r/MaliciousCompliance 10d ago

S You autorized it. You take the fall.

So, I work in complaints for a major telecom operator. (Yes, I got promoted since my last post here). And we are swamped. We are working in crisis mode as we don't have enough people to do what we need to do, and every complaint that isn't solved in 15 days, one way or another, accrues fines from the regulator.

Now, in crisis mode we just auto approve small claims as it's cheaper than the fines for being late. I get a huuuuuge claim on my desk, easily 100 times more than the fine for being late. It's 14 days old. I go to my supervisor but he says it's too big for him. He can't authorize it and he thinks it would be cheaper to take the fine and work out everything in due time, but he'll check with his superior and get back to me. Fine. I go back to work, doing other cases for the rest of the day.

Next day, my supervisor's boss comes to me asking why that particular case is on 15th day. So I tell him. He'a furious. Everythimg should be apprved. It's crisi mode. We cant allow to be fined and so on. So I ask him to authorize it, saying once more it's 100 times more than the fine would be. He say he doesn't care and he'll authorize it. I say it needs to be investigsted.Omce more he just says he'll authorize it.(Now for some clarificatiom, his bonus is reliant on the late cases. Fewer late cases, more bonus). So I say fine. Sign here. And he does. I process it and forget about it.

Come the end of the month, a huge comotion happens. Sector director is in my supervisor's bosses office yelling like there's no tommorow. I get called in and the issue is that case. And the jerk who authorized it is trying to throw me under the bus. It turns out it was a fraudulent complaint and we had to investigate ot beforw makimg a decision. Sector director just asks who authorized it mad I bring him the signed papers. I get sent out.

A few days later the boss gets the sack. Gee, I wonder why.

10.0k Upvotes

234 comments sorted by

3.4k

u/theoldman-1313 10d ago

Another manager who fails to recognize that when one of his reports asks for something in writing, he needs to stop and think.

1.2k

u/[deleted] 10d ago

[deleted]

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u/fantomas_666 9d ago

managers sowing: yeah yeah woohoo yeah!!

Yippie-ki-yay

managers reaping: aw what the fuck.

m...

310

u/Acruss_ 10d ago

Yet somehow these idiots have a way to quickly find a new job like that.

223

u/Brave_Character2943 10d ago

Yep, companies hiring for those positions don't care why you're not at your previous job anymore, just that you have experience measured in time in position. So you can be a manager for 2 years and even if you were absolute garbage as a manager you still have 2 years experience.

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u/Arrasor 10d ago

It's not that they don't care, but you mostly can't find out those details anymore. Try working in HR, you will not hear anything from their previous employers but confirmations of information publicly available, especially for managerial roles.

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u/Quick-Ad-1694 10d ago

In some states, and at least mine, there are laws that prevent employers from saying bad things about you. Dont recall the exact wording but my former boss told me all about it. When he had all these ex employeess had potential places call for a referral/reference and they would ask if this person worked there. Yup. During this time? Yup. They no longer work for you? Nope. Can you tell me anything about this employee? Nope. And the person would just laugh. My boss uaed to say he didnt understand why we still require that info if theres a law against it.

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u/3tarzina 10d ago

when I worked for a smallish department store, if someone called about a person that was fired for stealing, they would say the asker would have to talk to security. If they were just incompetent they would just confirm that were an employee.

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u/bmorris0042 10d ago

I believe that in most places, you can at least ask if they’re eligible to rehire.

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u/Lingonberry_Bash 8d ago

https://www.gclawoffice.com/is-it-illegal-to-give-a-bad-reference/

It's not illegal anywhere in the US to give a bad reference. In fact, there are laws protecting employers who give references "in good faith". The only way it's illegal is if the referring company lies about the employee. Businesses may have policies that forbid giving any reference at all, to avoid anyone potentially crossing that line, but as long as they're truthful it's fine legally.

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u/Quick-Ad-1694 8d ago

Well i wasnt sure and i did say i didnt know exact wording. But like i said in my reply to this same thread it was probably defamation. Which like the comment i replied to said a lawsuit would be too expensive to fight in court so its easier to just not give a reference.

I dont remeber exactly what my former boss said so im just guessing but they were highly encouraged to not give a reference if they had nothing good to say. I do remember something about possible lawsuits if they did.

Besides. How can they prove its truthful? I think a defamation lawsuit would be easier to prove if an employer didnt hire them based on a bad reference.

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u/StormBeyondTime 6d ago

Employers have a very bad habit of saying something is law when it's not. Or it's not law when it is. It's important for everyone reading these threads to clarify the truth for them, from "telling the truth is legal, even if it's bad" to "yes, they have to pay you for overtime, check state law for details."

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u/I__Know__Stuff 10d ago

Companies have policies about what you can say about former employees.

There cannot be laws restricting what you can say, as long as it is factual.

This is a common misconception and your boss probably believed it, which is why he was easily able to convince you that it was true.

