'He's got... 20,000 tickets to close': Boss ignores employee's simple solution to help desk issue

Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor

Aug 22, 2023 5:00 PM EDT

A small issue ballooned into a big one after a few days. That's what happens when you ignore a tiny problem — it can just compound and expand until it affects your entire job.

This employee wrote to r/MaliciousCompliance to tell a story from their time as a help desk agent in the 1990s. "It started slowly at first-- maybe one call out of ten," OP writes. Basically, their phone system was automatically opening tickets with the wrong information, and the problem was slowly getting worse. Luckily, the OP had a bright idea involving macros. They told their coworkers about it, but they were stopped in their tracks. Many workplaces would rather punish their workers rather than encourage innovation. It seems like the OP's coworkers in this case were just too lazy to implement the new idea.

Check out the entire story below, including comments from the OP about their tale from the 90s. Then, these people shared the funniest rules they had at their own jobs, like one person whose boss made them pay fifty cents per disposable coffee cup.