It’s always frustrating to get in trouble for a policy you don’t even agree with.

So, what would you do if your colleagues were talking about changing a policy that didn’t make any sense? Would you stay quiet and comply? Or would you push back, knowing it’s a bad idea?

In the following story, one employee chooses the latter and gets written up. Here’s what he did.

A stupid policy was formed as an overcorrection, I was written up for enforcing it

A few years ago, I was a team lead at a bank’s call center.

Our building was secure, but policy required that any personal information for ourselves or customers be locked up, along with the obvious things like passwords, anytime we weren’t at our desks.

A separate compliance group would conduct periodic random desk checks, and violations would result in a write-up for the individual, which would also be reported to leadership.

A colleague suggested a new policy.

We team leads were responsible for completing the checks and were frustrated, even though we were the ones responsible for the nightly desk checks.

One of my peers had the suggestion that NO personal information, including photos, knick-knacks, that sort of thing, should be allowed out except for the small shelf everyone had in their cubicle.

The person making this suggestion was a friend and one of the closers who had to do these checks regularly. I was not and only had to do these on weekends.

He was written up the next day.

I said something to the effect of “That’s the dumbest ******* thing I’ve ever heard. That’s an overcorrection, and no one is going to follow the policy, and it’s just making our jobs more difficult.”

I was written up the next day by my boss, who wasn’t there, as *her* boss was part of that discussion and wanted me disciplined.

I observed nearly no one outside of my team was complying with their ridiculous policy. That Saturday, when it was my turn for desk checks, I wrote a detailed breakdown of every single violation. There were dozens. I kept my feelings on the policy out and stuck to the facts.

Monday, I was put on a formal warning. That manager wondered why everyone hated her, wasn’t sad when she left, and didn’t empathize when she was laid off.

Ouch! This sounds like a pretty strict workplace.

Let’s see how the readers over at Reddit feel about it.

This reader doesn’t think it’s malicious compliance at all.

Here’s someone who thinks he was in the wrong.

This person gets it.

For this reader, it’s time to go to HR.

The policy sounds pretty dumb, but his attitude leaves a lot to be desired as well.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a team who was so fed up with their new assistant manager that they banded together to get him fired.