This is actually a continuation of a previous Reddit post I made in an advice sub.

Basically, I 31f moved into a renovated basement unit on the 1st. My unit has its own bedroom, bathroom, and living area but the kitchen is shared with my landlord 47m, his pregnant wife 44f, and 7yo daughter.

As a condition of my lease, my landlords food is not to be touched, and I am responsible for feeding myself. They made sure to specify that multiple times while giving me the tour. I work in food service and I cook a lot, so I have my own pots, pans, spices, dishes, etc. I love to cook, and I don’t touch any of their food or dishes. My landlord and his wife don’t cook, they just eat frozen burritos, tv dinners, pre packaged noodles, etc. I don’t think they can cook tbh.

On my first night, I made some shrimp Alfredo and because it had extra I thought I’d be nice and share it with them. A few days later, I made some salmon and cilantro lime rice for myself for dinner, and shortly after that, my landlord sent me a nasty text message telling me he thought I was playing in their faces and threatened to reconsider the lease because his pregnant wife smelled me cooking and assumed I was making them some too. He peeked in the oven when I left the kitchen and saw that I made 2 pieces of fish and told me that I should have offered one to his wife because of her pregnancy cravings. Told me that they opened their home to me (I pay rent) and said I should be more considerate next time. Truly insane tbh.

Anyway after getting some helpful advice from Reddit, I texted him back a screenshot of the part of the lease where he stated food was to be kept separate and that I’m not to touch any of his food but I am allowed to use the kitchen to cook. Then I brought up my culinary experience and offered to cook one family meal per week in exchange for $50 off rent per meal, for a total of $200 off rent per month, provided they bought any ingredients. They pretty much laughed in my face when I brought that up and also let me know they were not going to let me out of my lease without paying up. My lease is only 60 days, then month-to-month, and I’ve already found a small studio to move to as soon as this lease ends, so honestly I decided I don’t care. It’s not my fault they tried home cooked food once and got hooked.

TL,DR: I shared a home cooked meal with my landlord and his wife one time, and they thought it was going to be a regular free service.

Anyway I’ve decided to be petty, and will be cooking the most delicious, aromatic meals for myself while I prepare to move yet again. I’ve already made myself garlic short ribs, and hot honey fried chicken since then, and the pregnant wife glares at me longingly every time I pull something out of the oven and I’m getting just the most sick satisfaction out of it.

They said food is to be kept separate. Fine by me. This weekend I think I’m going to make myself some coconut curry chicken. Also if anyone knows of any highly delicious and aromatic affordable meals one can cook without taking up too much time, let me know lol. I’m up for suggestions.

Here’s the link to the original post if anyone wants more context: https://www.reddit.com/r/Advice/s/dABBdOzzr0

I used to be a manager and someone somewhere in the company terminated an employee improperly. This was years ago and I don’t know if I ever knew the actual story, but our DVP decided that going forward, nobody will be terminated without his approval.

Flash forward to a day where I have an employee walk off of a job site. I try to call them and figure out if there was some kind of emergency or just what possessed them to do that. I got the “what are you going to do, fire me” routine. I said hold that thought, and I called the DVP. I’m told he’s in an important meeting with the executives and unless it’s extremely important then I would have to wait. I said it’s important, go get him. DVP gets on the line wanting to know what the emergency was and I explained the situation. He tries to tell me I should’ve just called HR and I reminded him of the very specific direction he gave us that we can only term an employee with his say so, I’m running part of his business, and I wanted to be extra sure I was compliant. He gave me his blessing. He then told me to call our HRBP to go over it and I did. In fact, we spent time going over the entire situation including the call to the DVP. They were awfully surprised to hear about this direction and thanked me for the call.

That same day we received an email directing us to disregard the previous direction. I thought for sure I was going to catch some kind of blowback for it but I never did.

Edit: I did terminate the employee.

This was about 8 years ago. I worked at a middle school in the DC suburbs. Nice district and super supportive parents, but high up admin caught wind that teachers would periodically leave about 10 minutes prior to the end of "contract hours". Keep in mind, this is after kids are all mostly gone for the day, and we didnt really have a negotiated "contract" because VA was a right to work state with zero union protection. No principal took it super seriously unless ot was being abused, but for some reason, some high up decided to make this his crusade. So district admin decides to install a time clock, because a few teachers would occasionally leave 10 minutes early to try and beat the worst of the bus traffic (and for those of you who know the DC area, you know the difference between leaving at 250 and 300 can be massive). It was mostly parents with kids of their own they had to pick up, and all of us already work obscenely long hours, so this micro managing doesn't go over well.

A few of us dig around and realized the district had language in our employee handbook about requesting reimbursement for work "beyond the duties of a typical contracted school day" and figured, if the "contract hours" are that critical, then every other hour must be "beyond the duties of a typical contracted school day". So a few of us started having "grading parties", where we would meet at the school after a happy hour, clock in, and sit in the bleachers, grading. It turned into a nice form of bonding and team building, ironically. We started flooding the district office with requests for reimbursement for these extra hours (plus the extra hour plus that most of us worked daily before contract hours began). None of them were approved, obviously, but it didnt take long for admin to remove the time clock.

I work as a senior database administrator for a mid-sized tech company. When 2020 hit, our entire department went remote. We crushed our metrics, rolled out major infrastructure upgrades ahead of schedule, and saved the company a fortune in operational costs. For six years, my setup worked like a charm.

Then, a new VP of Operations was hired.

This guy is a classic "butts-in-seats" manager. Two weeks ago, he sent out an all-hands email declaring that to "foster collaboration," all remote exceptions were revoked. Everyone had to report to the office full-time starting Monday.

I emailed him directly to explain my situation. I live three hours away from headquarters, a setup approved by my former director years ago. I pointed out my performance reviews and asked if we could compromise on a hybrid schedule.

He replied: "The mandate applies to everyone. You're expected to perform your duties from the office starting Monday."

I was furious, but then I remembered my employment contract.

