When you have a bad boss keeping you down, your best way to fight back might be to try “malicious compliance,” according to a growing online movement of disgruntled workers.

For them, a maliciously compliant act is a creative form of resistance against their boss’ marching orders. You might fulfill what you’re asked in order to stay employed, but your actions will not be exactly what the person wanted.

Servers say they do it to fight back against entitled customers. If a rude customer asks for extra butter, they’ll bring back a ridiculous amount of butter to the table, for example.

According to the subreddit that documents acts of malicious compliance, it involves any act when people are “conforming to the letter, but not the spirit, of a request.” Popular examples include: If a boss asks you to dress better without specifying what that means, you wear a suit. Or if a boss orders you to be the only team to work in the office on Fourth of July, you expense a barbecue feast costing thousands of dollars.

But if you decide to try this yourself, proceed with caution. Career and legal experts say this can help you survive under a bad boss –– or it can spectacularly backfire.

Micromanagers can often be insecure, rigid bosses who need constant unwarranted check-ins for reassurance that you’re working.

“Malicious compliance can work well against an insecure manager,” said Ryan Stygar, an employment attorney and author of the upcoming book, Get It in Writing: The Ultimate Guide to Your Rights at Work.

In this case, your malicious compliance is going above and beyond to comply with a micromanager’s demands. If they want a list of your daily tasks, you send long, bulleted emails.

“When you follow their instructions exactly, it exposes how inefficient those instructions really are,” he said. “For example, if they want to approve every email, their inbox quickly becomes a mess. I compare this [as] holding up a mirror to the micromanager. Once they see how burdensome the micromanagement has become, they typically back off.”

It helps to confirm that this is what they wanted. You might reply to a micromanager with, “Thank you for your instructions today. This confirms I will submit every client-facing email to you for approval before sending,” Stygar said. This response works because it “creates a paper trail,” he said. “It also locks in their expectations…It prevents them from ‘moving the goalposts’ and claiming you did not comply with their orders.”

“Now there is no confusion. If work slows down, you have proof showing why its not really your fault. With a reasonable manager, this may get them to back down,” Stygar said. “With a toxic one, it may not. But it will make it much harder for them to twist the facts either way.”

And if timing matters, mention that you sent their request by noon, per their last email, in your malicious compliance. “Now any delay is clearly tied to the process the micromanager imposed on you — not your performance,” Stygar said.

And this kind of strategic resistance might not be so malicious after all. If you do go above and beyond for a micromanager it might actually be “exuberant compliance,” said Mary Abbajay, president of leadership development consultancy Careerstone Group and author of Managing Up: How to Move Up, Win at Work, and Succeed with Any Type of Boss. “Exuberant compliance is when you’re giving them what they want and it’s not reflecting on your work,” she said.

Bad bosses can be difficult, but a toxic boss is a dismissive, demeaning boss that is trying to ruin your mental health.

A toxic micromanager, for example, is “trying to control you,” Stygar said. “They’re probably hoping you make a mistake so they can enjoy the power trip of jumping all over you.”

Typically, in these cases, malicious compliance is when you know what you’re doing will lead to a less efficient, more chaotic outcome for your team, but your preferred alternatives got rejected by your boss. If your horrible boss has a new workflow that is doomed to fail, you follow it because you had no choice, for example.

In these cases, your malicious compliance might actually be “protective compliance,” Abbajay said. “All you can do is survive a toxic boss. And if…giving them what they want is going to protect you until you can get yourself out of there, then I’m all for it.”

Ideally, you only do this kind of protective compliance while you actively job hunt for a better opportunity, because if you keep doing this, “you are never going to actually thrive, and you’re never going to get to find out your full potential,” Abbajay said.

People who need to resort to malicious compliance to push back against their boss’ orders are not happy employees. They’re often scared, overworked employees who are just trying to get through each day. But don’t let your negative emotions seep into your malicious compliance. Stygar said that “malicious compliance works best as a defensive measure, not a revenge tactic.”

In his view, the “deadly sins” of malicious compliance are if you’re sarcastic in your response, if you purposefully slow work down, and if you try to embarrass or mock your boss.

“A toxic manager is often looking for ‘insubordination,’” Stygar said. “If you give them that opportunity, even by accident, they will take it.”

Instead, the safer but tedious approach is to maintain a neutral tone and document what nonsense your boss is asking you to do in case you need to prove yourself later.

“Keep copies of these exchanges for yourself. Build a record that shows exactly what they told you to do and how you followed it,” Stygar said.

And don’t do malicious compliance that makes it seem like you’re not good at your job.

“If your malicious compliance is delivering substandard work, then that actually isn’t going to reflect very well on you, because it’s still your work and your name is attached to it,” Abbajay said.

