Some companies don’t realize what their losing when they treat their employees badly until the consequences unfold!

This guy shares how a new supervisor at his work ruined everything!

Check out the full story.

I said I can’t work there.

So I’m not sure if this counts as Malicious Compliance but I’ll post here for now.

At my previous job I worked as a Peer Trainer.

Essentially, I was required to do my assigned job to it’s full capacity while also teaching everything to the newbies straight off the street. Not only did I agree to do this I had volunteered for it. So this isn’t a story about overwork. 👍

He explains his office situation!

I worked in a large room where there were 5 stations of machines all lined up in a row from one wall to the other. All stations do the exact same thing just with their own bugs and hiccups.

One wall wasn’t even a wall but a giant window that looked into the breakroom. I have major anxiety about being snuck up on or watched without my knowing.

Enough to cause sudden anxiety attacks that can last for hours or until I can remove myself from the room/building and sleep it off.

It’s super inconvenient.

He knows his way around his tasks!

Thankfully this isn’t an issue for the most part because since I know the triggers I can avoid them or set up precautions (like sitting with my back to a wall) and my coworkers are usually understanding and don’t sneak up on me.

This window also proves to be a distraction for the trainees because they will try to look for and interact with their friends who are in the breakroom.

I get that the job I was training them for was boring as heck, 12 hours long, and on the night shift but we were working on large machines that needed to be watched at all times in case they jammed or broke. (Which was often)

Thankfully my station was the 3rd one away from the window so I could easily keep everything maintained.

This is where things get tricky!

The Problem was (as it always seems to be in these stories) when a new supervisor moved to our area of the building.

He was put in charge of station 1 and station 2. (I’m assigned to station 3) And technically speaking station 1 was supposed to be the “training station”.

I had previously made a verbal agreement with his predecessor and the Training team that I could stay on #3 because of the previous points.

Without asking or even giving me a heads up I came back to work from a vacation day to find that I had already been reassigned to section 1, despite the protests of my coworkers in my absence. (Not to be that person but there was a reason the Training team was so willing to bend the rules for me.

I was REALLY good at my job.

UH OH…

I was the go-to person to ask when something broke and even Maintenance couldn’t fix it. I’ve been told by my own leads that they refuse to let me transfer off their team without my insistence.) So a sudden and unprompted transfer like this was commonly considered extremely rude and was usually used as a punishment.

I figured that, as I had never met this new Super before, I would just go talk to him and strike up the same deal as I had with all his predecessors for 4 years.

I even had the lead for station 1 come with me to confirm my case and act as witness. (she knew me well as an operator because I’d come over to help her fix her machines ALL THE TIME.)

I quickly realized that he was not going to budge on the transfer, so I told him calmly that I was ready to quit being a trainer that day and to have the extra pay cut off immediately.

He hated this arrangement!

It’s not like I was gonna lose my job and the trainer pay was less than a dollar more an hour. I was doing this because I wanted to, not because I needed it. He was shocked.

We eventually agreed that I’d finish training my current trainee in my area while he looked for someone else and until my request to quit training made its way to payroll. Cool.

Apparently NOT cool. He came back 3 days later saying (with no proof or paper) claiming that HR said I had no choice. This bothered me for a few reasons.

First, he did not call me into a meeting for this, he, despite my many warnings to him about my anxiety triggers, snuck up behind me with a group of supervisors to deliver the order.

That’s INSANE!

Second, none of the supervisors with him were actually ones in charge of me in any capacity.

My lead, direct supervisor, or ANY of the Training team that I was under were not there. (I want to make this clear; this man was not my boss in any way. He was assigned to the training section, yes, but had no authority over the trainers as Trainers. So if a trainer was operating on a different section, he had no authority.)

The third thing that bothered me was that instead of looking for a new person like he promised, he took the time to find a way to force me to do what he wanted.

As soon as he and his group appeared out of nowhere to quite literally surround me and block me in, I could already feel that stupid fight or flight kick in.

He was really invested in the job!

I could barely keep my brain together enough to actually register what they were telling me. I could only agree in hopes that it would get them to leave sooner hoping that I might be able to calm myself down and get in control again. (I really hate causing a scene.)

When they left, I went to break, before I moved to section one.

Finally, this is where the malicious compliance comes in. Despite my best efforts I could not calm myself over break.

So when I went back and moved to sit beside the giant window, the added anxiety of THAT hit me pretty hard.

Just like I had warned.

He knew he had to do something about it!

So I decided that since this came with a full and repeated warning from my end, I wasn’t going to do anything to mask the anxiety attack this time. (I don’t have them often and usually do my best to minimize the burden they cause to the people around me. This results in a few silent tears and lots of fidgeting and a bit of pacing.)

This time however I just let it happen, we’re talking rapid frantic pacing, red faced and tears streaming down my cheeks, strained breathing and digging my nails into my arms and hands.

My poor trainee had no idea what was going on and I was unable to teach her anything because I will go Non-Verbal when my anxiety acts up. (Which means I’m completely useless as a trainer!)

Things got trickier…

When my coworker got back from his break (a prior trainee of mine and an old sweetheart) he covered me so I could go home.

After a few calls and texts to my leads and coworkers, I used up some PTO and didn’t come back in until I was no longer officially a trainer and could transfer back to my area.

That supervisor was fired a few weeks later due to multiple complaints.

Why didn’t the company see through the supervisor’s attitude earlier?

Let’s find out what folks on Reddit think about this one.

Exactly! This user knows how most companies don’t value their employees!

This user wishes they had kept the supervisor to get some karma.

This user has a valuable advice!

This user shares their experience with a manager!

This user has a cool advice for this guy to follow.

Someone’s being really petty here and it shows!

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.