Long story long: a corporate thrift store launched branded, reusable bags around the same time they brought in self-checkouts as the predominant point of sale. I bought one on a previous visit, then brought it back to the store to reuse as intended. It got me a mild story to tell.

This is a lighter story on the malice, because I meant very little malice, but the other party would definitely see it that way.

I shopped, then checked out of the self-checkout. Note that the reusable bags were available for purchase right by the self-checkouts. I had to buy a 20c paper bag to accommodate some lightweight purchases, because I had a heavier object meant for my sturdier reusable bag and hadn’t brought any others. When I got to my car, I took a minute to Bluetooth my phone and look at my receipt. Then the front-end clerk knocked on my window.

She accused me of stealing the bag. I showed her my receipt with the 20c paper bag charge on it, thinking she meant that one, but she insisted I’d stolen the reusable one. She then asked me sternly to come inside and talk to her manager.

One thing people ought to know is that almost every corporate retail establishment (in North America, at least,) prohibits employees from chasing orapprehending thieves. And this would have been the pettiest theft in the store, aside from a CD or some small earrings. So I was about to get her in trouble.

I don’t like dunking on minimum wage workers (been there, barely survived,) but she really needed to know just how unsafe her actions could have been if she pulled that on someone else who’s a lot more hot-headed. So I went in with my receipt, purchases, and bags.

I wasn’t going to explain it to her. I wanted her to understand and hear me out properly, not just Karen people out of view of cameras and management. It’s just not safe, end of story, and I stand both feet on that matter.

I waited for the manager (with whom I’m acquainted as a regular shopper) then explained what had happened. I had to ask the employee to stop talking over me and let me finish, as the manager had asked for my story first, and I wanted to finish speaking. The manager had to ask her to stop, too.

I explained straightaway that I’d bought the reusable bag the week before, and of course brought it to reuse on this visit. The manager was like, well, duh, that’s what they’re for. I’m all, right? Great, glad to have that settled, because the employee assumed I’d stolen it and that’s what led to me coming inside to speak with her.

When I’d explained what had happened with the employee, I reminded the manager that her employee had no business following customers out to the car, and I had come in as a small favour to help her learn not to do that again for her own safety. Manager agreed, and we said some chatty goodbyes, in which I included the employee so there were fewer bad vibes.

She wasn’t there for the next few weeks, so I asked my friend (the production manager there at the time) what happened. Apparently she was canned for violating that safety protocol, because she’d been warned about following people and accusing people of theft and tag-swapping when she was supposed to be at the tills.

It’s too bad, but I hope she pivoted into being some sort of plain-clothes LP ghoul, instead. Gotta work with your motivation and skill set.

This took place long ago on a military base in GA. I was a Huey helicopter crewchief at a small airfield with only a couple dozen, at best, in our detachment. I was readying to eat lunch alone in our small flight shack. Normally, the Tech Inspector sergeant would be with me, but his wife was having a baby. I had my day planned and was half way though pulling maintenance.

I heard a helicopter landing in the distance, identified it as another Huey and dismissed it, we didn't have any birds in the air.

A few minutes later, a captian carrying his helmet bag breezes in, tosses his helicopter log book on my desk and announces, "I'm going to get lunch and need my aircraft pre-flighted before get back.", not even slowing down to look at me. If he had, he might have noticed I had just started my own lunch.

I had never seen this guy before and his uniform patches identified him as a GA Army National Guard Captain. Who apparently felt a lowly enlisted E4 crewchief was beneath common curtesy. Oh, and he was most definitely not my boss.

O.K. Mr. Captain Arrogance, I'm going to give you the best maintenance pre-flight you have ever had. BTW: Pilots also always do their own, briefer, pre-flight too.

He was gone three hours. During that time I gave that aircraft the best inspection it ever had. Now, when we inspected an aircraft we wrote down every deficiency we found and next to it drew a black or red pencil mark noting how serious the deficiency was. A minor issue might get a slash mark. A serious deficiency earned a circle red X meaning the aircraft could only be flown under limited conditions, (e.g. daylight only) , and a simple red X meant the aircraft was grounded, period. Nonflyable.

Well, wouldnt you know, I found several minor issues, three serious, (circle Red X) issues and the mother of them all, a red X grounding item, the slippage mark, (a small stripe of fingenail polish going down the bolt and out to the mounting plate) on the transmission bolt housing was cracked. What this really meant that perhaps the bolt was slipping, or perhaps the fingernail polish/paint we use simply cracked, or perhaps somebody may have nicked the paint with their issued toolbox's utility knife's small blade, etc. Who knows?). I never wrote some many serious deficiencies on one aircraft in my career. His unit must have had poor maintenance.

Well, when the Captain returned, all in a hurry to take off, he was as mad as a hornet. He demanded I erase the red X mark. "Can't do that Captian, its in the regulations." That was true. Only a maintenance Tech can reinspect it, oversee the correction, and enter thier inspection notes clearing the aircraft for flight. By now, the Captain had stormed out to his aircraft to challenge my findings.

While the Captain was back at his aircraft, fuming, I called the Maintenance Tech at the hospital and explained the situation. He said, "Tell Captain Antsy Pants ll'l be there at 0800 tomorrow morning. I won't be available until then."

The Captain returns, now boiling rage. "So get the maintenance tech here now!", he demanded.

"Um, he's at the hospital, his wife is having a baby."

The next closest available Maintenance Tech was in Savannah, a short flight away, if you had a flyable helicopter.

So, our maintenance tech did finally show up, the next morning. He know exactly what I had done and why, and he justly defended evey deficiency I noted as absolutely correct. We had to get the big breaker bar to retorque the transmission bolt and it took about three hours to sort through the other deficiencies.

So Captain Antsy Pants got to spend an unexpected overnight stay at Camp Swampy because he was a jerk. Be nice to the little people who support you.

This is going to be fun. I've waited a month to post. This is about my dentist. I'm on medicaid that covers my dental.

Back story: Ive only went to this dentist because its close and I had an emergency. My tooth broke in Dec of 2025. I called made an appointment. They had to wait for insurance to approve it. Whatever. So I waited. I waited for an appointment because this dentist didnt have appointments for a while. So 7 months later had to go pay out of pocket for an emergency root canal. I finally felt relief and wish I know about this dentist sooner.

My dentist called to reschedule my upcoming appointment(cleaning) for the next day and not next week. I have a disabled child and was up all night and slept for most of the day missing my appointment. They called me while I was asleep and left a voicemail that they will charge a $50 no show fee. I ignored it. They called to confirm my upcoming root canal, that I have been waiting for so long. (I already canceled that appointment before guess they didn't, since I no longer need it.) On the phone I canceled and they let me know that I owe $50 for the missed appointment.

[[Now before we go in full throttle. I've worked selling insurance and have gone to school for medical billing. I know some laws. On both sides of the insurance.]]

I tell them they can't charge me for a missed appointment, because I'M a medicaid recipient. She tells me per "policy" they are allowed too. I remind her it is illegal to charge me for a missed appointment. She said "yes ma'am we can. It's our policy and we can charge it." I respond "no you can't I recieve medicaid and its illegal and I'm pretty sure state laws over power "policy"."

She said the words. The words I didn't want to hear. "If you dont believe me call your insurance." ......Ok. BET!

So I maliciously complied and called the state dental insurance. And of course they said they can't charge me $1. The state decided I need to file a complaint with the dental board and with the state insurance. OK, I will still comply. After, filing the complaints I recieved letters from the state saying ya they will be investigated, blah blah blah. The day I got the letter of the state reminding the dentist that its illegal is the same day the dentist decided to drop me for that 1 missed appointment. I already knew, if I filed a complaint my care no longer would be adequate. So, its not a lost to me. I have a found a dentist that did a root canal in 30 min and is actually amazing that I'm willing to pay for a good dentist so I gained a great dentist. I won't know the full fall out. Except that an audit might happen.

