r/maliciouscompliance | Find a Job in this Economy? Challenge Accepted

hey everyone my name is Stephen and welcome to story time today we're gonna be reading some r slash malicious compliance stories and quickly before this video starts I just want to say about 60% of people who will watch this video aren't currently subscribed so if you you lovely person enjoy these videos please make sure to subscribe so you'll never miss an upcoming one with that being said let's get into the stories if you think you can find another job in this economy go ahead and try challenge accepted I've read a lot of people having issues with jobs with everything that's going on and it reminds me of an act of malicious compliance that I perpetrated back in the last economic crisis of oh wait oh nine I worked for a large online website in what we call the Operations Center large websites have many servers not only a number but in type a problem is sometimes simple like this server really just a computer is broken but sometimes it's complicated a dozen small problems have happened throughout the system normally not an issue on their own but together have become this perfect storm that freaks the old website and takes it down these problems are complicated and often the individual developers are not familiar enough with the system as a whole to figure it out quickly this is where the operations center are tasked with monitoring the system as a whole and connecting the dots on these larger problems different companies may use many names like service operations center / SOC network operations center / NOC etc but every large website has this sort of group that acts as the custodian of the interdependent connections of the individual servers it can take a year to a year and a half of learning how a website works before you're even useful during an outage and many years before you're an expert and have the confidence to lead a shift we ran 24/7 365 all from one office in a major city half the people were on for 10-hour shifts others were on three to twelve half hour shifts with five extra hours every other week to make 80 hours every two weeks covering the whole week with no on-call as we were staffed 24/7 365 no need to call anyone at home there was always someone at the office I had been there for years and was dang good at my job I had done several years on third shift and was ready to be done with staying up all night and basically being a zombie on my time off it's tough to switch from being awake all night to being awake all day twice a week so a new manager let's call him Kyle was hired and decided that he didn't like the fact we were only getting freaked on sleep he wanted to freak us just a little harder and dry so he pulls me into a meeting room one evening when basically everyone except my two team members had gone home slides this paper over to me and starts telling me that the shifts have to be changed and everyone has to work five days a week and on top of that now shift leaders have to be on call during the time period of their shift on their days off something about understanding common issues that happened during that time of day on top of this they were going to expect us to also do some kind of vaguely defined project work while we're on shift or something which with our workload was absolutely ridiculous to expect we weren't JavaScript or Java developers anyway which was what the site ran on so it was asinine to expect us to work on the web application in our spare time we were offs and while some of us were good at scripting this was just a terrible decision there were already teams there that handled monitoring and build tooling for us to use the turret cherry on top of this poop sandwich was that he was moving me back to third shift and I'd be working Wednesday to Sunday no weekend and on-call at night during my two days off after all this was laid out to me I looked at him and said we'd be working every day of the year no time to unplug or get away from work I don't know why anyone would accept this plan as its laid out he responded with a smug grin on his face that I will never forget well if you think you can find another job in this economy you're welcome to try I literally not literally as figuratively but actually literally had to bite my tongue hard enough to bleed does thought myself from saying challenge accepted out loud instead I slid the paper back Adam and walked out of the meeting room without another word the thing is that good sis admins are tough to hire we're loyal we have excellent problem-solving skills and we enjoy a challenge so I kept my mouth shut started working overnights and meanwhile contacted everyone I knew about the predicament I was in I cut Kyle to pay for a certification that I'd always wanted and meanwhile I was complying with all the maliciousness I could come up with I landed an interview with someone who'd managed our group right when I'd been hired I showed them how I'd kept growing as a professional getting certifications and regular promotions I let slip that only two days I'd be available for the interview were Mondays and Tuesdays because well they changed the schedule and I'd have to keep my phone on as I'd be on call those two days this led them to ask more questions about the changes there and I have to admit I wasn't at all adverse to telling them how this new manager was changing things I could absolutely see the disbelief on their face and enjoyed every what that's not how you run things this old manager was sympathetic and so I had another job offer in hand within a month of the changes I left a two-week notice on Carl's desk that said despite the slight stagnant economy I haven't offered another position effective in two weeks I will no longer be able to continue my employment with company the little poop told me not to come back after one week didn't even try to schedule any knowledge transfer meetings where we share what we know when we leave a common thing with technical employees cut off your nose to spite your face I guess now he didn't have anyone to cover for that third shift with any experience for months mistakes were made website problems were way up on his watch which was tracked by another team he had no one else to blame but himself he did tell me I was welcome to try ever log I was always getting stories from the people who were left about dumb poop that he said in large meetings but eventually he crossed H R he said something mildly inappropriate in a meeting and someone went to HR and complained he then went all in on his stupidity and I poop you not here God's honest truth pulled that person into a meeting room alone and demanded to know why they went to H R insert Piccard facepalm jpg he told them stuff like you come to me first if you have a problem with me and we don't go above other people's heads around here the person was shaken and the other people in the Operations Center advised that they go straight back to H R with it each R wasn't ready to believe it and clandestinely called others to corroborate not only did they say it was totally true but they all felt free to discuss even more inappropriate behavior they'd seen Kyle was escorted out with nothing but a box of his belongings that day do not go pass go do not collect unemployment I don't know what happened to Kyle after that but that was a bridge I was happy to burn and dance and sing while