Charging Up For Some Malicious Compliance

I work for a company that provides a utility truck to employees. One of the analytics they monitor is how long the truck stays in place with the motor on. The target number is something like 3%. I am consistently stuck in traffic because I recently changed areas to the downtown area of my city and, naturally, that raises my idle percent.

My supervisor begins constantly badgering me over the raise of my idle percent, about 10 to 12% higher now. After they decide to give me a written verbal warning, I become the MOST efficient truck no-idler in our branch. I bring my percent down to a 0.00 by shutting the truck off at every stop sign, red light, gridlocked highway, and drive-thru, and I INSTANTLY shut off the truck when I get to where I am going.

This is a utility truck that is charging my two phones, laptop, tablet, and various equipment’s rechargeable batteries. All this juice-sucking and no alternator spinning putting the power back into the truck battery causes it to die. A LOT.

Company policy makes it forbidden for me to jump the truck myself, so I have to call the company to send out a tow truck to jump start it for me. I could do it myself and probably would, but they are writing people up out here for petty s***. Every time I call this tow truck, it takes a minimum of two hours for it to show up. I begin doing this multiple times a day, every day, until they figure my truck is broken. It goes to the shop, checks out, and they give it back.

I kill it again.

They end up giving me an entirely new truck. I start killing it. I repeat this process until they give me a THIRD truck and the manager calls me to asks what my daily routine is. I go through the basics and add in the whole thing about turning my engine off at every possible opportunity.

Manager: “Why the f*** are you doing this?”

Me: “My supervisor wrote me up for my idle time being too high.”

Manager: “This is completely ridiculous.”

He tossed my write-up, and I’m guessing he talked to the supervisor, because I never heard a word about idle time again and I quit caring about it.