Well, this certainly didn’t sound like a good idea…

But I guess the restaurant manager in this story from Reddit’s “Malicious Compliance” page didn’t see things that way…until it got ugly.

Read on to find out what happened!

“Dump all the leftovers”? Fine. Here are $10,000 in losses.

“I recently started a new job at a buffet. So far, it’s great.

We’re divided into two groups, I’ll call them the preparation and mixing groups. I’m in the preparation group where we prepare ingredients and proportions and give it to the mixing group who actually make the drink, pour it, and overall deal with customers.

Sometimes, the very bottom of the mixer is no longer in proportion to the business standards (an ingredient or two is less or missing) so they give us the mixer with that extra bit that we’re allowed to pour in a cup and drink for ourselves while working. It’s really cool.

It wasn’t always this way…

But, turns out, when my coworkers told me about it, they apparently had to “fight” for such a privilege.

FYI: this story doesn’t have anything to do with me personally. It happened months if not years ago, and my coworkers told me about it and I’m now sharing it.

So, they used to do exactly like we do today. Having the extras etc. But then, one day the manager found out and he was OUTRAGED.

He started yapping about employee responsibilities and how drinking smoothies while working is wasting time (somehow drinking water for the exact same amount of time is allowed, but smoothies aren’t?) and told them all to dump all the extras in the sink regardless of what’s happening.

Sure, dude…

Of course, nobody listened. And they still drank. But one day, he saw someone drink AGAIN and had him fired??!! He was fired for drinking a leftover cup of fruit juice? And then he said this exact quote: “Dump all the leftovers. I don’t care the amount, dump it all”.

After a while, the mixing group heard of the incident and they were righteously furious.

After a careful read of their contracts – they’re the only ones to have contracts, most the preparation group is underaged including me, so no contract – they found the lines about proportion policy, and saw that it was a lot more strict than what the manager was enforcing.

This was gonna be interesting…

And they devised a plan: the mixing group would intentionally have most the ingredients on top of the mixer, so that after the mixing group is done with the pouring, more or less HALF the mixer is no longer in proportion and is considered “leftover”. And as per instructions, it gets dumped.

It was a LOT.

One mixer usually adds up to 4 or 5 cups, now it was 2, hardly 3. Nobody would drink the rest, rather it’s all going to the sink. And considering the smoothies we’d make feature ingredients that are pretty expensive, upper management started noticing that something is up with the calculations.

This “dumping” continued for months apparently, and when upper management ran the calculations, they found that it doesn’t add up in the SLIGHTEST. The amount of avocado, dates, figs etc., was about half that amount in sales, which was expected on our end.

They weren’t happy about this!

One day, they stormed the store questioning everyone, because the losses over time were estimated in the thousands if not tens of thousands.

They asked around, and they were told the story. Manager didn’t know **** and couldn’t respond to them, but the preparation group said that the manager told them to dump everything, and so they did.

Let’s just say, there’s a reason I couldn’t recognize the manager they were talking about.

Also, weirdly, the old manager (in the time it took for UM to fire him) couldn’t fire the mixing group. Something about probable reason or contract expiration or whatever. I’m not in touch with it legally, but turns out he just couldn’t. Idk why, and I’m not one to question it.

The moral is, don’t **** off your workers when they’re being massively overworked (over 70 hrs a week) and being paid about two thirds minimum wage.”

Check out what folks had to say on Reddit.

This person had a lot to say.

Another reader shared their thoughts.

They quickly showed him the error of his ways!

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.