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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/GiveMeYuna on 2024-03-01 14:55:11.
Back during the 90s in the UK, when you’re in your final years of Secondary Education, or you could call it “your GCSE years” the the schools did something called “Work Place Experience”.
This was basically where you find a job where you spend 2 weeks experiencing work after you leave school. Even then, I found it pointless for many reasons.
In my case, I couldn’t find a job that would accept me so the school went looking and found one for me. To make note, I wasn’t the only one the school had to help on this.
Well, the school found me a placement at in the office at a dedicated mechanics education school. Basically, it was a mechanics shop like any other, but where the mechanics working on your car/van are students training for their mechanics qualifications.
While I was there, I wasn’t allowed to do much. Like they didn’t want me there at all, so I was given menial tasks. Deliver documents to offices next door. Fetch coffee. Use the Franking machine. And other stuff.
It was like they just volunteered me to do stuff they didn’t want me to do. However, when it came down to it, it was mostly simple, easy jobs. Apart from fetching coffee from the staff kitchen.
They had this little room which was called the “Mail Room”. It wasn’t big. I could stand in the middle of the room and touch all four walls.
There was a desk attached to the wall and a shelf above it with a bunch of mailing bags. The usual stuff you’d find in a mail room of an office.
In this case, there was Franking Machine in the middle of the desk with two baskets to one-side used for placing mail ready for franking. One for 1st Class postage and the other for 2nd class.
For those not in the know as to what a Franking Machine is, you’d have better luck looking them up, but I’ll give you the footnote. When you get mail and you see in the top right printed markings instead of a postage stamp, that is where the franking machine comes in. Businesses can go to Royal Mail and bulk buy postage or whatever. I’m not exactly sure how it works.
The Franking Machines print those postage details onto the envelopes instead of a person going through the hassle of removing postage stamps from the stamp books and making sure to stick it in the correct place on the envelope. With the machine, the job is done quickly.
So down to the malicious compliance.
As you have figured out, this compliance was with the Franking Machine.
I was taught how to use the machine. It was already preprogrammed with what to print. All I had to do was select whether to print 1st or 2nd class postage.
Then I would slot an envelope into one side like I was swiping a bank card to pay for groceries. After the envelope enters the machine by a certain amount, the machine activates and pulls the envelope through.
I soon found out that this machine had a temper. Sometimes it would take its time pulling the envelopes through, other times it’d yank the envelope out of your hand and shoot it against the wall. Surprisingly, with an intact properly printed frank mark.
One day, I was told “Go do the mail” and so I did.
I slotted an envelope into the machine and it did its usual. However, with one new result.
It had sliced open the envelope. As in you can remove the letters etc. from inside the envelope like someone had just opened their mail with one of those letter opener knives.
I grabbed the envelope and went to my boss.
The following conversation isn’t exact, but you get the idea.
Boss - “What do want? Surely you haven’t finished with the mail already.”
Me - “No. I’ve barely started.”
Boss - “Then go and finish it.”
Me - “I can’t. There’s a problem with the Franking Machine.”
Boss - “There’s always a problem with it. Just go back and finish posting the mail.”
Me - “But it’s slicing the envelopes open.” I tried to show her the sliced envelope.
Boss - Ignoring the envelope she said, “Just frank the mail will you. Or is that too difficult of a job for someone learning how businesses work?”
Me - “OK, but it’s not my fault if something bad happens.”
I turned and returned to the mail room. Along the way I grabbed some paper and wrote on it that I apologise for the damaged envelopes, that the machine was slicing them open and that my boss refused to listen to me about it.
Then I proceeded to put envelope after envelope through the machine. Every one came out sliced open. I must have done a couple hundred of them for 1st class alone.
Once done, I didn’t put them in mail bags. I just neatly piled them at the side of the machine with the letter on top.
About half an hour before the end of my shift, someone came into the office carrying several of the envelopes and my letter.
I quickly found out that he was the boss of the business. As in the highest position.
He’d apparently stepped into the mail room with a few of his own letters for franking and found the pile.
After arguing with my boss, and me being blamed for it like I was snooping into every envelope to see what I could find.
So I volunteered to show what was happening.
My boss and her boss grudgingly accepted my offer so I grabbed a sheet of plain paper from the nearest fax machine and a fresh envelope.
Putting the paper in the envelope I asked Big Boss to seal it as confirmation that’s it’s sealed.
I then led them both to the mail room. At arms length so they can both watch me, I gently slotted it into the machine until the machine took over.
Sure enough, the machine coughed out a freshly sliced envelope.
Then my boss tried telling me off for not telling her only for me to say that I tried but she refused to listen. I only did what I was told.
I was let off in the end.
The next day, the machine was unplugged so nothing was getting posted.
The day after that, there was a couple of piles of postage stamp books which of course I had to stick on the envelopes.
When I returned for my second week there, I was shown how to use a brand new machine.
This new machine was a dream. Just imagine you had spent 10 years driving the same car until it was falling apart and then you finally upgraded to a new car that is so new, the mileage on it was still double digits.
Until I left that place, I was still given menial tasks, but my boss never ignored me again.
A few years after leaving school, that business closed up shop. The building then got taken over by a big brand tyre company that also did MOTs, alignments etc.