Additional comment provided by Peter Duris, CEO of Kickresume.

Burnout is alarmingly common in UK workplaces. It’s expected to affect about 65% of workers (20% of employees have taken time off for work-related stress).

That can be caused by high workload, low pay, a lack of support, and unrealistic expectations.

But if you ask Peter Duris, CEO of Kickresume, some of those people are experiencing something called a “competence hangover,” too.

It’s a form of burnout that happens when a worker feels solely, or mostly, responsible for keeping their workplace afloat.

You might feel that standards would drop to unacceptable levels without you, or that serious mistakes would be made in your absence – leading to immense perceived pressure.

“If you feel responsible for other people’s well-being at work, you might be more likely to push yourself further, taking on extra tasks or working later, potentially to the point of burnout,” said Duris.

“You can develop this issue in any kind of job, but there are some career paths where people might be more vulnerable to a ‘competence hangover,’” Duris told HuffPost UK.

“This includes jobs where workers can find themselves under a lot of emotional strain,” like medicine, teaching, and social work.

And, Duris added, personality matters too.

“Studies have shown that people who are highly conscientious are more likely to take on extra work, describing themselves as feeling exhausted and emotionally drained.

“Because they’re seen as reliable, these employees are often asked by managers to take on extra tasks on top of helping their coworkers. Managers should be mindful of this to avoid overloading their teams.”

Per Duris, some signs include:

1. Feeling exhausted,
2. Coming back to work after the weekend as if you haven’t had a proper rest,
3. Struggling with decision-making can feel harder,
4. Low creativity,
5. Feeling resentful of coworkers.

“On the other hand, if you’re a manager who’s worried about one of your team members, it might come out in a one-to-one meeting, so make sure that you’re making time for these catch-ups,” he added.

Competence “hangovers” are a form of burnout that can make you feel like you need to switch jobs.

“Sometimes a couple of days off can help take the pressure off a bit. But people whose exhaustion is deeper than this might find themselves needing to use sick leave, or consider leaving their job,” he said.

“Even if you love your work and you’re a high performer, it’s not worth risking your wellbeing and your health.

If you have a supportive manager and workplace, he added, relying on the people you work with more could help to ease your stress.

“But if you can’t rely on the other people at your company to pick up the slack after you’ve been giving it your all to keep everything going – to the point that you’ve burned out – it might be time to start thinking about a change of direction,” he ended.

Expert comment provided by the European Institute for Gender Equality.

A Cambridge study found that in the UK, boys typically perform worse than girls in exams, from early years through to university.

Some researchers, including those commissioned by parliament’s Education Committee, have sought to find out why that is, while headlines posit that schools might be “biased” against boys.

We aren’t seeking to explain that difference here. Instead, we wanted to know whether the higher grades girls tend to get in school actually translate to better wages once they enter the workplace.

Here, we asked a spokesperson for the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) about the topic.

An EIGE spokesperson said that girls’ academic achievements are a “long-standing achievement in the EU”.

Women increasingly outnumber men in completing third-level education, they added.

But “these stronger school outcomes do not automatically translate into equal outcomes later in life.

“Evidence consistently shows that structural inequalities in households, the labour market and public life continue to shape women’s opportunities, earnings, and career progression.”

Indeed, the author of the Cambridge study we mentioned earlier said that “apparent advantages” suggested by girls’ academic successes “are not necessarily carried through to employment”.

At its current rate, the Trade Union Congress says, the UK’s gender pay gap is not expected to close for another 30 years.

The EIGE spokesperson said that one-third of young men aged 15-24 believe men are better leaders than women, compared to 15% of young women.

“These attitudes shape unequal outcomes over the life course, [and] contribute to a persistent divide in the labour market, where women are overrepresented in public sectors such as education, health, and care – roles that are essential but often undervalued and lower paid,” they added.

Men, meanwhile, are likelier to work in higher-paying sectors.

Additionally, when women choose lucrative jobs, these tend to become lower-paid if others join them and the career is deemed “feminine”. The inverse appears to have happened in e.g. programming, when a formerly feminised role became male-dominated.

And “even when women enter the workforce with strong qualifications, they face barriers to career progression. Women remain underrepresented in senior and decision-making positions, which has a direct impact on earnings,” the spokesperson said.

For instance, in education, which is 76% female, men make an average of 17% more than women in the UK. As a percentage, men are significantly more likely than women to be headteachers (5.8% vs 3.9%).

“In addition, unequal sharing of care responsibilities means women are more likely to work part-time, take career breaks, or adjust their working patterns, all of which can slow career advancement and reduce lifetime earnings,” the EIGE spokesperson said.