it crumbled to ashes and don't give up hope this too shall pass businesses know this and will still be hiring for the long term it will be tough but you can do this do it interview on video conferences of course talk to old co-workers and managers there are opportunities even in times of crisis look for them you miss 100% of the shots you don't take Wayne Gretzky Michael Scott yeah that's just a terrible manager and the fact of the matter is a sysadmin that's a very hireable position and if a good one is available they're going to get swooped up real quick want me to keep my room's door open where it has acrylic paint well duck your couch mom back story I used to live with my mom and little brother who had ADHD and was always getting in trouble I have nice paint brushes and acrylic paint that is very hard to get off of cloth ok now on to the story one day my little five-year-old brother was gay my nerve so I shut my door on him my mom heard and came in saying we don't shut doors in this house me being fed up decides to shut my door again and what do you know she yells at me again so malicious compliance I leave my door open and go to my grandma's house and when I come back my mom is covered in paint and our nice red couch has C green all over it let's just say my mom let me shut my door and bought me new paint in brushes moral of the story don't freak with a grumpy teen and her room I do get it from the mom side they're just trying to make the best of it unfortunately they like to get into things and they made a big mess I also understand Opie's side where they don't really want to watch over them they don't really wanna babysit them constantly and I also understand their frustrations when they get into their stuff and it's well all over everybody and everything so it's a little bit of a tricky situation but it's good to let them just keep their door shut privacy is a good thing after all this is why you never throw away emails from the boss the company I worked for at the time no longer exists so I don't feel too bad about sharing this story this takes place in the mid 1990s and I'm the sysadmin for a small tech company we did all sorts of things for clients large and small but one of the more profitable areas was Technical Education think room after room of PCs for classes and training companies send us their people we teach them databases or email serving mainframe access using terminal emulators that sort of thing my immediate manager was an OK sort of guy but it was always looking for ways to cut money from the budget to look better for his superiors things like saying why do you need four make of RAM in the classroom pcs you can get by with two you get the idea well there was a new version of a well known server operating system out of a company in the Pacific Northwest that was rapidly replacing the older novel installations and there was great demand for training on this new operating system let's call it MT boss wants us to gear up the teach Mt to the companies replacing their older systems I say great here are the costs involved with purchasing ex copies of the new OS for the classroom pcs this email went over like a lead balloon email back from my boss says essentially no just use one copy for all the systems I have the cd-rom in my office come get it I reply that we will be in violation of the license agreement for the OS and could face penalties boss emails back a little testy to just do what I am telling you to do so I wander over to his office and he hands me a hand burn cd-rom copy of the OS and the license code on a piece of paper not good once I am back in my office I email him again reiterating that this is not a great idea and could get the company in serious legal trouble he says do it or lose my job alrighty then cover your own but time I archived the email chain and print off hard copies for safekeeping some months go by and classes are rolling in and out of the building every week all seems quiet then due to a totally unrelated issue the company gets audited auditors are everywhere looking for who knows what what they eventually get to the training area they quickly see that we do not have license keys for the 30 plus systems running the new empty operating system all heck breaks loose VPS and CIO start coming out of the woodwork like roaches I am called in to a meeting with my boss and every boss up the food chain to the CEO of the company rarefied atmosphere to be sure the witch hunt begins I am raked over the coals for putting the company in legal jeopardy and what do I have to say for myself before I am terminated for cause I was doing what I was ordered to do over my objections etc I look over to my boss who has suddenly developed a bad case of Clintonian memory syndrome saying I have no memory of that I would never authorize breaking the law exactly what I was expecting so I pull up the file folder with the email hard copies and show the board roomful of executives the conversation boss gets red in the face and accuses me of forging the emails to deflect responsibility for this massive violation never in his life has he seen something so underhanded and surely the board can see he's not responsible for me going off and pirating software for profit silence for a moment as everyone in the room stares holes into me I reached back into my bag and pull out the cd-rom and license code and asks if he wants it back some points to consider there was only one CD burner in the building attached to the boss's computer they were still fairly expensive at the time only one real copy of the MT operating system had been purchased by the company by the boss lastly the sharpie label on the disk and the license key were written in boss's very distinctive handwriting on his stationery with his letterhead on it CIO looks irritated says I can leave I go directly back to my office and post my resume on the job boards got a new job offer in two days the company was hit with massive fines they never really recovered and went bankrupt the following year my old boss I went back to the area a few years later and he was selling pcs at Best Buy notice honor there but a rather dramatic drop in pay I presume absolutely always cover your butt no matter what it is that I'm doing I usually ask for it in writing I might be contacting Amazon support about some price being slightly higher than what I ordered it and despite them saying is some clearance charge or whatever and it'll be refunded I make sure that they email me the transcript definitely always look out for yourself in these situations if you can record something and cover yourself it can go the distance for you when you need it the most but with that being said that's all the time we have for today thank you so much for listening to and watching the storytime channel you haven't yet please consider subscribing and let us know do that about these stories in the comments below thank you all again for watching and listening to the storytime Channel [Music]

Channel: Storytime

Views: 37,171

Keywords: storytime, story time, life stories, r/maliciouscompliance, r/idontworkherelady, r/entitledparents, r/entitled parents, entitled parents, maliciouscompliance, malicious compliance, prorevenge, r/prorevenge, r/pro revenge, reddit stories, funny reddit stories

Id: xIF74J_00IU

Length: 15min 46sec (946 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 24 2020