Sometimes the best way to prove your worth is by simply stepping back.

What would you do if your boss refused to acknowledge the extra work you were doing? Would you keep going as usual? Or would you stop doing extra and see what happens?

In today’s article, one employee finds himself in a similar situation and opts for the latter. Here’s how it all played out.

Stopped doing what I wasn’t paid for

I worked in a big company. I did the developer (tech lead) job, project manager’s job, and a big part of team leader’s job.

I asked multiple times to have a raise and also for less work.

That didn’t work.

The manager’s response provided the perfect opportunity for malicious compliance.

When I said I did all of that, my manager just answered, “Yes, you do spectacular work. But we don’t ask you to do all of this. So I don’t know why you should get paid more than other people.”

Well… I stopped doing extras and focused on my job for 3 months.

Everything collapsed bit by bit, except the projects I kept working on.

It was so bad that even the clients noticed.

When the clients asked me, I just answered: “Oh, I’m not in charge of that. You should contact X or the manager, not me. ”

I was asked to come into the manager’s office: “Why is everything falling apart?! You need to do something!”

Me: “It’s not my job. For years, you didn’t ask yourself how it happened that everything worked so fine. So I stopped doing what was not in my contract. Now you ask why it’s not working anymore. The answer is just that I let things fall apart. And I’m glad it did because only now do you notice the work I did.”

He was really confused. Got a raise pretty fast.

Wow! They was certainly effective!

Let’s see how the readers over at Reddit relate to this story.

This person is dealing with the same thing.

He gave this reader something to think about.

Great questions!

Good for her!

He played his hand perfectly!

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.