malicious compliance
Obeying to harm
Malicious compliance is following rules or instructions exactly as stated while knowing the outcome will be harmful, absurd, or counterproductive.
It's a form of passive resistance—obeying the letter of a directive while violating its spirit: When they told me to CC everyone on every email, I did exactly that, flooding the CEO's inbox with hundreds of messages a day.
The malice lies in weaponizing compliance itself.
- passive-aggressiveIndirectly expressing resentment
- obedienceCompliance with authority
- sabotageDeliberate disruption of operations
- loopholeExploitable gap in rules
- technicalityPrecise procedural point
fine print · spite · revenge · workplace · office politics · rules · bureaucracy · petty · defiance · protest · insubordination · weaponized · playing dumb · work to rule · by the book · resentment · undermining · strategic
- passive aggressionsilent treatment, backhanded compliments, backhanded compliment, cold shoulder, eye rolling
- Resistance tacticsrefusal, defiance, rebellion, protest, boycott
- labor disputesstrikes, strike, labor strike, walkout, walkouts
malicious complianceconstructive criticism
Fault-finding aimed at improvement
civil disobedience · whistleblowing · loyal opposition · negotiation · collective bargaining
malicious, compliance, malice, comply, maliciously, maliciousness, compliant, compliantly, noncompliant