I work as a senior database administrator for a mid-sized tech company. When 2020 hit, our entire department went remote. We crushed our metrics, rolled out major infrastructure upgrades ahead of schedule, and saved the company a fortune in operational costs. For six years, my setup worked like a charm.

Then, a new VP of Operations was hired.

This guy is a classic "butts-in-seats" manager. Two weeks ago, he sent out an all-hands email declaring that to "foster collaboration," all remote exceptions were revoked. Everyone had to report to the office full-time starting Monday.

I emailed him directly to explain my situation. I live three hours away from headquarters, a setup approved by my former director years ago. I pointed out my performance reviews and asked if we could compromise on a hybrid schedule.

He replied: "The mandate applies to everyone. You're expected to perform your duties from the office starting Monday."

I was furious, but then I remembered my employment contract.

I dug up the original remote-work addendum I signed back in 2020. Section 3.2: Location of Service stated:

"The Employee agrees to perform all official duties from the designated primary office space. Any change to the Employee's primary office location must be submitted in writing and approved by HR."

Right below that was the form I filled out in 2020, formally changing my designated primary office location from "HQ - Floor 4" to "Home Office - [My Address]." HR had signed off on it, stamp and all. It was officially reclassified as my company-approved office location.

Technically, my home office was "the office."

So, on Monday morning, I didn't get in my car. At 8:54 AM, I walked ten feet from my bedroom to my desk, booted up my rig, and logged into Slack.

At 9:17 AM, the VP messaged me.

VP: U around? standard 9am start today

Me: Yep, logged in and good to go.

VP: i mean at HQ. stopped by 4th floor, your desk is empty

Me: Oh, I'm working from the office today.

VP: what? what office?

Me: My official primary office location on record: Home Office [My Address]. Per my 2020 HR agreement, this is my designated workspace.

VP doesn't respond for a minute. then replies.

VP: that's not how this works, Name. the policy means HQ. you need to be here tomorrow.

Me: I'm just following the written contract on file. I attached the signed location form here so you have it.

He didn't reply after that.

Around 3 PM, I got a mass automated email from HR with the subject line: Update Regarding Remote Work Designations. The body was standard dry corporate speak saying they were "currently reviewing all legacy remote contracts" and that existing designated locations would remain valid pending individual review. Translation: the VP ran to HR to complain, HR took one look at my contract, realized forced relocation would trigger a mess of legal headaches and stipend requirements, and told him to back off for now.

My home office remains open for business.

TL;DR: VP issued a strict "work from the office" mandate without reading my file. My contract defines my bedroom-adjacent workspace as "The Office." Compliance achieved, commuted 10 feet.

A few months ago I noticed the paint on the ceiling in our bathroom was starting to peel in our new apartment. In general, asking my landlord to address things hasn't gone as smooth as I'd like and this was no different. The paint got progressively worse until it was falling in bits and pieces on the floor. It's like the ventilation fan doesn't really do anything and the moisture is making the new paint come off in huge chunks.

I have had a lot of bad landlords thanks to the slumlord issue in my city so I have a pretty good handle on what my landlord is supposed to do when something like this needs to get done. I'm not dealing with a slumlord though, just an out state owner of the home we rent who doesn't necessarily like us bothering her. I get it.

So I went ahead and took the timeline she legally has to fix the issue (21 days), multiplied it by 3 to be super patient and rounded up to 3 months. In those 3 months, the contractors she said would come failed to show up a whopping 6 times and she started blaming me for not being able to plan with them even after I showed her they aren't answering my calls or responding to texts to confirm when they can actually come out and do the repair. I work from home, the issue was not my availability to let someone into the unit.

Finally, at 3 months and some change, I asked her if the repairs were ever going to get done and dropped the hint that I knew the legality of these things by mentioning our city's code enforcement offices. I've used them before, they've helped tremendously and put fines on the landlord when they don't fix things after they inspect the unit and tell them to get it together. I showed her the document from the city website that lays out the timelines for different repairs and that she was well outside of the 21 days she's given for defective paint.

Her response surprised me. She said "That is not relevant to me. File your claim with the city." I responded "Oh ok." It took about 5 minutes to fill out the form on the website and about an hour before I got a call scheduling an inspector to come out and take a look.

I genuinely have no clue why a landlord would welcome one of these inspections. If you're guessing the inspector took a look around and found way more than just peeling paint that she needed to fix... you would be so so right.

They found a fire alarm that wasn't working, took note of the garbage around the property, and found windows that were boarded up in the basement that needed to be real windows to satisfy the city's 'at least 2 real windows in basements' rule or whatever.

While we were down in the basement I figured I'd ask the inspector about our breaker. A few weeks ago, my upstairs neighbor had the power go out in one of her rooms. She asked us to turn our breaker off and on to see if that would work and it did! The inspector told me that something like this needed to be a phone call to the utility company. Well, I can make a phone call!

The electric company scheduled someone within 2 days to come out and take a look and whaddya know? The wires are way more mixed than we thought. My upstairs neighbor has been paying for the basement and the kitchen AND bathroom in my unit. I have been paying for the entire top floor of her apartment.

I didn't know it but it turns out that ,when this happens, the landlord has 21 days to have a licensed electrician come out and unfuck the wiring before the entire electrical bill for both apartments legally goes into her name.

All I needed was the peeling paint fixed but now I'm going to enjoy living in a unit that is entirely 100% up to code and maybe save some money in the process. Sounds good to me!

Several years ago we rented a nice house in a nice neighborhood. It came with a laundry room complete with a very premium washer and a gas-dryer. After about a month, the dryer *burned* a load of laundry... It actually singed and charred the clothes. I immediately took pictures and emailed the landlord to try and recoup the cost of our clothes ($300?) and have the dryer fixed. He responded:

> "The lease is clear and does not include a washer or dryer. If those appliances are present, they were left from a previous tenant and are not mine. I am not responsible for anything I do not provide which would be documented in the lease."

