Some leaders love their rules. That is, until their rules come back to bite them.

Imagine getting punished by your commanding officer for showing up late, even though others had done worse and gone unnoticed.

Would you take the hit and move on?

Or would you use their own standards to hold them accountable?

In the following story, one soldier finds himself in this exact predicament and decides to use his commanding officer’s words against him.

Here’s how it all played out.

Regardless of the circumstance if you did ‘it’ you should get punished… ok

There was a soldier, who we’ll call ‘Jo’. Jo and I were in the Army together.

Jo was late for formation, and unfortunately, other people had been late earlier that month, so the chain of command was looking for someone to make an example of.

Our Sergeant Major always said, “Regardless of the circumstance, if you did ‘it,’ you should get punished.”

SGM would go on about even if other people didn’t get caught or punished, if you got caught, you should be punished, and eventually it would catch up with the other people.

He would tell us this in formation all the time.

After losing money, Jo can’t just let it go.

So Jo ends up with extra duty and loses about $2,000 in pay.

What I only found out recently and thought was karma turned out to be Jo’s malicious compliance.

Turns out the Sergeant Major was having an affair with a woman in town who just so happened to be Jo’s cousin.

Jo’s cousin sends Jo incriminating texts and pictures, and Jo sends them to the Sergeant Major’s chain of command and wife. Adultery is a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Sergeant Major was forced to retire, career ENDED, financial loss projected at approximately half a million in retirement to the ex-wife.

But in the end, Jo followed Sergeant Major’s direction that, “Regardless of the circumstance, if you did ‘it’ you should get punished.”

Wow! That was one way to teach that guy a lesson.

Let’s see what the fine folks over at Reddit think about what happened.

According to this reader, it was revenge rather than compliance.

Either way, it’s a great question!

Here’s someone who thinks the story is made up.

This person remembers showing up late for formation.

What a great saying, though!

Next time, the Sergeant Major should practice what he preaches.

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.