So the lesson here is..... if you don't know the laws, don't act like it and the "POLICY" is not above the law. Sorry, not sorry.

P.s. in the letter from the dentist saying they are dropping me said "if I have an emergency I can still get care through them in the time period(1 momth)" where was the emergency 8 months ago when I needed help? Also, she worked on teeth that didn't need to be worked on and now I'm in pain when I eat. Trust, I will let the dental board know and the extra tooth she counted on medicaid billing that I've got pulled a long time ago. So the fall will be hard. Just getting my ducks in a row.

Eta: corrected misspelled words. (Typing on 3 hours of sleep).

Edit 2: yall made an up roar of people on medicaid

And reminder the RECEPTIONIST told me to call my insurance. MEDICAID TOLD ME TO REPORT THEM. so thank you for your time and energy.

A few years ago I was working remotely as a fancy IT guy and developer at a tech company. Within the first couple of months I'd automated so much of my workload that I legit had almost nothing left to do most days. Everything that could be scripted, monitored, or scheduled... was.

One morning my manager messaged me:

"We've noticed your Microsoft Teams keeps going to Away every 20 minutes. This shouldn't be happening if you are at your desk working."

Fair enough.

I replied:

"Understood. My Teams will never go Away again."

...and I meant it.

Instead of arguing, I spent about 40 minutes writing a PowerShell script that launched a harmless train of processes every few minutes, like mouse clicking, alt+tabbing, and it simulated just enough activity to keep my status green. I set this to repeat every 10 minutes.

I tested it.

Available.

Five minutes later...

Still Available.

An hour later...

Still Available.

I grabbed my backpack, walked out of Starbucks, and spent the rest of the afternoon, and every afternoon thereafter hiking.

My Teams status never went Away again.

The next time I heard from my boss he was once again reviewing status times and thanked me for my dedication.

Edit: People keep asking for a copy of the script. It's on one of my githubs, the link is in the comments.

Reform UK councillors were left red-faced after the Greens and other opposition parties decided to play them at their own patriotic game.

Recently, Reform decided to rewrite the constitution of Kent County Council, which included a measure for God Save the King to be sang at the end of every full council meeting.

Last month, councillors got the chance to deliver this display of patriotism for the first time, and Reform councillors proudly sang the famous verse we all know.

But the Greens had other ideas.

As Reform councillors finished the anthem and started packing away their papers, Green councillors took out lyric sheets of all six verses of God Save the King – and belted out the words with gusto.

Joined by some Labour and Lib Dem councillors, they sang the entirety of the anthem. After all, Reform hadn’t specified how much of God Save the King should be sang at the end of a council meeting.

To add embarrassing insult to injury for Reform, the automatically generated subtitles on the council’s live stream started displaying the lyrics of the US national anthem as the singing continued.

Some Reform councillors shared video of the moment on social media, clearly unimpressed with the stunt from the Greens.

Sharing footage on Facebook, Cllr Robert Mayall said oppositions councillors had “embarrassed themselves.”

This was echoed by his council colleague Cllr Garry Sturley, who accused councillors of “mocking our national anthem” and “attention-seeking behaviour.”

He added that it was “embarrassing for them.”

Source: https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/reform-kent-county-council-sing-national-anthem-408573/

This was posted elsewhere but I was informed it would be better suited for this subreddit. So here we go.

There was this lady I used to know who claimed she was an actress. Let's call her "Helen." In the time that I knew her, her story kept changing: she had all this ‘experience,’ yet she didn't seem to know even the basics about the industry. However, if someone had a resource she coveted? She treated them like they were the light of her life — but only for the moment.

She used people as stepping stones, then discarded them like trash the second they were no longer useful or when they finally caught on to her act. In short, Helen wasn’t building a good reputation, and she never saw karma coming.

It didn’t help at all that, on top of being a self-centered blowhard with almost no verifiable experience, her resume was more fake than my heterosexuality. Her headshots were so out of date — and since she was so broke she couldn't even afford to pay attention, she didn't have the money to pay a photographer for new ones — she subbed overly edited camera phone selfies in their place. I'm not kidding when I say the filters she used made her look like a like a Bratz doll. 😂

Shortly before I cut contact, she asked me to demanded I "beautify" her resume and make it appear more professional. Translation: exaggerate and lie to make her false claims look believable.

So I maliciously complied. It was a test to see if she’d actually review it before sending it out. Deep down, I just knew she wouldn’t. Under Special Skills I added: Master of the Dunning-Kruger effect, expert at gaslighting, and embodies a supercilious manner.

I e-mailed it back. True to form, Helen never said thank you.

A few weeks later I saw Helen periodically posting typo-filled, grammatically incorrect “poor me” wall of text rants fishing for sympathy statuses about the struggles of the working actress — with interspersed out-of-context Bible verses thrown in for good measure.

A mutual friend (who had also been screwed over by Helen) later told me her shiny new resume wasn’t getting any bites. I can only assume she was cold e-mailing people in her typical trademark style — little to no punctuation, poor grammar, shorthand, misspellings, and subject lines in all caps or no subject lines at all.

Eventually word got back that Helen was furious her resume wasn’t being taken seriously. She must have finally read it and realized she’d been punked. Arrogant and rotten to the core, Helen's massive ego wouldn't allow her to admit she'd been played — such an admission would have shone a spotlight on her unprofessionalism and laziness. It also would have led to questions. Helen hated questions because she never had any satisfactory or logical answers.

It’s been well over 12 years since I cut contact. The final straw was her complete lack of empathy when my estranged father died of lung cancer. She even tried to make the conversation about her own problems. When I called her out, the hypocrisy was nuclear. I mean, how dare I challenge her main character syndrome? 🙄

These days, I recently heard through the grapevine (it's a small industry), Helen has only managed a couple of walk-on roles in movies that no one has ever seen. Thanks to her unprofessional reputation that follows her like a shadow — constant lying, plagiarism, crap talking the competition — she's burned a lot of bridges, rightfully earning the reputation of a lying grifter with zero skills and even less talent.

TL: DR: Self-centered ‘actress’ was too lazy to work on her own resume and demanded I do it — for free. Pissed off, I maliciously complied and added some things to the document, knowing she'd never review it before spamming people. She was humiliated and didn't get hired.

I run a small fitness consultancy business, have done for the past few years, since setting up, I've largely relied on word of mouth for most of my business, so I typically don't have to deal with a lot difficult clients, but I recently had a run in with a woman who's genuinely made my blood boil.

This woman, let's call her Gigi for the sake of anonymity, sent me a DM a few weeks ago, said she was looking to lose weight and tighten up her physique for summer. Gigi didn't really fit my usual client demographic (usually 30s, 40s), she was young, mid 20s, and boasted a decent follower count, seemed to be a local influencer of some description. This piqued my interest, I thought perhaps I could benefit from her connections to boost my business somewhat.

How wrong I was.

The initial consultation over text was pretty standard. I asked her some details about her past exercise history, diet, etc. before getting to work on her meal/exercise plan.

Then it moved to the matter of payment. I had mentioned pretty early on that I typically charge $50 for my plans, but either she didn't read that, or decided to feign wilful ignorance. When I reminded her of the price, she said, and I quote "I was wondering whether you'd be interested in getting yourself some exposure instead of payment?"

