VP orders a full-time return to office, so employees fully comply by continuing to WFH because their contracts have officially designated their home as their office for the past 6 years

Nothing ages worse than a sweeping mandate written by someone who skipped the part where they read the actual contracts, is there?A new executive arrives, decides that "collaboration" requires everybody to sit in the same building, and forgets that paperwork has a way of surviving leadership changes. This is the corporate version of announcing that all pets must be dogs, then discovering an employee signed a cat contract 6 years ago. And that HR is not thrilled about retroactive pet policy changes. VP must have thought his rule sounded so powerful in an all-hands email. Only problem is he didn't hear how it sounds to somebody who opens a signed form that says, in clear language, "this person's office is their house."And that's the beauty of taking instructions literally: it forces anyone, leadership role or not, to deal with the consequences of vague wording. "Everyone must work from the office" is decisive until someone asks which office, pulls up the file, and points to a stamped agreement listing a home address as the primary work location. That's why, if there ever was a story fitting for r/MaliciousCompliance, it's this Senior Data Engineer's story.Because what VP thought was…

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