Some of the best moments at work are the ones where you can do exactly what your boss says – down to the letter – and still get your way.
OP worked a job that he was really good at, but in doing it to the best of his abilities, he struggled to meet certain arbitrary rules like going to lunch at the same time every day or working assigned hours down to the minute.
I previously worked at a place where I was hourly but should have been salary (they later made me salary) and had to work odd hours at times due to the demands of the job.
Despite the extra time that I worked, I was still expected to be clocked in at 8 and to leave no earlier than 5, all while making sure I got as little overtime as possible because they didn’t want to pay overtime.
They also expected me to take lunch at a pre-determined time, even though it conflicted with the nature of the work I did.
HR continued to send his boss memos regarding this failing. One day his boss called him in to say he did not want to see any more of those notices in his inbox.
Every time I clocked in late, clocked out early, or clocked out for lunch at the wrong time (this was the bulk of the issue), a report was generated from HR and sent to my supervisor.
Despite my making the case that it was basically impossible to adhere to these requirements, my supervisor point blank told me “I don’t want to see these anymore” in reference to the report they were waving around in the air about my comings and goings on the time clock.
So, OP went to HR and told them exactly that.
So I said “ok I’ll make sure you don’t have to see them anymore.”
I then walked down to HR and informed them that my supervisor was tired of seeing these reports and no longer wanted to see them.
I told them verbatim what I was told and they accepted it without question as I said it came straight from my supervisor. Surprisingly they didn’t double-check the request at all, they simply stopped sending the reports to my supervisor.
To be fair, they were tired of sending the reports and knew the situation was not tenable.
They stopped sending the notices and everyone was happy.
After that, things were great, my supervisor was happy, and had always been happy with my work.
Many months down the road I spoke with one of my salaried co-workers about it when they remarked that our supervisor hadn’t been griping about the reports in a while.
So I told them what had transpired. They remarked “I don’t think that’s what they meant when they said that.”
Ultimately, I don’t know how they actually meant it, all I know is that I fixed the issue by doing exactly what they said and everyone has happy after that.
Did OP just earn a Reddit clap on the back?
He did, and some people even had their own stories to add.
This person thinks this is yet another reason bad managers cost companies good employees.
This story was definitely more creative than they were expecting.
There’s always more than one way to solve a problem, after all.
Luckily OP did not let intrusive thoughts take over.
This is the perfect malicious compliance, if you ask me.
The best part is how the manager never even thought to ask why the reports stopped coming.