Some managers can be a real pain, and this is the story of one such manager.

Imagine being given instructions on how to do something at work, but you find a much quicker way to accomplish the same task. Would you except your manager to be happy about how much time you’re saving, or would your manager want you to go back to doing things the way you were told to do them?

This guy shares how his annoying manager made his work routine tougher than it was supposed to be.

Here’s how he made the department pay for the manager’s mistake!

Bank Department Manager Wants Me to Work Harder Not Smarter

Circa 2010, I was working an afternoons gig at a local bank in part to complete an internship class for my coursework.

The job entailed running batches of checks through a massive check scanner, manually “running a tape” (using an old calculator called a 10 key with a printing function to make sure the checks matched the deposits) and then hopping over to a computer to correct any errors on the teller or customers part when the deposits were made.

This is where it gets interesting…

After the bank closed (3pm), I was also the one who would stay and print out customer statements and run a long list of processes on multiple machines to update everyone’s accounts with the days transactions, upload the information to the website, backup and runs tapes on all of the bank’s data, and sort and file through end of day reports for the different department managers to review the next morning.

I would then lock up the bank and go home.

In hindsight, quite a bit of responsibility for a college student, but it was a home town bank.

Now, my manager was a classic Karen before the term existed.

He knew what the manager was like…

She managed through fear, tried to cover it with small talk and banter and didn’t like anyone to shine except herself in the department.

My two co workers (full time bank employees) would always discuss how terrible it was to work for her full-time.

Anyway, I was raised to be respectful and work my hardest, which to me meant trying to be as quick at my job as possible, thus saving the company time and money.

The closing duties I described took anywhere from 1.5 to 4 hours to complete, depending on which batch of statements were printing and how often the crappy printers jammed.

He knew his way around the job…

After about a month of doing this everyday, I realized much of this time was due to the checklist I had been trained with: it was doing one task at a time when actually, more than one process could be done at once, many times way out of order of the list, but you had to understand everything’s part to really see this.

I set about making these efficiencies, and brought my time down to 0.5 to 2.5 hours after 2 months. I thought this would make my manager happy, but nothing was said about me getting out of there faster, and so I just kept on doing my job as best I could.

Fast forward 2 more months, and this bank is updating it’s servers to allow for real time banking (previously, unless I updated the website each night, balances and transactions wouldn’t show up).

UH OH…

They brought in 2 large server cases into the office I worked in, but it took another 3-4 weeks for the actual hardware to come in.

Since the old servers were still installed, they set the empty towers right in the middle of our office.

Now, our office was a very long room, the statement printers on one side, and all the computers I had to work on each night at the other.

Remember I said the printers jammed a lot?

He knew how to navigate through this trouble.

Well, with all the computers and servers on my end of the office, I never could hear the beep telling me they had jammed, but I could see the red error light.

This had historically been my little check.

Every few minutes I’d turn around to make sure the printers hadn’t jammed. I made sure I did this because every minute they weren’t printing was another minute I’d be working (the statements took longer to print than the rest of my duties combined).

However, the way they placed the empty server towers blocked my view, forcing me to have to get up and walk halfway to the printers each time to make sure they were jammed.

So, I simply turned them 90 degrees.

He kept going…

Since the front and backs were full of air ventilation holes, this allowed me to maintain my line of sight, saving me (and the bank) time.

Once again, I thought great idea, no one is using these yet, and when they do, they won’t be in that location anymore, anyway.

In hindsight, I should have known better.

I came in around 2pm after classes the next day and notice the towers were turned back. I thought that was odd, why would anyone turn them back?

I asked my coworker and she told me the manager was mad I had touched them without asking (which, as I’ve learned later in life was fair enough, but still an overreaction).

She was so ANNOYING!

I asked had they being turned messed up some workflow I wasn’t thinking of?

But no, she hadn’t even noticed them until about 11am, when another employee mentioned they had been turned, so her reaction was pure malice for not having been asked.

When she saw I had come in, she pulled me aside and asked aggressively why I had touched them.

So, thinking this was my chance to highlight my efficiencies, told her all I had done in an effort to make the closing routine more efficient.

That was evidently the wrong answer.

I was instructed to do the checklist EXACTLY how it was laid out with no changes whatsoever because that’s how it’s supposed to be (even though I had been doing it my quicker way for 2 months already with no downsides).

He knew he had to do something about it…

With regard to the printer, she told me to stop being lazy and just get up and walk to it to check on it.

Cue malicious compliance.

I stopped caring about speed, followed the checklist to a T, and, unless I had somewhere to be, didn’t worry about checking on the printer very often.

If it was still printing after my closing checklist was done, I could always read or do homework at my desk. Wouldn’t want to be efficient with the bank’s payroll, after all.

Suffice to say, it went back to taking 1.5 to 4 hours per night, and costing the bank much more money in my checks (good for me, I guess!).

He got out of it!

Shortly after, I found a job working in an electronics department at a superstore, and switched over with 2 weeks notice.

There wasn’t time to train a new person so that manager had to take over the night routine until a new one could be found.

During my last day, I took it upon myself to try and give her some constructive criticism in how her management style affected me and stopped me from caring about my job.

I’m not sure if it was effective, but at least I got it off my chest.

The cherry on top!

I ran into one of my former coworkers at the store a few months later and evidently someone else had out and out told my former manager she was a vile and mean person and she was probably going to hell for how she treated people.

Part of her Karen persona was being very religious, and this seemed to have scared her into at least some meekness, at least according to my former coworker.

GEEZ! That was some malicious compliance!

Why couldn’t the manager just appreciate this employee’s hard work?

Let’s find out what folks on Reddit think about this one.

This user knows that people often abuse their authority.

This user knew how to answer an interview question.

This user thinks it is crazy how this story is so old.

This user knows how to navigate through such situations.

This user knows what they would have done.

It’s frustrating when being efficient isn’t appreciated.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.