People can be very creative when complying with orders they don’t really want to follow.

This man was doing cold calls for work, and his boss told him to increase his phone time without giving him more detailed instructions.

He found a way to be on the phone for hours!

Read the story below to find out what he did.

Boss wanted to me to increase active phone time

I had this job at the height of Covid.

It was primarily a cold calling/business development job.

I hated this job, but didn’t quit, because… Covid.

This man described his boss as a jerk.

My boss was ridiculous.

He kept forcing me to be an independent contractor.

And then switching me to an employee, when it suited him.

He was a real jerk in a lot of ways, though.

His boss noticed that he has been on his phone only 50% of the time.

One day, my boss contacted me (I worked from home).

He said, “You only brought on 21 clients in the last 3 weeks. And you have only been on the phone 50% of the time. So, you could have brought on more clients if you were on the phone more.”

He wanted him to “increase his phone time.”

I asked him what he wanted me to do.

He said he wanted my active phone time to increase.

He gave me no other instructions such as “bring on X amount of clients or make X amount of calls.”

So I decided to comply, by doing exactly what he told me to.

So he looked for phone numbers that presented a menu when you call them.

I found phone numbers that, when I called, I would have to listen to a menu where I would choose options from, so I could be transferred.

Many of these repeated, forever.

Well, the longest one I found was an hour, before I disconnected.

He would call these numbers up and listen to the menu options for hours!

So, I would sit there and listened to these menus knowing I would never select any option, it increased my phone time.

I would just indicate there had been “no answer” in my notes.

I called these same numbers, every day, to make sure my active phone time had increased.

When he got bored, he quit his job.

I did this for more than a year before I realized I was wasting my time and not accomplishing anything.

I was completely bored. So, I quit.

He, apparently, never caught on.

Haha! That’s hilarious. The boss wasn’t very smart since he never caught on.

Let’s see how others reacted to this story on Reddit.

This user shares their personal thoughts.

Here’s a valid point from this user.

People are giving some legal advice.

Short and straightforward.

Finally, someone admits to doing the same thing.

When you don’t agree with the rules, there’s often a clever way to follow them.

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.