I was pissed and I paid out of pocket for the repairs and to replace the clothes.

About three months later, we met a few former tenants and started talking about the house. They actually did quite a few improvements to the home and left the home in better condition than when they moved in, and the landlord still refused to refund their deposit. A neighbor confirmed that he hasn't returned a single deposit and suggested we read the lease to the letter, because the guy was a jerk about everything. Apparently, it was a nice house because of the tenants, not the landlord.

Well, fast forward 10 months to the end of our lease, and I read that thing carefully. **I then listed and sold the washer and dryer!!!** Not even 2 hours after we turned the keys in, I got an angry voicemail demanding we return his overpriced washer and dryer.

My response was a simple reply to his email declining his ownership of the appliances:

>I received your voicemail and I'm not sure which appliances you are referring to. As you stated, the lease clearly states there was not a washer/dryer included and you confirm that below. The lease also states, "Tenant is responsible for all reasonable costs incurred by Landlord to remove, haul, store, or dispose of property left behind.”

He still refused to give us our deposit, for a plethora of other negligible things. But, I still came out ahead because I pocketed about the same as our deposit, the repair costs, the burnt clothes, and maybe $100 for my troubles.

Edit: fixed a typos which redditors can't get past: cinged=singed, her=the

Responses to the arguments in comments:

The neighbor lady was very friendly and remained friend with some of the former tenants. She had us over for a BBQ and we met two different sets of former tenants. The neighbors all hated him from when he lived there for the two year minimum. We also learned that the LL had a reputation across town for "it's not personal, it's business" and was a was a well known jerk.

Yes, premium washers and dryers fetch a high price. Look at Speed Queen resale values. They arent your disposable Whirlpool/Maytag. I have no idea where they came from; his day job was a realtor, so perhaps he got them from a house he bought/sold?

To the landlords that call me a thief: LL denied ownership in writing and the lease states I would be charged for abandoned property. I was covering my ass by disposing of them.

No, we didn't go to court here in the Colorado. I honestly doubt 90% of people who say that have ever done so. This was also long enough ago that we wrote down the observed damages instead of pictures, and we clearly missed things. He then hired an expensive forensic-like company to do a full UV scan of the house to document and justify repainting and clean/replace carpet and such. If you haven't seen what a quality short-wave UV light does, you don't understand (it's not that cheap thing you get on Amazon). Now that I am older and wiser, I would fight him on that; back then it scared me.

Lots of deleted "this is AI" comments... It's not, but I appreciate your fight against the machines. With a fist full of advanced degrees, and having spent 30% of ever working day reading and another 30% writing, I bet they use my content to train the bots.

Quick background: mid-size B2B software company, hybrid since forever. The unspoken deal was simple a couple days in office, and if prod broke at 9pm or a client panicked on a Saturday, someone fixed it from home. Unpaid, but nobody minded. Goodwill.

New CTO arrives from a much more rigid company. Second all-hands, he kills the flexible days: 9-5, in office, no exceptions. Asked about after-hours emergencies, he says, paraphrasing only slightly,"If you're not at your desk, actively working, I don't consider it work. I don't care what you'd have done from your couch at 9pm."

Someone half-jokes,"So nothing outside 9-5 at the desk counts?" Him, dead serious: "Exactly. Glad we're aligned."

We were aligned. So we complied fully, literally.

Slack got muted at 5:00 sharp. Nobody checked email after leaving. A PM pinged on-call at 6pm about a broken integration and got silence until 9am the next day.

Then, one Friday, a deploy went out at 4:52, minutes before the freeze a configuration value missed one customer segment. Under the old system, someone would've caught it from their phone by 5:30. Under the new one: the alert fired at 5:06. Nobody was at their desk, and per the CTO himself, that meant nobody was working. So nobody looked.

It ran the whole weekend. Our biggest client had a fully broken dashboard for 61 hours. By Monday at 9am there were 200+ support tickets, a furious VP of Sales, and a client using the word "churn" a lot.

The CTO demanded to know how nobody noticed for two and a half days. Our team lead completely deadpan pulled up his exact quote from the all-hands: "if you're not at your desk, actively working, I don't consider it work." Nobody was at their desk all weekend. By his own definition, nobody was working. Nothing to notice.

I've never heard a room go that quiet.

We got a real on-call rotation within the week actual comp time, not vibes. Hybrid quietly came back a month later as a "pilot." Nobody's said "if you're not at your desk" out loud since.

Turns out a lot of "not real work" had been holding the place together for free.

Yesterday I had a new client who was referred to me, book a 90-minute mobile massage. She was very specific over text before I even showed up.

She told me exactly what she wanted:

• Deep tissue only

• Focus on her upper back, shoulders, and neck

• “Do not check in with me at all. I hate when therapists keep asking if the pressure is okay. Just do the work.”

• “I don’t want any small talk either. Just quiet.”

• “When the time is up, that’s it. No free extras.”

I confirmed everything back to her so there was zero confusion. She replied “Perfect, see you then.”
I get there, set up, and go over the same list one more time in person just to be safe. She nods and says “Yep, that’s exactly what I want. Don’t ask me anything once we start.”

So I did exactly that.

I put my headphones in to get some much needed audiobook time (one ear only so I could still hear if she actually needed something), started the timer on my phone where she could see it, and worked in complete silence. No check-ins. No “how’s the pressure?” No small talk. Just the exact work she requested.

Every time I felt her body tense or shift I kept going at the same pressure she had asked for. No adjustments. No questions.

When the 90 minutes hit, I stopped. Immediately. I didn’t offer the free scalp massage or hot towels I normally throw in. I just said, “That’s time.”

She sat up looking annoyed and said, “Wait, that was it? The pressure felt hard toward the end and you never even checked on me. Most therapists give a little extra time.”

I looked at her and calmly replied, “You specifically told me not to check in, not to ask about pressure, and that when the time was up that was it with no free extras. I followed your instructions exactly.”
She got quiet for a second then said, “Well I didn’t mean it like that. You should have known to check anyway. I’m not tipping for that.”

