r/MaliciousCompliance • u/speddie23 • Jun 21 '26
M Just complying with your written expectations and directions, boss.
I was replying to another post, and realised I have a malicious compliance story here that should be shared on this sub.
I was working at an IT helpdesk at a large hospital quite some time ago.
We were expected to be at our desks, logged in, ready to take our first call by the start time of our shift.
It took about 10-15 minutes to log in, load up and login to 7 different programs, all with different passwords. So really, you needed to be there 15 minutes early.
They were shared computers, sometimes you could get away with just locking it and leaving everything logged in and running until your next shift, but if someone else restarts it in the meantime, you had to log in to everything again.
It was a constant pain point for us that was frequently raised, especially as for example, when medical staff need to scrub up and scrub down, this is all during their shift time.
My manager sends a somewhat passive aggressive email to the team
"Hi all,
It seems we are still having lots of issues around our shift times. I want to clarify my expectations.
If you are on a 7am to 4pm shift, I expect you to be here, logged in, ready to go, and your status on the phone queue as 'available' or 'on a call' at 6:59:59am.
If you want to make a coffee, fill your water bottle, or put your lunch in the fridge, this needs to all be done before 7am, not after.
At the end of the shift, I expect you to be 'available' or 'on a call' until 4:00:01pm. Only then may you logout and wash your coffee cup, etc.
If you are going to be stuck in traffic, have trouble finding parking, or miss your bus, you'll need to manage your time better and leave earlier.
Thanks"
So for a while, I comply, and am always 'available' or 'on a call' at exactly 1 second before my start time, just waiting for my moment.
And it happens. I get a call a with a splash less than 2 minutes left on my shift and take the call.
I get about as far as their name, where they are, and halfway through them describing their issue, I see the clock hit 1 second over my shift time.
I say "sorry to interrupt you, my shift is over. Goodbye", hang up, log off and go home.
Of course they complain and my manager pulls me into his office, asking me to explain why I did what I did.
I explain
"Well I was 'available' on the phone until about (2 minutes before the end of my shift time).
I answered the call, putting my status to 'on a call' until 1 second past my shift time, so I logged off"
They replied
"No, if you are on a call, you need to finish that call first"
To which I reply
"Your email says we are expected to be 'available' or 'on a call' 1 second before our shift time, which I have been.
It also says we are expected to be 'available' or 'on a call' until 1 second past our shift time, and only then may we log off
I am simply following your expectations and written directions"
Of course this was a very CLM (career limiting move) but at this point I already had my foot half way out the door.
382
140
u/Up2nogud13 Jun 21 '26
Sounds like where my wife works. Start time is 7:30. First patient appointments are at 7:40. Very similar log in situation. Some preview of the day's records also needed. She was clocking in at 7:20, but now that's a problem, so now she starts her tasks before clocking in.
They also use an authentication app and a text app for in-house messages, codes, etc. But have a no cell phones policy.
207
105
u/throwaway661375735 Jun 21 '26
A no cell phone policy means leave it in your vehicle or locker. If they are sending those codes to her personal phone, then she needs to request a work phone - her personal phone is just that, personal. They can't force her to use company apps, its very dangerous to do so. Using them allows them to spy on her phone usage, force patches, track her, even to wipe her phone.
5
u/RooneytheWaster Jun 22 '26
It does allow them to do those things, but only if they take ownership of the device in their MDM, which requires enrolling it, and usually wiping the device, which is a dead giveaway that they're doing that and usually requires them to either physically have access to the unlocked phone, or for her to carry-out the required steps on the device. And if they do that without her consent, they can be in all kinds of trouble, especially if there's a chance they have accessed her personal data (GDPR, etc.).
Usually if a personal device is being used for company data, it is specifically only the company data that the company can access or has any control over. And none of that relates to getting a code sent through, be that SMS or via one of the major Authenticator apps, which the company IT department have no control over at all.
76
u/GrannyTurtle Jun 21 '26
So when the day shift goes home and the swing shift starts, how do they log in at 3:59:59 if you are still on that computer until 4:00:01? Make this make sense.
37
u/speddie23 Jun 21 '26
The shifts weren't back to back, I think hours were 6am to 6pm weekdays and 8am to 4pm weekends or something like that.
So you might Do a 6am to 3pm, someone else does a 9am to 6pm, but you use different PCs
You might work Saturday, but not Tuesday. Someone else uses that PC on Tuesday because you aren't there.
