Petty manager accused guard of 'stealing electricity' for charging his iPad — but it backfired when escalated
'I wrote on an iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard, and I had connected their chargers to the electric outlets in my security reception desk,' they wrote.
Employees often get caught up in their superiors’ webs of control, pettiness, and unprofessionalism. However, one security guard who goes by u/AmsterdamAssassin broke the cycle by taking a stand for themselves. In a post shared on February 27, the worker revealed how a manager tried to accuse them of “stealing electricity” due to personal petty issues he had against them. The security guard used the superior’s false accusations against him brilliantly to defend themselves to the point where the petty manager tried to change the policy itself. However, the guard delivered an effortless win with their nonchalant response and made them reverse the new policy too.
Accused of stealing/embezzling electricity from employer
by u/AmsterdamAssassin in MaliciousCompliance
The employee mentioned they had been doing the job of a security guard for nearly two decades to earn a living while writing their novel. “This (role) involved a maximum of two hours of actual work (walking rounds, checking if all the keycards had been returned, answering phone calls),” they explained, leaving them free for six hours. “And I knew this beforehand, which is why I chose a low-paying job way below my level, specifically because I would have hours to read books and write on my novels,” they noted. “I wrote on an iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard, and I had connected their chargers to the electric outlets in my security reception desk,” they mentioned.
A manager who had petty issues with the worker decided to call them out with false accusations. “Since I performed my duties above average, he had to find a way to get me on something else,” they wrote. When he finally came up with something, he called a meeting and complained to the guard’s manager and others, stating that the employee was “stealing electricity” for their laptop. The guard didn’t fret; they just used the whole idea smartly. “I told them that if they wanted to accuse me, they had to do it properly,” they noted.
They took a genius step forward and informed the company that if what the manager said was true, it wasn’t just stealing, it was a more serious crime — embezzlement. “Embezzlement is a vastly more insidious crime, and they should send me home and gather the disciplinary committee to judge whether I should be fired for this crime, and I would confer with my union rep,” they explained. The superiors were caught in their own chaos since that was not a feasible option. If they had to accuse the employee of it, they would have to take action against the rest of the employees, as all used the units to charge their devices. “Their accusation would mean every employee could be arrested for electricity embezzlement,” the guard smartly remarked.
The higher-ups had no choice but to retract the accusation and have no further discussion on the topic. But the story was far from over. Since they still wanted to be so vicious about their authority, the petty manager put up a sign stating “nobody was allowed to charge their personal devices.” For the security guard, it wasn't an issue; they ditched the iPad and took their typewriter to work. Unfortunately, a majority of the other employees who used to charge their phones were agitated and complained to the point where the sign had to be removed.
Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Chief Knowledge Officer and author of “The Price of Pettiness: Bad behavior in the workplace and how to stomp it out,” Alex Alonso, said that workplace pettiness is beyond common. He researched 15,000 working professionals across different industries and found that less than 1% of employees reported having "never witnessed pettiness” at work. 99% had experienced this annoying situation at least once, and three in four workers noted that no action was taken.
“When there is no action taken in response to pettiness, its targets and witnesses eventually distrust their leaders and lose their morale — and the behaviors continue,” Alonso noted. In this security guard’s case, their top-notch response and handling of the situation with confidence became their reason for victory. u/tapandwon said, “Calling it ‘embezzlement’ and asking for the committee and union rep was such a perfect way to force them to admit how silly the electricity thing was.” u/jeepfail added, “Awful lot of corporate bootlickers here that don’t realize a majority of the security people out there are doing whatever they can to pass the time.”
More on Scoop Upworthy
Employee maliciously complies with boss' 'mandatory 40 hours' work policy to teach them a lesson
Share on Facebook
