Project Manager Shocked Via Zoom As Workers Decide To Maliciously Follow His 9-5 Rule

"Work my hours, or we'll find someone who will"

Maryjane

• Published in Interesting
• July 13, 2024

One of the most fundamental prerequisites for operating a firm is corporate compliance. Adhering to them is laborious and intricate, often necessitating adherence to precise guidelines and protocols.

However, what occurs when someone abides by the guidelines but, despite their meticulous attention to detail, manages to violate them? Malicious compliance precisely describes that.

It occurs when a worker applies a rule exactly as written, despite a known shortcoming, or when they use the rule in ways that the "rule writer" never intended. Since they didn't legally break the regulation, they purposefully took advantage of the weakness, which frequently results in a bad conclusion and leaves them with no options for punishment.

Each industry is affected by malicious compliance in a different way. Some may get away with breaking the policies, but others may run into issues.

Malicious compliance mostly happens in a work setting, frequently in reaction to unjust policies that the organization imposes without thinking the repercussions through. We have one of such stories for you today.

The OP was working at a mid-sized IT firm as a software developer, and they always delivered on their projects, so their clients were happy. This was until they got a new project manager, Dave.

He started changing things, but one got him into trouble, and that was his new policy. It said that all coding must be done strictly within office hours to "ensure collaboration and supervision." 

The OP kicks off his story and it goes...

Creative work like coding often requires flexible hours for maximum productivity

Their workflow was severely disrupted, and the quality of their work started to deteriorate

The tension in the virtual room was palpable, and the team hatched a plan over text

The project manager was publicly admonished and instructed to abolish his strict rules

This is a case where the employees became very obedient and sought retribution against managers or the organization in general by aggressively obeying instructions, even when they know that doing so will cause harm. As usual, the comments trooped in and below are a bunch of the topmost ones.

This Redditor wants to know if Dave lasted after that

"Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up"

It sounds like absolutely nothing happened to Dave

It is really a beautifully executed synchronized swim

He twisted the rope, tied it over the beam and made the perfect hangman's knot

Letting the ongoing success be successful while you relax

There was always one or more people who would complain

Malicious compliance is when someone deliberately stirs up controversy by carrying out a superior's commands, knowing that the outcome will be unfavorable. This frequently takes the form of an employee following a directive in a way that contradicts its purpose but yet carries out the directive exactly as written.

This story is a good example and Redditors loved it. Share this story to your family and friends if you enjoyed reading it as well.

Maryjane