I hate to say it, but at the time, I was seriously thinking of taking her up on her offer. However, after talking to some of my friends, I snapped out of it, resolving to be firm with the price instead, which she accepted, albeit somewhat begrudgingly. Looking back on it now, I'm kind of stunned that she genuinely expected me to give it to her for free, but I guess that's how the influencer economy works these days.

The plan consisted of exercises and recipes mainly designed around helping her lose weight. Usually I advise most of my clients to try and maintain light to moderate calorie deficits, not only is this overall healthier (less muscle loss) they tend to suck a lot less than dramatic calorie reductions, so are easier to maintain in the long run. I explained all this to Gigi, said that she understood it meant progress wouldn't be immediate, and as such, I thought we were on the same page.

A week later, I woke up at 5am to an Instagram call from Gigi (I didn't even now you could call people on Instagram!). Half awake, I picked up the phone.

"YOU'RE A FUCKING SCAMMER! YOU THINK THIS SHIT'S SOME KIND OF JOKE?"

I was still in a daze, so I weakly asked her what was going on

"I JUST WEIGHED IN AFTER A WEEK ON YOUR BULLSHIT PLAN, I'M UP HALF A FUCKING POUND"

I asked her to slow down and breathe, which seemed to calm her down, albeit temporarily

I explained to her that we'd been through this before, and that weight loss isn't a linear process, and that scale measurements can be offset from anything from waterweight, clothes, time of day etc.

"YOU'RE JUST COVERING YOUR FUCKIN ASS, CUT THE BULLSHIT RIGHT NOW"

Oh well, I tried. Guess you can't talk sense to an unstable influencer at 5AM

"I'VE GOT A SWIMWEAR COLLABORATION I NEED TO SHOOT THIS WEEK AND YOU FUCKING LIED TO ME, YOUR PLAN DIDN'T FUCKING WORK"

[influencer to English translation: I successfully got something for free, and now I need to rip into you for something I didn't get for free]

Bear in mind, this girl is by no means overweight, her BMI was already comfortably in the healthy range, but I guess an influencer's work is never done.

On the verge of tears, she continued.

"DO YOU KNOW HOW FUCKED I AM? I FOLLOWED YOUR PLAN TO THE FUCKING LETTER AND LOOK WHERE IT FUCKING GOT ME"

Based on her tone, and the time of the morning she called, she was almost definitely on the receiving end of 3-4 margaritas, comfortably, which DEFINITELY wasn't in the plan, but I didn't feel like pointing out the obvious.

An hour later she messaged again, still unhinged but slightly more coherent:

“Refund me immediately. And post a public statement on your page admitting your plan doesn’t work and that I was right to call you out. Do it by noon or I start tagging every local gym and every brand that has ever worked with you.”

I sat with that for a minute.

Then I and idea came to mind

I refunded the $50 within the hour and posted the following, word-for-word as requested, on my business page:

“Public statement as requested by [Gigi’s handle]:

I refunded the client in full.

My standard plan prioritises sustainable, moderate deficits and long-term adherence rather than dramatic one-week scale drops.

The client reported following the plan ‘to the fucking letter’ and still gained 0.5 lb in seven days.

Therefore, by the client’s own stated metric and timeline, the plan did not produce the immediate results she required for her swimwear shoot.

She was correct to call this out.”

For context, we both live in a small, tight knit city, where everyone knows eachother, particularly in the business community. I wanted to make sure any other potential brand collaborators knew who they were dealing with.

I left it at that. No extra commentary. No screenshots. No mention of the 5 a.m. call, the margaritas, the original request for free work, or the fact that she was already in a healthy BMI range.

By lunch the post had been screenshotted and circulated in a few local fitness groups. People started asking the obvious questions under her posts. She tried to walk it back (“he twisted my words”), then deleted her original rant, then went quiet.

The collab still happened. From the photos that went up, the half-pound “gain” was invisible. My page, meanwhile, picked up a small but steady stream of new enquiries from people who specifically said they wanted the boring, sustainable version.

I never heard from Gigi again.

It’s just like the saying goes, exposure is a dish best served cold…

I was reading in my usual coffee shop and a couple of girls at the table asked me what I was reading. Annoying yes, since I'm trying to like...read. But we got to chatting about books. I mentioned the book I'm reading has queer characters and one of them made some not-so-nice comments about the LGBT community, then asked for some recommendations since it looks like our taste in books is otherwise similar.

So every book I recommended had queer characters. Queer romance, even if its a sub-plot or tangential, you wouldn't necessarily guess is queer based on the title alone.

Will she read them? Probably not. Will she waste her time looking them up? I hope so.

This is a bit of a long story, but I thought Reddit might appreciate it.

My godfather owns a small cattle ranch out in the countryside. About 20–25 years ago, he needed electricity to power a water pump for his cows. The nearest place where he could connect to the grid was on the opposite side of the ranch, probably about a mile and a half away, so he paid to have utility poles installed across his property.

It was a significant investment, but he figured that constantly running diesel pumps would eventually cost more than installing the poles and connecting to the grid.

Sometime later, a few neighbors who lived on the far side of the ranch asked whether they could piggyback off his electrical line. He agreed. They paid to install a few additional poles, and the electric company placed their meters on the other side.

So far, so good.

There were only a handful of small farmhouses, and the additional poles were located somewhere they didn’t interfere with the ranch. Eventually, fiber-optic cable was installed on the poles as well. Everything worked perfectly for roughly 20 years.

Then, about two years ago, a real estate developer bought the land on the other side of the ranch and began preparing it for a cottage development.

They didn’t exactly get off to a great start with my godfather. They complained about the animals, the smell, and the noise from tractors and other equipment. His response was basically: If you choose to live next to a working ranch, you have to accept that ranching will be happening there.

While planning the development, they discovered another problem. Two miles of 20-year-old electrical cable worked well enough for a few small farmhouses, but it wasn’t capable of supplying the 10–15 cottages they planned to build.

They approached the electric company about upgrading the infrastructure. That was when everyone apparently discovered—or finally acknowledged—that the poles crossing my godfather’s ranch were privately owned.

To avoid making this story even longer, lawyers became involved.

In the end, the electric company and the developer told my godfather that he had two choices: allow the electric company to replace his poles with concrete ones and grant them a permanent right-of-way across his ranch for maintenance, or remove the poles.

So that Sunday, my godfather got on the tractor they use for installing fences and pulled out every single pole.

He told me that when he originally installed the line, he had only about one-fifth as many cattle as he has now. His new plan is to install some solar panels, run a smaller pumping system, and make it work.

The development company, meanwhile, will probably have to install three or four miles of entirely new poles to bring electricity to the cottages—electricity that was apparently already included in what they promised buyers.

My godfather jokingly says it’s interesting how unusually hot this summer has been.

Fortunately, he recently brought in some pigs, and they require less water than the cattle, so they’re easier to keep hydrated and fed.

Purely a coincidence, of course.

This is my Granddad's story from the late 60 to early 70s in England, and to note, he was very poorly when he told this to me, so this is the story that I managed to hear, so there's bits missing and not a lot of specifics, so all of this is what I gathered

Back when my grandad was younger, he used to work in a factory making engines for cars, and despite being a hard worker, he was always disrespected and under appreciated, and he felt it more so with his boss, and despite this boss holding very littler power over a very little area of the factory, this boss would constantly yell and exert his power over everyone.

This story starts when the company buys this machine from Germany, and what I could gather from my Granddad, this machine was like a computerised machine before computers were really a thing, so instead of one computer doing all of these complex calculations, you have pegs and wires that you have to physically move to work this machine, but he didn'tsay what the machine did. Now obviously this was complex so the company sent a small group of workers to Germany to be taught how the machine worked over three months, and a group of Germans would come to England to build the machine. My granddad wasn't one of the people who went to Germany, so he stayed, but instead, he watched the Germans install the machine, and despite the language barrier, my grandad understood how it worked and how to fix it, pretty much everything he would have learnt if he went to Germany with the other workers.

