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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/fmintar1 on 2024-07-21 23:22:30+00:00.

I (34M) had always been doing multimedia for my church for years and years, so displaying lyrics and creating powerpoint slides are second nature to me. I was scheduled to take care of the multimedia this morning, so as usual, I came & created what’s needed. I set up all of the lyrics, bible verses, and the slides that was sent from the speaker before I went to the restroom. When I’m back, I saw the guy who usually plays the bass (Nate) but he wasn’t on schedule today. He was having a conversation with another person behind the multimedia station. I went back to my station and started pre-displaying everything on the screen to make sure that I can read everything, so that’s what I did before I noticed that Nate is looking at my station.

5 minutes before we start, Nate suddenly asked what I prepared. I showed him everything, the lyrics, the bible verses, the slides, just to satisfy his curiosity. Side note: I don’t really like Nate for several reasons. He believes in a lot of conspiracies people shared on social media & when someone questioned him, he argued nonstop. Most of us just try to avoid starting a conversation with him entirely, including me. Also, whenever he’s schedule to play bass, he tuned his amp’s volume quite high, higher than the other musical instruments that I can feel the vibration every time he plucks his bass & the multimedia station is at the very back of the room. He’s just super obnoxious.

Apparently, his obnoxiousness is at a high rate today, because as soon as he saw the slides I prepared, he said that the font size is too small. He didn’t say “It might be too small”, no, he said “It’s too small”. I told him that it’s fine, it’s the regular font size we all use week after week, but he wouldn’t drop it. By this time, the service started, but for some reason, he didn’t go to find an empty seat in the audience. Rather, he sat on a stool behind my station, while repeatedly telling me that the font is too small. By this point, I was listening to his font mantra behind me while displaying the lyrics for the singers.

After a couple minutes, I asked him if he’s planning to sit with the audience & I kid you not, this is his response. “OP, your font is too small, you need to increase it”. I can’t believe it, he’s so fixated on my slides font size that he refused to leave me alone until I fulfill his wishes. By this point, even the pastor’s wife asked him to please have a seat in the audience, in which he told her that it’s better for him to sit there because if he sat in the audience, he wouldn’t be able to see anything.

I had enough. Malicious compliance initiated.

While still controlling the displayed lyrics, I also edited the slides while he watched, so I’m multitasking. Mind you, the service has already begun, so I can’t actually display the slides just to make sure. I increased the font so big that the slides look ridiculous. Before, there were only 10 slides & one slide could contain 6-7 lines of 2-3 bible verses with a translation section below it. Now, there are about 40 slides with 15+ lines that contains only 6 words in each, I can barely fit the translation part & each slides could contain only 1 verse. It looked totally atrocious. After witnessing his destruction, he patted me on my back, gave me a thumb up, and went to find an empty seat. I looked at the pastor’s wife & even she shook her head.

During the sermon, it was extremely awkward. The speaker was having a difficult time reading from the screen because he kept on pausing after each line. I also have to switch the slides quicker than before because each only consisted of one verse, which interrupted the speaker’s pace. After 10 minutes, the speaker gave up, and just read from his own bible, which most audiences follow suit. I witnessed many audiences pulled up their bible app from their phone and just read from there, even Nate. I texted Nate “Why are you reading from your phone. I thought you wanted the font bigger so you can read from the screen” and in response, he turned and glared at me silently.

After the service was finished, the speaker approached me & asked if everything is okay, because the slides didn’t look like what I usually made. The pastor’s wife approached us, was very apologetic, and explained everything, then we looked for Nate, in which we couldn’t find him in the crowd. I guess he was too embarrassed to admit his monstrosity.