'I forgot to grab it rushing over here': Student IT worker forced by Karen to retrieve badge, cue malicious compliance

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Oct 21, 2022 2:00 PM EDT

This worker rushes across campus for an IT emergency, only to have to journey all the way back because of a silly name badge.

 

This thread was posted to Reddit's r/MaliciousCompliance subreddit by u/sawser, who detailed how an abrasive Karen (the head of the university's media center) made him follow this useless policy despite the so-called emergency at hand. Following rules and policies in tech jobs is obviously important when it comes to security and privacy. But this scenario was different. This was a Karen getting on her high horse and asserting her authority simply because she could. Thankfully, this Redditor wouldn't take it and by the time they returned to the office to retrieve the badge, their shift was over. Bye-bye, Karen! Good luck solving the problem yourself!

 

Take a look at the original post below. We've got you covered on all Karen content. For more, check out this post about an employee who purposely wasted another Karen's time.

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  • 01
    Font - Can't work on your laptop without my name badge? Guess it wasn't that critical. M OC I worked for a university IT department as a student worker for a little over 4 years. We had a sister department, the media center, who loaned out laptops, projectors, and other technology to professors as needed.
    via u/sawser
  • 02
    Font - In my 4th year in employment, I was on a first name basis with nearly all the employees of the university, including the head of the media center. We'll call her Karen, because obviously. Karen was the queen of her Kingdom and had quite a few obnoxious rules in place, but most importantly was an iron clad employee ID policy for checking out laptops. Under normal circumstances I completely agree with this policy, however this wasn't a normal circumstance.
    via u/sawser
  • 03
    Font - We got a call from her at 4:40 on a Friday (we closed at 5) that a laptop she was trying to loan out to a very important professor wasn't able to log into the network, and she requested we come look at it. Sure thing. I make the 10 minute walk across campus from our office to the media center with my tool kit. When I get there I see the professor and Karen and ask to see the laptop, she says "Wait sawser, you need your name badge. Where is it?"
    via u/sawser
  • 04
    Font - Flash to My name badge, clipped to my jacket, hanging on a coat rack in the ITS office. "Ah, It's on my jacket Karen. I forgot to grab it rushing over here." I chuckled a bit. Deadpan, she says "Sawser, you can't work on this until you go get your badge."
    via u/sawser
  • 05
    Font - "Karen, I thought this was an emergency. Do you need me to fix this right now?" "Yes of course," Karen explained, "but we still need to always follow policy." "Fair enough. Policy is incredibly important. I'll go get my name badge"
    via u/sawser
  • 06
    Font - I left the office, trekked the ten minutes back to my office. Then I picked up the phone and called her. "Hey Karen, just letting you know that because it's 5:20 and policy states student workers can't work after hours, I'll have to come back Monday. Have a great weekend!" She fumed at me for a few minutes until I essentially hung up on her. Policy is very important.
    via u/sawser
  • 07
    Font - Thelgow Beautiful. +3.4 hr. ago Vote B Reply Share TheJMFB 3 hr. ago I've seen poetry with less beauty
    via u/sawser
  • 08
    Font - clubba 2 hr. ago Enforcer of rules, Demands compliance and meets, Follower of rules
    via u/sawser
  • 09
    Font - FoolishStone +4. 2 hr. ago Karen, meet your own petard! Just a second while I get this hoist ready...
    via u/sawser
  • 10
    Facial expression - StunkyMunkey · 4 hr. ago Do tell how it played out on Monday! The suspense. Oooo..
    via u/sawser
  • 11
    Font - sawser OP 2 hr. ago My boss did not like Karen at all. He was an amazing guy in general (late 50s, survived cancer, has MS, but still ran security at biker rallies.) He'd been with the university for about 30 years and had 8 weeks pto. So he would take months off and ride around the country with his equally amazing wife.
    via u/sawser
  • 12
    Font - This was in 2005 and he set the standard for what I would consider a good boss. So he came in Monday Morning to a bunch of voicemails from her about it, yells over to me "Sawser, did you leave Karen hanging on Friday?"
    via u/sawser
  • 13
    Font - "Yeah Chuck (his real name, because he's amazing), forgot my name badge." "Yeah you are pretty forgetful sometimes." He shrugged and that was that. Karen had to loan her individual work laptop to the professor for the week.
    via u/sawser
  • 14
    Font - For the curious, the problem was that in windows XP days, when logging in Windows would attempt to connect to every saved wireless network top to bottom. Because this was a loaner, and there were literally hundreds of hotel, airport, and restaurant wifi, it was taking -8 or 9 minutes for the logon prompt to come up.
    via u/sawser
  • 15
    Font - It took me around 30 seconds to clear out all the saved wifi connections and return the laptop to them. Karen was not in the office when I went to work on it Monday morning.
    via u/sawser
  • 16
    Font - Haksalah 2 hr. ago The best part is that Karen giving the professor her own work machine is a huge security violation of its own. Helps reinforce the stupidity of unnecessary pedantry for sure.
    via u/sawser

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Tags

employee university students malicious compliance Horrible Bosses reddit thread Reddit karen
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