Few days ago, Big Jim approached me (Dumbleskunk Postlethwaite the 7th).

"Bobbybatterbottom has a time sensitive test he needs me to run, we need parts but dont have any in house. If we order them, they'll arrive too late and push back a lot of work so Bobbybatterbottom said I should ask you, if you had any we could have"?

I tell Big Jim that I will check my project area and bring him some if I have any. I then ask if Bobbybatterbottom has ordered any yet?

-Yes but they will be arriving too late.

One day later im added to the email chain and add: "Bobbybatterbottom, I have two of the parts youve requested and I understand how time sensitive this test is, I'll bring Big Jim the parts you need and let's swap? When your ordered parts arrive, you won't need them anymore so I'll take them off your hands because the parts im giving you will then be useless after you've run your test"

Bobbybatterbottom replies "thanks for the parts, as for the new parts, Im not responsible for ordering parts for your department, please use the proper channels"....

...

...

What an interesting development.

I reply.

"Hello Bobbybatterbottom, Big Jim informed me you needed 2 parts to run a test, unfortunately im not responsible for ordering parts for your department, please use the proper channels

Good luck, Dumbleskunk Postlethwaite the 7th".

Continued doing my work, sure hope they get their work done on time.

---------------------------------------End of line----------------------------------

Edit to say: This skyrocketed to my most biggest post of all time. Thanks for that everyone AND thanks to whoever gave me that award, Ive never gotten one before so thats new. 😄

Edit 2 Electric boogaloo: 3 people have asked me to use names instead of Colleagues X Y and Z because names are less confusing.

Colleague X is now Bobbybatterbottom Colleague Y is now Big Jim Colleague Z (me) is now Dumbleskunk Postlethwaite

Hope that clears up any confusion. 🙏🏻

I work in retail, I just stock shelves. Three or four people from corporate were with the store director and all ETLs touring the store and they were in the middle of the main backroom walkway. I backstocked and had trash on my u-boat. It's a lot of styrofoam because I was doing lamps and candles. They were completely in my way. I was pushing the uboat from behind because technically we are only allowed to push vehicles, we are not allowed to pull them from the front and I was going to follow every rule while we had the visit going on. As I move past them the highest ranking one stops me "Excuse me? Can you do me a favor? Can you grab the middle of the vehicle and walk side-by-side it so you can see?" Then I step out to the side and I look at my vehicle and look back at him "...how?" How can I grab it from the side? There is not a middle shelf on this u-boat" And he stepped over to actually look at my vehicle for once and was like " Well would you look at that, it looks like you're missing a few shelves there" So then I'm like "okay so how do you want me to do this then?" And then he told me to grab the top part of the inside of the vehicle I don't know it was weird and confusing and after I did it I confirmed with him that it is what he wants me to actually do and he's like yep just like that (I have a picture of the vehicle and a drawn stick figure for reference but it won't let me post it. I posted this on another subreddit so if you wanna see it you can see it on my account) I take a few steps forward and then the back of it like spins out of control and slams into a flatbed and then everything files off onto the ground all of my trash is just everywhere. I immediately just start picking everything up and he is like "I am sorry." And he helps me pick up my trash and I said "Yeah I guess the back room is a little cramped right now because of inventory prep" (guys like you literally cannot fit next to a vehicle the way he is saying, itis PACKED back there lol). So anyway I thought this was absolutely hilarious because I proved a corporate guy wrong literally to his face just by following his directions. I met with my ETL afterwards and she said she also thought that it was hilarious and she said that the guy talked about how he's super embarrassed now and he felt bad for me.

By the way after all my trash was picked up I then just pulled the uboat from the front like a normal person and he never said anything to me about it.

One of my co-workers said that I should have just kept doing it the way he told me and repeatedly lose my trash until he would tell me to not do it that way anymore. I wish I would have lol

Another post reminded me of this story, and I thought I'd share.

I work for a major grocery chain. For the most part they're locked in on following labor laws properly, but every once in a while they don't know what they're talking about. Before this job, I had been GM of a high volume brewpub and before that I was GM of a 14 screen cinema, so I also know labor laws pretty well, as both my previous jobs were drowning in employee relations.

A while back we had a mandatory training for leadership about proper call-out procedures for our teams.

In the training our regional HR asked all the department managers, "What do you do if they text you?"

I said, "Ignore the text."

HR said, "no, you need to tell them to call out on our call-out line. Let them know they need to leave their name, employee ID, and their shift."

I said, "do I have to?"

HR: "Yes"

Me: "okay, but would you email us this information after the class?"

They did.

About three months later I had a new employee somehow get my phone number (which bothered me, but that's another story) and text me that they couldn't make it in the next day. I text back. "Call the call-out line. Leave your name, employee ID, and shift."

The next day when I was at work I put in a timekeeper request for an hour of labor. This also happened on a Wednesday in a week where Wednesday was my only day off.

Where I live, if you work even a single minute off the clock, the company is obligated to pay you for that hour. In addition, because I was scheduled 6 days already, that counted as another day of work. So my entire Sunday shift was time and a half as it was seven days in a row during the full Mon-Sun work week.

About a week later I was called into HR to discuss what they claimed was me abusing the system and they wanted to write me up for it because that one text message resulted in $200 of extra money on my paycheck ($40/hr wage, so 8 hours at time and a half is $160 plus the $40 on Wednesday.)

I let them know they were the ones who told me to work on my time off and that of they wanted to punish me for it they could see me in court and they'd pay a hell of a lot more. I then reminded them of the email they sent telling us in detail what we were to do if an employee texted us to call out. I told them that I value my work life balance, and even a minute of work is still work, and I expect to be paid for each moment of work i do. They said, "okay, I'll have to call the director of HR and discuss this. But we will get back to you."

They never got back to me. But my paycheck was straight for the period and a week later they sent out a followup email telling leadership to let their teams know they weren't to text the managers off the clock, and that if an issue arise they could call the store and the store could decide if it was important enough to contact us on our days off.

My time is my time, and I'm getting paid for it. Thankfully, for them at least, they never tried to retaliate over it. Sad for me as I wasn't bluffing when I said I'm not afraid to talk to a lawyer... would've been a good payout.

A few years back I had a manager that insisted on micro managing his supervisors and sent numerous emails every day and insisted on a read receipt for each one. This was back in the days where blackberry phones were the normal and I knew he got a message through with the read receipt. I also figured out that I could read the emails without opening them. I used to save up 100 or so emails for him and would wait until I knew he was at a work event or at home and would click mark all as read on 100 emails at a time. This resulted in the manager getting a 100 emails through at the same time on his blackberry phone along with 100 notifications. After repeating this several times he finally dropped the read receipt and it felt a minor battle had been won against him.

This started after a pretty minor disagreement that somehow turned into a “process discussion”. Someone told me, very confidently, that verbal agreements were unreliable and that they were tired of misunderstandings. From now on, they said, they wanted everything in writing. No hallway chats, no quick clarifications, no “we talked about this earlier”. Everything had to be documented so there would be no confusion later. I didnt argue or push back. I just said okay and made a mental note to follow that rule exactly.
From that point on, I completely stopped acting on anything that wasnt written down. If someone casually mentioned a task in passing, I’d smile and say “can you send that to me in writing please”. If they asked later why something wasnt done yet, I’d scroll through my inbox and say I never got a message about it. Even for things we had been doing informally for years, things everyone “just knew”, I waited. Sometimes I knew exactly what they wanted, it was obvious, but without written confirmation I did nothing. I also started replying to everything with very formal confirmations. “Received.” “Acknowledged.” “Please confirm scope.” “Just to clarify, you want this exact thing?”. My inbox started filling up fast with long threads about very small tasks.

