Emily Duprie
Too often, the management in a workplace falls short of their requirements. Either they just aren’t cut out for the position, or they abuse their power. One worker went viral on the subReddit ‘MaliciousCompliance’ when they decided to rebel against an exploitative manager who was basically making them do her job without a raise.
“Be careful what you wish for” is single-handedly the best way to describe the stories submitted to this satisfyingly petty forum. People are known to comply in the sassiest ways once they’ve reached a certain threshold of abuse. In this particular workplace, the management was once strong and united, with everyone doing their part. But, when a new authority came in, the pressure quickly increased for one of the company’s star workers.
The worker shared their story of how they were exploited in their workplace. OP (original poster’s) “Karen manager” had placed numerous managerial duties on them, expecting full compliance while she took personal phone calls and yelled at the workers. Some of their duties included: “Training new people, fixing damaged items, fixing packaging, training the supervisors, doing paperwork, delegating tasks, giving instructions to people, taking the garbage out, cleaning the stockroom…”
If you’ve ever been exceedingly good at your job, you may have been in a situation where higher-ups leaned on you for help. If you have experienced this, you know how frustrating it can be to do someone’s job who is getting paid an exponential amount more than you. When OP took 5 minutes for a bathroom break one day, Karen had the nerve to spice things up. When the dust settled, she regretted it.
“Sure, I’ll do my job.” This worker sent their workplace into a chaotic spiral after their exploitative manager went too far.
I’m a young person working in a backroom position at a retail store. Ive been working there for about a year now. My management when I started was excellent, and as a result I am very well trained. I never got written up, am always on time, and I consistently do things well above my paygrade. I fill in for my supervisor in the backroom and can run it by myself if need be, and I trained our newest supervisor in her position (if youre wondering, i didnt take the supervisor job because it required changing my shift time.) I knew all the fine details and was a team trainer as well. Basically, I was a supervisor but without the pay raise.
The new “Karen” manager and OP butted heads from the get-go.
My managers moved on to greener pastures and their positions were filled by new management. The new management doesn’t compare to the quality of the old management. Our store manager – I’ll call her Karen – is the worst manager I’ve had the displeasure of working for. She loves workplace politics, acting snakey, and micromanaging everything.
When suggesting solutions to problems, Karen would rather take a less effective route just to be the one in charge. When she messes up, instead of admitting it, Karen blames anyone but herself and makes it their responsibility to avoid looking dumb. Karen doesn’t help when she’s needed, rarely does her job, takes personal phone calls all day and sits in her office on her computer. She’s rude, inconsiderate, and incompetent. All in all, Karen is an awful boss.
I tried to make peace with Karen at first, but we quickly started bumping heads and our relationship is shaky at best. We’re cordial with each other, but Karen wanted me to abandon 100% of my authority while still running the back, which couldn’t happen because others come to me for direction a lot. We don’t speak to each other when we don’t have to.
One day, Karen took things too far. As a result, her exploitative reign came to a halt.
Well, Karen screwed up. One day in the back, we finished with a group activity. Simply put, I had to pee, so once we were done I told my supervisor I needed a quick bathroom break and headed out to the bathroom. The second I began my business, I got called on the intercom by Karen to come to the backroom. Sigh. I finished up quickly and got back to the stockroom. I was gone about 2-5 minutes tops.
When I walked in, Karen was immediately interrogating me about where I’d been and what I was doing. I told her I’d gone to the bathroom and she continued asking, like the answer was gonna be different. Eventually, Karen said this absolute gem to me, which she couldn’t have known would change the course of our time at this company forever.
Karen says: “You need to use company time more wisely, and do your job.”
Okay.
Once OP backed off from their unofficial managerial duties, the workplace became chaos.
Remember how I said I was basically the backup stock supervisor at this institution? My list of self-appointed management duties was actually pretty long. Training new people, fixing damaged items, fixing packaging, training the supervisors, doing paperwork, delegating tasks, giving instructions to people, taking garbages out, cleaning the stockroom… the list goes on and on. When Karen said this to me, something clicked… you see where this is going.
I stopped all of it. All the managerial stuff went right out the window. Do my job? Okay, I’ll do MY job. Not your job, not her job, only mine. That’s what you asked, right? Direct your own team, and do your own paperwork. Train your own supervisors. ’cause I’m just a lowly wage, right?
Yep, my stockroom fell apart quickly. Suddenly the entire room was in disarray, new people weren’t being trained, the faulty product was put out, and my new supervisor had no idea what to do other than copy me so none of the paperwork got done. Garbages stopped being taken, people in the stockroom didn’t have direction, the floors were dirty, etc. I wonder why?
The worker’s manager did everything she could to make their life miserable, but in the end, she had to lie in the bed she made.
It was a MESS. And management couldn’t say anything about it, because those were management’s duties and not my problem. I know that Karen knew what I did, but all she could do was silently fume about it, suck it up and actually do her job. She got pissy with me after this and tried giving me fewer shifts, but that didn’t last. Management finally got involved with the stockroom. I’ve never been so satisfied with myself, all because Karen couldn’t accept that I had to pee.
What are you gonna do? Fire me for doing my job? Lmao.
The story sent Redditors on a rampage against this exploitative manager. Some discussed their tales of bad management, while others praised OP for their rebellion.