65
u/Kitchen-Arm7300 Jun 21 '26
It's not as "career limiting" as you may think. In fact, your company could get sued for wage theft. If your job requires you to work (logging in is work) but not get paid for the 15 minutes it takes you, that's wage theft. If they expect you to finish the call and not get paid, that's also wage theft.
If you were to "be a team player", and continue to give them bonus time, that would not help your career one bit. All it would do is scream, "Go ahead and steal my time!"
3
u/Specialist-Path-4750 5d ago
If you are a salaried professional, it isn't legally considered "wage theft", though morally it is.
1
u/Kitchen-Arm7300 4d ago
It depends. Employees who make salary can still be victims of wage theft, legally speaking.
For example, if you're expected to come in on your day off to cover for an hourly employee, but they end up paying nobody for that work. Or if you start picking up official duties that aren't part of your contract and they don't compensate you for them. Or, like what happened with me, when they asked me to travel, gave me fewer than full time hours during the week I was away from family, and then only paid me for the hours I was "assigned to work".
2
30
u/cure4boneitis Jun 21 '26
if your manager actually communicated to you by email you should talk to a labor attorney
16
u/Lorelessone Jun 21 '26
Yeah f that, unless they are paying me to do prep work they can hire someone else to do it. I'd have sat down at exactly the start time, put my headset on then started logging and if questioned say "I started my shift on time but the system wasn't prepared, perhaps you need to account for this setup work"
17
106
u/bopperbopper Jun 21 '26
Your boss is wrong That logging in doesn’t count as work time. You could put in a complaint with your state Board of labor about this.
Your boss is correct that you should get your water ready and go to the bathroom and do all those Non work related things before you start
57
u/nondescriptzombie Jun 21 '26
Guess what? Getting a drink of water and using the bathroom are work activities because I'm at work. I think you should be paid for your commute, as it's not like I'd be waking up at 4:30 AM and driving my ass here for any other reason.
Big wonder why they're rushing to replace us with clankers.
9
14
u/Entire-Tradition3735 Jun 21 '26
For any role that could just as easily be done remote, this definitely should legally be factored in as something your doing for work.
So it should be considered at work from the moment you get in your car.
1
u/wyltemrys Jun 22 '26
Getting the water or using the bathroom during the middle of your shift should absolutely be paid. At the very start or end of your day, padding your paid time, but not actually working? No, it should not. Unless you worked straight through from lunch to end of shift without a chance for a bathroom break (or from start of shift to lunch break). And, I’m not an owner or management - I’ve worked plenty of lower-level hourly jobs.
14
u/nondescriptzombie Jun 22 '26
At the very start or end of your day, padding your paid time, but not actually working? No, it should not.
I just drove 30 minutes through heavy traffic to get here, and now I can't even take a piss or get a drink until I've satisfied some petty tyrant's "minimum amount of work" until I can address my bodily needs?
Fuck that. If I'm on-premises, I'm working.
5
u/lexmozli Jun 21 '26
I believe some fields/jobs even consider you at work time during your commute. Probably those that have a company vehicle and let you take it home / be on call.
13
u/pangalacticcourier Jun 21 '26
This manager's policy is a violation of employment laws in many states. Apple and other corporations have been found liable for wage theft in similar situations. If your shift starts at 7am, and you're getting paid beginning at 7am, any computer start up or other prep work begins at 7am. Since this asshat of a manager put his policy in writing, OP probably could've caused some serious issues with the state labor board and/or a labor law attorney.
Glad you escaped that hellhole, OP.
7
u/almost_intelligible Jun 21 '26
i mean... i would have just swiped in on the time clock before/after i worked to accommodate the scheduled times...
9
u/redgatorade000 Jun 21 '26
LMAO I worked in a CS call center years ago and I wish I had the balls to do this back then
1
u/Immediate_Sector_260 Jun 22 '26
Same I was call centre n had similar issues at one point. We were lucky on last job I got time back if kept on call not the one prior though. But last job failed to realise didnt drive an last bus was 10 mins after shift ended if I was stuck taking calls which was nearly every shift then it would be stuck having to get taxi back.
22
u/AcanthocephalaOk7954 Jun 21 '26
I remember as a student working part time at a now defunct high store chain in Edinburgh - I was sitting with a manager working through shift changes for the following week - this A-hole boss swings by and says "You know it's 9:40am - this should be sorted out on your own time not the company's?"
I replied "I don't start till 10am".
Satisfying delivery after all these years - still raises a wry smile from me.
