r/MaliciousCompliance - NO Title, NO Power. But I RUN The Show!

0:00This episode is brought to you by Nespresso, introducing Virtuo Up, the latest and a long line of innovation from Nespresso. It's innovation you can touch, sense, and taste in every single cup. With a three-second start, easy open lever, and dedicated brew over ice-button, it's even easier to enjoy your coffee your way. Zip for yourself. Shop Virtuo Up exclusively at Nespresso.com Bring us here, and there's a whole new way to chie at Starbucks that's made perfect for you. Choose your sweetness, dial it up, or keep things light. Add a touch of pistachio, a hint of strawberry, or vanilla, or make it a spring classic with lavender. Because this season, there's endless ways to chie at Starbucks. Hello, and welcome back to Karma Stories. I'm Rob, and I hope you are having a wonderful day today. Today, I have some stories for you from the malicious compliance subreddit.

1:00So as you all know, I've been kind of absent from YouTube and the podcast, and well basically everywhere, for over three weeks now, because I just had all these pretty chompers put in, and trying to learn how to talk with them again, it has been kind of rough, to be honest. So this is my first time coming back recording a full episode. It's about 17 minutes long. Let me know how you think it sounds, because to me, it doesn't sound like me, but I'm still trying to get over this. You guys have listened to me for over 1700 episodes. Let me know what you think in the comments down below on how I'm sounding now, and whether I should keep on going or not, alright? Let me know, and I hope you enjoy this episode. Let's just jump right in. This story comes to us from Variable 851. I'm either in charge, or I'm not, so I made it so I was both. I worked for a county psychiatric emergency services unit for eight years, many years ago. The unit was connected to a hospital, so there were patients referred from the emergency

2:04department, but the primary role of the unit was to evaluate patients in their homes, other hospitals, or jails, and initiate the civil commitment process if certain legal criteria were met. The unit was open 24 hours per day, running shift from 7am to 3pm, 3pm to 11pm, 7am for the most part. At various times, I worked on all three shifts, and I was very well known. For me, the best part of the job was going out to the other facilities, and I was definitely in the minority on that point. Most of the staff wanted to see patients from our own emergency department. Typically, each staff would handle one to two cases per shift. If the patient was from our emergency department and could be admitted to our hospital's unit, then that staff might actually only work two hours of their eight-hour shift, and then they'd spend the rest of that time chatting, answering crisis calls, and, largely, trying to avoid being assigned another case. I liked to be busy and to keep moving, and I found downtime on the crisis unit to be torture.

3:06I would routinely take on second cases, just to stay active, and this routinely meant that I was staying past my shift end, as I did not like handing cases to another staff member at shift change, because too often, information got lost in the mix. The early morning was often dead quiet, with referrals ramping up by midday. I requested and was approved to work from 10am to 6pm. My new shift was embraced by the rest of the day shift, who predominantly did not want to take outreach cases. Cases were supposed to be assigned based on employee arrival, but within weeks, I would walk into work to find staff that arrived at 7am sitting around, while an outreach case had sat for hours, because they knew I'd want to go out and get on a call right away. Now this was true, and I didn't care much about that part because I got to leave, but it gives you some idea of the attitudes of the other staff. Now comes the malicious compliance part. Fake names are being used. Allen, the actual 3pm to 11pm shift supervisor, worked another full-time

4:09job, and he did not arrive to the unit until around 5.30pm. That meant the day shift supervisor, Danielle, would have to give shift report to another staff member, who would then pass shift report to Allen. This would usually done the same way cases were assigned. First, 3 to 11 staff to arrive would receive report, so this interim supervisor would change day to day based on arrival. Over time though, Danielle started giving me shift report to pass on every day that I worked, despite 3 to 11 staff being present. Because of this consistency, a lot of people mistook me for an actual supervisor, and I was called by other departments to weigh in on things, to sign off on problem cases, and to provide consults, none of which were actually part of my job. Actual supervisors received a small pay differential, which was largely meaningless, but I mentioned it here as an arguing point. I was very much treated as a supervisor only when it was convenient. When difficult decisions had to be made, or when someone had to get on the phone and argue a clinical decision with another facility, I was in charge according to the other

5:13staff. But if a case came in between 3pm and 5.30pm and I tried to assign it to a staff member, they would refuse stating that they would wait for Allen to arrive to assign it because he was the real supervisor, which was fair because I wasn't. Allen would arrive and see cases that had been sitting since 3pm and want to know why no one had started them. I'd shrug and explain my position and he would sigh and start assigning work. Meanwhile, other facilities had been calling and asking for updates as to when someone from my unit would be arriving and complaining about delays. John, the unit director got wind of these complaints and asked to speak to me. I explained the situation that I was not a supervisor, both in title and in pay rate, and the other staff knew that I did not have any authority to make them work. He told me that he did not have a job title or the funds to give me a supervisor role, which I knew. I told him I did not want to be the interim supervisor every day, or ever again really. John's response

6:14was that my judgment was more trusted around our hospital and other facilities compared to many of the other staff that he liked having someone with more training left in charge. The job required a master's degree and I was finishing my doctorate and that I took the job very seriously. Shouldn't all of his employees be taking it seriously? John's solution, he walked me back onto the unit where I'm sure gave the impression that I had gone to John complaining that staff did not listen to me. He asked for everyone's attention and announced that I could assign cases to anyone I wanted. That was it, he could not put it in writing because I had no authority by title and the reality of the situation was that the staff who did not listen to me would be supported by human resources for that exact reason. The following two days cases came in, I asked staff to go, they declined, and we sat and waited for Alan to arrive. On day three, a call came in around 3.15 pm from the hospital furthest away from our facility in our county.

