About nine years ago, I worked at a food service job within a retail store. This job was absolutely horrible, as I got written up for anything and everything I did. If I took my breaks, I got a write-up. If I didn’t take my breaks, I got a write-up.
I called out once with a doctor’s note saying that I absolutely could not work, as my illness was highly contagious, and I got a write-up. This was my first time ever calling out, and I gave forty-eight hours of notice. The second and last time was for my grandma’s funeral, which I had requested off and was denied. I was written up then, too.
Any excuse my supervisor could find to write me up, he did. Being in high school at the time, I took this very personally and assumed that I had done something wrong. I worked there for two years, taking each write-up as a “learning opportunity”. However, I finally reached a point where I recognized that it wasn’t my fault, and the malicious compliance began.
In this job, there were add-ons, and these add-ons came with an upcharge. I had customers complain to me constantly about not wanting to be charged extra, but normally, they would just pay it and move on. One customer, however, refused to pay for the add-on but wanted it anyway. I pointed to the sign that said that it would cost extra and tried my best to politely explain to her that I couldn’t give it to her without charging her. She demanded to speak to my manager.
I happily called the manager over, as at that time the leader was also my area supervisor — each day there was an overall leader which would cycle, but each department had its own supervisor as well. [Manager] was employed through the retail store specifically. Regardless, I thought that surely [Manager] would have my back, as he knew the most about the rules that I had to follow. I was very, very wrong.
After listening to the customer, [Manager] proceeded to yell at me in front of her.
Manager: “The customer is always right, and you are not paid to argue with her. Give her what she wants, and do not charge her for any of it!”
He also informed her that I would be written up for this, and I was.
From that moment on, whenever a customer complained about having to pay for an add-on, I didn’t charge them for it. If they demanded their items for free, stating that they didn’t like them or had a bad experience in the past, I gave them to them for free. After all, the customer said that they shouldn’t have to pay for them, so who was I to argue?
Of course, he meant that I shouldn’t “argue” to the point of the manager being called, but he didn’t specify, and I didn’t want to be written up for it again, nor did I care to follow a “do as I mean, not as I say” policy anymore. It didn’t take long for the people who worked in the actual retail store to learn that they could also get add-ons for free if they complained about it, as at the time that they were ordering, they were technically customers. Since each add-on cost between sixty cents and a dollar, and most customers wanted more than one add-on, the company was losing an average of two to three dollars per transaction on the add-ons alone, not even considering the customers who got their entire orders for free.
Of course, two to three dollars doesn’t seem like much, but it was enough to catch the attention of my district supervisor. [District Supervisor] was employed by the food service company, and her job was to oversee the branches that were inside retail stores. [District Supervisor] was very nice and respected the employees who worked with her company, regardless of if they weren’t employed directly by her company, as was my case.
She first asked [Manager] why our location appeared to be less profitable than other locations and less profitable than it had been a few months previously. He tried to pin it on me, saying that I was stealing from the company by giving my friends and coworkers free items.
[District Supervisor], understanding how serious an accusation that was, insisted on speaking with me alone. I expected to be fired, but she instead asked me why profits had gone down. I explained to her what [Manager] had told me about the customer always being right, and how I had gotten written up and didn’t want to be written up again, so I followed his instructions word for word. For the first time since starting this job, someone took my side! She agreed that not charging for those add-ons would explain the loss she was seeing and that how [Manager] handled the situation was unprofessional and entirely against policy.
Having [Manager] accuse me of stealing to protect himself was my last straw, and I put in my two weeks’ notice that same day. Our human resources representative had apparently taken notice of how [Manager] was treating me, as her exact words were, “It’s about time; I’m glad you’re finally standing up for yourself.” With my consent, she altered some of the dates to make my end date a week earlier than it should have been since the schedule had not been written yet. To this day, I think of her as my guardian angel.
Shortly after my last shift, I was informed by my friends that [Manager] no longer worked there, either. [District Supervisor] was so upset with him that she called his supervisor and launched an investigation into his behavior. As it turns out, I was not the only one he would write up without a legitimate reason. They were also incredibly upset that he directly caused an unnecessary loss in profits. He could not blame me for it, as it was his words, and many people corroborated that he had said the same to them at one point or another. I was just the first to maliciously comply with his request, thus bringing his behavior to the attention of someone in a higher position than him. He was fired, effective immediately.
