Most people can’t really say that work sucks—but it does have its flaws. Between the job itself leaving much to be desired in some industries and professions and the lack of any training by managers turned toxic, it sometimes feels just not worth it at this point. But work is a necessary evil. And so we grind on.

However, sometimes (outside the cases of actually enjoying your job), there are times when you take great pride that you did something exactly as told and the managers understood just how much they done goofed by having to now pick up the slack.

More Info: Reddit

Managerial toxicity these days seems to be spreading like the plague, with many bosses still not getting that it is them who make employees run

Image credits: Dennis Yang (not the actual photo)

But there’s always heroes who punish toxicity by maliciously complying to the boss’ demands in ways that come back to bite them on the rump

Image credits: Anonynominous

Image credits: program angels lothringer13 (not the actual)

Image credits: Anonynominous

Image credits: Mikhail Nilov  (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Anonynominous

Yeah, the managers bled the employee dry, but she in turn made them suffer their own medicine, didn’t have to work anymore, and also got unemployment benefits

Image credits: Moose Photos (not the actual photo)

So, the story goes that OP, Reddit user Anonynominous, worked for a staffing agency, with a focus on organizing and managing events. The company had two owners, a married couple, who ran the whole show and had hired OP along with one other person in place of 3 employees who were quitting “to pursue other ventures.”

Some months in, OP gets assaulted and has limited ability to do her job. As you might have guessed, the bosses were not all that pleased about it and more or less demanded she pull through. Out of fear of getting fired, OP gave in and worked the weekend she was supposed to as per a previously planned schedule.

It wasn’t long when another employee got fired and OP inherited their events to be managed. It was already too overwhelming to manage the assault injuries and the workloads as is, now she’s expected to do even more work. This ultimately led to some late night hustling, overtime, and tiny mistakes, which were very quickly noted by one of the owners.

Now, he in turn enforced a bit of a work hour change to manage “the problem”, meaning that whenever OP is not working directly with an event, they will only work 5 hours that day. No ifs, ands or buts. This is where malicious compliance starts to evolve.

You see, the guy owner enforced this rule with OP, but he failed to say anything about it to the wife. Communication didn’t seem like their strong suit to begin with, so it was only natural for this to happen and for the domino effect to come in full swing.

Image credits: Presidencia de la República Mexicana (not the actual photo)

On one such 5-hour day, the other owner hosted a 3-hour meeting, plus spent another 20 minutes communicating with OP about a project she’s expected to do. However, she already had her hands full with other things, and had only a bit over an hour to do it. Which flew by fast, and so OP clocked out and legged it.

Sure, there were missed calls and messages from the co-owner wife, and OP’s malicious compliance 5-hour schedule did end in her being fired as it was “the last straw.” But even that turned out in OP’s favor as she got unemployment benefits and was out of that toxic company.

Folks online applauded the well-done execution of malicious compliance. Many expressed their support for OP, saying they’re happy to see her free of that accursed place, and validating her by confirming how toxic, narcissistic and just plain problematic the two bosses were.

OP also elaborated on some of the details and her feelings about it all in the comment section. She explained how she would often be so overwhelmed by it all that she would cry at work, “sucking it up” for meetings and then collapsing completely after them. The injuries sustained in the assault did not help.

Image credits: Pixabay (not the actual photo)

The problem with managerial toxicity is so big that it’s now a thoroughly studied discipline of sorts. Well, if you can easily find “names” for each type of toxic manager, you can be sure someone already crunched the numbers and made educated conclusions on the who’s, why’s, where’s and how’s of toxic bosses.

According to Coach Club, there are a handful of kinds of toxic managers, including cold, snake, glory seeker, puppeteer, monarch, incompetent, micromanager, rigid and just straight up aggressive managers.

Each has their own way of getting under your skin, which, if not treated, can turn into burnout, demotivation, boredom, and even Stockholm syndrome.

Now, Coach Club explains that the right thing to do is to identify the toxic traits, broach the topic and open up a discussion, providing room to improve and grow through feedback and guidance. If all that fails, professional coaching is the next step.

And if that fails, do what OP did: malicious compliance.

The post on Reddit got nearly 6,000 upvotes with a 97% positivity rating. You can check out all of its comment context right here. But we’d love to hear your thoughts on this situation or toxic management in the comment section below! Oh, and don’t forget about the upvote button, and your feedback!

Folks online were happy to see that the author of the post is now in a better place, and praised her for the malicious compliance

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