Companies love keeping tabs on their employees, but sometimes the tools they use are better at tracking frustration than productivity.

When one employee realized HR’s new time-tracking system wasn’t counting half their time, they made sure every minute counted — and a heck of a lot less work got done as a result.

Read on for the full story!

Time tracking salaried workers is ridiculous…

My company decided to install time tracking software on everything a few years ago, but didn’t make a big deal out of it.

When asked, management said to not worry about it and keep doing your normal workday.

But it turns out, they were right to worry about it.

Recently, time worked has become a bigger issue.

HR is coming down hard on everyone I know.

According to them, we are only working 50% or less of our required hours.

This didn’t make any sense because the work is still getting done, and everyone is still online all day.

So this changed everything for this employee.

Because of time being a bigger issue, I started tracking my time very carefully.

I was logging over 9.5 hours of work a day, but only getting credit for maybe half that.

Cue malicious compliance.

It turns out, they would have to start structuring their day very differently.

I tested a bunch of different scenarios and learned what is tracked and what isn’t.

Scheduled meetings are always tracked.

So above all else, they make sure their hours are tracked, regardless of project completion.

So now I am in a meeting every minute of my normal workday.

And once I hit the 8 hour mark, no matter what I am doing, I drop it and quit for the day.

This has started to affect how much is being done in total on a weekly basis.

But I am finished with working for free.

Telling everyone not to worry may just be corporate code for “you’re going to regret this.”

What did Reddit make of all this?

Management wants to play a game, so why shouldn’t employees play along?

Timesheets don’t make sense in some lines of work, but in others, they can be useful.

Sometimes you just have to work smarter.

Efficiency and competence should never be penalized.

This employee figured that if the clock was watching, they might as well put on a show.

And in the end, it worked out in her favor.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.