January 8, 2025 at 5:20 am

New Owners Declined Their Employee’s Offer To Fix Their Computer, But What They Didn’t Realize Was That He Moonlighted As The IT Professional They’d Just Hired At Triple The Cost

by Benjamin Cottrell

Source: Getty/SolStock, Canva/Piman Khrutmuang, Reddit/MaliciousCompliance

Life has a funny way of connecting the dots, especially when two jobs unexpectedly collide.

This became hilariously clear when one employee’s computer expertise was dismissed by his bosses, only for his “other job” to send him right back to save the day.

Read on for this amusing tale of malicious compliance!

IT – wasn’t good enough… OK.

Way back when, I worked at a video store (think Blockbuster).

It was a great job for a kid going through university.

I also worked for a local IT company doing business call-outs and fixing issues.

One day, the video store got some new owners.

Eventually, something went wrong with the cash drawer’s connection to the PC.

The techy employee offered their help, but was quickly rejected.

I offered to take a look at it for normal video store pay rates ($15/hour or so back then).

I was quickly told, “No. We will get a professional.”

Fine, no issue.

By now, you know where this is going.

And guess who they called…

The new owners called the local computer store for help.

The computer store agreed to send someone around right away.

Moments later, the computer store called me.

I answered, in front of the new owners, and accepted the work.

I turned to them and said, “Sorry, now it’s computer job rates: $70/hour.”

That should teach those owners a valuable lesson in recognizing affordable talent when you see it.

What did Redditors have to say?

This commenter found the whole ordeal rather humorous.

Source: Reddit/MaliciousCompliance

Maybe the bosses were on to something by hiring help externally.

Source: Reddit/MaliciousCompliance

This commenter can’t believe the vast differences in pay they’ve experienced.

Source: Reddit/MaliciousCompliance

This Redditor sure got a kick out of the story.

Source: Reddit/MaliciousCompliance

Sometimes the quickest solution is right under your nose.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.