'Use your two weeks notice to get rid of it': Administrative assistant deletes and shreds all their files

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jun 1, 2024 11:00 AM EDT

The real boss of an office isn't the president or CFO, it's actually their assistant. While higher-ups get all the glory of that job, they spend a lot of their days taking phone calls and meetings. Their assistants are often the ones organizing these, as well as writing follow-up emails, answering the office phone, ordering their lunch or coffees, and possibly even managing parts of their personal life. These administrative assistants are a force to be reckoned with: they're organized and cool under pressure as they do a difficult job. 

U/MrsTurtlebones shared her tale of malicious compliance. In the comments, people were thrilled with the tale. In fact, a lot of folks contributed their own excellent stories, namely u/themcp, who had their own great office tale to share. You can check out these stories down below, as well as comments celebrating this admin assistant's win. 

Up next, these people revealed the foods they've had that were so gross they'll never touch them again, like one person who lamented that their dish tasted like "milk mixed with the ocean." 

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  • 01
    'I took her at her word, deleting all of the files, shredding a good deal of now-unnecessary paperwork, [and] clearing out all of my contact information'
    via rivage on Unsplash
  • 02
    "We don't need any of that anymore" 20-odd years ago I was an administrative assistant to the Training Director in my company. For unknown reasons, the CFO had it out for her and our department as a whole because he did not see any value in what we did. The company got in some kind of pinch financially and laid a large number of staff off,
    via u/MrsTurtlebones
  • 03
    including my director. From that point, I knew my days were numbered since I could not be an assistant to nobody. (I am still good friends with my old director, who was hired at a prestigious company where she makes more, and her work is appreciated,) When my turn came, the VP who let me go was not unkind, but ignorantly dismissive of my concerns regarding reports and other tasks I alone completed for the company, including an
    via u/MrsTurtlebones
  • 04
    extremely complex and time consuming report that it had taken me a month to master after my director created it. These days, that kind of report could be handled easily with the right software but not back then. Some of the other details of my job included vendor contacts and contracts, as well as employee travel for various conferences.
    via u/MrsTurtlebones
  • 05
    "Don't worry about that," she airily assured me, "we don't need any of that anymore. You can use your two weeks' notice to get rid of it for me." Surprised but annoyed, I took her at her word, deleting all of the files, shredding a good deal of now-unnecessary paperwork, clearing out all of my contact information, and so forth.
    via u/MrsTurtlebones
  • 06
    Amazingly in a layoff situation, I ended up getting a new job in the same company (and am still there in that position, which I love!) This is pertinent to my story because, if I had not remained at the same company, I would not have then received dozens of phone calls and emails from the VP and those she had retained in the department, asking me how to do this or that for booking travel/hotels/conferences, what vendor to contact for various
    via u/MrsTurtlebones
  • 07
    things, instructions on the difficult report, and more. Fortunately, my new position in a separate division is extremely busy with constant customer contact, so we really are not supposed to be on the phone. This gave me leeway to answer, in gentle and innocent puzzlement each time, "Oh, VP told me that none of that information was needed anymore. I don't have any of that because she told me to get rid of
    via u/MrsTurtlebones
  • 08
    it." If they asked me about the report, I would reply breezily, "That one was so tough; it takes a lot of practice so I have already forgotten! Oops, a customer is waiting, gotta go!" Rest assured that this was not a scenario in which I destroyed company info or did anything illegal or even unethical. My friends back in my old department would chortle over how the VP and her underlings had to recreate the wheel, but I
    via u/MrsTurtlebones
  • 09
    was never in any trouble in the least. After all, I had only done exactly what the VP told me to!
    via u/MrsTurtlebones
  • 10
    nig... My $emp had some layoffs, the next week a VP came to our office and told us "No more layoffs.", a week later I and most of my team were laid off. To say we were not happy, was an understatement. I was packing up my personal stuff, when my now ex-boss stops by. "Ummm,
    via u/night-otter
  • 11
    you had a couple of documents due today. Are they finished, or nearly so?" I pointed at the PC which hand on the screen "Formating 75% complete." "You said to clear our desktops.
    via u/night-otter
  • 12
    themcp (Names are real but the company had several people with the first names and I don't remember the last names anyway.) I've told this before so if it sounds familiar, you're probably not imagining it. I had a job with a telemarketing company. Companies would hire us,
    via u/themcp
  • 13
    we'd do a lot of calls for them, and the one and only thing the company got as output in most cases was some statistical data about the call results. We had a guy - Tom - whose full time job was just to produce these reports. Prior to my hiring this was a lot of work because all call results were on paper, but I computerized everything (at the owner's request). It became 6 hours
    via u/themcp
  • 14