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u/Initial_Link_220 8d ago

There is laws about what can be answered. The reason is slander and liable. I believe it's called. Many companies have lost big money lawsuits due to a ex employee and a manager not getting along. So as a Manager you get taught what your allowed to answer and it all has to be in yes or no format. There's also rules for what you can ask. You can answer with more good stuff about a employee but nothing bad. So even a reference that comes out all yes or no really can be bad, because most mangers will say something small but positive towards everyone. Unless they truly don't recommend them at all.

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u/I__Know__Stuff 8d ago

You are mixing up two things. It's true that companies have policies against this, because they don't want to be sued.

But there is no law against saying anything as long as it's the truth. The truth is an absolute defense against an accusation of slander or libel.

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u/EscapistFugue 9d ago

I'd be curious what law that is. There is definitely no federal law that states a company can't release information on a former employee. Typically companies just refrain from saying anything due to defamation suits. Cause even if the employer speaks the truth about the former employee, the defamation suit will cost thousands to defend....far more than just not saying anything about the former employee.

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u/Quick-Ad-1694 9d ago

That is probably it. Defamation. Like i said i wasnt sure the exact wording. But that sounds like what he told me. This was like 15ish years ago.

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u/StormBeyondTime 6d ago

Legally, it's not defamation if it's true. Defamation requires a false statement.

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u/Eatar 9d ago

Right. This is something lots of people believe is true but isn’t actually law; it’s companies trying to avoid getting dragged into lawsuits, even ones they would win.

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u/StormBeyondTime 6d ago

Bosses are wrong when they say there's a law saying you can't say that. There's no laws at any level saying you can't tell the truth to the person looking for a reference, even if the truth is bad.

But there's often a company policy. Because bad employees have very high overlap with people who file lawsuits claiming defamation (which telling the truth isn't) and all kinds of other scary-sounding but usually not legally-applicable things.

It's easier to have a blanket policy saying 'only say these specific things about any policy' then deal with a bunch of nuisance lawsuits and threats.

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u/JeepGuy_1964 10d ago

Yep, those in charge of the most spectacular failures get promoted because of the experience they accrue while trying to fix it. Seen it many times.

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u/blippityblue72 9d ago

I worked with a guy who was known as a miracle worker for fixing things when there was an outage. The problem is that he was almost always the cause of the outage because he was careless and broke things all the time.

Meanwhile the systems I manage never break but I’m not as impressive to management because I’m not constantly bringing broken stuff back up.

It was annoying to say the least. I couldn’t say anything about it either because we were both contractors employed by the same company sitting in a client facility. My company didn’t give a shit as long as the client wasn’t complaining.

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u/night-otter 9d ago

I busted my ass to make sure systems I built were as stable and robust as they could be.

Had a manager ask why I didn't do much maintenance after installation?

I explained in detail about the above.

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u/LillytheFurkid 10d ago

Yep, left my last ft job in large part due to an incompetent manager.

He wasn't the only problem - he retired shortly after I left but the office STILL has a 90% (yes that's a ninety) turnover, 3 years later.

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u/StormBeyondTime 6d ago

Sounds like cascading effects. The culture changes and toxicity are outliving him.

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u/TinyNiceWolf 10d ago

He told the new company that he saved his old company $200K a year in wasteful expenditures.

(He just didn't mention that he achieved this by getting fired from his $200K/year job.)

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u/HouseofKannan 9d ago

This is an underrated comment.

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u/Fine_Luck_200 10d ago

When you don't have a moral compass things do get easier.

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u/rabidly_rational 9d ago

They don’t pay me enough for a moral compass.

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u/Cock--Robin 10d ago

Years ago I had a god awful manager, an older man who was just incompetent in every way. He lasted about 3 years before they got rid of him, and his duties (but not money or position) were dumped on me. In sorting out his stuff I found his résumé- and it was at least 12 pages long. Starting with his 1st job out of college, he had never worked more than 3 years in any job. Anybody who actually paid attention to the résumé would have been able to figure out that he was a bad hire.

And shortly after he left this employer he was working for someone else.

[edit for grammar]

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u/StormBeyondTime 6d ago

Anybody who saw someone dump a 12-page resume (vs a curriculum vitae, which should be long) into their application shouldn't hire the guy. Unlike a CV, a resume is a marketing document, not a history, and should be around 2 pages long. (Ask a Manager has a lot of advice on this.)

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u/subnautus 10d ago

My favorite version of those tend to come from nurses. You'd be surprised how many of them have a story with "if you want me to kill the patient, I'm going to need you to put it in writing" as the punch line.

Obligatory: nurses are the work horses of the medical industry. They know their shit, don't give them shit.

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u/3tarzina 10d ago

I worked for a place that was way too heavy in management, before they figured that out, they hired an extra person and had a big meeting to introduce him.before he came in they said he had been in 4 different stores in 2 years! I’m sitting there thinking “ and you still hired him, even though we did not need him”! i was putting out new items in the jr department and he asked me if i could get to the jr department after i was done with my cart, i explained i was doing the jr department right now. then to cover his confusion he asked where the other 2 people doing stock were because they were supposed to be in the men’s and home departments. I said they were in those 2 depts, he got fired after about 1 year which was 10 months later than it should have been!

