Some bosses care more about control than common sense.

What would you do if your boss decided being a minute late was worth docking 15 minutes of your pay, then expected you to work that time for free anyway?

Would you make sure to show up on time?

Or would you hold your ground and make sure you’re not being taken advantage of?

In the following story, one construction worker finds himself in this very situation.

Here’s what happened.

Boss says “If you’re 1 minute late I’m docking 15 minutes from your time” gets mad when I don’t work the 15 minutes I was docked for free.

This happened about four years ago.

I do construction, and we start fairly early.

The boss got tired of people walking in at 6:05 or 6:03 when we start at 6:00 (even though he was a few minutes late more consistently than any one of us were).

So he said, “If you aren’t standing in front of me at 6 o’clock when we start, then I’m docking 15 minutes from your time for the day.”

The next day, I accidentally forgot my tape measure in my car and had to walk back across the job site to grab it. I made it inside at 6:00.

The Boss chewed me out and told me he was serious yesterday and docked me 15 minutes.

So I took all my tools off right there and sat down on a bucket.

He asked why I wasn’t getting to work, and I said, “I’m not getting paid until 6:15, so I’m not doing any work until 6:15. I enjoy what I do, but I don’t do it for free.”

Others took notice.

He tried to argue with me about it until I said “If you’re telling me to work without paying me then that’s against the law. You really wanna open the company and yourself up to that kind of risk? Maybe I’m the kind to sue, maybe I’m not, but if you keep on telling me to work after you docked my time then we’re gonna find out one way or the other.”

He shut up pretty quickly after that and everyone else saw me do it and him cave, so now they weren’t gonna take his crap either.

Over the next few days, guys who would have been 1 or 2 minutes late just texted the boss, “Hey, sorry, boss. I would have been there at 6:02 and gotten docked, so I’ll see you at 6:15, and I’ll get to work then.”

They sat in their cars until 6:15 and came in when their time started.

So, between people doing what I did or just staying in their cars instead, he lost a TON of productivity and morale because he decided that losing 15 minutes of productivity per person and feeling like a Big Man was better than losing literally 1 or 2 minutes of productivity.

It didn’t take long for the company to start suffering.

Even though everyone stands around talking and getting material together for the day until about 6:10, anyway.

After a few weeks of that, his boss chewed him out over the loss of productivity and how bad the docked time sheets looked, reflecting poorly on him as a leader.

We were missing deadlines over it, and it “Showed that he doesn’t know how to manage his people.”

Then suddenly, his little self-implemented policy was gone, and we all worked like we were supposed to and caught back up fairly quickly.

Worker solidarity for the win. Not one person took his crap and worked that time for free after he tried to swing his weight around on them.

But obviously I was a target after that and only made it two more months before he had stacked up enough ** reasons to get away with firing me when I called in a few days in a row after my mom fell and I took off work to take care of her and monitor her for a while during the day.

Yikes! He must’ve regretted starting that!

Let’s take a look at what the people over at Reddit have to say about it.

At this point, it would’ve been a whole other problem.

This guy turned it around on his boss.

Here’s someone who dealt with this as a teen.

When this person is already late, they take their time.

What a terrible boss!

It’s always awesome to see someone get what they deserve!

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.