Pointless rules can ruin workplace productivity, but have you ever wondered exactly how much time might be wasted by these rules?

This man was working in a company that forced them to fill out tedious forms.

It was taking a lot of time, so he thought of a clever way to make his point.

In the end, the secretary at work thanked him for his idea.

Read the full story below to find out what he did.

Non-productive time.

Years ago, I worked at a place that built medical testing equipment.

They came up with stupid crap to fill out every 6 mouths or so, but the worst was a form for non-productive time.

Stocking parts, cleaning, moving things around, meetings, manager stopping to ask a question. Anything like these.

This man added another item at the bottom of the list.

We had to stop and fill the form out.

We had HR people who would watch to make sure you were doing it.

There was something like 12 different boxes of items to keep track of, so after 2 to 3 weeks of this, I got the idea to add another item on the bottom of the list.

And I got everyone else to.

It was how long we spent each day filling out the form!

One of the secretaries was looking for the person responsible for it.

The next Monday, there was a staff meeting first thing that morning.

They told us to stop filling out the forms. No answer as to why was given.

One of the front secretaries must have going around asking whose idea it was to add that line.

Everyone pointed to me.

She thanked him for his idea, which effectively worked.

She came up and thanked me. It was her job to enter them.

She hated them, couldn’t read half of them, and got questioned about them by HR all the time.

Well, turns out, it was taking almost 120 hours a week of employee time to fill them out each week! The equivalent or 3 people’s time.

Busywork can waste a lot of time.

Let’s find out what others have to say about this on Reddit.

This person makes a valid point.

Here’s another similar thought.

This user describes it as “legendary.”

Finally, this person suggests asking for a “productivity” bonus.

Sometimes, you gotta let them know how nonsensical their ideas are.

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.