'If you say so...': Employee settles score with CEO who demands workers follow alarm protocol, leading to an amusing car chase with the authorities

Author image for Sienna Varady
Sienna Varady
Apr 6, 2024 9:00 AM EDT

When you first start working in the business sector, you might believe that you have to invest more time and energy into the company as a whole in order to please your supervisors. The same supervisors that, ideally, will offer you increases in pay and promotions when they become available. This seems like a fantastic idea in theory: you overinvest in the company, demonstrating on a daily basis how important your work is to you, in the hopes that your superior will ultimately understand who belongs in a more active role within the company. But that doesn't really happen in reality.

The story that follows is an account of a clever employee who has found the perfect way to avenge his dismissive CEO. The Original Poster (OP) had just graduated from college and was beginning his professional career at the time. OP felt obliged to assist the office in any way during the first few weeks, keeping in mind that he is genuinely trying to pave his own route and create opportunities for himself. But soon enough, his intentions to help out with office chores had become more of a burden than he could handle. Briefly said, because OP lives close to the office, he offered to act as the emergency contact number in the event that the alarm goes off.

Having said that, be sure to read the story below if you're interested in learning the specifics of what happened to drive OP beyond the point of no return! After you're done reading, don't forget to read the story of the tenant who increased the apartment's value by caring for its neglected garden, only to have his entitled landlord, eager to capitalize on his hard work, throw him out!

