'I put in my formal notice and that’s when the fun started': Employee bests boss who made them drive 200 miles a day for work and refused to sign off important paperwork

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jul 16, 2023 11:00 AM EDT

The only thing worse than a long commute is a long commute to a job you really dislike. 

Even if you bring a book, music, or a movie, commuting is still annoying to do every day. I used to commute 90 minutes each way twice a day, and it was soul-deadening. Even with entertainment, it's hard to sacrifice so much of your day every day without being paid. If you made me president, I would make every single company reimburse its' workers for their commuting time. If you have to take time out of your own day just to get to the job, you're basically almost working anyway, so these companies better pay up!

This person worked at a pharmacy, and they really wanted to be in a floater position, meaning they could float between stores. Instead, their boss wanted them to stay at one location. This place was dangerous and far away from where u/ClubWag lived. They had to drive several hundred miles per day, only to get to a job they despised. If they couldn't be a floater, they asked their boss if they could at least be paid like a staffer, and this toxic boss still said no. At least the OP got their ultimate revenge through some excellent malicious compliance. In the comments, people loved the story, and some even shared their own malicious compliance tales. 

Check out the whole story and comments below. Then, check out these maximum-sized chonky animals who are living large. 

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  • 01
    Gesture - 'Shady Boss lied about my position...I found out and it changed everything'
    via National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
  • 02
    Font - Shady Boss lied about my position to keep me from policy-allowed benefit for years. I found out and it changed everything.
    via u/ClubWag
  • 03
    Font - A few years ago, I worked at a big retail company and had for many years. Eventually I went through enough gradschool education to get my license to work at a higher level. Much more pay, more job satisfaction, more responsibilities, fancy title, but the job market was rough. I stayed on with my company to work in a 'floater' position, where I would cover a large area and work at all the stores within that area on a rotating but irregular basis. Eventually I wanted to get a staff position
    via u/ClubWag
  • 04
    Font - It was a rough store, folks in my position were robbed and assaulted at g point, neighborhood volume at the store was among the highest in the state. Staff turnover was, as you might expect, extreme. was very unfriendly,
    via u/ClubWag
  • 05
    Font - Well, after training I wasn't really being scheduled to float to other stores. Once a month, at most. I asked to be scheduled a little more diversely, since most of the stores in my area were much closer to my home and didn't require 4 hours of driving a day. Bossman told me that I was the only floater experienced enough to handle that store. I didn't buy it, but what can you do right? Well a colleague told me about the mileage reimbursement policy. Floaters working at a store more than 5
    via u/ClubWag
  • 06
    Font - but he never actually signed and filed them. I suspect as soon as I left his office at our district center he tossed them out. Bossman tells me later that they must be "lost in the system." Eventually the same colleague showed me how to fax those same forms to accounts payable, bypassing the district bossman. So I started doing just that.
    via u/ClubWag
  • 07
    Font - One day Bossman calls me in a panic. He wants to stop my filing the forms. I ask to be floated closer to home, but he won't budge. He needs me at that miserable store. He promises me he'll make me a staff role at that store if I promise to stop faxing those forms. Staff roles are a promotion and usually come with better pay and a few other little conveniences, so I agree. Bossman says there won't be a paybump right away, but that it'll come down the road. That never happened.
    via u/ClubWag
  • 08
    Font - 2 years later the situation at the store has become too toxic for even me. I ask to step down from the staff position to be a floater again and be allowed to float to other stores. Bossman says that I am already a floater, never was in a staff position, but that he can't let me work at other stores because it's better for me and the customers if I stay there for "familiarity." 'Floaters' do not get scheduled to stores exclusively, so I am being singled out because they are still desperate
    via u/ClubWag
  • 09
