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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/blueboy714 on 2025-10-10 14:40:00+00:00.


Before I retired I was manager and programmer in a department located in the US. I would program, manage, assign projects, create timelines, answer questions that my staff had, etc.

The company I worked for decided to consolidate the US and UK programming departments and the new boss decided have only managers in the UK oversee the programmers in the US. This meant that I was only supposed to keep programming (I had the most experience among all the US/UK programmers) and no longer needed to do the management side of things (but I still got the same pay I used to).

Due to a 6 hour time difference between the US and UK that meant that there were only 2 or 3 hours each day that we overlapped. This left the rest of the day for my old staff to either wait until the next day to ask their new boss or come to me and I could answer immediately.

The latter made more sense so they could keep working - but eventually the UK managers complained to US/UK boss that the US staff wasn’t coming to them to help and were still coming to me - which the UK managers were having a conniption about.

My boss told me to stop helping my old staff when they asked me questions and that they needed to ask their new manager. So it was time for malicious compliance…

I went back to only programming and when my old staff came and asked me questions (usually in the afternoons US time since the UK was done for the day). I told them I was told to no longer help them and they should ask their new UK manager the next day or send their UK boss an email with their question. I told them it was time for malicious compliance - since the US programmers knew exactly what would happen.

So my old team started deluging their UK bosses with questions, problems, etc. and then had to wait until the next day or 2 to get answer. Within 2 weeks the US team was missing deadlines, etc. and the UK managers had to answer for why their team was missing deadlines. After a couple more weeks my boss and the UK managers came to the realization that due to the 6 hour time different there should be manager in the US (which is exactly what I told them weeks ago).

Finally my boss asked me if would like to be a manager again and I told her I was happy just programming and didn’t need the other work. They ended up giving me a raise in order to get me go back to managing the US programmers.