Hopefully a good one for you. Sorry for any mistakes as English is not my first language. A few details are changed for anonymity.

I work at a niche retail store located in the heart of town. Our customers are dedicated and often travel from afar just to visit us, so having a clear and accessible parking lot is crucial for our business. Unfortunately, our next door neighbours, a family-run landscaping and garden supply store, have been a thorn in our side for years when it comes to parking.

The tension between my boss and the landscaping store owner goes back over a decade before I joined, all over something trivial. I know the landscaper once complained about a tree on our side of the lot, which was unsightly for their customers. It was the pettiest neighbour drama you could imagine, but it festered for years.

The final straw came after the ‘rona, when the physical business in town started picking back up and our parking lot started overflowing with cars again, many belonging to the landscaping store’s customers. See, our two parking lots are connected. Ours is about twice the size of his, but the landscaper had decided to reserve almost all his spots for his landscaping vans. Ironically, those vans are rarely even there during business hours. As a result, his customers just parked in our lot, leaving us with few spaces for our own customers.

My boss, trying to be reasonable, approached the landscaper with a suggestion. Maybe they could adjust their parking setup to free up a few more spaces for customers, and that their vans were welcome to park in our lot, if their lot was ever full. But the landscaper shot down the idea immediately, insisting that it was “absolutely crucial” to reserve all of those spaces for his vans, even though they were rarely there during the day. The conversation turned heated, ending with my boss threatening to put up a fence to separate the lots and enforce parking. The landscaper, practically daring him, shot back, “Go ahead.” Probably knowing how expensive that would be. As you can imagine, it ended with both men storming off and not speaking for two years. Typical neighbour stuff.

Fast forward to recently, and we got a golden opportunity when a parking management company approached us with a proposal. They offered to install automated license plate cameras to enforce parking, allowing us to fine vehicles that stayed beyond a generous 3-hour free window, if they hadn’t paid. The setup would be free, we’d get most of the revenue and they would keep any fines issued. It was perfect, especially since we were losing spaces to freeloaders, wouldn't really impact the customers of the nearby stores, and if anyone had a good reason to park there for longer, then we could give them an extension at our discretion.

However, for the cameras to work, they needed to cover both our entrance and the landscaping store’s entrance. Being the considerate neighbour (again), my boss had the parking company rep reach out to the landscaper to explain the deal and benefits. But true to form, the landscaper didn’t even let the rep finish before kicking him out, making it very clear very clear that, under no circumstances, would his lot become a paid parking zone.

Instead of going through the hassle of putting up the necessary expensive fence, my boss had a better idea: big rocks. One of his construction buddies had a stash of leftover rocks from a recent project and offered to place them for a great price. The parking company even agreed to front the cost, to be repaid through future parking revenue.

On Monday morning, before opening hours, one of the buddy’s employees, a big, burly guy with arms like tree trunks, arrived with a truck and crane to place the rocks. The rocks were neatly spaced to allow pedestrians to pass with carts but completely blocked vehicle access. The landscaper stormed out, yelling and trying to intimidate the worker into stopping. But the worker, unfazed, calmly told him to step back for his own safety, which made the much smaller landscaper back down and retreat in frustration.

The rocks weren’t just a physical barrier. They quickly became a mental obstacle for the landscapers’s employees. Their muscle memory kept bringing them into our lot, only for them to realize too late that they couldn’t drive through anymore. We watched from our newly installed surveillance cameras, just in case the neighbour tried anything, trying not to burst out laughing as their vans ended up awkwardly stuck. They’d have to reverse out and go all the way around to their own entrance, only to perform a series of painful maneuvers to squeeze into their now much smaller parking area. At one point, we even caught one of their rushing vans clipping a rock while trying to maneuver. A little bonus for our viewing pleasure.

The next day, the parking company arrived to install the license plate cameras and set up the signage, which took a few hours. Throughout the installation, the landscaper’s family members were prowling around our lot, snapping photos and videos as if they were on a mission to find a violation. But the parking company was very professional, and had done everything by the book, so there was nothing for them to report. In the meantime, my boss was positively glowing with satisfaction as he helped direct the installation.

Here’s the best part: We noticed that the neighbour's family had started parking their personal vehicles in our lot, likely out of spite to mess with us. One day, my coworker saw one of the family members dash out of their store and sprint to their car. We thought it was odd at the time but didn’t think much of it until the following week, when the landscaper’s son came into our store looking a bit embarrassed.

Apparently, he had accidentally overstayed the 3-hour limit and received a $150 fine. The son practically begged us to waive it, insisting it was just a simple mistake. My boss politely responded, “Oh, I’d really love to help, but it’s out of our control now. The parking company handles all the fines.”

The look on his face was priceless. He left, shoulders slumped retreating back to their store.

Ever since, our lot has been blissfully clear, and our customers have had no trouble finding spaces. Meanwhile, the landscapers have been grumbling as they have a harder time maneuvering their vans, still trying to pretend they’re not bothered. As for my boss? He’s been smiling a lot more lately.

Sometimes, the best revenge is simply letting people get exactly what they asked for.

TL;DR: Neighbouring landscaping store took up parking, refused to cooperate. We followed their instructions and blocked off our lot and set up parking enforcement cameras. Within a week, they got fined, and came begging us to waive it. Boss simply told them it’s “Out of our hands.” Now, our lot is clear, and we're happier than ever.

A key part of academic publication is peer-review. You send a paper out, it goes out for review, the reviewers provide comments to the editor/authors and it is published if the authors meet the requirements of the reviewers and editor (the editor has final word). It also happens that a big part of academic evaluation is whether your work is cited. This inserts a conflict of interest in the review process because a reviewer can request citations of certain work to support the claims, thus the reviewer can also request citations of the REVIEWERS OWN WORK. This boosts citations for the reviewer.

The editor should prevent this, but sometimes that doesn't happen (i.e., the editor sucks or is in on the racket). In this paper, apparently that happened. A reviewer demanded citations of their own (or a collaborators work) that were wholly irrelevant. So...the authors "complied":

"As strongly requested by the reviewers, here we cite some references [[35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47]] although they are completely irrelevant to the present work."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360319924043957

Hat Tip: Alejandro Montenegro

Edit for TL/DR.

Story takes place in the Latter half of 2022 in the UK. Names and company changed/not mentioned due to NDA and overzealousness on behalf of company.

Part One: The Issue Begins.

I worked at a major tourist attraction during this time, and we got thousands of customers every day. Part of our attraction was outside, and we had expanded part of the outside to accommodate new parts for the attraction. In order to blend with the theme of the new section, a brand new brick pavement was installed in the area.

Upper Management had at the time a tendency to not think things 100% through, and this was no different. The big thing was that it was decided NOT to install an anti-slip surface on the brick pavement. Now we were in the middle of Summer, and it was a particularly dry Summer, but nonetheless when it isn't dry we got a lot of rain and a lot of snow and frost. We need that anti-slip surface. We told Upper Management this, and as per usual, fell on deaf ears.

Winter comes far too soon, and with it all the rain that was meant for Summer and to make up for a dry Autumn. And the Winter of 2022 was bad for the UK. Temperatures fell to single digits, and then negative in the Celsius. With the cold came a permanent frost over the brick pavement, and the beginning of malicious compliance.

Part Two: The Compliance.

The first slips and falls heralded us to the idea. At the time the company required us to write in paper Accident and Incident Reports about everything if something bad happened. Now anyone whose worked in tourist attractions we've all seen kids fall from being too excited and we often do a polite to see if blood/gore/missing limbs are present, and if all is good we just ignore it. No one likes paperwork. Not to mention due to Upper Management's distaste for us we had to take the long way to the offices where the paper was to fill it in, and get someone to cover us while we filled it in. Upper Management hated us being in their special offices and not out with the paying customers.

