Running a kitchen alone for months and then getting cut to two days is a pretty good way to turn a loyal employee into a maliciously compliant one.

When a young chef got told point blank that he was only ever hired for two days a week and nothing more, he stopped going above and beyond and started going exactly by the book.

Holiday dinner rush season soon got a lot more expensive for HR.

Keep reading for the full story.

You only hired me…

A little over a decade ago, I was on my way to becoming a chef. I was doing my time in culinary school, experimenting in the kitchen, and really falling in love with all things food.

I didn’t have the history of other chefs in the industry — I didn’t come from a family of chefs, I didn’t have any great childhood affinities to great food. As an adult, I just really fell in love with learning how to cook, because it was cheaper and tastier than going out every night.

He seemed to really find his place in the school, because before long, the teacher took notice of him.

A few months into my culinary program, my instructor singled me out for a job recommendation.

It was fairly common in my culinary school — we weren’t fancy, we were the working class culinary program — that jobs would reach out, find good students, and hire them directly to give the kids the “true education” of a working job.

This happened to me.

His first impression of the job was pretty unique.

The first day on this job, at a B&B, was hilarious. The chef who was looking to hire a sous chef was wearing six-inch stilettos when I walked into the kitchen.

For those of you who’ve never worked in a kitchen — that’s not the attire you wear.

Other than her shoe choice, she was actually a ton of fun. Sort of crazy, but kind and sweet, and was willing to show me the ropes of the culinary field. I was really excited to work with her.

Cue my second day.

It turns out, this workplace had sky-high expectations for their new hires.

The management of this place would only allow me two days of training — I was freaked out! This job was my first time being completely alone in a kitchen.

The duties required me to show up at 6:30am, bake off breakfast breads, then supply breakfast orders for the guests. I would then have to leave, come back at 4pm to create “afternoon wine-paired appetizers.”

This led to some very brutal hours.

This would have me working from 6:30am to 11:30am, then 4pm to 7pm — a really terrible split to my day. We also used old school punch machines (those loud CLONK machines that stamp your time onto a time card) so there was no overtime or split day pay.

I survived my second day, barely.

I was originally hired to work Mondays and Tuesdays, so the rest of the week was the head chef’s responsibility. I went back to culinary school for the rest of the week and didn’t hear anything from anyone.

So soon a workplace injury left him with even more responsibility.

When I came back to work on my third day (now the second week), it turned out my head chef had injured herself. Surprisingly, not from the stilettos she wore into the kitchen.

So starting on my third day, I went from running a kitchen two days a week to running the kitchen five days a week. I was thrust into being in charge of ordering, menu development, guest satisfaction — pretty much everything that goes into running the food side of a B&B, with literally two days of training.

The toxic culture of the company only made things worse.

The management company thought that the injured chef was pulling a fast one on them, so they tried to pit us against each other.

Let me point out — chefs are of two different breeds. Either they’re fiercely loyal to each other, or they’re intensely competitive. Sometimes both, at the same time.

He thought the head chef wouldn’t be out long, but when her injury persisted, it turned out to be a great learning exercise.

With her, I was loyal. I had hoped to “ride on her coattails of chefdom” to experience the finer walks of the culinary field.

Well, her injury persisted — for weeks, then for months. The entire time I was acting as the “head chef” for this establishment.

He was proud of what he was doing, and he felt it was really working.

That started to give me a sense of ownership and of pride in what I was doing. I implemented new creations and set new schedules.

With the new creations, I was able to create an array of appetizers that could be heated up later in the day by housekeepers, so I was able to work 6:30am to 2:00pm and not do the split days.

I was excited to start doing pop-up dinners and really run with the place. Every day that continued, it looked like my previous chef was never coming back.

But then everything changed once again.

Cue the new hire.

They couldn’t keep having two days a week where we didn’t have coverage, and the case with the previous chef had gone on for too many months.

They brought on this chef who had previously worked with the company but had quit to go become a baker. Technically, if you looked from raw hire date (not including his quitting and not working there for ages) he had more seniority — however, with raw time worked, I had seniority.

Still, he went in with a good attitude.

He and I got along well. I was excited to get the chance to work with another chef again — to learn from him, as I was still in culinary school at this time. I was eager for whatever education I could get.

Then they released the schedule.

He could hardly believe what he saw.

During the past few months, I had gotten used to my five-day work week and started to depend on the money. In my head, I was the new head chef, and my hours were safe.

However, with the hire of this new guy, they gave him the five-day work week, and I was relegated back to my original two-day work week.

This change really messed with him, so he tried to talk it through with leadership.

First, this was a huge hit to my ego. I really thought I had done the best I could, really shown them how hard I could work — and cutting my hours felt like they didn’t appreciate any of that.

So I called the manager to talk with them about it. At this time, I can’t remember her name, so let’s just call her Trish.

Her reaction was quite unexpected.