    Font - I put in my formal notice and that's when the fun started. Remember that whole mileage reimbursement policy? Well I kept meticulous track of all my shifts, and there is no statute of limitations baked into the policy, so I started filling out those reimbursement forms to retroactively cover every single shift from the past 2 odd years. I skipped the meal part since I didn't want to go through all that effort of finding receipts. I had a friendly store manager sign off on them, and I start
    via u/ClubWag
  • 10
    Font - I didn't fax them all in at once, but for each shift in my final 2 weeks I faxed a few dozen in (we still have fax machines in that line of work, believe it or not) I figured, what do I have to lose? Worst case scenario, Accounts Payable declines the forms. On my last few shifts I started getting the checks from accounts payable. Not added to my paycheck but sent to me directly. Mileage reimbursements are non- taxable income, so this was all tax- free money coming to me. It must have take
    via u/ClubWag
  • 11
    Font - because I agreed I wouldn't be eligible in a staff position. They then threatened legal action against me if I didn't remit the full amounts back that same week. But I had the email chain from when Bossman said I was never staff, and always a floater. I politely referenced that email chain before letting them know firmly that because I was lied to, our prior agreement didn't apply and I was fully eligible all along. Corporate policy, as confirmed by HR, agreed with me, so I let them know
    via u/ClubWag
  • 12
    Font - The great satisfaction of not only professionally surpassing my old boss, but getting to tell him that his lies cost him way more on the way out is almost priceless. I also shared my story and method with MANY colleagues who were being told wrongly by the Bossman that they didn't qualify for this policy. Tl;dr: Boss lied to manipulate me into commuting 200 miles a day for 2 years without policy allowed reimbursements. I found out and quit for my dream job/career then filed reimbursement r
    via u/ClubWag
  • 13
    Font - EDIT 1: Thank you all for the support and comments. As many of you correctly guessed, I was working as a community pharmacist. I do want to clarify that most of my coworkers (Technicians, Pharmacists, Front- end staff) and customers/patients were amazing people. Between them and my subscription to Audible with a long list of books I always wanted to read, it made the situation such that I could tolerate that commute for all that time. The job market for retail pharmacy was/is also very ro
    via u/ClubWag
  • 14
    Font - The District Manager "Bossman" and the store General Manager (who was fully complicit in the lie) are both still working for the company, last I saw. The Moral of the story: Please understand your company policies and ignore any verbal agreements or HR-unsupported decrees otherwise. And be kind to your pharmacy staff, the job and companies are not always kind to them.
    via u/ClubWag
  • 15
    Font - Techgruber Not to this degree, but I've had to deal with onsite managers lying to me about wages and benefits as well. Sometimes it was to make their own budgets look good. Other times, it just seemed to be a personal quirk that they had to grind down people under them.
    via u/Techgruber
  • 16
    Font - Barflyerd hit I worked at a company where Director level jobs got an extra week of vacation, but weren't eligible for annual bonuses. I argued all the way up to C Level that I should get the extra vacation. They argued that my title was director but wasn't really a director (even though I had the second largest team). So, I asked for the annual bonus instead. They said that Directors didn't get bonuses. 8 weeks later, I was gone after working there for 5 years. No one else in that job sin
    via u/Barflyerd****t
  • 17
    Font - 02K30C1 Life lesson: when a manager tells you they can't increase your pay now, but it's coming down the road, they're lying.
    via u/02K30C1
  • 18
    Font - sawskooh Remember: A promotion without a raise IS NOT A PROMOTION.
    via u/sawskooh
  • 19
    Product - Atlas-Scrubbed Yeah this is wage thief. I would report it to the state regulator.
    via u/Atlas-Scrubbed
  • 20
    Font - GuitarZero132 It's incredible how much a long commute just makes a bad job that much worse; nothing like having two hours to think of how s work is and two hours to think about how s work was, each and every day.
    via u/GuitarZero132
  • 21
    Font - SquidMilkVII In the future, there are six words that can protect you in any arrangement before you even start: "Can I have that in writing?" Then hold on to that paper like it's your newborn baby.
    via u/SquidMilkVII

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boss jobs toxic-workplace job pharmacy toxic-work-environment malicious compliance malicious-compliance-reddit
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