It is worth mentioning in their defence, our Lower Managers and Middle Managers were on our side, because even THEY knew what Upper Management was doing was utter nonsense. So they saw what we were doing and agreed with it. What happened was every, single, slip, that occurred outside on the impromptu ice rink that was the brick pavement we would report. That's about 15-20 minutes of us, in the warmth, not freezing our butts off, writing about how someone had slipped in the exact same manner as the last 10 people, all in plain view of Upper Management. I liked to believe they began working from home more due to us being there in their office. I learned from one of our Lower Managers that is a dear friend that the stack of reports handed to Upper Management was measurable in inches. I do not regret saying I was one of the top 3 contributors to that pile.

Part Three: The Bare Minimum Response.

Upper Management finally began to make efforts to 'fix' the situation. They decided to just cordon off the vast majority of the brick pavement with temporary (ugly) barriers, and put down anti-slip mats to make a path for the parts of the attraction that they wanted visitors to walk in. They thought they had won. We knew better.

Anyone who has worked with tourists knows that tourists are a special breed of stupid. Told not to touch the very important items? They will touch. Told to keep their kids near and not let them wander off? I think the record for no lost kids was 4 hours. And so these barriers that everyone is required to respect? Well clearly it doesn't apply to me! Each time we told people not to go underneath these barriers they looked like deer caught in the headlights. And the barriers were just low enough that kids would duck under and run straight onto the ice and onto their butts. Even more Accident and Incident Reports rocked up as a result, and all Upper Management would do is tell us low barely-above-minimum-wage earners to do a better job policing this part of the attraction.

Part Four: Wake Up Call.

Schoolkids! Oh how we loathed schools, mostly teenager ones. Little kids no more than 5-10? Oh they were delightful, we were happy with them. The main reason was because the teachers, who are still responsible for the kids no matter what, actually followed our guidelines! So naturally we liked the little ones, and were genuinely more concerned for them than normal.

We all then had our moment of fear when it was reported that a 7 year old boy had slipped and fallen on the ice, no doubt having been playing with classmates and unintentionally not seeing where he was going. That didn't save his two front teeth chipping and a call for our on-site first aid team to come and help with the blood. Luckily he seemed alright beside the fact the tooth fairy was going to be paying double that night. But for us, Lower and Middle Management, it was the final straw. I wish I had taken a photo of that Accident and Incident Report for posterity, the number of people co-signing it.

Part Five: The Fallout.

Nobody wants a lawsuit and that kids parents had grounds to do so like nobodies business. The fact a child had been injured from negligence did not look good on Upper Managements part, and it wasn't as if they could pretend nothing had happened. Everyone had been telling them about the risk, and when it got to the Big Wigs, I can only imagine what was said.

Miraculously and within 2 days of the kid's teeth, they put an anti-slip surface on the brick pavement, at what was probably more of a cost than had they just done so in the Summer. The barriers were removed, and the number of paper Accident and Incident Reports dramatically decreased. They finally also got around to installing tablet devices with which we could fill in reports without needing to drop position. Our lives were made easier, they got an earful, and that kid probably has a fun story for when he's older and has kids himself.

I'd like to say Upper Management learned their lesson and took our words on board for future endeavours, but that is like expecting the dog to not poop on the carpet after the first time you shove their nose into it. I no longer work there for other reasons, and many of the people who joined in the act of Malicious Compliance have since gone elsewhere. But for nearly 3 glorious months, you had never seen a department work together like ours in that way before or since.

TL;DR: Management refused to properly prepare a pavement for winter, and didn't like us telling them to do so. Queue winter and 3 months of regular Accident and Incident Reports in front of them plus a kid losing his two front teeth later, and miraculously they found the money to treat the pavement.

I’m a high school English teacher. I have two major annoyances when it comes to kids doing work.

First, a lot of kids don’t read or listen to directions. Assignment instructions are written on their papers, and I read them out loud, but I still have students asking me “What are we doing?”

That’s no big deal, though - it’s a pretty normal thing to deal with as a teacher. The real issue bugging me is students cheating on writing assignments using ChatGPT. I’m pretty good at spotting AI-generated essays. But the problem is that when I try to accuse students of using AI, they deny it. They act outraged that I would accuse them even though we both know they’re playing dumb.

I usually just give them a zero and move on with my life, but there’s always the fear that one of them might take the issue to administration. If they did, I’m not confident that admin would back me up. It’s hard to prove something is AI-generated, and these days, the higher ups are more likely to side with the student.

So I hatched a plan. I gave an open-ended creative writing assignment. The directions said to “write a story about anything you want” and then answer some questions about the story you wrote.

The thing is, when you ask ChatGPT, “Tell me a story,” it always spits out the exact same story - about a girl named Elara who lives in the woods.

”Once upon a time, in a small village nestled between rolling hills and dense forests, there lived a young woman named Elara. She was known throughout the village for her curiosity and sense of adventure, always eager to explore the world beyond the familiar paths of her home.”

So, in slightly smaller print under the instructions, I wrote ”If your main character’s name is Elara, -99 points.”

Lo and behold, I got one or two kids turn in a story about a girl named Elara who lives in woods. When I turned back the papers with a grade of 1/100 (because I find that it stings more than a zero), the kids predictably asked why. And all I had to do was point to the instructions that they didn’t read. There was no need to mention AI. We both knew what they did.

Edit: for people saying they tried ChatGPT and got a different story/name, I don’t know why it’s inconsistent. All I know is that I get the same story every time, and so do my students. The paragraph I put in the post was copied from ChatGPT directly. I discovered all this when a student submitted that same story earlier in the year for a different creative writing assignment.

Right after dinner, my 3 year old asked to play video games. We started introducing him to some games, and he loves Sonic already. Since he behaved very well during the whole day, it was fair to let him play a bit, however we told him that first he should brush his teeth.

He, as a good toddler, immediately protested and asked to brush his teeth while playing. We kept telling him no, that he first need to brush and after he gets to play. After a quick back and forth, the following dialogue happened:

Lovey wife: - Bud, how would that work? You don't have enough hands to hold the controller and the toothbrush at the same time.

Him, with the logic and confidence of a 3 year old: - Yes I do!

Her: - No, you don't. You have two hands. You need two hands just for the controller and another one for the toothbrush.

Him: - I have three hands!

Her: - No, you don't.

Him: - Yes, I do.

Her: - You know what, if you show me you have three hands, I will let you play and brush your teeth at the same time.

Him: - OK.

Immediately leaves the couch and goes towards the dinning table. Grabs a sticky hand toy that he got for Halloween and brings it back.

- See, now I have three hands!

It was almost impossible not to lose it laughing, especially seeing the proud smirk in his face... He got to play the game while we brushed his teeth, as a reward for creative problem-solving.

Another post reminded me of this story.

My mother was a nurse. She worked in the same medical/surgical unit for almost 30 years. Every year a new set of Medical Residents would come through. They were mostly nice and eager to learn from everyone, including the nurses. However there is always an outlier.

One afternoon, one of the patients on the floor had an issue. I am not sure what it was, but it had to do with some treatment that a Resident ordered that was not agreeing with the patient. No problem, because this is not the first time this has happened in the history of this said treatment and there is a written protocol on how to make adjustments. The seasoned nurses have seen this before and have made changes to this order hundreds of times. T

The nurse in charge did the adjustment and all was well. However, when the prescribing Resident found out, she went batsh*t crazy, yelling at everyone about usurping her authority. Then she said that any changes to care for her patients had to be approved by her first.

