Hey, if you’re told not to talk about certain things when it comes to work, all you can do is follow orders, right?

Sure!

That’s what this person did…but with a twist.

Check out what they had to say in this story from Reddit.

Strict compliance leads to a company screwing itself.

“I worked for a major government contractor for a government agency (if I named the agency or location, it’d be pretty obvious to people with long memories and an axe to grind).

I’d risen up through the ranks because I have good technical knowledge and I have a knack for seeing a big-picture view of big projects and seeing potential problems. I was very good at what I did.

They weren’t playing nice…

Many managers didn’t like me because I pointed out problem areas (over 75% accuracy) and I stated facts without regard for management politics. I didn’t ‘suck up’.

Some managers gave Fair-Haired-Boy (a suck-up) credit for my work (which I’d done before Fair-Haired-Boy was even working on the project!).

Then they desperately needed my technical expertise on a very large procurement (8 digits). I wrote most of the technical specifications, identifying risk areas and the consequences of bad procurement decisions.

Fair-Haired-Boy dismissed my arguments as “no big deal” and “we can work around that” so management ignored me and ended up buying inadequate equipment.

Well, this wasn’t fair…

I was reassigned (again) and Fair-Haired-Boy was given what should have been my job (with a promotion and big raise).

My parting gift to the project managers was a detailed memo highlighting every technical problem that I foresaw in that development and how it could be avoided. (It was a very long list of nearly a hundred ‘watch items’, and they ended up hitting almost all of them.)

As usual, management ignored me.

Due to company rules and a lot of prior excellent personnel performance reviews, management couldn’t fire me immediately, but I could tell I was being set up for termination. I was assigned a job to work directly with the customer as liaison, actually sitting on the customer site.

Management figured I’d be an irritant and distract the customer from the company’s issues. In the meantime, I’d keep our company informed about what the customer was saying behind closed doors, and I was supposed tell the customer what was management wanted me to say was happening in the company.

Management intended it to be a do-nothing job to keep me ‘out of sight, out of mind’. I don’t do “do nothing” jobs; I took it seriously.

This was pretty ridiculous.

But after a couple of months, management told me in no uncertain terms that I was not permitted to answer the customer’s questions about what was going on inside the company on the project, and that I was not permitted to talk at internal company meetings where the customer’s needs were being discussed.

I was muzzled and set up for failure – or so they thought.

Now comes the malicious compliance that ended up with revenge.

They played along…

When asked by the customer, instead of “X or Y is happening,” my responses were pretty much like, “I am not permitted to tell you whether the project is significantly over budget”, and, “Management won’t let me tell you whether or not the company is dropping design requirements for features A and B.”

I explicitly complied with management’s directive of not answering the customer’s questions, but I slipped in enough hints in my non-answers that the customer knew where to look and what questions to ask.

The customer also kept meeting minutes and often recordings which always reflected that I did not answer questions about the subject under discussion, which was technically the truth. This was very critical later.

Eventually, management couldn’t hide that the project was way late and way over budget, which didn’t surprise the customer thanks to my hints. The customer ripped the company a new one in their periodic contract performance review.

(Note – on government contracts, it’s very difficult to get a low performance score. Really difficult.)

Well, that’s too bad…

The company got a very low performance score. It was ugly and the company lost a lot of contract bonuses which would have been a big part of profits and management bonuses.

And Fair-Haired Boy was under such stress trying to solve the problems that I’d warned him about that he had a major heart-attack and retired for medical disability (At the age of 42. It was a bad heart-attack.)

Naturally, management wanted me to be the scapegoat so they’d get to fire me, but the customer liked how I worked, and they protected me with very careful language in the performance appraisals – basically, that the task I was doing was the only task in the company that was performing effectively and everything else stank to high heaven.

Upper management didn’t dare fire me or they’d anger the customer even more than they already had (possibly to the point of having the contract taken away for non-performance).

One particularly nasty manager who really disliked me had to give me a significant pay raise and bonus because of my work. The fallout from the review was bad enough that corporate headquarters did some management shuffling and a few of my antagonists were suddenly gone.

The raise and promotion ended up not mattering because the customer hired me directly working on the same project but on the government side. This caused management to **** their pants because I knew all their dirty secrets and tricks.

But I never ratted on any of the managers or company dirty laundry. I didn’t have to. My new co-workers had previously figured out where to focus their attention and what questions to ask to get past the company’s bull ****.

Just following orders!

I complied strictly with the terms of my separation from the company and gave away no secrets after I left the company.

One of the best parts was that in meetings, all I had to do was put on an evil grin and the company managers would practically **** themselves, wondering if I was going to unearth one of their skeletons. (I never did – I just liked watching them squirm!)

They got paranoid about being caught trying to lie to the government that they were admitting bad news up front.

Because of bad performance, that management admitted, it got even worse for the company. They decided to try letting their legal hounds on me for violating company non-disclosure agreements, but the customer’s meeting minutes proved that I hadn’t.

The contract was restructured to eliminate several blind spots the company had used to their advantage. The customer’s oversight of the company rose significantly.

Profit margins on the contract shrank. Several of management’s favorite employees suddenly had resumes on the street because their ‘protection’ was disappearing.

Even more managers retired or found other jobs. It was glorious to watch, doubly so because I let them do it to themselves.

And I was extremely happy in my new job, where I still work.”

Check out what folks had to say on Reddit.

This person shared their thoughts.

Another individual had a lot to say.

This Reddit user spoke up.

Another individual chimed in.

And this reader shared their thoughts.

Just following orders, boss!

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.