After some time, my grandad got married to my grandma, and realising he needed a house, he went to the bank to talk about mortgages, but the only issue is that he gets £22 a week when he needs £44 a week to get a mortgage, so he asked his boss, who promptly said no. Laster on in the week, my grandad spoke to a mate of his who is now living in France, and the friend said "I recently lost my drivers licence so I can't work for my company anymore, but they need someone to do deliveries for £48 a week between England and France."

The next day, my grandad went up to his boss and asked "Sir, who do I give this two week notice into?" And the boss, playing a powerplay leans over my grandad, puffing smoke into his face from his pipe, and says in a low voice "You hand that to me, you understand, I'm the boss here, I'm the most important." And my grandad handed it over to him.

Over the course of the two weeks, it was normal, until the last day when the manager came over and said "Mike, I heared you're leaving today, is that true?" And my grandad said "Yes, boss asked me to give him my two week notice" and the manager went white, asking my grandad if the boss told anyone, listing anyone who had the same or more power then the boss did, even asking if the owner knew, and my grandad said no each time, with a bigger smile each time, and after everyone else on the factory went up to him asking the exact same questions, he couldn't hide his excitement.

You see, what everyone failed to notice is that while the workers who went to Germany, they where in a country known for big beers and pretty women, so they learnt absolutely nothing in those three months, and anything they did learn was quickly forgotten when they learnt my grandad knew how to work and fix the machine, so because of my grandad leaving, he effectively left with the knowledge as he can't teach anyone else in his last two weeks (and that's if everyone else knew he was leaving in those two weeks).

And the ending happened two months later when my grandad got a call from someone back at the company asked if he wanted his old job back, and my grandad calmly replied "No, I do not want my old job back, as I'd effectively be going back in life, especially back to a job that doesn't pay me well or treat me well." And for anyone wondering what happened with the machine, it ran well in those two months, but someone swapped the wires for the motors, as there was two motors, they put the wires into the wrong ones, and that's why they called my grandad, as they effectively lost thousands for the machine, the installation of the machine and flying all the workers to Germany to basically just go on a bender. As for the boss and everyone involved, my grandad never bothered learning what happened to them, but I'd like to imagine there was a fallout and the fires of hell rained down, but this company was one of the more expensive car companies, so in all honesty, it could have been a minor set back.

I (26M) don’t like calling in to work. I hate passing up money and I usually won’t call in unless I’m already pretty sick. I work in the service industry which as many of you know, is absolutely notorious for guilting sick employees (a seriously ill person has made your food at a restaurant before at the direction of their manager, guaranteed) and telling people they don’t provide health insurance that they need a doctors note to call in. One year I got sick and didn’t want to work, and my employer forgot I had health insurance through my Dad. I called in asking for one day off because I could hardly breathe or stay awake and I got the “wElL yOu NeEd A dOcToRs NoTe Or ItS aN uNeXsCuSeD aBsEnCe “ and as someone who worked hard as hell for these people even when I was sick, I was a little offended to basically be called a liar like I needed to prove to them I’d been wearing a mask at work for a reason. But I did have good insurance through my Dad, so I went to the doctor, had them write me a note for four days off, and went back into my job and handed it to my manager and said “here is my doctors note, and this is the date I will be back”. And when they tried to do the same thing a few months later, I got a note for even more days and asked the doc to add a note about when I would stop being infectious around the food we were serving people. I have never been asked for a doctors note when I am sick again. They know they can give me the one or two days I ask for or they can give me the week the doc gives me. But I will not be working while sick if I do not want to.

A while back I was working away from home and just going home at the weekends. During this time I was staying in a hotel. I'd always pack just enough clothing for the week. I got a call saying they needed me to work the weekend too which would mean two weeks solid and only one weeks worth of clothes. I told my boss I needed some new underwear and socks as I'd ran out and I'd make do with other clothes as is. I was told no, expenses won't cover that. Cue malicious compliance. I put my entire bag of clothes in the hotel laundry bag. £5 for every pair of socks, underwear and £10 for every shirt and trousers and put the whole lot through expenses. Cost them £120 when I would have only spent £20 on the underwear and socks.

TLDR: At the bottom.

Over 20 years ago I changed an old timers computer screen saver. You know the old one that just had a word banner scrolling over and over.

I worked in sales. There was an old guy named “Bob”. He was annoying. Maybe because I was young. But he annoyed everyone. The kind of old guy that would lie through his teeth to get some of your commission.

Being older he had more “freedoms” with customers. It drove us crazy. He would let people leave or they wanted to buy but wanted to use a coupon he would disconnect the call or get rid of the customer a few different ways. But that meant we as other associates couldn’t make the sale. As a team we couldn’t hit bonuses. He would do many other things like this that would just drive you crazy.

He was just a difficult coworker. And a bad employee. But had been around the industry a long time. So guys that were now managers favored him because of their past. Whether it was with this company or others.

He was just annoying, Too many reasons to list why. And I was young and didn’t have much of a care. And you know. Different perception of professionalism when I was a kid.

So one day I changed his screensaver to say Bob is a Jackass. I watched him type in his password. Waited until he left. Then changed it.

It scrolled across the screen. Over and over. And he didn’t notice at first. It looked like the same old “Have a Nice Day” or whatever scrolling.

We all would giggle as we walked by and saw it. It was just funny to see. A day or so later he is sitting in his cubicle. Chatting away. His scream saver most have popped up. You hear, what is this. As he reads. “Bob is a Jackass, who did this. This is defamation. Who did it?” The office is laughing. He is pissed. Goes right in to a managers desk. “Someone is defaming my name. This is work place harassment.”

I want to know who did it.

He makes it to HR. Even to the owners office.

We don’t know anything other than him complaining to the manager. The manager saying let’s see. Seeing it. Giggling himself. Then telling Bob “Come on calm down. I’ll change it (which he did) Let’s go take a walk and talk.” Bob is not having it but they walk off talking.

We go back to work. Not thinking about it anymore. About an hour or two later. A different manager says hey Mr Johnson wants to see you upstairs.

Cool, it wasn’t uncommon. He would call associates up for customers or tasks. Or reviews or whatever.

As soon as I get in the office he says “What the fuck are you doing? Are you trying to get me sued? This guy is an absolute nightmare. Do you know he has sued that company and that one.? Why would you do that? You know it is on security camera right? Using someone else’s laws password. You are not supposed to use or share passwords ever.”

I said “it was a joke none of us thought it was that big of a deal. We often share passwords so we can get info we need. We are all on the same team”

He replied “Thats a policy violation. Thats it. You better hope I can keep him from causing a bigger issue. Go home for the next 3 days. Your suspended. Get out of my office get out of my building now”

I walked out the back door. Down the backstairs to my car and was gone. This was Wednesday. So that meant I had a 5 day weekend. Heck yes. I was stoked.

As I make it to my car. I can hear someone yelling “hey James. James. Peggy wants to see you.” Peggy was the HR lady.

I ignored it. Backed out and drove out the other direction.

15 minutes later. My phone is ringing. I am not answering. No way. Those were the days cell minutes were expensive.

I get home. Tell my wife we have a 5 day weekend. It is barely 12 o’clock. We head out to hit the beach about 3.5 hours away. We are excited.

About an hour later. My phone is called over and over. My wife says just answer it. So I do.

