'Completely unacceptable': Employee misses orientation, has to write 1000+ word essay, maliciously complies and frustrates HR

If HR wants to treat their employees like children, then their employees have free rein to act like children. We have written about a host of ridiculous company rules here at FAIL Blog, and this "required reflective essay assignment" is the newest addition to the pile. Essentially, this employee was misinformed about the mandatory orientation during the onboarding process at his new job. Part of this came from confusing scheduling changes on behalf of HR, so it was certainly not the fault of the employee. However, he wound up missing one of the two mandatory orientation days and was completely unaware of this until a month into the job.

At that point, he was already settling into job responsibilities and was getting into a routine. However, HR interrupted said routine when they informed the employee that he would have to watch the recorded session he missed (totally reasonable) and then submit a 1000+ word essay that included answers to questions about the orientation (I'm sorry… what?). This set the employee off, as it reminded him of high school disciplinary action. So he took a closer look at the instructions of this "essay" and decided to enact some wordy malicious compliance.

There may have been a 1000-word minimum, but there was no maximum length specified. Therefore, the employee took this opportunity to write a sprawling, 12-page manifesto that would frustrate HR, though ultimately, they wouldn't be able to reprimand him in any way. After all, he did complete the assignment as instructed. The employee shared his story via this thread on Reddit's r/MaliciousCompliance subreddit. Keep scrolling below for the full story and for the best reactions in the comments section. For more stories like this, check out this post about a guy who kept getting someone else's emails and who decided to enact some petty revenge.

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Posted by BenWeiss