Ok, game on.

For the next week, this Resident was paged for Every! Single! Solitary! Thing! especially when the Resident went on nap break during 36-hour shifts.

This went on for two weeks because the Resident complained to everyone thinking that people would side with her. When she saw that the Sr. doctors or her fellow Residents wouldn't back her up, she gave up and let the nurses use their judgment.

Never mess with the nurses/

In my early 30's, I (now 40F) worked for a university as a Project Manager. We were state funded, and therefore every nickle of spending had to be run through our department Accountant, who was not terribly well liked. She was very nit picky, would demand documentation on some expenses but not others, and would be very condescending when she "had" to send stuff back for correction (aka done to her liking, it had nothing to do with being incorrect). Rumor had it that she only got and stayed in her position because she was related to a board member. That being said, I got used to her shenanigans pretty early and just did my best to get my purchases through her as quickly as possible so that I could continue my projects.

About a year into my employment, I was handed a project that had been initiated by our Director. It was a 5 year training program that was described to me as "The Director's Baby." My Manager got it off the ground and then passed it to me to maintain for the remainder of the program. I threw myself into this program not only because I enjoyed what I did, but also the Director was cool as hell (I'm still friends with him on socal media) and I wanted the program to succeed for him.

I had a Project Coordinator that worked with me for detail stuff like ordering supplies and working with facilities (my focus was on budget, content, and working with the clients). After she and I had run several successful training sessions under this new program, we needed to order more supplies of standard training stuff like pens, note pads, name tags, etc. Something else we regularly used, per the Director's request, was boxes of tissues, which for some unknown reason was not something we could get from our office supply vendor. My Coordinator had been buying them in bulk at a warehouse store with her purchase card and then storing them in the basement, only taking what we needed for each training session.

When she went to submit the receipt for the new container of tissue boxes, the accountant lit into her about how tissues were not an approved purchase. Even when she showed the accountant an email from the beginning of the program showing that the director has requested tissues be provided to the participants, she stated that the Director didn't make or enforce the purchasing policy (which is technically true). When my Coordinator, who was normally a very bold and brassy lady, came into my office looking defeated and told me she was going to have to take the tissues back unless the accountant received "sufficient written justification", I got pissed.

I could have pushed the issue up the chain, but I didn't want to bother my Manager or the Director with this nonsense. Instead, I decided to do what I do best, be annoying. One thing I am good at is writing extremely detailed bullshit. I can elaborate on any detail, no matter how small. I'm especially good at it when I'm mad. So I popped myself down in front my computer and, in one go, wrote a five and a half page email (we did a print preview to see exactly how long it was) on why we needed boxes of tissues for this program. I never put in there "because the Director said so", but I listed off every other possible justification and then wrote a mini essay on each of those points. My Coordinator was sitting in the corner of my office giggling as she watched my hands fly over the keyboard.

I sent the email around noon. Just before quitting time, my Coordinator stuck her head back into my office to let me know that the tissue purchase had been approved in our system. I never got a reply to my email, the Accountant never said anything to me or my Coordinator, but my Coordinator never again got pushback on buying boxes of tissues.

I am staying at Japan. I don't speak Japanese.

I went down to the front desk at the hotel I'm staying at, and as I often did throughout this trip, pulled out my phone and asked Google Translate what time did breakfast start.

Clerk reaches for his phone that was charging in a nearby table, but his hand pauses midair. He glances at another clerk, returns to his seat at the front desk, types something in the computer and picks up at the printer.

He then hands me a printout from Google Translate's webpage saying "it starts at 6am"

Now that's an employee who has been scolded for using his personal phone during work if I've ever seen one!

About 10 years ago I have applied to work at a retail store selling different tech. It is a rather large chain in the UK and can get pretty busy, especially after 5pm or during holidays/sales. When I applied for a job I wanted to go to computing department as I was very passionate about different builds and had some experience in building my own PC, instead I was temporarily placed on white goods (fridges, washing machines etc) for training even after I have admitted I know absolutely nothing about them. But no, apparently this knowledge should have been inherited through my genes since I am a girl, so I must know about them and be very good. So I bit my tongue and waited as I needed money and was fresh out of uni.

About a few months in I have realised I am not going to be transferred to the computing department, no matter how much I wanted to. My sales were good but the managers wouldn't budge as they were scared I might advice something wrong.

It was a start of a school term and the store was getting petty busy. A couple came in wanting to buy a PC for their teenage kid to game on, I wanted to help them as a fellow gamer myself, but got rudely pulled back by my manager and was told unless we are assigned to a specific department, we are not allowed to help customers or advice them. So he fetched another colleague who carried on assisting the parents. As it was quiet in my department I was doing some tidying up around the store and heard the colleague trying to sell the parents one of the apple PCs saying they will be great for gaming and all professionals use them (at the time we had a bigger commission from apple brand). Let me tell you they are not the best machines for gaming and if you are into heavier games they are likely not going to run that well or be incompatible with the OS.

I don't know what else the colleague said, but the parents believed him and got an iMac for the kid. The manager was very proud of the colleague and told me to use him as an example of a good sale for the store. I have told him I could have topped it and the customer will come back with a return, but was told again not to go to computing department. Cue malicious compliance.

A few days later it was a busy day in the store, especially PCs due to back to school sale. A few people were off sick due to being overworked so the computing department had like 2 people on the floor, including the work colleague who sold the iMac. The parents came through the door with the pc they got, which usually means something broke down or they want to return it. They saw the guy who sold them the PC and started heading his way. He saw them too and decided it is time to go on lunch, leaving one colleague on the floor in the department.

The parents are visibly getting angry and try to go to the till, but after being in the queue are told to catch another colleague from the tech department as we can't process refunds at the till for large items.

The parents approach me as I don't have much to do and ask for help. I would be happy to do so, but remembering what the manager said I had to tell them I can't as I am not allowed to do anything with the pc department as it is a store policy. The parents approach more colleagues and keep hearing the same excuse. Obviously they are getting more and more angry so are other customers who want to buy something but can't since only people in computing department are allowed to sell stuff for computers. They try to grab the only person on the floor, but he is already busy with other customers and can't assist them while the other colleague responsible for the sale signed out for the day and the other is late. In about 20 minutes there's a massive queue by the tills of angry customers demanding to speak to the manager. The poor person at the till has no choice but to fetch the store manager and floor managers due to the amount of angry customers.

They are trying to shift the blame on us, other store colleagues, but I mention about what the other manager said about not touching anything in tech department or help customers as we are not authorised and since it is a company policy and we haven't received the training we have to comply. Of course it makes customers even more angry and feel like their time is wasted, resulting in a commotion by the tills and further delays for other customers.

I am unsure how the entire situation ended, as I was grabbed by an older lady to help her, but that day we had a lot of complaints on different websites about the policy and "store staff refusing to help as it is not their department" and we had a few "brainstorming" sessions after how to reduce complaints with none of the ideas taken on board.

You would hope they would learn something and change the policy, but no. They gave extra training to the people already in computing department and allowed other colleague to sell smaller items like mice, keyboards, consoles, games, printers but not the laptops or pc or vr, resulting in more complaints. Last time I have been there to buy my mum a new laptop (had a voucher) the situation seemed to have stayed the same, as we ended up waiting around 45 minutes for someone to push the sale through. At least I got a chance to complain to the store manager as well telling him everything I think about that store policy.

