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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/detailsubset on 2025-05-07 19:47:33+00:00.

TLDR: manager sent me to a place with no work, did no work, manager angry and making threats that go nowhere.

I used to work for a Pharmaceutical compounding company. Pharmaceutical compounding factories are made up of several rooms of varing cleanliness, graded D–A (D being the least “clean”). These rooms are thoroughly cleaned each day but require special “deep” cleans at least once a month.

I was scheduled to work in the de-box room (grade D), where I would take drugs, diluents and devices out of their boxes, record the relevant numbers from each individual item before cleaning with 70% alcohol and sending through an airlock hatch into the grade C room.

However this day, the grade C room attached to de-box was being deep cleaned and couldn’t be used until the next day, meaning there was literally nothing to de-box. I asked my manager where they wanted me to work, the conversation went as follows:

“Hi Lisa, since there’s nothing in de-box should I go and help with the deep clean or go to unit a/b? (a different set of clean rooms)”

“What does it say on the schedule?”

“It says de-box but there’s nothing in there and I don’t want to spend hours standing around.”

“If it says de-box then go to de-box.”

“Lisa, there’s a deep clean happening, there’s literally nothing to do in de-box.”

“There’s plenty to do in there so go and do it, I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with you, just do as you’re told!”

So I went into de-box, the contents of the room were an empty bin, a bottle of 70% alcohol, some wipes and myself. So I cleaned the room with the alcohol, (it’s a small room, it took 15 minutes) then stood still for two hours. Over the intercom, the people doing the deep clean asked what I was doing. I relayed to them the conversation I had with the manager, got a laugh and an “honestly, not surprising, Lisa’s a bitch”. I then proceeded to stand still for another hour.

After being standing stationary for three hours, Lisa barged into the room and hissed:

“What on earth do you think you’re doing!?You’ve done nothing but stare at the wall for three hours! What makes you think you can get away with doing nothing when everybody else is working so hard?!!”

“I’m doing what you asked me to Lisa, you tol…”

“THIS IS NOT WHAT I ASKED YOU TO DO, I TOLD YOU TO COME IN HERE AND DO YOUR WORK!”

“And I told you there was no work in here to do and asked to go somewhere where there was work”

“THERE WAS WORK TO DO IN HERE WHEN I SENT YOU HERE!”

“No there wasn’t, I wouldn’t have asked for something to do if there was”

“GET OUT AND GO TO UNIT A. IF YOU EVER REPEAT THIS STUNT I WILL INVESTIGATE YOU FOR GROSS MISCONDUCT!”

“If doing what you asked is gross misconduct you should probably investigate this particular incidence.”

At this point I walked past her and went and did my job in the other units. Later I was chatting to the supervisor who had been sat with her on the monitoring station. They told me that she had watched me on the camera for the entire three hours getting progressively more and more wound up. There never ended up being an investigation and that manager entirely stopped talking to me until she tried (and failed) to fire me for totally different reasons.

If there’s any spelling or grammatical errors it’s because the post got long and I couldn’t be bothered to proof read it.