“Hey James this is Peggy. I need you to sign some forms about the 3 days suspension.”

“Sorry Peggy I was told to Leave. I left. I am now out of town. I will have to Sign another time.” She is not thrilled but not much we can do.

Then a moment later another call. It’s my direct supervisor. “James where are you? We need the numbers put together for this client coming in today. And you had the presentation stored on. And this. And that…. Where are you?

“Mr Johnson sent me home for messing with Bobs screensaver.”

“Nobody told me. Why didn’t you come down and tell me? Well come back and give me the reports and send the files to me”

“Sorry I was told to leave the building right now. I have actually already left Town. I am over an hour away and won’t be turning around.”

“Then give me your password.”

“I can’t do that either. I was told not to share them. Sorry sir. My phone minutes are being used and I can’t talk much longer. I don’t know what to tell you. Mr Johnson sent me home. Said leave and said not to share passwords. I am about to go through the coastal hills and will lose reception.”

“Be here first thing tomorrow morning. We need to keep these projects moving.”

“Well sir. I won’t be back until Monday. I was told to leave for three days.”

“You have to be kidding. He didn’t mean three days. I will talk with him”

I turned my phone off. Back then. Turning your phone off wasn’t like turning off a smart phone. So no big deal. But Sunday. When I listened to messages. My manager was telling me Mr Johnson didn’t realize we had projects in the works that I was leading. And that he wants me to come back. The next day.

Then the next day. His message was my manager saying Mr Johnson is ok if I provide my password to my manager just this time.

Hey he said leave. I left. He said. No sharing. No sharing. He said three days. For a company that never gave anytime off. It was awesome to have a nice long weekend.

Came
Back to work and in this shitty business. No big deal. Nothing happened. They made or didn’t make the deal. Maybe postponed it. Wasn’t my problem any more. They worked up new reports and bee halfassed presentations.

It was all back to normal. It wasn’t like now I was in trouble. Nope. Had my days off and some more. And back to work Monday making a sale.

And when your in sales. Problems go away if you sell something.

TLDR: I was told I was suspended for three days and to leave the building now. Never share passwords with coworkers. This was for a company that never gave anytime off other than regular days.

Owner told me to Leave. I went out the back door. Didn’t tell HR or my direct manager.

I left town to the beach for a 5 day weekend. They called asking for me to come back. Asking for my password to work on active projects I was leading. I said I cannot do any of that per the owner.

This was back before smartphones. So then I just turned my phone off for the weekend and Enjoyed the mini vacay with the wifey.

Edited to add what happened Monday. Nothing.

Today we had a new employee start working in the restaurant. She had some questions —one being —does [manager] hit on everyone. Manager came in back to the kitchen and said to me, a server, don’t come on the kitchen anymore. I don’t need to explain that this hinders my job performance drastically. So I asked him to get bread to take it to a table while I stood in the server alley. Then I sent the hissed into the kitchen to ask if my food was up. Finally I called into the busy kitchen asking if I had an order up. Manager had enough and said “you can come into the kitchen and you’re really pissing me off” it made my petty heart grow.

Long ago, I was a university student majoring in literature -- naturally, I had a schedule packed with lit classes, and this group project took place during a course entitled Madness in Classic Literature. It was fun; the professor was zany, and the topics were rather interesting.

Then, one day, the dreaded group project assignment arrived, where we were to split up into groups of three and do a 30-minute presentation on madness in any era of literature. I ended up with two studious-seeming partners, one of whom was emphatically invested in doing our project on madness in 1800s Scotland. She was persuasive, we were convinced, but when we told the professor, he kind of...winced? Then he held us after class, asked us if we were sure, she certainly was, and he kind of absently nodded and said he'd help us find a couple of sources since literature in 1800s Scotland is apparently more scarce than one would think.

We ended up with permission to cover Lord Byron by association, along with an incredibly long and dry text about some guy who is either hallucinating or having an existential religious experience with the devil himself. Now, I've read some boring texts in my day, but this piece was far and away the most mind-numbing collection of words my brain has ever scraped itself against.

To make matters worse, it soon became very, very apparent that neither of my partners, including the girl who was gagging over 1800s Scotland to start with, had a single intention of doing any of the work for this project. They didn't even read the material, not even the relatively short Lord Byron poem. Woe.

So, I just dove in and did the entire project myself, including the required handouts that we were supposed to print out for the class to follow along with our presentation. That's when I decided to get petty. I didn't want to be that student who rats on fellow students, but I also didn't want my partners (especially the girl whose love of Scotland forced me into this mess) to get off entirely scot-free. So, I memorized everything. I mean everything. And for the worksheet, I basically wrote down bullet points that revealed nothing about the texts or their contents.

The day of the presentation arrives, and I meet my partners in class and give them the worksheets. They're relieved that I seem to know what I'm doing and suspect absolutely nothing. Our time comes, and we stand up in front of the class, with them on either side of me, and I pass out the worksheets and proceed to talk about madness in 1800s Scotland from memory, going into exhaustive detail on Lord Byron and whatever the fuck protagonist (I think his name was Tim) from the other text. My partners were silently, gravely nodding along for the entire 30 minutes.

I finished speaking, and then came the Q&A portion of the presentation -- fellow classmates were encouraged to ask us questions about our era/authors/etc...and it lasted about 15 minutes.

So, I picked a student who asked something about the religious aspects of the dry af text. I could have answered, but instead, I paused a long, pregnant pause, and gave my partners a chance to answer instead, if they so wished. I let the excruciatingly silent seconds drag on every single time, looking slowly to both of them with each question and taking my sweet time before jumping in.

Within a couple of minutes, it became incredibly evident to everyone there that I was the only person in our group project who knew a single god damned thing about madness in 19th-century Scottish literature.

So sure -- I did the whole project, and let them think it was fine up until it wasn't. Petty? Absolutely. But by god, if I had to read that awful story because someone else watched Outlander too many times, then I'm going to comply maliciously.

Edit: I'm happy to report that the professor pulled me aside after the fact and said that, given our performances, he would be grading me and my partners separately. I got an A, and strangely, they stopped talking to me after that group project, so I have no idea what grades they received. Bad enough to cut contact, though. Bless.

For context: I (29M) recently quit my job as a specialist at a small planning and design firm somewhere in Germany. The place was a mess. The pay was a joke, the leadership was completely unpredictable, and they expected me to do the job of a fully qualified project manager (like planning the entire renovation of a large municipal facility) without the pay or the support. The turnover was crazy. Three of my colleagues quit around the same time and during my 4 years there, my boss went through 5 different assistants. I eventually packed my bags and moved to a different city for a fresh start.

A week after my last day, my former boss texted me. He casually asked me to "please leave a review" for the firm on a popular local job review site (basically our equivalent of Glassdoor). He genuinely thought we parted on great terms and assumed I’d drop a 5-star rating to boost their crappy score. I just rolled my eyes and ghosted him.

Fast forward to a few days ago. I checked the company's page and saw three brand new 4.5-star reviews posted in the same week. They were so obviously faked by management. They all used the exact same HR buzzwords ("great work-life balance", "amazing health benefits", which was literally just 15 minutes of stretching on Wednesdays, lol) and magically praised all the exact things people usually complained about.

At this point, I remembered his text. He wanted a review? Fine. Let's comply.

I sat down and wrote a brutally honest, mathematically precise review. I kept it completely professional and entirely subjective ("In my experience...", "I felt that...") so they couldn't legally sue me to take it down. I gave them 1 and 2 stars in almost every category, explicitly mentioning the lack of support, the horrible communication, and the heavy workload.

