Why Sometimes You Should Always Leave a Mistake—The Art of “Malicious Compliance” in Customer Service
Let’s set the scene: It’s the 1990s, the Chicago suburbs hum with the sounds of dot matrix printers, $5,000 scanners, and the faint aroma of toner. You’re a designer painstakingly laying out newspaper inserts by hand, battling not only with technology but with the one adversary who always finds something wrong—a customer whose superpower is never approving the first proof. Sound familiar?
If you’ve ever worked in any service industry, you know this customer. The one who’ll find a crooked line with the precision of a laser-guided missile, or claim a bolded word is just a shade too bold. So, what do you do when perfection isn’t enough? You give them exactly what they want—a mistake to fix.
The Art of Deliberate Error: When Perfection Isn’t Good Enough
In a legendary tale from Reddit’s r/MaliciousCompliance, user u/BrightRick shares a slice of 90s print shop life. The customer in question would find fault with every proof, refusing to sign off until a new one was presented. The solution? Make two proofs: one flawless, one with an obvious, intentional mistake. The customer would spot the planted error, demand a correction, and—voilà—approve the “fixed” version every time. Problem solved.
But as it turns out, this little trick isn’t confined to one Chicago print shop. The Reddit community exploded with stories of their own “intentional ducks”—a nod to the software industry’s term for adding a superfluous feature just so management can cut it and feel involved. As u/high_throughput explains, this idea comes from the world of game development, where an animator once added a duck to a queen’s animation specifically so the producer could ask for its removal—thus, the producer felt they’d contributed, and the real work went untouched.
The Duck, the Keyboard, and the Crooked Fence Post: Universal Tactics
What makes this tactic so universal? Humans, it turns out, have a psychological need to feel involved or to leave their mark. As u/3amGreenCoffee insightfully describes, some bosses or clients simply can’t approve a flawless product—they need the ritual of finding and fixing a problem. Their story of a manager named Eric, who would invent nonsensical objections just to prolong meetings, highlighted a key workplace truth: sometimes, you have to give people what they subconsciously crave.
And it’s not just in design or software. The comments section is a treasure trove of similar tales:
- u/PumpkinCrouton recounted swapping out the same keyboard for a chronic complainer, who was delighted every time the “new” keyboard was installed. The placebo effect in IT support is real and hilarious.
- u/phatrogue shared an old banking trick: security auditors were satisfied as soon as they found one “issue,” so a password taped under the keyboard would speed inspections along. Once it was “found,” everyone could get on with their day (and coffee).
- Even surveyors got in on the act—u/nobody_really__’s grandfather would plant a fence post slightly out of line, knowing the customer would want to “fix” it, thus ensuring they felt they had the final say.
Perhaps the most poignant observation came from u/Random_Cha0ss: “The customer ain’t gonna like the taste until he pisses in it a little.” Colorful, yes, but it perfectly captures the need some clients have to be part of the process, even if that means introducing unnecessary friction.
Work Psychology: Why People Need to Find Fault
So why does this phenomenon exist? As several commenters pointed out, it’s about psychology as much as process. For some, especially extroverts or those in managerial roles, the act of identifying and resolving a problem is their way of contributing. If the work is too perfect, it can trigger a kind of cognitive dissonance—surely, there must be something wrong!
u/3amGreenCoffee dove deep into this dynamic, introducing the “Platinum Rule” of workplace interaction: not just treating others how you want to be treated, but how they want to be treated. For their boss Eric, chatting and finding faults was the real work. For others, it’s about having the last word or simply feeling relevant in a world of ever-advancing technology.
And sometimes, as u/Illustrious-Leader and others noted, the trick is just to remove a point of comparison. Want a picky client to approve a proof? Take away the “old” version so they can’t nitpick side-by-side. Magic!
The Fine Line: When Playing Along Backfires
Of course, as some wily commenters warned, this strategy can backfire. What if the client insists on keeping your “duck” (as u/AngelaVNO joked, “This would be more awesome if the producer loved the duck”)? Or, as u/neversummer427 learned in animation, sometimes the weird color you threw in as bait ends up being the client’s favorite.
And sometimes, as u/3amGreenCoffee recounted, a deliberate typo meant to distract from other issues got a web designer fired when management saw through the ploy. In other words: play this game at your own risk.
Conclusion: Embrace the Game (And Leave a Duck, Just in Case)
Whether you’re designing flyers, debugging code, or swapping “defective” keyboards, the lesson here is universal: sometimes, the path of least resistance is to give people something to fix. It greases the wheels of approval and, let’s face it, saves everyone a lot of time and stress.
So next time you’re dealing with a chronic nitpicker, consider leaving a fence post out of line, a duck in the animation, or a misspelled word in the proof. Just be prepared—sometimes, the duck might become the star of the show.
Have your own story of “malicious compliance” or clever customer wrangling? Drop it in the comments—let’s compare ducks!
Original Reddit Post: Customer always found a mistake - so we complied