'Someone is still working and is at 12 hours of overtime. It's Dan': Stingy boss tries to save money by making employees shovel the movie theater parking lot, maliciously compliant employee takes him literally

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Aug 25, 2024 3:00 PM EDT

This boss has an odd incentive structure, and it is not at all favorable towards his hard-working employees. 

When you go to an interview at a movie theater, I imagine they ask you about your customer service qualifications or your background working in retail. They probably don't ask how much snow you can shovel… these employees had to find out the hard way that it was part of their workplace requirements. 

U/SparkleFritz had a boss who insisted that when it snowed, the employees should be the ones doing the legwork to clear the parking lot. Surely he could contract out a snow removal company though, right? Well, it turns out that he easily could, because it only would cost him $300 out of a 5-figure budget. But some people are just incurably stingy. They can't lose even a penny! This boss just kept putting the burden on the employees, who were not getting paid any extra money to shovel snow. He kept saying that he'd only give in and hire a service if there were 6 inches of snow or more. So basically, he told them to wait for a blizzard, and until then, happy shoveling! 

Read the full story of satisfying malicious compliance below. Then, read about some dates that went terribly wrong, as witnessed by the waiters who served the couple. 

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  • 01
    MSR
    via Greg Rakozy on Unsplash
  • 02
    "You can't leave until you shovel ALL of the snow!" M OC This wasn't me doing the malicious compliance, nor the request, but the middle man who witnessed this gloriousness. I worked for a movie theatre company in a state that snows every winter. We had a contract with a snow shoveling company but my boss refused to use it because the costs of each removal had a possiblity of hurting his yearly bonus by a couple percent points (like $300 max out of $20,000). "Only if it snows more than six inches
    via u/SparkleFritz
  • 03
    Unfortunately this meant that one of the ushers would have to shovel snow on the sidewalk. Since it's a safety hazard to block the emergency exit doors of a theatre it meant you had to shovel a path around the entire building and for each exit door. Ultimately due to the size it's about a quarter mile around the building. No one likes doing it because it's cold and shoveling a simple one shovel- length path can take two hours.
    via u/SparkleFritz
  • 04
    During a snowy Christmas week (the busiest week for movie theaters of the year, imagine Black Friday shopping for two weeks straight) it had snowed just under six inches. We were extremely busy and my boss demanded to take one of our much needed ushers to go shovel snow (I was an assistant manager). When we asked if the company could come out instead of us doing it we were told no, to which one of my co-workers (we'll call him Dan) said he would do it. An hour later after he had gone outside one
    via u/SparkleFritz
  • 05
    When Dan came back in the other ushers complained to him about it. Dan asked our boss why and our boss said that it was because no one wanted to shovel all of the snow, and if Dan didn't shovel all of the snow he would get written up as well. This all happened at the beginning of my shift, around 5pm.
    via u/SparkleFritz
  • 06
    Cue the malicious compliance. What my boss didn't realize was that it was the last day of the payroll period. Being Christmas week Dan had already accumulated 40 hours of work earlier in the day. My boss left right after telling Dan to make sure ALL of the snow was removed. We worked the rest of the shift and everyone assumed Dan had finished and left.
    via u/SparkleFritz
  • 07
    It's 3am now and we go to punch out for the week but can't because there is a shift that hasn't been approved yet. Someone is still working and is at 12 hours of overtime. It's Dan. I go out to investigate since it should only be myself and my manager. As I walk outside I see Dan coming back in, smiling the biggest grin on his face, and the most dry, un-snowed path I've ever seen in my life. It
    via u/SparkleFritz
  • 08
    looked like two pictures cut together; there was not a spec or snow on the entire front path of the theatre. Dan spent ten hours outside making. Sure that he removed ALL the snow from the walkway. We had a good laugh, clocked off and left.
    via u/SparkleFritz
  • 09
    We didn't hear anything until later that week when I was called into the office and had to write out a statement to why I let Dan work twelve hours of overtime. He had this smug look on his face like he had "beaten" us. He was not too pleased when he found out that all of our statements included him saying the phrase "remove all the snow" and that he refused to call the snow plow company. My boss was transferred to another theatre soon after.
    via u/SparkleFritz
  • 10
    Astramancer_ You can only pinch pennies so hard before you break your finger and have to pay the hospital bill.
    via u/Astramancer_
  • 11
    JetpackZombie777 stupid boss gets owned by an employee. Always satisfying and with a nice fat check to boot
    via u/JetpackZombie777
  • 12
    Waifer2016 I think I love Dan 303 Reply Share SparkleFritz OP. We all do.
    via u/Waifer2016
  • 13
    GrandWarchiefBeef ⚫ This sounds like the manager I had when I worked at a local chain of movie theaters. At the location I worked the platter for screen two did not automatically start to spin like it was designed to. Ushers were required to go in every time a movie needed to start on that screen to give it a spin because once it started it was good to go. An assistant manager told me it was a bad chip that would've cost under $50 to replace but that would have come out of the managers bonus and
    via u/GrandWarchiefBeef
  • 14
    ModusPwnins Ah, this brings back memories. I was a manager during a similar Christmas season, and we were well-staffed with managers but a bit short on ushers. So, I would volunteer to do the shoveling, because I'm a sick son of a who likes cold weather and working obliques. They were paying me more than an usher, but getting each theatre cleaned and ready for the next set while ensuring customer safety was absolutely worth it.
    via u/ModusPwnins
  • 15
    PuppetMasterFilms. D Dan, you're my new hero
    via u/PuppetMasterFilms
  • 16
    Useriky I think, the company should have transfered all bonus(es) of manager to Dan. That would be a nice lesson learnt for the manager. As he tried to decrease costs by adding them to a non- bonus related budget.
    via u/Useriky
  • 17
    PKLD_Studios da Daniel back at it again with the white snow
    via u/PKLD_Studios
  • 18
    Fakinsit There is no better fuel for motivation than pure spite.
    via u/Fakinsit
  • 19
    MeEvilBob Aah the movie theater stories I have from over the years, there's so many, my favorite is the part time manager who told me not to start one of the projectors because he was going to do it himself so I could start another movie on time (not that I couldn't get both just like every day before and after that). He knew nothing about projection other than where the start button is, which might be why he didn't put any film in the projector before starting it. I found out via a radio call f
    via u/MeEvilBob
  • 20
    SolidSnakes Bandana . I have a feeling that nowhere in the employee handbook does it say that ushers have to shovel snow. As the story indicates, shoveling snow is a job done by an entirely separate person/company. A job that a separate individual gets paid a separate salary for. Am I wrong to conclude that what was occurring here was WAGE THEFT, for expecting someone to do an entirely different job for no extra pay?
    via u/SolidSnakes Bandana
  • 21
    patb2015 most jobs say "Other tasks as directed" 40 ☐ Reply Nintolerance Convenient, isn't it?
    via u/patb2015

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snow shovel boss job movie theater movies employees overworked-employees workplace overtime bad bosses
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