"I knew it was a 'You're fired' meeting...": Employee plays long game of revenge on boss via malicious compliance, leads to gross misconduct, HR gets involved, boss gets demoted

Author image for Eleonora Bader
Eleonora Bader
Apr 5, 2023 10:00 AM EDT

Malicious compliance can quickly get ugly and lead to you getting fired… if you're not careful. This employee made sure he had a long paper trail to cover his own tracks when the inevitable 'You're fired' meeting arrived. He made sure he had someone to point the finger at, and in this case, it was his boss, who didn't hesitate to throw him under the bus when HR got involved.

The employee worked at a call center that had a ticketing system they used to escalate cases to different teams. Sometimes cases were quite tricky, and he would send emails asking for some clarification or advice. He was just doing his job when his boss sent him a thorny email, telling him off, saying he should not send emails for clarification on certain cases because there was a ticketing system to be used.

Cue malicious compliance. This resulted in a complete mess, bureaucracy-wise. HR got involved, and the employee knew he was going to be fired, so he called his boss out in front of everyone. Scroll down for the full, detailed account of events. For more stories like this, 

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  • 01
    Product - I knew it was a 'You're fired' meeting. HR asked me if there was anything I wanted to say, so I pointed at the senior enforcement officer and said, 'He told me to do it!' FIRED
    via u/Rugbyplayer96
  • 02
    Font - Posted by u/Rugbyplayer 96 9 hours ago Doesn't matter if the case is closed or not? Ok then! XL OC 2 I work in a call centre that primarily deals with the public with issues or queries they have and whilst we can deal with a lot ourselves, there are a lot of things we must either log for another department to look into or transfer them across to that department. For example, if someone calls about a broken streetlamp, they get transferred across to the street lighting team, but if someone
    via u/Rugbyplayer96
  • 03
    Font - highway team to fix it- some departments don't have an internal number for the caller to get transferred across to/a number we can call to speak to that department, and one of those departments is the enforcement department.
    via u/Rugbyplayer96
  • 04
    Font - Of all the systems and departments we use and liaise with, the trickiest one we deal with is the enforcement system. Basically, ranging from food safety to the environment, there were multiple teams that enforced things, and all these issues had to be logged on this system. For example, if someone called to report their neighbour for being too loud, that had to get logged on the system for the noise enforcement team to investigate, but we had to arrange for letters to be sent out
    via u/Rugbyplayer96
  • 05
    Font - about it. If someone reported an abandoned car, we logged it, and the environment enforcement team went out to investigate. If someone said they got food poisoning from a restaurant, we logged it and the food safety team investigated it and so on. The reason why it was so tricky was because if you missed a step, it didn't get logged properly/it didn't go to the correct team, which meant that someone would complain to your
    via u/Rugbyplayer96
  • 06
    Font - manager about it, and crucially, this was a legal system, which meant that if the issue escalated to court, whatever you wrote in your notes could be used in the court proceedings. This wasn't a 2nd nature, eyes closed kind of system - you needed to be concentrating because something you log can bite you in the a: s a month later, for example when someone calls to say that they haven't received a letter and it turns out you didn't send it in the first place
    via u/Rugbyplayer96
  • 07
    Font - The way it worked was that a case was logged, which meant that it was open, and it got assigned to an officer like pulling a name out of a hat and throughout the time that it was open, if someone called back to give you more information about the case, you could update it, and that update went directly to the investigating officer, and then when the investigation had finished, the case was closed by that officer. Basically, once a case
    via u/Rugbyplayer96
  • 08
    Font - was assigned to an officer, they had to see it through from start to finish, whether it was deciding if a noise complaint was justified or going through black bags that were reported as flytipping to see if they could find anything that tied someone to that rubbish and so on. It wasn't as simple as that though, because there were cases that had been open for years, with multiple updates, there were multiple cases that had been opened and
