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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Great_Palpatine on 2025-05-31 10:23:57+00:00.

This is probably the most controversial MC, in that on hindsight it’s possible that my boss knew exactly what she was doing. Nevertheless, it is malicious and it is compliance, so here’s another story from retail to all of you.

(I’m on a roll–see the other two here and here.)

A bit of context so you don’t have to click on the links. I work in a specialised profession, in which I’m not authorised to do quite a number of technical things.

My boss now has quite an interesting character. Usually, she is a very nice person, but she has some interesting qualities / quirks, for which the rationale only becomes apparent when you work in retail long enough.

An example is that she doesn’t like having too many people in the store, because it opens us up to shoplifting (it’s bad where we are at).

Anyway, the context, as always. When our store gets busy, I try to help our customers as much as I can, leaving my boss the cases that are harder to deal with. The rest of the customers whose problems I can solve? They can go about their daily lives.

One day, there are just too many customers in the store and I can sense my boss becoming a little antsy, as she tends to do when this happens.

“Palpatine,” she says with some irritation, “if you see that I’m busy or not available, and you know that we don’t have the product in the store, can you help our customers by referring them to the surrounding stores? They might have the product instead.”

Sure. Here comes the MC.

See, what you need to know about my particular profession is our products are all regulated differently. There are three broad groups of products. One, the lowest tier (Tier A), is almost completely unregulated, these can be bought nearly everywhere. Second, the mid tier (Tier B), can only be supplied by my boss. And third, the highest tier (Tier C), you need to get it in writing before my boss can supply it to you.

If a customer comes in wanting a Tier C product, we cannot change the order, because it’s a legal requirement. But, if we don’t stock a product in Tier A or Tier B, we can recommend alternatives.

But sure, if we don’t have the product in the store, I will refer them to the surrounding stores.

Normally, what we do is to take time and try to convince customers seeking Tier A or B products to switch to something else that we do stock. But since we don’t have the exact product in store, I guess I will just refer them to the other store (which belongs to our competitor) that is literally just a short escalator ride away.

It took all of five minutes for me to clear out the customers from the store. My boss was very impressed with me and I even got a “good job” from her. Though of course our sales for that day could’ve been much higher, and we missed our target sales for the month (again).

Addendum: Sometimes, I feel like my boss knows exactly what she’s doing, and she probably meant for things to go down as they did. She’s not out for the sales–that’s what her bosses would like. She probably was acting her wage.