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'I had averaged around 200 tickets each day': Worker goes above and beyond to "maliciously" comply

It's not often that the villain wins in the end—unless it's the second part of a trilogy, and you need to set up the third part so that our heroes are fighting back from the brink of defeat… a la Star Wars' second (fifth) installment The Empire Strikes Back. See, ending your story with a conclusion where the villain wins usually doesn't provide a satisfying story structure—unless things have been leading there the entire time, and that's the point the story is trying to prove. 

[SPOILERS: No Country for Old Men & Se7en]

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Posted by Brad Dickson
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  • Examples that spring to mind here, in addition to The Empire Strikes Back, are usually given as being the likes of the Coens' screen adaptation of Cormac Macarthy's No Country for Old Men, in which the unstoppable hitman Anton Chigurh carries us into an uncertain and bleak ending; there's also, famously, Fincher's Se7en where the conclusion of the film may leave you never wanting to watch it again.

    Still, even in No Country for Old Men, where, throughout the story, Chigurh displays an almost immortal prowess. We're shown, in the final moments, that he, too, is but a mere man, and despite his control, precision, and calculation, he, too, is susceptible to misfortune via the disorder and chaos of the world. So, despite the fact that he achieves his aims, does Chigurh really win in the end? Will he have his worldview shaken following the events of the story? We're led to believe so.

    Anyways, if you're even still reading this, you're probably sitting there thinking, “What on earth does this have to do with the title of the post I clicked into?” So for you, dear reader, let me get to the point: We, too, can find ourselves losing in life; despite being the heroes of our own stories, we're not always going to come out on top. We can find ourselves losing every day through breakups, bad jobs, financial strain, and the death of loved ones. It can feel like there's not all that much to gain and even when we think we might have won we still might be losing.

    This employee seemingly thought that they had won when they complied with their boss's mandatory overtime policy, achieving levels of productivity well beyond expectation and in a much shorter time frame. The problem here, as commenters have pointed out, is that they played right into their boss's hand by continuing to push their own productivity to new levels, and, really, they should have sunk their performance down to the company's barest expectations. So, while they thought they had won, they had actually snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. At least, as evidenced in their comments, they ended up leaving their role in the end, likely leaving their manager scrambling to fill the void in productivity that their departure left.