“Women are also twice as likely as men to provide over 35 hours of childcare per week and, on average, receive only 75% of men’s pensions.”

Ultimately, “the assumption that better school results lead to better professional outcomes does not hold in reality. Addressing these gaps requires tackling structural inequalities that continue to limit women’s economic equality.”

Back in 2012, at the age of 21, I was finally diagnosed with endometriosis, a whole nine years after I had started to display symptoms. I had spent my school years with heavy periods that would soak through uniforms; wearing multiple sanitary towels to get through back-to-back lessons and fainting during PE lessons.

When I was finally diagnosed via laparoscopic surgery, I was told that I had stage 4 endometriosis and that it was unlikely that I’d ever conceive. I was also informed that my ovaries, uterus and bowel were ‘glued’ together with endometriosis lesions and I’d need surgery to remove them.

At the time I was told that this diagnosis and upcoming treatment was ‘gold standard’ and that I was ‘lucky’. While I understand that being diagnosed is incredibly difficult – according to Endometriosis UK, it takes on average 8 years and 10 months – I didn’t feel lucky. I felt scared but hoped that treatment would give me my life back.

In 2013, I was finally operated on and for a while, thought that the worst days of endo were behind me.

The sad thing is, my story with endometriosis was just starting and I would battle for years to come to get the accommodations I needed in the workplace.

I am very skilled at what I do and I LOVE my job but when an endometriosis flare hits, I’m just not my usual super-capable self. Lil-lets describe endo flare ups as: “Endometriosis flare-ups are bursts of intense endometriosis symptoms. Increased pain is the most common symptom and flare-ups can be debilitating and unexpected.”

Which is about right. For me, it’s increased pain and sensitivity as well as fatigue. It gets really rough and the only thing I can do is take painkillers and rest, which contrasts with my usually busy professional work life.

What I’ve found is that oftentimes, employers aren’t as understanding as they would maybe like to portray that they are. I have been asked when this condition will be cured (never), how I can predict a flare up (I can’t) and if a hysterectomy is worth considering (beyond inappropriate to ask).

The sad fact of the matter is, many of us feel like we don’t matter to our employers if we are experiencing intense endo symptoms. Not even high-flyers are safe.

In fact, Sanju Pal was a high-flyer – ambitious and successful, she won the Asian Woman of Achievement Award, met the late Queen Elizabeth, had been invited to 10 Downing Street because of her work. However, when she was recovering from surgery to remove endometriosis cysts, she lost her job due to not meeting performance targets.

Speaking to the BBC, she said: “I wasn’t a high performer anymore, according to them, because I had a disability, because I was unwell and wasn’t going to be contributing to the business in the way that I had been before.”

Sanju is far from alone. In fact, according to Endometriosis UK, one in six women and those assigned female at birth with endometriosis have to leave the work place due to their condition.

The charity adds: “This is unacceptable and it’s vital that Governments and employers take action to protect those with endometriosis from unfair practices in the workplace.

“Nobody should face discrimination at work or risk losing their job because of their endometriosis, and we’re determined to work with employers and Governments to ensure this isn’t the case.”

For the past seven years, I have worked on a self-employed basis and it has been tremendously helpful in managing my illness, as well as the debilitating bout of fibroids that I also experienced.

I am proud of what I’ve achieved in my career and know that I am great at what I do. I also really miss being part of a team, part of a workforce working together to one goal but I do still live in fear of discrimination all these years later as despite multiple surgeries, the condition is still present in my body and I still experience flare-ups.

There is some small progress in this area, though. Sanju won her employment tribunal against the employers that sacked her following surgery, offering hope for future workplace protections.

Additionally, Endometriosis UK are offering employers the opportunity to learn more about the condition so that they can better support their staff with Menstrual Health at Work resources.

I hope things get better soon.

• Mind, open Monday to Friday, 9am-6pm on 0300 123 3393.
• Samaritans offers a listening service which is open 24 hours a day, on 116 123 (UK and ROI – this number is FREE to call and will not appear on your phone bill).
• CALM (the Campaign Against Living Miserably) offer a helpline open 5pm-midnight, 365 days a year, on 0800 58 58 58, and a webchat service.
• The Mix is a free support service for people under 25. Call 0808 808 4994 or email help@themix.org.uk
• Rethink Mental Illness offers practical help through its advice line which can be reached on 0808 801 0525 (Monday to Friday 10am-4pm). More info can be found on rethink.org.

When this year started, I knew I had to make drastic changes… because my phone had taken over my life.

Screen time had skyrocketed. Humour circled around TikTok reactions. I found myself scrolling through waves of news horrors and memes before I was fully awake each day.