7:15A 40-minute drive one way. As soon as I announced the case to the staff, I saw nothing but eye rolls and people going back to crossword puzzles or reading. I suggested one or two of the staff would be best suited to handle it and I got no response, not even no. John said I could assign anyone I wanted to a case so I went to the logbook, assigned the case to myself, grabbed keys to one of the unit vehicles and left without saying a word. I would often walk around in the hospital so no one questioned me leaving the unit. I was almost at the facility when I get the first call on my cell phone from the unit. Chris, one of the people I did not supervise had received a call from our inpatient unit asking for a consult. I told Chris that she should handle it and I hung up. 20 minutes later, Danny, another not my supervisor, called to say that the inpatient psychiatrist called back asking when the consult would be done. I asked why Chris had not done it and Danny replied that the shift had discussed it and felt that

8:17it would be better if I dealt with the psychiatrist. I replied that if the consult was urgent, one of them would have to do it because I would not be back for a long time. Danny says, a long time, are you in the ER? I reply, I'm at Memorial Hospital, ask Chris to do the consult and I hung up. 15 minutes later, John, the unit director calls me from his home since he leaves at 3pm. I answer the phone and quickly tell him that I'll have to call him back as I'm in a tense situation with the patient I'm seeing and I hang up. John calls the hospital unit where I'm seeing the patient and asks staff to put me on the phone. He asks where I am and I reply that he just called me at Memorial's inpatient unit. Okay, why am I there? Now, that's the question I've been waiting for. You told everyone on the unit that I could assign cases to anyone I wanted, so I assigned it to me. I told him that I had suggested other staff take it and no one wanted it, I could not make them and it was a priority case as a patient had hurt to other patients and a

9:20nurse and the hurt patient needs to be moved to a higher level of care ASAP. A process that was almost finished with before the evening shift supervisor had even arrived to assign the case to someone else. The point that John could not argue against, I was not going to sit around waiting while someone else might get hurt. I was not privy to what John said to the other staff afterward, but I was told that he was livid telling the staff that while I was not a supervisor in title, staff needed to view assignments for me as being backed directly by him and refusals would be considered insubordination, grounds for suspension or termination. From that point on, staff took the cases I assigned them and if I caught any attitude, I just hold the case up and ask you or me and then they would grab the case out of my hand and get to work. Jumping down at the comments on this one, we have one from a user called Josh B.K.A. it says, if the staff left a call for you from 7am to 10am, I assume those would be non-emergency cases

10:20or were they letting very sick and injured people just wait around because they couldn't be ours to get off their butt. OP responded and said, they usually let cases sit for me that were fortunately insecure or semi-secure settings. Another commenter down below called ill seat 1426 said, OP, you are amazing, articulate and I thoroughly enjoyed the long read and malicious compliance. Thank you for your medical service, professionalism and caring. There are too many people today that have an I don't care attitude. I'm so glad John finally brought the hammer down on the lazy co-workers. Alright, so I'm still stuck on the part of this one where they said that Alan the supervisor's shift was 3pm to 11pm but they didn't arrive to the unit until around 5.30pm. Um, okay, that doesn't seem like a problem with OP, that seems like a problem with the management allowing Alan to come in that late for their shift. I think when Alan came in if they asked OP why they didn't hand out the jobs, OP could just look at them and say, um, Alan,

11:22it's because you weren't here when you were supposed to be. End of conversation. Price line is here to help you turn your dream trip into reality. With up to 60% off hotels and up to 50% off flights, you can book everything you need for your next adventure. Don't just dream about that next trip. Book it with price line. Download the price line app or visit priceline.com and book your next trip today. Go to your happy price, price line. This story comes to us from oh such rhetoric. Infuriating professional development workshops on using our teacher voice don't mind if we do. If you're a teacher or in one of the lots of other professions that make you do professional development or other workshops, you know that 95 percent of these things are utterly useless. Not only are they useless but they also take up time we can be actually doing useful things instead of sitting and listening to people who had two years