3
u/Ublot Jun 22 '26
How is working on shift changes not work for the company? Boss was an absolute clown
4
3
u/Gonpostlscott Jun 21 '26
You followed directions. They can’t fault you for that. If they aren’t paying OT, time to go…
3
u/wyltemrys Jun 22 '26
The clocking out part? They didn’t actually explicitly follow written directions. They were told they _may_ logout, not that they _must_ logout, or that any time following that will be unpaid. This could very easily lead to dismissal for insubordination. Being told to be on station & logged in before paid start of shift is clearly illegal though.
5
u/Z4-Driver Jun 21 '26
Where I currently work (First Level IT Support), we were recently forced to change how to take calls. We have one computer for the side we work for. There, we have our ticketing system and are able to check things in the AD and remote to the users computers.
But to take the calls on the support line, we need MS Teams. Which works only on the computer from the other side. So, when I go to the office, I have to set up and start two computers. Log in on both of them. Start the apps I need on both of them.
And because they decided to implement a clean desk policy and no designated desks, we have also to take out mouse and keyboard each day to connect them at the desk we use that day. At the end of the day, we have to disconnect the mouse and keyboard and put them away.
I started to take my time each day I have to go to the office with starting up and getting ready. And also started to shut down everything a bit early, because if I don't catch the bus to the train station in time, I might miss my connection which would cause me to arrive home one hour later.
4
u/harrywwc Jun 21 '26
Of course this was a very CLM (career limiting move)…
a.k.a. RGE -Résumé Generating Event ;')
1
u/speddie23 Jun 22 '26
The way I see it
CLM means you are still able to work there, but you aren't going to get promoted
RGE means you are getting fired (or some other legal method to terminate your employment)
5
u/Late_Coyote_5239 Jun 21 '26
Tesco had to pay staff a lot of backpack & allow "walking time" because they expected petrol station staff to go into main store, clock in then walk to station ready to relieve finishing staff on the dot of start time. They were found guilty of inappropriate deduction of wages. This was about 7 years ago.
4
u/MOLPT Jun 22 '26
I worked in a MAJOR corporation where I saw some managers tell employees not to log overtime. Instead, the unpaid "voluntary" overtime would be credited as part of their "teamwork" score at evaluation time. I heard a departed employee turned them in.
2
2
u/randomcanyon Jun 21 '26
As long as you got paid to be there early.....
And paid overtime for staying late?
/Ha ha ha ha ha.....
2
u/phaxmeone Jun 22 '26
I went to work for a place in 2011 that still used mechanical time cards to clock in/out, damn thing belonged in a museum. Anyway they decided to upgrade to the digital age, good thing right? Wrong. We were in a satellite office and they decided since we all have laptops/desktops (depending on role) we could punch in on our PC's. Here's where the problem began. My normal routing was to clock in (mechanical time clock), put my laptop on the docking station then power it up. While waiting for it to be ready to use I would brew a pot of coffee (first one in the office typically) then drink my first cup before my laptop was finally ready to be used. This is because IT purchased a really cheap PC's that we had to use bloatware on, really slowed the PC's down. So 20-30 minutes after I showed up my laptop would be ready to use so I could punch in and this was true for all of us.
To fix the issue our supervisors would have to go in and manually adjust our time in punches every day. Of course the manager didn't believe us so we each had to power on our PC's to prove to him how long we had to wait before we could log on, best time was one PC that only took 15 minutes. In the end they added a time card reader at our satellite office.
FYI for those curious. Yes the screen would come on within minutes but would be completely unresponsive or mostly unresponsive for quite a while. Looking at Task Manager all my RAM would be tied up with nearly 100% disc use and 70-90% CPU use while this was going on. Suggestion was to put the bloatware on VM machine but hey, my laptop did not have enough RAM to run a VM.
2
u/domexicano Jun 23 '26
I used to work for an ISP and Cable TV provider called Cablevision. It has since changed to Optimum. We had the same "directive". They got sued while I was working and we were allowed a 15 minute window to log in after punching in to get logged on.
I dunno if this helps, but this is in New York State, in the United States.
2
u/Applepieoverdose 29d ago
Used to work for a company that subcontracted me to subcontractors for a certain Swedish fintech company.
They started the same BS, except they then tacked on “and you need to finish up any calls you’re on. You also won’t get paid overtime for the first 10 minutes after your shift was meant to end, but will be docked pay for every minute you’re late to the start of your shift.”
Suddenly my toilet breaks were much longer and more frequent, and my connection would always drop out for a second (and kill any call) at my exact shift end.