    via u/Rugbyplayer96
  • 09
    Font - closed between the same properties for the same reasons, or someone had called about something and you weren't 100% sure if it should be logged or not etc. I'm not sure how my colleagues dealt with those situations, but whenever I got a call like that, I just emailed the investigating officer just to explain the situation and ask for advice, and CC'd in their colleagues just in case the investigating officer was off, or I just emailed the team to ask if they wanted me to log it as a new c
    via u/Rugbyplayer96
  • 10
    Font - I didn't see an issue with it, because they either emailed me back with an answer, or they didn't reply but logged it themselves after they'd looked into it, but one day I got a thorny email from a thornier senior environmental officer, basically telling me off and telling me not to send them emails anymore because the system was there to be used. I emailed him back, explaining that it wasn't that simple because there were tricky cases that I needed help with, and I didn't want to update
    via u/Rugbyplayer96
  • 11
    Font - didn't need to, to not unnecessarily add to the caseloads of the officers and he replied back reiterating that I shouldn't send any more emails, and finished it off by telling me to either update the case whether it was open or closed, or open a new case - cue malicious compliance.
    via u/Rugbyplayer96
  • 12
    Font - From that day forward, I did not send another email. If I got a call about an issue, and the last time the issue was raised in 2017, I updated the 2017 case. If I was on the fence about logging something as a new case or not, I just logged it anyway. If I checked the last case, and the investigating officer had left, I updated it anyway. I was unaware of this, but when I told people that the investigating officer would call them back, like they typically did after we asked them to
    via u/Rugbyplayer96
  • 13
    Font - in our updates, they would call us a couple of weeks later to ask why they hadn't received a call, and my colleagues would have to raise a new case for them because the one I updated was closed. The officers also suddenly had an influx of new cases, because every time I updated a closed case, it 'reopened', which added to their case load. The system they used worked on dates and caseloads, for example, if I asked them to call someone or inspect a property in my update, the system
    via u/Rugbyplayer96
  • 14
    Font - generated a time frame for them to complete that action by, but if they were too busy do something I'd asked them to do, it went red, which counted against them. Also, for example, if they had 4 open cases, and then they closed 3 and they'd gone down to 1, they'd go back up to 4 again if I updated 3 of their old cases, so based on the system, they were not doing their jobs properly because they constantly had open cases. This put their stats through the floor.
    via u/Rugbyplayer96
  • 15
    Font - This went on for ages, and one day I was hauled into an office by my manager, and waiting for me was his manager, the senior enforcement officer, his manager, a HR advisor for me and HR. They told me that I was doing call avoidance (gross misconduct), purposefully misadvising callers and not triaging calls correctly. From what they were saying and the paperwork they had with them, I knew it was a 'you're fired' meeting. HR asked me if there was anything I wanted
    via u/Rugbyplayer96
  • 16
    Font - to say, so I looked at the enforcement manager, pointed at the senior enforcement officer and said, "he told me to do it." The enforcement manager looked at me, looked at the senior enforcement manager, looked at me again and then asked me to clarify what I meant. I explained it all from start to finish, making it clear that when I was sending emails, I always asked for advice and offered to log a case for the enforcement team if they wanted me to, and that before the email from the senio
    via u/Rugbyplayer96
  • 17
    Font - The enforcement manager sighed and then asked me if I could send him that email, so I quickly left, went back to my desk, sent the email thread to him and came back into the office. He read the email, sighed deeper than he did before and then asked us all to leave but asked the senior enforcement officer to stay, and I left with a massive så ´: eating grin on my face because I knew that I would keep my job. The fallout was pretty big, because the IT team had to go in and manually close al
    via u/Rugbyplayer96
  • 18