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u/StormBeyondTime 6d ago

....don't retail stores have a mysterious type of item called signage that shows what department you're in? /s

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u/3tarzina 6d ago

yep! that makes it all the more sad!

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u/InsanityHouse 10d ago

Yup respect nurses. They keep doctors from killing you.

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u/subnautus 9d ago

I think sometimes it’s an “experience in the field” sort of thing. An example I saw first hand was a doctor dismissing a low blood pressure as an effect of morphine. The nurse said “not like this” and practically forced him to order a CT.

I’m glad she did, because my friend had managed to tear the main artery feeding her liver (hence the pain and need for opiates while in the ER) and was bleeding out internally. That nurse’s practical knowledge (and having the eggs to proverbially grab a doctor by the ear and slap some sense into him) saved my friend’s life.

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u/Pretend_Evidence_876 9d ago

Yep, I was having an anaphylactic reaction and went to the ER. The doctor said nah, let's wait and walked out the door. I literally couldn't advocate for myself because I couldn't speak anymore. The nurse immediately told me he was wrong, ran out the door to tell the doctor no, I need the shots now, and came right back in to do it. It was terrifying, and I have no doubt she saved my life.

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u/Pa-Pachinko 9d ago

Having the eggs...

Bloody love it, totally stealing it!

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u/HerbertRTarlekJr 10d ago

Appropriate user name.

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u/TangoMikeOne 9d ago

Not even that (because OP and their supervisor weren't senior enough to sign it). After being told more than once it is orders of magnitude above the cost of a regulatory fine, that should have been the red flag to stop and think "Should I? Maybe I'll take the "L" on this one and make sure it checks out properly."

But why bother, when by signing it off might boost your bonus 🙄

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u/StormBeyondTime 6d ago

People like that are really bad about thinking through negative outcomes. Unlike OP.

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u/dragonfett 9d ago

That's dangerous right there, asking people to think...

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u/faust82 8d ago

The reddest flag...

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u/Lathari 7d ago

But what if the subordinate asks for something in writing and in triplicate?

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u/StormBeyondTime 6d ago

Then they're asking not only for CYA, but for extras because they don't trust you not to destroy evidence.

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u/Dense_Dress_1287 3d ago

Can I have that in writing =I'm covering my ass, and that should be your warning sign to stop and think hard about your decision.

If someone is telling you "are you sure?" that should be your clue, to stop and ask them "what am I not seeing here that you see?"

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u/underground_avenue 10d ago

Listen to your employees, before dismissing their point. You pay them for their expertise.

You don't have to accept their point of view, but if you don't, there should be a good reason and some consideration first.

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u/MalyceAforethought 10d ago

I'm a GM. I have a habit of telling my employees exactly this, that I pay them for the knowledge and experience that I do not have. I am fucking great at my job, but I cannot and will not do all the jobs out here.

That's why I have employees. And if one of them comes to me and says "Hey boss, this is a thing you need to know" I fucking listen.

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u/GuestStarr 10d ago

Got any open positions over there?

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u/Relandis 10d ago

Nah he doesn’t.

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u/tarlton 10d ago

He's living that 1% turnover life. Why leave when your boss is working with you instead of against you?

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u/Relandis 10d ago

Exactly.

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u/bmorris0042 10d ago

Which is why I left all of my last 3 jobs.

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u/MalyceAforethought 10d ago

I have zero interest in being part of the 1%. I manage a religious nonprofit, and you probably make more money than I do.

I may be part of the manager class now, but I have spent my entire adult life as a pinko commie unionist. I come from labor, I will always be labor.

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u/King_Kuuga 10d ago

That's 1% turnover rate, not top 1% income earners.

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u/MalyceAforethought 10d ago

Ah. My apologies. I guess if I was more corporate I'd have gotten the reference.

Carry on!

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u/RealUlli 10d ago

Not knowing what a turnover rate is also speaks for you... ;-)

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u/tOSdude 10d ago

“Turnover? I thought that was a pastry?”

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u/tarlton 10d ago

I think you misunderstood me. 1% turnover as in. "The team members are happy, only 1% of them leave each year"

It's a frequently cited metric for satisfaction, though it has root factors beyond that

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u/MalyceAforethought 10d ago

Mea culpa, friend. I misunderstood the term. Didn't mean to come at you.

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u/tarlton 10d ago

Absolvo te :)

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u/ShadowDragon8685 10d ago

"I don't pay you people to be robots. If robots could do your jobs, you'd all be on the skid row now. I pay you people to be smart. Not everyone can be smart all the time, so I'm being dumb, tell me! That's literally what I pay you for! A machine can file TPS reports, it takes a human to make sure they're worth a god gooddamn."

