Anna Good
Some managers just aren’t up to the task and try to compensate by demeaning their workers, which can backfire spectacularly, as it did for u/Righthandedranger’s construction job manager, which they shared in the r/MaliciousCompliance subreddit.
They wrote:
“This happened about 4 years ago. I do construction and we start fairly early. Boss got tired of people walking in at 6:05 or 6:03 when we start at 6:00 (even though he was a few minutes late more consistently than any one of us was), so he said “If you aren’t standing in front of me at 6 o’clock when we start then I’m docking 15 minutes from your time for the day.”
“The next day I accidentally forgot my tape measure in my car and had to walk back across the job site to grab it, made it inside at 6:00. Boss chewed me out and told me he was serious yesterday and docked me 15 minutes. So I took all my tools off right there and sat down on a bucket. He asked why I wasn’t getting to work and I said ‘I’m not getting paid until 6:15 so I’m not doing any work until 6:15. I enjoy what I do but I don’t do it for free.’
“He tried to argue with me about it until I said ‘If you’re telling me to work without paying me then that’s against the law. You really wanna open the company and yourself up to that kind of risk? Maybe I’m the kind to sue, maybe I’m not, but if you keep on telling me to work after you docked my time then we’re gonna find out one way or the other.’”
OP’s coworkers took note and followed suit whenever they were a couple of minutes late, opting to sit in their cars rather than work for free.
“So between people doing what I did or just staying in their cars instead, he lost a TON of productivity and morale because he decided that losing 15 minutes of productivity per person and feeling like a Big Man was better than losing literally 1 or 2 minutes of productivity. Even though everyone stands around BS-ing and getting material together for the day until about 6:10 anyway”
“After a few weeks of that he got chewed out by his boss over the loss of productivity and how bad the docked time sheets were looking and reflecting poorly on him as a leader because we were missing deadlines over it and it ‘Showed that he doesnt know how to manage his people.’, and then suddenly his little self implemented policy was gone and we all worked like we were supposed to and caught back up fairly quickly.”
“Worker solidarity for the win. Not one person took his crap and worked that time for free after he tried to swing his weight around on them.”
OP, unfortunately, ended up with a target on their back for their malicious compliance and ended up getting fired not long after for taking time off to care for their mother, but it sounds like they’re doing just fine since then.
Read Also: Burned-Out Employee Seeking Pay Raise Told To “Go Get Another Offer,” He Maliciously Complies