I smiled and said, “That’s fine. The session is paid for already. You can get dressed and I’ll be outside.”
She started packing up her things while muttering about how I was “too rigid” and “not customer service oriented.” I just kept packing my stuff in silence the same way she had requested the entire session.

I have never felt more at peace ending a session.
Was I supposed to ignore the very clear rules she set and somehow read her mind instead?

Several years ago, my dentist diagnosed me with gum disease and referred me to a periodontist for treatment. He had a really nice office, decorated with several photos of the doctor and his family at various Caribbean resorts. Let’s call him Dr Suntan.

During the exam, he advised three gum grafts to treat receding gums, costing $3,000 apiece. His assistant rolled her eyes at this. After further examination, he also advised a $2,500 surgery to cut a ligament under my tongue. The assistant looked aghast and rolled her eyes even harder.

When the periodontist stepped out of the room to take a phone call, I asked her if she were me, would she get this treatment?. “Absolutely not!” she whispered. “You just need deep cleaning.”

Upon the periodontist’s return, I told him I’d think over his $11,500 treatment plan and left. As I was driving home, his office sent me a request for a Google review to add to earlier 5-star ones lauding the doctor for his cutting edge treats to save people’s teeth and smiles.

I consulted another periodontist who took care of the problem for $450 ($300 of which was covered by my plan) using deep cleaning. Meanwhile the other periodontist keep spamming me by email and text with Google review requests.

I complied by posting about my experiences on ALL the healthcare review sites, using the header “Don’t go to this dentist unless you want to pay for his next Caribbean vacation!”

Over the next few months, several people thanked me for warning them about him and asked for the name of the dentist who treated me for $450. My regular dentist was shocked when I told him about this and not only stopped recommending Dr Suntan to his patients, but told his colleagues about my story. A few years later, I noticed his office had closed—but don’t know if my review and the ensuing negative word of mouth were the culprits.

TL:DR When a vacation-loving periodontist who advised me to have $11,500 surgical treatments that I didn’t need requested a Google review of his dental practice, my malicious compliance was doing so. This created negative word of mouth that may have put him out of business.

This was sophomore year, some gen ed English class I only took because I needed the credit. My professor, I will just call him Dr. H, was known across the whole department for being insane about formatting. Not the normal MLA or APA stuff, he had his own extra rules stapled onto the syllabus on top of that. Font, margins, spacing, where the page numbers had to go, all graded completely separate from the actual writing.

About three weeks into the semester someone asked what happens if you do not follow the formatting rules exactly. He said, word for word, because I wrote it down out of spite, that if you follow his instructions exactly as written you get full formatting credit, no exceptions, no partial credit for close enough.

Cool. Noted.

So that weekend I actually read the formatting section of the syllabus line by line instead of skimming it like everyone else did. Two things jumped out. First, it said the title needs to be centered. It never said what the title had to say, just that it had to be centered. Second, it said your name needs to appear in the header. It never said how many times.

For the next essay my title was just the word "Essay," centered, huge font because there was no size limit listed either. My header had my name in it eleven separate times because technically that still satisfies "your name needs to appear in the header." I also put page numbers on every single page, including a blank works cited page that had nothing on it except the number seven.

Turned it in feeling pretty proud of myself honestly.

Got it back and he had docked me formatting points with a note that just said "unprofessional presentation." Next class I raised my hand and asked him to point to the specific rule I had broken. He couldn't, because I hadn't broken a single one, I had just followed them further than anyone expected anyone to. Then I brought up his own quote from a few weeks earlier, in front of the whole room.

He was obviously annoyed but couldn't argue with his own words without looking ridiculous in front of 40 people, so I got the points back. By the next essay the formatting section of the syllabus had basically doubled in length and every loophole I used was individually closed.

10/10 would exploit a poorly written rule again.

TLDR: professor said follow formatting instructions exactly for full credit, I took that way more literally than he expected, he couldn't dock me points without contradicting himself, syllabus got rewritten within a week to patch every hole I found.

I used to work for a small printing company that did work for a local college and their choir program. The director was a literal Karen (looked like one too) and made our lives a living hell leading up to her annual Christmas program.

Without fail every year she would give us the artwork for the program at noon the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. This meant someone from our team would need to work the holiday or that weekend to ensure it got out in time for her program.

For four years I took the brunt if the project as I didn't want my team to work their holiday weekend and my family always celebrated Thanksgiving later to make scheduling easier for everyone.

Me and the team constantly complained to the owner that this client was a nightmare and not worth our time. It was a large order for us but we didn't feel it was worth the headache. The owner's anniversary typically fell along this project timing and he was almost always out of town . The 4th year he wasn't so I decided to speak with him the Wednesday before Thanksgiving telling him we needed to fire the client.

He was reluctant and downplayed our complaints and said she wasn't that bad. To which I replied, "Since this project isn't that difficult I figured I would let you know I'm taking this week off next year."

The owner's face went pale. He's gut response was, "Why would you screw me over like that?"

To which I replied, "I don't understand what you mean? I'm giving you a whole year to prepare for me to not be here. It isn't that big of a deal and she isn't that bad so a year should be enough time for you to figure it out."

Mind you I love working for the company, the owner just got greedy sometimes and would put sales above the team and one of the reasons why he specifically hired me is because I would fight back when I thought he was wrong. That day was the day I decided I had enough and we went toe to toe arguing for about an hour in front of the team about my early vacation notice.

He finally relented and was stubborn and ready to prove me wrong.

A year later he finally got a taste of his own medicine and did not like it. I ended up working leading up to the holiday break because though I was adamant I wasn't going to work the holiday again I couldn't leave my team hanging. Yet again, right on time this Karen doesn't give us the files until Wednesday at noon before Thanksgiving.

The owner went in person to speak to her. I don't know the full conversation but it basically came down to her calling him a complete idiot for not being able to manage around HER bad project management.