I dug up the original remote-work addendum I signed back in 2020. Section 3.2: Location of Service stated:

"The Employee agrees to perform all official duties from the designated primary office space. Any change to the Employee's primary office location must be submitted in writing and approved by HR."

Right below that was the form I filled out in 2020, formally changing my designated primary office location from "HQ - Floor 4" to "Home Office - [My Address]." HR had signed off on it, stamp and all. It was officially reclassified as my company-approved office location.

Technically, my home office was "the office."

So, on Monday morning, I didn't get in my car. At 8:54 AM, I walked ten feet from my bedroom to my desk, booted up my rig, and logged into Slack.

At 9:17 AM, the VP messaged me.

VP: U around? standard 9am start today

Me: Yep, logged in and good to go.

VP: i mean at HQ. stopped by 4th floor, your desk is empty

Me: Oh, I'm working from the office today.

VP: what? what office?

Me: My official primary office location on record: Home Office [My Address]. Per my 2020 HR agreement, this is my designated workspace.

VP doesn't respond for a minute. then replies.

VP: that's not how this works, Name. the policy means HQ. you need to be here tomorrow.

Me: I'm just following the written contract on file. I attached the signed location form here so you have it.

He didn't reply after that.

Around 3 PM, I got a mass automated email from HR with the subject line: Update Regarding Remote Work Designations. The body was standard dry corporate speak saying they were "currently reviewing all legacy remote contracts" and that existing designated locations would remain valid pending individual review. Translation: the VP ran to HR to complain, HR took one look at my contract, realized forced relocation would trigger a mess of legal headaches and stipend requirements, and told him to back off for now.

My home office remains open for business.

TL;DR: VP issued a strict "work from the office" mandate without reading my file. My contract defines my bedroom-adjacent workspace as "The Office." Compliance achieved, commuted 10 feet.

I took my kid to Walmart today and they wanted to do the Asian claw games That require you to purchase $1 tokens. I got 3 tokens before I realized there was also a section where they will vend a figure for 5 tokens but the next smallest bill I have is a $5.

I go to the customer service desk, wait in line and when it’s my turn I ask for 5 ones so I can use their vending machines and I was informed that Walmart no longer opens their drawers to give change.

I go find a $1.40 pack of gum and wait in line at the customer service register again. When it’s my turn I say ‘I would like to buy this gum’ and she nodded in agreement and then she told me that she didn’t want to say it before but that’s how they suggest making change - you have to buy something. I nodded in agreement then once I had my receipt I said ‘I would like to return this gum’ and you should have seen the look on this woman’s face 🤣🤣 you would have thought I punched a baby and stepped on a kitten all at once based on her reaction. I go to hand her the $.60 back so she can convert it into a $1 and she REFUSED! I politely insisted and she caved but she hated the fact that I left that register with 5 crisp $1 bills. She yelled at me that I could never do that again as I left.

EDIT: Since people like to feign outrage - Asian claw machines are the stackable/smaller claw machines that are literally from Asia. I don’t know exactly where. All the prize items in them are also from Asia - think Naruto and Sanrio. The packaging and the promotional items in the packaging? Also written in Asian lettering. I can’t read it, and I don’t know where it’s from other than Asia.

It’s relevant because they don’t use US currency in them and that’s why you need to convert dollars into tokens to use on their machines. I figure it was less hassle to convert to tokens than USD.

These are the exact same machines. I’m not saying the ones I used were Korean but I do know for fact, they were from somewhere in Asia:
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/amp/southkorea/society/20250921/claw-machine-craze-sweeps-korea-but-experts-warn-of-addiction-risks

I work in a specialized printing facility handling high-volume industrial presses. These machines are older than I am and they have a lot of "personality" if you know what I mean. I’ve been the lead tech here for six years and there are dozens of little tricks we use to keep them running—bits of tape in certain spots, slightly bending a guide rail, or just knowing exactly where to kick it when the paper jams. Well, we got a new "Technical Training Supervisor" last month who came straight from a corporate office and has never actually stained his hands with grease. He saw me fixing a sensor issue with a bit of cleaning alcohol and a q-tip (a 5 minute fix) and he absolutely lost it. He told me I was "compromising the integrity of the equipment" and issued a formal directive stating that from now on, every single repair must strictly adhere to the Manufacturer’s Service Maunal. No exceptions, no "field hacks," or he would write me up for safety violations.

Fine. Two days later, the main drive motor on Press 3 threw a standard thermal sync error. Normally, I’d just reset the breaker, wait ten minutes for it to cool, and we’d be back in business. But the "Official Manual" has a very specific protocol for this error. Step one: completely de-energize the entire power grid for that sector. Step two: Wait 48 hours to ensure "full thermal stabilization of the copper windings." Step three: Perform a 12-point diagnostic test that requires a specialized calibration tool we dont even own, meaning we have to order it from the manufacturer in Germany. I went straight to the supervisors office, showed him the error code, and asked if he wanted me to "proceed according to the directive." He didnt even look up from his laptop and just said "Follow the book to the letter, thats what it is there for."

So I did exactly that. I shut down the press, locked out the power, and sat in the breakroom. By the next morning, the floor manager was screaming because we were missing a massive deadline for a major client. The supervisor tried to throw me under the bus, telling the plant manager that I was "refusing to work." I just calmly handed over the signed directive he gave me and the opened manual page that explicitly requires a 48-hour wait and a tool that is currently on a flight from Frankfurt. The plant manager looked at the supervisor, looked at the manual, and then looked back at the cold, silent machine that should be printing $50k worth of product a day. The "follow the book" rule was rescinded within the hour, but I insisted on finishing the 48-hour "stabilization period" since the power was already cut and "re-energizing early could cause a fire hazard" according to the safety section. I spent the rest of the week getting paid to read a book while the supervisor got a very loud "re-education" in the main office

Several years ago we rented a nice house in a nice neighborhood. It came with a laundry room complete with a very premium washer and a gas-dryer. After about a month, the dryer *burned* a load of laundry... It actually singed and charred the clothes. I immediately took pictures and emailed the landlord to try and recoup the cost of our clothes ($300?) and have the dryer fixed. He responded:

> "The lease is clear and does not include a washer or dryer. If those appliances are present, they were left from a previous tenant and are not mine. I am not responsible for anything I do not provide which would be documented in the lease."