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  • 01
    "Hate to say I told you so..."
    via canva
  • 02
    Put me on the alarm notification list but don't give me any guidelines? Good luck!
    via u/vrtigo1
  • 03
    My employer was a medium sized business (approx 50 employees at the time) and I happened to live right across the street (about 3/4 mile) from our office. Shortly after I started working there, they asked me if I would mind being listed as a contact for the burglar alarm since all of the facilities / admin people lived pretty far away and I was right across the street. They said any time the burglar alarm goes off, someone
    via u/vrtigo1
  • 04
    has to drive over to meet the police. Don't ask me why, I don't really understand the policy. At the time, I was a young naive recent college grad and figured I would try to be helpful and told them I didn't mind. Our internal company policy was if you accidentally set the alarm off, you immediately call the people on the alarm company's list, in order, so they know it's a false alarm and they can tell the alarm company to ignore it.
    via u/vrtigo1
  • 05
    At the outset, this worked pretty well. I'd get a few false alarm calls a year but I'd always get an apologetic call from the employee that set the alarm off so I would just tell the alarm company to ignore it. Then the company started growing and we started having more and more false alarms as we had new employees that would forget about the alarm, and then we started having employees that would ignore the policy and
    via u/vrtigo1
  • 06
    would just leave after setting the alarm off without notifying anybody. After I got wise to this, I started telling the alarm company to ignore everything even if I didn't get a call because we started getting charged false alarm fees and I figured there was a 99% chance it was a false alarm. I figured we shouldn't waste the time of the police or waste company money paying false alarm fees. I brought this up in a meeting
    via u/vrtigo1
  • 07
    with our COO and they s ta brick and insisted that we couldn't ignore alarm events because what if someone really did break in and somebody was working late? They could be at risk. So I said, OK, staff need refresher training because they aren't following the policy to notify me of false alarms, so we're going to have a ton of police dispatches for false alarm events. COO minimizes the issue and insists the current policy is fine and no retraining is necessary, so cue malicious compliance.
    via u/vrtigo1
  • 08
    Anytime I got an alarm call without someone notifying me of a false alarm, I followed the policy and had them send the police. There were two or three false alarm calls where the police showed up, found nothing, and sent us a bill. The very next call, I sent the police like the policy said and right as they were pulling up, they saw a vehicle pulling out of the parking
    via u/vrtigo1
  • 09
    lot and chased it. The employee that got chased? Yeah, it was the CEO. In addition to getting chased, he ended up getting cited for speeding as well. The next day, COO tries to pin this on me like it's somehow my fault, to which I reply "I just followed the policy you gave me". The next day the entire company went through refresher training on alarm procedures and I was taken off the alarm call list. I count it as a win.
    via u/vrtigo1
  • 10
    CoderJoe1 8 hr. ago You should get extra pay every time they call you.
    via u/CoderJoe1
  • 11
    vrtigo1 OP. 8 hr. ago Yup. This was early 2000s when I was a fresh college grad just learning how to be an adult. Nowadays I don't get out of bed unless I'm going to get some paper.
    via u/vrtigo1
  • 12
    goldcoast2011985. 8 hr. ago How many of the no-call false alarms do you think were the top mgmt before the police started showing up?
    via u/goldcoast2011985
  • 13
    vrtigo1 OP 8 hr. ago No way to know, but given that top level mgmt are the most likely to ignore policies? Probably a significant percentage!
    via u/vrtigo1
  • 14
    slackerassftw. 6 hr. ago I can explain the driving over to meet police (retired police). When we did alarm calls, in order to make a burglary charge, we had to talk to a representative of the business. A few times we would show up and catch a burglar, without a representative we couldn't charge them with the break in.
    via u/slackerassftw
  • 15
    Which meant hoping there was something else to put them in jail for or releasing them. A surprising number of businesses had very outdated alarm lists and we couldn't find anyone to be representative. Towards the end of my career, police
    via u/slackerassftw
  • 16
    stopped responding to burglar alarms entirely unless representative was there. Stupid policy, I didn't like it, but not my call to make. Not surprisingly, burglaries went up and burglary arrests went down.
    via u/slackerassftw
  • 17
    DuffMiver8 · 7 hr. ago • I want to say they were right in telling you that you shouldn't be automatically canceling the alarm every time it goes off. It completely defeats the purpose of having an alarm, and you could have ended up in some deep s t if it wasn't a false alarm and you called it off. You accepted the responsibility of making the calls to call it off if it was false, and
    via u/DuffMiver8
  • 18
    so would bear the responsibility if you were wrong. If the company's insurance found out there was a pattern of one of their employees disregarding policy and simply assuming every alarm was false without direct knowledge to the contrary, they could deny a claim for losses or, more importantly, liability. Your company could turn around and go after you.
    via u/DuffMiver8
  • 19
    What if there had been a break-in, and a co-worker got k d? I'm a little sensitive about this, because I was the overnight guy that had to deal with an intruder that got in when another employee blocked an entrance open to move some equipment inside from his truck, and forgot to unblock the door. Had we had an alarm (we didn't) that would have sounded if the door was
    via u/DuffMiver8
  • 20
    ajar for a certain period of time and I found out you told the alarm company not to send the cops, you and I would have gone around and around for a bit. However, once management was made aware of the situation, they absolutely should have seen to it that all employees were re-educated about what to do if they cause a false alarm. Since they chose to disregard your input, they deserved what they got!
    via u/DuffMiver8
  • 21
    vrtigo1 OP. 6 hr. ago I knew it was a very rare occurrence that people were in the office after hours, and I got tired of wasting my evenings but yes you're right.
    via u/vrtigo1
  • 22
    DuffMiver8 6 hr. ago In your defense, you were also expected to do this for no additional pay, so I can see your point as well.
    via u/DuffMiver8
  • 23
    Oluckyman 2 hr. ago I was on an security alarm list for a company I was working for and after 7 years they made me redundant. After a year or so later I started getting calls from the security company, they must
    via u/Oluckyman
  • 24
    have been using an old list. I told them a couple of times I no longer worked there but I still got the calls. So I started saying " alright, I'll go there immediately" until the finally stopped calling.
    via u/Oluckyman
  • 25
    Automatic-Move-5976 · 8 hr. ago Only a win, if you weren't getting paid overtime for each call. Minimum of 1/4 hours per phone call, more on holidays . It sounds like you weren't getting paid for your time, otherwise you have cared about the false alarms, because of the overtime.
    via u/Automatic-Move-5976
  • 26
    Effective-Several · 8 hr. ago Karma has been served.
    via u/Effective-Several
  • 27
    MatthewAkselAnderson 4 hr. ago That's not malicious compliance - that's just compliance.
    via u/MatthewAkselAnderson

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workplace-stories petty-revenge-reddit the office malicious compliance reddit story horrible-management Office overworked-employees workplace Horrible Bosses oddly satisfying
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