Company Stops Reimbursing For Cellphones, Coworker Makes Sure They Regret It

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mattstaff
Aug 15, 2021 10:00 AM EDT

There can be something strangely lovable about having a coworker on hand who decides to meet an unfavorable decision by their company, with a swift and brilliant act of malicious compliance. Bob sounds like he's just a bit of a mad lad. Clearly the guy wasn't just going to step aside without putting up a bit of a fight when it came to his cellphone situation being jeopardized. For another recent malicious compliance story check out this manager who forced their employee to get a sick note (even though it was illegal), and then how the doctor maliciously complied.

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  • 01
    Font - r/MaliciousCompliance + Join u/Newbosterone • 9h 2 2 e1 3 3 Yes, I have a cell phone. No, you cannot reach me on it. M Inspired by Sure I can use my cell phone, a coworker's malicious compliance. I had a pretty good tech support job in the late 90s at a cool place to work. Since we had an on-call rotation we had some nice perks. The company paid for a second phone line (yeah, dial-up modems were still the thing.) They also paid up to $X a month towards a cell phone or provided a company c
    via u/Newbosterone
  • 02
    Font - The only constant thing is change - the company was bought up by a large conglomerate. As the Borg assimilated us, they announced that they would no longer pay for personal cell phones and company ones would only be given to those at the manager level or above. (As an aside, how stupid is that? Determine who gets a tool by status, rather than the usefulness of the tool to the job?) The rationale was that "everyone has a cell phone nowadays, and incidental use for company business should n
    via u/Newbosterone
  • 03
    Font - At first, when they collected everyone's contact number (meaning personal cell phone number), Bob gave them his desk phone number. Of course, emergency calls after hours went to voice mail. Typically, the Operations Center would call his home number next and usually get him. It took them a couple of on-call rotations to figure out that they didn't have his cell number. After a round of emails asking for it was ignored, he was summoned into the director's office and asked for it. He explai
    via u/Newbosterone
  • 04
    Font - Then came the malicious part. Cell phones were pretty basic at that time - talk and text, really simple games. Most of the smarts were in the network. Bob found for an extra $2 per month, his phone line could block callers or send them directly to voicemail. Bob paid the $2 and set the company's outbound caller id number to go directly to voicemail. When Bob was not on call, he turned off the audio alert for voicemail, and the only indication was a little envelope icon on the phone's 1 1/
    via u/Newbosterone
  • 05
    Font - He said it was the best $2 a month he had spent. I left a year later, and Bob was still enjoying his cell phone on his terms. (BTW - In 2021 dollars, a cell phone ran -$1000, and monthly service $60 - 100. Not that different from today, but the job paid -$40-50,000 then, and you got a limited number of talk minutes and texts for your $60.)
    via u/Newbosterone
  • 06
    Font - tl;dr - Company stops reimbursing for personal cell phones. A coworker makes sure the company's use of his cell is convenient for him, and not for them. 5.3k 397 1, Share
    via u/Newbosterone

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