How an IT Manager Beat Annoying Voice-Note Support at Their Own Game
Let’s be honest: in the pantheon of modern workplace annoyances, few things are as universally reviled as unsolicited voice messages—especially from tech support. We all know the pain: you just want a quick answer, but instead you get a rambling audio note that forces you to drop everything, fumble for headphones, and replay just to catch a tiny detail. For one IT manager and their sales company, this wasn’t a one-off headache. It was the norm—until they decided to fight fire with fire.
This is the story of how one fed-up manager gave their support team a delicious taste of their own medicine…and the internet absolutely loved it.
The Voice Message Menace: Why Support Shouldn’t Sound Like a Podcast
When u/Piranhaweek shared their tale of malicious compliance on Reddit, it struck a nerve with thousands. Here’s the setup: their company had just upgraded to a fancy new ERP (that’s Enterprise Resource Planning—not, as one commenter joked, “Erotic Role Play”), but the support for this otherwise excellent product was stuck in the Stone Age of customer service. Instead of helpful text responses, support insisted on sending voice notes for almost every issue.
Why is this so irritating? As the OP put it, “Text lets me read, search and solve. Audio just slows everything down.” And they’re not alone. As u/formallyhuman lamented, “I hate voice notes from anybody and everybody. It’s the other person not valuing my time.” Voice messages can be especially problematic in a professional setting, where clarity, searchability, and accessibility (shout out to OP mentioning they’re hearing impaired) are critical.
Yet despite repeated requests to switch to text—and even a plea about accessibility—support stubbornly stuck to their voice notes. That is, until OP decided to turn the tables.
Turning the Tables: Malicious Compliance in Action
Picture this: the company’s point of sale systems go haywire, and the only way forward is to contact support. As expected, the first reply is—you guessed it—a voice message. But when support asks for a remote access ID, OP responds in kind: audio only. Then, for good measure, sends the admin password via voice, spelling out every uppercase, lowercase, and number in painstaking detail.
Suddenly, a miracle! Support switches to text. “Turns out,” OP writes, “they know exactly how annoying voice messages are. They just do not care until it becomes their problem.”
Reddit, of course, had a field day with this. As u/Typical_Warthog_2660 perfectly summarized, “You basically held up a mirror to their terrible support habit.” Another commenter, u/Equal-Purple-4247, gleefully imagined the chaos: “The password is p, a, two, s, oh I mean… w is caps, and the a too. Oh, I realized I said oh, but I don’t mean the letter o. Shit, I said it again. Let me start over…”
The community was quick to point out how the escalation could have gone even further. u/Classic_Mammoth_9379 suggested, “Surely this requires a 10 minute audio description of everything on the screen, including OS elements, windows from your other apps, before you get to their app window.” The idea of describing each pixel’s color (“Pixel 1.1 grey, pixel 1.2 grey…”) had everyone in stitches, with OP [OP] chiming in, “16 hours of audio, and counting.”
The Psychology of Support: Is It Malicious, or Just Broken?
Why would a support team choose such an annoying communication method? Some commenters argued it’s by design: making support painful might reduce tickets and make their KPIs look better. As u/sjclynn observed, “Their goal is actually to make interaction difficult enough that you don’t call. Their KPIs improve and some manager gets a bonus.” OP [OP] gave this theory some thought: “Maybe there is no bad faith from the support staff. They are pushed to keep ticket numbers down.”
Others pointed out that sometimes, voice notes have their place—maybe for users with literacy challenges, or in truly casual conversations. But as OP clarified, “In a professional setting? No. Just no.” The consensus? Audio messages belong with friends, not in troubleshooting or business support.
And let’s not forget accessibility. A company ignoring a hearing-impaired user’s request for text is not just rude—it’s a violation of basic courtesy, if not compliance.
The Sweet Taste of Just Desserts (and Community Catharsis)
What makes this story so satisfying is how quickly the tables turned. Once the support team had to decode a voice message with a complex admin password, their love affair with audio ended abruptly. As u/RealCreativeFun quipped, “Voice message combines the worst part of text messages (non instant response) and a phone call (having to listen to a human voice).”
The post’s popularity—over 16,000 upvotes and hundreds of comments—shows just how many people have suffered through similar tech support shenanigans. One commenter joked about responding to screenshot requests by dictating the entire URL, “h t t p colon slash slash imgur dot com slash…” while others fantasized about sending a fax machine’s audio or even a screen reader’s monotone reading of every page element.
In the end, malicious compliance didn’t just solve the problem. It sparked a community-wide venting session, with humor, commiseration, and a healthy dose of internet creativity.
Conclusion: The Golden Rule of Support
The moral? If your support team insists on making things harder for customers, don’t be surprised when customers return the favor. As u/Astramancer_ put it best, “Sometimes the best way to get someone else to actually solve the problem that is their responsibility is to turn a ‘me’ problem into a ‘them’ problem.”
So next time you get an unwanted audio note from support, maybe it’s time to hit record—and give them a taste of their own medicine. After all, nothing says “I understand your workflow” like a password spelled out, one agonizing sound at a time.
Have you ever faced tech support woes or had to teach someone a lesson in workplace etiquette? Share your stories in the comments below—or, if you dare, send us a voice note (just kidding, please don’t).
Original Reddit Post: Support kept using voice messages, so I gave them a taste of their own medicine