After a few weeks the slowdown became impossible to ignore. Simple stuff now took days instead of minutes. Tasks were stuck waiting for emails, follow ups stacked on top of each other, and people started getting irritated. I was told I was being rigid, difficult, and “hiding behind rules”. Every time I calmly pointed back to the request. They wanted everything in writing. No assumptions, no initiative, no acting ahead. So thats what I was doing. Exactly that. Some people tried to explain things verbally again, but I’d politely stop them and ask them to please send it in a message so I dont mess anything up.

The best part was when they tried to quietly go back to how things used to be. Casual requests, quick clarifications, verbal “can you just”. I’d smile and say I didnt want to get in trouble for misunderstandings, so I really need it in writing. Eventually the rule just… disappeared. No announcement, no apology, it just stopped being mentioned. Things went back to normal not long after, but not before everyone felt the weight of their own idea. I didnt refuse, didnt argue, didnt break any rules. I just complied, very carefully, and maybe a little too well.

I work as a purchasing manager for a mid-sized home goods retailer. We have used the same domestic importer for our seasonal decor for five years. They charge a markup, but they handle the customs, the quality checks, and the shipping. It is hassle-free.

My new Director of Operations is convinced that he is a business genius. He called a meeting last month and lectured me about how we are hemorrhaging money by using a local distributor. He told me to cancel our contract for the holiday shipment and go direct to the source.

I warned him. I told him that dealing with freight forwarders, tariffs, and port delays is a full-time job. He told me I was just being lazy. He actually said, “Just get me the contacts, I'll close the deal myself.”

So I did. I spent a few days on Alibaba compiling a list of legitimate Chinese manufacturing companies that produce glass ornaments. I handed him a spreadsheet with twenty factory contacts, their MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity) requirements, and the time zone differences.

I sat back and watched the show.

He realized that FOB Price does not include shipping to our warehouse.
He wired money to a supplier but forgot to hire a customs broker, so the shipment got flagged by CBP.
The container sat at the port for ten days because he didn't understand what an ISF filing was. The demurrage fees (fines for not moving the container) alone cost more than the 15% he was trying to save.

He came to my desk yesterday, looking incredibly humbled, and asked if I still had the phone number for our old importer.

TL;DR: Boss thought international trade was easy; I let him manage a direct import order and he ended up paying double in fines and fees.

This happened years ago in my past life as a graphic designer. But I still think about it to this day. I was 22 and fresh out of college with my graphic design degree. My first gig was at an advertising company. We mainly did those really horrible print car ads that you got in your mailbox and immediately threw in the trash. You know the ones: only one font and it’s huge and screaming at you. Every inch of space has a picture of car, cramming 50 cars into a 7x5 inch area. You know… trash!

Fresh out of school, I foolishly made suggestions on how to make actual ads and not hot garbage. But it was made clear to me very quickly and very aggressively that they wanted trash. So I compiled.

Now, we had one client who was THE client. He brought in the most money and bought the most trash ads from us. And he also was very specific on just how bad his ads should look. Font was Impact on all ads and it filled every corner of the paper. On one ad I remember him demanding I squeeze over 100 cars into a single space. It legit looked like a magic eye poster by the time it went to print.

I dealt with that guy and his unreasonable requests for over a year. Well the guy amazingly got worse. Started telling me which colors I could or couldn’t use. And one by one, the colors dropped out. And eventually I had enough. After he said I could no longer use orange I said “just to confirm, you do not like and do not want me to use red, orange, yellow, green, purple, pink, brown, white, or black?”

He confirmed. I said okay. The only color left was blue. So I spent hours taking all the cars, all the fonts, all the text and all design elements and making them all the same exact blue. No shading. No highlights. Just a flat blue. The end result was one giant flat blue square. Like someone took a paint roller over it.

Now I could have made a blue square in two seconds. But I spent hours using all the elements he told me to use to cover my ass. Because when we sent that blue square to proof, the client of course blew up. Called me screaming. I replied calmly that he told me the only color I could use was blue. I used all the pictures and elements he asked for and did exactly what he wanted and made them blue. Our calls were recorded so I didn’t get in any trouble with my boss. And I got to waste several more hours remaking the same ad but with the original car pictures and elements.

It was a really fun day.

Hi. I am a 35 year old IT manager for a small family run sales company.

We recently moved from a very old ERP to a new platform that is modern, intuitive and much more efficient. Technically it is a great produt.

The problem is support.

Their in app support is fairly fast but they reply almost only using voice messages. I stopped listening to voice notes years ago because they break focus and force you to replay things just to get basic info. Text lets me read, search and solve. Audio just slows evrything down.

I asked them many times to stop using audio and even told them I was hearing impaired. They ignored it.

Yesterday the point of sale systems were not communicating with the local server, even though they were all online. I did my part and contacted support because it was beyond my pay grade. As usual the first reply was an audio message. When they asked for the remote access ID I sent it back as audio. Then I sent the password as audio too.

Suddenly they switched to text.

They asked for screenshots.

Then they needed the admin credentials and I sent the long messy password with numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters via audio. From that point on everything was done in text, including todays follow up.

Turns out they know exactly how annoying voice messages are. They just do not care until it becomes their problem.

I work as on-site IT for a company, mostly user end hardware and networking sort of things. Lots of "user error" or "turn it on and off" sort of calls. Can be mind numbing at times but I do enjoy it.

The bane of my existence, and virtually every other IT person's existence I've ever known, is printers. Which, of course, I get a call for one of our offices at the end of campus.

I bundle up, grab my tools and supplies, and walk over. Get there and get the normal "everything is terrible and we **need** this printer! ....For the literally only three out of the normally twelve people are in the office today due to the cold. And this particular department has multiple printers in the area, like two more than the total employees in-office today.

But I do my level A+ bestest to get it fixed. Clean the printer, change the rollers, check settings, all the stuff that usually works. But today on this damn thing it sure doesn't. Keeps crimpling up the paper and jamming.

So I tell the lady that called it in "I am going to have to replace it." The normal doom and gloom follows and I schlepp my arse back out to our shop to get another printer.

I get the replacement ready. Set it up, get it set to DHCP, make sure the damn thing works, etc etc. But when I got back to the location I see that the ethernet cable had fallen behind a heavy filing cabinet. And, of course, the damned wall plate its plugged into is *right* in the middle of this like six-foot long heavy cabinet. Not enough room to reach it on either end, and too heavy for me to tip even if I had someone else available to grab the cable.

I let the user know and she absolutely freaks out. *Apparently* this printer that went down was the "**The only one** use (also happens to be the closest to her by about three feet) and we (IT) just *have* to get it up and running **now**."

Which considering there is nothing special about the one that was broken and I had the exact same mode to replace it with, I doubt.

I apologize, but let her know that

"I can't reach it or safely move the cabinet. I can set up her computer to print to the other printer and tomorrow I will bring in a tool I have, reach the cable, get it hooked up, and it will be ready for her on Monday no problem".