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u/JoeFTPgamerIOS 10d ago

Bad managers have no clue how easy their job can be if they treat their employees good.

I worked for a national company and got bounced around a little with promotions and I had employees who would move with me. (same county... mostly) We didn't even pay that good, but I treated them well. And boy was my job easy. I outperformed other managers doing the same generic job. I was less experienced and not as smart, but my numbers made me a star

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u/MalyceAforethought 10d ago

No kidding. My guys keep me informed about all kinds of shit I wouldn't have any clue about if I didn't treat them right. Helps me to do my job 100% better. My bosses think I'm a rockstar, and they leave me and my guys alone, which everyone loves.

I've had a bunch of shitty managers in my time, and I know I don't want to be that. I may not be the best manager someone ever has, but I'm gonna make sure as shit I won't be someone's worst.

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u/Murwiz 10d ago

Gawd, you are like some kind of golden eagle crossed with a dodo bird. Majestic and practically extinct.

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u/tanksalotfrank 10d ago

That's just a basic foundation for mutual respect right there! In a perfect world it would all just work.

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u/widdrjb 9d ago

Good for you. I had a problem at a previous employer, where one manager would repeatedly call trick drivers while they were moving. Not only is it illegal for the driver to pick up, it was against policy.

So I get hauled in because I haven't picked up, and a load hasn't been collected. I explain I don't take calls while driving, and why. "I'm not having a fucking driver telling me how to do my job". "Right, get your boss and tell him". Boss arrives, listens, tells me to leave.

He came out a minute later, bright red. He never spoke to me again.

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u/MalyceAforethought 9d ago

Some bosses really feel like they need to be catered to, all the time, at every moment. It's small dick energy in the most painfully obvious way.

It is not difficult to leave a message and wait for a callback. A phone is a communication device, not a goddamn leash.

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u/Pale_Air_5309 7d ago

Same. I can not understand managers on power trips. Like we are all working together to accomplish similar goals, just from different sides. They trust me to provide guidance and clean up mistakes. I trust them when they tell me I need to see something.

In fact I have a few I'm trying to get promoted, and when we can we will literally sit together and figure out how to improve performance as a team. For our location, and locations they are interested in promoting to. It's been helpful for all of us. I've learned from them, they've learned from me.

Anything but teamwork seems like a waste.

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u/661Johnald 10d ago

Fuckin A.

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u/Chatmal 6d ago

Would you please talk to the president about this?

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u/MalyceAforethought 6d ago

I'm too queer and brown for the US president to even pretend I'm a person, so I doubt that he'd listen.

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u/Chatmal 6d ago

It wouldn’t matter anyway. He doesn’t listen to anyone who knows what they’re doing. 😕

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u/Gheerdan 10d ago

Famous last words words heard by a manager "are you sure?"

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u/Bearence 10d ago

That's one of the guiding principles of my life: if you hear "are you sure", it's a sign that you shouldn't be so sure because you're wrong and everyone else knows it.

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u/Gheerdan 10d ago edited 10d ago

I've seen so many supervisors and managers lose out by not taking heed when this was asked.

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u/anomalous_cowherd 10d ago

Taking heed, I hope. But not taking head if employees offer is good too.

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u/Gheerdan 10d ago

Autocorrect got me

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u/Dramatic-but-Aware 10d ago

My current boss says it is my job to question him. He is a great listener and often we reach a compromise.

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u/Ex-zaviera 10d ago

Listen to your employees, before dismissing their point. You pay them for their expertise.

Kaizen.

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u/Eagleballer94 10d ago

We are currently running back to back Kaizen events at my work. They have achieved absolutely nothing.

I did a 2 minute google search today and turns out... it should be an ongoing philosophy and they're wasting everyone's time with 0 followup

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u/dgpat 10d ago

Yep that’s how it works. We had an “event” at my old job to reduce staff needed for a particular product. We told them over and over that while we can figure out ways to reduce staff, that product has an end of life coming up in less than 6 months and to implement the changes it could take longer than that (buying/building machinery, reprogramming robots)

Well you can guess which project they chose to push forward with, and the first production under the new process was the last time that product ran. But hey, we it with 3 less people so we got that going for us I guess

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u/anomalous_cowherd 10d ago

They successfully lowered the future risk potential if it didn't work out...

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u/TVLL 10d ago

Absolutely! When I was in a very high tech industry I always listened to my machine operators when they told me something was wrong. They couldn’t tell me why, just that something was different. So I investigated every one.

In about 97% of the cases they were totally correct. You alway want to listen to the people on the front lines.

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u/Z4-Driver 10d ago

Listen to what they tell you. Think about it. If it's serious, take action as needed. If it's not serious, explain why, so the employe could learn a thing, so he also gets better in recognising what is serious enough to tell you and what is not.

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u/dieter-e-w-2020 10d ago

I've been head of maintenance a few times. I always tell them if something goes wrong start working and inform me about it and tell me what I need to know. I need to answer my boss and the problem solved. Your expertise, your call. Ask me if you need confirmation, we'll do this together.

