Some people can really squeeze lemon juice out of the lemons that life gives them.

This group of employees knew how to fight against the system where their bosses wouldn’t promote them. If they were getting their promotions blocked, they were going to make sure the bosses couldn’t hire anyone else!

Check out the full story!

We applied for every position we were qualified for.

This story is called “The Unpromotables”.

Important backstory: In the USA, Government jobs are under the Civil Service System. This is supposed to ensure that Government jobs are given out “based on what you know, not who you know.”

Things were pretty straightforward!

For example, to get a job as an entry-level accountant, one would need to meet the minimum qualification of a Bachelor of Science in Accounting. Periodically, a test would be given for that position. The people who score highest on the test are first in line for jobs.

This uses “The Rule of Three.”

The job is supposed to go to one of the three highest scoring candidates who agree to accept the job if offered. Promotion examinations are held the same way.

Higher ups didn’t like these rules!

Needless to say, managers and politicians HATE this.

There was a group of employees at my State agency who took every promotion exam we were qualified for. And generally got top scores on all of them. We all had excellent work records, and even awards for productivity, innovation, and “going the extra mile.”

None of us had any black marks in our personnel files other than maybe a “counseling memo.” That is basically a slap on the wrist, less than a formal writeup- “Boss told employee not to do X ever again.”

Some things were really problematic…

However, we had problems like use of offensive language. We said inappropriate things like “Why are we doing this this way? This is awkward and inefficient! We can streamline this process!”

Bosses don’t like this kind of language.

We also brought offensive materials into the workplace. Such as “Look at this. It says right here in Chapter X, Section Y of Z State Law we’re doing this wrong!”

Bosses don’t like this either.

So now we have a group of highly qualified, motivated employees sitting on top of the promotion lists. The people the bosses wanted to promote were lower on the lists. But if three of us applied, were interviewed and said “Yes” then the job legally had to be given to one of us.

They became good friends!

We got to know each other because the lists were available to employees. We started with calling each other- “Did you apply for X promotion?”

We sort of became a support group. We’d even meet for lunch or drinks after work sometimes, and called ourselves “The Unpromotables.”

Then we realized something. Why are we only applying for jobs we want? This is where the Malicious Compliance comes in.

They got clever…

The bunch of us started applying for every promotion we were on the list for. No matter how bad the job, how mean the boss, how toxic the office, no matter what the duties- we all applied.

And when asked if we’d accept the job if offered, we all said yes.

We heard through the grapevine that this was driving management insane. Their teacher’s pets and brown nosers wanted promotions.

But we were blocking them.

They found their way around things…

Whenever management tried something shady, they quickly found out that all of us knew our rights under State Civil Service Law backwards and forwards. It was both funny and frustrating to see management leave a position unfilled rather than give it to any of us.

This was also not popular with the employees in those offices, who now had to pick up the slack from the vacant position (which was above their pay grade) as well as their own, with no increase in pay.

I was actually offered a promotion once, and the hiring manager had started onboarding me- but the big boss over both offices shot it down, because they didn’t want to lose me from my old position.

That boss blocked my promotions for over a decade.

The sad part…

Sorry this doesn’t have a happy ending. That was still the status quo when I took early retirement the second I turned 55.

Was planning on working longer, but 30+ years of a steady diet of toxic stuff was drastically affecting my physical and mental health.

It sounds like this went on for many years. That’s crazy that they were never promoted.

Even though things didn’t end in the best possible way, they still knew what they were doing!

Let’s find out what folks on Reddit think about this one!

This user shares their best friend’s story!

Ouch! This user shares their own experience.

Exactly! This user is surprised by this man’s story.

This user shares their frustration with the system.

That’s sad! This user shares their friend’s story.

It’s too bad the bosses were so unwilling to promote fully qualified employees!

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.