Don’t you think that stories of malicious compliance can be so satisfying?

I sure do! That’s why I spend so much time on Reddit!

And this story is a doozy!

Take a look and see what you think!

Want all the documents? No problem!

“Many, many years ago, I did all kinds of admin work at an oil terminal.

One of my jobs was to take care of the documents after vessels had been loaded. Bills of Lading would usually have to be couriered to a bank, so I’d take care of that as well.

Now, I said Bills of Lading had to be couriered to a bank, but that’s not entirely true.

Every time a vessel would come to load, we’d receive a document distribution matrix.

There was a lot of paperwork involved.

Originals of document X to be sent to A, copies to B, C and D. Originals of document Y to be sent to B….well, you get the gist.

I would usually completely ignore that matrix. I knew exactly who needed what and I knew that the bank only cared about the Bs/L. So I’d just send them those and that was never a problem.

Hmmm…

That is, until someone new started at said bank and would complain about missing documents.

Next time I added some more documents that I reckoned might be vaguely relevant, but again, they complained about missing documents.

I’m still not sure why that was, only the B/L was relevant to them. But the next time a vessel had loaded, I was very happy to give them exactly what they wanted.

The document distribution matrix was probably once drafted by someone who didn’t know what they were doing, then ignored by everyone, so it never became a problem.

In this case however…I was going to need a bigger envelope.

They noticed something…

I followed the matrix to the letter. One original plus four copies? You got it! I was really happy, because I’d spotted the fatal flaw.

Some background first: for every chemical product, there is a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS).

They contain all sorts of information regarding safety of the product and over time they’ve become monstrosities.

So here’s what made me so happy: the matrix also mentioned one original and four copies of the MSDS. Which was a 250+ page document.

There is absolutely no reason why the bank would need even one copy of the MSDS, but it was in the matrix and I’d been told to follow the matrix.

That’s a lot of paper!

So I did. I printed it five times, copied all other documents four times and ended up with a stack of over 1,500 pages.

Here’s where my sadism kicked in. The three original Bills of Lading, the only documents I knew the bank actually needed, went randomly into that stack.

The person on the other side would have to go through that entire stack to find those three pieces of paper they really needed.

I heard nothing from them.

The next time I had to send documents to the bank again, I reverted to what I’d always sent to them.

Again: silence.

That’s when I knew I’d won. From then on, all was back to normal.”

Reddit users spoke up.

This person weighed in.

Another Reddit user had a lot to say.

This reader chimed in.

Another Reddit user shared a story.

And this person shared their thoughts.

It only took them one time to see the error of their ways!

At least they were a fast learner.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.