It’s always the new guy.
It always has to be that one new ‘specialist’ who comes around and starts doing things differently or making changes or just being plain arrogant. Well, play stupid games—win stupid prizes, as folks say.
Speaking of stupid prizes, this one shipping representative won one big-time after telling off one of the company’s key logistics partners whose absence would stir up quite a bit of trouble. Like crippling supply chains sort of trouble.
More Info: Reddit
It's always the new guy. Why do they insist on ruining a perfectly good thing that lasted for 50 years, only to be served humble pie in the end?
Image credits: Rachel Haller (not the actual photo)
So, OP, Reddit user u/Wildcatb, shared a story of malicious compliance not too long ago, and has recently provided a bit of an update on the whole matter.
The story goes that OP’s family runs a trucking company. They specialize in last-mile delivery—specifically, they haul something that’s too big for a UPS truck, but impractical for a semi trailer. And things seemed to be going well for them as they had a decent stream of income and had developed great relationships with the people they work with.
…with one exception. You see, they had this one long-time shipper who had been gradually growing ever so demanding of them. How long is long-time, you ask? Over 50 years. The company had been working with the shipper for such a long time, none of their current employees or management staff had been there that long.
And it took some malicious compliance, i.e. quitting, to teach said new guy a lesson, especially when that lesson meant a logistical nightmare
Image credits: Wildcatb
And as you might have guessed, this also meant that OP’s family business was a key part in their network, with the shipper not even fully realizing just how many problems they had been solving on the daily for decades. And OP knew what they were doing by that point, so there was no reason for anyone to get in their way.
But someone found one. The latest field representative from the shipper—“a genuinely unpleasant person”—made OP’s life hard. And this was besides the company itself becoming increasingly more demanding with bureaucracy, navigation, inventory tracking and many other aspects turning into a relentless pain.
The story goes that OP is a part of a family trucking company, and worked with several companies in the area delivering goods
Image credits: Wildcatb
Image credits: Stan Wiechers (not the actual photo)
So, to top it all off, one day this arrogant rep called OP about a wrongly worded email. While there were attempts at defusing the situation, it was all in vain and OP simply did not want to work with Mr. Buzzkillington over here. And so when the rep said “If you aren’t happy with the way things are going, maybe you should just quit,” OP just could not pass up this opportunity at this point.
But the oldest company in their books had a new rep come in—one who was just the worst when it comes to human interaction
Image credits: Wildcatb
Image credits: Kate Haskell (not the actual photo)
After doing some calculations to make sure this wouldn’t be a self-harming decision, OP deduced that it was safe to take the rep up on his suggestion to quit—they had enough business to thrive on—and after a short and polite letter, OP's company and their logistics were out of the picture. Bye!
And the shipper… well… they did nothing about it. At least, nothing in those 60 days that OP gave as a notice. And when the 60 days had passed, things started lagging behind. Quite badly. Like, waiting for weeks bad.
One particular conversation spiraled out of control and the author of the post was told to quit. And they took the new guy up on his offer
Image credits: Wildcatb
Two months later, OP followed up with an update. For the first month following the end, OP’s office kept on getting calls on the daily. Many of the regular clientele kept on asking where their orders were, only to be told that OP does not work with the shipper anymore, and hence can’t help. And some of the calls were desperate.
To the best of OP’s knowledge, at the time of this article, the company was still struggling as of a few days ago. Struggling to keep up, and even more so to catch up. On the upside, though, the arrogant rep was served humble pie as he was “not in a position to be able to treat people like that anymore.” No specifics as to what that means, but probably not good.
Quitting equated to the shipper losing key logistics that made clients wait for weeks for their orders, and even that was not a guarantee
Image credits: Wildcatb
And, as it turned out, many other partners were also backing out of work with the shipper. OP has estimated that around 15% of providers bolted. And this means there will be a lot of unhappy customers awaiting their orders.
One of the shipper’s biggest customers in OP’s area tried to initiate a sit-down. OP didn’t mind the idea, as long as the shipper would come to them. They never did. One of the shipper’s reps wanted to, but the higher-ups seemed to have moved on, and OP was fine with that.
The author of the post also provided a long-awaited update of the fallout, which included the fact that the shipper had lost around 15% of its logistics
Image credits: Wildcatb
Image credits: spDuchamp (not the actual photo)
But there’s an interesting positive to be taken from this. Having worked so hard to keep up with the shipper’s ever growing demands, among many other things, OP was able to take more time off for Thanksgiving this year—for the first time in “probably fifteen years.” It was weird (in a good way) for his wife to see him celebrate together with them, and the best Thanksgiving OP had in a very, very long time.
Image credits: Wildcatb
And the post ended on that note—that this should have been done a long time ago. OP still sees many of his old customers, and now actually has time to chat for more than a few moments—enough time to foster meaningful relationships with them. “This is good,” concluded OP.
The r/MaliciousCompliance community was thrilled with this post. Not only because of OP’s rhetoric and linguistic approach to narrative, but also because it’s these types of situations that require a person with a cape to show entitled new know-it-all reps what’s what.
Some shared similar stories, while others pointed out how OP could’ve maybe possibly been a bit more malicious with his compliance by redirecting every single former client to that one particular field rep.
And besides the new guy getting what was coming to him, OP pointed out an upside to this—finally having the time and space to live life
Image credits: Wildcatb
Whatever the case, the post got over 16,400 upvotes (with a 97% positivity rating) as well as a good handful of Reddit awards for a maliciously compliant job well done. You can check out the post in context here.
But, now is not the time to leave, but time to comment on this story in the form of written opinions and thoughts and stories and anything else that you feel inclined to share in the comment section below!
Oh, and if you haven't had enough of new guys making changes and malicious compliance, here’s another good one.