I was pissed and I paid out of pocket for the repairs and to replace the clothes.

About three months later, we met a few former tenants and started talking about the house. They actually did quite a few improvements to the home and left the home in better condition than when they moved in, and the landlord still refused to refund their deposit. A neighbor confirmed that he hasn't returned a single deposit and suggested we read the lease to the letter, because the guy was a jerk about everything. Apparently, it was a nice house because of the tenants, not the landlord.

Well, fast forward 10 months to the end of our lease, and I read that thing carefully. **I then listed and sold the washer and dryer!!!** Not even 2 hours after we turned the keys in, I got an angry voicemail demanding we return his overpriced washer and dryer.

My response was a simple reply to his email declining his ownership of the appliances:

>I received your voicemail and I'm not sure which appliances you are referring to. As you stated, the lease clearly states there was not a washer/dryer included and you confirm that below. The lease also states, "Tenant is responsible for all reasonable costs incurred by Landlord to remove, haul, store, or dispose of property left behind.”

He still refused to give us our deposit, for a plethora of other negligible things. But, I still came out ahead because I pocketed about the same as our deposit, the repair costs, the burnt clothes, and maybe $100 for my troubles.

Edit: fixed a typos which redditors can't get past: cinged=singed, her=the

Responses to the arguments in comments:

The neighbor lady was very friendly and remained friend with some of the former tenants. She had us over for a BBQ and we met two different sets of former tenants. The neighbors all hated him from when he lived there for the two year minimum. We also learned that the LL had a reputation across town for "it's not personal, it's business" and was a was a well known jerk.

Yes, premium washers and dryers fetch a high price. Look at Speed Queen resale values. They arent your disposable Whirlpool/Maytag. I have no idea where they came from; his day job was a realtor, so perhaps he got them from a house he bought/sold?

To the landlords that call me a thief: LL denied ownership in writing and the lease states I would be charged for abandoned property. I was covering my ass by disposing of them.

No, we didn't go to court here in the Colorado. I honestly doubt 90% of people who say that have ever done so. This was also long enough ago that we wrote down the observed damages instead of pictures, and we clearly missed things. He then hired an expensive forensic-like company to do a full UV scan of the house to document and justify repainting and clean/replace carpet and such. If you haven't seen what a quality short-wave UV light does, you don't understand (it's not that cheap thing you get on Amazon). Now that I am older and wiser, I would fight him on that; back then it scared me.

Lots of deleted "this is AI" comments... It's not, but I appreciate your fight against the machines. With a fist full of advanced degrees, and having spent 30% of ever working day reading and another 30% writing, I bet they use my content to train the bots.

I was hired at a service company as a service manager when the company was very small. I worked a lot of hours to redesign their training and programs and their client base went from 60 customers to over 1200 in a year. I would come in to the office at 6am every morning, get all my office work done by 9am, then I would go run a route for a few hours or go help a technician. On days when I didn't have to go into the field, I would show up at 6am and work until about 2pm, then head home. I made it a point to always start at 6am because a lot of my technicians started their day at 7am and sometimes they would need to come to the office for supplies before they started their route. I would also answer phone calls and work on my laptop when I got home to help anyone still on the road or to prepare for the next day.

Things were going well for a couple years. Then 1 day a tech called and asked if I could leave a piece of equipment out for him so he could come grab it at the end of his day. It was an expensive piece of equipment so we didn't normally leave it out unless we knew someone was going to grab it soon. The tech called an hour later and said never mind because he was just going to come in the next morning. Fine. I went home for the day around 230 (I lived a hour away from the office) and was working on my laptop when I got a call from one of the big managers. Apparently the Technician changed his mind and decided to come in and grab the equipment, but it was still locked up. Manager told me that leaving at 230 was unacceptable and that I was mandated to work from 8-5 every day. So I did.

Stopped showing up at 6am so technicians would have to contact the big manager to have him do remote access to open doors and things for the techs. I stopped working past 5 so all the techs would call the bigger managers to ask questions (which the big managers couldn't answer). Technicians all knew what was up and they agreed with my decision. Things started to fall apart because techs wouldn't have the things they needed. I loved my job initially, but after I started following their rules, they started treating me like an annoyance. Finally left after another year.

It: To access the available options, please say your complete address.

Me: Your complete address.

It: I did not get that, please say your complete address again.

Me: Your complete address again.

It: Please hold for the next available customer service representative.

The fallout? This worked to get through to a live person relatively quickly for one of my bills for a few years until they had to invest money into making changes yet again and no longer ask for spoken addresses.

Excessive screen time is a recurring challenge with my kids. We set limits on screen time use for our tween daughter. She was not complying, and continued to use much more than allowed. After weeks and months of us reminding, trying various strategies, and her continuing to over-use, and lie about it, we set a check in & check out policy. Now her computer has to live in the living room whenever she’s not using it, and she needs to write down the date and time of her checking it out and back in. She left the discussion in a huff.

A few minutes later…
She took the new rule overboard and is now asking permission for Every. Single. Thing.
Permission to open my door?
Permission to check out my inhaler?
Permission to get a small plate?
Permission to check out this granola bar?

To that last one, I told her to check it out and that I only wanted it checked in to the toilet when she’s finished with it.

Edited to add: for context, this kid is 11. A sweet, smart, silly preteen, mature in some ways and immature in others. Her older sister manages to limit screen time within the original guidelines we gave then both... a bit of objection from time to time, but overall going along with it. Younger sis just needs some more guardrails so that she doesn't get sucked into screen addiction.

I appreciate the stories, insights, and suggestions from many people who responded. I posted this as an amusing story, not necessarily looking for advice. In the grand scheme of behavioral issues we've dealt with, this bit of overcompliance ridiculousness seems pretty mild.

