'I want the paperwork! Yes, all of it!': Employee maliciously complies with new colleague's request, promptly receives 1,500 pages of documents when she only needed 3

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Aug 1, 2025 2:00 PM EDT

Whatever happened to being careful what you wish for? Sure, it's important for new employees to be thorough and to be sure that they have everything they need in order to properly complete their tasks and responsibilities. That being said, if a more seasoned colleague gives you advice that might make your job easier, you should consider taking them up on their offer.

In this instance, we have a new colleague at a bank who really only needed three pages of paperwork from this author, who routinely sent over documentation and knew exactly what was necessary and what was not. However, the new colleague refused to listen to the author and demanded that they follow the document distribution matrix to the letter (or rather, to the digit). Well, let's just say that this backfired for the colleague very quickly. Keep scrolling below for the full story and for the malicious compliance that definitely made this colleague regret their request…

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

  • In order to follow the new colleague's request, the author decided to show them that they were making a big mistake rather than tell them. That meant sending over what amounted to a grand total of 1,500 pages of paperwork. To make matters even more challenging for the colleague, the author interspersed the three actual necessary pages they needed randomly in that same ginormous stack of papers!

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    "Want all the documents? No problem!"

    Many, many years ago, I did all kinds of admin work at an oil terminal. One of my jobs was to take care of the documents after vessels had been loaded. Bills of Lading would usually have to be couriered to a bank, so I'd take care of that as well.
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    Now, I said Bills of Lading had to be couriered to a bank, but that's not entirely true. Every time a vessel would come to load, we'd receive a document distribution matrix.
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    Originals of document X to be sent to A, copies to B, C and D. Originals of document Y to be sent to B....well, you get the gist.
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    I would usually completely ignore that matrix. I knew exactly who needed what and I knew that the bank only cared about the Bs/L. So I'd just send them those and that was never a problem.
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    That is, until someone new started at said bank and would complain about missing documents. Next time I added some more documents that I reckoned might be vaguely relevant, but again, they complained about missing documents.
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    I'm still not sure why that was, only the B/L was relevant to them. But the next time a vessel had loaded, I was very happy to give them exactly what they wanted. The document
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    distribution matrix was probably once drafted by someone who didn't know what they were doing, then ignored by everyone, so it never became a problem. In this case however...I was going to need a bigger envelope.
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    I followed the matrix to the letter. One original plus four copies? You got it! I was really happy, because I'd spotted the fatal flaw.
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    Some background first: for every chemical product, there is a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS). They contain all sorts of information regarding safety of the product and over time they've become. monstrosities.
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    So here's what made me so happy: the matrix also mentioned one original and four copies of the MSDS. Which was a 250+ page document. There is absolutely no reason why
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    the bank would need even one copy of the MSDS, but it was in the matrix and I'd been told to follow the matrix. So I did. I printed it five times, copied all other documents four times and ended up with a stack of over 1.500 pages.
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    Here's where my kicked in. The three original Bills of Lading, the only documents I knew the bank actually needed, went randomly into that stack.
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    The person on the other side would have to go through that entire stack to find those three pieces of paper they really needed. I heard nothing from them.
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    The next time I had to send documents to the bank again, I reverted to what I'd always sent to them. Again: silence. That's when I knew I'd won. From then on, all was back to normal.
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  • 17
    RealUltimatePapo 7 hr. ago "I want the paperwork! Yes, all of it!" promptly gets 1,500 papercuts "...ow"
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    Imboredboredbored . 7 hr. ago What chemical has an MSDS that is 250+ pages? Most of the ones I use are 8-10 pages.
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    Bluntbutnotonpurpose OP. 7 hr. ago Like I said, this is many years ago, in the days before SDS standardisation.
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    I'm not sure about the current situation, but back then an MSDS could easily be >250 pages. I believe they exploded in size when the exposure
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    scenarios had to be included, but I'm not an expert, so I can't tell you anything with any level of authority.
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    Golden_Enby 7 hr. ago I have a feeling the new guy was reprimanded for requesting all that, lol. A steck of 1500+ pages is no joke. I feel bad for the secretaries who had to sort through it all.
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