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Imagine working at a furniture store, and employees are not supposed to help customers load furniture. Would you ever make an exception?

In this story, one employee was in this situation and made an exception, but first, he had the customer sign a form.

Instead of protecting him and the company, the situation escalated to a legal battle, but thankfully, the now-former employee has a friend who’s a lawyer.

Keep reading to see how the story plays out.

Malicious Compliance that almost got me fired !!! Revenge is unexpected but oh so sweet

One of the most entertaining things in a customer service/ dealing with the public role is the Husband and Wife dynamic.

Sometimes the Husband is the more reasonable of the two.

Sometimes the wife is the calm and understanding ones.

Other times they’re both a bunch of crazy apples.

This story is about one particular husband and wife.

On this particular day, I had a lovely wife with an extremely aggressive husband come into the warehouse and pick out a storage ottoman they wanted.

Now the storage ottomans were a frustrating item, as the metal mechanisms that allowed the lid to be opened and shut made the ottomans extremely heavy, needing at least 2 x people to lift it.

Naturally aggressive awful husband flat out refuses to pay delivery for his ottoman he’s just purchased. In his words

“We’ll just pick it up”

He knows that’s not what the customer really means.

Yeah right buddy… more like, we will drive our small car round back and your ware house staff can do it.

The husband and wife conclude the sales process in store and the sales associate passes a copy of the paperwork onto me.

I scan it over and make sure they’ve ticked off and signed off on the Terms and conditions :

• that all clearance sales are final
• that all clearance sales are “as is”
• that warehouse staff / sales staff are not covered under any insurance for loading or unloading customers goods and customers are responsible for the pickup of any items them purchase / order etc etc

But the customer is going to have to load it himself.

The customer pulls their car round… and it’s a smallish car, but should be fine.

The husband walks over and I show him where his freshly bagged ottoman is and hand him a trolley.

Man – what’s that for?

Me- to load your ottoman sir

He doesn’t seem to think OP is serious.

Man ( chuckles ) – no no no, you’re helping me

Me – there’s two of you sir, you’ll be fine

Man – well then I’m cancelling my order and filing a complaint against your company

I just sigh… I don’t want to cost this sales person a sale, but my gut is trying to tell me something.

He has an idea.

I quickly go into the office and grab a release form which we use for anyone picking up clearance , but make a few handwritten notes of my own.

I bring the paperwork back out and show it to the customer

Me – sir could you fill out your full name, contact details and initial these handwritten comments and sign this release

Man – why?

I wonder what it really says.

Me – it just says that you’re happy to have me help you load up your ottoman and that if anything happens you won’t hold us liable .

Man (smirks ) – wow, you guys sure take things seriously

I just smile as he signs the document. I pass it to my offsider , asking him to make a few photocopies for the sales associate, the manager, the Area Manager and the General Manager.

The wife grabs one end along with her husband and I grab the other end.

The husband is the weak link.

We all lift it up and begin walking it toward the trunk of the car.

The wife seems fine but the husband is struggling. He keeps asking to put it down so he can take a break.

We pick up the ottoman again, and as we are just about to reach the car, the Husband lets go of his end, the lounge tips to the right, i lurch forward and the ottoman smashes into the back of their car, taking out the right hand side tail light.

The wife immediately starts laughing as the husband loses his mind. He is inspecting the damage and is looking at me with wild eyes, wanting me to offering him an admission of guilt.

This is far from over.

I calmly stand there as they load up their ottoman and drive away.

Is that the end?! Absolutely not…

The next day the husband calls the store, he is filing a lawsuit against the company for damages and has provided HR and head office with excessive estimates.

Immediately I am called into the board room upstairs. There’s the General Manager, the Manager, HR and a legal representative who is there for the shareholders.

Now, remember those notes on the form the husband signed?

GM and HR explain to me that they’re not risking a lawsuit, that they’re going to pay for this guys car and that they’re going to fire me.

Without a word I take out the document the customer signed . I hand it to the HR rep , who hands it to the GM.

Me- the customer signed off on a release form after I explained that the company didn’t cover or expect me to load his goods. The customer clearly stated here that if I helped him he was absolving me of any liability including vehicle damage.

The GM hands the document over the lawyer who scans it. And his face changes – they know they can’t do anything.

He explained what really happened.

Me – ( I couldn’t help but add this ) ask your lawyer over there… I did EXACTLY what the customer asked me to do… I helped them. It was the customer who dropped his end of the ottoman… he caused the damage … not me.

There’s silence in the room

I turn and walk out. I’ve had enough.

I go to the warehouse, grab my bag, get a bus home and play some Dead Space 2.

It’s time for revenge…

There was aftermath… I went to my best friend with was a lawyer and put my own lawsuit against the company, for a variety of issues, and also sent a few emails out for the company to be investigated…

The Aftermath and Revenge –

the aftermath and my legal battle- ( trying to keep it vague-ish and not AS detailed just in case )

Time to do some digging.

After this nonsense transpired I got together with my best friend and we started looking into the company and the safety procedures they were breaking….

• the fact they were not hiring enough staff to safely lift items
• no lift access in the store which breaches safety laws regarding moving heavy items and also breaches a few laws around access for people on wheelchairs or disabilities
• no Overtime pay when people are forced to worked OT

Now a few other things that my best friend uncovered in his investigation

Let’s see what OP’s friend uncovered.

General Manager ran a special promotion during my time there , that proceeds would go to a Cancer Charity… and guess what? The $50,000 meant to go to charity disappeared… and somehow found it’s way into his bank account

there was also some claims made about the furniture that were false , made in Italy ( made in China ), 15 year warranty ( 2 year warranty ), unlimited cleaning for the entirety of you owning the sofa ( claims were always denied ) stuff like that

Armed with all this, my lawyer and I went to a mediation, where and their legal team tried to pressure me into NOT taking a payout of my wage, my holiday pay, and a payout of all my other benefits … if they made this lawsuit against me “go away”

Imagine their surprise when my lawyer began bringing up all the safety violations, staff wage discrepancies, not to mention the out right lies and stealing carried out by management ….

Here’s how it worked out…

The meeting was quickly postponed and the lawyer for my ex employer and the General Manager asked for a private conversation outside.

They asked me what it would take for me to not go ahead in court… my lawyer asked for all my benefits paid, and to pay out the rest of the year as if I had been working a 5 day week.

They deliberated for 15min before they agreed.

What they didn’t agree on… is that we couldn’t send off the violations to All the necessary government bodies.

Last I heard the GM AND MANAGEMENT team were fired and the company was fined $250,000

He’s lucky he had his friend to help him. The company sure didn’t see that coming!

Let’s se how Reddit responded.

This person loves how it worked out.

Another person needs advice.

Here’s some good advice.

Another person loved the story.

Really, he could’ve just refused to help the customer with the ottoman. Assuming the ottoman was a clearance item, all sales are final, so he couldn’t return it. I expected OP to point that out instead of helping.

But getting revenge was satisfying too, I guess.

It’s helpful to have a friend who’s a lawyer!