Enter the Brick, which has emerged as the go-to app for people looking to reset their relationships with their phones.

“Bricking” your phone has now become a verb for people to share the news that they are logging off and to tell others. I actually learned about “bricking” and “unbricking” myself through the loud declarations of other writers and influencers.

I was skeptical at first about whether an app blocker that costs over $50 could be worth it. But I had tried free ways of deleting social media apps and blocking them from my phone through features like Apple’s Screen Time or Android Digital Wellbeing, and they hadn’t worked because they are easy to bypass.

However, the Brick is a little square device that pairs with an app you download on your phone through a QR code. Once you connect your phone to your Brick, you can select which apps you need to block and for which hours of the day.

Then, the real test begins. You tap the physical Brick device with your phone to activate its app-blocking features – you need to touch the Brick again if you want to regain access to your blocked apps.

I was struck by how hard it was to leave the house for a whole day with a bricked phone. I even delayed using it at first because of this anxiety, which only strengthened my resolve that I probably needed to go through with this experiment.

So, after a day of too much scrolling, I put myself to the test and put my Brick on my fridge. Now, I would have to get up from the couch or get back home from work if I wanted to access that tantalising Reddit post.

I am happy to report that after more than a month of use, my brain feels different. I expected the strict enforcement of a Brick to change me – but even I was surprised by how much it did.

The Brick, available for iOS and Android, lets you set modes for “deep work” and “family time” hours, so bricking automatically happens during the natural rhythm of your day. It also keeps a running tally of how many hours you have been bricked each day, and on average, presumably to encourage you to stay strong and go a little longer without unbricking.

If you forget to use the Brick on your phone in your rush out the door, you can also Brick your device by pressing the Brick icon on the app’s homepage from where you are, but you will still need to go back to where your actual Brick is to unlock what you want to unlock.

The first week I used it, I was surprised and embarrassed by how often my fingers would automatically tap the social media apps my Brick blocked me from accessing. My Brick bouncer would gently scold me whenever I tried to instinctively check Instagram or TikTok.

The app gives you five “emergency” unbricking workarounds if you really need to access an app you have blocked and you’re not near your Brick device, but I have yet to use one. Needing to use “emergency” unbricking to make an Instagram story about the Galentine’s party I attended really put into perspective what exactly I was doing with my one precious life.

The Brick challenged my belief that real-time social media feedback was necessary to stay connected with my friends or to be good at my job. In my opinion, this forced reflection is the Brick’s best benefit. I’ve missed a few direct messages from my friends, I’m not seeing as many funny TikTok memes anymore, and I’m out of the loop on some social media trends, but I feel more in control of what I am consuming. At the very least, I am paying more attention to how I spend my time on my phone.

The Brick costs around $59 for one device. Though I find this little plastic box to be prohibitively expensive for what it is, I like that more than one person can use the same Brick, so you could theoretically get your roommate or partner to split the costs, too. I also like that once you buy it, you don’t need to pay a subscription fee to keep using it, unlike many other apps.

However, bricking yourself is not going to transform you completely.

Catherine Pearlman, a licensed clinical social worker and author of First Phone: A Child’s Guide to Digital Responsibility, Safety, and Etiquette, said the Brick is “a wonderful device,” but can’t be a long-term solution to endless social media scrolling on its own.

“Once you’re home [where your Brick is], the impulse still exists,” she told me. “So it doesn’t actually teach you how to work through that impulse to say…‘How do I really want to spend my time? How do I work through this emotion that I’m trying to avoid by scrolling?’”

Answering those questions is a bigger journey only you can answer. For Pearlman, it meant finding other ways to use her screen-free time.

“I knew I wasn’t going to stop using my phone, but I wanted to have an alternative,” she said as an example. “And then when the newspapers got too upsetting, I went to Kindle. So now I just read books in my Kindle, and I read eight books in January.”

If you want to get serious about blocking social media not just on your phone but on your computer as well (which your Brick cannot access), Pearlman suggested the free website blocker Cold Turkey.

As for me, I’m continuing to brick myself in the evenings, so that I can learn a new screen-free hobby of crochet. Just this past week, my phone screen time dropped 62% compared to the week before. Making loops of crochet rows with my hands feels more satisfying than the loops of TikToks I watched each night, but I don’t think I would have stuck with my new hobby without the Brick’s admonishments.

I’ve gone from my high of nine hours of daily screen time to a more reasonable five or six hours during a workday. I still have lapses where I will go a night without Bricking, but I feel much calmer when I do. When my head is not cluttered with the pulls of social media notifications and enticing Reels, I have time to figure out what I really want to do. And that’s a gift that I think is worth keeping.