IT Guy Thinks He Won At Malicious Compliance, Until He Realizes His Manager One-Upped Him

After the place that Reddit user Sad_puppy_eyes had been managing hired a new IT guy, the recruit immediately started making his own rules.

However, it was when he started avoiding his direct responsibilities — troubleshooting company PCs — that the manager had enough.

Sad_puppy_eyes initiated a talk with the guy, and when he realized that he wouldn't be able to get out of it, the employee made sure to make the whole process as long and tiring as possible.

But Sad_puppy_eyes decided to fight fire with fire and put the lazy worker in his place. Continue scrolling to read their post on the subreddit 'Malicious Compliance' to learn how they did it!

Liz Kislik, who has taught at NYU and Hofstra University and helps businesses solve their thorniest problems, believes that people who are consistently oppositional are some of the hardest employees to manage.

"They might actively debate or ignore feedback, refuse to follow instructions they disagree with, or create a constant stream of negative comments about new initiatives," Kislik explains.

However, this tends to stem from insecurity. "Most often, these behaviors are meant to make the employee look strong and mask a fear of change, an aversion to anticipated conflict, or the worry that they will look stupid or incompetent."

During her 30 years of consulting for both public and privately held companies, Kislik has found that there are three distinct approaches that can help managers like Sad_puppy_eyes to get the best from oppositional employees.

The first option is to adjust job responsibilities to leverage their strengths. "You can double down on their strengths and minimize their managerial responsibilities or give them a purely technical role/team. This reduces the number of obstacles they run into and generates less unhappiness for everyone involved.

The second alternative is to temporarily overlook individual style while the person adjusts to their new circumstances. "Some employees become oppositional when they feel insecure in a new role or with a significant change in their responsibilities," Kislik says.

"Rather than providing behavioral coaching on their negative or inappropriate communication, at least initially, it can be more effective to focus on the quality of their knowledge or output, and only work on stylistic problems once the employee feels more familiar with the changes and expectations."

The third solution is to consider if they're actually right. If you begin to pay attention to their complaints, they might change their attitude and warm up significantly as they see that their expertise is being taken seriously. However, it's important to know where to draw the line and see whether or not their approach counters the norms.

Sometimes, the behavior of an oppositional worker is so damaging to their colleagues and the whole company that management must encourage them to move on. But this time it was avoided.