Employee Shares How She Maliciously Complied To Her Supervisor's Demand And It Ended Up Affecting Supervisor's Promotion

"I got an earful but she couldn't do anything to me"

Maryjane

• Published in Interesting
• February 11, 2024

Malicious Compliance - it's certainly not a new word to us. When an employee complies with policies and procedures established by their manager but adopts a passive-aggressive approach, it's referred to as malicious compliance.

Managers frequently search for indications that staff members are not adhering to instructions, which can lead to issues for the company. Malicious compliance has a twist in that the worker is carrying out directives.

Malicious compliance conduct can have a severe impact on the firm, harming its reputation and reducing productivity. It is imperative that managers are aware of this managerial minefield and take preventative action to avoid unanticipated outcomes.

But what happens when the managers are not aware? Things will definitely go bad as decisions made by managers occasionally include defects or are not totally on target, which might cause the intended consequence to go the other way.

The OP of today's story once worked at a place where her supervisor always pointed out the flaws in whatever she did. If the supervisor asked the OP to restock item A and she noticed that item B also required a restock, she would find the supervisor or a shift lead and ask about it.

It turns out it bothered the supervisor and distracted her a lot whenever the OP did that. The OP had enough, as she did not want to be written up again for taking the initiative.

So she decided to do exactly what the supervisor asked.

The headline

And the story begins...

The OP got an earful

Compliance refers to following the guidelines established by a government agency or an organization. No matter how rules are written, most of the time, employees adhere to the spirit of the directive.

When workers interpret the rules too literally, it might lead to malicious compliance at work! Although this term may be unfamiliar to you, it's possible that you have encountered a similar situation at work.

Let's take a look at what Redditors have to say regarding this story.

The spelling mistakes

Another person correcting OP's mistake

It doesn't belong here

Malicious compliance does not mean that someone is just following the rules to the letter, unless you can prove that this person's motivation is malicious. "Malicious compliance" literally refers to obeying the rules with the goal of doing harm.

In these situations, the employee abides by the rules but they are still able to cause harm to the business. Such actions are typically displayed by workers who wish to exact revenge on the business or their supervisors.

A poor overworked manager

They weren't allowed to

Stocking the shelves

Malicious compliance can be difficult to spot since it is subtle as opposed to non-compliance, which is more obvious. But as we all know, both may be disruptive and lead to low income, low morale, employee turnover, missed deadlines, and problems with customer service.

For the supervisor in today's story, it affected her promotion. Some Redditors believe this story doesn't really belong on the Malicious Compliance page, so tell us what you think by dropping a comment below.

Maryjane