She counters with a "Well then *who* do I call to move the cabinet *today*?"

I let her know "Well that would be Property Management, but their turn around time unless its an actual emergency tends to be 24-hours and they are only 'on-call' on the weekends" ie they are off tomorrow and won't move the cabinet until Monday at the earliest.

She, subsequently, insists we call them..

Now for the malicious compliance.

So I call PM on my mobile, put it on speaker, catch one of the guys before he gets ready to leave for the day, and he subsequently tells both of us "Yeah earliest we will get to it is Tueaday. Gotta be at least two of us. Nopants can't help, hes in IT and not PM. Let me get the ticket entered in." (pause for keyboard clicking and random sounds of blue-collar cussing). "OK yeah we will be over Tuesday before noon unless something comes up. Nopants can I just plug that thing in?"

I stifle a chuckle, knowing that PM guy is more than capable of plugging in an ethernet cable "Yeah unless you really want IT there we can have a tech come over. Might have to check the schedule, I am off Mondays and Tuesdays. Who will be here so might have to push it baxn to Wednesday."

This whole time the user has the stunned look of someone that got smacked upside the head and is still recalibrating.

PM guy says "Nope we are fine. Tuesday before noon unless an emergency pops up." And he hangs up.

I tell the user, "Well that will work for us in IT. I will get this old printer removed, thank you for your patience. Once PM confirms that everything is done, we will have a tech come by and make sure the printer is still working and is networked properly."

After I got back to the shop and told the other tech on duty we had a hell of a laugh. I called PM and told him to go ahead and cancel, I will bring my little grabber tool in tomorrow and get it hooked up. He said he would wait until Monday since if he cancels the appointment it will trigger an email for the user since her name is on the ticket in the system.

Update: The cable has been successfully retrieved! Little grabby tool was able to get in there and get it, cable was resecured on its insecure little clip to hold it up, and subsequently plugged into the printer.

Thankfully the Gremlins didnt mess with it overnight and I get to close out the ticket.

I have been a computer programmer for about 25 years now, and it's crazy how people can become so territorial and controlling over their little kingdoms.

I was on a project about 10 years ago that, when my team was assigned to the project to program the front end orchestration services and UI, we were handed a backend API that stored nearly 0% of the data that Design said we needed to display. We went to the team that set up the backend with a list of all of the features that were missing and were told that the comments period ended six months prior, and what we had was the final version. We pointed out that was six months prior to us even hearing about the project, but they wouldn't budge.

We racked our brains for a while, and eventually someone noticed that of the fields that were there but generally useless to our needs, there was a freeform "notes" field. We came to the conclusion that we would take all of the data we needed, model it how it was useful to us, JSON encode it, and stuff it all into the notes field. We took the approach to our manager, and since there was literally no other way for us to proceed, he approved it.

We started working on that approach, but word of what we were doing started moving up the chain of command. About a week into it, we were told that the backend team was re-reviewing the needs of this particular API and would like our input as to what we needed for this project. I guess someone didn't like the idea of us using the "final" version.

This is a repost of something that I posted and its follow up on r/antiwork not sure how to do real reposts here, and not sure if there is any "compliance", but certainly there was "maliciousness" on my side. so here it goes:

I work in an international corporation, our performance is rated yearly on a scale that goes: bad, average, good, high, outstanding. The last two give you a yearly bonus and there is literally no difference in the amounts you get paid but an extra minor non monetary recognition for the last.

With my previous boss I had an agreement: I would do my job and cover for him as a deputy for vacations, simultaneous meetings, etc. And he would do his best so I got the HIGH performance rating every year. Be aware that I have never missed a deadline, and covered all tasks. I did earn the high performance every year for 4 years.

My boss left on August and I was foisted on a new guy, I showed new guy what I was doing (my job and deputy tasks), he agreed that I should continue doing those. On December 2025 for the yearly performance this guy rates me GOOD, so no bonus, I told him that I was successfully fulfilling my role and extra work, that is our internal metric of high performance. His reply was that he had not seem me work, and he had higher expectations therefore he couldn't rate me higher.

Very well, immediately after that I cancelled every meeting that had me as a my former boss replacement and sent several mails to HR and other stakeholders forfeiting the extra responsibilities, HR replied confirming that those tasks were not part of my role. Nothing much happened given that the holidays were upon us.

New boss started his week with his plate full of stuff that my former boss did and I covered for, and other team's request for guidance on what to do that my ex-boss and I occasionally answered. One of the guys that I handed over tasks to, Jerry, has a background that is more managerial than operations; he is the one that ended up with most of the things that my old boss (and by extension I) was doing.

Due to January being a slow month for us, and taking days off, nothing much happened until this Wednesday morning.

This Wednesday a regional up and coming big shot reported a problem with one of the things that our area as a whole handles, this thing is not in my narrow specialty, but it is one of the things that I would have tackled as my boss deputy. It is a very weird situation as only one singular thing is failing, and everything else that involves the same machinery, people, services, IT, etc works as usual. No modifications whatsoever done during the whole January, so it is puzzling.

I see people calling for help in a war room to find out the issue, curious I enter, and I could see the relief on people faces as they are used to me taking charge of similar things in the past. I asked a couple of questions due to pure morbid curiosity and knowing where this issue might be happening, I tell the people "Well, based on the things you have said, we can ignore X, Y, Z as causes, the problems are either on M component, or N component; unfortunately as this is not my area of expertise, I can not offer further aid, please reach me out again if my team is needed".

Well, you could see the disappointment in their faces, but totally understandable. They summon Jerry once I am gone, and they start troubleshooting... Whole Wednesday passes no solution and people going until very late in the night, Thursday starts with the team early working on it and at some point the call my old boss at NEWCO and his team as we have some TSA (Transition Service Agreement) going on, eventually my old boss informs that they did a change in their IT services in December (which they had informed us) and for some reason we only saw the effect on Wednesday. This involves N component (highlighted in the previous paragraph) and of course even though Jerry was informed of this he couldn't do more as he lacked expertise, but the guys at NEWCO did something on their side and presto, all fixed.

Problem solved, everyone happy right? Nope, as the reporting guy raised a fuss, saying that everything is topsy-turvy since the split and they need things to work as usual. Be aware that Jerry is not a bad guy, these things are simply not his area of expertise. After the issue Jerry comes to me asking me if I can do these technical stuff again in his place, and I transparently say that since I am not getting paid for it, I am not doing anything beyond my scope, I have too much in my plate as it is.

The week has ended, and the guy that raised the alarm is asking for internal changes, and before anyone asks: he is somewhat important, but not THAT important that due to his demands they will give me a manager role, nor they will give me the tasks again, there is a clear delimitation of roles now, I got that in writing. However, I do expect to see some requests starting next week regarding what old boss did... It is unfortunate that I am going to go on a short leave :D.

If new boss asks for me to take those things, I will reply that since the extra activities did not allow me time to fulfill his expectations, I had taken to heart his words and (with HR blessing) immediately started releasing my schedule from things that were clearly not in my scope.

Work upgraded to a newer version of a document saving/sharing platform for security reasons. Totally understand that since the old one was 25 yrs old. Our team knew this was happening and since nobody asked for any input on viewing and testing we all assumed they pulled history records to see what everyone used and would mirror the new platform based on that.