    of work, once a month, most of which time was sitting there and waiting for the computer to churn through the data to give you the numbers you would put in the pretty word-processed report to the client. However, Tom didn't know how to do it and refused to let me show him. He told me outright "if I don't know, I can tell the boss you're the only one who can do it and he'll make you do it and then
    via u/themcp
  • 15
    I don't have any work to do. If I let you teach me, I'll have to do it." And he spent his whole days in his office talking on the phone to friends. (And his two boyfriends, who weirdly not only were nearly identical to each other but who both looked just like Chuck Norris. They didn't know about each other.) So I asked the boss to please make sure I could teach him how to do it, but the boss
    via u/themcp
  • 16
    just yelled at me and told me I had to do it. So in the end nobody knew how to do it or even where to find the data except me. Every - month I'd suggest to Tom that it would be to his - benefit to let me at least show him where everything was in case I got hit by a bus, and every month he'd completely refuse. This company was perpetually close to financial
    via u/themcp
  • 17
    doom thanks to the boss's mismanagement. However, they had just got a ten million dollar contract million dollars a month for 10 months work!) with a computer manufacturer whose name is a 3 letter abbreviation that wasn't HAL. Now, I did my usual thing with this contract - I got the calling script to set it up in the software the callers in the call center
    via u/themcp
  • 18
    used, got back to them with "this question type can't be handled in the software" and "This question doesn't actually reveal the data the client wants to know about, you have to phrase it differently" and "answers A, C, and D for this question all mean the same thing" and things like that which they always got wrong, and after a few rounds of correction, calling began. (Note: this
    via u/themcp
  • 19
    was a make-or-break job. If the company delivered money problems would be over. If they failed, because they had to stop some other work to do this job, they'd have complete financial failure.) Close to a month went by and the time to produce the report to give to the client so we'd get paid (a million dollars!) was approaching.
    via u/themcp
  • 20
    Meanwhile they'd hired a new boss for me, who was an utter witch. Things had gone very severely downhill and I could tell I was going to be fired. I very politely let the owner know "Jeanine seems to be making plans to fire me and I am still the only person who knows how to produce the reports for HAL, it would probably be a good idea to let me train Tom before this happens." He just forwarded my email to
    via u/themcp
  • 21
    Jeanine, who threw a screaming fit at me for going over her head. A few days. later she made up a false excuse and fired me, as predicted. Up to the moment I walked out the door I was willing to answer any questions. At the "here is your final check, turn over your keys and leave now" meeting I asked "is there anything I can tell you before I go?" Jeanine said no and that I must go now and not
    via u/themcp
  • 22
    say anything to the staff on my way out. (Not hard as we were in a room right next to the door and I didn't have to pass anyone as I left.) As the end of the month hit, Tom C realized I was the only person who knew how to produce the report and he didn't even know where the data was. That month HAL didn't get any data, which was the one and only deliverable for their
    via u/themcp
  • 23
    contract. They didn't cancel the contract (although they could have), they didn't pay the million dollars and told the company they'd be expecting data soon and they'd get paid when they produced the one and only deliverable. I understand calling continued to happen. for a month. Once again, Tom had no idea how to produce the report and hadn't found the data. (It wasn't hidden, its location.
    via u/themcp
  • 24
    was actually pretty obvious, but Tom was pretty incompetent.) HAL was tired of excuses and ended the contract. When I joined the company I was employee 10. Thanks in large part to my building infrastructure there, when I left they had over 150 people. A month after HAL cancelled the contract, they had 2 the owner, and - Jeanine. I have no idea why,
    via u/themcp
  • 25
    but I checked recently, the company is doing business again, and she's not there. (Side story: some years later I was a manager at a local university. We were hiring for an open job. I got a resume from Tom C in which he claimed credit for not only all of the stuff I did that it was his job to do, but also for all of the stuff I did that it was my job to do. I wrote
    via u/themcp
  • 26
    "do not hire" on every page in marker and returned it to HR.)
    via u/themcp
  • 27
    Toffeemade I worked as a consultant for most of my career accessing through the Human Resources function until eventually I got an offer from a client and crossed over from the dark side to a non- human resources role. In my experience a common failing in HR is that the leadership focus on gathering on people and gaining informal power for their own ends
    via u/Toffeemade
  • 28
    rather than the good of the business. This combines with the fact HR is usually a dumping ground for people the business does not want but cannot get rid of, and often lacks focus on commercial drivers within its grasp (particularly the attraction, retention and development of key talent). If you have been harshly treated in a HR role it may
    via u/Toffeemade
  • 29
    refect the wider standing of the function rather than any comment on your performance.
    via u/Toffeemade
  • 30
    [deleted] You did the right thing to comply. Regardless of how hard it was.
    via u/[deleted]

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