'The company was run by a bunch of disorganized idiots': Employee gets revenge on upper management by going above-and-beyond with petty reports; never get's micromanaged again

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    Font - r/r/MaliciousCompliance Posted by u/baz1954 1 day ago Report...Report...Where's The Report? M OC
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    Font - In the 1980s, I was general manager of a cable television company. Of all the reports we had to generate for our corporate office, the "converter reconciliation report" was probably the most important. Every cable TV office in nearly every company had to complete one monthly. If you're of a certain age, you'll remember the converter boxes that connected the TV and the cable so that the customer could tune all the channels.
  • 03
    Font - Well, let me tell you, they were expensive, and we had to account for every one of them every month. Many were in customers' homes but others were on technician's trucks, in inventory, in repair, lost, stolen, and so on. The Converter Reconciliation Report told us how much of this important asset was in use and where it was. It had to be correct and it had to be in corporate's hands monthly without fail.
  • 04
    Font - The company was run by a bunch of disorganized idiots. Every month I would submit this important report to corporate and they would call wanting to know where it was and why I hadn't completed it. Every month I would have to send them another. And they would call again, angry, and I would send another.
  • 05
    Font - Wash - Rinse - Repeat. Four or five times every month they would lose my report and call, threatening to fire me for not getting the report in on time! I was always in trouble for allegedly not sending my Converter Reconciliation Report. Cue Malicious Compliance.
  • 06
    Font - Having had enough of corporate's b.s., I took the completed converter rec report and made 22 photocopies of it, 22 being the average number of work days in a month. I put one in each of the 22 envelopes addressed to the corporate office, put postage on each envelope, and then made sure that in each day's outgoing mail, one report was sent. Sure enough, the angry phone call came.
  • 07
    Font - Manager: "Where's your monthly converter rec?" Me: "Should be in your mailbox. Did you check?" Manager: "Oh, here it is. OK, thanks." A few days later: Manager: "Where's your monthly converter rec damnit!?" Me: "Should be in your mailbox, boss. Did you check?" Manager: "Oh, here it is. OK, thanks." Wash - Rinse - Repeat.
  • 08
    Font - Finally, after about three weeks, I get a phone call. Manager: "Why do I have a stack of the same converter rec report?" Me: "I just always want you to have one handy, boss." After that, they quit losing my report.
  • 09
    Font - Associate Jaded3931 1 day ago Just the opposite: We were taught that if we suspected a particular report had outlived its usefulness, we should just not print it for a month and see if anyone complains.
  • 10
    Rectangle - fromamericasarmpit +1 - 23 hr. ago The scream test? Just stop doing it and see which department screams about it?
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    Font - thatfreakygirl 19 hr. ago I designed a report that was useful for a 3 month period during a change in company policy. Ended up doing it monthly for about 3 years. Realized no one was looking at it. Scream tested it & ended it in 2020. Someone "screamed" this week. Ugh.
  • 12
    Rectangle - ColdColoHands +2. 14 hr. ago "Oh the guy that did that left, what do you need?" unless they already know it was you
  • 13
    Rectangle - Abadatha +2.7 hr. ago We do this in IT sometimes. Server with no obvious ownership, well let's turn it off and see who calls about it.
  • 14
    Font - Ha-Funny-Boy +1.22 hr. ago I did at a job years ago. I convinced the departmental manager to let me hold several reports and not deliver them. If the user called asking for it, then we delivered it. I did this for 3 months. After that I showed the manager what we did not send out and was never asked for. We just stopped printing them after that. It was quite a large number of reports. Never got calls about them either.
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    Font - rpaynepiano +2 12 hr. ago I'm sure now most of it could be done semi automatically too so the reports could be generated and saved to a cloud/drive that the relevant people can access, so that when the dreaded compliance audit happens there's full records.
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    Font - ZaphodB94 15 hr. ago Did this once, I was trained it was night shift's job to put a particular report in a directors mail box every night. Stopped doing it after I watched him throw it out every single morning. It has been 8 years, my supervisor still tells new hires to do it, but neither she nor the director has noticed it not being done for almost a decade lol. Vote Reply Share baz1954 OP +1.7 hr. ago A decade??? Wow. Just wow.
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    Font - joaomsac 1 hr. ago Did that not long ago. After more than six months someone noticed and I got in trouble, because "that report is critical". Starting Doin it again, but now I need to send a preliminary report for some bosses to go through and give the ok before sending. Haven't heard back on these for a few weeks now.
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    Font - Some-Region-5668 +1.22 hr. ago Lol! This is amazing! How long did you keep doing this? Was it just the 22 days? Or did you do the same thing the next month or two after this? Vote Reply Share ... baz1954 OP+1.7 hr. ago Only did it that one month but was prepared to go for longer if the bosses didn't get a clue before that. When the boss called and asked, "Why do I have all these copies?" I think he kind of got the hint
  • 19
    Font - anybodyiwant2be 7 hr. ago I worked for a big software company in the early days and independently started writing and sending in a monthly report. Never got any feedback or mentions on it. One month I wrote "I wonder if anyone actually reads this report?" Got an email from a senior VP that he read it and shortly after 2 levels of bosses were gone.
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    Font - Contrantier +3.10 hr. ago Amazing that they actually got what you meant. I thought you'd have to be direct with them Imao Vote Reply Share baz1954 OP +1.7 hr. ago I guess we could call it "passive- aggressive malicious compliance."
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    Human body - serraangel826 +1 . 1 day ago They did loose money in postage and paper. Plus the aggravation of 22 copies!
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    Font - baz1954 OP+1. 23 hr. ago Well, the postage probably cost the company about $7.00. At first, I tried to get my office manager to throw a copy in each day's mail but she didn't want to be connected to such MC, so I just did it. I left the company soon after that and that cable system has been bought and sold a couple of times since. No doubt though that the new owners each time wanted to see the converter reconciliation reports.
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    Font - Some-Region-5668 +1. 22 hr. ago Even if they only lost $7.00 for this, that's still money out of (hopefully) their pockets. A win is a win, even if it's small. And now I know what to do if this ever happens to me, lol...
  • 24
    Smile - saraphilipp 16 hr. ago +1. 7 dollars in 1980 is probably $100 today.

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