I find it far more effective to make friends with and be kind to that employee, and then describe how I know it isn't their fault but this one aspect of the thing that their company does really sucks, right? They're then able to carry that specific complaint from one of their best customers up the chain.

There are a thousand reasons why someone might be miserable, might resign or ask for a raise, but at the next monthly meeting or whatever opportunity they have for receiving suggestions, an employee who actually likes you will be more likely to speak up and get something done.

This has worked for me at least in the B2B space, where I'm affecting one of 50 state applications engineers or something like that. I'm aware that this isn't exactly the same as the federal government that employs like 3 million people, but the principle is the same.

If you got on Karen's good side, she might grouse with you that sending and receiving faxes is archaic, that mail is slow, agree that printed paper's not that accommodating to blind people, and acknowledge that it's cruel and wasteful to ask people to prove their chronic, incurable disabilities every year under threat of taking away their benefits through these platforms. You could work together and laugh about how funny it would be to communicate the real costs and hardships with her supervisors if you literally faxed 1,200 pages of a PDF, wearing through multiple toner cartridges and reams of paper, generating a box that she could drop on the table with a "thud" to emphasize that they should stop doing that.

That might create change, especially if it happens for multiple employees multiple times a day.

Making a bureaucrat miserable because they have a lot of paperwork to do is not going to create change.

> From the perspective of the effect, if you make life of an employee miserable, the employee is more likely to resign or ask for a raise, this does apply some pressure.

Not meaningful pressure, though, at least for large organizations. This is a variant of the flawed "vote with your wallet" argument: One wallet changes nothing. Even 100 or 1000 wallets change nothing.

These huge businesses and huge governments are too big for one person at the bottom of the totem pole to make a difference. Sure, they may share 1/N of the culpability for what their organization is doing, but if they rage quit, they will be immediately replaced with another body. The organization won't even notice it.

Individual human beings acting individually are totally irrelevant when it comes to the behavior of large organizations.

> From the perspective of the effect, if you make life of an employee miserable, the employee is more likely to resign or ask for a raise, this does apply some pressure.

No, all you're accomplishing is being an ass to that person. They're a replaceable cog in a machine. And often their role as just as much to be a punching bag for assholes like you, to take the hits instead of who's really responsible, than whatever other business function they're performing. The people responsible aren't idiots, they know what they're going.

The only thing being an ass to someone who's just a cog accomplishes is making yourself into an asshole.

Absolutely agree. Also, the kind of Karens described in the post usually enjoy their position and the meager power they hold over other humans. They need to get bitten sometimes.

> I'm an antitheist but the Bible (gospels) put it well "The student is not above his master" [translation mine] - which means if you follow said master you have to share responsibility for his doings or the doings of the gang as a whole.

If you're talking about Matthew 10, I think you read that bible passage exactly backward. Jesus was saying not to worry about any persecution caused by following him, because the responsibility is not yours. They are really persecuting him, "the master", and if you just keep doing what he says you will come out on top, even if you are killed, and they will get theirs in the end.

(Not that I agree. As an atheist, it feels coercive. But that's clearly what Matthew 10 is saying)

> if you make life of an employee miserable, the employee is more likely to resign or ask for a raise, this does apply some pressure.

Perhaps, but the question to ask is not “how to apply some pressure” but “how to apply pressure in the place where it’s most effective.

No amount of beating low level employees will change whether they can accept pdf sent by email or not.

And also, they are not supposed to use their intuitive ideas about what is and what is not dangerous use of software. When they do use their intuitive ideas, hacks happen. Karen here doing what she was told and accepting only formats that her organization security team told her to do is Karen doing the correct thing.

We are on HN. People who are responsible for overreaching unreasonable security rules ... are basically us. And we are all paid way more then Karen, but are the first to call Karen an idiot when the hack happens. Karen does not know why pdf is different from doc or whatever. Nor is she required to know.

This is exactly what I do with telemarketer scammers. I have no limit of depravity that I draw from in attempt to offend them. No limits. And exactly for the reasons you describe. Get them to crack and quit the company.

The Bible of course also says "if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee", which is where I thought you were going with this at first. The Bible says a lot of things.