IT guy gets promoted by arriving late at 9 and leaving at 2 to attend a sites they can't access after their warnings about the ineffective process are ignored: 'You want me in 3 places at once? You got it!'

Author image for Brad Dickson
Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Jun 15, 2025 9:00 PM EDT

Committing to shortsighted decisions for short-term gains, with the result of long-term pain and inefficiency, is almost a specialty for some managers. You can work around them for as long as possible, but the problem is that by not following their poor directive properly and keeping things running smooth you're actually convincing them that their bad idea was a feasible one, even though if you were to start following their directive everything would fall on it's face. But eventually, something is going to have to give, and when your managers aren't listening to you, you don't have a lot of options.

This IT guy used malicious compliance to expose systemic failures and coast through months of work while doing the bare minimum. He worked for a major oil company in Canada as boots-on-the-ground IT support.

It should be no surprise to anyone at those point that the account of events starts with the large corporate company replacing the core IT team with an inexperienced one, looking to shave off some costs so some executive could claim a bonus for the quarter but shortsightedly hamstringing the actual operations which would lead to long term complications and loss of efficiency. As is often the case in these situations, those above him were unwilling to heed the warnings he had about the issues, choosing instead to ignore them and continue on their course, after being given a task that was impossible to complete on their own across the sprawling and distant locations of the organization they realized that doing his best was the only option—which meant arriving late to the office and leaving early so that he could stop at some of the locations he was supposed to be checking on the way.

Advertisement
  • 01

    "You want me in 3 places at once? You got it!"

    A little over a decade ago, I worked up in the oil patch in Northern Canada on different IT contracts. The current contract I was on was maintaining virtual meeting rooms. The oil company had decided that if you didn't need to be on site, they would move your job south and pay you 25 to 50% less. When you needed to meet with people on site, you'd book a meeting and all is golden. The IT company I was with was amazing, but they lost the contract to an international IT company "A", servicing oil c
    via I_IdentifyAsAstartes
  • 02
    Cheezburger Image 10517588736
    via I_IdentifyAsAstartes

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 03
    I was one of the fortunate few that got a job with IT company A; which was so unbelievably stupid. Most of the rest of the talent that had been working IT under contracting companies for 10 plus years took a walk. I think the management literally sat down and said "What's the absolute worst way we can mess things up", and then they did that. They hired a bunch of fresh out of college or unqualified people and within a few months our ticket count had gone from averaging around 50 at any given tim
    via I_IdentifyAsAstartes
  • 04
    This is all well and good, and we got chewed out for the ticket count being high, we got chewed out for bringing it. down low, because our ticket closure rates weren't similar, it didn't really matter; good, bad, we got chewed out. Company A was hemorrhaging money to Company B. Like every ticket outside of the allowed failures that was a failure and not resolved was a fine, and there were multiple sites. Basically IT company A ended up paying Oil company B to do IT for them. Most salaried oil co
    via I_IdentifyAsAstartes
  • 05
    Except for the meeting rooms. Managers couldn't have virtual meetings with staff, things were getting delayed, and it was going to affect oil coming out of the ground, so it was a problem. The 12 of us working there were given full time work and 6 vehicles. The supervisor took one for himself for driving too and from town and wouldn't let anyone use it during the day, so that left 5 vehicles.
    via I_IdentifyAsAstartes
  • 06
    It used to be that we were dedicated to a specific type of work, but now everyone did everything, and we were expected to just "Check the meeting rooms" as we drove by, or "if we had a ticket in that building". So all the meeting room maintainance was just not being done and the new guys that would get a ticket to facilitate a virtual meeting of the vice presidents, directors, etc... of the oil company would just not show up and the meeting would fail.
    via I_IdentifyAsAstartes
  • 07
    During this time I had been loudly and constantly complaining about our inability to "check meeting rooms in buildings that we don't have tickets for when we don't have a vehicle to get there anyways", a coworker told me that one of IT company A's managers had come North to review the situation, was at lunch, saw one of my emails, said "I'm not reading that", tossed down his phone and ate his lunch. So I just gave up, gave in, and did what I was told.
    via I_IdentifyAsAstartes
  • 08
    I had been busting my a to keep everything working for all the execs of oil company B for months, and it was time to "cue malicious compliance". There was a building in town with meeting rooms, our building on site was around 45 minutes North. Every morning, rather than being on site and working at 7, I would be at the town building at 8, checking a meeting room, stocking it with supplies, and fxing problems; except I wasn't because it was in use and I couldn't get in. So I would drive North and
    via I_IdentifyAsAstartes
  • 09
    to our building around 9 and start my day, do a few tickets, be one of the only ones that the oil execs saw that could actually make meetings run successfully, and then leave at 2 to go check a meeting room I couldn't get into, and then go home. This lasted about a month before the oil execs called in my supervisor, manager, and manager's manager and said something along the lines of "Put I_IdentifyAsAstartes on doing just meeting rooms and meetings".
    via I_IdentifyAsAstartes
  • 10
    I got called into a meeting with my supervisor, most of my other work was taken away, I was given my own vehicle, and I was told to check all the meeting rooms every week (a 4 person job) and to take care of all of the exec meetings. I told my supervisor that it wasn't physically possible for me to be in 3 or 4 places at once to check all the meeting rooms, he didn't care, he didn't care how I did it, just get it done. So I got it done.
    via I_IdentifyAsAstartes
  • 11
    Every time we checked a meeting room, we had to scan a QR code with a company phone that we would then export into Exel and submit as the rooms we checked. Every minute of every day I clicked the scan button and scanned nothing. At the end of the week I would export to Exel, then get the list of all the room codes, randomise them, paste them in, save, and submit.
    via I_IdentifyAsAstartes
  • 12
    Click I'm in town checking a room. 1 minute later Click I'm 30 kilometers North. 1 minute later Click I'm 70 kilometers across the river etc... I breezed through rest of my stay there, attending exec meetings and keeping them happy, starting late and ending early, with my own dedicate vehicle. I applied for a new job, was approved, and just had to wait on the background check; my start date was given at about 6 months out and I was set.
    via I_IdentifyAsAstartes
  • 13
    I planned a 3 week vacation at IT company A, months in advance, and then on my last day before vacation, I handed in my three weeks notice and left. I had made some good friends there, I kept getting invited to the social events for some time, and my understanding from the new people is that they ended up hiring more people, had put 4 people on meeting rooms, and still couldn't get the work done (because no one ever bothered to learn it). Eventually the IT company lost the contract.
    via I_IdentifyAsAstartes
  • 14
    CoderJoe1 · 19h ago Yup, this is the most corporate sounding story ever.
    via I_IdentifyAsAstartes
  • 15
    bsb_hardik 19h ago • Hope you got paid for being in the north for the meetings even if you were not there!!!
    via I_IdentifyAsAstartes
  • 16
    MizLucinda • 14h ago I'm not really sure what's happening here but good for you.
    via I_IdentifyAsAstartes
  • 17
    LordJebusVII • 13h ago Why were there so many problems with the meeting. rooms? I worked at the same company for 10 years and in that time the only time anyone from IT showed up to the meeting rooms was when they were renovated and new equipment installed.
    via I_IdentifyAsAstartes

Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.

Tags

workplace discussion workplace-stories jobs employee job malicious compliance work workplace workplace malicious compliance employment in the workplace
Scroll Down For The Next Article