When I was in high school I wasn’t very good at writing essays in English. I knew all the concepts but flushing out a few pages of BS wasn’t something I could do in 45 minutes of class time.

For a few weeks we had a student teacher completing her Prac block. Knowing that kids circle substitute and student teachers like sharks she didn’t take any shit but overcompensated and more than a few of the kids in my class checked out or outright antagonised her. This just made her more hostile to the smart ass teenagers we were.

For me, check out was when I tried to answer a question about the use of a very specific term in a poem about WW1 soldiers. The author used “wheeled chair” instead of “wheelchair”. I put my hand up and gave some interpretation that made sense and I was always told there’s no wrong answers in these sorts of discussions. As a reward for participating I was treated to a fairly harsh “No. You’re wrong”… noted.

So we have to complete an essay on what we’ve learnt the last few weeks and the question is along the lines of “How did the author make you feel when reading (text)?”. Me, having mentally checked out of English class, not being good at that sort of thing and being the shitty kid I was wrote out a couple paragraphs summarising the message of the text and saying that I didn’t feel anything when reading it.

The next Monday we get our essays back and I’ve got a 5/25. More than I thought so those two paragraphs must have been pretty good. The prac teacher takes me outside and goes on about how she’s disappointed and I could have done better and how everyone else wrote two or three pages but I didn’t get half a page done. It all seemed pretty disingenuous to me because she hadn’t shied away from telling me or anyone else when we were wrong. She asked why I wrote that and I replied that I genuinely didn’t have an emotional reaction to it. Why lie? She then says I have the choice to either take the fail or rewrite the essay next class. “Ok, I’ll take the grade. No point wasting time”.

Her face dropped a bit and she took a while to reply “Really? Are you sure?” “Yep, I’m no good at this sort of thing remember. I didn’t get it right in class so why would that change overnight?” Defeated, she sent me back to class and went next door for a few minutes. A little while later I was called out again to speak with my actual teacher. She asked me why I didn’t think I could do better and what didn’t I understand about the question. After talking for a while she said that I will HAVE to retake the essay with a new text and question. One that was worded so I couldn’t just say “I didn’t”.

In the end I wrote around two pages and passed, just. The prac teacher was there for another two weeks or so and I noticed a few things. First, she didn’t react with outright contempt when someone gave an answer that wasn’t what she wanted. Second, she didn’t try try to play a game of wits against any more self sabotaging teenagers.

Bonus story about my actual teacher. She was younger and really nice but now that I’m older I think she was a one of those sensitive but naive sorts of people. We had to come up with a tv pilot episode and read it out to the class. One kid read out the first episode of Burn Notice word for word. Top marks and a heap of praise

My sibling is super awful sometimes. Said sibling not only sued me for control over my late parent’s estate, but they stole and sold off all kinds of belongings. They also did this while parent was alive. Stole, I mean. Sibling couldn’t be bothered to even bring parent a milkshake when they were dying. I had to relocate in order to care for parent. Sibling also tortures animals, mostly cats and did so to my own beloved fur baby who I had to send over the bridge shortly after parent died.

Anyways, moving on - just trying to paint the picture lest the reader think I’m an awful person for what happens next.

Sibling had agreed that I could have parents ashes and I let sibling have the flag that was presented for military service.

Suddenly many years after parent died sibling decided they wanted some ashes. I on the other hand feel strongly that the remains should remain intact. No pun intended. Also, it brings me peace and comforts me (as weird as that sounds) having remains nearby.

So, after much thought and discussion with a lot of awful words back and forth, I relented. Sibling even got family involved who don’t understand our dynamics & sided with sibling.

Anyways….sibling may or may not now have my late kitty’s ashes on their mantle and may or may not believe they are my parents.

Back in the dark ages my town public schools required females to always wear a dress or a skirt and blouse, even in the snowy New England winters. Froze my tush walking 1/3 mile to the bus stop and standing there waiting! Boys were supposed to wear dress pants and collared shirts.

In high school, Student Lockers were in the school corridor, and the rules said we needed to remove coats, boots and other outdoors/weather gear there before entering the other rooms. So I and some other female students hatched a plan. When it got cold we wore pants to school under our skirts - and removed them while standing or sitting in the public corridor.

Teachers and Principle got upset, but warm pants (corduroy, lined, wool etc., were specifically listed in the manual - they were of course thinking of the boys!) qualified as weather gear. When they said to go to a bathroom to change, I pointed to the student rulebook saying weather gear had to be removed before entering the other rooms. More and more girls copied us, and they hated girls maybe accidentally flashing underwear while changing (it could even accidentally happen pulling down pants worn over skirts, and pants crushed the required neat appearance of the skirts), so we won the battle - pants instead of skirts were allowed all day in winter.

Which we then stretched to rainy days in spring (half the days, in MA) and finally they gave up. We could choose to wear pants any day. Which soon devolved to jeans and such for everyone.

A couple of years ago I worked customer support for an investment and pensions dept of a larger company. Basically, answer the phone and help customers who don't understand something about their account or need to access features usually reserved for their accountant.

I had only been with the company about 3 months, had finished my training, and recently been cleared to take calls unmonitored. But a supervisor was still listening back to 3 or 4 of my calls each day, just to check.

It was coming to the end of the tax year, so the lines were super busy open to close, but a lot of the calls I was taking were for pension or ISA withdrawals or deposits, so all I had to do was check a few details then drop the customer in the call queue for the relevant dept. Due to the high volume and relative simplicity of these calls, I was answering 20-30 a day. After a week or so I got a message from my team leader telling me I was taking too many calls, so the number he was checking wasn't a high enough percentage to be indicative of my performance. Ok, fine. Starting the next day I would take a call, pass the customer on, then sit and twiddle my thumbs for ~an hour, all while the queue is getting longer and longer (we're talking 2-3 hours on hold), then take another call and repeat.

Fast forward another couple of weeks and I have a perforated review with my team leader. He says that my verification of customer identities isn't up to scratch with company standards. I explain that 1. I am meeting the standards that were laid out in our training and that all further advice and guidance had been completely contradictory, or so vague as to be meaningless. He tells me that when I come in tomorrow I need to log in, mark myself as 'in training' (so I won't receive any calls), and wait to hear from him about next steps. So the next morning I log in to my work laptop and wait to hear from him. For 5 days, I sat in my spare bedroom/office playing video games, all while logged in, marked as 'in training', and waiting till hear from my team leader.

The next week, I get a message from a manager 2 or 3 steps above my team leader asking why I haven't taken a single call in 5 days. I explain what my team leader told me, sent screenshots of emails etc, and said that I was waiting to hear back. She said she would look into the situation and get back to me. Cue another week of video games and naps on company time.

I ended up getting made redundant and taking the balance of my annual leave before anything got resolved because the company outsourced 90% of the call handling to India, but those 2 weeks were great!

On mobile so standard apologies for formatting and English being my first language.

Tdlr; New boss insists I follow every company policy to the letter, so I do—and bring the entire office to a grinding halt.

A few years back, I worked in a corporate office where things ran pretty smoothly… until our new boss, Mr. Micromanage (Mr. M), arrived. Mr. M was obsessed with one thing: following company policies. He didn’t care if policies were outdated, inefficient, or outright absurd—if the rule existed, you had to follow it perfectly. And he loved catching people not complying.

One Monday morning, he called a meeting to lecture us on “policy adherence.” He ended his speech with, “If it’s in the manual, you follow it. No exceptions.” I’m not a fan of being micromanaged, but hey, rules are rules, right?