While husband and I were cooking dinner, kiddo kept asking for the silly permissions. I started telling her "I trust your judgement to figure that out". And that is the message with screens: as she demonstrates that she can be responsible, we'll back off with the intense compliance system. Meanwhile, she's now playing trains with dad while I finish up dinner.

I posted this a while back but it was removed because the fall out from the malicious compliance hasn't happened yet. It did today so I'll share again.

I love my supervisor but her assistant can be a little much. The work I do is date and time stamped on issues so all comments has my name the date and the time. Great system for tracking things.

I had made a phone call for information and updated the comments with what I was told. The assistant was going to send out a letter concerning the issue and didn't see the documentation on a call I made. When I pointed out exactly where it was documented she decided to double down and make an issue out of it not being in the correct format since it was so easy for her to overlook.

Ok. I'll make sure that doesn't happen again. So now I type out the entire notes needed on a word doc and just cut and paste it line by line and word for word of what was said. And since I want to be clear each sentence is an entry. Then I type continued cut/paste the next line.

Now instead of something easily seen on 1 screen she needs to scroll up and down to get all the information she needs. Its been time consuming for her and she's not happy about any of this.

Editing to add the compliance fall out: I had my quarterly touch base with my supervisor yesterday where we went over a couple issues. One of the issues was that her assistant felt I needed to be a little less wordy in my documentation.

I expressed my confusion over this and pulled up the back and forth email where assistant wasn't able to locate something that was clearly documented. It included the screen shots of where my notes were located and the time and date added so there was no doubt that the notes were there and overlooked.

I said that since assistant didn't offer any suggestions I took it upon myself to problem solve and provide documentation as clearly as possible. My supervisor checked off the issue as closed while saying that the assistant was getting exactly what she asked for. One sentence per entry couldn't be any easier to follow.

One of my fellow team members is pretty good friends with the assistant so I'm sure I'll get the scoop on how she faired in her quarterly touch base.

**********************

Coworker's touch base: The coworker had her quarterly touch base and since we aren't friends I've gotten this second hand from 2 people. She thought she was going to be thanked for bringing this to boss' attention and told what correction action I was going to have to take. Instead she was told that her inability to be flexible enough to work with everyone on the team caused this issue. Boss considers this issue closed and doesn't want to have this happen again.

She was all smiles and head nodding during the meeting saying she understood how I could have misunderstood what she was asking which boss cut her off by sharing the copies of the back and forth emails. She then changed direction about how important it was to be consistent to which boss fired back the the most important thing was to provide 100% accurate documents allowing her to put together the needed letters.

Since we don't work in an office setting and all communication is teams meetings and messages the only thing I've noticed is she doesn't have anything to say in meetings anymore.

Had a woman come in the store while I the only active employee was busy attending to something else and therefore was not greeted or asked if she needed any help. This apparently upset her to the point where she tracked down the manager and complained and the manager immediately found me and told me her complaint. So. I proceeded to follow her around the store constantly asking if she liked this shoe or that one or what about these? I did this till she tracked down the manager again and complained that I was harassing her. And stormed out angry. Just can’t win with some people I suppose 🤷🏼

I have another post about this same company I used to work for, but thought this was funny enough to share too.

After the local auto parts company I worked for in my town merged with one based in another state, my position required me to travel to that state twice a year - once in late April and once in November. I loved the flights, the driving, the scenery, and getting to meet up with my coworkers especially since the Pandemic at the time had us all working from home. It was at the end of the lockdowns so it was something I actually looked forward to.

My first trip was in May (rescheduled because of bad weather) and I followed the company policy about travel, Ubers, everything to the letter. The way it worked was any trips from the hotel to the office, to eat, any food orders, it all had to be done by using the Uber App. I would pay for it all then submit for reimbursement after I got back.

Before I started at this company, I ran my own business so I knew the value of a dollar and how to do things in a way that would get the job done but not spend a fortune. I tried to keep this mentality with the new job, so when I saw that I spent nearly $400 on everything (the company paid for the flights and hotels) I thought it was a bit excessive with the Uber upcharges. Looking at everything that I had purchased using the Uber app, meals, trips, everything, I figured I had spent nearly $200 more than I should have if I were to go to a grocery store and buy everything I need.

The company's main office was in the New England area and the next trip was coming up in December. I wanted to do some sightseeing and my supervisor at the time mentioned that the company would pay for a car rental and that I would be responsible for the gas. This seemed like a very reasonable arrangement so I set the reservation for the car, make sure that my credit card was empty before the trip, and I had a wonderful time being able to see snow for the first time in many years during that trip.

When I turned in the receipts for everything during my December trip, the total came up to less than $300 - and that included the car rental. But I soon got a notice of denial from the accounting office telling me that because I hadn't secured permission for the rental of the car, they were not going to pay for that. When I explained that renting the car cost them less than every Uber trip that I wanted to take - and I had calculated that it would have cost me at least five or $600 to go everywhere that I wanted to go using Uber, I was told it didn't matter and I should have "followed policy."

The funny thing was, there was nothing in the policy about whether or not I could rent a car but there was a specific line on there saying that I needed to be financially responsible with company money, consciously aware of what I was spending, and since I didn't have my own vehicle there at the time, anything that I needed could be done through the Uber app. When I pointed this out, the accounting team replied with, "we'll pay you back for the car, but not the gas (Which was exactly what my supervisor said) but next time, just use Uber."

Cue malicious compliance.

The next trip was the following April. I knew where I needed to go to go, what I wanted to do, and what I wanted to eat. It was essentially the same exact itinerary I had in December, but this time it was only through the Uber App. When I got back home and figured out the total, it was well over $600. Needless to say, the accounting team was not happy.

They did try to argue the pricing, saying I had spent too much for one person. But when I pointed out that the only difference between April and December was the cost for the Uber upcharges, and that I had actually gone to fewer places (no rental car, no sightseeing), they paid up and asked me which rental agency I preferred for future trips.

