Malicious Compliance

Wife was hired in 2014 for a position that was designed to be remote. They changed things in 2017 and tried to make her come into an office 2.5 hours away, 5 days a week. She's legally blind and doesn't drive, a fact they were fully aware of and had no issues with when they hired her. She tried to argue multiple times, and it just ended up going in circles with several managers getting pretty insulting to her. So, she quit, and eventually decided to contact a disability lawyer to inform the ex-employer she would be suing for discrimination, and ADA violations. Because they said some pretty stupid things in emails and voicemails. They ended up offering a nice sized settlement. She found another WFH job that paid 3x what she was making at the old place, with a higher level position and more closely fits her education. She's much happier with how things turned out for her. The position has been on various job sites for over 3 years and doesn't look like it's been filled since she quit, though I can't say that for sure.

It's sad that this is considered malicious at all. Seriously, either working from home is a risk for your company or it isn't, there's nothing in between.

Yup, they started to force me to drive to an office where none of the people I work with are, now that’s the only place I do work for them.

Used to think about and work on projects after hours if I found them interesting or realized a solution I hadn’t thought of. They’ve shown me they don’t care about my comfort, so I don’t feel the need to care about their problems either. The work will be there tomorrow.

They’re so divorced from reality that they think we’d just give up extra hours of our lives for commuting and keep up the same work output. Fuckin nope, going switch to doing the bare minimum it takes to keep you signing checks.

Yup, my work pulled the same Bullshit. I can work from home and we all worked from home through COVID... But now suddenly I can't

So, there's been a few times where the power's gone out or something has happened that needs us at a remote location. They send the team home. The rest of the guys willingly go. I stay back and remind them that "gee, sorry. You guys have made it abundantly clear that I can't work from home. All those times I had to take personal time... So yeah, no. I'll just hang out here I guess until everything comes back up 🤷‍♂️"

My SO was told to travel to office every day of the week, only to sit in zoom meetings because all of their team is elsewhere.

Reaaaal good use of everyone’s time and our non-renewable resources.

It really saddens to me see how many managers out there treat their subordinates terribly, and then act surprised when their subordinates do the same - as though employees are meant to greatful for their terrible treatment

I work night shifts. My manager one time called me around 2pm to ask me something menial and waking me up (as I was still sleeping for my next shift at 7pm).

So naturally, I called him at 2AM when I was at work... because I had an "urgent" question about a work policy lol. He got the picture, and that shit never happened again

I refuse to install any work related software on my phone. Not only because I don’t want to be contacted after hours, but companies often “require” full read/write access on your device, so they can remotely wipe their data if you quit or get fired.

Fuck that.

My guess is that some businesses get tax breaks from municipalities in exchange for filling office spaces with warm bodies. The idea is that people in office buildings support local businesses by buying lunch, and sometimes grabbing a pint after work.

I’m not trying to excuse this trend, in fact as an IT person myself I 100% agree with the sentiment, I’m just trying to share what I’ve been told.

It's astonishing.

The capitalists know full well we're more productive working remotely, but their need for control has proven to be stronger than their insatiable greed anyway.

I can’t believe people have work apps on their personal devices. Delete that shit!

We have to call their bluff from time to time and remind the management that without us, none of their shit works. When we down tools its not like they can pick them up and get the show back on the road.

in my country you're not obligated to answer to anything work related after your work hours unless you're manager or superior or it is exliciptly said in work contract that you be on call.

My previous workplace was like this. It didn't get to this point, I left before it got to the point of being told you're not allowed to wfh under any circumstances, but I was very confused why I needed to go to the office, to do my IT job, helping people with their computers remotely. I go to the office, to work remotely. Which doesn't make any sense at all.

What is special about the office that allows me to work better/faster/more effectively/whatever? Nobody could give me an answer. I can easily run the tools at home and work fine from there, but I'm not allowed.

My specialty is in network operations, if they want my work to 100% go through their equipment and firewalls and stuff, I can make that happen. With little effort, I can setup a system on a VLAN, and VPN that VLAN to work, blocking it from all other traffic apart from the VPN. It would be the only system on that VLAN (apart from the firewall/VPN device), ensuring no possibility of cross contamination between my equipment and theirs. They even had an openVPN host already configured, which they would only need to generate a connection file for, in order for me to get it working. I can then proxy 100% of my traffic through an office system and it would be identical to being present in the office, apart from me being physically there.

At home I have a dedicated room for my computer activities, where I can close the door and lock it if required, so I can remain undisturbed.

I made sure they understood all of this but they still wanted me in the office at least 4 days a week. I'm still not sure why.

I left that job, and my new job doesn't even have a physical office, so I'm permanently working from home.

This is such an odd restriction for IT staff. Normally HR gives you a form to sign agreeing to working remotely sometimes and having company data on your phone because you know, servers are meant to stay on all the time? It must be nice living in a world where nothing bad happens after hours.

Malicious Compliance! The only way to go.

"You are not allowed to work from home unless we want you working from home" is basically their slogan. It's so funny how these companies are ok with upper management working from home, or having remote locations in India where they work from home, or when it comes to working overtime/after hours from home. But, can't do it on a day to day basis. Horrible companies.

As some in IT. If my company ever does this. I'm doing the same thing. Genius play.

Well done mate! 👏👏👏