He came back to the shop in literal tears stating he had never been treated so horribly in his life. In that moment I asked him if I could fire her as a client. I could tell he wasn't excited to admit he was wrong a year into this argument we had but he sheepishly nodded yes.

He ended up finishing the project over the holiday for her that year to not ruin our reputation with the school as we did a ton of work for other departments but the next year I was the only one who got to speak to Karen. She asked for an estimate and I gave her the price and told her if files came any later than "X" date I would charge her $3,000 + $1,000 more for every day she was late.

She flipped out and asked for the owner and I got to pull the, "He put me in charge, I'm the manager now." Card and told her she could kick dirt if she didn't like it.

Our team had a literal celebration when she said she would go somewhere else to do the project. It is probably one of my proudest moments as a leader fighting for myself and my team.

The relationship between Walmart and me is one of those toxic, on-again, off-again things. We go way back, even before I spent 6 years working for the beast and its affiliate. We officially "broke it off" in 2012, but recently, they pissed me off so much that I’m on a hard break and cheating with other stores to my heart’s content.

What caused the break?

They handled an accidental transaction walk-off so poorly that I had to restrict their access to my wallet.

On Thursday, I went shopping and hit the self-checkout. I usually use WalmartPay, but that day I used a physical card and apparently miskeyed my PIN. Believing my receipt was on my phone like usual, I headed out. Nobody challenged me at the door. I loaded up and drove home.

The next morning, I realized my mistake when I saw a declined transaction notification on my banking app.

Being an honest person, I called that specific store's customer service to fix it. Their brilliant solution? I needed to load up all the groceries from my house, bring them all back to the store, and rescan them.

I asked if they could just look up the aborted transaction on their end. "No." They didn't care that my haul included 80 lbs of cat litter, 50 lbs of cat food, two 5-gallon bottles of water, and a bunch of groceries.

Here is the logistics issue: Fridays are my Mondays. I live 27 miles from my job, and the Walmart is another 30 miles out. I work in healthcare now; my time away from work is precious down-time. I was absolutely not doing a 60-mile round trip, outside of my normal commute, on a work day just to carry heavy crap back and forth.

By the time my shift ended, I had devised three alternatives to their absurd request.

I walked up to the customer service desk after work. I explained the situation and asked one more time if they could look up the transaction log. Again, "No."

I was prepared for this. I had spent hours piecing together the subtotals from each department down to the penny based on my shopping list, reconstructing exactly how much ginger and red onion I bought so the subtotals would match perfectly once taxes were applied. (Sometimes my OCD is a literal superpower).

The Customer Service Representative looked at my itemized breakdown and said, “I don’t know how to do that.”

I asked for a manager. She radioed a manager over the walkie but completely failed to explain my actual question. The manager blew it off, and I wasn't allowed to speak to them.

Fine. Time for Option 3: Malicious Compliance.

I grabbed a cart and went shopping all over again. I re-loaded 130 lbs of heavy pet supplies, the two 5-gallon water bottles (42.5 lbs each), and every single grocery item on my list: some frozen, some hot, some sold by weight.

I pushed the massive cart through checkout, paid for it successfully this time, and hauled the cart and the receipt back to customer service.

"We're square now," I told them.

While one associate was making a copy of the receipt, another mentioned that the self-checkout associate from the day prior had been in tears over the walk-off. Look, I wish I had the emotional bandwidth to comfort her, but the incompetence due to lack of training had pushed me into pure "let's get stupid" mode.

They handed me back my receipt, and I turned to walk away.

The associate yelled, “Wait!! Don’t forget your stuff!!”

I looked back and said, “This isn’t my stuff. This is your stuff. My stuff is at my house. Good luck putting it all back.”

The absolute cherry on top? Because I was rushing, my dyslexia grounded my OCD superpower, and I accidentally misrang the water bottles as refills instead of exchanges. The new receipt was $13 short of the original total.

I didn't bother trying to fix it. Consider it an incompetence tax for making it SOOOO hard for me to do the right thing.

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.

I work in a specialized printing facility handling high-volume industrial presses. These machines are older than I am and they have a lot of "personality" if you know what I mean. I’ve been the lead tech here for six years and there are dozens of little tricks we use to keep them running—bits of tape in certain spots, slightly bending a guide rail, or just knowing exactly where to kick it when the paper jams. Well, we got a new "Technical Training Supervisor" last month who came straight from a corporate office and has never actually stained his hands with grease. He saw me fixing a sensor issue with a bit of cleaning alcohol and a q-tip (a 5 minute fix) and he absolutely lost it. He told me I was "compromising the integrity of the equipment" and issued a formal directive stating that from now on, every single repair must strictly adhere to the Manufacturer’s Service Maunal. No exceptions, no "field hacks," or he would write me up for safety violations.

Fine. Two days later, the main drive motor on Press 3 threw a standard thermal sync error. Normally, I’d just reset the breaker, wait ten minutes for it to cool, and we’d be back in business. But the "Official Manual" has a very specific protocol for this error. Step one: completely de-energize the entire power grid for that sector. Step two: Wait 48 hours to ensure "full thermal stabilization of the copper windings." Step three: Perform a 12-point diagnostic test that requires a specialized calibration tool we dont even own, meaning we have to order it from the manufacturer in Germany. I went straight to the supervisors office, showed him the error code, and asked if he wanted me to "proceed according to the directive." He didnt even look up from his laptop and just said "Follow the book to the letter, thats what it is there for."

