Employee gives co-worker who caused hassles at work citing 'rules' a taste of his own medicine

Sticking to the rules is always a good thing to do. However, not all of them are realistic or practical, so it's okay to bend the rules when needed. Reddit user u/sad_puppy_eyes had an intriguing story to share on the platform about their IT guy who followed the rules to the point where it became a major inconvenience. The post titled, "I see your malicious compliance on me, so I will do one of my own on you," has gained an impressive 7K upvotes and 311 comments on the platform. 

The employee starts by stating that they used to be in charge of training for a large company, which included the task of organizing speeches by guests from outside. These speeches were always conducted in a large auditorium that also acted as a classroom, with a podium and computer. Many speeches would likely involve a PowerPoint presentation, so they would have their two administrative assistants show up at 7:45 AM to ensure everything was working.

They say, "Sometimes, as was bound to happen, computer issues arose." It was not overly problematic as they had an IT guy, Gary, who would immediately come in and fix everything. Their operations went very smoothly until Gary retired. He was replaced by Todd, who was not cooperative with the setup.

Even though he was supposed to be in his office at 8 AM sharp, he would only show up five or ten minutes late. It was not ideal when the team was facing technical problems at two minutes past eight. In addition to this tardiness, he did not like attending a call as soon as he stepped into the office. They write, "He wanted to have his coffee, read his email and ease his way into the work day."

Wanting to have his way, Todd refused to attend their morning calls and asked the individual to make the assistants fix the problems. However, the assistants did not have computer repair as part of their responsibilities. On the contrary, his job description explicitly stated that he was in charge of repairing computers. Still, he did not want to do the job and began insisting on a formal procedure.

Todd said, "You want me to attend? Ok. Then we do it by the books. No more calling me directly. You need to call the central helpline and have them open a user ticket. Then I'll attend." It was not practical because the entire process would take up a lot of time.

Despite the employee pointing out the impracticality of it, he simply replied that it was "too bad." The Reddit user attempted to reason with him by giving a scenario where a technical glitch occurred when the CEO was speaking. Todd smugly replied," The CEO's staff do what's called a pre-emptive ticket, they submit it ahead of time and have me there on standby in case things do go wrong. So, yes, even he has to do the ticket process!"

The employee recognized that they had to give Todd a taste of his own medicine. They followed the rules and submitted pre-emptive tickets every day for three months. Doing so required Todd to be at the training room at 7:45 AM every day, just "in case" something went wrong with the computers. They also contacted Todd's higher-ups to change his work timings from 7 AM to 3 PM.

Being a fair person, the user suggested, "Orrrrrrrr..... you could just pick up the damn phone when I call and come over." Eventually, they mutually agreed that the ticket process was unnecessary and that he would show up as needed. People on the platform loved the Reddit user's smart tactic and expressed their views in the comment section.

u/NOCnurse58 hilariously said, "Those who live by the ticket, shall die by the ticket. Well done!" u/Majestic-Ad6619 pointed out, "Besides being difficult, Todd failed in giving you that gem of a workaround. Some very smart guys can be pretty dumb sometimes."

This article originally appeared on 9.7.23