The fastest way to expose a bad policy is to follow it exactly — and this team figured that out pretty quickly.

When a terrible boss sent a phone script using her own name, declared there were no exceptions, and then stormed out to yell at anyone who questioned it, her team quietly decided to take her at her word.

It didn’t take long for chaos to unfold.

Keep reading for the full story.

Boss got spicy so we did exactly what she said [malicious compliance]

My boss — let’s call her Kim — has been an extra pleasure to work with. /s

She’s on the verge of losing her job due to a lack of actual leadership and is feeling the pressure, today especially.

So she started ratcheting up on the micromanaging.

This afternoon she sent an email that reads something like this:

“Attention all. Effective immediately, everyone in [department that handles incoming phone calls] should answer the phone using the following script.

‘My name is Kim. All phone calls and personal visits may be recorded for quality and training purposes.’

There are NO exceptions.”

Confusion swept across the entire department.

Pretty immediately there was some rumbling as the team tried to decipher whether we were supposed to insert our own names or if we needed to pretend to be one person — some weird rules have come out recently like this.

Kim, ever the people person, immediately squashed any dissent.

Well, she must have heard the rumbling, because she came stomping out of her office roaring, “IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH MY DIRECTION, YOU COME TO ME — YOU DO NOT DISCUSS IT ON THE FLOOR!”

This is also a manager who has a record of using issues like this being brought up to negatively impact your performance reviews, which can cause you to lose a raise.

So that’s exactly what the team did.

Well, the team immediately began to comply with the letter of the law — answering the phone with exactly that script.

With the name Kim and all.

Play stupid games, I guess. 🫡

Their poor customers.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an IT worker who logged on early to fix something simple, and discovered a system-wide cyber attack instead.

What did Reddit have to say?

This story reminded this commenter of another reference.

Some people really shouldn’t be left in charge.

Why not take this malicious compliance one step further?

The next step is all the employees physically transforming into Kim.

Punishing people for asking questions is never the sign of a good manager.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an IT department who keeps receiving tickets for a company that was previously spun off.