So I did exactly that. I shut down the press, locked out the power, and sat in the breakroom. By the next morning, the floor manager was screaming because we were missing a massive deadline for a major client. The supervisor tried to throw me under the bus, telling the plant manager that I was "refusing to work." I just calmly handed over the signed directive he gave me and the opened manual page that explicitly requires a 48-hour wait and a tool that is currently on a flight from Frankfurt. The plant manager looked at the supervisor, looked at the manual, and then looked back at the cold, silent machine that should be printing $50k worth of product a day. The "follow the book" rule was rescinded within the hour, but I insisted on finishing the 48-hour "stabilization period" since the power was already cut and "re-energizing early could cause a fire hazard" according to the safety section. I spent the rest of the week getting paid to read a book while the supervisor got a very loud "re-education" in the main office

So this is from a while back, on one of my old jobs as a systems analyst. This was during the height of the pandemic, so we were all WFH at the time. I worked as a non-exempt employee, meaning I did my 40 hours Monday to Friday, and overtime for any work over that. Our VP at the time, when we were getting ready to lug all our stuff home once lockdown was announced, made sure to remind us that unless we were exempt we were not to answer any work-related emails, texts, or calls outside of our work hours and said that if anyone tried to give us grief over that, to let him know. He was a good bean, that VP.

For some background, I was the main analyst for our systems, and I was also the main guy to reach out to for reports and things like that. Most of the folks knew how to run basic reports and export them to Excel, but the more complicated ones I was one of probably only two in the company who knew how to really make them.

Anyway, a few weeks into lockdown, a supervisor, who worked at a different city, emailed me asking for a report on a Saturday morning. After not getting an answer from me, being off work that I was, they decided to call my phone instead. I ignored it the first time, but they seemed pretty determined to reach out to me, and called me a second and third time, before sending me a text demanding that I stop being unprofessional, get on my work PC, and answer their email. I decided, fuck it, they want a reply, I'll get them that reply.

So I boot up my PC, open the email, and without running the report or anything, just hit Reply and CC my VP. I wrote something along the lines of "Hi supervisor, per VP, I'm not supposed to be working, or even answering emails, on weekends. Waiting for approval from VP to run this report." I send that off, and left my work PC running because I already knew there was going to be a shitstorm incoming.

Less than ten minutes later, I get a separate email from my VP, telling me to hold off on the report and asking if he could call me, with him clarifying that him calling me would constitute overtime and that I would be paid for it. Well, I wasn't doing anything that day anyway, so I tell him to go ahead, and he called me up, asking what report this was about and if I'd already started working on it. I told him not yet, but that supervisor seemed pretty pressed about receiving it as soon as possible. He asked if supervisor reached out to me on my phone, and I confirmed. He asked me to send him the texts and to not worry about running the report, then told me to turn off my PC and enjoy the rest of my weekend.

Monday morning, I open my PC to a sternly-written email from VP sent to all supervisors, with me in CC, tersely reminding everyone that I was non-exempt, and that under no circumstances was anyone to reach out to me outside of my working hours, and that if they needed anything, to reach out to him first, and he would determine if it was important enough to have me do outside of normal business hours. Come next payday, I did see an additional 3 hours of overtime on my paycheck, which was nice, because the entire thing only happened over an hour or so.

After that, no one ever tried calling me outside of working hours; only my VP did, and only ever on extenuating circumstances, and every time he always made sure that I was paid at least 2 hours of overtime each time, even if it was just a report that took me like 30 minutes to run.

As for the supervisor, they didn't get fired, but from what I heard from the grapevine was that they got a pretty nasty dressing down from the VP over their behavior, and sure enough, on one of our weekly Zoom calls that week, they looked really subdued and avoided speaking to me directly the entire time.

When my father passed away, he lived in an apartment about 2 hours from my home. My son, husband, sister and I went to clean out his apartment. My son and sister drove his car to the hotel we were staying in and we planned to move the car to my home for storage until we could dispose of it during probate.

They were in a car accident, that left the car drivable. My father had State Farm insurance, so I brought the car to a local to my home repair shop to get repaired, and planned to pay the deductible ourselves and get reimbursement from the estate. We got a call from the repair shop that Says Farm would not pay for the repair.

When I called State Farm, they kept asking me if my father had given me permission to drive the car. I said, of course not, he had died. They insisted that since he had not given any of us permission to drive the car, they would not pay anything for the car until the probate court appointed an executor to make decisions on his behalf. I live in an HOA that would not allow a damaged car to sit in my driveway for the 90 days it would take for Florida to make me the executor. This situation just would not do.

After the sixth call, I asked if a third party could continue to pay the car premiums. They said they didn't care who paid, as long as they were paid. I told State Farm that since the car was drivable, and I was not going to pay my HOA a dime to store this car in its current condition, I was going to drive it back to my dad's old apartment. I'd keep the keys, but leave the car there and continue to pay the premium myself. Once I got appointed executor in 90 days, I'd go back to the apartment complex. If the car was still there I. Its current condition, id bring it to the repair shop to get fixed and then sell it. If it wasn't, if the apartment towed it, if it was stripped or on blocks, if report that claim too And they could just reimburse the estate for the total value of the car.

I got a call the next day from a car transporter arranging storage until the case cleared probate.

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 happened in 2013 but i still laugh when i think about it so i thought id share.

i used to be a fastfood manager. every night id handle all the inventory. i liked to get an early jump on it so id start roughly 30 minutes to close. one night i was counting inventory and getting ready to place the weeks orders and my grill guy runs back to the office, taps his headset and says "you need to hear this"

this was odd because the person i had on drivethru was this kid named john. john was an adopted kid from russia and he had a thick russian accent, but he was objectively the best employee in the whole building. he worked hard, he worked fast, and he was the friendliest person id ever met. i never had issues on his shifts.

i put my headset on and i hear this man just absolutely berating john. hes telling him to get out of the country, raving about immigration, calling him slurs saying hes taking jobs from real americans. so i jump in

"hi sir what seems to be the problem?"

"are you the manager?"

"i am. can you fill me in on whats upsetting you tonight?"

"well this LAZY MEXICAN is refusing to sell me a baked potato when i know you have them"

"sir im sorry we are out of baked potatoes for the night. is there anything else i can get for you?"

"thats bullshit! make more then!"

"sir the baked potatoes take 4 hours to cook and we close in 10 minutes. unfortunately we cant predict how many potatoes will be ordered and it looks like someone else bought the rest of what we had just before you came to order. is there something else i can get you?"

"you should be better prepared because this is fcking ridiculous!"