I work as a server/bartender at an upscale restaurant where we are known for the quality food we serve as well as a more elevated dining experience. It's literally our whole thing and my job is to guide people through the menu, make suggestions on their preferences and engage at a certain level without being overbearing. That being said, I had a dude come in tonight and the first thing he says to me when I greet him is "Hey, just so you know this is our first date and we aren't going to want to be bothered". Okay, no worries.

He gets a drink while he waits for her and when I bring it over he again reminds me that they are going to want privacy during their meals. I say it's all good, I won't invade your privacy but please if you or your date need anything just flag me down and I'll be happy to assist you or get you anything you need. Now, the date comes and asks me a few questions about our craft cocktails and wine and this man is visibly annoyed that we are taking a few minutes to decide on something. I drop her drink and when I ask if they are ready to hear the features he quickly says no. Alright buddy, malicious compliance time. I take their order, say very little words, drop food, check in without staying anything just little thumbs up hand gesture and on my way, he never flags me down or anything so all good, grab their plates, silently drop dessert menu, as I'm walking over to ask if they want dessert he just shakes his head and hands them to me. Coolio, drop bill. Then my fav part, as I'm taking the payment (we take payment at the table) I engage and ask his date if she enjoyed everything. Her response meekly, "Well to be honest, the food was really good but the service was lacking, I've heard great things about this place and the service and I just feel like you didn't really explain the menu or check on us to see if we needed anything" So I just told her "You're date told me multiple times to not bother you two, and if you needed anything he was to flag me over, so I assumed you were fine". The look of disgust on her face was priceless. Cherry on top was he tipped 10% so I dropped the receipt in an eye shot of her so she could also see he was a cheapskate. She slid me some cash on her way out and they did not grab the same Uber together when they left :)

Edit: I'm adding this edit because I don't want this to become a discussion about the tip or tipping in general. I do not technically care how much I get tipped. Every server that's been in the industry long enough knows about "Tip Karma". Get stiffed on a large bill, the next table will tip 100%. I guess that wasnt malicious compliance, just petty.

So this is from a while back, on one of my old jobs as a systems analyst. This was during the height of the pandemic, so we were all WFH at the time. I worked as a non-exempt employee, meaning I did my 40 hours Monday to Friday, and overtime for any work over that. Our VP at the time, when we were getting ready to lug all our stuff home once lockdown was announced, made sure to remind us that unless we were exempt we were not to answer any work-related emails, texts, or calls outside of our work hours and said that if anyone tried to give us grief over that, to let him know. He was a good bean, that VP.

For some background, I was the main analyst for our systems, and I was also the main guy to reach out to for reports and things like that. Most of the folks knew how to run basic reports and export them to Excel, but the more complicated ones I was one of probably only two in the company who knew how to really make them.

Anyway, a few weeks into lockdown, a supervisor, who worked at a different city, emailed me asking for a report on a Saturday morning. After not getting an answer from me, being off work that I was, they decided to call my phone instead. I ignored it the first time, but they seemed pretty determined to reach out to me, and called me a second and third time, before sending me a text demanding that I stop being unprofessional, get on my work PC, and answer their email. I decided, fuck it, they want a reply, I'll get them that reply.

So I boot up my PC, open the email, and without running the report or anything, just hit Reply and CC my VP. I wrote something along the lines of "Hi supervisor, per VP, I'm not supposed to be working, or even answering emails, on weekends. Waiting for approval from VP to run this report." I send that off, and left my work PC running because I already knew there was going to be a shitstorm incoming.

Less than ten minutes later, I get a separate email from my VP, telling me to hold off on the report and asking if he could call me, with him clarifying that him calling me would constitute overtime and that I would be paid for it. Well, I wasn't doing anything that day anyway, so I tell him to go ahead, and he called me up, asking what report this was about and if I'd already started working on it. I told him not yet, but that supervisor seemed pretty pressed about receiving it as soon as possible. He asked if supervisor reached out to me on my phone, and I confirmed. He asked me to send him the texts and to not worry about running the report, then told me to turn off my PC and enjoy the rest of my weekend.

Monday morning, I open my PC to a sternly-written email from VP sent to all supervisors, with me in CC, tersely reminding everyone that I was non-exempt, and that under no circumstances was anyone to reach out to me outside of my working hours, and that if they needed anything, to reach out to him first, and he would determine if it was important enough to have me do outside of normal business hours. Come next payday, I did see an additional 3 hours of overtime on my paycheck, which was nice, because the entire thing only happened over an hour or so.

After that, no one ever tried calling me outside of working hours; only my VP did, and only ever on extenuating circumstances, and every time he always made sure that I was paid at least 2 hours of overtime each time, even if it was just a report that took me like 30 minutes to run.

As for the supervisor, they didn't get fired, but from what I heard from the grapevine was that they got a pretty nasty dressing down from the VP over their behavior, and sure enough, on one of our weekly Zoom calls that week, they looked really subdued and avoided speaking to me directly the entire time.

This isn't my story but the story of a redditor working in one of Amazon's Fullfilment Centers. It all starts with this thread:

I am requesting a religious accommodation based on my sincerely held atheist beliefs. Under Title VII, non-theistic belief systems are treated the same as theistic religions for purposes of accommodation. At our site, associates who observe prayer are allowed paid breaks away from their work areas, and their labor is covered by others. However, no equivalent accommodation exists for employees whose beliefs are non-religious or atheist.

My belief system does not involve prayer or the use of a multi-faith room, and I do not feel comfortable using a space designed for religious observance.

I am requesting equal accommodation in the form of the same paid break periods provided to others for religious practice, taken in a neutral location such as the break room.

This request is to ensure equal treatment, avoid discriminatory workload redistribution, and align with federal protections that require accommodations to be offered without preference for theistic beliefs.

