Comment by jakevoytko
1 day ago
I did hem and haw over whether it was appropriate, but I eventually went with it because it felt in line with the first 2 sentences of the Wikipedia page defining the phrase as "Malicious compliance (also known as malicious obedience) is the behavior of strictly following the orders of a superior despite knowing that compliance with the orders will have an unintended or negative result. It usually implies following an order in such a way that ignores or otherwise undermines the order's intent, but follows it to the letter."
It might have been malicious compliance. It might also have been your coworkers having a reasonable (if incorrect) expectation that their coworkers at a leading tech company understood how to schedule meeting time using the calendar their company produces. Or maybe both.
Malicious compliance is one of the great tips from the Simple Sabotage Field Guide. And it is one of the few effective ways to escalate pain in an organization. If you don't get shit done because of rules, and a boss asks you to simply break the rules for efficiency's sake, you can return the favor and just ask to simply abolish the rules for efficiency's sake. It may surprise you how fast stupid rules can be abolished, even in large orgs.
I don't see how it undermines the intent here, or has an unintended result. It's actually reinforcing the order by forcing other teams to comply with it.