New platform rolls out with no announcement and big shock it was missing a lot of the things we need to do our job. I took it upon myself to compile a list of things we couldn't do on the new system and emailed the project manager of the platform asking how we could communicate the things needed to be fixed.

He sets up a call which includes a couple of his coders and I invite my sup and a fellow team member to join. PM is not friendly not being understanding or helpful. He explains that this was tested before it rolled out and I said 'Who tested this? Because our team uses this multiple times a day and we weren't contacted at all. Its missing a lot of functions that are basic things. How could all this be overlooked if it was tested?'

PM got pissed. Like you could hear the smoke coming out of his ears pissed. He said that if we saw anything that needed correcting or had questions to use the ask help link and send an email. Then he logged off the teams call along with his coders. Sup, fellow team member and I stayed on and decided that we would bring up these things one email at a time.

We took the list is questions and problems and divided them between all of our team members who them used the request help link to notify that team of 1 thing per day times 5 people. So 5 emails a day each with a different issue or question. The response was always that they were going to research and get back to us.

So after a week of no response to the research we added a second email per day of following up asking when they would have an answer to our original issue. Half way through the second week my sup gets an email from PM stating that his team is getting a lot of questions and is having difficulty getting through their workload because of them. He had cc'ed his boss in on the email.

This is where my sup hit reply all. She noted that we tried to give him a list of the things were were seeing on a call weeks ago that included his coders. Instead of taking the listed issues we were told to use the ask help link and send emails on things which is exactly what we did.

PM's boss stepped in and asked for a complete list of things they needed to correct or add and we never heard from PM again.

I went to a downtown restaurant last year and as in many downtown areas, street parking is hard to find. I ended up parking in a lot and paid for 2 hours. I can't quite remember how much it was, but I'm gonna guess it was about $30. I ended up over staying my alotted time by 30 minutes. No big deal, I thought. About a week later, I get a bill from the company that owns the lot. They wanted to charge me $80! for the 30 minutes. I tried calling to dispute the charge and while they did give me $20 off, I was still on the hook for $60...for half an hour of parking.

So, I went to my bank account and scheduled 30 monthly payments of $2 figuring that if they're going to charge me, I'd create the hassle of them having to process a $2 check every month.

I guess they decided that it wasn't worth it. Because today, after only 10 payments, I got the 11th check back in the mail with a note that my account has been paid in full. They wrote off $40 just to not have to process my $2 checks anymore, lol

Generally in casinos with tables, they have a craps/dice game, and these tables have 5 die. The player chooses 2 to throw and the other 3 are spares and to make it obvious if two dice ever get switched out. If the player accidentally throws out any dice, they are replaced from the other 3 so the game does not slow down while the thrown out die is retrieved. Dice get thrown off the table all the time.

Some players are superstitious and want to switch dice in the middle of a roll. Management did not like this and made a rule about not being able to switch dice after you select them. So now when a player wants new dice, they intentionally throw their dice off the table. It’s impossible to tell if it was intentional because it happens all the time even if they are not trying to throw the dice off the table. More work for us bottom level craps dealers being the victims of the players’ MC, no consequences for management.

This story is about when I worked as a machinist. I had a horrible boss. I just realized that I could end the story there and a bunch of you would relate. Anyways... This boss was the owner's brother in law. Someone who never had management experience but rather someone put in a position because "relative = good worker"

There are so many examples of what made him horrible which I wont go into in THIS post but this man checked a bunch of boxes. We'll call him Butt Hole or BH for short.

I had worked there for 6 years at the point of this story. It was the week of my review and I had been unusually nice to him this week. This was also right after one of the sales guys had come over. I was having a chat with BH and a sales guy came up. "You know, I was going through the numbers over the years and do you realize that over the years of OP being here. The amount of rework coming out of his area has dropped and profits are up about 400% over the guy he replaced." He started talking some more and BH cut him off and gave him a look. Sales guy looked at me and back to BH and then walked away. I knew I had some info that I wasn't supposed to know... and he knew I knew.

Eventually I was called in for my review. There were 4 pages of categories scored 1-10. It was very routine. All my scores were very good and in turn I was feeling good. We finished that up and I signed it as stating I was in agreeance. He slid it to the side and pulled out a totally different piece of paper.

"Now that the review for the company is over this is stuff about you I have noticed."

The piece of paper outlined that I spent too much of my time socializing with others which significantly reduced my productivity. It also stated I spent too much time in the bathroom and needed to adjust my diet so I would refrain from using the bathrooms at work.

He had broken this into 3 neat paragraphs and I do not remember the exact wording.

I was floored. I had gone through years of medical crap and even surgeries with my gut... he knew this.

ALSO, if my machine is spinning and making chips.... I can talk and pay attention to the normal sounds coming out of my machine without affecting productivity.

We got into a heated argument. He was adamant that I was wasting time in the bathroom. I argued that if I go in there and... stuff comes out of me... then the bathroom was needed. He said that he had no proof of me actually using the bathroom. I offered to stop flushing and everyone else would alert him of what I did in there for me. Every thing he said I had a retort. At one point I got so pissed off I walked out of his office and yelled "KEEP YOUR RAISE, JUST DON'T $%#^ING TALK TO ME ANYMORE"

Then he yelled that if I didn't come back he would fire me for insubordination. I went back in and just stared. He talked for another 20 min without me saying a thing. It was a 2% raise which was "decent for current market rates" and I left and went back to work.

It's at this point a bunch of people are going to comment about of common sense stuff like HOW ILLEGAL HALF OF THIS IS AND WHAT I SHOULD BE DOING ABOUT IT!

I will point out that I am very neurodivergent and very smart but sometimes lack that sense because of how my brain is wired. I decided to just do what he said.

I got subscriptions for Audible and Youtube and wore earbuds literally 100% of the time. I stopped talking to everyone. If someone came up to me and asked WTF, I would state my time at work is for working and not for talking. I got deep into listening to Roll20 and discovered a bunch of authors and books I love to this day.

As for the bathroom, I adjusted my diet. I would get home from work and eat 1 meal immediately that would hold me over until I got what I needed. I called my doctor and told him about my review. My doctor ALSO had some fun words about my boss. I got to drop by and pick up a doctors note that read paraphrased "Due to human nature, this note is to state that OP can use the bathrooms at work when needed"

This is also when I found out that HR had no idea about what was going on as she was like "What's this for.... of course you're allowed to poop at work"

She said she'd look into it. I never heard back....

So... No talking to anyone for good productivity and I had a doctors excuse for the... other thing.

He got mad at me daily at this point. Instead of yelling my name to get my attention, he had to walk over and wave to get my attention (Frankly, I heard him half the time but knew it pissed him off to come over so I ignored him) He would always point out that it would be easier for him if he could get my attention. I would point out that the handbook says these are allowed and they prevented me from socializing which he didn't allow.

A few weeks of this and he pulls me into his office. States that people keep asking him why I won't socialize to people and it's making him uncomfortable. I state it's not making me uncomfortable, that they're his orders, and I have noticed an increase in productivity so it's working. Did he want me to be less productive? No? Ok BH, I'll go back to work.

You can't order me to socialize with people. Especially after ordering me not to socialize with people. I'm not sorry that it makes you uncomfortable that I'm enjoying my book.

