Many workplace rules seem like they’re less about efficiency and more about stifling any and all individuality.

After one retail employee was threatened over her brightly colored hair (despite customer praise) she decided to try out a plethora of  “natural” looks in a way her manager never expected.

He wasn’t happy about her solution, but he couldn’t stop her either.

You’ll want to read on for this one!

A Hairy Situation

About a decade prior, I was working as a manager for GameStop (yup, that one). At the time, I decided to take a leap of faith and dye my hair blue.

It looked great! I loved it, my colleagues loved it, customers loved it, and everything was hunky-dory.

Cue the arrival of a customer survey, and a POSITIVE one at that: “The blue-haired dudette is awesome!”

Let that sink in.

But then one manager decided to ruin it all.

The next day, my district manager is in (he rarely stopped by, maybe once every two months) and pulled me aside for a chat.

He’d seen the survey, and his response was an ultimatum to dye my hair back to a “normal” color by end of week or face repercussions.

She didn’t find this fair or logical in the slightest.

Not only was I flabbergasted at this (I mean, come on, it’s GameStop of all places, in the 2010s, where the nerds reign supreme and having blue hair could only help business), but I was determined to one-up him.

Back in those days, I dabbled in cosplay, and because of this had an arsenal of wigs at my disposal.

So, I proceeded to show up to work for the next month alternating between three wigs: a short brown bob, a long and kind of matted blonde one, and a wavy red one.

He hated it, but his hands were tied.

My supervisor was furious, but because the colors were “natural,” there was nothing he could do about it.

Continued this until I decided my blue hair days were behind me.

Here’s a hoorah to anyone else who has had the luxury of reveling in the sweet, sweet victory of malicious compliance.

Talk about wigging out.

What did Reddit think of this hairy situation?

Some people like the fun colored hair, district manager!

Many managers don’t seem to understand the needs of their employees, or the customers for that matter.

Managers always manage to make matters worse when they’re too pushy.

Every wig was a reminder that compliance can still be clever.

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.