Working for a boss who gets mad at you when you solve a problem sounds ridiculous, but that’s exactly what happens in today’s story.

However, that’s not how it ends. One employee figures out how to get revenge by complying with the office manager’s ridiculous reasoning.

Let’s see how the story plays out…

“We’re not paying you to do IT work.” Sure thing boss!

This is a story from long ago when I was working in a law office while attending grad school.

The attorney I worked for had a reputation for being difficult to work with, but we got along great.

I did have a problem with the office manager.

She didn’t care for me because I got a day off a week to attend my grad school classes and generally treated the place like a college job rather than the “career” she’d made out of it.

Here’s an example of what the officer manager didn’t like…

Part of the deal that got me a day off a week for classes was I came in an hour earlier than the rest of the legal assistants.

Office Manager didn’t care for that, and took it out on me by doing things like lecturing me for being a minute late in the morning or a minute over on lunch when everyone else on support staff would roll in whenever and take long lunches to their heart’s content.

OP was able to figure out how to solve a problem at work.

Enough background. Now the story:

One morning I get in and discover that all of the documents I need from the shared drive to get to work are gone.

Even worse, about half the folders from the firm’s shared drive are gone.

I figured I could go to Office Manager and let her know what the problem is, but no one in that office was technically savvy so I figured I’d take a shot in the dark.

The solution was really easy.

I went to the top level of the shared server and did a search for a client name.

Sure enough their folder popped up, and from there it was easy enough to figure out that some technically non-savvy Legal Assistant (which was all of them) had moved half of the top level attorney folders into another attorney’s folder.

OP told the office manager what happened…

A quick cut and paste and everything was back to normal before anyone arrived.

I figured I should tell someone what happened so it didn’t happen again, so I went down to Office Manager’s office.

I explained what’d happened and the fix, and that she might want to tell people to be a little more careful about dragging folders around.

She looked up at me and her lips made an expression that was a dead ringer for my cat’s butt going on display when he’s getting the good scratches on his back end.

“We’re not paying you to do IT work. How much time did you waste that you could be working on important things? Get back to work.”

The same problem happened again…

Okay. Whatever.

I wouldn’t have been able to do any work with all of my work missing, but I wasn’t poking that bear.

Like I said, it was just a college job and I knew I was out of there when I finished grad school while she was a lifer.

So I went back to my desk and got back to work.

Fast forward a couple of weeks.

I come in an hour before everyone and find the same problem.

I do a quick search and discover that some technical genius has once again moved top level attorney folders into another attorney’s folder which meant half the office’s documents were missing.

Sort of a big deal for a law office that lives and dies by the Wordperfect file.

This time, OP didn’t solve the problem but found something else to do.

So I grabbed some filing I needed to get done and spent the next hour or so working on that instead.

Attorneys and legal assistants started to filter in. There was a fifty/fifty chance they’d be able to get straight to work or they’d find all their work gone.

A quiet sense of panic came over the office that soon got less than quiet.

The third party IT people the firm contracted were called in at emergency rates because it wasn’t their typical once a week visit.

They’re running a check of all the hardware and with Office Manager hovering over them raising hell about all the money they were losing blah, blah, blah.

The office manager was mad that OP didn’t tell her about the problem.

Now I despised Office Manager, but I liked the contract IT guys.

So as I was passing by I whispered to one of them that they might want to check such and such folder.

Within five minutes the situation was resolved when they realized the ridiculous situation that brought them out there.

A little later Office Manager stopped by my desk and started laying into me for not telling her.

OP’s attorney asked the office manager what the problem was.

This brought my attorney out to see what was going on.

She explained that I knew what the issue was and didn’t say anything.

I shrugged and told my attorney that the last time I fixed this issue she’d reprimanded me and told me not to do IT work.

I was simply following her instructions.

She turned a couple of different shades of purple.

The office manager left OP alone after that.

My attorney, who was my ultimate boss and liked me, got a good laugh out of that and told her maybe she should listen to me next time.

That was the last of that because she ruled the Legal Assistants with an iron fist, but she couldn’t say boo to someone if they had a partner backing them up.

I left shortly after to “focus on my school.”

Whenever I’m in town I make sure to stop by to have lunch with my attorney, and I always swing by her office all smiles and talking about how wonderful it is being my own boss and not having to worry about the bureaucratic BS that takes up so much of her time.

The office manager really had to eat her words! The malicious compliance certainly put her in her place.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story…

This reader thinks the office manager deserved the malicious compliance.

Another reader pointed out that kindness would be even more revenge.

This reader doesn’t think the IT guys were very good at their job.

This reader thinks the IT takes were taking advantage of the law firm.

This reader would’ve handled the situation a little bit differently…

I wonder how long it would’ve taken the IT guys to solve the problem if the college student hadn’t stepped in to help.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.