New managers can come up with absurd rules that disrupt the office’s work environment.

Imagine being told that you’re not allowed to wear headphones at work and have to listen to whatever music everyone agrees to play for the office. Would you go along with the policy without complaint, or would you turn the office into a sing-along party?

Check out how this manager brought some trouble upon himself with his new music policy.

No earphones, only office-wide music? Got it, OM

This happened roughly 6 years ago when I was still working as a Technical Writer, but I remembered this story when I was reading a post in here about a manager “fresh off his leadership training” or something, which reminded me of the time when a new Operations Manager (OM) was hired to supervise and manage operations – that is to oversee writers writing articles, legal or business documents, editors, etc.

Needless to say, after he was hired, it was a bunch of endless work huddles where everyone is mandated to join, even when you’re trying to catch a deadline, and new and absurd rules, one if which was: No wearing of headphones while working.

Instead, each group or team can choose the music for the day.

The reason was pretty weird.

Why? Apparently, wearing headphones gives off the impression that we are not concentrating on our work.

What that means, I don’t know.

What I do know is that as writers, we need to be in a certain mood or environment to be able to write. And admittedly, not everyone has the same taste in music, which I feel for me is quite obvious.

Now we’re all mad.

They wanted their music!

Not only are we not allowed to listen to music we like, but we are also forced to listen to music we don’t like.

Here is when the malicious compliance begins. During our team’s turn, we decided to choose a genre of music that is what is known here as “jeje”.

Do we like it? Yes. Do SOME people in the office hate it? Also yes.

But not enough people hated it to the point of raising a complaint, so we left it at that.

However, in the afternoon, I decided that it was time for my weekly crashout and decided to blast some Taylor Swift songs.

One person really hates TS music.

A majority of my team loves her, but do you know who doesn’t? Our very rock music-loving, patient and understanding team lead.

She later told us the reason: she had a niece/nephew that forced her to listen to a specific TS song over and over again it made her swear off of TS songs.

After the 2nd or 3rd song, our team lead couldn’t take it anymore, so she transferred to our meeting room where she worked until the end of the day.

They knew they had to do something about it.

The next day, the person who chose the songs/playlist was also a Swiftie so TS music was blasting in our office again.

This affected the team’s productivity- the writers because we would just hold concerts singing along, and our team lead who was somehow the victim of OM’s cruel rule.

But we followed the rule.

No one was using their headphones, no music playing from the laptops (they check this sometimes too)

Finally the cherry on top!

After only a week, the OM revoked the “No headphones, only office-wide music” policy.

Apparently, we’re now allowed to listen to anything we want, as long as deadlines are met and quotas are exceeded.

Honestly, it was fun for me because I listen to anything and everything. I can only imagine how this policy was a literal torture device to others.

Shortly after, I resigned because of that OM for other reasons, but the fun we had with my officemates was absolutely memorable.

GEEZ! That sounds fun!

A lot of people wear headphones at work. It doesn’t mean they’re not working.

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

This user would’ve played different music.

This user thinks there’s a little disconnect.

This user knows how to get out of situations like these.

This user knows what to play when you’re trying to annoy someone.

This user knows how to make people complain!

What a clever way to solve that problem!

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.