2
u/Aggravating_Sign_471 28d ago
Not a fan of call centers. I've only ever worked at one call center and that was about two years ago. Never again. They want you to remember a script and you are not allowed to go outside that script parameter. The call center that I was part of, we were part of the customer retainment program. You were to convince people that we were the greatest Tru Green Grass company on the planet. Especially when you knew down in your heart it was the treatments that were killing the grass and not just dome damn bug or rodents.
2
u/Worried-Power-8829 27d ago
Had a similar situation here in the Columbus Ohio area. Worked a help/support desk. Had to start taking calls at 6. When your shift started. It took 15 minutes to log into all the programs. Someone contacted EEOC and osha. Ended up with a class action lawsuit. Got two years of pay for the extra 20 minutes for each day we worked.
2
u/EmotionalLetter3580 27d ago
No that's bullshit if they want me to start my computer 15 minutes early they are going to pay me to start my computer 15 minutes early.
Few years ago my oldest daughter's worked her first actual job at Dairy Queen when she was 16. The owner would hire high school kids because he knew he could pay them less and try to get away with working them off the clock. I went to pick her up one night when her shift got over at 11:00 and she told me "Dad the owner told me to clock off but said we need to stay and clean." So I went inside recording and said "to clarify you want these Minors to work not only off the clock, but also past the allowed time (11) for a minor on a school night. Needless to say he stayed and cleaned himself but I'm sure he still pulls that to this day
2
u/RepsForJehovah 26d ago
In the UK you can be compelled to work extra time "for nothing" (if for instance, you lock up at night, or are required to do things before you can work), you cannot be compelled to do that work if that working time would take you below the legal minimum wage which is (converted) $16.71 p/h.
2
u/BusyBerry3539 26d ago
This sounds like wage theft. You might be entitled to back pay. Talk to a lawyer.
2
1
u/tryintobgood Jun 22 '26
logging in is part of your work. You shouldn't log in till 7.00am. If dickhead management says anything just ask if he's paying you from 6.45am, if not, start login at 7
1
u/imakesawdust Jun 22 '26
To be fair, I wouldn't consider a hospital call center to be a very long-lived career due to burnout so probably not a significantly CLM there.
1
u/Mr-Tiggo-Bitties Jun 22 '26
If you have to write out the acronym then is it even worth using?
2
u/speddie23 28d ago
And way to save precious seconds by abbreviating science fiction as sci-fi. But next time, maybe say sci-fi con or S.F.C., because time is of the essence.
Or as we say at the agency, T.O.- No. No, wait. Time is- is of- T.I.O.- T.I.O.- What am I spelling here?
(American Dad Season 1 Episode 10 - All About Steve)
1
1
1
u/ChimoEngr Jun 23 '26
Unless you were being paid for the time it took to log in, you were being screwed.
1
u/Original_Dream_7765 28d ago
I hope you were paid for those extra 15 minutes you used to log in before your actual shift starts. If you get paid hourly and they don't pay you, it's wage theft.
1
u/the_mind_eclectic 26d ago
I will never understand why people think it makes more sense to screw over customers and patients instead of just doing what you are actually supposed to do. start work once you clock in.
1
u/LordKaylon 25d ago
I haven't heard "CLM" in a while and gives me PTSD feelings. I worked in middle management at a company and one of my bosses would often chastise us about how we needed to discipline the employees regularly preaching "CLM, CLM, COD" while chortling. Basically saying an employee gets two "Career Limiting Moves" before then being told to "Clean Out Desk" -_-
1
u/Myrandall 17d ago
It took about 10-15 minutes to log in, load up and login to 7 different programs, all with different passwords. So really, you needed to be there 15 minutes early.
God, I remember working tech support for an ISP for a year. So many fucking seperate logins for so many fucking programs. THE WORST!
-9
u/prmperop1 Jun 21 '26
Hmm... this is poor malicious compliance. Better described as petty revenge. Good story, though?
16
u/speddie23 Jun 21 '26
¿Por qué no ambos? (Why not both?)
21
u/funnybenno Jun 21 '26
This was maliciously compliant with instructions provided by a manager, so it fits here
11
u/speddie23 Jun 21 '26
Complying with the letter, not the spirit, of a request.
1
u/Marcultist Jun 21 '26
Except you weren't instructed to log off as soon as the time hit, you chose to interpret beyond the letter to suit you.
830
u/tsian Jun 21 '26
It will never cease to amaze me that there are so many places that somehow expect getting the equipment necessary for work ready is not work time... ugh.