When bosses and managers complain about bad workers, they usually use epithets like “lazy,” “always late,” and “hard to work with.” You probably won’t often hear someone complaining that workers are doing their job too fast.
Yet that is exactly what happened to this construction crew. When their boss told them their work pace was unsafe, the three guys decided to show him some malicious compliance. The crew started operating their machinery comically slowly, and, much to the boss man’s chagrin, ended up earning four times more than expected.
Bored Panda got in touch with the worker who shared this story, u/bigcapper69. He gave us more context behind the story and told us more about his future plans. Read our chat with him below!
A client accused workers of working too fast, so, they maliciously complied and really slowed down
Image credits: Max4e / Freepik (not the actual photo)
And what makes this act of malicious compliance even more satisfying is that they got paid $150k more than planned
Image credits: Mohamed hamdi / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Mikael Blomkvist / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Julian Geringer / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Tiger Lily / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Getty Images / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: bigcapper69
Image credits: LinkedIn Sales Navigator / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Although he was insufferable, the author sympathizes with John to an extent
The author mentions that this story happened two years ago, yet he only decided to share it now. “I have actually recently gotten into the rSlash podcast on Spotify,” the Redditor tells us. “[The host] covers this sub a lot. After hearing a lot of stories, I realized I had a potentially good one of my own to share!”
The situation the OP described, how many people would come and watch them work, only seems comical when we read it. u/bigcapper69 tells us that if you were there, you could almost cut the tension with a knife.
“As soon as the situation started, it was tense,” he says. “Very tense, like, you could hear yourself breathing on a jobsite with 50 people on it tense. No one talked – no, no one DARED to talk. After a while, though, the situation continued the same. We all started laughing and joking at John’s expense every chance we had,” the Redditor remembers.
Despite John being such a nuisance, u/bigcapper69 is ready to cut him some slack. “This really wasn’t what John did at the company regularly,” the author clarifies. “He had a function that he performed daily that got put on hold as he volunteered himself to run this project in hopes of getting a large end-of-year bonus.”
“I think he was just so inexperienced and/or too overconfident and overwhelmed with his ideas on how to save money and maximize his profits that [he] actually ended up with the complete opposite result,” the Redditor says, trying to see things from John’s perspective.
Image credits: Kampus Production / Pexels (not the actual photo)
The OP wishes everyone had such amazing bosses as Brad and Cody
As for the other two heroes of this story, the author has nothing but praise. “Brad and Cody are amazing,” the Redditor tells Bored Panda. “I will work for these men until the day I [pass [away]. I idolize them, almost every person I know looks up to them.”
“They prioritize and reward hard work, they aren’t greedy at all, which in turn has made them wildly successful and not a single person in our company resents the fact that they are both millionaires,” the OP shares.
“They are our bosses and could easily sit in their offices doing work that is a lot easier and surely there is plenty to keep them busy, but they refuse and are out on jobsites daily. Down in the trenches, performing the same duties as the lowest position in the company and outperforming everyone daily. They lead by example,” the Redditor told us proudly.
As of now, the OP doesn’t work in the same city as Brad and Cody – he moved elsewhere to open a branch of their company. But, even if not in their physical presence every day, the Redditor stays loyal to the men and what they built.
“These have inspired me to put my soul into this just as they have,” he explains. “I think that the world has enough greedy, bad people in positions like theirs and mine. I have a goal to emulate what they have done. If anything were to ever happen to them, I have a goal to buy the company to continue treating my employees the same way they have. Everyone deserves a boss like them,” the OP believes.