This situation sounds like it could have taken place in a sitcom on TV!

And you’ll see what I mean in just a second when you read this story from Reddit’s “Malicious Compliance” page.

Check out what went down!

My malicious compliance turned my office into a vacation home.

“This was maybe 6-7 years ago. I was the only full time IT person at a $100+ million/year in sales company.

I worked 55-65 hours a week between on site and at home. This is important to remember. I reported to the controller and everything was fine until he quit and they hired the new guy.

This is never a good thing…

The new guy was the youngest controller ever hired by our site or any of our sister sites and man did he think he had something to prove.

First thing he does is pull me into his office and inform me that, “My team will he the first ones in the building and the last ones to go home. I expect to see you in your office any time I am in this building. I don’t care what you do. Just make sure you are here 730 am to 6 pm.”

I tried to argue why that was a bad idea. He was having none of it.

My response is a collapsed “Okay”, as if I tried to make it a single syllable.

Bad idea!

Anyone that worked with me knew they were now screwed. I was literally the only guy with the keys to the castle. Literally untouchable.

Malicious compliance:

Met with the OSHA lead to see what appliances I could run in my office safely (no electric kettle).

Met with HR and informed them I would be making a spreadsheet of my daily work activities just in case I needed to prove my productivity for any reason in the near future.

They thought it was a joke and said ok. Then I set up my second home.

Over the course of the next few months every day I showed up to work at 715. Went to my office. And worked until 3:30.

Sounds pretty sweet!

Then I would start my vacation. I brought in a raspberry pie and played games, brought in crock pots of food and invited key members in to graze and chit chat, one day I set up a panini press bar and invited all the engineers in for sandwiches, watched movies, listened to music and e-books, tried to get a dart board approved by the safety lead (said no before I could finish my request).

Basically I did all the things I did at home, at the office.

People would stop in after 3:30p m and ask for help and I would tell them no. Explain what I was told and tell them to stop in at 730 tomorrow which was a moot point because the site was a 830-430 place and if possible immediately go back to slacking off while they were standing there asking for help.

This lasted about 2 months.

They kept a good record of this.

Then HR called me and we had THAT meeting. I explained everything. Showed my spreadsheet of work and I included all the times I spent doing zero work and what I was doing to slack off in that time.

I was averaging around 35 hours of work a week. Between breaks and lunches that is normal. They were mad at me and even more mad at the controller because they knew my productivity tanked and as a by product so did multiple departments.

I was told to go back to doing what I was doing before he started and I would start reporting to one of the departments that needed me the most instead of finance.

Everyone in the office pieced together that their life got harder for those few months because the new guy deemed it so.

Hit the road, Jack!

He ended up relocating shortly after because no one wanted to work with him.

I ended up working more “normal” workweeks (45 hours~) and everyone was just happy to have me back to help when they needed it.”

And here’s what folks had to say about this on Reddit.

This reader asked a question.

Another individual spoke up.

This Reddit user shared their thoughts.

Might as well make it cozy if you’re forced to be there for long hours!

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.