I knew that our company’s policy manual hadn’t been updated in years, and some policies were… questionable. So, I decided to have a little fun.

One of the most outdated rules was about how to handle printed documents. According to this gem, any printed company document—no matter how minor—needed to be reviewed and stamped by our “Document Compliance Officer” before being distributed. Oh, and guess what? That position had been eliminated in a round of budget cuts two years ago. But hey, Mr. M said no exceptions.

The next day, I printed out a standard quarterly report that everyone in the office needed. When people asked for it, I told them, “Sorry, I can’t distribute it until it’s been reviewed and stamped.” I sent an email to Mr. M asking where I could find the nonexistent Document Compliance Officer. He came storming over to my desk, confused.

Mr. M: “Just send out the report!” Me: “I’d love to, but as per company policy, it needs to be reviewed and stamped first. Where should I send it?” Mr. M: Pauses and glares “Just… follow the policy.”

I nodded enthusiastically and let it be. Word spread quickly, and soon everyone in the office was “complying” with every arcane policy in the manual.

Karen from HR? She started enforcing the dress code policy that required all employees to wear “business formal attire” at all times. Suddenly, everyone was showing up in suits and ties, and people in accounting were running spreadsheets in cocktail dresses.

Jake from Marketing? He made sure to send a request to Mr. Micromanage every time he needed to make a 10-cent photocopy, as per the ancient policy that “all expenditures, no matter how minor, must be approved by management.”

By the end of the week, the entire office was a disaster. People were wasting time and resources, projects were delayed, and everyone was cranky from wearing stiff, formal clothes. Mr. M tried to reprimand us, but we just kept saying, “Sorry, sir. Just following the policies, like you said!”

It only took one week of chaos for Mr. M to call another meeting, where he begrudgingly told us to “use common sense” instead of following every single policy. He even promised to update the manual.

And that, my friends, is how our office turned into a temporary circus of hilarious compliance—until our boss finally learned that some rules are meant to be bent.

Another post reminded me of this gem.

My old company manager would always ask for a sick note from your doctor.

It’s about $50 from my GP. I was at his office when my boss “Mary” called me to make absolutely sure I had a sick note. I had a two company credit cards one for internal use (tools etc.) and one for external use (billed to clients). Neither would work at my doctors office. I called Mary back:

Me: my company credit cards aren’t working

Mary: use your own and file an expense report

Me: no I’m not here to lend money to a multi million dollar company.

Mary: fine use mine.

Medical secretary: we can’t take credit cards over the phone.

Mary: them you won’t be paid for today.

Me: send that by email right away please.

Mary: sends it.

Me: replies to email I’ll need a union day to file a grievance as you refusing to pay me is against our collective agreement. There is NOTHING in our collective agreement stating that I need a note for one day, it's for three consecutive days. I’ll also need a second union rep as I can’t represent myself.

Union days for grievance can’t be refused for any reason unless there’s a catastrophic event.

Mary: (calls me back) fine I’ll pay you.

Me: no, the violation has already occurred and the grievance demand filed, we are proceeding with this.

Mary: but

Me: my union rep will be in touch.

For 8 hours pay, and want of a sick note

Me plus other union rep 4 hours to prepare plus 2 hours travel each. 12 hours unpaid. 4 hours each to present the grievance. Grievance was won at the first stage. So I got paid my 8 hours, but they company had to pay 20 man hours out of pocket (unbillable to client) because Mary was enforcing her own rules outside the collective agreement, as a "management right".

I was maliciously complying with our grievance process which I brought up during the presentation.

Bonus content: Mary stated that what was written in the collective agreement was open to interpretation and she was correct and I was wrong. I asked her to flip to the last page of the PDF, she did.

Me: who had signed the contract?

Mary: VP of HR, National Union Rep, VP operations, Matthew, and... YOU the VP of your union accreditation

Me: so what you're saying is you, who wasn't at all present during the negotiations knows more about the contract I've negotiated for the last three renewals?

Mary: this meeting is over I'll have my answer emailed to you within 7 days.

Me: you have 3 business days as per our collective agreement which you know so well, I'd hate to file yet another grievance for non compliance.

A few months ago I booked a return ticket to a nearby town over a busy holiday weekend. I wanted to do a little cycling over the weekend so I phoned the bus company before the day of departure to check if I could take a bicycle with me. They confirmed that I could so long as I arrived at the bus station half an hour early.

On the trip down they loaded my bicycle into the baggage hold, even opening up a special side hatch to make it easier to get it in. So I enjoyed a few bike rides while I was down there.

Come the day of my return and it's belting rain. I get to the bus station half an hour early but sopping wet. Considerate as I am, I purchase some paper towels to wipe down my bike so it won't dampen anyone else's luggage.

Then the bus arrives. I go straight over to the baggage loading area and ask the guy if I can put my bike in. He replies, "No." Do I need to wait? No, he's just not going to let my bike on. At all.

So I spend a quarter of an hour arguing with the guy, as the clock ticks towards departure time. I tell him the bus company has already confirmed I could bring my bike, but that does not move him. He keeps telling me there's no space in the hold, even though I can see there's space in the hold.

Now this is a Sunday and I have work the next day. And it's the end of a holiday weekend so I might not be able to get a seat on another bus, even if they refund me my money. And nobody's talking about a refund.

Finally, departure time has arrived. I yell out, "Well, head office said I could take it on the bus, so I'm taking it on the bus."

And I hoick my bicycle in the air and step up into the passenger section of the bus and start making my way to my seat. Now, my seat was booked for the upper deck, so I also have to hoick my bike up the narrow spiral staircase to the upper deck, which I do.

My bicycle is XL size so, all things considered, I'm astonished how limited and shallow the scratches were that I left on the plastic finishes of the spiral staircase as I went up.

Amazingly, no-one made any move to stop me, and the passengers on the upper deck all came onto my side, helping me to secure the bicycle and making no complaint about having to squeeze past it, even though it almost entirely blocked the corridor.

Every now and then the conductor would come up to check our tickets, see the bicycle blocking the way, and turn away defeated. Every time he did so, I made sure to say loudly to my fellow passengers, "I dunno, to me it would have made more sense to put it in the hold, but it's their bus, they make the rules." And the other passengers would agree with me.

The bike and I got home safely.

This is one going back a few years but it's one that made me chuckle when I remembered it.

As we live in a busy estate, we are in a prime position for door to door callers. Usually they were fine, polite and if I was happy to listen to their pitch then great and if not, they were pretty good about hearing "no" and leaving me be.

In our house, all the utility bills are in my name because I am the financial person in the house hold and by mutual agreement, the one who knows how many beans make five when it comes to deals and offers. Therefore, I decide our provider each year and negotiate the best offers. I know the exact date we come out if contract and am generally organised in swapping suppliers. Sometimes I do this with the D2D salesperson and other times online or via phone.

It just so happened one year that we had a D2D salesperson knock in for a utility that was pretty close to its contract end date. He immediately started his pitch with "Good afternoon, is the Man of the House there?" Now, straight away that rubbed me up the wrong way. I answered no and he proceeded to ask me when he would be home. I mentioned that he was at work but he was welcome to call back after 5pm when "The Man of the House" would be home. The salesperson wrote this down in his book nodded at me and left.

Sure enough, he called back after 5pm and spoke to the very irritated Man of the House who asked the salesperson why he didn't speak to me about all this. The salesperson back pedaled so quickly and asked if I was there. Sadly, I was out and wouldn't be back until late but he was welcome to call over again tomorrow and see if I would speak to him.