"i understand. is there anything else i can get you?"

"small salad, extra ranch"

"got it anything else?"

"and i dont mean like 1 or two packets like you idiots always give me i mean i want lots of ranch. like i want a ton of ranch got it?!"

"got it. please pull forward"

"fucking idiots"

now im pretty mad about the way he was talking to john, johns clearly distressed.. and i had just done inventory. i had a whole box of ranch that i was gonna need to toss that night because it expired the next day. i grab a large bag, and start filling it with packets of ranch. i mustve put like 250 ranch packets in there lol my kitchen was busting up

i take his money, i hand him the bag.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?"

"sorry?"

"why is there so much ranch?!"

"sir you asked for extra ranch?"

"are you fucking kidding me?!"

"did i not give you enough? i can get you some more if you want?"

"no you stupid fucking bitch! i want a fucking refund and im not taking all this ranch"

"well i cant take food back through the window, its policy. heres your refund though!"

"NOW TAKE BACK ALL THIS RANCH YOU DUMB WHORE"

"i cant do that, sorry sir! you have a good night though!"

i close the window and this man wouldnt leave. i tell everyone to ignore him and to just start cleaning up. this man actually sat there for 45 minutes and at some point he called the police! a policeman shows up and i tell them "yeah this man berated my employees, demanded extra ranch, then refused to leave even after i gave a refund"

he was arrested in our parkinglot for driving under the influence while we watched laughing. i thought he was just an angry bigot, but it turned out that he was a drunk angry bigot who would be arrested over ranch.

Context: I was out in my city, and I was taking a walk around with my roommate.

While passing through the main square of the city, we both witnessed a movie-like chase where three police officers managed to corner a guy who was probably dealing nearby.

I had never seen anything like that involving law enforcement before, so I decided to tell my girlfriend about it live by sending her a WhatsApp voice message.

So I raised my phone to record the voice message, but then something happened.

On the other side of the street, exactly where they had cornered the guy, a young policeman noticed I had my phone in my hand and shouted at me: “HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

I froze, confused. I didn’t process it. I just stood there, looking at him, thinking he couldn’t possibly be talking to me. After three seconds, I saw him running toward me, still shouting: “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

I got seriously scared, so I stretched my arms out toward him, without touching him, and went: “Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down!”

From that moment on, the conversation went more or less like this. The police officer starts, I’m the second person. The dialogue alternates.

“What are you doing? Did you make a video?”

“I didn’t make any video. I was sending a voice message to my girlfriend.”

“Go to your gallery immediately and delete the video. In front of me.”

At that moment, I got embarrassed. “Why?” you may ask. Well, I remembered perfectly well that the last photo I had taken was a photo of my di*k that I had sent to my girlfriend.

I wasn’t afraid. I don’t mince words. If there’s something embarrassing to say, I say it. The damage was already done.

“Look, I’m not joking, but the last photo is a photo of my d**k.”

“I don’t care! Delete that video immediately!”

He didn’t hesitate. For him, in that gallery, there was THAT video. Except THAT video didn’t exist. A non-video.

So I humored him. I opened the Gallery. I showed him the latest media. I opened it. He saw it. He stood there for about two or three seconds, maybe to process what he was seeing. Then he closed his eyes and looked away from the phone.

“Get out of here!”

So we left.

I was crying with laughter. My roommate was too.

All in all, it was a pretty great evening.

I work as a supervisor at a grocery store, and part of my job is basically making sure things keep moving, helping customers when the self-checkouts decide to develop free will, fixing register issues, voiding orders, and generally putting out the tiny fires that happen during a normal shift. This particular day had actually been going pretty well.

I was helping customers, answering questions, assisting with checkout issues, and everyone was being pretty normal.Then I noticed one customer at the self-checkout who had arrived on an electric bike. He was having trouble ringing up some produce. Specifically: Red bell peppers.
For whatever reason, these things seem to give people trouble constantly. I don’t know if it’s the produce lookup or what, but I’ve helped enough people with them that when I see someone staring confused at a red bell pepper and the checkout screen, I already know what’s happening.

So, naturally, I walked over and offered to help him. I barely got the chance to do that before the guy looked at me and said: “I didn’t ask for your help. I don’t need your help.” Alright. Fair enough. I said, “Okay,” and walked away. Now, normally, if I see someone obviously struggling, I’ll circle back or ask if they need assistance. But he had made himself extremely clear. He did not want my help. So I decided to respect his wishes. Very, very thoroughly. Cue Malicious Compliance.

For the next several minutes, I went about my other duties. Another customer needed help? I helped them. Someone couldn’t figure out their checkout. Helped them. Register issue? Fixed it. Question? Answered it. Meanwhile, this guy was still fighting for his life against the red bell peppers.
I could see him trying different things on the screen.
Still not working. He’d look around. Then he’d look at me. And for some reason, he was staring absolute daggers at me. Which confused the hell out of me. Because… Sir. You specifically told me you didn’t want my help. I’m doing exactly what you requested.

At one point I helped another customer who was only a few feet away from him. He watched the entire interaction. I helped that customer, got their issue sorted out, and went right back to what I was doing. I could practically feel this man’s eyes drilling into the side of my head. But I wasn’t going over there. Because I remembered his instructions:
“I didn’t ask for your help. I don’t need your help.”
Understood. Message received. Your checkout experience is now a solo campaign.
The red bell pepper is your final boss. Godspeed.

Eventually, after several minutes of struggling, he apparently decided that accepting help would be worse than abandoning the entire purchase. Because he just… gave up. He left the register. Walked out of the store. And left.
So after watching him ride away, I calmly walked over to the self-checkout he’d abandoned, looked at the unfinished transaction, and voided the entire order. And that was that.

I still don’t understand why he spent the whole time glaring at me. I offered help. He explicitly told me he didn’t want it. So I complied. Apparently he expected me to ignore what he said, continue offering assistance, and eventually rescue him from the horrifying technological nightmare known as…
ringing up a red bell pepper. But I’m a supervisor, not a mind reader. You say you don’t need help? No problem. Enjoy your peppers.