But I didn't stop there. While I was at it, I contacted the platform's support team and reported the three new 4.5-star reviews for manipulation, pointing out the identical wording and the fact that they were posted at the exact same time. Less than four hours later, two of the three fake reviews were nuked by the platform. The automatic spam filter probably caught them because my boss was dumb enough to write them from the same office PC/IP address.

With his fake reviews gone and my honest 1-star review dragging the average down even further, panic mode set in. How do I know? Because my ex-boss texted me again. This time the message was full of typos, desperately asking if I could please leave a good review to help them out. He has absolutely no idea that I am the one who tanked his rating and reported his fakes.

I left him on read again.

The cherry on top: A buddy of mine who still works there texted me yesterday. He said my review perfectly hit the nail on the head. He also mentioned that since the review dropped, management has suddenly been acting super nice and accommodating to everyone out of pure fear that more people will quit.

TL;DR: Toxic boss asks me to review his company after I quit. He fakes his own positive reviews to boost the score. I report his fake reviews (getting them deleted) and leave the brutally honest 1-star review he specifically asked for. Boss panics and begs me again, not knowing I'm the one who ruined his score.

TL:DR: Boss tells me to take my lunch ONLY at X-Y hours when I was dealing with a "mission-critical" outage until the job was done. Later, I clock out during a VERY obvious "all hands on-deck" situation because boss complained the last time I answered the call.

The short version: Small business, this is my first IT job, but I have decades of blue collar experience. I was the first IT person the company ever hired; my associate's in IT specializing in networking only a few gen-ed classes away. My boss kept the platters spinning, but he has no formal training or amateur desire; he wants to offload the tediousness.

Three days prior, I was trying to get a "mission critical" computer up and running again; the only computer with the shipping software (and hundreds of packages waiting to ship). I advised an immediate re-image (delete everything and reset to a "known good save") I had it on deck for just such an occasion. But I was overridden by the owner, who wanted me to keep Windows in situ and delete/reinstall programs piecemeal and deal with phone support for those programs, because he paid extra for tech support. His call, I followed orders. I was on the phone for hours, and did not leave my post until the job was done.

That meant I took my lunch half an hour later. No big deal for me, but when I clocked back in and got back to my desk, my boss was standing there, FUMING, because I took a lunch outside of normal hours. He INSISTED I MUST take my 30 minute lunch from 12-1 as per company policy.

So, today, the whole network goes out at 12:25 and I had not yet taken my lunch. Nothing can ping anything. My own personal hunches tell me this is because it's a factory building, there are a lot of high-voltage woodworking machines for factory production level of output, and ALL of the ethernet cables are unshielded.. Just my hunch.

...But I really can't do a damn thing, because my company rents out office space as a subletter; so we are NOT allowed access to the switches and routers. I have no admin access to the infrastructure. So I set up wireshark to record and a continuous command line ping, and go to lunch.

Boss is standing at my desk when I get back today, and gives me a passive-aggressive "the network is up, by the way!", but refuses to call me out further. I had the "I told you so" on deck, though!

I don't work for the best company- it's corporate and the higher ups have little understanding of what goes on at ground level. When I started, it was under a great manager that protected us from most of the 'crap rolls down hill' politics.

He was promoted out of the store, and after a few misfires, we got a new manager. She is very loud, she will get in conversations with friends and loudly discuss controversial opinions and swear like a sailor. I've had a few customers quietly ask me why I had not reported her to the manager, then roll their eyes and express sympathy when I said she IS my manager.

Anyway, there's a system in place for who to call when no manager is available. We are a tiny team, and most of us work solo. If the manager is coming in the morning, we call her the night before with concerns. If she's not and its the assistant, we call the assistant. Sure, no problem.

I found an issue I thought was important enough to inform her right away instead of waiting until the next day she worked. I took pictures and shot a short text explaining it. (food health code violation from one of our vendors).

I got back, and this is the exact text:

"I need you guys to understand that if the store is not on fire, your not being robbed your need to be contacting (assistant managers name) not me unless its an emergency please"

4 days later, she sends me a text scolding me for not 'doing my job' when it was in fact a managerial level job, not my level. Then the following text a few minutes later saying "oh, you DID do it. sorry" and she sent me some points in our stores 'good job' system.

I didnt respond. I wasn't on the clock.

Then she text me asking what my pay rate was, for my review. I decided to respond to this one even though it's kind of, you know, her job to know.

I started getting stupid texts from her like "do you know where the scissors went?" and stuff that.. according to the precedent she set, was not a store emergency and not my problem until I'm on the clock. I ended up deciding that I will not be answering her if I'm not on the clock. She calls, I let it go to voice mail. She texts, I leave her on read until I'm on the clock.

Now, the company has made a 'no phones while on the clock' policy as well. So, I guess she can't text or call me while I'm on the clock either unless she calls the store phone. (That's a whole other can of worms- they want us to use a mandatory app for store communication.. but not have our phones out. I asked for clarification ON THE WELCOME MESSAGE on the new app, asking if they are lifting the phones at work ban, or expect us to work off the clock? Everyone in the company got to see my question and the answering "we'll get back to you" that has yet to happen- now nobody is using the app because policy says we can't lol)

Woops. Guess she will have to come in, in person, on her days off if she wants to talk to me.

Maybe she should not have chewed my ass out so hard when I just sent her 1 text.

Backstory

I won't bore you with tech jargon. I'll just keep it simple.

I worked at a gas station as a manager. They sort of trapped me in it. I was the guy you called when a store across state lines was short-staffed, or if they needed help with paperwork and/or training employees. I was a staff lead on track to go to their IT department, until a company bought them out. I was, at the time, basically an assistant manager without handling money, that was until the promotion. The store was in the red, and they saw how I turned one store around when there was no manager, and the district manager (DM) handled the money. So, they moved me to this new store and just preached about the benefits. I took it, and from there is how this all happened. I am by no means some genius, but I have been developing things for Linux in my own time for myself. I had a side job where I repaired computers, and sometimes I built whole computers from parts people ordered. I'm smart, but I would not classify myself as a senior sysadmin, but definitely not a beginner, and I document everything (important later). Now to the story.

Becoming unofficial IT

So, I had gotten into the routine of things, paperwork, safe, bank, schedules, and started some weeks in the black, some in the red, before finally getting all in the black consistently (it took a couple of years). Well, the issue that made this malicious compliance happen was the equipment. Gas pumps, the server, the registers, the office computer, all of it was not extremely old, but showing its age. We had to defrag the office computer a couple of times. The card readers would go down, the server would just say, "Not today," registers would need us to call because an update broke something, pumps with BIOS errors, and so many more issues. At the head of all of that was what they called the commander. It basically controlled every single device in the store.

Well, when things would break, we had to make an IT ticket; they chose based on who had it worse. Two guys, 30 stores. It would be weeks before they would come out at times. I did not like that, so I fixed them myself. Granted, they have insurance and many other things to worry about, but their efficiency was ass. The server is down? I fixed it. The office computer was down? I fixed it. Registers giving errors? I fixed it. Any problems that arose, I fixed them. Soda machine down? I fixed it. The most common one was the card readers. They were always on, so they had to be reset most of the time. You also could not just swap them, something I found out trying because I found the real error that day was the register was not talking to it.

I never took these things apart; these were all band-aid fixes against the real issues. Well, one day, they called me to train a new manager for a different store. My DM would handle my store while I did this. Why did my DM not train them? Because there were a few DMs, and it was not her area, so to preserve the proper chain of command, they saw this was the better option. As these new stores were bought out by us, they needed to learn the new structure. I did not care; it was a change of pace, seeing the same walls for 70+ hours a week gets tiring.