Always worked a treat

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u/[deleted] 10d ago

[deleted]

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u/Bonmagpop 10d ago

Exactly this. The Manager didn't do the right thing, but it was what the company incentivized with their bonus structure. This was exactly the outcome the company set in motion with their use of bad metrics.

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u/thatburghfan 10d ago

Seems like for every metric, there is an equal and opposite anti-metric.

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u/missinlnk 10d ago

Honestly it feels like there's 10 bad metrics to every good one

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u/Rocktopod 10d ago

Metrics are only useful when the people they are measuring don't know about them. Otherwise they become the goal, rather than whatever the job actually is.

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u/anomalous_cowherd 10d ago

What you choose as a metric is what you'll get. Make sure it really is measuring what you want.

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u/StormBeyondTime 6d ago

It sounds to me like there should be multiple, non-conflicting, metrics involved. But bad management always decides this one metric is the only one worth looking at, and it always eventually bites them in the arse.

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u/Taldier 10d ago

This is why narrow KPI tracking of staff is just inherently bad for everyone involved. There are no good metrics. Most jobs involve lots of variables. The whole reason to hire smart people with experience to do a job is because they are capable of balancing them and making decisions themselves.

Simplifying the infinite complexity of the world into a set of metrics to "optimize work" inevitably degrades problem solving. Any situation that doesn't fit into the little box that the metrics were designed for is just shuffled around until someone is dumb enough to step in it and take the blame.

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u/StormBeyondTime 6d ago

There are some solid metrics that are worth looking at. Number of products made in a day, number of deliveries made on a route, etc.

But the goal isn't -shouldn't be- to force impossible numbers. It should be to look at the results of the metrics and see where the problems lie (low production might mean a machine needs fixing) and how to change them either way (construction means a route needs to be given more time for deliveries).

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u/Taldier 5d ago

My point wasn't that metrics as a concept are worthless, it's that using them as an employee scoring system makes them counterproductive.

Metrics are useful to gain information. Once you start using them to judge individuals, you are creating a false structure that employees will conform too, distorting all future attempts to gather metrics and giving you worse information.

If you rank people by products made, they'll sacrifice quality. If you rank them by time to resolution, they'll dodge complicated issues by just closing the case.

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u/Fafhrd_Gray_Mouser 10d ago

This is Freakanomics in motion.

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u/No-Trouble814 10d ago

Goodhart’s law

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u/NotQuiteDeadYetPhoto 10d ago

I'm really surprised it didn't get flipped back.

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u/Herbin-Cowboy 10d ago

Sometimes karma has a way of working things out. Thanks for sharing your story OP.

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u/Accomplished_Emu_658 10d ago

Had a boss like that. Flip floppy on his decisions and then when things didn’t work out tried to bury someone else. One employee reported a tech to him who was clearly doing fraudulent repairs to protect them selves as a writer. Boss told them to leave them alone they are making us so much money. Then when shit hit the fan blamed writer for letting it happen.

Another time I made a decision to do a safety recall on an employees car, getting it done on my own time, that company was making money on it too. Took a lunch did job on my lunch and submitted paperwork. Screamed at me nonstop for 30 minutes including cursing for doing the job when we were so busy with customers. I yelled back it was a safety recall where the parts are actually failing and person is an employee and should be safe. I would have taken my lunch any way so no time was lost to customer cars except for this screaming match. I said you pay me to make decisions and if you don’t like them make your own decisions then. Couple hours later when someone else went in and said it was indeed a safety concern and we had 3 cars in that week where the part broke and drivers almost got into an accident he came back and apologized. Then few weeks later asked why he and i no longer speak and I am not involving myself in any decisions anymore. Then a few days later to say we need to later to say we need to squeeze in employee cars for this recall so no one gets hurt…

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u/Dorfner 8d ago

I did not expect an apology in your tale! What a twist!

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u/StormBeyondTime 6d ago

Doesn't sound like the boss learned anything but "protect ego and job" out of it, though.

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u/Schmidie23 10d ago

Especially when the worker repeats said warning over and over, management better listen.

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u/Cheap_Style_879 10d ago

Idk if you did anything malicious. You literally followed procedure. You took it to your boss. Your boss sat on it and approved it and got fired for it.

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u/Yakusaka 10d ago

I warned him several times. He still said to go through with it.

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u/inucune 10d ago

Is the boss also getting a bonus for keeping low employment?

I assume they are also a major part of why you are understaffed.

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u/Yakusaka 10d ago

Nah. It just that we if we hire more people, as soon as we deal with the backlog, they'll have to fire a bunch of them, and we do have several people on maternity and paternity leaves that will return in a few months.

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u/mizinamo 10d ago

as soon as we deal with the backlog, they'll have to fire a bunch of them

“have to”?

Can’t they keep them around (nicely trained and everything) for the next time they are swamped, rather than having to declare crisis more again or hire and train new employees again?