She gets immediately nasty with me. Like, surprisingly so. We’d never had an issue before, but me talking to her about losing my three days a week was responded with:

Trish: “When we hired you, we only hired you to work Mondays and Tuesdays. You were never guaranteed any other days, and you will not be receiving any other days.”

Me: “Oh. Um. Okay.”

This isn’t at all how he saw the conversation going.

I was floored. I was expecting a conversation, a discourse, a time to talk things over and maybe do a 3/4 split on days or something. Not to be told that I was only ever hired for those two days and that’s all I’d ever get, with no conversation about it at all.

This started the quickly spiraling downhill battle with this job.

So his colleague soon became his fierce competitor.

I already mentioned the thing about chefs being intensely competitive. Because of this interaction, that’s the direction the relationship with this new guy went.

We became fiercely competitive. We would judge our appetizers and creations against each other — we had our own corners of refrigeration, we had our own stash of inventory.

We never had the opportunity to work together; it was always two ships passing in the night, with the housekeepers to tell us what the other one was up to.

All of the promise of their relationship had quickly drained.

Quickly, it started to be apparent that my excitement about learning from him wasn’t going to happen. The housekeepers were quick to tell me that he was taking from my creations.

Which actually delighted me. I had made chocolate ganache truffles — and he took them to serve! My stuff was good enough to take? That’s exciting!

But one day he got a troubling top.

Until one day I got a call from a housekeeper I was close with. She wouldn’t tell me what happened, but she told me: “Look in the trash when you come in tomorrow.”

I was super, super, super curious. So I looked in that trash.

He found something no chef should find.

In the trash was nothing but Trader Joe’s boxes for pre-made appetizers. Mini-brie en croûtes, mini-tarts — the stuff you’re used to seeing at Trader Joe’s.

I was floored! I immediately went to Trish and asked: “What’s up with all this Trader Joe’s stuff in my trash?”

Trish: “That’s not your trash, that’s our trash — you shouldn’t be going through it.”

Me: “Hahaha…oh…you’re serious?…it’s literally just sitting there.”

Trish: “Are we going to have a problem? Your job is to take care of these clients, not to snoop around the kitchen.”

Me: “What the…I mean…sure?”

Flabbergasted, I walked away. What kind of response was that? My jaw was on the ground.

The housekeepers soon had more information for him.

Later, talking with some housekeepers, it turned out the other chef had made a few trays of appetizers that were completely unservable. They had thrown them all away and gone to the Trader Joe’s down the street to supply the guests with ready-made appetizers.

This broke my willpower with the job. Not only did they give all my hours to this guy — they couldn’t even serve his food?

He knew he was so much better than this.

What was so wrong with me, or my food, that I didn’t deserve the days?

No one had ever thrown away my food, and everyone constantly praised my creativity and ingenuity.

He started to feel like leadership had given him no other choice.

If this was how they were going to treat me, I was going to start looking for other places to work.

Another thing to point out — when I’m loyal, I’m fiercely loyal. But when my spirit is broken and I start looking for new opportunities, I give no consideration to what I’m leaving behind. That’s when I start going from compliance to malicious compliance.

Cue the holidays.

This proved to be the perfect time to maliciously comply.

The year in question, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day all fell on days I would have off. Wednesday/Thursdays or Thursday/Fridays — whatever it was back then.

This meant they were going to have to pay the other chef the holiday rate on multiple days. To me, it didn’t matter — pay me the holiday time, or pay him the holiday time, you’re still paying someone. To them, it was a big deal.

So when leadership requested he work, he quickly threw their words back in their face.

Trish: “We need you to work either Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, or New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. We can’t have one chef carry both holidays.”

Me: “I’m sorry, when I was hired I was only guaranteed to work Mondays and Tuesdays — that’s the only days I’ll be working.”

Trish: “*scoff-sputter-sounds* You’re going to make him work both holidays?”

Me: “You personally told me what days were expected of me and guaranteed to me only a few short weeks ago — that’s all I’ll be working.”

Trish: “We’re going to have to write you up for this.”

Me: “For what? If you consider our previous conversation about days, you’ll find that I’m only following what you said.”

Trish had finally met her match.

Trish: “*silence*”

Me: “See you Monday — oh, and Happy Holidays.” *click*

I felt really bad forcing the other guy to work both holidays. But I went in when he was there to apologize, and it turned out he was really excited about all the holiday pay and didn’t care about working both.

I found myself new employment very, very quickly.

 

If you enjoyed this post, check out this post about a man who wants to report a coworker to HR over unprofessional behavior following a missed promotion.

Accepting new responsibilities at work without documenting them is a recipe for disaster.

HR really didn’t seem to know what the heck they were doing.

Even in toxic workplaces, there are still valuable lessons to be learned.

This commenter can’t help but side eye Trish.

In the end, everyone got what they deserved.