Employee gets punished for being great at his job, so he decides to stop trying at all: 'Even though I performed my duties better than the others in my department, I was effectively punished for being so good.'

Author image for María Cetra
María Cetra • Writer
Jun 21, 2026 10:30 AM EDT

Companies seem to love you when you are great at your job, but hate you when you seek a raise for your overwork.

The corporate world is crazy, filled with bosses who love micromanaging, workloads that increase when you are good at your job, and salaries that get stagnant for years just because. Workers are always the ones paying the price for the company's inefficiency. If a worker leaves, another one is given double the workload. If a boss makes a mistake, then the worker is responsible out of respect. This is not fair, and the fact that we accept it just proves the desperation we have for these jobs.

In this Reddit story, we see all of these situations. We are shown the reality of corporate jobs, workers being screwed over a thousand times till they leave. There is no impulse –aside from the normal paycheck– to do more, to put effort in. No benefits, no raises, no escalating. Working more and doing your best doesn't matter. On the contrary, it just means that bosses and higher-ups can use you just because you are not fighting back. They take advantage of your lack of power to fill you with more work than you can actually manage and expect that you're happy with that. Well, this worker wasn't.

Maybe this malicious compliance is just the only way a worker can feel like they are making a change, as if they are getting back all the unrecognized effort. The lack of rewards for hard-working employees will only end with unsatisfied workers who do not even do the bare minimum, as they realize it actually doesn't matter anymore. Whether they are great or the worst, the paycheck is the same, and nothing ever changes. 
 

