Mandatory AI adoption is one of those management trends that sounds great to the stakeholders, but falls apart almost immediately in practice.

An IT worker dealing with a boss who had gone fully off the deep end on AI requirements found the perfect outlet when the mandate expanded beyond coding tasks into open-ended creative territory.

He responded by automating his way through a required HIPAA compliance course using the exact tools his manager had been forcing on the team.

He didn’t hide it — in fact,  he gleefully announced it at the next team meeting.

The boss immediately began to recognize the gravity of his mistake.

Keep reading for the full story!

Manager said “Get creative with automating with AI”

He works in IT and has a manager that has fully drank the AI Kool-Aid.

He’s been a pain, forcing the staff to use AI wherever possible, even when it doesn’t make sense.

The mandate is “Even if it’s faster to do it manually than with Claude, get Claude to do it.”

This boss seems to be particularly out of the loop with how his real, human employees feel.

The staff is demoralized and quiet quitting, and the manager is oblivious to why.

The malicious compliance comes in when the manager told the IT staff, “Get creative with using AI for other tasks! It doesn’t just have to be with coding!”

The company writes HIPAA-compliant software, so the staff has to take those tedious online courses that force you to watch videos and do quizzes.

So finally some of the employees start wising up to ways they can start to fight back.

My friend had an idea.

He pointed Claude at the site, logged in for it, and got the AI to do the course for him.

It used Puppeteer — a framework for pressing buttons and navigating web pages in code like a human would — to go through the test, watch all the videos, and take the test at the end, all while my friend sat back and watched.

So the boss was in for quite the surprise.

During the biweekly scrum, the manager asked the staff how they were able to creatively use AI outside of their coding tasks.

My friend proudly announced he got it to do his HIPAA compliance test for him.

Ultimately, the boss learned a timely lesson.

The rest of the team laughed, and the manager had to eat his own words, admitting that there are some things he doesn’t want AI doing for the team.

Best part: the online course provider charges by the number of students who take the course, so the manager would have to lose face by buying another seat.

My friend is free and clear and doesn’t have to take the certification again until next year — which he’s hoping, by then, to find a better place to work.

What a hoot.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a warehouse worker who noticed some fellow employees were always sneaking out early for the same strange reason.

Redditors are sure to get a kick out of this one! Let’s see what they had to say.

In this age of upheaval, many higher-up bosses seem to forget the power of a human touch.

This user thought this story was about to get even more meta.

One detail about this story gives this reader significant pause.

This reader suspects this directive is actually coming from higher up on the corporate food chain.

You can’t force your workers to use AI for literally everything and then act shocked when they comply.

Ultimately, this boss should have known better. He was pushing an unpopular AI directive on a demoralized team that was already falling apart.

The best part is the mandate backed him into a corner he had completely built himself, and the whole team watched him realize it in real time.

Next time, be a little more careful with the open-ended mandates, boss.