As it so happens, I did speak to him the next morning. With a beaming smile and a smug of tea in my hand, I thanked him for reminding me to check my offers and I haf switched online to his company a couple of hours before he arrived. Then I waved him a cheery goodbye.

I believe that would have cost him two sales, as I switched gas and electricity.

This was a few years back. After over a decade of doing a complex job, above average - getting many compliments/letters of thanks. My new boss was irritated at me interrupting.

My role was everything the technical people didn't do (trash duty/phones/conference room/ calendars/contracts/finance/training/facilities/purchasing/equipment .... ETC). It was realistic to say that a couple times a day some wildfires (often technical work stoppages) needed the boss' input. This, even after I headed off many problems before they reached his attention.

About a couple weeks in, he told me that under no circumstance was I to interrupt any conversations he was in and like a good little boot licker, the second in charge added that he too was tired of my interruptions too and needed to stop.

As karma would have it, not even a day later, both of them were deep into a conversation about baseball (absolutely nothing to do with work and normally I would have interrupted). They both saw me multiple times and didn't ask what I needed. I waited patiently with pleading eyes, while they stretched out their conversation. After a few minutes, I started shifting foot to foot (probably looked like I needed to use the bathroom) and yet they didn't stop.

FINALLY, when they soaked up all the fun they could and ran out of baseballs things to say - the boss in a very snarky tone asks if there is something I needed him for.

"Yes, sir! Your boss's boss (Mr. Nameless Here) is waiting on the phone (I could see the blinking phone line from where I was standing, and he was indeed still waiting) and he needs to speak to you right now".

Not one smirk or iota of disrespect from me but I did leave to use the bathroom even though I didn't need it. *Policy cancelled right after that call*. LOL

Years ago, I moved into a new apartment while studying abroad. The landlord was... well, let’s just say he was a real shark. The guy had a dozen properties rented out to students and a reputation for squeezing every last penny out of his tenants. By coincidence I ended up dating a fellow student who happened to rent from him in the next building over, and who moved out six months in, so I had advance warning of what to expect on move-out day.

When she moved out, she had broken a single plate and lost a fork, so somehow got charged for an entire new matching set of plates and cutlery. She even replaced the plate and fork herself, but that wasn’t good enough for Mr. Sharklord. No, he insisted on billing her for a full “brand new set”. Of course, she learned later from her ex-flatmate that he only replaced the missing items and pocketed the difference! Imagine the profit accumulating over the years over a dozen apartments, when for every student you charge the price of a new set, but actually only buy one replacement set for one fork here, one glass there, pocketing the difference. Not just shady, but utterly petty.

Now, when myself and my best friend had moved in, Landlord proudly tells us about the “brand new mattresses” in our rooms. A year later, when my friend was moving out, we did a massive deep clean, left the place sparkling, and made sure to replace anything missing. But of course, during the inspection, the landlord “found” issues. Surprise, surprise: he deducted and withheld my friend's entire deposit, mostly on the basis of the mattress being (slightly) stained and needing replacement.

My friend was understandably fuming. But then we had a thought. If he was charging us for a “new” mattress, then my friend had technically just paid for this one... so, technically, it was his! And, equally technically, it just wouldn't be considerate to leave personal belongings cluttering up the Landlord's apartment after he moved out, would it? Moving out means moving out...

He couldn’t take the mattress on the plane, obviously, so we hauled it down to a nearby park, where some local homeless people hung out, and “donated” it. Fast forward a few days: I’m still in the apartment and about to move out shortly, my friend’s already gone, and I hear the landlord arrive to show the room to a new tenant. I hear the bedroom door and then... Rage! “Where the f*** is the mattress? I have to F****** buy a new one!?!”

I almost lost it right there. But I held my composure, played dumb, and listening to him fume.

And a few days later, when it was my turn to leave? Oh, I knew I was getting nothing back from my deposit. And I too was going to take ALL of my personal belongings with me. So I took everything I had “paid” for - the mattress, plates, cutlery, glasses, even the lightbulbs. The friendly neighborhood hobos made out like kings.

Just read a post about sick leave policy backfiring and wanted to post my own story about it.

Old work friend, we will call him “Jessie” is a retired US marine. Guamanian, chill as hell, and unfuckwithable. He was the coolest guys you’d ever meet, personable and worked hard. Can’t say enough good things about him.

Our supervisor was brand new, and one of these perpetual “yes men”. Anything the middle and upper management mentioned even in passing was holy gospel for this guy. I tell you his lips were brown, he did everything in his power to kiss the starfish. Regardless of the impact on everyone’s personal life, or work environment, it didn’t even register with this guy. Zero foxes given for his people, just whoever was above him.

Jessie, being older, was looking at retirement. Between the Corp and his civvie job he was done doin a 9-5. He was beginning to have health issues, and had frequent doctors appointments. Right around the holidays, everyone wants to take leave, and we have a 50% staffing policy pretty much across the board at work. No more than half of our shop can be off at the same time. So it gets pretty cutthroat around thanksgiving and xmas. Everyone wants to flounce out for the holidays.

New boss, wants to be the personal savior of everything company. Tells everyone that we are gonna do a 75% staff instead, and proceeds to shut down all of our leave slips.

Que everyone getting “sick”

Boss gets mad and demands doctors notes for all sick days, appointments, anything outside of work.

Well, we all have pretty good insurance, so a 25$ copay is now a “day off bounty” and there is pretty much a mutiny in the shop over this asshats continuous stream of stupid policy.

This hits Jessie especially hard. He’s got a host of shit breaking down in his old body. After about the sixth or seventh time the new boss verbally dresses down Jessie for taking excessive sick time, he snaps. You want notes? You got em. He went through the union contract and discovered that documentation doesn’t have to be from an actual doctor. Need a day because you felt sick? All you need per the union contract is a receipt for a bottle of Tylenol. Dentist appointment? The reminder note for your next appointment. The crown jewel of the shenanigans was his colonoscopy. Jessie got the proctologist to screen shot a picture of the inside of his colon, and used it as his “note”. He retired a champion. Place isn’t the same without him.

Ok here's a small but extremely satisfying one.

I needed some tee shirts screenprinted for a little horsey summer camp I ran. Logo, summer Camp, and campers name or for staff- their role; Lunger, Coach, etc.

Went to a big chain store that offers this, I've used them multiple times before and they are great and usually about 10€ per shirt, with logo name etc. and get it done while I browse the store.

For some reason I went to get the ticket/estimate and it's quoted at 32€ per shirt (just for screenprint, I'd bought the shirts already) so I ask for a price breakdown.

10e for the logo 10e for one line text (name or role) 10e for another line of text ( ______Summer Camp 2024) 2e to do it right away (no other orders are in attente/queue)

I say woah woah, pull up the company site and say I would like this service, where we 'design' the shirts and then one logo is printed that includes names and Camp name and line logo (this is all one color, minimalist line logo) and its this listed price (like we usually do) and the employee wasn't having it. I can absolutely respect that, let's go by the book, to the letter.

So I said no thank you, went onto Instagram, pulled up like I was making a story and put the logo, name/role and the Summer Camp Name and then saved it like an image. Vectorized it on my phones little photo editing and saved

Did that for each camper plus the Coach and the Lunger. Sent all the images to the Store's workshop email

So one logo (which includes text as part of the logo but the file is technically a vector picture/image) for each person, and what do you know, it's actually only 8€ for a "picture only" and non urgent print! And all this time I'd been paying 10. My satisfaction was palpable, as I stated "ok I want THIS logo on this size shirt, this logo for that shirt" etc etc.

