Veteran Worker Took A New Supervisor’s Criticism Personally, So His Next Report Included Far More Detail Than Anyone Could Possibly Need
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Malicious compliance becomes awkward when the target thinks the extra trouble is excellent work.
This lab employee felt humiliated after a new boss publicly criticized an old experiment notebook.
Instead of defending the original work, the employee began documenting every possible detail to create hours of extra reviewing.
Keep reading for the full story.
Complying maliciously kinda backfired on me
I work for a start up lab. We are a relatively small operation and usually do contracts with big pharmas and a nearby university.
Of course our clients and the FDA come by once in a while to audit our lab spaces, but we’re not and usually don’t do GMP.
When you hear GMP labs, think documentation, like a wholeeeeeeeee lot of documentation.
Which brings me to my new boss.
Now, we get to the problem.
He worked for a nearby pharma company, and his company does GMP. As a result, he HATES the way we document our experiments here.
It’s puzzling, because one of our clients was his former employer, and they are always ok with it.
One day, he dug up a lab notebook of an experiment I performed like 18 months ago, and used it as an example of how to NOT document things.
It made me very upset and honestly depressed for a couple of days, so I strived to make him regret doing that.
He went above and beyond to make the new boss regret it.
I went out of my way to document unecessary details and observations.
I turned what was normally a 5 page experiment to 16-17 pages on average.
He’s our boss now, that means he has to check our documentation before we send it to our clients.
I’ve basically turned what was a 30 min review into a 2 hr review. Given that he has to personally check every single website to see if I had the correct CofA, lot number, equipment IDs, etc.
His supervisor didn’t react the way he expected.
Even my former supervisor thought that I was being childish and petty.
I started seeing him staying late and reviewing my work as I walk out of the building with malicious glee.
And it stayed this way for a couple of weeks before he called me in yesterday and told me that he notices me “taking the necessary steps to improve the quality” of my work and that he’s “proud” of me.
Like broooooo what do I even do lol, it’s actually a massive pain in the butt to do this, should I keep this up?
Wow! I was not expecting that! Yes, I think he should keep it up.
Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.
Perhaps it wasn’t a waste of time but an improvement.
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Another person thinks it was simply compliance and not malicious.
Here’s a similar comment.
But this person thinks it was malicious compliance and worth doing again and again.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who decided to stop being so helpful when aiding coworkers cost him a promotion.
Here’s an interesting thought!
This lab worker expanded five-page experiment records into massive documents, forcing the new boss to spend hours checking unnecessary details.
Rather than backing down, the manager praised the improved documentation and encouraged the exhausting new process to continue.
The employee weaponized paperwork and accidentally earned a gold star.
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