Malicious compliance can be so satisfying.
All it takes is some patience and the ability to say “sure, okay”, and then you get to sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!
A person shared their story on Reddit and said that they let their boss know two months in advance that they would be leaving their job to go to college.
Guy from work tried to undermine me, but I quit a week ago.
“I got accepted into college and had to quit my job of 2 years.
I put in my resignation papers and had 2 months of notice period left. I had informed my manager and team, but didn’t account for Mr. S who was technically on my team but worked from the client offices overseas, so I dont get to see him ever.
Mr. S. sounds like he wasn’t the easiest person to deal with.
Background on Mr. S : He was hired as a mediator between the client and us, but had years of technical experience so he often helped us out with the technical work, but was always a snob about it. He made sure to cc every possible manager in every mail to show that he was doing a lot more than his role was required to do.
No one liked how commanding and rude he was. Most meetings with him were just the entire team listening to him complain and moan for 20 min. He had no boundaries and would call up at odd hours of the night just to prove his point. He would promise clients certain results with unreasonable timelines without consulting the team, leading to late delivery and terrible client ratings.
They wanted to finish strong during the last two months of their job and make sure everything went smoothly with an important client.
Since I had 2 months left to go at work, I wasn’t quick to give up responsibilities and transfer knowledge to my colleagues. I handled an important client facing task and I’ve been doing it for the 2 years I worked there. I never taught it to anyone else because it was a relatively easy task and it hasn’t been screwed up in two years.
We get info from the client that my task was undergoing major upgrades and needed to be done extra carefully and on priority for the next week. I know the drill and get to work as usual.
Mr. S calls me up on Skype to reemphasize the importance of the task this week.
But Mr. S. wasn’t satisfied with their response…
I just reply to him that I’ve been following all protocols every week and will continue the same as usual, being careful of the upgrades.
He considers my answer as “unprofessional and inconsiderate” and proceeds to tell me how I’m not that important to the team and my job was easily replaceable.
So he decided to try to teach them a lesson that totally backfired!
He then cut the call, and proceeded to reassign all my tasks for the next 2 months to someone else, while also formally emailing everybody that no new tasks were to be assigned to me.
There I sat, maliciously complying, watching my teammates struggle to run my task, unable to help. I sat around doing nothing for the last 2 months of my job.
Luckily I was working from home so that meant 2 months of paid leave.”
Check out how folks reacted on Reddit.
This reader said they should send the manager a thank you note.
This individual said some people need to be embarrassed publicly.
Another individual made a good point.
This Reddit user said this is how it works in middle management in America.
And one person said sometimes all you can do is what you’re told!
Sounds like a nice way to spend the last couple of months at a job!
Sign me up!