Worked in retail in between jobs way back when, early '90's. Yea, I'm old, get off my lawn.

It was December, major Department Store that is no longer around, I know that doesn't narrow it down, sorry.

Anyways, they tried to cram as much product on the floor as possible, to the point that you couldn't walk through the aisles and had to twist and turn to get past the fixtures set up with product. I casually mentioned to a supervisor that if the Fire Department ever came in they would close us down for the hazards and lack of egress. She was highly stressed and blurted out to me "You know what? Then call the Fire Department!" I held my hands up and said "Easy". She assigned me my duties and that was that.

Well ... she DID tell me to call.

On the way home I stopped by a government building that had all sorts of agencies in it. Told the receptionist my plight and she pointed to a phone on the wall. Tell the operator I want the FD and they would patch me through to the stations non emergency line.

The Fire Chief himself answered. I told him how crowded it was and what the supervisor said.

He had a good laugh and said they'd "check it out".

I was off the next day but heard about it when I got back.

Fire chief and a station house full of firefighters show up to do an inspection.

He tells the store manager that egress is being blocked and he'd have to remove a lot of the fixtures in the aisles.

Store manager says he has orders from corporate, fixtures stay.

Fire Chief assures him he will win the argument.

Store manager stands his ground.

Fire Chief "Alright boys, close them down!"

They evacuated the store (all 3 levels) and closed all entrances ... in December ... prime Christmas shopping season. Although it wasn't a weekend day it was during the week, but still.

Store manager tried to protest and suddenly the Sheriff's Department starts showing up.

Long story short, they were closed for 5 1/2 hours while the Chief, Store Manager, and employees rearranged the store to acceptable levels.

The supervisor never treated me differently so I'm guessing she didn't remember the conversation. The Store Manager, surprisingly, did NOT get fired by corporate but corporate was not happy.

About a week later I'm working with the store manager and supervisor when she asks why we can't do something a certain way? The Store Manager replied "The Fire Department won't allow that." and that was it.

I worked there a few more weeks before getting a job that almost got me killed in a workplace shooting. But that's a story for later.

EDIT 1: There are some videos on YouTube about postal shootings, one done by a woman which is insane. Even the comments. The one I was in the person was acting out for well over a year (Skeptic magazine had a great issue about mass shootings, I think from 2013. One study they talked about was how the mass shooters never snap but act out for usually a year or longer before committing the act. Interesting stuff). Myself as well as other employees expressed concern to management about the behavior and potential for violence but they said that employee was "harmless". Didn't surprise a lot of us who it was when it happened. I could go on, but honestly, most of you would think I'm lying, but I could corroborate every story. And the funny part is, other postal workers would snicker and say "That's nothing, let me tell you what happens at our facility". It IS the most violent workplace in America, and also the most deadly.

So, my Spotify Premium renewed today because I forgot to cancel. I immediately checked their refund policy online and confirmed I was eligible, so I canceled the plan (literally within minutes) and hopped on support chat to ask for the refund. Seemed simple, right?

Wrong.

The agent, "Christina", gave me the classic runaround. She said the 14-day refund period only applies to your initial sign-up, and since I'd been a member for months, I was out of luck. She even sent me a link to the policy to prove her point, telling me to read it.

This is where the malicious compliance comes in. I did exactly what she said. I read the policy, and then I went deeper and found their full, legally-binding Terms of Use.

And what did I find? In Section 3, under "Withdrawal right", it clearly states you have "fourteen (14) days after your purchase to withdraw for any reason". A monthly renewal is a new purchase. My own research before the chat was correct.

I went back to Christina and quoted the Terms of Use directly. She put me on hold to "check backstage" then came back with the same denial. Her team was doubling down on the incorrect script.

So I played my final card. I sent this message:

"Since this dispute is specifically about the legal interpretation of the 'Withdrawal right' in your Terms of Use, could you please provide the contact information for Spotify's legal department or the appropriate office for handling formal contractual disputes?"

The change was INSTANT.

Suddenly, she had to "see what she could do". Five minutes later? "I've managed to ask some support with our backstage team... and we can go ahead and process a refund for you."

They folded like a cheap suit. Their business model counts on you giving up. Don't. You are entitled to your money back.

TL;DR: Spotify support tried to deny my valid refund by misinterpreting their own policy. I read their legal Terms of Use as they suggested, cited it back to them, and when they still refused, I asked for their legal team's contact info. They immediately processed the refund. Don't let them push you around

This is a quick and dirty one...

I'm based in the UK and often have to travel for work via Train to our head office.

I typically get public transport to the train station, I live in walking distance to local connections and just pay the nominal amount for public transport tickets myself.

One particular journey, shortly after moving house, I decided to drive to the station and leave the car there - I needed to get back for an appointment when my return train got in and wanted the car there to make it on time.

Like a good little employee, I submitted my expenses including the car park receipt (£20) which cost significantly more than the usual public transport ticket. Eagerly awaiting re-imbursement, I was disappointed to get an email advising 'as per Travel & Expense policy' I was unable to claim driving related expense without completing a specific 'Driving for work' attestation and supplying updated Car Insurance proving my car was insured (by me, at cost to me personally) for driving for work (NOT commuting, which essentially this was).

Fine, I thought.. you know what, you keep that £20, but if we're going to force compliance with the Travel & Expense policy two can play that game.

Suddenly, all the 2 hour 52 minute trains were inconvenient, and I had to book different slightly longer 3 hour 4 minute trains... Making them, under the Travel & Expense policy, eligible for First Class travel.

Oh, and as my journey time is longer than 3 hours, as per Travel & Expense policy, I'm now eligible for overnight stays... Which of course mean that I can submit expenses for meals as I'm away from home in a hotel for my evening meal (as per the Travel & Expense policy).

