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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Lickawall483 on 2024-11-06 16:20:19+00:00.

About 10 years ago I have applied to work at a retail store selling different tech. It is a rather large chain in the UK and can get pretty busy, especially after 5pm or during holidays/sales. When I applied for a job I wanted to go to computing department as I was very passionate about different builds and had some experience in building my own PC, instead I was temporarily placed on white goods (fridges, washing machines etc) for training even after I have admitted I know absolutely nothing about them. But no, apparently this knowledge should have been inherited through my genes since I am a girl, so I must know about them and be very good. So I bit my tongue and waited as I needed money and was fresh out of uni.

About a few months in I have realised I am not going to be transferred to the computing department, no matter how much I wanted to. My sales were good but the managers wouldn’t budge as they were scared I might advice something wrong.

It was a start of a school term and the store was getting petty busy. A couple came in wanting to buy a PC for their teenage kid to game on, I wanted to help them as a fellow gamer myself, but got rudely pulled back by my manager and was told unless we are assigned to a specific department, we are not allowed to help customers or advice them. So he fetched another colleague who carried on assisting the parents. As it was quiet in my department I was doing some tidying up around the store and heard the colleague trying to sell the parents one of the apple PCs saying they will be great for gaming and all professionals use them (at the time we had a bigger commission from apple brand). Let me tell you they are not the best machines for gaming and if you are into heavier games they are likely not going to run that well or be incompatible with the OS.

I don’t know what else the colleague said, but the parents believed him and got an iMac for the kid. The manager was very proud of the colleague and told me to use him as an example of a good sale for the store. I have told him I could have topped it and the customer will come back with a return, but was told again not to go to computing department. Cue malicious compliance.

A few days later it was a busy day in the store, especially PCs due to back to school sale. A few people were off sick due to being overworked so the computing department had like 2 people on the floor, including the work colleague who sold the iMac. The parents came through the door with the pc they got, which usually means something broke down or they want to return it. They saw the guy who sold them the PC and started heading his way. He saw them too and decided it is time to go on lunch, leaving one colleague on the floor in the department.

The parents are visibly getting angry and try to go to the till, but after being in the queue are told to catch another colleague from the tech department as we can’t process refunds at the till for large items.

The parents approach me as I don’t have much to do and ask for help. I would be happy to do so, but remembering what the manager said I had to tell them I can’t as I am not allowed to do anything with the pc department as it is a store policy. The parents approach more colleagues and keep hearing the same excuse. Obviously they are getting more and more angry so are other customers who want to buy something but can’t since only people in computing department are allowed to sell stuff for computers. They try to grab the only person on the floor, but he is already busy with other customers and can’t assist them while the other colleague responsible for the sale signed out for the day and the other is late. In about 20 minutes there’s a massive queue by the tills of angry customers demanding to speak to the manager. The poor person at the till has no choice but to fetch the store manager and floor managers due to the amount of angry customers.

They are trying to shift the blame on us, other store colleagues, but I mention about what the other manager said about not touching anything in tech department or help customers as we are not authorised and since it is a company policy and we haven’t received the training we have to comply. Of course it makes customers even more angry and feel like their time is wasted, resulting in a commotion by the tills and further delays for other customers.

I am unsure how the entire situation ended, as I was grabbed by an older lady to help her, but that day we had a lot of complaints on different websites about the policy and “store staff refusing to help as it is not their department” and we had a few “brainstorming” sessions after how to reduce complaints with none of the ideas taken on board.

You would hope they would learn something and change the policy, but no. They gave extra training to the people already in computing department and allowed other colleague to sell smaller items like mice, keyboards, consoles, games, printers but not the laptops or pc or vr, resulting in more complaints. Last time I have been there to buy my mum a new laptop (had a voucher) the situation seemed to have stayed the same, as we ended up waiting around 45 minutes for someone to push the sale through. At least I got a chance to complain to the store manager as well telling him everything I think about that store policy.