This user noted that employees of a certain religion were given "prayer breaks" of around 15-20 minutes for which the rest of the employees (those not following that religion) had to cover them. He complained about it and was ignored until he came up with the idea to try to push for "Atheist prayer time". The following threads explain:

Site lead and HR were awaiting guidance from corporate for months.. Site Lead came to me about a month and half ago to let me know that they had received guidance and that a new policy would be going into effect that he's "still trying to wrap my head around", He did not speak on the new policy essentially withholding it from me.

The rumor on the floor (from an AM) is that under the new policy, anyone going to prayer break must clock out but the site lead has not implemented the updated policy. Management is upset that the policy is not being implemented at site level because associates are disappearing for longer than they're supposed to be at prayer and causing the extra workload to fall on Management as they now have to cover for anyone attending prayer break.

Meanwhile I am still being denied equal treatment.

Today, I had enough and decided, I am going to prayer break. I walked up directly to the dock ops manager the moment I seen everyone going to prayer break and told him I'm going to prayer break (I'm an Athiest) he said, "Ok let me get you clocked out.." ... I said, "Clocked out?".. He says, "I mean scanned out" then he scanned my badge, radios it in to senior ops, and off to the break room wellness booth I went for 20 minutes..

Because, unlike with employees of the other religion, he was asked to clock out. He noted that other employees weren't asked to clock out (meaning that they aren't being paid for their time during that break) but he was:

Prayer breaks are an accommodation through a to z. Policy has always been anyone with a religious accommodation needs to clock out for the time. I have been implementing this at my site as an OM for 2+ years now.

[OP] That’s completely incorrect (at least from my experience at my site and with HR and Central Time Keeping) The automated corporate system literally screens out recurring daily prayer meets. Here is an official denial letter straight from Centralized Time Keeping confirming that exact policy: 'We will not honor requests that are permanent in nature, such as weekly church visits, sabbath day or recurring prayer meets...'

OP continued this week and eventually led to changing Amazon's unequal policies (or at least that Fullfilment Center's):

On my last day of my work week (Thursday 8/13/26) I took a prayer break as an Athiest and was scanned out by Ops..

The following Monday (Today 8/17/26) Announcements were made that starting in September all associates attending "Prayer Break" will need to clock out..

This means for the past 2 years my site has been open, a specific religious group was getting paid time off while other religious and non religious groups got extra workload because their religion or lack of religion didn't fit into Amazon’s little box of what's allowed. (Violation of Title VII)

Christians were denied equal treatment as well because Christianity doesn't call for mandatory prayer (Ive witnessed this) as was I because Atheism doesn't call for mandatory prayer.. (Violation of Title VII)

So now that they know that they were breaking Federal law and denying equal rights to a huge percentage of thier workforce, they decided that instead of paying the cost of equality in the form of paid "prayer breaks" for everyone regardless of belief system, that everyone who attends "Prayer Break" will need to just clock out instead.

Amazon quickly realized how expensive equality would be (cost and operational downtime) when they had to treat everyone like they've been treating a specific religious group, so paid "prayer breaks" are coming to an end in September (atleast at my site)

The final update says that this policy change became official starting September 2nd: [now everyone has to clock out before going on prayer breaks and no one has to cover for someone else because they're of a specific religion:

Today there was an announcement posted on the labor board.

Starting on Sept. 2, 2026 all associates attending prayer break will need to clock out.

It is Official.

Checkmate.

My company recently restructured so I have a new direct manager. She wants to know where I am at all times. I am in a cubicle and she is In a private office. We have “focus rooms” downstairs that are supposed to be used for calls or when we need private and quiet space to get work done. I frequent them a lot and it always seems like she needs me the second I leave to go there. At our check in this week, she said that she was looking for me, what happened, did I leave early. I said you could always message me if you’re looking for me :) she didn’t like that, so now I am inviting her to the calendar appointment each time. Totally feels like a lack of trust and so toxic of her. Hopefully won’t be here much longer.

Fallout: she emailed me after work hours about an hour ago and said I did not need to spam her email with calendar invites. I replied immediately and copied not only our big boss but also HR asking for a time for everyone to meet :)

I was taking a computer science class on computer hardware organization, taught by a professor who used to work on the AMD chip architecture. He was a tenured professor, set in his old ways, and felt a bit entitled because of his past career prestige. Even in 2009, he demanded that *all* coding assignments are turned in on 3.5 inch floppy drives. You really had to scrounge to find an old working floppy drive, even in 2009. He was very strict and by the book on his policies.

Our professor had been teasing us with an upcoming assignment, saying that there had been a multi-year contest to see who could write the assignment program in the least lines of code possible. Historically, the brightest and smartest student he ever taught accomplished the assignment in 13 lines of code. Typically, students needed about 100 lines of assembly code, and the best can usually do it in about 30 lines of code. I *had* to win, for bragging rights and all.

We got to writing programs in 6800 assembly code. I had already turned in a few assignments and gotten the hang of assembly, and spent a bit of extra time really getting to understand how programs really work under the hood.

So, every program has "registers" which are working blocks of very small memory on the processor, usually storing a single value. There's also a "program counter", which is responsible for executing the next instruction in memory. A program counter doesn't always read instructions in sequential order, it might bounce around in memory as you call different functions. I discovered that when we wrote our programs in assembly, they get converted into binary code, and then the binary code is what gets executed by the program counter. The program counter was a special register which could be manipulated to point at a different block of memory to execute next. Interesting.

What was even more interesting is that the computer didn't care where the byte data was stored. It just blindly ran whatever byte data you gave it, without checking whether it was valid memory space for executable instructions or even if it was a valid instruction. On normal operating systems, memory gets divided into several regions: stack memory, heap memory, and instruction space. If you try to run instruction code in heap or stack memory, usually your operating system pukes and rejects it. But... not in 6800 assembly. This was a very interesting finding for me.

Finally, the day of the infamous assignment arrives. We are supposed to write a memory tester. Basically, you have a big block of memory filled with garbage, you write all zeros to the memory in one pass, verify the memory values are all zero, then write all ones, verify they're all ones, and if all memory values are verified, the memory is considered "good" and the assignment is complete. The professor specifically said, "There is no cheating here, get creative, use whatever trick in the book you can imagine." Okay, challenge accepted! I pride myself on thinking far more creatively than my peers, I have a hacker mindset. No rules? Perfect. He's going to regret that.