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  • 1
    Product - "Boss wants me to comply with her mandatory overtime policy."
    Via CoWomen
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    Font - Posted by u/AdMinimum3886 15 hours ago Boss wants me to comply with her mandatory overtime policy. Years ago I was working a call center job for a well-known e-commerce site. We were first and foremost phone or chat customer support, but also would respond to customer emails that would come in the form of tickets.
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
  • 3
    Font - During the holidays we would get absolutely wrecked with emails as people were doing their holiday shopping. The company would routinely understaff during the holidays and then require us to do mandatory overtime to compensate for the extra calls and emails we received (we are in Texas which is an at-will employer state, so this is totally legal btw even though its still kinda morally crappy).
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
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  • 4
    Font - Anyways, I was consistently one of their top ticket closers, averaging between 120-150 tickets a day whereas some other employees might average 60 or 70. Mandatory overtime season rolls around and my boss sends out an email that every employee will be assigned 25 extra tickets each day this week, of which they are expected to stay past their scheduled shift time to complete. During the workday we were expected to close the same amount of tickets we would normally close, outside of the add
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
  • 5
    Font - Monday I come in, knock out the 25 tickets that were pre-assigned to me, and go on my merry way closing the additional ~150 ish tickets I normally close, finish by the end of my shift, and leave. I was the top ticket closer that day by a wide margin. Boss would leave at 5, but would be checking our time clocks from home to see when we clocked out. Tuesday morning first thing my boss pulls me aside for an impromptu meeting, which went like this:
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
  • 6
    Font - Boss: "I noticed you didn't stay late last night to complete your tickets like everyone else". Me: "Correct. I completed the assigned tickets in addition to my normal workload without needing to stay late, so I left". Boss: "Well if you finished all those tickets within your scheduled work day, that doesn't count as extra work. Those tickets would count as part of your normal work, which means you are in violation of our mandatory overtime policy."
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
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    Font - Me: "Well as you can see, I am the top ticket closer by a wide margin, and you can also see that I completed the extra work that is expected of me and then some. So what is the expectation going forward?" Boss: "The expectation is that you'll stay late like everyone else to do the extra work."
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
  • 8
    Font - I didn't feel like arguing much further, and things were getting a bit heated in this discussion. I made it known that it didn't seem fair that I should be punished for being faster at closing tickets than most of my colleagues, and that I am still completing the extra work while closing twice as many tickets as everyone else. We seemed to be at an impass between my having finished what was expected of me, and what was actually important to her, which was
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
  • 9
    Font - me being clocked in after hours like everyone else. I welcomed her to assign me an additional 25 tickets a day (bringing the additional total to 50 extra tickets a day), since it seemed as though 25 extra tickets was no problem to complete, and agreed to stay late to work on them. Every day that week I came in, knocked out the extra tickets and closed my normal amount of tickets, sometimes working through lunch as
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
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  • 10
    Font - well. By the end of my shift I had averaged around 200 tickets each day. I then sat at my desk and f-ed off on my phone for an hour while still clocked in. Had a nice little bit of overtime pay between staying late and working through lunch. If you want me to "work late" then "work late" I shall. Thanks for paying me overtime to do the same thing I would be doing while sitting on my couch at home after work! Just goes to show that efficient employees will always be punished with more work
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
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    Font - 410A Empty__Jay The real malicious compliance would have been to reduce your "regular" daily ticket load to match that of your coworkers, then do the extra 25 in your extra hour at the end of the day. Vote Reply Share
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    Font - AdMinimum3886 OP For sure. At that time I was in my young and extremely competitive day so I enjoyed being at the top of the leader board. Now in my thirties I've perfected the art of not giving a f- and would definitely go that route for extra pettiness Reply Share Vote
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  • 13
    Font - Kolbur Bro, she finessed you into doing 200 tickets a day. Malicious compliance would be doing 60-70 like everyone else. Vote Reply Share paegus Kinda sus that they clearly could have fired their slowest agent and just thrown the remaining 10 more tickets OPs way from then on, but chose not to. The manager played OP like a fiddle but missed the out on saving a whole a wage. Everyone Stupid Here.
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
  • 14
    Font - ArmThePhotonicCannon So your boss got everything she wanted with no consequences? How is this malicious? Vote Reply Share AdMinimum3886 OP I consider it malicious in the sense that they could have easily gotten the same result without paying me time and a half or making me stay late to do it. But since they wanted to go that route, I was happy to
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
  • 15
    Font - siphon off their additional funds to do the same thing I would have been doing at home if they didn't force me to stay late. I had around 150 pages of "canned responses" for almost every customer question you could think of, so it was mostly mindless copying and pasting without a whole lot of additional effort involved. The extra tickets were really me just being a competitive a as I routinely worked through lunch and knew I could still do them within my scheduled time Vote Reply Share
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
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    Font - CuteSharksForAll Took me years to realize that extra work is seldom rewarded in most organizations. Realistically, if you just stay in the top 3rd in terms of productivity you're generally safe. Seems like you just need to lower your regular workload going forward, especially if going into the holidays.
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
  • 17
    Font - Probably could have just made your manager happy without doing any extra work and just slowing down on the tickets you do, then soaking up that overtime. Not like you could be written up for not doing enough and you could easily say that your average ticket requires more involvement. (Maybe you need to confirm a policy or look something up with a ticket here or there).
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
  • 18
    Font - That being said, when I worked at Apple, we had mandatory overtime during iPhone launches. Not sure if that is something they still do though. Reply Share Vote AdMinimum3886 OP This was many years ago and I think you have to get slapped in the face by a few jobs like that when you're first starting out to
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
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  • 19
    Font - realize that being the top performer isn't the golden ticket to a promotion or better job. In fact usually you become "too valuable" in your current role and end up pidgeonholing yourself like I did. I did actually get promoted a few months after that, but the pay raise was like a dollar more, maybe 2, something comically small, and I
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
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    Font - had previously held that title for around 3 years with somewhere around 30 cent annual pay raises, which was about on par with anyone else working in that role despite workload. So yeah, not much of a benefit in the end besides the occasional chest beating with your coworkers. I
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
  • 21
    Font - knew they were about to approve my promotion so I waited around just long enough for that to go through so I could put it on my resume, and then gave them my notice Luckily I'm much happier in an engineering role now where there's no metrics, and no-one cares what hours I work as long as I get my work done. Vote Reply Share
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
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  • 22
    Font - Peper_of_Kruidnoot Did a lot of extra work for 7 years and the week of the first lockdown they let me go due to "uncertainties with the pandemic" Imao. Vote Reply Share
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
  • 23
    Font - Alexis_J_M — True malicious compliance would have been to work the mandatory overtime but to reduce your overall productivity to that of your colleagues. 4 Vote Reply Share
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
  • 24
    Font - MUTU beathelas I expected it to end like you maliciously complied by reducing your completed tickets to the average level, since they didn't seem to care about performance just that you stayed late Reply Share Vote
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
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  • 25
    Product - mcvos I would just look for another job. See how he likes losing his top ticket closer. Mandatory overtime is bul Vote Reply Share AdMinimum3886 OP Oh I waited until right after they approved my promotion after 3
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
  • 26
    Font - years with the same title, just to get the title change on my resume and make them do all the paperwork, then I put in my 2 weeks. Years later I'm easily making 3x what my old boss does now, and laughing that she's still in the exact same role doing the exact same thing. Vote Reply Share ●●
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
  • 27
    Font - bokmann 7 hr. ago . This should be cross-posted to “There was an attempt". I fail to see how this is malicious compliance. they wanted you to work overtime and close 25 extra tickets. "I'll show them! I'll work overtime, skip my lunch, and close 50 more tickets!" Vote Reply Share ●●●
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
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  • 28
    Font - Forteanforever How is this malicious compliance? It's simply working much harder during your normal work hours. Next, your employer will realize that you can do 200 tickets a day and that will be his expection for your normal work hours every day. As I see it, you've screwed yourself. Vote Reply Share
    Via u/AdMinimum3886
  • 29
    Font - flannelmaster9 I would have taken the Office space mentality and just done the bare minimum to not be fired. Vote Reply Share
    Via u/AdMinimum3886

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