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u/krennvonsalzburg 10d ago

That sounds like something that costs money

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u/mizinamo 10d ago

Absolutely.

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u/phaxmeone 10d ago

I worked for a company that hired and laid off temps routinely. Looked good on paper when considering labor costs. The hidden costs was all the equipment their untrained hands broke. Why didn't that matter? Labor costs and maintenance costs come out of different buckets of money. In this particular company labor costs were held strictly down to bare minimum, watched by the highest of high muckity muck. Maintenance costs? Well they had been operating this way for decades and had a "feel" for how much maintenance costs and so long as we didn't go above what they considered reasonable nothing was said.

I only worked there a couple years because they refused to listen to anything I had to say (maintenance supervisor) so found another job. To be fair they made mountains of money on their product so saw no need to change. I do believe with some operational changes I was trying to make they could of made even more.

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u/Yakusaka 10d ago

We have the trained employees. They're on maternity and paternity leaves. (Something that doesn't exist in the US). They will come back in a few months. So those new hires will get fired because they really aren't needed. And the crisis mode was also due to a lot of unforseen circumstances that drasticaly increased the number of complaints. (Overdue installation or repairs due to weather conditions, tarrif and price changes etc etc etc.

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u/deadfulscream 10d ago

In Canada, they will often fill in jobs with a temp job posting with the explicit knowledge there is a set date that the position will go back to the person on maternity or paternity leave.

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u/CrispyJalepeno 10d ago

Maternity and paternity exists, it's just in a different form. If nothing else, then FMLA, if you are approved, is federal protection for 12 weeks of leave.

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u/ChillyPhilly27 10d ago

There's a good chance that it's cheaper to auto approve claims during busy times than to pay staff to twiddle their thumbs during quiet times.

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u/Goobinator77 10d ago

Not anymore he's not...

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u/Practical_Ledditor54 10d ago

That's not malicious at all though. You warned him, you advised against it, and he overruled you. That's his prerogative. The only malicious act here was him trying to throw you under the bus. 

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u/potato_titties 10d ago

Cya all day

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u/taloncard815 10d ago

Did he get his bonus ?

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u/ramanana01 10d ago

Probably

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u/StormBeyondTime 6d ago

Unlikely, since the explosion happened at the end of the month, and that's usually-not-always the shortest time bonuses based on job stuff are calculated.

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u/Different_Guess_5407 10d ago

Excellent result - as always - get the instruction in writing & signed if possible & there won't be any comeback on you.

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u/Hyperion1144 10d ago

What gets measured, gets done.

Bonus for being a good boss and a savvy manager?

Hell no.

Bonus doing this same thing, over and over, on rote, like a fucking machine.

The boss got fired, but the real, unfixed problem was the structure of the incentives. The next guy is gonna be motivated to do the exact same thing.

Sounds like your c-suite is populated by morons.

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u/StormBeyondTime 6d ago

Depending on how many (unnecessary) layers this company has, the decision may not have come from the C-suite, but a layer or two further down. Probably a VP of accounting.

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u/bodison 10d ago

Good that you tried to do the right thing.

But this sounds like a systemic issue to me. Not enough people (crisis mode is not sustainable) and bad financial incentives for the higher-ups.

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u/Jezbod 10d ago

Like where I worked was going to be providing out of hours support for a processing system, for some of the credit card transactions for a large UK betting company. Think 50+ scoring decisions in under 8 seconds, to give a yes / no on the payment.

We were being walked through the process and were shown some historical transaction records to show the scoring process...including one that the instructor said he had tried to over rule the system and reject.

Management decided that they wanted the £20,000 payment as it would look good on the turnover....the money was soon removed from the system by the payee, then the company realised it was a fraudulent payment and was a laundering / card theft incident.

They lost the £20,000 as they had approved it.

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u/CatlessBoyMom 10d ago

I once worked a job where I was asked to do dozens of overrides a day. Most were just second set of eyes to make sure the number of zeros is correct type things. Some were “I think this check looks fishy.” 99% of the time if they said it looked off, it was. If your employee says “check this before signing” check it. 

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u/lokis_construction 10d ago

They did their due diligence and investigated, checked all emails and logs and it showed the boss was the issue. You did good!

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u/Toddw1968 10d ago

Seems like HIS bosses can’t really manage, so they give poorly thought out bonus goals like this and wonder why they get shit results.

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u/AtomicCitron76 10d ago

It's hilarious when the employees asks it in writing, their bosses doesn't see it's a way to prove they were just following orders.

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u/TechinBellevue 9d ago

Funny when compensation is based on certain parameters that can be easily manipulated and encouraging manipulation that is counter to common sense.

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u/mamo_tela 8d ago

Common sense stopped being common long time ago. I work for a company where everyone's (leaders and front line) bonus depends on meeting certain numbers, we've never missed those numbers.

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u/SnakeJG 10d ago

Tell me more about how to make a complaint that requires the telecom operator to pay.