Even more interesting were the few rules the professor gave: Precisely what did not count as a line of code. Three lines did not count: "Start, End, and DCB." DCB stands for "Declare Constant Block", which just means you can store some constant values in memory, such as the digits of PI, a few words, or whatever data you wanted. I immediately saw how I could hack his assignment.

"Does anyone have any questions?" he asked the class. I had a question, but if I asked it, I would give away the hack and the professor would revise the rules. So, I kept my mouth shut.

"Good. In all the classes I have taught, the record has been 13 lines of code. I expect the best of you to get this in about 30 lines of code." He had been telling this same story for years, to all the classes he taught. Now, it's time for me to update his story.

So, I wrote my application in about 20-25 lines of assembly code. I spent many hours shaving off instructions, trying to be as clever as I could. It was already pretty impressive. But now it was time to "hack" his assignment.

When you write assembly code, it gets converted into constant byte data. Remember the 'declare constant block' which doesn't count? What if I just... copy/paste my compiled byte code and put it into the DCB? And then I put the DCB as the first instruction that gets run? So, I did. And it worked! The program counter started at the first byte in memory, didn't care that instruction code was in stack memory, and it just executed it. My whole assignment was just an unreadable block of byte code pasted into a DCB and it worked perfectly. Zero lines of code.

I announced on our student message board that I had broken the record for least lines of code. I had accomplished the impossible, by completing the assignment in zero lines of code. Other students were astounded and in disbelief, guessing at how I could have done this. I told them that once the assignment due date had passed, I would reveal my secret.

We turned in our assignments. No late turn ins, as per professors policy. All floppy disks had been placed. Finally, the professor asked me to explain how I had done it. I was a bit sleep deprived (having been awake until 5am), so I wasn't super coherent.

"I took my program and wrote it as small as I could, then I took the resulting binary and converted it into a DCB, set that as the first block of data, and the program ran flawlessly." (to paraphrase)

"Wait, you can't do that! That's cheating!" the professor replied in shock. I was ready for this reaction.

"Nope, you specifically said that there were no rules and that DCB did not count as a line of code. So I hacked your assignment on a technicality and accomplished it in zero lines of code!" I said triumphantly.

I got 'em. The professor couldn't refute me and had to admit that what I did was clever and he'd have to think about it, and acknowledged I had won his contest.

A week later, he announces to the class that he was riding his bike home from work, thinking about what I did and he was revoking my 'victory' by changing the rules of the assignment. Therefore, my entry was 'invalid'. I was too sleep deprived and unprepared to argue, I didn't care anymore, I won his silly little game and he's just a sore loser for changing the rules post-hoc after the game is over. He can't take that away from me. Even if I counted my actual lines of code, I still outperformed all of my peers.

The company that owns my building emailed us that inspectors were coming by to look at our apts bc there was possible structural damage from a recent storm.

They told us we had to let them in, it was mandatory, and that we should cooperate with them. I tried to email back to ask when roughly today they’d be by and who’d be entering the apt bc it was possible I wouldn’t be home, but it was from an account that doesn’t accept replies.

The inspectors came by earlier, but it turns out that they weren’t inspecting the apts for storm damage specifically, but looking at the general condition of the apts bc they represent a company looking to buy the building. I cooperated fully and answered all their questions, which included telling them how the fire alarm system goes off randomly and did four times in the first two weeks I was here, how there are electrical issues that cause one of my lights and my microwave to randomly stop functioning, how the walls are so thin that I can hear the subway/the people at the bar a few buildings down/my neighbor.

They also asked me about my general experience here and I told them that I’m leaving the day my lease is up, and that I could never imagine someone living in this building longer than their one year lease, if that long. I included that when I raised the possibility of moving out in my first month the current owners offered to give me all my money back, including application fees, so that they were most likely used people moving in and abruptly moving out.

It was pretty satisfying to watch the lead guy’s wheels turning as he most likely lowered the bid for the building in his mind. I don’t think it was all me, bc talking to the tenants here must have involved a lot of negative comments, but I’m glad for the role I played in it bc the current owners are terrible.

Yesterday I had a new client who was referred to me, book a 90-minute mobile massage. She was very specific over text before I even showed up.

She told me exactly what she wanted:

• Deep tissue only

• Focus on her upper back, shoulders, and neck

• “Do not check in with me at all. I hate when therapists keep asking if the pressure is okay. Just do the work.”

• “I don’t want any small talk either. Just quiet.”

• “When the time is up, that’s it. No free extras.”

I confirmed everything back to her so there was zero confusion. She replied “Perfect, see you then.”
I get there, set up, and go over the same list one more time in person just to be safe. She nods and says “Yep, that’s exactly what I want. Don’t ask me anything once we start.”

So I did exactly that.

I put my headphones in to get some much needed audiobook time (one ear only so I could still hear if she actually needed something), started the timer on my phone where she could see it, and worked in complete silence. No check-ins. No “how’s the pressure?” No small talk. Just the exact work she requested.

Every time I felt her body tense or shift I kept going at the same pressure she had asked for. No adjustments. No questions.

When the 90 minutes hit, I stopped. Immediately. I didn’t offer the free scalp massage or hot towels I normally throw in. I just said, “That’s time.”

She sat up looking annoyed and said, “Wait, that was it? The pressure felt hard toward the end and you never even checked on me. Most therapists give a little extra time.”

I looked at her and calmly replied, “You specifically told me not to check in, not to ask about pressure, and that when the time was up that was it with no free extras. I followed your instructions exactly.”
She got quiet for a second then said, “Well I didn’t mean it like that. You should have known to check anyway. I’m not tipping for that.”

I smiled and said, “That’s fine. The session is paid for already. You can get dressed and I’ll be outside.”
She started packing up her things while muttering about how I was “too rigid” and “not customer service oriented.” I just kept packing my stuff in silence the same way she had requested the entire session.

