“You Don’t Want Me To Unload My Car? Great!”: Employee Agrees With Coworker Insisting He Shouldn’t Help Unload His Car
If you remember the main storyline of the movie Captain America: Civil War, it was that the heroes could not agree on how reasonable it is to have superhero help in those moments when it is not actually asked for. Even if it can be provided.
Well, now we know for sure – the hero of our story today in that long-standing conflict between the Avengers would definitely be on Steve Rogers’ side. But since the user u/Larry_the_Squidd is unlikely to have a vibranium shield and any superpower, after a reprimand from a colleague, he resorted to a tried and tested trick – malicious compliance.
The author of the post once worked delivering company products to various outlets and workshops
Image credits: Lydia (not the actual photo)
To make things easier for other employees, the author sometimes just unloaded his car on his own, using a pallet truck
Image credits: Larry_the_Squidd
Image credits: Mike Mozart (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Larry_the_Squidd
However, a worker at one of the workshops once asked the author to stop doing so because he allegedly created a mess
Image credits: Zaskoda (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Larry_the_Squidd
No sooner said than done – the next time, that very employee had to unload the car on his own
Some time ago, the Original Poster (OP) was working on delivering his company’s products from one worksite to various outlets. The author of the post often arrived at the place before the employees came to work, so he tried to make things easier for them – he simply unloaded the goods that were intended for them, with the help of a pallet truck, leaving a detailed description of what was in which pallet.
In the OP’s own opinion, he was doing a good job, but not all of his colleagues shared this opinion. For example, an employee at one of the workshops, at which the author also left pallets with loads and descriptions several times, during the next visit cornered the OP and literally gave a ten-minute lecture about how many problems this author’s initiative actually caused for him.
So, from the words of the angry employee, it appeared that the original poster each time created a true mess in the workshop, putting everything in the wrong place, and the goods constantly fell from the pallets so he had to collect them on his own. This especially surprised our hero who, with the help of a pallet truck, unloaded the car as carefully as possible. However, if the employee of that workshop said that the OP could no longer do this, then he should listen to his opinion after all.
The OP’s moment of triumph came a week later, when he brought almost two tons of different goods to that workshop for various customers. The same employee, seeing how much he had to move alone and manually, now asked the author to help him unload the car. I’d say the OP’s answer is easy to guess now – he, possibly holding back a triumphant grin, said that he could not do this because firstly, he creates a mess, and secondly, the products can fall out of the pallets. So the employee had to do everything by himself…
Image credits: U.S. Department of Agriculture (not the actual photo)
Well, if a person does not want our help, why should we insist? “Stop helping people who don’t deserve your help. It’s not always an easy thing to do. We were taught helping people is the right thing to do. You need to unlearn this popular belief,” Cammi Pham, a partner at ThinkRenegade, writes on her Medium blog. “When I offer someone my help, I actually want to help. But a lot of the time, people are not ready to accept my help. It is normal. Everything takes time to change and most people don’t want it.”
“You shouldn’t offer advice when people are not prepared to entertain it, or they could one day come back and blame you when it doesn’t work out for them,” Cammi Pham also claims, and many of the commenters on the original post agree with that. “One of the best things in life is to give ‘some’ people exactly what they ask for,” someone in the comments wrote. Some folks in the comments quite reasonably noted that the original poster should have just explained to this worker what he was doing and why. Perhaps this would solve a lot of problems in advance. However, it turned out to be very instructive anyway, commenters believe.
If you are interested in the topic of malicious compliance at work and in the office, we gladly invite you to read, for example, this post about a lab employee and a shift manager who required him to work overtime. Or, let’s say, this eye-opening tale about a boss who wanted employees to attend an offline training in the midst of a pandemic, despite all the quarantine restrictions… And also… well, we need to stop listing our own posts now and just give you the opportunity to comment on this story. After all, to paraphrase Captain America, “we can do this all day…”
People in the comments just admired this story, noting that the guy simply got what he asked for
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That "ETA" guy is foolish. I don't care what your job is, you can't be mad because someone does it and does it better. He left it somewhere visible and safe, not "plopped it wherever". Maybe instead of leaving it on him to explain a simple concept, the other worker could just ask instead of lecturing someone for 10 minutes.
Hmm I think he has a point. My first job was a storeman. If someone was randomly stacking pallets of stuff wherever they liked in the warehouse that would have been a pain in the a**e. That might be space you need to do other work. So you'd need to move those pallets before you could do your other jobs. I do think the warehouse guy could have handled it better though. It could have been solved much more satisfactorily if they'd both had a five minute chat about where stuff could go.
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Whew! I sure am glad BP labeled the image or I'd have thought the OP was a Lego minifig. Screen-Sho...7a-png.jpg 
Wait he isn’t? I thought everyone was a lego minifig
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I was once asked by a co-worker from a separate department not to do something anymore. Ok, fine. A few weeks later she asked me to do the thing she told me not to do. I said "I was told I'm not allowed to do that anymore." She asked me who told me that so I reminded her that it was her and walked away. Forget her, she wasn't even in my department.
The guy should have been greatful instead of complaining. I hate when people complain for no reason. It was probably the complainer's fault why things would fall or whatever. Hes complaining that things are all over the storage room but they're organized and hes too blind to see It. I can't stand people like this. I'm glad he was told now and it's hard to do it all by himself. That's what he want it. There you go
Okey dokey boss man. Have fun with that. Meanwhile I'll be having an even better time watching you dealing with it...bwaah ha ha ha. Oh, wait, you want me to help? No can do, your explicit orders, gonna take a break and then get back to doing my job.
"Comrade mate" ??? XD "Best task" XD this ad is so weird
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That "ETA" guy is foolish. I don't care what your job is, you can't be mad because someone does it and does it better. He left it somewhere visible and safe, not "plopped it wherever". Maybe instead of leaving it on him to explain a simple concept, the other worker could just ask instead of lecturing someone for 10 minutes.
Hmm I think he has a point. My first job was a storeman. If someone was randomly stacking pallets of stuff wherever they liked in the warehouse that would have been a pain in the a**e. That might be space you need to do other work. So you'd need to move those pallets before you could do your other jobs. I do think the warehouse guy could have handled it better though. It could have been solved much more satisfactorily if they'd both had a five minute chat about where stuff could go.
Load More Replies... Whew! I sure am glad BP labeled the image or I'd have thought the OP was a Lego minifig. Screen-Sho...7a-png.jpg
Wait he isn’t? I thought everyone was a lego minifig
Load More Replies... I was once asked by a co-worker from a separate department not to do something anymore. Ok, fine. A few weeks later she asked me to do the thing she told me not to do. I said "I was told I'm not allowed to do that anymore." She asked me who told me that so I reminded her that it was her and walked away. Forget her, she wasn't even in my department.
The guy should have been greatful instead of complaining. I hate when people complain for no reason. It was probably the complainer's fault why things would fall or whatever. Hes complaining that things are all over the storage room but they're organized and hes too blind to see It. I can't stand people like this. I'm glad he was told now and it's hard to do it all by himself. That's what he want it. There you go
Okey dokey boss man. Have fun with that. Meanwhile I'll be having an even better time watching you dealing with it...bwaah ha ha ha. Oh, wait, you want me to help? No can do, your explicit orders, gonna take a break and then get back to doing my job.
"Comrade mate" ??? XD "Best task" XD this ad is so weird
Load More Replies...
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