Boss Says Improve Morale, Employee’s Creative Solution Ba…
The Original Post
This was in a commercial printing company, after a couple of months of really ridiculous mandatory overtime (12h/7d weeks).
So one day, when it was slow, I shut down production in the entire building. I gave them instructions to make the best paper airplane they could out of any piece of paper they can find in the shop. I stood at the end of the shop and judged whose plane flew the farthest and gave him the rest of the day off with pay.
A couple of months later, after I had discovered the diet Pepsi and Mentos phenomenon, we did that in the parking lot for a half an hour (on the clock).
Sometime later, while I was talking to the COO who had given me the directive on increasing morale, I brought this up and he said, “You did *what?* Anymore incentives that cost the company money will have to go through me now.”
OK.
What Reddit Said
Redditors absolutely loved this creative approach to workplace morale. Many praised OP for thinking outside the box and actually caring about employee wellbeing. However, most weren’t surprised by the boss’s hypocritical reaction when costs became involved.
Comments flooded in with similar stories of management giving vague directives then backtracking. Moreover, many pointed out the irony of a company worried about small morale expenses after forcing brutal 84-hour work weeks. The consensus was clear: this was textbook malicious compliance done right.
The Verdict
Reddit’s verdict was unanimous praise for this boss improve morale malicious compliance story. OP followed orders perfectly and exposed management’s true priorities in the process. This represents classic malicious compliance where creative interpretation of vague instructions leads to hilarious workplace drama.
Original post from r/MaliciousCompliance (1,312 upvotes, 77 comments)