Advertisement
  • 01
    Model worker cutting wood
    via jeriden94

    Model worker cutting wood

  • 02
    I worked remotely for an auto parts company for almost 4 years, finally getting a promotion after the company merged with another. But even though I performed my duties better than the others in my department, I was effectively punished for being so good.
    via MandoMan1973
  • 03
    I started working for a company founded in my area that had a reach around the world for classic auto parts. Sure, we had supplier issues, shipping delays, you name it. But the reputation of this company for being such a large source of hard-to-find car parts - from Model-T and A Fords all the way up to modern muscle cars and everything in between. One of the brilliant minds in the management team decided to purchase a new sales/parts/service program for us, and it went downhill from there. Wher
    via MandoMan1973
  • 04
    where our accounting program would say a vendor was due payment, another would say nothing was owed. No one really knew what was going on until after the culprit manager had left with a hefty severance package.
    via MandoMan1973
  • 05
    We started losing business, customers, vendors... and I - as a case manager - had to field calls daily trying to give whatever company line I was told to give to make the customers happy. We had a high turn-over rate because of this and the company almost went bankrupt. Enter Big Auto Parts (name changed for reasons), and BAP came in with promises to fix everything. They did, for the most part. They paid off vendors, closed out accounts, worked to repair bad relationships with everyone, and let
    via MandoMan1973
  • 06
    - About 6 months after the merger, I was promoted to Customer Operations Specialist. I no longer took calls, but I had to make them for any number of reasons. When I started this new position, there was another person there (I'll call her Lucy) as well. We had different duties in the same department I would research the issue that came up and she would call the customer to work out a solution. For a quick example, if an item they ordered was out of stock or delayed, I would find a different part
    via MandoMan1973
  • 07
    comparable item. It only took three weeks for Lucy to decide she didn't fit in and left the company. This left a big hole to fill, and because I was used to calling customers, I was asked to do double duty. It worked out surprisingly well because I was already familiar with the situations and could make better suggestions while on the phone with the customers. My supervisor did recognize my success and put me in for a small raise, which I did get. I was making good money doing something I really
    via MandoMan1973
  • 08
    The company started growing, and with it, more work needed to be done by everyone. We had a ticket system that, while not perfect, was adequate. Occasionally there would be a hiccup in the system and hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of irrelevant tickets would come across my desk. I started noticing patterns and would call them out to my supervisor so someone with a higher pay scale than I could fix the underlying issue and we could all go home happy at the end of the day.
    via MandoMan1973
  • 09
    Part of this growth meant that there were some areas in my department that would get too many tickets for the assigned person to handle solo, so I was asked to cross-train and learn these other areas. It didn't take long and soon I was doing other people's jobs better than them. I think it was a combination of me wanting to succeed and them wanting to do the bare minimum - and this plays into my malicious compliance near the end of this story.
    via MandoMan1973
  • 10
    We had a point system that tracked how many tickets we worked, how long we spent on them, and whether the ticket needed a follow up or could be closed as satisfied. The majority of my tickets could be closed because of one reason or another and I always hit the metrics asked in order to secure a weekly bonus of $2.50 more per hour. Meeting my bonus put me at above the $20 per hour range every week with very few exceptions, so I was satisfied thinking I was doing a good job. They required me to m
    via MandoMan1973
  • 11
    and every week, I would make between 300- 500 calls and hit nearly 7000 points.
    via MandoMan1973
  • 12
    In my youth, I got a degree from a local community college in video production and that has always been my passion, but I was good at my current job and happy to be there. I got to take bi-annual trips to the corporate office (spring and winter) up north, made lots of friends, and even the owners of the company knew me by name due to my performance. My wife had changed jobs and was working for the local sheriff, and one day she emailed me that there was an opening in the media department. I appl
    via MandoMan1973
  • 13
    letting my current employer know they would be receiving a background check call. The process went smoothly, even resulting in me getting a call from the Sheriff himself saying he was excited that I had applied.
    via MandoMan1973
  • 14
    Back to my current company - I had been "talked to" several times about my numbers, with my supervisor telling me they were "too high" and "no one else makes nearly that amount of points." When I said I was just following the metrics and doing my job, he let me know that changes were coming. On the day I received my call from the Sheriff about being accepted as a new employee, I had a meeting with my supervisor. Before I could tell him I was leaving, he announced that a new point system was goin
    via MandoMan1973
  • 15
    my 7000 points would only equal 1800 - far below the minimum for the bonus. When I mentioned this was essentially punishing good performance, he said, "well, that's what the company wants to do."
    via MandoMan1973
  • 16
    As I said earlier, the bonus put me above the $20 per hour line. My new job was going to start me above what I was making with the bonus, which made my decision to hand in my two weeks notice right then and there so much easier. What cemented my decision was when I found out that even though I was going to finish my scheduled 40 hour work week on a Friday, since the end of the pay week was Saturday and I wasn't working that day, I wouldn't get the comp-time I earned. They were going to withhold
    via MandoMan1973
  • 17
    I actually liked my supervisor - he was younger than my married son and was dised - a good kid with a great heart, but hated that he had to follow "procedure" in punishing hard work. I told him as much and mentioned that I would do what my original job description required, and nothing more, for my last two weeks. It was glorious. We could take time off (if we had vacation or sick time available) if our work was done and we had nothing else to do for the rest of the day. I focused only on my ori
    via MandoMan1973
  • 18
    not being on the clock. I was able to use up all my time by my last day there, and because I wasn't helping anyone else, their work began to stack up. Not that I was doing it to punish any of the friends I made at that company, but simply to get the point across.
    via MandoMan1973
  • 19
    I could still see every ticket menu in all the areas where I had access, and their numbers began to climb out of control. I was contacted by my supervisor's boss on more than one occasion, asking me to help out. And when I would point out that it wouldn't be fare to take points away from the other people when I was about to leave, and that per policy, I was done with my assigned duties and could therefore leave for the rest of the day, he would stammer, trying to convince me to "do what was good
    via MandoMan1973
  • 20
    than what the Sheriff is willing to pay, I will only do what I am paid to do here until my last day."
    via MandoMan1973
  • 21
    On my last day, I checked the ticket queue once again before signing off. My area had zero tickets, and others where I worked that would average maybe ten open or unworked tickets daily, now showed hundreds. What made me feel better was about six months after I left, I got a Facebook message from one of my old coworkers that I actually liked wishing me a Merry Christmas and telling me they still had not found anyone who could do as much as I had done. But I am happy where I am and have plans to
    via MandoMan1973
  • 22
    Image of what could be a corporate office
    via frantic

    Image of what could be a corporate office 

  • 23
    That_Ol_Cat This is the best story I've heard in a while. "I'm going to just do my job for my last two weeks." The fact you got to take ALL of the accrued comp time and not let them with hold it, by their own rules, is the cherry on top of the sundae!
    via That_OI_Cat
  • 24
    Sparklespanx I used to work for an e-commerce company that was also bought, and then subsequently sold a few years later, by Big Auto. Autoanything shuttered a few years back, but that was one of the most toxic industries I've ever worked in.
    via Sparklespanx
  • 25
    I was a CS team lead and handed in my own notice after a male sales supervisor told me I needed to do my job differently because he was ultimately too lazy to make a time sensitive task a priority. When I told him that his lack of planning wasn't my problem, he told me I was being emotional. I was like f that. I'm out. Luckily, I was like you and already had one foot out the door.
    via Sparklespanx
  • 26
    RazorAids I had to stop reading the post and check the comments when I saw you were making $20/hr at that job. You must have been making the company at least 10x that in output my goodness.
    via RazorAids
  • 27
    Worker fixing a car, representation
    via Sten Rademaker

    Worker fixing a car, representation

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

Tags

corporate workplace-stories malicious compliance bad bosses
Scroll Down For The Next Article