Have you ever worked at a place that instituted a pretty dumb rule for no reason whatsoever?

Yeah, it’s pretty annoying!

So how can you get around something like that?

Check out how a doctor stepped in and came to the rescue of some workers who just wanted to wet their whistles on the job.

How a local doctor got the best malicious compliance against my boss.

“Somewhere around 2007 I was working as a drug store manager.

Running the entire front store and the pharmacy, pay was excellent for someone who was in their early to mid 20s but the job was also soul crushing in some stupid ways.

Well, that’s weird…

A rule came down that cashiers can no longer have drinks at the register. They can drink on their lunch breaks and otherwise shouldn’t need water. At the same time they dialed back the A/C so the store was constantly uncomfortably warm but not technically dangerous.

I had some of the best staff, one lady was roughly 65 and came to me to let me know she was on medicine that gave her dry mouth so she needed me to know if I took her water away she would really have a hard time being able to talk to customers. She almost developed a lisp when she couldn’t have her water. I told her no worries have your water I’ll deal with my boss when he sees you someday.

What’s this?

Because he was running 40 stores and mine was generally not a problem store, he only came by every 60 days or so. Eventually he does swing in and asks her about her water. She says she has a medical condition and I told her it was fine. I also told him I had approved the water.

He pulls me into the office to let me know that for her to have that water she needs a doctors note. If he sees her with it again without a note we both get written warnings. He explains this is because not following the company rule can’t be a decision made by me.

I’m flabbergasted. I’m just the manager in charge of the store. This company literally made me do drills on how to deal with bombs or shootings but I can’t approve a bottle of water? It must be an exception deemed necessary for medical needs.

I explain this is stupid, he actually agrees but says he’s also following orders from above. Great.

Here’s the deal..

I pull my cashier aside and tell her what’s up. I said I’m really sorry but can she please just get her doctor to fax a stupid note over so we can cover ourselves?

She got a little gleam in her eye and I was excited to see what it meant.

Her next shift she rolls in and says you are going to love this!

She hands me about 100 copies of a letter that says something along the lines of:

“I do solemnly state that “cashier” is medically a human being and requires water on regular intervals while working and not solely during breaks.

This was a massive waste of my time and your company should be ashamed of yourself. I will be recommending your competitor as much as humanly possible to my patients who fill prescriptions in this town for the rest of my natural life.

Doctor _____________”

Good idea!

The next 40 were identical letters each with a different staff member listed as my genius cashier has snagged an old schedule with first names and last initials.

The rest had a blank space for me to fill in new hire names so our staff could all have drinks on the sales floor.

My boss wasn’t even mad. None of the higher ups above him ever mentioned it on a store walk so I assume it was covered in a meeting of people higher up than me.”

Now let’s see what Reddit users had to say.

This person spoke up.

Another reader shared their own story.

This Reddit user talked about their significant other’s job.

And this person nailed it.

Nice work, Doc!

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.