“And Then, At Exactly 7AM, He Quietly Went Home”: Lab Employee Maliciously Complies With The Shift Manager As She Orders Him To Keep Working After Hours

Among the many stories of malicious compliance, there are many situations where entitled bosses try to force employees to work overtime, and as a result of the witty revenge plans, the higher-ups are left in the cold. But there is one area where malicious compliance is fraught with serious problems. This is, of course, healthcare.

Indeed, it is one thing when you maliciously obey the obviously stupid demands of your superiors, knowing that this will lead to maximum financial losses for the company, and quite another thing when the same can cause the risk of endangering the health of the client. Well, the author of this story, user u/Stunticonsfan, admits anyway that the situation did not happen to him, but to his colleague.

The author of the post once worked night shift at a laboratory for a big medical network

Image credits: Edward Jenner (not the actual image)

There was a common practice that the late specimens should be processed by the morning shift employees

Image credits: u/Stunticonsfan

Image credits: Chokinti  Khongchum (not the actual image)

Image credits: u/Stunticonsfan

The head of the morning shift once told the author’s colleague to process late specimens anyway

Image credits: Shawn Stutzman (not the actual image)

Image credits: u/Stunticonsfan

The guy loaded the specimens on analyzers, and then simply left without doing much paperwork overtime

So, the Original Poster (OP) once worked night shift at the testing site for a major medical laboratory network. As is always the case in these medical companies, for a whole day, patients were tested at service centers, and then the specimens entered the laboratory, where the OP and his colleagues performed tests while filling out a lot of paperwork.

The problem was that most of the materials often arrived in the morning, and in fact the night shift workers faced a dilemma – to process everything in detail, while almost definitely working overtime, or to transfer late specimens to the morning shift. Traditionally, in order to avoid confusion and other issues, the second option was chosen.

However, the head of the morning shift, “Lily”, was also not enthusiastic about the current practice, and one morning she demanded that the OP’s colleague, “Steven”, process a large batch of late specimens which arrived at about half past six in the morning – just at the same time when Lily arrived to the lab.

Steven’s shift ended at 7am, which meant he had a lot of work to do and 100% overtime. However, the guy complied maliciously, so he loaded all the specimens on analyzers and, when the clock struck seven, just got up with a calm heart and quietly went home…

Of course, when all the employees of the morning shift were in the office, they began to receive the results of the analyses launched by Steven, but he was no longer there, and, of course, he did not leave any comments either. As the author of the post admits, “everyone was confused, and the situation created far more work than if the day shift had simply taken over from the start.”

Since then, as the OP recalls, Lily has been imbued with the most sincere hatred towards Steven, but she has never demanded that he process late specimens either. However, this is exactly what the guy wanted from her, and he somehow figured out the hatred… after all, not one of us is a hundred bucks bill that can please absolutely everyone.

Image credits: Polina Tankilevitch (not the actual image)

“Of course, from the point of view of the workflow, the hero of this story acted rather inappropriately, because he unwittingly created a lot of problems for the next shift, not completing all the necessary paperwork and, in fact, jeopardizing the effectiveness of some analyses – and among them there could well be urgent orders,” says Irina Psahis, the CEO of the Ukraine-based Science Lab, who was asked by Bored Panda to comment on this story.

“Each analysis requires detailed information – what needs to be done with it, under what conditions, from whom the materials were received and to whom they should be delivered. Of course, without knowing exactly which analyses should have been processed by the author of this story, we cannot say exactly how many issues the morning shift encountered, but I’m pretty sure these issues really occurred.”

“On the other hand, the head of the morning shift clearly understood this and, in fact, tried to frame the night shift employee, not wanting to do a large amount of work for him – after all, he actually was supposed to do this work after hours. Probably the company where these events unfolded had no detailed instructions on what to do in such cases, who is responsible, and whether employees should work overtime in case of receiving urgent orders,” Irina presumes.

Most commenters agreed that the head of the morning shift acted quite inappropriately here, and deservedly received a lesson from the Original Poster’s colleague. And apparently, as people in the comments point out, the company where the OP worked had “no overtime and no procedure documented for what to do in the morning.”

However, the OP admitted in the comments that Lily later found a way to get revenge on Steven – when management was looking for an employee to train two new staff members, she chose the OP, not Steven, although he was a more experienced employee. As the manager herself explained – “because the OP took the job more seriously.” Well nobody’s really perfect… And by the way, what do you think of this tale?

Most of the commenters claimed that the head of the morning shift got what she deserved, but the company should have detailed instructions for such cases anyway

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