Manager Asks Unqualified Employee To Fix Machine, They Maliciously Comply 2026

Be careful of what you ask for.

Sometimes your job does not seem so bad, but your manager just makes it suck. It depends a lot on the management whether they want to give their employees a good working experience or not. Work isn’t that bad if you have nice coworkers and managers that aren’t the human version of Godzilla. If you keep your employees happy, they will work just fine and that would prove to be very beneficial for the company. However, some managers do not care about the big picture. They do not want long term results. They just want to overwork their existing employees till the employees get tired. Check the qualifications of an employee before assigning them work. If they are not fit to do the job, get someone else to do it. It is better to have it done by an experienced professional than to assign the problem to someone who has no idea what they are doing and will just make it worse. Some managers do not care about that. They think the unqualified employee will come up with a miracle and fix the problem that they have never learned to solve.

If your employer or manager keeps insisting you fix something you can’t, it is time to maliciously comply with their requests. Just do what you can in your capacity. You’re an accountant but they want you to fix a cracked wall? Put a bandage over it. You are a cashier but your company needs you to photograph pictures of the premises? Make sure your finger comes in the corner of every picture. Once you fix it your way, they will never ask you to do it again. That is what this employee did when their manager asked them to fix a broken machine in their grocery store. The malicious compliance resulted in the manager getting fired. Scroll down below to read how it all happened.

Via kebabkoter

A machine at the employee’s grocery store malfunctioned. The employee took the problem to their manager, who asked the employee to fix it.

It was obviously a mechanic’s job and the employee was not qualified to do that, but the manager kept insisting that they should fix it.

The employee “fixed” it by ruining it even more. The manager lost their temper and started yelling at everyone. They later got fired, and the employee got to keep their job.

Well, this is what happens when you give someone a job they aren’t qualified to do. They can’t just magically fix something they know nothing about. The manager should have seen this coming.

This is how other Redditors responded to the incident.

People shared similar stories of their own.

Some cultures are hard to understand.

It really is a small world, isn’t it?

What would you have done in a situation like this? Would you have made the machine worse? Let us know in the comments below.