.

Happened over a decade ago, before workplace chats were a regular thing.

My boss at the time was an old timer, I’m pretty sure he was past his retirement age. No grudge against that. He was very good at most aspects of his job, just set in his older ways.

Often I would have to call a meeting with our colleagues in Japan with him included. For various reasons, he would get upset if I scheduled these without talking to him first about his schedule even though his calendar showed him as free. He insisted that I have this check in directly with him in his office. The problem is, he wasn’t always there.

So what I would do was just send him an Outlook meeting invite to just him and him alone for the time I proposed to have this meeting. It was convenient because I was already looking at his availability in outlook. He could accept if he works and then I could update the meeting with everyone else needed.

He sees this and hollers at me to go to his office. He’s a pretty big loud dude so everyone in my vicinity hears. He proceeds to ream me out for not doing what he asked. I’m sure he didn’t understand that he was the only one on the invite and he wasn’t appearing to decline the meeting in “front” of anyone. I tried to explain but then proceeds to say under no circumstance should I book a meeting with him without chatting with him in person.

Sure enough a day or two later a very important meeting request comes through for that afternoon with some higher ups and he’s not around for me to talk to as it was later in the day. My manager’s number two who heard the minor fiasco above takes me aside and says “I know what he just yelled at you about but I think you should just book that meeting”. He didnt even need to be there, it was just proper for him to attend. Needless to say, I didn’t, quoting what boss man said and that meeting never happened that day. I vaguely remember him losing a few points for not being able to have this meeting, but nothing nuclear.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Novel-Year-240 on 2024-10-02 12:55:04+00:00.

I work from home, and my home is a studio apartment. My workplace has a no pets policy. I thought that it would only apply to bringing pets to their office. I didn't know that it would also apply on zoom calls when working at home.

I got an official strike for breaching that policy when my dog was in the background of a zoom call. My dog was simply sitting still in the background. The only place where I could hide my dog out of view was in the bathroom.

No worries Pete. I got a still image of dogs in a dog park, and set it as my zoom virtual background. My dog was as usual sitting behind me, but out of view this time.

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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/runnerdan on 2024-09-30 22:29:02+00:00.

People asked, so i'm sharing a story from 20 years ago:

I was a developer for a large financial services company and, because we lacked many tools, I was usually tasked with building various tools, scripts, reports, etc. to help automate the environment and really just worked around the inadequacies of our off-the-shelf tools. At my peak, I probably had around 300 apps and/or scripts in production. Due to the number of asks from leadership and to keep the lights on, I usually booked anywhere from 4 to 10 hours of overtime per week.

After about a year, I got a new boss who decided that she would ensure that I take NO overtime for any reason. She proclaimed that I would ONLY be allowed to 8-hours per day and not a moment more. "No exceptions". I wasn't a full-time employee, so I didn't have any grounds to push back. I usually started at 8, so with my 30-minute lunch, that meant my new hours were 8 to 4:30.

Flash forward to later that SAME WEEK, an upstream system changed their data feed and it corrupted one of our downstream systems. Stuff like this happened often enough that I had translation tools built to resolve any of those feed-related issues, but even then, I still had to spend a few minutes figuring out what changed in order to adjust my own code. Anyway, as the operations have come to a halt, my boss and HER boss are looking over my shoulder as I'm diagnosing the feed problem, which I found pretty quickly, the clock strikes 4:30 and I lock my computer, stand up from my desk, and say "well, it's 4:30. That's my 8 hours. I'll see you tomorrow." and walk out. The look of confusion, rage, and exasperation was just (blows chef's kiss). At this point, all of our overnight backups have stopped and WILL NOT RUN until I resolve things. This means a global financial institution no longer has any data backups being made for that entire night and will be completely screwed if, well, ANYTHING happens.

Flash forward to the next morning as I walk to my desk at 7:56, as I made sure to never be in a situation where I could be called out as coming in late, my boss's boss is waiting for me. He directs me into his office and very calmly says "Moving forward, I'll manage your time sheet and you can take as many hours as you need."

I left that job about 4-5 months later and the entire building was laid off about 2 months after that. Only two of about 200 people weren't laid off and one of those people was the guy I hired to backfill me as someone had to keep all the code running!