Employee Gets Berated For Getting To Work Using The Longer Route, They Maliciously Comply And Take The Way More Expensive Shorter Route With Tolls
What could be worse than incompetence? Probably only one thing – aggressive militant incompetence. In this case, in relation to business, it can bring lots of problems, depending on the level where it operates.
If an incompetent boss is quite capable of driving their company near bankruptcy, then a diligent and incompetent employee at a lower level will simply bring some problems, like a small leak in the bottom of a ship. And it’s good if this leak is detected right in time…
In the case of the author of this Reddit Malicious Compliance community post, the problem was not discovered in time, and it had been causing losses for the company for six months. As for the original post, it has already gained 23.2K upvotes and almost 850 comments in just seven days.
More info: Reddit
The Original Poster has to travel a lot between two offices during their working day
Image source: joeymanley (not the actual photo)
So, the Original Poster has to travel quite a lot for work. They start their working day at the main office, then move to a second office, and end the day back at the main one. The OP uses their own vehicle, so the company pays for their mileage.
Image source: newtekie1
The OP used to choose the longer route between two offices to avoid tolls
According to the OP, there are two routes between the main and second offices. One is about a mile shorter, but at the same time, has tolls. So the OP, aspiring to save money for the company, always took the longer but free route. This went on for about a year, and no one asked any questions.
Image source: newtekie1
The new bookkeeper was hellbent on saving money for the company
But a few months ago, a new bookkeeper came on the job. To tell the truth, she was hellbent on saving money for the firm. And where is the easiest place to find savings? That’s right, in the expense reports. So, the bookkeeper combed through the employee reports, sometimes reaching the ridiculous – for example, in reports on the purchase of pens, she checked their price online, and then tried to find cheaper options.
Image source: newtekie1
The bookkeeper said she was no longer going to pay for the OP to travel the longer route
And so, it came to the OP. Of course, the bookkeeper checked which route they took between offices and found out that every two weeks, the company was spending $5.85 more. The bookkeeper accused the OP of embezzling the company’s funds, saying she was no longer going to pay for them to travel the longer road. Moreover, she said that the OP should be grateful to her that they were not charged for the previous year.
Image source: newtekie1
Employee maliciously complied, but asked for an official email demanding that they drive the shorter route
The OP thought about it and agreed to take a shorter route – but at the same time, they asked her to send them an official email demanding that they drive that very route. By their own words, no sooner had they returned to their desk than a confirmation email had already been received.
Image source: 401(K) 2012 (not the actual photo)
Two weeks passed, the OP turned in their report – and yes, this time they’d managed to save that very $5.85. True, the cost of tolls was $136, and the net loss was $130.15. By the way, no one noticed anything, and now, as the OP admits, for about half a year, the company has been losing exactly $130.15 in tolls every two weeks.
People in the comments noted that it was both malicious compliance and petty revenge at once
Commenters, on the one hand, admired the OP’s decision, noting that it was both malicious compliance and petty revenge at once. And not so petty, by the way, as one of the people in the comments calculated, in a year the company will lose a rather large amount due to an incompetent bookkeeper, so the OP did well to request an email from her.
Many people recalled their own similar stories of confrontation with bookkeepers who never traveled themselves, but nevertheless demanded to account for literally every cent spent. As you can see, militant incompetence is, unfortunately, a fairly common thing.
By the way, if you share your own similar story, we will be both pleased and saddened. Pleased because we’ll understand that the narrative didn’t leave you indifferent. Saddened – because each similar story is another sad example of aggressive incompetence, which must be fought as much as possible, at any level.
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That's a very bad bookkeeper and a control freak. As a bookkeeper myself it is part of the job to break down and, if necessary advise cutting costs - ADVISE being the operative word. In this case I'd highlight the mileage expense and look into details, together with the finance director/similar role and the person claiming the mileage to see if that's viable. Same with buying stationery etc, I don't get to decide suppliers (unless it's for myself of course, being self employed), orders and I might help negotiate terms of payment if asked by managers or directors.
I did some bookkeeping for a number of years. You absolutely MUST be very detail-oriented to be good at it. You also have to be a stickler who checks, rechecks, and checks again several times, to be sure you didn’t miss anything and that the numbers were calculated correctly. You also can’t rush the job—-even though you can get good enough at it to do it faster than a novice, you should never rush it. THAT’S when careless mistakes happen. I’m glad you’re the right personality for the job. More companies need to put quality people such as yourself into positions like yours. Hell, put you in charge of the Department!
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This is why supply and logistics management should be mandatory education for anyone put in charge of any sort of financial activity in a business. You NEED to understand that the underlying systems in use are much more complex than some two-variable math problem where you just have to tweak one very obvious value to get everything to work out better.
Part of their job is to ANALYZE (which is a reason accounting hasn’t been automated), so I’m calling bs on this story. Or the bookkeeper, their supervisor and upwards, AND the employee themselves were very, very, very unaware of business practices and compliance.
Load More Replies... That's a very bad bookkeeper and a control freak. As a bookkeeper myself it is part of the job to break down and, if necessary advise cutting costs - ADVISE being the operative word. In this case I'd highlight the mileage expense and look into details, together with the finance director/similar role and the person claiming the mileage to see if that's viable. Same with buying stationery etc, I don't get to decide suppliers (unless it's for myself of course, being self employed), orders and I might help negotiate terms of payment if asked by managers or directors.
I did some bookkeeping for a number of years. You absolutely MUST be very detail-oriented to be good at it. You also have to be a stickler who checks, rechecks, and checks again several times, to be sure you didn’t miss anything and that the numbers were calculated correctly. You also can’t rush the job—-even though you can get good enough at it to do it faster than a novice, you should never rush it. THAT’S when careless mistakes happen. I’m glad you’re the right personality for the job. More companies need to put quality people such as yourself into positions like yours. Hell, put you in charge of the Department!
Load More Replies... This is why supply and logistics management should be mandatory education for anyone put in charge of any sort of financial activity in a business. You NEED to understand that the underlying systems in use are much more complex than some two-variable math problem where you just have to tweak one very obvious value to get everything to work out better.
Part of their job is to ANALYZE (which is a reason accounting hasn’t been automated), so I’m calling bs on this story. Or the bookkeeper, their supervisor and upwards, AND the employee themselves were very, very, very unaware of business practices and compliance.
Load More Replies...
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