Corporate policies often sound good on paper but end up working terribly in practice.

So when one call center rookie who had mastered quick, optional disclaimers was suddenly forced to read every line no matter what, he complied perfectly.

That’s when three-minute calls turned into fifteen-minute lectures that tanked customer satisfaction.

You’ll want to read on for this one.

stop omitting useless/unnecessary informations from the costumer? you got it boss

Three years ago, back at my old job, I worked in a call center as an agent.

It was my very first time working in a call center.

From the start, the company’s directive was always to help as many customers as possible.

Our company valued and monitored call time, so we were told to handle calls quickly—around three to five minutes per call—so we could assist more customers.

After my training and nesting, they introduced me to the production floor.

So this rookie learned fast and achieved some impressive results.

Early on, I noticed an easy way to handle calls fast.

I would read the disclaimers and fine print, but customers would always brush me off, make me skip it, or just not really care at all.

So I decided to provide them an option to listen to me or just skip it entirely.

The bosses took notice, so he continued.

I did that, and in my first month working on the production floor, I was praised for only having a three- to four-minute average call time, handling 60 to 70 customers per day.

I kept using this method for two more months.

But then leadership had one of their bright ideas.

On my fourth month, there was a sudden policy change that told us to always read the disclaimers or fine print to customers, even if they didn’t want to listen to it.

That meant our call time would easily double.

Regardless, the rookie decided to throw caution to the wind and just do it his way.

But since I already asked my customers if they wanted me to read the disclaimers or not, I just kept doing it my way.

But it didn’t take long for the rules to catch up to him.

At my next monthly review, I was called up by Quality Assurance and my team leader regarding my calls.

They told me not to skip or omit the disclaimers.

He stated his case, but the boss didn’t seem to care.

I tried to argue that I gave my customers the option to listen to the disclaimers or not.

I even read the disclaimers if they wanted to change something on their account or if the changes would charge their account, even if they didn’t want to listen.

But they were adamant about following the new policies.

So if they really wanted inefficiency, this call center rookie was prepared to give it to them.

Cue the malicious compliance.

I talked with everyone else who was also given a warning to follow the new policies and told them to just comply, even if it cost us our call time and customer feedback.

By this point, our average call time was already reaching eight to fifteen minutes.

Every call now stretched over double the time it used to.

We had to double-check customers’ accounts and information, confirm every action we were going to take, read out paragraphs of disclaimers—there could be two or more in a single call—and document everything.

This didn’t include calls where we had to get multiple people or departments involved.

Customers grew unhappy and started leaving negative reviews.

Due to the unsolicited reading of disclaimers, more and more customers started to get irate during calls.

Our company’s rating went down significantly when we received negative feedback and complaints regarding employees and service.

I think this cost the company some money because many people at our office were laid off.

Around this time, I found a better company with better pay, so I left.

Too many leaders just seem to want what’s worse for everyone.

Redditors are sure to have a thing or two to say about this one.

This commenter plays Devil’s Advocate.

In some industries, skipping the disclaimer can land you in some serious hot water.

Sometimes you have to have experience with customer service jobs to know how annoying it can be.

There’s nothing a customer hates more than a long-winded spiel.

It’s no surprise that the boss’ idea of “efficiency” actually ended up with the exact opposite effect.

The best malicious compliance hits the boss right in their bottom line.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.