Sometimes, something is done the same way for so long in a company that no one bats an eye.

But this man finally realized something was wrong with the way time was being managed at his job: he did overtime while waiting for someone to cover his shift, but didn’t get compensated.

Read the story and see what he did.

Turning wage theft into time theft by… showing up on time.

My job is 12-hour shifts with a flexible start time.

You must show up before 7, but you can start as early as 6 if you want, and most people opt to show up before 6:30.

The last person is usually in before 6:45.

We let people go home at the end of the shift on a first-in-first-out basis.

But it’s not as simple as it sounds.

In theory, you should be able to go home after you’ve worked your 12 hours, but in practice, there is usually a disparity of arrival times between the outgoing shift and the oncoming shift.

For example, I may have started at 6:15 as the 4th person in, and I’m relieved by the 4th person in on the next shift, but that person might show up at 6:45, making me stay 30 minutes late.

I can’t complain to that person because it’s their right to show up at 6:45.

He tried reasoning with the people in charge.

I talked to my supervisor about this because it had been happening pretty frequently.

She said the company won’t pay me for the extra time because, according to her, it’s my choice to arrive earlier than 7 and that’s just the risk I take in being early.

She also said she’s not willing to move any people around to cover my role to get me out on time, even though they regularly do that to let people take unscheduled bathroom breaks and do training.

She said it’d be different if I wasn’t relieved by 7 because someone is really late, but before 7, they don’t care.

Wow. It turned out that the solution was simple.

Well, I show up at 6:59 now.

I’m always the last one in.

I leave later than everyone, but I’m also guaranteed never to work a single extra, unpaid minute.

It also means that the person I relieve is having to stay late because again, the last person usually shows up before 6:45.

It also means I usually get relieved earlier than 12 hours.

They made their choice.

I still have to stay in the building until I reach 12 hours (tracked with badge cards), but ultimately, they’re still paying me for 10-15 minutes of wandering hallways or reading a book.

Basically they went from regularly stiffing me 15-30 minutes of pay to regularly having to pay me to do 15-30 minutes of nothing.

If only they respected their employees’ time and dedication more.

Let’s see what Reddit has to say about this.

A reader shares their thoughts.

This commenter shares their opinion.

Yup.

Sound advice.

It’s baffling.

Someone shares their experience.

When companies act this petty, why wouldn’t their employees be petty as well?

Play stupid games and all that…

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.