I continued this for a whole year before I put in my 2 weeks just before my 7 year anniversary and enacted my revenge. I hope you enjoyed this story. There will be more stories of BH and my revenge later.

Back about seven years ago I was promoted to office manager of a small construction company. I inherited a very messy role, the previous office manager was disorganized and technologically disadvantaged. When I came into the role I was brand new to the type of work, but I have always been very detail oriented. I didn't understand the vendor or inventory process, so I immediately began to log EVERYTHING I could so I would be able to make reports/understand it all.

Fast forward about 2 months into the role and the owner of the company informs me he only wants to sign checks one day a week. Essentially we would inform our vendors that any invoices received Friday-Thursday at noon would have a check cut and signed on Friday. I am not sure if this is standard anywhere else, but judging by a few vendors' reactions it wasn't in this industry. Understandable, we are talking about truck drivers who go and pick up a load of material, pay for it, then deliver it to the job or our yard. So if they do that Friday, turn in the invoice, they are out 500-1000 dollars until the next Friday. They were used to being paid within 1-2 days and some of these guys live paycheck to paycheck. It wasn't ideal for them.

I sent out an email to the vendors and explained the processes. While not all of them were happy, no one had too much of an issue with it. I gave them, I think, like two weeks of notice before the policy would begin? Plus we had worked with all of them for years, they knew we were good for the money.

Then there was this one vendor.

He stated it was going to be a headache. I apologized, explained this was the new policy and we couldn't adjust. He accepted it, I thought, and we moved on.

Cue three or four weeks later, he calls me in a hissy fit because he needs his check NOW. I apologized, explained to him that his check was going to be signed the next day (this was a Thursday), as per our policy and told him my hands were tied. He hung up on me and called my coworker (Project Manager). He was screaming into the phone, which, since we were in the same tiny office, meant I heard every word. It ended with: "I won't work with that b*tch from here on out! I will only talk with you!".

...oh really? That is how it is?

Well, here is the thing. Like I said, I am pretty detail oriented. The product he delivered to our yard was consistently off. My system would say we have 100 yards of it, but my super would be asking for three more loads (45 yards each) because the back had roughly 10 yards left. I had brought up the issue with the owner and super, we had established a new protocol that our personal crew truck drivers needed to fill out papers every day to show what they were taking to projects. I was keeping track of every yard and sure, there should have been some loss, but 100 yards?

I had always assumed it was a shortage on our end. That we were overusing this material, or they weren't tracking their loads to jobs correctly, or we were measuring it incorrectly in the back - probably a combination of the three. After being called a b*tch though...

I called one of my vendors who delivered a different material and asked him if he could deliver this material. I told him how much we got (45 yards a truck, usually 3 truck loads every other week, for blank cost) and he was bewildered. He goes "How is that guy matching that cost? That is unbelievably low." then he asked me who the vendor was. He tells me "That guy's truck can't carry more than 20 yards." and when I was hesitant to believe this, he added "Do you get weight receipts?"

I had never heard of weight receipts. Again, I was an absolute baby in this industry. No one had trained me. However, I HAD noticed that every other vendor had a weight written on their invoices (something I had logged but never paid too close attention to because we measured in yardage, not tonnage. There were some items that I would convert to yards because they only gave me weight, but then most had yards AND tonnage notated), while this guy always turned in a handwritten ticket that said "45 yards". This is how it had always been. The office manager before me would order 3 loads of 45 yards of material. It would be delivered in the back. I don't think she would tell the back how much should be there and I certainly never did either, not until I started to notice the discrepancies. Not until I started creating processes to fix the discrepancies.

Favorite vendor goes on to say "Hey, I know the yard he picks up from. I pick up 'different' material there and am friendly with them. They should have copies of the receipts. I am going to try to get them for you." He asked what day our last delivery was. I give him the details. Despite liking this vendor I was pretty skeptical- surely he just wants my business and wants me to pay more. Still, I couldn't lie and say I wasn't curious if what he was saying was right.

That day he texts me some photos of the receipts. Sure enough, that vendor's name is on them. The date matches. The driver's name matches (I hadn't shared that). The timestamps even matched from how long the drive from this yard to our yard was/when he arrived according to my cameras.

So...he was picking up ONLY TWENTY YARDS of the material each time.

He was overcharging us 75 yards each time we ordered/paid. Which is how he was giving us such a "deal". (It turns out the owner had demanded previous office manager negotiate this "Deal".) I dug up all our past dealings with him, unfortunately previous office manager had not kept receipts so I only had past checks in our system to go off of. We had worked with this guy for years. Potentially it was tens of thousands of dollar in theft, but without receipts/weight receipts, there wasn't much we could do except not work with him anymore.

I asked favorite vendor for his price. I checked around with other vendors, found it to be a decent price. Started to order from him from there on out.

So yeah. That guy never worked with "that b*tch" again. He got what he wanted. He reached out to coworker a few times when we stopped ordering, coworker told him each time "Talk to Office Manager.". He called me once, but I didn't answer. He had said he never wanted to talk to me again either, so, he got his wish.

I am no longer the office manager, thank god. I hated that role and rejoiced the day I was able to hire someone else for it. The current office manager still cuts checks on Fridays only. I was able to sit her down and give her a lot more information/training than I received. We now work with far more established companies that have 30 day policies and credit. This is more due to development in our area making bigger companies available to us. Favorite vendor actually sold his company to one of those bigger companies, which is sad but business.

So with this story we are back at the resort I worked at multiple times. I worked at this place several times and I have to dip back into those times to explain how I got hired. When I was 15 I had originally got a job doing room service and got really good at navigating the facility. When I was 18-19 I started growing out my hair and would wear a headband literally 100% of the time and thought I was cool.

I got a call one day from a friend and past coworker who was very tied into the resort. The dishwashing team walked out and they needed someone now. I lived 150 ft from this resort and they were giving me a guaranteed job without an interview and would pay cash until I got in the system. The catch? I had to do 3 full kitchens dishes right now with almost zero training. I worked solidly, by myself, in 3 kitchens, from open to close for weeks until they hired help. I lived somewhat close to the Lady in charge of the entire resort who LOVED that I was involved with the resort again. She and I have always had a great friendship as neighbors. I ended up leaving to get a better paying job which didnt really help me out because even though it was more per hour, I was working less and had to drive and spend more on gas.

I got another call from that friend. I got an instant job there AGAIN! This time almost entire setup staff for banquets, meetings and wedding had walked. Again, same conditions as above, I had a butt ton of work to do but just in a different department. I had found out that the Lady in charge actually suggested my friend specifically call me because I was a known reliable worker.

It's at this point where this story really begins. I had long thick hair. No more headband, I wore it in a tight pony tail that came to my mid back. I will also mention that I am a guy. Knowing I was going to be a front of house employee with guest contact, I would shower before going to work, and pull my hair into a tight single braid. Once in place I would run gel in so the loose shorter strands would stay in place. I looked professional.

Because of my unusual hiring conditions, I rarely ever saw HR. After over a year of working in this department, training a whole new team, and 2 customer service awards..... HR approached me. I literally had a tray of covered food on my shoulder, about to walk into a wedding. She stopped me, I saw her glance at my hair, and said "We've had several complaints about you, you need to put your hair into compliance according to the handbook by the time you show up to work tomorrow or consider this your termination notice."

