Most managers realize that having their employees on too tight of a leash doesn’t do anyone any good. It’s too much work for the brass and makes employees feel more like children.

This was the dynamic OP found themselves in when they got written up for having too much “idle” time in their truck.

I worked for a company that provides a utility truck and one of the analytics they monitor is how long the truck stays in place with the motor on.

The target number was something like 3%, I consistently was stuck in traffic due to my area being changed to the downtown area of my city and naturally raising my idle percent.

My supervisor began constantly badgering me over the raise of my idle percent, about 10-12% higher now.

No one was taking into account the fact that OP spent a lot of time sitting in traffic and the like – so he started turning his truck off every time he stopped.

After they decided to give me a written verbal warning I became the MOST efficient truck in our branch and I brought it down to a 0.00 by shutting the truck off at every stop sign, red light, highway stopped in traffic, in drive thrus, and INSTANTLY off when I got to where I was going.

This in turn drained his battery, causing him to need a jump start that wasted even more time.

Now remember this is a utility truck that is charging my 2 phones, laptop, tablet and my various equipments rechargeable batteries, all this juice sucking and no alternator spinning putting the power back into the truck battery causing it to die. ALOT.

Now the rules the company had made it forbidden for me to jump the truck myself so I had to call the company and they sent out a tow truck to jump start it for me.

I could do it myself anyway and probably would have but they are writing people up out here for petty stuff.

And everytime I call this tow truck it takes a minimum of 2 hours for it to show up,

In fact, he required not one, but two new trucks before his immediate supervisor asked what in the heck was going on.

I began doing this multiple times a day, every day until they figured my truck was broken. It goes to the shop, checks out, they give it back- I kill it again.

They end up giving me an entirely new truck, I start killing it, I repeated this process until they gave me the THIRD truck and the manager calls me to asks what my daily routine is.

When he learned about the initial reprimand he told OP to stop worrying about idle time and get back to work.

I go through the basics and add in the whole stop at red light engine off- stop in traffic engine off- etc. and dude goes, “Why are you doing this?”

“My supervisor wrote me up for my idle time being too high.”

“This is completely ridiculous.”

He tossed my write up and I’m guessing talked to the supe because I never heard a word about idle time again and I quit caring about it.

There’s my dumb petty story, thanks for reading.

Problem solved – but what does Reddit think? Read on!

This person really hopes management crunched the numbers.

No one needs corporate office politics.

Imagine how much money is out there being wasted.

There’s no joy to be had down this road.

You’ve gotta play their games.

Y’all, this is a great story.

Sometimes you gotta hit the man where it hurts to get his attention.