And no I don't want it rushed. Oh I'm the next order in the queue? Perfect. Compliance (or being a stickler?) saved me money and felt really good

I (22M) am the primary caretaker of one of my family members. Among other chronic illnesses, she is a diagnosed narcissist with early dementia.

As per my family's request, I moved with her and took an online job as a trilingual translator to ensure I would be there 24/7 should she have an emergency. Somehow, she has interpreted my constant presence as me not having a job, despite me explaining several times that I did, in fact, work. She went to the point of stealing my ID and debit card, saying she would not be giving them back to me unless I gave out resumes where she told me to. I have searched the whole house and couldn't find them so I was forced to comply.

I have a huge amount of respect for people who work in these fields, but I am not taking a job as a cleaner or a cashier when I work in my field of choice. That's when I noticed all the places she was forcing me to send out resumes to were requesting a cover letter.

This is where the malicious compliance takes place. I took an already written cover letter and changed some details so it'd be like I wrote it myself. I made her read it and approve it as per her request, then added the following sentences in my second paragraph:

"If this letter arrives on your desk, please know that this application has been sent without my consent. Already having an online full-time job, please do not take it into consideration."

As you can imagine, I didn't get called back much. Only one place sent me an email, and once I explained the situation their HR team wished me luck with my situation and told me this motivated them to read cover letters more carefully.

At the same time, I contacted my boss. I knew they sometimes open in-office positions and my boss is one of the nicest people I know, so I contacted her and asked if there was any way I could get the next in-office position, telling her why exactly I was asking that. I've been working there for 6 months and she never had any complaints about me, so she sent me a permanent contract starting in January 2025 for their office. It's overseas, in a country where I'm legally allowed to work without a work visa.

I won't specify which country, since I have the intention of disappearing there. My flight is already booked, and only my best friend knows what is going on. I have a letter already written out where I tell my family to not warn the authorities. As soon as I land my bank account will be closed and my phone subscription cancelled, and after 5 years, I will ask to become a citizen in that country and won't renew the paperwork necessary to prove my citizenship in my birth country.

I have 3 younger siblings, all of them are still in middle school. They have their own email addresses that our parents don't know about, so I will send them an email telling them this is not their fault and that they're the only ones in the family who are allowed to contact me. I'll also add that I will answer to any questions they have once they turn 18.

I'm excited. I'm excited to start a new life, I'm excited to get out of this family who has been the source of most of my problems for my whole life. I'm excited to finally escape toxic people in a toxic environment that was destroying my mental health. Only two months left and after 22 long years of waiting I'll finally be free. All of this because my last straw was forcing me to send out job applications.

Note: English is not my first language.

I’ve been working in my field for a while, and I’ve always taken pride in doing a thorough, reliable job. I’m a high performer and had a solid track record with my previous bosses, who valued quality and consistency. But then Eric became our new boss, and things took a hard turn.

Eric was all about efficiency. He came from a startup environment where things didn't need to be perfect, just right AND fast! He wanted things done fast—even if it meant cutting corners. In meetings, he’d throw around phrases like, “Time is money!” and “Every second counts!” Sure, efficiency is important, but Eric took it to an extreme. He didn’t care about the quality of our work; he just wanted it done now. Nuances, quality checks, and double-checking went right out the window.

Then, he decided to implement a “Time Tracking and Output” policy. This meant logging every task we worked on with specific time limits. Anything taking longer than his arbitrary limits was flagged, and we’d have to explain ourselves in weekly “efficiency reviews.” Essentially, the new rule was: don’t need to do it completely right—just do it fast.

I tried explaining to him that rushing through things would lead to mistakes, but Eric insisted this would “maximize productivity.” Frustrated but willing to play by his rules, I decided I’d give him exactly what he asked for. If Eric wanted speed, I’d deliver speed.

I stopped double-checking everything. Tasks that normally took an hour to review and refine? I was now completing in 15 minutes, barely glancing at them. Documents that required analysis? I’d throw some data together and call it a day. Anything that usually got a thorough review now only got a quick, single pass—tops.

Naturally, errors began cropping up. Typos, incorrect numbers, misplaced data, bad presentations—mistakes were popping up everywhere. But technically, I was working exactly within Eric’s time limits. Eric was thrilled with how much faster I was working and started bragging in meetings about how “efficient” our team had become.

Then the clients started to notice. One of our biggest accounts found a major error in a document I’d whipped together at record speed. That led to an awkward phone call with Eric. More issues came up, and after about two weeks of “optimized efficiency,” I got called into his office with his boss.

Eric, visibly irritated, asked me why the quality of my work had taken such a nosedive. I calmly explained that I was meeting all of his time limits, exactly as instructed. I told him that quality work requires time, which I simply didn’t have under his new policy.

Eric sat there in silence, realizing his policy had backfired. His boss stared at him, completely stunned and red in the face. After an awkward pause, Eric muttered about “re-evaluating” the time limits on tasks. The “efficiency” policy quietly disappeared soon after.

Now, I’m back to doing my job properly. Eric's under performance review and his boss is closely involved with all our operations, especially with big clients. Why reinvent the wheel when things are working fine? And why try to rein in the high performers to stamp your authority?

This one comes from my old man's days working at Ford. The usual policy for them and I'm sure for most of you out there, is a single day off does not require a medical note, but multiple days in a row or those before and after a public holiday do. A new manager decided to cut down on those employees who would take a "sickie" every so often, he would put in place the policy that even a single day off sick would require a medical certificate.

What happened was people would comply with this request, but now rather than one day off to relax, people would take a whole week off. You see doctors out here are pretty relaxed and just ask you how many days you want off when writing a certificate. We also get 14 days sick leave per year. The new policy turned that one day off into 5dayitis. After a little while of this, the policy was rescinded.

Oddly enough this raised it head again at my first workplace. The new manager was happily telling us how every single day off would require a certificate. I pointed out this story from my old man's days at work. His new policy lasted less than 2 hours.

I know we all hate telemarketers but these can I buy your house folks push me to a new level of annoyed.

They used to give out a fake company name and say home builders Inc or something. I ended up googling it and got in contact with the actual owner of that company I believe he was out of MN. He told me that there's a company in Egypt of all places, that sells sales leads to American companies slipping by the legality of combing through public records for personal information. He told me to get at the American companies, I'd need to pretend to be interested in selling my house and wait for the call from the US based company and confront them. So that's what I did. After giving some vague info that was incorrect to the Egyptian caller I did eventually get matched and called from someone in northern Ohio. When I explained I knew what he was doing and that it wasn't legal, he eventually hung up on me and blocked me. I called from a few different numbers until he disconnected his line. Small win but not the story I came to tell.

The calls haven't stopped so trolling is my new favorite thing. I constantly beat them to the punch and ask to buy their house, ask them how Egypt is or what the pyramids are like. I've tried to order pizza, put them on hold to see how long they'd last, or just change the subject completely.

My biggest win was when they ask do you have any other properties to sell, I said infact I do. 1600 Pennsylvania avenue, District of Columbia. A very famous address here in the states, somehow my Egyptian caller wasn't familiar with it and took all my information. Regrettably I didn't have amazing information, but I did tell him it had a fenced in yard, ton of extra bed rooms, an big round office and top notch security system.

Two days later I got a call.

"Not sure who you are but we'll played. I've been laughing for the last half hour. How did you convince them you owned the white house."

The first gentleman that called got the joke. He congratulated me and we had a laugh and he hung up.

An hour later I got another call from someone who wasn't laughing.

"I'm trying to figure out why I got a sales lead on the white house"

Well that's because people in Egypt, where you buy your illegal sales leads, don't know shit about America.

