Boss Says “You Can’t Continue Working From Home Because You Go Idle In Chat Too Often”, Employee Maliciously Complies
The abrupt closure of many offices and workplaces during the peak of the pandemic ushered in a new era of remote work for millions of employed people around the world. The Pew Research data shows that today, more American workers say they are working from home by choice rather than necessity. Among those who have a workplace outside of their home, 61% now say they are choosing not to go into their workplace. With companies shifting to either hybrid or fully WFH models, the option is becoming somewhat of a no-brainer.
Or that’s what one Redditor and an employee at an unnamed company thought. In a post on the Malicious Compliance subreddit, they said they really wanted to work from home full-time and “hated the office with burning passion.” But contrary to their expectations, the Redditor got assigned as in office full-time. “It made no sense to me,” they wrote.
Turns out their company implemented a pretty unusual productive measurement to determine who is allowed to WFH and who isn’t. “Basically we have a company-wide IM system that shows you as available, idle, or in a meeting. If you don’t touch your keyboard for 5 minutes, you show as idle,” they said. The author was told they were simply shown as idle too often to be allowed to switch to remote work.
But the Redditor didn’t give up and came up with a savage plan to maliciously comply with their management. Read on to see what they did below and share your thoughts about the whole situation!
This employee has recently shared how they were not allowed to work from home because they were shown idle on work chat too often
Image credits: Elina (not that actual photo)
To find out what an expert had to say about this whole situation, Bored Panda reached out to Liz Ryan, a keynote speaker, multiple book author and the founder and CEO of Human Workplace. Her illuminating Twitter thread about fake job openings to get free employees has recently gone viral and you can read our post about it here.
“The tide is turning as The Great Resignation continues, with record numbers of employees leaving their jobs to take better opportunities every month,” Liz Ryan, a keynote speaker, multiple book author and the founder and CEO of Human Workplace, told Bored Panda. “What does this mean for working people? It means they don’t have to stay at a toxic workplace. They can jump into the job market and find something better.”
But the author didn’t give up and came up with a savage way to outsmart the controlling management
Liz explained that “a manager who evaluates your results based on keystrokes, participation in the group chat or any other process metric is not someone who deserves your talents.” In fact, you’re wasting your time with that company, Liz argues.
“Even if your manager changes course and lets you work from home, do you think that will make them less suspicious? Once you’re working from home full-time, do you think they will see your talents and your contributions any more than they do right now?” The CEO of Human Workplace said that they won’t.
“It’s painful to get a message like the one you got when your manager told you they evaluate your success based on stupid metrics, but it’s also a gift. Your situation is not going to get better at this job but that’s OK because there are other employers who deserve you more than this one does – and most of them are hiring.”
Liz suggests asking yourself: “Why to waste any more time working for people who don’t deserve to have you on their team?” She encourages the author of this story to go onward and upward. “Keep this in mind: only the people who get you, deserve you.”
And this is what people had to comment about this whole situation
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I think a lot of people would like to work from home precisely because they do not have enough to do at work. Having to sit at a computer all day pretending to have work you don't actually have is a form of torture imo. I've had jobs with too little to do and jobs with too much to do and I can't decide what's worse, honestly.
And for this reason exactly I find myself at work, in the office, replying to your post. lol
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The really sad thing is that in WFH situations, they have always already had a really simple metric to use that doesn't require any complicated software or to even monitor employees... and it's apparently not even used. Does the work get done and by the time it's needed to be done? Yes? Then no problem. No? Then there's a problem that needs to be solved.
Agreed. If you get your job done, and are generally available for questions and such, I don't care if you work ten minutes a day. If you spend twenty hours producing garbage, then you suck. Output not hours. I also tell my employees, "you won't be on your deathbed regretting not finishing a work project".
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Firefighters hahahahahaha. I calculated my brother's pay once. He made about the same as me per hour but brought home almost thrice as much because he's paid in 24-hour shifts.
The firefighter comment really hit home. I worked security for a hospital that covered several blocks, with many buildings of over 10 stories. We had to call in every floor we checked. That was the measure of effectiveness, and if we took too long on helping people, they counted against us. Then they changed the metric to calling in floors, and time busy with calls, but dispatchers were gigged if they did not dispatch a call within a minute of getting it, so we would sometimes get two new calls before arriving at the first, then get gigged fir taking so long to arrive at the other two calls. They finally measured time spent in all activities. That worked until a new vice president decided to count total tasks, and averaged how long he thought they should take, so he downsized the department, right after good insurance ratings got reported. Then they complained that response times were too long. They never learned, the only metric is safety.
Load More Replies... I think a lot of people would like to work from home precisely because they do not have enough to do at work. Having to sit at a computer all day pretending to have work you don't actually have is a form of torture imo. I've had jobs with too little to do and jobs with too much to do and I can't decide what's worse, honestly.
And for this reason exactly I find myself at work, in the office, replying to your post. lol
Load More Replies... The really sad thing is that in WFH situations, they have always already had a really simple metric to use that doesn't require any complicated software or to even monitor employees... and it's apparently not even used. Does the work get done and by the time it's needed to be done? Yes? Then no problem. No? Then there's a problem that needs to be solved.
Agreed. If you get your job done, and are generally available for questions and such, I don't care if you work ten minutes a day. If you spend twenty hours producing garbage, then you suck. Output not hours. I also tell my employees, "you won't be on your deathbed regretting not finishing a work project".
Load More Replies... Firefighters hahahahahaha. I calculated my brother's pay once. He made about the same as me per hour but brought home almost thrice as much because he's paid in 24-hour shifts.
The firefighter comment really hit home. I worked security for a hospital that covered several blocks, with many buildings of over 10 stories. We had to call in every floor we checked. That was the measure of effectiveness, and if we took too long on helping people, they counted against us. Then they changed the metric to calling in floors, and time busy with calls, but dispatchers were gigged if they did not dispatch a call within a minute of getting it, so we would sometimes get two new calls before arriving at the first, then get gigged fir taking so long to arrive at the other two calls. They finally measured time spent in all activities. That worked until a new vice president decided to count total tasks, and averaged how long he thought they should take, so he downsized the department, right after good insurance ratings got reported. Then they complained that response times were too long. They never learned, the only metric is safety.
Load More Replies...
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