How early do you need to be for work?

Some employees probably struggle to show up on time or are consistently late for work, while others love to be the first one at the office, or in this case, the soccer field.

In today’s story, one soccer referee always arrives early, but apparently, according to another referee, he’s not getting there early enough.

Let’s see how this story plays out.

“Show up 30 minutes early.” Sure Dave, as long as you do too!

I am 15 years old and work as a soccer referee.

I will normally arrive 10-15 minutes early to a game, which is plenty of time to check in players from both teams and make sure the field is in proper playing condition.

One game I showed up to, as an assistant referee(AR).

My center ref, 18 years old, let’s call him Dave, told me that all refs have to arrive 30 minutes early to every game.

I know this is not true, and stayed silent.

This sounds really unfair.

We reffed the game as usual, and returned to where we put our stuff at the end of the game.

Dave told me that because I didn’t arrive 30 minutes early, he would mark that I didn’t show up, basically telling me that I wouldn’t get paid for the game we just worked.

I complained that this was a rule that he made up.

He left the game without saying anything else, figuring that would be all.

Time to turn the tables!

Note: If you referee without any ARs, you get paid like 5$ more. I think this was Dave’s plan.

When I got home, I made sure to sign up to be center referee at every game where Dave was an AR.

Poor Dave showed up to his next game 15 minutes early, which is absolutely unacceptable.

I said nothing the whole game, but only marked him absent, which means he wouldn’t get paid.

This went on for a week and half until his paycheck came in, and he was about 120$ off of what his total should’ve been.

(I did make sure every game that Dave was less then 30 minutes early)

Dave eventually noticed.

Dave emails one of the main referees(who run everything) to see what the problem was.

One of the main referees, let’s call him John, told Dave that he wasn’t there, so he wouldn’t get paid.

Dave put two and two together and realized what I did.

Making up rules really backfired on Dave!

Emails were sent between Dave, John, and I, until John had the full story.

Dave was fired for making up rules, and I got paid for the first game with Dave.

Don’t take advantage of young people.

Take that Dave.

I’m glad they didn’t get in trouble. He was only following the rule Dave made up!

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person quotes the Bible.

He should’ve told HR right away.

This person is impressed with his self control.

He deserves a reward!

That worked out well!

For the kid, anyway.

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.