    Font - enforcement officers would go back to normal, the payroll department had to backdate all the months that the stats were messed up so that the performance bonus matched what would have happened had I not put their stats down (I didn't know they had performance bonuses until afterwards) and the senior enforcement officer got demoted to an enforcement officer, based on their new email signature
    via u/Rugbyplayer96
  • 19
    Font - A couple of weeks later, when the enforcement manager was less busy, he emailed me to basically say that he gives me permission to go back to emailing the enforcement team about cases, but I should use my own judgement - if I think I could justifiably get away with not logging something on the system, as in I could
    via u/Rugbyplayer96
  • 20
    Font - explain to my manager why I didn't think it should have been logged, then I shouldn't log it, and that logic would cut down the amount of emails I had to send to the enforcement teams - No one got fired, but someone got demoted and a lot of work happened in the background to fix what I did
    via u/Rugbyplayer96
  • 21
    Font - ARGG1 8 hr. ago Only if everyone knew that ex- senior enforcement officer was the reason everyone's cases went sky high, it would be MC with a dash of petty revenge. You did good. Vote Reply Share
    via u/ARGG1
  • 22
    Font - PN_Guin +37 hr. ago I am pretty sure they figured it out. Maybe not all the details, but the correlation between "X got demoted" and "suddenly everything is back to normal and bonuses get backpaid" is pretty easy to figure out. Vote Reply Share blackav3nger +2.5 hr. ago Petty wouldn't be strong enough, and Pro is too strong of a revenge term for this. I'm just not sure what category I'd put it under.
    via u/PN_Guin, u/blackav3nger
  • 23
    Font - YourWise Old Friend +2.5 hr. ago When the higher ups tell you something, make sure to meticulously document that fact and to keep copies of it so that you can refer to it. They will mercilessly plow you into the ground if it suits them in the moment. So you keep records and, should the need arise, you point at the person responsible and say 's/he made me do it' upon which statement you produce the goods. If it's not up to you to question management, it's not up to you to suffer the conseq
    via u/YourWiseOldFriend
  • 24
    Font - bondgrl007 6 hr. ago Oh bravo. You want more paperwork? Okay! You get more paperwork! Reply Share Vote baudeagle 5 hr. ago It's too bad they did not actually take the time and fix the enforcement reporting portion of your system. Sounds like something like this could happen again given similar circumstances. Vote Reply Share
    via u/bondgrl007, u/baudeagle
  • 25
    Font - Naivor 8 hr. ago Man, that was a long winded way of saying "we have a ticketing system we use to escalate cases to different teams." Vote Reply Share the-exiled-muse - 7 hr. ago As complicated as government departments themselves. Reply Share Vote
    via u/Naivor, u/the-exiled-muse
  • 26
    Font - Chime57 +2.4 hr. ago Sooo, what is flytipping? Great compliance! Vote Reply Share Liveand LoveLlamas 4 hr. ago Throwing your garbage on someone's property. (Bags of it, or used tires- not just basic littering) Vote Reply Share
    via u/Chime57, u/LiveandLoveLlamas
  • 27
    Yellow - . 3 hr. ago Amazing_Sundae_2024 You need a consultant to come in and clean up and streamline your systems. There seriously has to be a better way to handle these things. Glad you had that email. Way to CYA! Vote Reply Share
    via u/Amazing_Sundae_2024
  • 28
    Font - JustDandy07 +1 - 1 hr. ago Yeah, the call center should just log the issue and route it to the appropriate department and be done with it. They shouldn't have to worry about "email this department, but print a letter if it's this department". Reply Share Vote
    via u/JustDandy07
  • 29
    Font - smoke25ofd 3 hr. ago This is a complex situation that you described perfectly. I can only imagine that you are as accurate and articulate in your work every day. They are lucky to have you. Well done. Reply Share Vote
    via u/smoke25ofd
  • 30
    Font - seaweed_is_cool. 3 hr. ago That was a good read. I like stories like this. Vote Reply Share saveable 2 hr. ago Speaking as someone who works in local government, this one felt very real. Reply Share Vote
    via u/seaweed_is_cool, u/saveable

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workplace-stories call center employee fired hr malicious compliance meeting toxic-workplace-environment revenge malicious-compliance-reddit demoted-boss bureaucracy Horrible Bosses demotion team
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