Manager Insisted Everything Goes Through Ticket System
The Original Post
About 6 months ago our team lead, Greg, got really fed up with people interrupting workflows by asking for help directly in Slack or just walking up to desks. Fair enough honestly. So he made an official announcement: all requests, no exceptions, must go through Jira. “If it’s not in the system, it doesn’t exist,” he said. He even sent a follow-up email to make sure everyone got it.
So I complied. Fully. Enthusiastically.
Three weeks later Greg messages me on Slack asking if I can quickly pull some data for a client call in 20 minutes. I saw the message. I then opened Jira and waited. No ticket came. So I kept working on my current tasks.
He messaged again, “hey did you see my message?” I replied: “Hey! Could you submit a ticket for that request? I want to make sure everything is properly tracked per the new process :)” He did not respond well to the smiley face I think.
The client call apparently did not go great. Greg brought it up in our next 1on1 and said I “could have used some judgement in an urgent situation.” I pulled up his email on my laptop and read the line back to him – “all requests, no exceptions.” He stared at me for a good few seconds.
We now have a seperate protocol for urgent requests. It involves a specific Slack tag AND a ticket. So technically there’s more process now, not less. Greg does not message me casually anymore.
What Reddit Said
Redditors absolutely loved this malicious compliance masterpiece. Most commenters praised OP for following the rules exactly as written. However, many also noted that managers who create rigid policies often expect to be exempt from them.
The community particularly enjoyed the smiley face detail and Greg’s stunned reaction. Moreover, users appreciated that OP had documentation to back up their actions. In fact, several commenters shared similar workplace experiences with hypocritical management.
The Verdict
The overwhelming consensus: perfectly executed malicious compliance. This manager insisted everything ticket system policy backfired spectacularly when he tried to break his own rules. Therefore, OP was completely justified in their response. This is a classic example of malicious compliance meeting workplace drama with satisfying results.
Original post from r/MaliciousCompliance (4,358 upvotes, 152 comments)