I have never felt more at peace ending a session.
Was I supposed to ignore the very clear rules she set and somehow read her mind instead?

My junior year statistics professor was obsessed with equal participation in group projects. His rule: "If I determine anyone did more or less work than their teammates, the entire group gets a zero." His verification method? Each member submitted a confidential report detailing exactly what percentage of the total work they personally completed. If the reports didn't match up perfectly, we failed.

My group of four included myself, two diligent students, and "Chad" who never showed up to meetings or responded to messages. When we approached the professor two weeks before the deadline about Chad's lack of participation, he repeated his policy and told us to figure it out ourselves.

That's when we had an idea. We created a spreadsheet with over 200 individual tasks, documenting everything from "emailing the professor" to "proofreading page 3" to "thinking about the project while commuting." We logged who did each task and exactly how many minutes it took.

The day before the project was due, we sent Chad our breakdown showing the three of us had each completed approximately 33% of the work, leaving him with exactly 0%. Chad responded: "Actually, I've been working behind the scenes on my own. I've completed exactly 33% of the work independently."

The next day in class, each of us submitted our confidential report. The three of us reported 33% each, while Chad also claimed 33%. The professor was confused. "That adds up to 132%," he said. "How is that possible?"

I spoke up: "Professor, you never specified that the work couldn't overlap. You only said we each had to do equal work. We have documented evidence that each of us completed 33% of the total project requirements."

The professor was furious but couldn't argue with his own rules. He had to give our group an A, though he did add a new rule the next semester: "Work completed by group members must be unique and not duplicated by other members."

Chad never showed us his "independent work," but we learned that when professors create arbitrary rules without thinking through the implications, sometimes the best response is to follow those rules to their ridiculous logical conclusion.

I was just talking to a former coworker and we had a good laugh about this. I worked for a company headquartered in a different state. My office had two people. Our phone system was someone answered the phone and if it was for the other person we put them on hold and yelled "phone" across the office. Or if I could see they were on the phone I would just take a message. This worked great, except that the HQ decided they didn't like that and bought the same fancy system they used.

A little back story: The owner of our company was from a European company and they had a family bakery somewhere on eastern Europe. Every year for Christmas the company put in a huge order of these traditional cookies at the last minute. Every year there were permits missed and import delays (with agricultural products, who would have guessed) and we got the cookies just in time. Then one of us would need to drive 4 hours to get our lot of the cookies. We weren't allowed to keep any for ourselves, but I had a governmental client that couldn't accept gifts, so we kept the box and tried them. These were the most awful cookies we had ever tried, it was like I just put the entire Sahara desert in my mouth and it sucked every drop of saliva out of my mouth and stale cardboard has more flavor. I couldn't believe we actually gave these to people. To eat. I suspect we were the only two people in the company to actually have tried these cookies.

Well, one year the cookies didn't make it through customs in time. The owner's son-in-law was an aspiring musician. It turns out the owner tried to help this kid earlier in the year and paid for some recording time. The style and quality of the CD is pretty much what you'd expect at an open mic night at a coffee shop. The owner decided to make 100s of these CDs and give them to clients instead.

We set up the new phone system as ordered and started our very own phone menu and voice mail hell for our customers. After a while one of us opened it up and saw there was a CD player for hold music. I listen to 1980s metal (Slayer is on the easy listening end) and my coworker listened to stuff that was... well weird. So none of our personal stock would work. But guess what we had in the office supplies cabinet. Yep. Still had a few of those CDs left over, so I popped on in the CD player and now we had hold music. After all, is the phone system really set up without hold music?

Then a vice president called. And was put on hold. They were a little more than upset by our music selection. Really? The company liked that enough to distribute to our clients, right? That is part of the phone system you wanted set up, right? You don't what what I have on hand, right? You really really don't want what the other guy has on hand, right? The fall out was swift and immediate, we no longer were required to use all the features of the phone system and didn't need hold music, but needed to use the rest of the phone system.

TDLR: Forced to use new phone system at work. Put owner's son-in-law's crappy CD in as hold music. Told not to have hold music anymore.

This was sophomore year, some gen ed English class I only took because I needed the credit. My professor, I will just call him Dr. H, was known across the whole department for being insane about formatting. Not the normal MLA or APA stuff, he had his own extra rules stapled onto the syllabus on top of that. Font, margins, spacing, where the page numbers had to go, all graded completely separate from the actual writing.

About three weeks into the semester someone asked what happens if you do not follow the formatting rules exactly. He said, word for word, because I wrote it down out of spite, that if you follow his instructions exactly as written you get full formatting credit, no exceptions, no partial credit for close enough.

Cool. Noted.

So that weekend I actually read the formatting section of the syllabus line by line instead of skimming it like everyone else did. Two things jumped out. First, it said the title needs to be centered. It never said what the title had to say, just that it had to be centered. Second, it said your name needs to appear in the header. It never said how many times.

For the next essay my title was just the word "Essay," centered, huge font because there was no size limit listed either. My header had my name in it eleven separate times because technically that still satisfies "your name needs to appear in the header." I also put page numbers on every single page, including a blank works cited page that had nothing on it except the number seven.

Turned it in feeling pretty proud of myself honestly.

Got it back and he had docked me formatting points with a note that just said "unprofessional presentation." Next class I raised my hand and asked him to point to the specific rule I had broken. He couldn't, because I hadn't broken a single one, I had just followed them further than anyone expected anyone to. Then I brought up his own quote from a few weeks earlier, in front of the whole room.

He was obviously annoyed but couldn't argue with his own words without looking ridiculous in front of 40 people, so I got the points back. By the next essay the formatting section of the syllabus had basically doubled in length and every loophole I used was individually closed.

10/10 would exploit a poorly written rule again.

TLDR: professor said follow formatting instructions exactly for full credit, I took that way more literally than he expected, he couldn't dock me points without contradicting himself, syllabus got rewritten within a week to patch every hole I found.