While there, I get a call, and another, and another. They asked me if I knew why something was down. Card readers, registers, and the pumps were not working. I knew the issue. You see, when those three are out at the same time, it is always the commander. If it freezes up, the whole system will not allow transactions with cards. I explained it, they did what I said (which was just to reset it), and it was working again.

The compliance

Fast forward two weeks, and the head of IT and maintenance emailed me. They said that from now on, I had to put in the form to get things fixed. I, of course, emailed them back that if I do that and they do not come out soon enough, the store will lose money. They said, and I kid you not, "You do not understand how complex these systems are, any 'fix' you do could damage them." That last comment irked me a bit. I did not understand them? The guy who has been fixing things and pleading for updated systems for months does not understand them? Ok, fine. I told them I would comply.

After that, every time a card reader is down, send a form to IT. Every time a register is down, send the form to IT. Soda machine was down? Send a form to maintenance. They piled up very quickly, and to the point that they were fixing more than one issue when they came to my store. My DM asked why I stopped. I explained, she was pissed, but she could not tell me to fix it since the one in charge of the two departments was above her.

The review

After about 4 months of this, we had a manager's meeting where we all got a review (basically, corporate telling us what we are doing wrong and if you get a raise). They said my performance was bad, that I let the store get as bad as it was, and that I needed to change a few key points. I stopped them right there. I had come prepared because I always document everything. When I say everything, I am obsessed with documentation. I gave them the correlations of me fixing the equipment and sales going up, I gave them the notes I had jotted down about when machines went down, I explained why my paperwork was late because I had to wait for the system to even work for 5 minutes to even email it off, I showed them the email of being told to send forms, and my sales dropping since then. I told them they can't give me a bad review for complying with what I was asked to do.

This was when my DM chimed in and explained that I was originally supposed to be on the fast track to working IT, but after the company was recently bought out (because they kept buying more gas stations, they went into the red), I was removed from that track since the new company had their own much larger IT staff (they have not been brought in yet as it was a recent buyout, and the full change would take a while).

The aftermath

Well, they had to hold meetings after that; they had to talk about my review, about why I was dropped from the IT track, and about the current situation with the buyout. Well, unfortunately, around this time, my body was failing me (working 70+ hours with a bad back, bad knees, and a few other issues does not agree with working so much standing); I could not stand for long, and I even blacked out at work. I had to quit. I did write down in a notebook (because typing it was risky if they could access it and not have it) instructions on all of the equipment and how I fixed things. Error codes, what certain situations looked like, and what they most likely meant, and so on. IT was a masterpiece of documentation. I put my two weeks in, I left, a few days later I got called about the notebook, I told them where it is, they used it, and all seemed good. I heard from the grapevine that after the new company got to my old store and saw how I had to do things, they found my notebook, and the new owner heard about the whole thing. He was upset because he said talent that is learned through the trenches is valuable. But they ended up replacing the equipment sometime after I left, and I heard it cost them thousands. Not damaging money, but enough for a pocket to feel lighter.

Now I work from home, I still develop Linux tools and have made some public, started writing, and have worked with content creators. I don't make as much as I did there, but it is peaceful, and I don't have to worry about an outdated system fighting me every day. Moral of the story: don't blame the guy trying to keep the ship floating.

TL;DR

IT told me to stop fixing broken equipment because I "don't understand the systems." I complied. Store performance tanked. They tried to blame me in my review. I had receipts. Left them my documentation bible on the way out.

This happened a year ago, but I just found this sub and realised I had a story to share.
It is not that extreme tho.

I worked at a buffet restaurant, and every shift, each staff was assigned one job. Those being usually: Cashier, runner(person who goes pick up the food when ready), person who changes the food around, table managing, cleaning, washing dishes, etc.

I was usually the Runner, because I was faster than everyone else, and we needed to walk a long way to the kitchen to pick up food and come back, and we had to do it in 3 minutes, or else our leader would call the kitchen/us to ask where we were.

There is a counter between the kitchen and the corridor that you pass through with the cart.
Usually, you go in, ask for the food, they will put it on the counter in a few seconds to a minute, you put it on the cart, and you can go back to the restaurant, but sometimes they will be understaffed, and if we are in need of something simple like sauces, green onions, or jam, we usually just get inside the kitchen and grab it ourselves. This is not a rule, it is just something that happened sometimes if they were really busy.

In that case, we were in need of some sauces, one or two food items, and green onions. I knew where all the sauces and green onions where, so after asking for them and waiting for more than a minute, I shouted "coming in! Grabbing green onions!" and went in the kitchen.
As I was pouring the pre-cut green onions on a bowl, one of the chefs walked on my direction screaming for me to leave the food, and that that was not my job, and that I was doing it wrong (I was not).

I asked him why, because we have been doing that for years at that point, and he said that it is his job to do, and that I'm only supposed to ask and wait.

So next time I needed something, I entered the kitchen, and as the chef was prepping something else, I started screaming "SAUCE ONE, SAUCE TWO, GREEN ONIONS, HONEY, THIS, THAT, THIS ALSO, SOMETHING ELSE", until I finished the full list, which were all mostly things I knew where they were and could have grabbed it during the time I was screaming the names and waiting.
The chef didn't say anything for a few seconds, so I screamed all of it again, and on the third time, while he was grabbing one of the sauces and placing it on the counter, he said "It's just me here, stop screaming and just put the paper there and wait".
I responded that I have to go back to the restaurant in 3 minutes or else they call to check what I'm doing and I would have to say that he was taking too long to bring me the stuff.
So he said "Ok, just go in there and grab it", and I reminded him that he told me the other day that I was not supposed to touch anything because that was not my job.

But I guess he changed his mind, cause he just said "forget it, just do it", but I reminded him again that he made it official that I can't do that, so I would have to contact the leader to make sure that I was allowed to, and the chef had to run around the kitchen for a few minutes to grab everything I needed, and never complained about us being inside the kitchen afterwards.

Few years ago. An abiding customer (me)...

The owner of a grocery store nearby had too many people buying too many things, never using the carts, hence checkout was always a bit chaotic.

It's a pretty big store, 6 counters, 6 belts. Always ONE cashier. Not two or three. Not even on a Saturday.

Biiiig sign outside *You need a shopping cart to enter!*

I was already running late and needed one (ONE) roll of tape. So I walk in, pretty fast for a guy my size, and this grumpy old fart gets in my way, almost ran into him.

"You cant shop here without a..."

*Yeah, I know. I only need - *

"nooooo nono no. No cart, no shop!" in a voice you use to explain to a 2-year-old, why he should NOT paint the wall with his diapers.

I turn around. Get TWO carts. Push one, pull one. Steer through the isles, Owner gives me THAT smile. I call my wife that i'll need a couple minutes... I walk up and down EVERY Isle.

He waits at the checkout.

One empty cart. Another empty cart. I lay my little roll of scotch tape, that I carried in my hand, on the belt. Onto the FAR end. Upright. Plan works, it won't roll down all the way. I push both carts into the trolley lane, as it's completely empty. Owner fumes a bit, but says nothing.

Go back to the cashier who is close to bursting of laughter, but Big Bossman is right next to his ear.

The owner starts yelling, so I try to copy his voice from earlier.

*no cart, no shop. Now two cart, one shop. Otay dada?*

I was banned until the owner sold to some nice family. The sign still is above the entrance, but nobody cares.

I didn't get the tape. He threw me out.

I work a behavioral healthcare agency.
At the time this occurred there were 14 therapists who reviewed paperwork from various psychiatric facilities.
I’m the receptionist. I used to greet everyone that came, and we’d have a wee chat, then get on with our work. Many had told me they enjoyed my cheerful attitude and hoped I never lost that happy spirit.