And then, of course, reasonable travel expenses (as detailed in the Travel & Expense policy) also cover taxis for unsociable hours... So unfortunately that 6:00am bus ride is now a 6:30 Uber, and that late night 10:00pm bus ride when I get home is now also a nice, comfortable Uber. Costing around £40 (or 10 x what I paid myself for public transport tickets).

I think I've more than tripled the cost of my having to travel to head office on each trip, purely out of spite over £20, by maliciously complying with the good ol' (yep, you guessed it) Travel & Expense Policy.

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.

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!

Company sends a shiny HR email, subject line all caps, USE IT OR LOSE IT. We had to burn our remaining PTO by the 30th or it evaporates into the sun. Same day, my manager announces in standup that due to quarter end “no one can take time off until the 1st.” I asked how to reconcile that, he shrugs and says talk to HR. HR says talk to your manager. Cute loop. So I opened the handbook, because I am a petty librarian when annoyed. Page 14 has this little sentence I never noticed. “PTO requests not explicitly denied in writing within 48 business hours are considered approved.” There is also a note that partial day PTO is allowed in 1 hour blocks. Thank you, legal team.

I submitted ten separate requests. Two hours every morning next week, two hours every afternoon the week after, a random Friday 3 to 5 to watch a plumber, and one full day to visit my mom. I sent the requests in our HR portal, which auto emails the manager and CCs a shared mailbox nobody watches. Then I went back to my tasks and set reminders. Forty eight business hours pass. No denial. The portal changes each request to approved, green checkmark, confetti gif. Monday comes and at 9.58 I put a cheerful note in the team chat. “Heading out, see you at noon.” Manager pings me to hop on a client call, I reply with a screenshot of the policy and the portal approval. Silence. Then three dots typing, then nothing.

By Wednesday our calendar looked like cheese. Half the team remembered they also had PTO sitting around and started filing it in little blocks. Meetings kept colliding with green bars. Finance realized that if we did not use the days now, they would be paid out at separation later, which they hate. HR wrote a new post saying we should “coordinate” but that approvals already granted stand. My manager called a huddle to ask why productivity dipped. I said we are following HR’s instruction to use PTO. He said he meant in November. I sent him the original email timestamped this month. He sighed and said he never thought anyone would actually read the handbook. I used every hour, took my mom to lunch, and my plumber fixed the cursed sink at 3.40 while I drank tea. Next week a new policy appeared. PTO must be requested in full day increments during quarter end, and managers must respond in 24 hours. Thanks for clarifying, truly.

My junior year statistics professor was obsessed with equal participation in group projects. His rule: "If I determine anyone did more or less work than their teammates, the entire group gets a zero." His verification method? Each member submitted a confidential report detailing exactly what percentage of the total work they personally completed. If the reports didn't match up perfectly, we failed.

My group of four included myself, two diligent students, and "Chad" who never showed up to meetings or responded to messages. When we approached the professor two weeks before the deadline about Chad's lack of participation, he repeated his policy and told us to figure it out ourselves.

That's when we had an idea. We created a spreadsheet with over 200 individual tasks, documenting everything from "emailing the professor" to "proofreading page 3" to "thinking about the project while commuting." We logged who did each task and exactly how many minutes it took.

The day before the project was due, we sent Chad our breakdown showing the three of us had each completed approximately 33% of the work, leaving him with exactly 0%. Chad responded: "Actually, I've been working behind the scenes on my own. I've completed exactly 33% of the work independently."

The next day in class, each of us submitted our confidential report. The three of us reported 33% each, while Chad also claimed 33%. The professor was confused. "That adds up to 132%," he said. "How is that possible?"

I spoke up: "Professor, you never specified that the work couldn't overlap. You only said we each had to do equal work. We have documented evidence that each of us completed 33% of the total project requirements."

The professor was furious but couldn't argue with his own rules. He had to give our group an A, though he did add a new rule the next semester: "Work completed by group members must be unique and not duplicated by other members."

Chad never showed us his "independent work," but we learned that when professors create arbitrary rules without thinking through the implications, sometimes the best response is to follow those rules to their ridiculous logical conclusion.

In high school I was in a science class that I did very well in. I was top of the class and scored nearly 100% on every test and assignment.

The teacher assigned a big group project that would take about a week to complete with a team of four students. Groups were randomly assigned, and unfortunately, I was paired up with three kids who were barely passing the class.

In class we are given time to make plans together as a group to divide up work, examine the instructions, schedule times outside of school to meet up, etc. It was at this point my teammates decided to tell me that they weren’t going to do any work on the project. I asked why, and they said they knew I really cared about my grade, so they figured I would do it on my own.

They were so lazy they were banking on the fact I wouldn’t tank my own grade, so they could benefit off of my hard work when I inevitably got a good score on the project. I was pissed and said that was unfair. They dug in and said “Too bad. Now you either do this project yourself or you’ll get a 0%.”

Cue malicious compliance.

Now, I could have gone to the teacher and he probably would have sorted this out, but a better idea struck me. So I said “Fine, you win. I’ll do what you say.” They smiled smugly and thought that was that.

But you see, this teacher had a policy that at the end of the semester your lowest grade (excluding finals) would be taken off your record. So, if you forgot to turn in an assignment or did really bad on one test, you got a mulligan so it wouldn’t ruin your final grade. I had never done poorly on an assignment all year, so I never needed my mulligan. However, I knew that these shitheads all did. If they got a big fat zero on a crucial assignment, they would probably fail the class.

So, I did exactly as they instructed. I did no work on the project all week. Just sat on it and bided my time. At the beginning of the next week all the students turned in their assignments. My team watched as I sat in my chair, unmoving.

Finally one said:

CLASSMATE: Hey OP, aren’t you going to turn in the project?”

ME: Oh, I didn’t do the project.

They were shocked and asked why the hell I didn’t do it.

ME: You said do all the work or get a 0%. I choose 0%.

They were all royally pissed. They all had to do credit recovery over the summer. They hated my guts, but I couldn’t have cared less. It was the most satisfying failing grade in my entire life.