12:26of experience 10 years ago telling us how to do our jobs. It's infuriating at best and actively insulting at worst. Even administrators hate this crap and are usually on their laptops the whole time because we must all follow the overlords of the school board and the State Department of Education. Both of whom know F all about what actually happens in the schools. Teachers often do professional development sessions at the beginning of semesters. Much of our one week in service before school starts is taken up by this utter nonsense when we really need to be less in planning and getting ready for the kids to show up. With that background let me tell you about the absolute travesty of teacher voice. This happened about 10 years ago. Teacher voice was a multiple session beginning midpoint and end of the school year super long workshop about how teachers can influence the policies and practices in their school and district. They were supposed to come three times a year beginning middle and end. These were half day sessions in which we took surveys

13:29about how much we felt we were listening to and what dissatisfactions and satisfactions we had with the school. Predictably these all turned out dismal which the teacher voice people loved because it gave them a jumping off point to babble on repeatedly about how we could have a voice and that we should advocate for ourselves and blah blah blah. It sounded nice and hopeful until we saw our administrators predictably not paying attention and realized that the presenters were just saying vapid inspirational things over and over. So you know my teacher friends and I started using hashtag teacher voice arcastically in our group chat and it started bleeding over to other people as well. It was a glorious inside joke. One of the counselors set up a box of candy and other snacks labeled professional development which any staff could take whatever they wanted from with no questions asked. Teacher voice came back mid year and literally did the exact same workshop. By that time most of us were just blatantly doing our actual work and then comes the malicious

14:35compliance. People started mostly diplomatically and professionally complaining to admin hashtag teacher voice in all its ironic glory made it into an email a teacher sent to all the teachers and admin. We used our teacher voices y'all staying professional when talking to admin anyway the whole time and lo and behold the third teacher voice PD was cancelled malicious compliance mission successful. During the time that was slotted for the third session we just got work time. A nice epilogue to follow up the next year during the PD times we got both more work time and also got an in district conference in which actual teachers did classes on actually useful things and we could choose which sessions to go to. I taught one of them myself on how to use Google Classroom which a lot of people were delighted by and thanked me for. It was great. Lesson learned when people Prattle on about advocating for yourself go ahead and do that and get rid of the Prattling. When I worked for the payday loan company a while back now they had these meetings we

15:40had to go to that were supposed to be team building and they actually brought in companies that were outside to teach us how to become a better team. Yeah it was horrible and I've never seen so many people from one company fall asleep during presentations in my life and of course you had to go and do this exact same workshop every single year because I was a manager and I stuck around but everybody else who worked there underneath the managers well they didn't have a really good turnover rate they would have new people in the store basically every three months. This story comes to us from BioShock Vigor. Direct League said rosters had to be finalized and unchangeable after week two they forgot to define what a roster is. I've played in the same Thursday night recreational volleyball league for about five years it's a good time mostly. Last season the League coordinator a guy who takes this extremely casually competitive environment with a level of

16:41seriousness that I find genuinely impressive introduced new roster rules after a team the previous season had been swapping in ringers for playoff games understandable in theory. The new role stated that rosters must be finalized and submitted in writing by the end of week two after which the roster is unchangeable for the remainder of the season including playoffs. He announced this at the opening night and posted it in the group chat unchangeable his word. My team had seven people registered when the deadline hit in week four our setter moved to another city for work genuinely unexpected and we were down to six which is exactly the legal minimum to feel to team every point margin suddenly mattered a lot more than it used to. I went back and read the rule he had posted and I noticed something the rule said the roster was unchangeable it said nothing about who could show up to a game and participate as long as they were already on the roster it also

17:42said nothing about the roster having to reflect reality at time of submission there was no rule against listing someone who had not yet committed to playing I message the coordinator and asked him very casually if there was any rule against submitting a roster that included people who might not attend every game he said no obviously people have scheduling conflicts perfect I went back through the original week two roster submission which I had emailed to him and therefore had a time stamp copy of and pointed out that two names on our roster were listed with a note saying availability to be discussed he had accepted the submission without comment those two names for guys I'd played pick up volleyball with for years who had declined to commit to a full season but agreed they might come out sometimes I called them both and they agreed to start showing up regularly given the situation coordinator said this wasn't in the spirit of the rule I agreed with him completely and kept playing with a full roster through the playoffs we came second the following season he

18:45rewrote the rules to require proof of attendance in at least one of the first two weeks to be considered a valid roster member reasonable honestly but we had a good run I'm not really understanding why you would bring in ringers to win in a wreck league I mean these are fun leagues this is where you go to unwind enjoy your time play with some friends and just do the sports that you love the best way to handle this one is put a rule into a fact that says players have to have been in a certain number of regular season games in order for them to be in the playoffs that right there would solve all your problems all right I think I'll go ahead and end this one here my first episode back since having all of my teeth work done and my new teeth in my mouth let me know how this one sounded to you all I would really appreciate it we're getting back to posting now on YouTube and back on Spotify and all the other podcasting platforms so drop a comment down below

19:45let me know how this sounds let me know what sub right if you want to hear from I hope you all have a wonderful day and we'll see you in the next one close your eyes exhale fill your body relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today well I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class I got them delivered free from 1800 contacts oh my gosh they're so fast and breathe oh sorry I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order oh sorry namaste visit 1800 contacts calm today to save on your first order 1800 contacts