At that time director of my office singled me out on how she treated me. One month she was super cool and we got along great. The next month she’d be on me about every little thing I did.
I didn’t know what to do.

One day she called me to her office and said I was being too social - talking too much with coworkers, not getting my work done (not true), etc.. I needed to limit my conversations to just greeting people and leave it at that.
I looked at her, saying I would do exactly as she said. No more socializing. Hand out assignments, say what it’s for and go back to my desk.
She smiled, telling me that’s what she wanted.

The next morning I smiled and greeted people, then I put my head down and went back to work. When I would go to their offices and hand out assignments, they would start to chat. I’d stop them, apologise telling them I had to get back to my desk. I’d get an odd look, and a nod.
This went on for several days. The following week they started coming up to my desk, individually asking how I was doing. I seemed distant, if I had any problems I could talk to them as their door was always open. I smiled, thanked them for their generosity and thoughtfulness but I was fine and had to get back to work.
As I mentioned, this went on everyday for a week.
The following week the director called me into her office and asked what was wrong. I smiled and said nothing is wrong. I’m doing my work and it’s on time, clinicians are getting their assignments and I’m keeping the chat to an absolute minimum. Like you wanted.
She looked at me and said the clinicians were concerned about me as I haven’t been talking to them, they feel I might be going through some kind of depression and they told me their door is always open.
She didn’t say anything at first, then she told me “Just keep the chats to a few minutes.”
I told her no problem.

I was replying to another post, and realised I have a malicious compliance story here that should be shared on this sub.

I was working at an IT helpdesk at a large hospital quite some time ago.

We were expected to be at our desks, logged in, ready to take our first call by the start time of our shift.

It took about 10-15 minutes to log in, load up and login to 7 different programs, all with different passwords. So really, you needed to be there 15 minutes early.

They were shared computers, sometimes you could get away with just locking it and leaving everything logged in and running until your next shift, but if someone else restarts it in the meantime, you had to log in to everything again.

It was a constant pain point for us that was frequently raised, especially as for example, when medical staff need to scrub up and scrub down, this is all during their shift time.

My manager sends a somewhat passive aggressive email to the team

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"Hi all,

It seems we are still having lots of issues around our shift times. I want to clarify my expectations.

If you are on a 7am to 4pm shift, I expect you to be here, logged in, ready to go, and your status on the phone queue as 'available' or 'on a call' at 6:59:59am.

If you want to make a coffee, fill your water bottle, or put your lunch in the fridge, this needs to all be done before 7am, not after.

At the end of the shift, I expect you to be 'available' or 'on a call' until 4:00:01pm. Only then may you logout and wash your coffee cup, etc.

If you are going to be stuck in traffic, have trouble finding parking, or miss your bus, you'll need to manage your time better and leave earlier.

Thanks"

​

So for a while, I comply, and am always 'available' or 'on a call' at exactly 1 second before my start time, just waiting for my moment.

And it happens. I get a call a with a splash less than 2 minutes left on my shift and take the call.

I get about as far as their name, where they are, and halfway through them describing their issue, I see the clock hit 1 second over my shift time.

I say "sorry to interrupt you, my shift is over. Goodbye", hang up, log off and go home.

Of course they complain and my manager pulls me into his office, asking me to explain why I did what I did.

I explain

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"Well I was 'available' on the phone until about (2 minutes before the end of my shift time).

I answered the call, putting my status to 'on a call' until 1 second past my shift time, so I logged off"

​

They replied

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"No, if you are on a call, you need to finish that call first"

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To which I reply

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"Your email says we are expected to be 'available' or 'on a call' 1 second before our shift time, which I have been.

It also says we are expected to be 'available' or 'on a call' until 1 second past our shift time, and only then may we log off

I am simply following your expectations and written directions"

​

Of course this was a very CLM (career limiting move) but at this point I already had my foot half way out the door.

When malicious compliance backfires

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I work in operations and maintenance on several small solar fields throughout the Midwest. Essentially, the companies that actually own the solar sites hire my company to do routine and corrective maintenance. We have about 15 crews working all over the US.

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We have an internal ticketing software we use to keep track of how much time we spend at each site, and what work is being done. This is pretty important since we use all of our tickets to justify the site owners paying us. It can be a little frustrating to manage these tickets sometimes if there's a lot going on.

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For example, if I'm on site for company A and get a phone call from company B, I need to create a new ticket, or log that time on an existing ticket for company B's phone call. I can't just charge company A for 30 minutes I spent answering a bunch of random questions for the other company.

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There are also times when you'll be walking through the field and notice something and just fix it real quick. Like we'll be replacing a broken module (solar panel) and happen to see a broken zip tie and you just replace it. It's not what you were doing in that section, but it takes all of 30 seconds so you just do it.

​

However, a couple months ago, our company's VP retired, and the new guy is... A little extreme. He wants to make sure we're really being diligent with our tickets and documenting everything. There was a company wide zoom meeting to introduce him, and he spent almost 20 minutes talking about tickets. We've all heard this before, and we're all pretty good about making sure our hours are accounted for with the appropriate tickets, so we didn't really think too much of it.

​

A few weeks later, VP was out visiting one of my sites while we were doing preventative maintenance on 4 inverters. As I was setting up to do my work and the other tech was at the spare parts container on site getting some material, I noticed a module nearby had some damage. It was chipped from a rock or pebble, (we're in a pretty windy area) I took a picture of it, noted the location, then went back to the inverter. As I was walking back I called the other tech and asked him to grab a module while he was at the spare parts containers.

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When I finished at the inverter, I closed that ticket, created a new one for the broken mod, we replaced it, and I closed that ticket, and we moved on to the next inverter in line. At the end of the day VP pulled me aside to ask why I wasn't managing my tickets correctly.

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Me: "I'm not sure what you mean. Every thing we did today had a ticket."

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VP: "Yes, but you didn't track your time correctly."

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Me: "I'm sorry, I'm still not sure what you mean. We worked a little over 8 hours today. We spent roughly 2 hours at each inverter, and then 20 minutes swapping that broken module. It's all accounted for."

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VP: " No it's not. You took about 5 minutes out of working on that inverter to look at that broken module and call the other tech. He then spent time loading a module into his truck to bring over, where was that accounted for? So there's at least 5 minutes on the inverter ticket that was actually spent on the broken module, plus however long it took other tech to load the new module. You should have logged out of the inverter ticket, created the module one and documented that time, then logged back into the inverter one. Other tech should have logged out of the inverter one, logged into the module one while he was loading up the module, then logged back into the inverter one when he started driving back to work on the inverter."

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I was a little taken aback by this. It's not like I had spent the time doing work for a different site, it was all for this one, and we don't get paid differently for each task we do. Its all the same hourly rate. I swallowed my objections and told him I would fix the tickets.

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Cue the malicious compliance. Over the next few weeks, me and my other tech went from 3-5 tickets a day, to close to 20 a day. I was walking through the field on one task and picked up a piece of trash that blew in? Stop and create a new ticket. I answered other techs question about the job he was doing while I was working on something else? Stop and log into that ticket. Broken zip tie? New ticket. Answer a text from my supervisor? New ticket. You get the idea.

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As you can tell from the title, this did not go how I was expecting. VP loved it. At the most recent monthly crew lead meeting, he absolutely gushed over how accurate our tickets were. How we set the new standard for how tickets need to be managed and everyone else needs to come up to our level. This was exactly what he wanted to see and wouldn't accept anything less.

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So yeah, sometimes malicious compliance will backfire and just make your life harder and make all your coworkers hate you. FML