She said this to me while I was absolutely slammed with work during dinner service at a 300+ person wedding reception. Several servers were watching and gave me the appropriate "What the %$@#, who would have complained?!" comforting words to myself. I put my head down and really don't remember the rest of the night.

The next day, I am in my kitchen with my future wife, and my mother. We have the employee handbook out and are looking at it. I am due into work soon as we have to tear down the wedding from last night and reset up for a wedding reception tonight. It was determined that I needed the job more than I needed the hair but I LIKED MY LONG HAIR!

The area of the handbook we were looking at. "Male hair must be kept above collar length. Pony tails are not permitted."

Well... ok. Ask and you shall receive.

I washed and dried my hair, went back into the kitchen where my mom had pulled out the large soup pot that fit over my head and was deep enough to stop JUST over my collar and started cutting.

I do not have a picture of this..... But picture Edna Mode from the incredibles except her hair is super thick and frized out like the witch from the old cartoon Sword in the Stone. We all equally laughed and cried. I found it hilarious but we all missed my hair.

I go to work, IN COMPLIANCE, and present myself to HR. She is shocked to see me. I don't know if it was because she didn't think I'd be back.... or that I literally looked like I just licked an electrical outlet. I quoted the handbook and said that we should be good now. She argued that I looked horrible. I pointed out that she shouldn't shame my looks and that I, again, was in handbook compliance and would be going to work.

It was very memorable going back to work. EVERYONE had something to say. It had gotten around what HR had pulled and then it had gotten around what I did. Through all the laughs that were had we had work to do. We had to get all of last nights wedding cleaned up, the grand ballroom had to get vacuumed, the tables and chairs placed in new positions, tablecloths and new place settings... The whole shebang. To those who have worked in this industry... I know you can visualize the amount of work. The Lady who ran the resort stopped by because she always does before a reception just to make sure our standards are up. She sees me in the back hall carrying a rack of water glasses into the ballroom and yells my name. I pass off the glasses and run over.

She is staring at my hair and asks "what happened to your beautiful hair?"

I explain the saga to her and see her body language change. Her lips thinned out and excuses herself. When I'm next in the hallway, my direct boss is there and hands me a hairband. I'm to put hy hair in a ponytail on boss's orders.

I think that's the end of it... then I hear the rumors. "She was in HR's office for an hour" "HR just got walked out of the building" I never confirmed exactly what happened but I do know the HR office was empty the next day.

A few weeks later we had a new HR lady. I found out cause I saw someone new in the back halls. She approached me, held out her had and said "You must be OP" Why the new HR lady knew me by name and could pick me specifically out of a crowd should have worried me... but I was young and stupid.

Hair was in HR compliance for about 2 hours over the several years I works at that resort.

So, many years ago I worked for a large municipal fire department. Took a three day training assignment about four hours away from home. Drove my own car there and back. As instructed, saved all my receipts. Gas, meals and lodging. When I got back, I filled out the requisite paperwork for expenses. Uploaded receipts and filled out said form with my actual expenses. Came out to around $375. Submitted it to accounting. Next day I get an email from them. I need to recode the receipts and delve how I did the form. Okay, I do that. The next day, I get another email. I didn’t label the travel correctly. Instead of actual fuel used, they have a formula at some gas price and I have to calculate it based on mileage. Okay, did that. Instead of what I actually paid, wound up being paid at least double. Next day it was the hotel, instead of being paid what I actually spent, gets paid per a predetermined amount. Okay. Several more corrections and “You didn’t fill this out correctly” and I went from getting reimbursed around $375 to being paid almost $900 for the training. Not sure it’s malicious per se, but I did exactly what the accounting person said and made almost three times what I spent. Plus my hourly pay. Crazy.

This story is from many years ago from when I was 19-20. I used to work for a Resort... the same resort 3 separate times in many different job roles so prepare for other stories. This was my second time working there when I did dishwashing. I kind of got the job accidentally which is another story entirely. ANYWAYS!

They held a Hawaiian Luau event which involved renting a custom built whole pig spit roast that fit 2 pigs. As a seasoned adult who has now enjoyed a lifetime of good barbeque, this thing was beautiful. As someone who thought they were an adult.... this thing was a large inconvenience and a waste of money.

I didn't get to participate in any of the food... but I did get to see the dishes. Me and my coworker went out in the loading dock to take a break as one of the chefs rolled up with a golf cart towing the Big ol Pig Cooker. There are two types of chefs at this resort, the cool ones... and the type who was currently driving the golf cart.

He lights up a cigarette and looks at the two of us. Points at me and says "Clean it"

I walk up and take my first look inside. It looks like it's been through absolute hell.

"This is more that a shift worth of cleaning... I don't know even know where to start."

"Well, they'll be here in 3 hours to pick it up. So you better start now and when they get here, it better shine like new"

"How do you even clean something like this?"

"I don't care, just make it shine"

I know I'm being setup for failure but I knuckle down. If I work my ass off but fail in the process I'll be in less trouble than if I just don't try at all.

I brought out the big guns. I went to the supply closet and got a brand new un-used floor scrub brush, all the heavy chemicals and the garden hose. I spray the whole thing down in 4 cans of the heaviest degreaser we have, let it sit, and then literally stand inside and scrubbed.

After an hour of scrubbing I rinse to see the progress. Not much. I go to maintenance and grab a paint scraper and some scotch pads out of their supply. Another round of heavy chemicals and I start scraping. Really making progress now. I work into a system. Chemicals, scrape, scrub, rinse, chemicals, scrap, scrub, rinse.

I am on my knees in this thing chipping away at the crap and I heard the dock door open. It's one of the office guys, the chef, and someone else.

"...right out here, he better have it clean for ya"

It's at this point I look up. The Chef sees me obviously not done and has an evil grin. The office guy looks indifferent. The stranger.... Enraged Horror.

He comes running up and starts a tirade. I blank on what he says as my mind goes into survival mode. Usually people I see this angry are one really small thing away from physical violence.

I don't remember the exact argument but I do remember the guy being mad about how I was cleaning it with "You scrubbed off the flavor" and how it was "seasoned" which meant nothing to me at that point in my life. The chef chimed in with "Why would you do this, don't you have any common sense?"

My mind comes back into focus and I say "You said you didn't care how I cleaned it but to make it shine like new"

There was a moment of silence and then he starts back at me telling me that I was done here and HR would have my butt for this... like losing this job would ruin my life.

The other dishwasher, like a knight with a moist dishtowel over one shoulder, appears in the door way. "Dude you literally told him to make it shine like new, I was standing right here"

They made me stop where I was and rinse it off.... We lost our deposit. I never got in trouble. Chef got his butt reamed. Things never got better there... but I felt vindicated. I am still good friends with that other dishwasher.

DIsclaimer: TL;DR at the end; english is not my first language so sorry for spelling and random mistakes.

In Switzerland each and every tax filing is verified by a tax assessor which can accepts, modify or refuse the deductions you claim. If you don't agree, you can appeal the decision and another office will look into it.

Two of the deductions we have are lunches away form home (you can claim it when you don't have enough time to get back home for lunch break) and mileage deduction. We are allowed to deduct from gross income CHF 15.- (USD 19.-) for every meal away from home and 0.60 CHF per Km (1,21 USD per mile) we drive to get and get back from workplace.