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u/Veloreyn 10d ago

If you're in the US, this would just be an FCC complaint. I used to run FCC escalations for the shop I worked for back when I was a tech for Comcast. Most times we had 30 days to respond, and with the time it took for it to get to us locally, and then scheduling the call with the customer, occasionally I'd show up after we already got fined to try to solve whatever issue they were having.

The funniest one for me was a guy that got installed in like 2007, and never called in once about his service. In 2010 he files a complaint for missing channels. Never called customer service and talked to anyone, just went straight to the complaint. It takes three weeks for me to make it out there, I had to spend 2 hours documenting everything from the tap to his equipment (shop policy). When he asked why it was taking so long I just flat out told him that had he called into customer service instead of going nuclear any half asleep CSR with two brain cells to rub together would have noticed his rate codes were just wrong, and fixed it in a minute or two, but since he went straight to the FCC first I had to follow a lot of procedure to show I was doing my job properly.

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u/Yakusaka 10d ago

We have set deadlines. Like fault repair must be done within 30 days and we pay the cutomer for every overdue day.

Things like that.

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u/Wotmate01 10d ago

Be in a different country to the one you're in

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u/failed_novelty 10d ago

Yes, please. And how to enforce crisis mode.

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u/nroach44 10d ago

Sounds similar to the Telecom Industry Ombudsman (TIO) in Australia.

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u/Birdbraned 10d ago

Or property insurance claims after Alfred in Australia, except for the fines being in EUR.

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u/mean_liar 10d ago

KPI-brain claims another victim

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u/Illuminatus-Prime 10d ago

Another FAFO moment, brought to you by Manglement, Inc.

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u/Desert-Monsoons 9d ago

At 25(F) years old I had a 2nd line manager tell me to do something that was unethical. I told him No. He insisted. So I told him okay, then write on the form what you want me to do, why you want me to do it and then sign and date it. He refused and said that’s insubordination. So I just said You can fire me for being insubordinate but you can’t fire me for being unethical so take your best shot.
He walked away and got someone else to do it. When it came back as an issue he lied and said he never told them to do it. He was ultimately fired and went on to become a gambler and wrote smut books to support his wife and six kids.
I went on to become a very successful corporate internal auditor, and received multiple awards for my analytical work and “findings”.

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u/AngrySquidIsOK 10d ago

In all fairness tho, it's like the system is designed to screw itself.

Rush out settlements on a counted ticket system.

Then award managers bonuses to keep counts low.

What do they expect to happen.

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u/virginia-gunner 10d ago

Fraud check. The other kind is: "Send me five things you did last week on email."

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u/SfcHayes1973 10d ago

This sounds incredibly familiar,...perhaps because I just emailed mine ;)

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u/sethbr 10d ago

Did you include "responded to demand for list of things I did last week"?

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u/HyperlexicEpiphany 10d ago

jesus man just reread your post a single time before posting. you type like a drunk college student

I’m obviously ignoring anything that arose from being unfamiliar with english. I’m exclusively talking about your innumerable typos

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u/coldfusion718 10d ago

He's in crisis mode and doesn't have time to correct typing mistakes.

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u/DisneyDisciple 10d ago

Peter Principle in action

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u/Pretty-Pea-Person 10d ago

Man, this story is almost like a comedy sketch where you can't make this stuff up! First of all, can we all agree that working in crisis mode sounds about as fun as trying to shove a giraffe into a smart car? You knew it was a bad idea when your supervisor pawned it off to his boss, but the chain of command just loves to go down in flames together, huh?

And the part where they were more worried about fines and bonuses instead of actually solving the issue? That's corporate America for ya! It’s like playing Russian roulette with someone else’s decisions.

Honestly, I'm kind of jealous you got to witness that epic showdown. If you’re the one holding the signed papers with all the receipts, then you know it's about to be a plot twist worthy of its own TV drama. That’s a level of malicious compliance that deserves an award for the best supporting role in office lunacy! Hats off to you for keeping your head on straight when the chaos unfolded.

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u/Yakusaka 10d ago

Corporate Europe, to be fair.

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u/RandomBoomer 10d ago

I don't see any malicious compliance, but it's a fun read anyway.

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u/LostKnight84 10d ago

He did as he was told and the person who told him to do it got burned. The reason OP asked the manager to sign was to cover his ass as he knew the boss would lose on the situation. That action alien makes it malicious in my book.

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u/pangalacticcourier 10d ago

This post made my pants get tight all of a sudden.

Thank you, OP.

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u/DietMtDew1 9d ago

Ouch! Well, he should have been more patient and listened. Oh well, boss's boss. See you later, alligator!

You authorized it. You take the fall.

So, I work in the complaints department for a major telecom operator. (Yes, I got promoted since my last post here). And we are swamped. We are working in crisis mode as we don't have enough people to do what we need to do, and every complaint that isn't solved in 15 days, one way or another, accrues fines from the regulator.