"Yeah well I don't think it's funny"

Well that's tough because I think it's hysterical. Not only did you waste money on a useless sales lead now I'm wasting your time.

He told me to go fuck myself but I'm not mad.

Does anyone else have any famous addresses I should sell?

This happened while I was in the Army stationed in South Korea April 95 - April 96.

Senior enlisted were throwing a going away party for the outgoing First Sgt. Top was cool and all, but I was a PFC with no interest in going.......

Until we were informed if you didn't buy a ticket you were shanghied into working "special duty" for the event.

Tickets were based on your rank, E4 and below were $2.00.

Cue malicious compliance....bought a ticket just to get out of working "special duty" for this BS "hey you detail".

Got dismissed from formation, changed into civies, made an appearance, ate some buffet food, and dipped out.

Best two bucks I ever spent to get out of a detail.

This story is called "The Unpromotables".

Important backstory: In the USA, Government jobs are under the Civil Service System. This is supposed to ensure that Government jobs are given out "based on what you know, not who you know." For example, to get a job as an entry-level accountant, one would need to meet the minimum qualification of a Bachelor of Science in Accounting. Periodically, a test would be given for that position. The people who score highest on the test are first in line for jobs. This uses "The Rule of Three." The job is supposed to go to one of the three highest scoring candidates who agree to accept the job if offered. Promotion examinations are held the same way.

Needless to say, managers and politicians HATE this.

There was a group of employees at my State agency who took every promotion exam we were qualified for. And generally got top scores on all of them. We all had excellent work records, and even awards for productivity, innovation, and "going the extra mile." None of us had any black marks in our personnel files other than maybe a "counseling memo." That is basically a slap on the wrist, less than a formal writeup- "Boss told employee not to do X ever again."

However, we had problems like use of offensive language. We said inappropriate things like "Why are we doing this this way? This is awkward and inefficient! We can streamline this process!" Bosses don't like this kind of language.

We also brought offensive materials into the workplace. Such as "Look at this. It says right here in Chapter X, Section Y of Z State Law we're doing this wrong!" Bosses don't like this either.

So now we have a group of highly qualified, motivated employees sitting on top of the promotion lists. The people the bosses wanted to promote were lower on the lists. But if three of us applied, were interviewed and said "Yes" then the job legally had to be given to one of us. We got to know each other because the lists were available to employees. We started with calling each other- "Did you apply for X promotion?" We sort of became a support group. We'd even meet for lunch or drinks after work sometimes, and called ourselves "The Unpromotables."

Then we realized something. Why are we only applying for jobs we want? This is where the Malicious Compliance comes in. The bunch of us started applying for every promotion we were on the list for. No matter how bad the job, how mean the boss, how toxic the office, no matter what the duties- we all applied. And when asked if we'd accept the job if offered, we all said yes.

We heard through the grapevine that this was driving management insane. Their teacher's pets and brown nosers wanted promotions. But we were blocking them. Whenever management tried something shady, they quickly found out that all of us knew our rights under State Civil Service Law backwards and forwards. It was both funny and frustrating to see management leave a position unfilled rather than give it to any of us. This was also not popular with the employees in those offices, who now had to pick up the slack from the vacant position (which was above their pay grade) as well as their own, with no increase in pay.

I was actually offered a promotion once, and the hiring manager had started onboarding me- but the big boss over both offices shot it down, because they didn't want to lose me from my old position. That boss blocked my promotions for over a decade.

Sorry this doesn't have a happy ending. That was still the status quo when I took early retirement the second I turned 55. Was planning on working longer, but 30+ years of a steady diet of toxic crap was drastically affecting my physical and mental health.

Permission to read on YouTube, permission to edit for grammar and spelling.

EDIT: Thanks to everybody who responded. Hearing that this happens to other people really gave my self-esteem a boost, and will help with my healing journey.

Dang, really s***s to be so accultured to have negative opinions of mental health care that I hesitated to type "healing journey."

I workin Arizonas Hometown Grocers’ meat department. I love most of my customers. Some of them, not so much. This is about one of those guys.

Trout-hat Terry comes in to the meat department, looking around in a manner that I could only describe as inspectorial. Like he was agreeing or disagreeing by nodding or shaking his head with every thing he looked at. A flurry of eyebrows and shoulders.

He comes to me as I greet him with my usual “hey how’s it g-“ then he spits right into his spiel.

“Yeah I wann THAT piece, can you see it?!”

Very abrupt and unnecessarily adversarial, plus I’m terrible at meat-plinko, where I have to figure out what he’s pointing at using a one hundred twenty degree angle that needs adjusting for our difference in height.

I’m thinking “dude you can poke the glass as hard or as woodpeckery as you want I still don’t know which one “. It’s the same thing with my other job when I’ve gotta get a pack of obscure cigarettes I just put my finger someplace and they say higher lower lefter or righter. Easier game for both of us.

Anyway we finally get through the beef gauntlet when I throw it atop the scale. Every time I put meat on the scale , I put it on a mini individual wax paper. I had another one I grabbed it with and it was on top of the meat as I weigh him out and print the ticket.

He waits til the ticket is printed and meat wrapped and in his hand to say

“Hey!,, do it Coreckly coorrrrrre eckkkkkkly.”

I look at him, the way my dog did the first time he heard me fart. Just head cocked trying to figure out what just happened.

“You put an extra paper on the scale you made it weigh more redo it. Make it correckly! Corr reck- lyyy”

I guess he didn’t like the price

I was going to do what I usually do in this case and show him that the paper is literally weightless and doesn’t change the scale when I saw a glorious opportunity. I saw that the code was wrong that I put in like wayyy wrong to his benefit

I easily could have typed in the same code I did before but I decided to apply my MC card

“Oh crap I put this in as ny strip instead of filet man my bad good call! “

I wrapped it happily and handed it to him with an Aaron Rodgers booger eating grin on my face.

“26 bucks jeezus! Well I guess I deserved that ha”

Nice to see a guy take it in stride, after I final,y entered the weight correckkly.

TLDR- got my meats mixed up.

I was at the drive through of a coffee place in Canada that is named after a hockey player (who is far more famous for his donuts). I pulled up to the speaker and started to order my drink, donut and the pack of hockey cards that I seem to be addicted to buying.

“Could I have an XL tea with two milk,” I started my order, already wondering what card I’ll pull.

“Drive up.”

Now I knew, logically, the person on the other end was being impatient, and had assumed I only wanted a drink. But I’m tired of the phrase “sorry, I’m not done with my order yet,” so I drove up.

The cashier told me my total and handed me the debit machine and was surprised when I said that I also wanted cards and a donut. I think the kicker was when I said “I assumed he couldn’t hear me so told me to drive up and finish my order.”

It was a minor inconvenience for them, and didn’t add more than half a minute to the wait behind me. I’m sure they won’t learn anything from this, either.

While not completely malicious, it's close enough that it won't be out of place here & i'm sure you will all get a chuckle.

A few years back I worked at an IT company & one day the boss decides to buy everyone lunch, so Myself (M) & one of the other guys & girl from the office head up to pick up the order of 20 odd burgers & chips etc. When we get back to the office building, we are on the 7th floor & there are 2 elevators, both of which are available in the lobby. She says to me "race you up" to which I reply "what are you, a child?"

The 3 of us get into one of the elevators, I quickly hit the buttons for every floor & jump out before the doors shut.

I beat them up there by a few minutes, & im giving the boss his burger, their elevator opens & she calls me a dickhead from across the office. Boss is like WTF, & I told him what happen and he pissed himself laughing.