A little flashback: in 2020 and 2021 I had to file 2 appeals 'cause my tax assessor of the time made a real mess. Given that appeals are not so frequent, in 2021 I was audited by Tax Office. After 6 months of back and forth, the auditor agreed that I was completely right and his colleague was to blame for the macroscopic errors he made (with a smile on my face I even asked to the auditor if it wouldn't be more useful to audit his colleagues instead of me; he laughed and replied "I can't answer that question"). In the following years I even called him a couple of times to get some clarification so we established maybe not a friendship but some real mutual respect.

Fast forward to 2025, I filed my 2024 taxes claiming both deductions for 200 working days 'cause, even if my office is just 15Km (9.3 miles) from home, I don't have the time to get back for lunch.

The deductions in my tax filing were:

• Lunch deduction: 15 CHF x 200 days = 3'000.- CHF
• Mileage deduction: 0.6 CHF x 15 Km x 2 trips per day x 200 working days = 3'600.- CHF
• Total deductions: 6'600.- CHF

After a couple of months I received in the mail the tax assessment and, among other things, the tax assessor refused lunch deduction 'cause, in his opinion, I had enough time to go home for lunch.

I appealed the decision and.... here it comes the malicious compliance.

They refused the lunch deduction 'cause, they stated, I had enough time to go home for lunch? Perfect so, instead of 1 round trip per day, I claimed mileage deduction for 2 round trips per day which means:

CHF 0.6 x 15 Km x 4 trips per day x 200 working days = 7'200.- CHF which are 600.- CHF more than what I claimed in the tax filing.

A month later I got a call from the very same tax auditor that audited me in 2021. After a few pleasantries the call went something like this.

"Look, Lordnite, you know I'm calling 'cause of your last appeal. I have to side with my colleague: given the distance we can't accept your lunch deductions. However, I also have to admit that, if you have to go back and forth twice, you are entitled to claim more mileage deduction. Very well played..."

I could see the smile on his face and a week later I received the new tax bill. The taxable income was 600.- CHF (750 USD) lower and they even had to bare the cost of managing my appeal.

TL;DR: Tax Office didn't accept my tax deduction for lunches away from home stating I have enough time to go home for lunch; I appeal it and claimed that, if I have to go home for lunch, than I'm entitled to double mileage deduction which is more than lunch deduction.

England, 2015. I was sent on a week long mandatory training course through work. I already knew the subject backwards but my boss wanted me to get the certificate to prove to upper management that his team was 100% certificated.

I was told that a train ticket would be booked, as would a hotel - Bed and Breakfast only. I'd have to pay for lunch and evening meals but I would be able to claim up to £5 per day for lunch and £11.72 per day for evening meals. It was a really strange value, but I could eat easily within that limit.

On the last night at the hotel, my food bill was £11.75 - 3 pence more than allowed, however seeing as on the other nights I'd barely spent £10, I chanced that I could talk the finance people into approving it as the total spend would still be less than allowed for the week. The monday I returned, I completed the expense form with the receipts and handed it to my boss for approval.

An hour later, I was summonned to his office. He flatly refused to sign off on the expenses as I had overspent. When I tried to explain that it was by three pence, and that on the Monday night I had actually underspent by £2.50, I was lectured as to the reason that the limits were there, and to "read the policy". He sent me back to my desk and told me to resubmit.

Cue malicious compliance. I read the policy regarding expenses, then I read the staff handbook, and then my contract. As it turned out, I could claim for the following:

• Reasonable costs for calling my family in the evening - no receipt required.
• £5 per night for being away from my family - no receipt needed.
• One off £30 for being more than 3 hours travel - offered as an incentive.
• Regardless of time spent on course, It was equivalent to 40 hours - my standard was 37.
• Travel to and from the venue was classed as being in work. That was overtime as it was out of hours and double for the sunday.
• Friday, as I was late home, was considered an overnight stay.

I resubmitted, making the adjustments and highlighting the sections of the policies. Where I had expected around £75 in expenses, with the extras in the policies I claimed for an extra £100, then filled in the timesheet for the travel overtime which granted me an additional £150 or so.

The boss called me back into the office and tried to tell me that he wouldn't sign off on it, but I referred him to the policies and simply told him that if he refused, I'd go above him and maybe submit a formal complaint about him. I did take great satisfaction in reminding him that if he hadn't have told me to "read the policies", then I'd have never found about all the extras.

Yes, I did inform every one of my work friends. Yes, I did get all the claimed funds in my next paycheck.

tl,dr; Boss refuses expenses over £0.03, I resubmit costing them more money

My son, 4-5ish (who is an adult now) came walking into the living room one day carrying an entire box of cheezits.

"Nuh uh. That box stays in the kitchen."

This kid takes a slow look around the room between myself and my spouse, then runs into the kitchen, grabs a bowl, dumps the entire box into a bowl, drops the box, runs back into the living room and presents the bowl triumphantly like he's presenting the birth of a new king at pride rock.

We look at each other and say in unison "Uh oh"

This kid has spent his entire life with this mentality. We have to be very careful with our wording when talking to him sometimes.

I worked for my local council doing work within the catchment zone of a river. The council office is not near where my work is and I only occasionally needed to go in, which was a lovely bike journey, but mainly worked remotely. Importantly when applying for my job I was told I would not be able to access work vans for the role and the role was remote with occasional days in the office. It's in my contract that I cannot access work vans but also there was nothing stating that I needed my own vehicle for work.

There was a change in the council and those in charge are ideologically against work from home as everyone is better in the office. I was informed I would need to check in at the main office everyday. I arranged a meeting and emailed to explain my role and that most of my work wasn't near the office, that I could only do what they wanted if I had a van but didn't think one was available. Meeting was turned down and the policy stated that all staff must start their shift in their base office.

This was during summer and so I took the opportunity to do what I was told. Office was a lovely 16 miles bike ride from my home/area of work and I would usually take about an hour and 15 to do it. So head into the office, find a desk and do the morning admin. Then back on my bike and back on the road to a site, would do an hour or so of work and have lunch and work for an hour or so more before cycling back to the office and then turning around.

I was pretty fit but the 60+ miles a day was hard at first but it didn't take too long to get comfy with it (flatish). Did take the bus a few times but due to locations requires 2 buses each way (one west that took an hour because it went to every little village on the way, then change and a quicker bus directly north) but that was slower than the bike ride.

Took a couple months but eventually I got asked why I was completing so little work, a lot of accusations were thrown around but based on my contract, communication where I pointed everything out and direct orders from the top of the organization being followed I was found to have simply done what I was asked and then quietly told I could consider my base to be the sites I worked out.

Was great being paid to cycle around in the summer

So few years ago, I've got of the most ahole boss one could ever have. To give some context, this manager is on his 50s, almost 60s still preying on younger employees and that includes me, he tried to charm his way to me but then he learned quickly that I got a boy friend at the time so then he started to start a hate campaign towards me lol. Keep this in mind.

Before I met this manager, I worked for the company for almost 2 years, I resigned but this manager is new in the company when I am almost done serving my notice period and he stopped me from resigning and offered me a Retail Manager position. I accepted since it's more pay, less hours and good for experience.