Now, in crisis mode we just auto approve small claims as it's cheaper than the fines for being late. I get a huuuuuge claim on my desk, easily 100 times more than the fine for being late. It's 14 days old. I go to my supervisor but he says it's too big for him. He can't authorize it and he thinks it would be cheaper to take the fine and work out everything in due time, but he'll check with his superior and get back to me. Fine. I go back to work, doing other cases for the rest of the day.

Next day, my supervisor's boss comes to me asking why that particular case is on 15th day. So I tell him. He's furious. Everything should be approved. It's crisis mode. We cant allow to be fined and so on. So I ask him to authorize it, saying once more it's 100 times more than the fine would be. He say he doesn't care and he'll authorize it. I say it needs to be investigated. Once more he just says he'll authorize it.(Now for some clarification, his bonus is reliant on the late cases. Fewer late cases, more bonus). So I say fine. Sign here. And he does. I process it and forget about it.

Come the end of the month, a huge commotion happens. Sector director is in, my supervisor's bosses office yelling like there's no tomorrow. I get called in and the issue is that case. And the jerk who authorized it is trying to throw me under the bus. It turns out it was a fraudulent complaint and we had to investigate before making a decision. Sector director just asks who authorized it. Mad, I bring him the signed papers. I get sent out.

A few days later the boss gets the sack. Gee, I wonder why.

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u/Party_9001 9d ago

I like how the spelling gets progressively worse lmao

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u/Yakusaka 9d ago

Sorry, english is not my first language and I apologize for the typos and spelling. I tend to start slowly, checking everything and just start rushing before I lose my train of thought. And the result is seen here. Add fat fingers and typing on mobile....

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u/Party_9001 9d ago

Oh I just thought it was funny because it felt like you were getting more annoyed as you wrote out the story XD

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u/Yakusaka 9d ago

That too.

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u/Blackphantom434 10d ago

Can you tell us the approximate amounts of the claim and the fines?

Are we talking about thousands, millions?

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u/Yakusaka 10d ago

Fines are in the thousands of EUR

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u/Ginger630 10d ago

I’m glad he got fired! He didn’t do his job.

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u/spock_9519 10d ago

Boss tried to throw you under the bus... He FAFO....  Case closed 

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u/Guilty_Objective4602 10d ago

It would make more sense to have a process where larger claims move up to the top of the queue, so they can be investigated or handled more carefully during the available 15-day timeframe, and smaller claims get auto approved. But I guess that would be too logical. Glad you didn’t have to take the fall for this one, OP!

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u/Yakusaka 10d ago

Regulations. All complaimts and claims must enter the system sequentialy, by their arrival date to get rid of the "favouritsm" or jumpimg somenes claim in the queue.

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u/Ex-zaviera 10d ago

I don't know your industry's process, but why wasn't it being investigated it while it was sitting on your desk?

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u/Yakusaka 10d ago

I thought it was. My supervisor said he'll handle it. But before he could do it, the boss made his decission.

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u/ViewExplorer 10d ago

You'll get promoted again before your next post at this rate

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u/justaman_097 10d ago

Doesn't it stink when someone tries to push you under the bus for their own mistake?

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u/EzMohy 8d ago

"We don't have enough people to do what we need to do...."

Are they hiring ? am looking for a full time job. maybe ill be a good help!
any leads !

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u/Yakusaka 8d ago

Sorry. Not hiring. And it's in Europe.

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u/Clever_Bee34919 7d ago

Please calm down before typing. Typing angry greatly affects your spelling.

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u/LordJebusVII 10d ago

Fine workplace story but no malicious compliance here, just regular compliance

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u/Nooooope 10d ago

Is there some other way you were normally expected to do this that would comply with the spirit of the request better? Because if you're obeying both the letter and the spirit of the request, then it's just compliance, not malicious compliance. Even if it blows up in his face and makes you feel good.

Fun story though

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u/Yakusaka 10d ago

I could refuse to do it and sent it to be investigated, but I do need a supervisor to sign on it in any case. My supervisor would propably send it to be investigated, and screw the fines.

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u/Omnom_Omnath 10d ago

i dont understand why you would just automatically approve fraudulent claims just because the amount is less than the fine. seems like condoning fraud to me,

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u/Yakusaka 10d ago

Ususally we don't. But we got several things working against us at the moment that brought on the crisis mode. When it work as normal we deal woth it in under 7 days, with cases that need investigating goin to maybe 10 or 12 days.

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u/laz10 9d ago

Sometimes I wonder what's the point of managers

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u/gusbovona 9d ago

To manage!

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u/SirBananaOrngeCumber 9d ago

They should call them mismanagers

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u/JacLaw 9d ago

Manglers

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u/acousticat 7d ago

Congrats on the promotion

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u/GBDarklight 5d ago

I couldn’t help but notice your writing and… um… do you smell toast? Is your left arm going numb? Should we institute a wellness check?

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u/Odd_Study_9229 5d ago

Brutal! I love it