One would think that every successful enterprise needs to be open to ideas, suggestions and warnings from the ground floor. After all, who would know better about things that can be done better or impending disasters than the employees actually making things happen. However, as so often happens, that’s simply not the case.

A man shared his tale of malicious compliance when, time and time again, he would go to his bosses to raise legitimate concerns only to be told to stop. As so often happens, when the issues he raised ended up actually causing problems, management had no choice but to still somehow blame him.

A good manager should probably at least hear their experienced workers out

Image credits: westock / Freepik (not the actual photo)

But one employee was told to stop raising concerns, until they were vindicated

Image credits: Image by Freepik (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Drazen Zigic / Freepik (not the actual photo)

Image credits: soberonlife

Open channels of communication can be taxing but are ultimately necessary

The “fun” thing about so many disasters is that, for the most part, things don’t happen without warning, out of the blue. Of course, from a certain perspective, hearing a warning, as a decision maker, just means another thing you might need to fix. So, naturally, the less you hear, the less you know about, the less you need to do.

This might be the driving philosophy behind telling employees, even senior employees to just shut up. After all, this way they can’t be told about issues, meaning they have plausible deniability when things go wrong. Because, if there is one constant in life, it’s that things can and will someone go wrong at some point.

However, ignoring issues like this is a double edged sword, particularly when you’ve made it policy. Because, no matter how tight you close your eyes, things can and will go wrong in the best of circumstances. The employee’s description of this situation also looks like things were by no means “going well.”

For example, sizable turnover due to the fact that the company is lying to employees is, generally, a bad sign. Just because someone quits doesn’t mean that they are now entirely happy. Many people will try to find some mental coping mechanisms or just put up with it, because, at the end of the day, we all have bills to pay.

A stressful work environment will cause people to quit or worse

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Image credits: Image by Freepik (not the actual photo)

After all, misleading people about the nature of the work and then making the actual warehouse work uncomfortable is bound to cause issues. Turnover is one thing, but the fact that they have to lie about the job shows that most folks wouldn’t do it even when told the truth. Most folks are not going to be happy doing a job they didn’t sign up for in the best of circumstances. So making the working conditions insufferable is a surefire way to burn out whoever remains.

As this story demonstrates, some people do not take stressful working environments well. It shouldn’t be a surprise that rage-quitting and yelling at a manager or smashing up a work computer are staples of work-related fictional media. Work, particularly under poor conditions is just stressful, doubly so if it’s taxing, physical work.

While they might be forgiven for not expecting a worker to truly “flip out,” there is no way to deny that they did remove any ways an experienced employee could actually warn them. In most companies, things like this don’t happen because visible red flags are reported ahead of time. One would think a warehouse full of expensive stuff is the sort of place management would pay extra attention.

As is so unfortunately common, the managers never actually admitted that they were wrong, but at least were decent enough to not punitively punish this work for his “I told you so.” There are plenty of stories of bosses who did not hold back despite being incredibly wrong. The real question is if management will actually update their policies or just continue with business as usual and hope for the best.

Some folks wanted more details

But most thought the manager was being ridiculous

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A few also shared similar experiences

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