In the most toxic workplaces, ego speaks louder than accountability.

So when one young assistant was ordered to stop chasing her boss about time-sensitive projects, she let the boss handle everything without interference.

But when the boss dropped the ball and embarrassed herself in front of the client, the assistant paid for it with her job.

You’ll want to keep reading for this dramatic tale of malicious compliance!

Boss yells at me for following instructions and tells me to do the opposite next time… which backfires

About 20 years ago, I used to work as an office assistant at a small company where we would receive orders from clients, and then we would assign the work to one of our freelancers, who were well-compensated and respectable professionals.

My boss was such a professional herself, and when possible, we would assign that work to her.

The boss had some big promises for this employee, promises she initially believed wholeheartedly.

I accepted the minimum wage job because she told me I could sometimes get tasks assigned as a freelancer with the nice freelancer compensation, that she would personally train me, and that in less than a year I would most likely be promoted to a regular freelancer and make very good money.

This sounded like a great career path to my young and naïve ears.

She was trained to be hands-on with every project she was assigned.

One of the things she had told me in the very beginning was that when you take over an order, you become like a project manager for that order.

You need to make sure that the freelancer would finish the work on time, as the work was usually time-sensitive.

From the start, it was clear this boss had a bit of a chip on her shoulder.

Additionally, she loved going on long lectures about how she was paying me (minimum wage) for me to use my brain and figure things out when necessary.

These lectures were mainly a vehicle for her to stroke her own ego by explaining to her employees how our brains were not as smart as hers.

But the boss dropped the ball at the worst possible moment.

One day, our biggest corporate client had placed a large order that was due on a Monday by noon, and we had assigned the task to my boss to do over the weekend.

It was Monday morning, time was ticking, and my boss hadn’t arrived at the office.

The client had called to see if we were going to provide the work soon, as it was urgent.

This employee tried everything she could to get ahold of her.

I tried calling my boss, who didn’t pick up her mobile.

I called half an hour later and texted her.

No answer or reply while noon was fast approaching.

So I called her landline at home.

Her husband picked up, told me she wasn’t home, and I explained very briefly why I was trying to get a hold of her.

Once she finally got through to the boss, she was furious.

Less than an hour before noon, my boss called furious that I had been so insistent on getting a hold of her and that I had created a state of stress and emergency at her house.

Her home number was for emergencies only, and this wasn’t an emergency.

“It’s not professional to call people when they are not at work!”

She told me she got everything under control and she was now sending the work to the client directly.

Her boss just wouldn’t let this incident go.

When she arrived at the office, she gave me a big scolding in person and told me that I do need to hound other freelancers, but not her.

It was her business, and she got everything handled.

She knew all the clients, and they were clients because of her.

Her boss then had some harsh words for her.

She looked me in the eye and told me, “If I take over a task, it’s not your task anymore, it’s my task! You don’t need to bother me with reminders. You just give me the instructions from the client and I’ll handle everything myself. From that point on, your job is done! I never ever miss deadlines! If the client calls, you tell them I’m on it and you don’t call me or text me about it!”

Fair enough.

The employee did her best to do damage control.

I apologized for the stress and repeated the new instructions back to her for confirmation.

She was very happy with that and confirmed I had understood everything.

The boss then repeated a familiar spiel.

She once more gave me her favorite lecture about how she was paying me (minimum wage) for me to use my brain, with a lot of condescending examples of how she always uses her brain unlike us normal workers.

I could only nod along as if her narcissistic rant was actually teaching anybody anything.

About a month or so later, another client came in with an order.

I accepted it.

My boss was available to handle it, so I forwarded everything to her, and I considered my work in regard to that order done as instructed.

Then the employee went on a well deserved break.

On the day of the deadline, I was on vacation and was hiking in a remote area with spotty cell coverage.

The other office assistant called me and told me the client had called the office to check if the work was ready.

She let the colleague know this should go to the boss instead, as her boss so strongly demanded.

I told my colleague that our boss was on it and that we didn’t need to worry, as our boss was going to handle it.

My clear instructions were to tell the client our boss was personally on it, the task would be done by the deadline, and explicitly not to call our boss to remind her of the deadline.

Thinking it was handled, the employee decided to check out completely.

Then, since I was on vacation, I needed to conserve my battery, and everything at the office was handled, I switched off my phone.

An approaching deadline that my boss had to meet was explicitly not an emergency.

She was checked out for other reasons too.

Also, I had recently realized that my boss had knowingly misled me about the career opportunities this job was affording me, so I wasn’t going to be on call on my rare day off.

But once again the boss dropped the ball.

While I was hiking without a care in the world, my boss had managed to forget about the deadline.

By the time she realized she had missed it, the office was closed.

This threw the boss into quite the tailspin.

My boss had urgently finished the work, but it turned out she didn’t know the clients so well, as she didn’t have their contact details.

As the order was in the office and my phone was off, she had to go there herself, fetch it, and use the contact details to deliver the work late.

This was particularly embarrassing, as my colleague had informed the client our boss was personally doing the work for them.

Chaos ensued shortly after.

When I came back to work, it was pandemonium.

She screamed at me, but I simply pointed out that everything I had done was following her instructions.

Still, the boss blames her for everything.

“Why did you do this?”

“You told me to.”

“Why didn’t you do that?”

“You told me not to.”

She was fuming, but she knew I was correct and I had acted exactly as instructed.

The boss was grasping at straws to somehow pin the whole thing on her.

She also screamed at me for my phone being off, but I said I needed to conserve my battery for emergencies, and this was clearly not an emergency, and I’m not on call while on vacation anyway.

Malicious compliance for the win, right?

And eventually, she found a way.

Well, narcissists never accept blame, and she had an idea of how to shift the blame to me after all.

“But you didn’t provide me with the client’s contact details with the order assignment! How could I have delivered them the work? It was your fault for not providing me with all the information.”

But this employee wasn’t going to stand for it.

I pointed out that she told me she knew all the clients personally, but if she had used her brain like she was constantly telling us to, she could have easily noticed that the order instructions were on the client’s letterhead with all their contact details spelled out.

On every single page.

Bottom and top.

Now that was a huge slap to her fragile ego, and remembering her face in that moment still makes me smile.

Unfortunately, the boss had the final say in her employment, but it ended up being all for the best.

Needless to say, I was fired.

Of course, I didn’t mind.

Don’t you just love happy endings?

At least this employee got the last word.

What did Reddit think?

Could this boss be anymore of a hypocrite?

Bosses aren’t there to lecture their employees.

This boss isn’t near as detail oriented as she needs to be.

Sometimes “fired” is a blessing in disguise.

When you tell someone you know how to handle your job, you’d better make sure you’re prepared to follow through.

The boss’ ego cost her BIG TIME!

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.