When policies backfire, they tend to do so in the most spectacular ways.

Imagine being forced to get a medical certificate for every single sick day.

Would you push through the inconvenience and return after just one day?

Or would you decide to make the most of it and take an extended break?

In today’s story, employees were more than happy to follow their new manager’s strict rules – just not in the way he expected.

Here’s what happened

Every day off must have a medical certificate, no exceptions.

This one comes from my old man’s days working at Ford.

The usual policy for them and I’m sure for most of you out there, is a single day off does not require a medical note, but multiple days in a row or those before and after a public holiday do.

A new manager decided to cut down on those employees who would take a “sickie” every so often, he would put in place the policy that even a single day off sick would require a medical certificate.

What happened was people would comply with this request, but now rather than one day off to relax, people would take a whole week off.

It didn’t take long for another policy change.

You see doctors out here are pretty relaxed and just ask you how many days you want off when writing a certificate.

They also get 14 days sick leave per year.

The new policy turned that one day off into 5dayitis.

After a little while of this, the policy was rescinded.

Oddly enough, this raised its head again at my first workplace.

The new manager was happily telling us how every single day off would require a certificate.

I pointed out this story from my old man’s days at work.

His new policy lasted less than two hours.

It didn’t take long for them to get their way.

Let’s see how the folks over at Reddit relate to this situation.

This is a very valid point.

As this person points out, it’s always best to look out for your employees and they’ll look out for you.

Here’s another great point.

Good for this doctor.

Some policies do more harm than good – obviously, this is one of them.

It’s better for the company if employees take an occasional day off rather than weeks off at a time.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.