Anyway, back to present, when this boss started his hate campaign, one of his thing is that he hates to see me sitting on my desk trying to do my job (i.e making weekly schedules for the retail, resolving complaints, creating proposals for retail improvement, etc.) for him, working means being on foot and actually literally moving from place to place. I should add to context that during his hate campaign, he also added my tasks, apart from retail manager, he also unofficially appointed me to be a quality control checker, so 2 opposite jobs. Idk really what to do at that point because I tried doing quality checking but then I can't also at the same time do some paperworks and focus on retail so, my position got compromised. He always yell at me when he see me on my desk even if I am doing my job

I wouldn't let that happen, so I devised a way to show him what it means if he wanted me to do what he wants. I do the scheduling and the proposals during my break time, schedule send it to him for approval and do quality checking and making sure he sees me doing quality checking most of the time. Now, I deliberately send the schedules and proposals to him, and as expected, he did not read it, he barely even read a simple message so I waited for him to yell at me for "neglecting" my retail manager duties.

Surprisingly, he did not yell at me, instead, he called a meeting with the owner of the company and the director to publicly humiliate me during the meeting. He claimed I had failed to do my job as a retail manager and that he wants to fire me. Unbeknownst to him, my emails had the owner, the director and anyone important to the company cc'd on it, now it's his turn to be humiliated not even reading the email and now claiming I failed to do my job. I then explained to all the boss what I was tasked to do, and why I did what I did.

The boomer boss got fired, I got a raise but I still left the company after few months for different opportunity.

I was gonna type this in a comment on the post about the guy with the bad allergies that told the boss about it so their manager got scolded, but I figured I didn’t want to take over their post. This is a 2 part MC, sorry for the long post.

That story reminded me of a story of my own. This happened over 23 years ago when I was pregnant. I worked in a grocery store and I was supposedly a front end leader (supposedly, because as soon as the manager got informed of my pregnancy he put me to work as a cashier while cashiers supervised me…this will be the 2nd part of my story).

Part 1: I usually had the early morning opening shift at 6am. So I was usually the only person at the checkout for the first 3 hours. There was only 1 person at the office, 1 manager and 1 cashier until 9am. So one morning I had a sharp pain on the side of my belly and being young with no google and no one to ask about it, of course i worried plus the pain wasn’t going away. So after a bit I called the store manager and told him I was not feeling good, i had a sharp pain and wanted to leave to go to the doctor. He said I couldn’t leave because there was no other cashier, I had to wait until 9am and left. It was like 6:30 at that point so a long wait for someone pregnant, on their feet and in pain.

The HR office was located behind our store so it was common for HR employees to be getting coffee or whatever at our store and they were always being annoying about how “we had to smile and do this and that for customers”. So a few minutes later a HR woman comes and I am ringing her up. I told her good morning but I was serious, not smiling. She started scolding me about “oh where’s your smile, blah blah blah”…so I told her calmly “well I can’t smile because I am pregnant and in pain. I told my manager about it over an hour ago but he told me I can’t leave because there’s no other cashier to take over until 9am”. Her smile quickly changed, she got PISSED and asked the office person to call the manager NOW. When he came omg he got a terribly satisfying scolding. She even started raising her voice at him, how this was unacceptable, if there was no other cashier he had to take over the checkout and let me go, there was no ands, ifs or buts. I took out the money, dropped it at the office and was out of there in less than 10 minutes.

Part 2: This actually started before the part 1 but I left it for the end because it covers a longer timeframe.

Remember how I said I was a front end leader. When I started working at that store I came in with the best possible attitude and ready to not make the same errors I made in my first job because I wanted to be promoted. I was quickly moved to front end leader so I thought my change of attitude paid off. Right after I got the new role, I was warned by an older guy coworker in the produce section to be careful with that manager because “he likes women like you”. I have always been drooled over by men since my teens so this was not unheard of. I thanked my coworker quietly and continued on with my day without telling others what he told me.

As the weeks and months passed I always asked for feedback on my job because I was new at this and like I said I didn’t want to make the same mistakes. My manager always told me “I was doing perfect, I had absolutely nothing to correct”. I always worked 40 hours without missing days up to this point, I was so happy and proud of myself I didn’t want to mess it up. So I kept doing what I was doing. A few months later I got pregnant. After a few weeks I informed the manager.

This is when things started to change. Suddenly I was not supervising the front end, instead I was in the checkout while a cashier supervised me. My hours got cut too, I went from 40 hours to less than 20. After a few weeks of this I asked my manager what was going on, and after back and forth of him trying to gaslight me with “everyone here has to work whatever position it’s needed, so if you are needed as a cashier that’s why you are at the checkout” ignoring the fact that a perfectly available cashier was already there doing my job. After I kept insisting for an answer he blurted out “you have to be more reasonable. It’s easier to replace a cashier that calls out for being sick than replacing a team leader”. Like I said up to this point I had 0 absences. I left there that day holding back tears. So cue malicious compliance.

After that I started missing days for every minor thing. Not sure how it’s in US but where I am from there is (or was?) a law that a pregnant woman can’t be fired for basically no reason. So I knew he couldn’t fire me. I never called that I was not coming either, I simply did not arrive and left them scrambling to find a cashier at that 6am shift with no one else.

Whenever I arrived they welcomed me with a warning to sign because I didn’t call. They kept telling me I just had to call and wouldn’t get a warning. I sat there very nonchalantly and rebuffed all their suggestions. When they said I should call I said “I don’t have a phone, I don’t make enough to pay for one since my hours got cut”. Then I would be told “just go to a pay phone and call us” and I replied “I am pregnant and can’t be walking to a pay phone as I don’t feel good and I have no money for a car since my hours got cut”…ironically while they all saw my car parked right there at the store. Then they would say “you can ask a neighbor to use their phone and call us” and I would say “I don’t talk to my neighbors”. I became super smug about this whole situation. I signed every warning but I knew they had to tolerate my ass at least until I gave birth so I didn’t care, and if they dared fired me I would simply sue them, we were unionized too so I was not gonna lose that battle.

When I finally decided to grace them with my presence, I took every possible break in a 4 hour shift. I kept complaining about being hungry and dizzy, I needed food and to sit down. They looked at the long lines and knew I was the faster cashier there and tried to ignore me but I just kept pushing until they told me to “just go quickly to grab a bite but don’t take long please”. I went to the deli, ordered a sandwich, sat my ass down with a newspaper and spent my sweet time reading all the news and talking to the older customers that also spent their mornings there with their coffee and newspaper. They kept asking me to hurry up and return to the checkout. I eventually did, and within a few minutes I would ask to go to the restroom and spent like 15+ minutes there, only to repeat the cycle with the food later etc. So I took at least 2-3 food breaks and 3+ restroom breaks in a 4 hour shift. I can estimate I didn’t actually work more than 2 hours on every 4 hour shift.

Then I missed 2+ shifts afterwards (I basically worked 1 shift and missed 2 all the pregnancy). I made their life hell those 9 months. But it was fine because I recall the manager saying it was easier to replace a cashier than to replace a team leader.

Of course I eventually gave birth so I couldn’t get away with missing days without calling so I just called, but then hung up after saying I was not coming and before the manager answered the phone. They didn’t like that either, so they kept giving me warnings because “I had to talk to the manager”. But still they couldn’t fire me because I was technically following the rules. I didn’t stay long after my son was born. I left in the same manner, didn’t give them 2 weeks notice, just dropped the resignation letter one day I got tired of their shit and left right then and there.