While in the workplace, you generally have to do what your manager says, even if it doesn’t make any sense.

What would you do if your new manager told you that you had to work very strict hours even though it didn’t make any sense for the job.

That is what happened to the department in this story, so the whole team started clocking in and out perfectly, which quickly caused problems.

Clock in and out according to your contract!! Sure thing, boss!

I used to work in an office in a Training Department.

Laid back bosses are the best.

My manager was super chill and she didn’t care much about my schedule and hours I was doing, as long as I did the hours my contract said and didn’t take a mick.

I used to come in at around 7.30am every day. I didn’t start until 8am but I would come in, say hello to few people, make myself cup of tea, maybe have a quick chat with someone.

I would then start working at around 7.50am – still 10min before my start time.

Flexible schedules usually work well for everyone.

I should finish work at 4.30pm but quite often I would stay until 4.45pm or sometimes go home at 4pm but following day I would stay longer so my hours in a working week would still add to to what they supposed to.

My awesome manager went on maternity leave. And they gave us some wanna be manager who hasn’t had a clue about us or our job.

Switching managers can change a lot about a job.

Since my manager was away we all had to ‘report’ to the jerk. She hated us. For some weird reason, she hated our department and everyone in it. Never said why, though.

Very quickly she realized I was doing weird hours and pulled me in the office.

So, she is power tripping.

She started saying all this crap on how I’m stealing company’s time and money, how I’m unprofessional and how she is going to put her foot down and ‘make me work properly’ – whatever that means.

I tired to listen to her and asked her questions but she started to say that ‘one more word and you are out!’.

Sadly, there is no shortage of managers like this.

Ok. Cool. You are a jerk! Great! So I ask ‘What is it that you want me to do?’ And she says ‘Do the hours that are stated in your contract!’.

Ok, cool. So, to clarify I ask ‘Does that mean I have to start at 8am and finish at 4.30pm every day?’. She rolled her eyes, looks at me like I’m stupid and says ‘It’s not that hard! Your contracted hours is what I want to see on your timesheet. Not this nonsense you’ve been doing!’. Ok. Fine.

Sometimes you have to be petty in life.

See, I’m petty… very petty… and I don’t like jerks. So, I go home and sleep like a baby, knowing I will mess her up so much she will start loosing her mind.

Next day I come to work and wait by the clock-in machine to clock- in bang on 8am. Then I work my normal day and then I go back to the clock in machine and wait to clock out exactly at 4.30pm. I’m sure you already know where this is going…

Malicious compliance can be contagious.

My super friendly fellow coworkers realized very quickly what I was doing and decided to do the same. There was 10 of us in a team and we all gathered at the clock machine before and after the shift to clock in and out exactly at 8am and 4.30pm.

The jerk manager didn’t realize for a while what was going on. Until she put a meeting in place at 4pm. Well, 4 of us were in that meeting.

Obviously they can’t stay past 4:30.

Comes 4.25pm and all 4 of us get up while she’s talking and run out to our desks. We quickly gather our stuff and run to the clock-in machine. Then 1-2 minutes later we all clock out and go home! She didn’t even have the time to ask what we were doing!

Next day she sends us an invite for 4.30pm and it gets rejected by everyone on my team. She sends nasty email to all of us who rejected that we will be ‘written up’ for insubordination.

Good thing HR is on their side.

We forward the email to HR and ask for a meeting. Meeting happens, the HR lady listens to us, eyes wide open, then laughs, shakes her head and says ‘leave it with me’.

We go about our day, then all clock out at exactly 4.30pm.

Wow, they flat out fired her!

Next day jerk manager is nowhere to be seen. HR lady send email to us asking to come see her at 2pm. There we are informed that jerk manager will no longer ‘oversee’ our department.

Actually, she will no longer work for the company due to ‘objectives not aligning any more with the business’ – whatever that means.

Gossip has it that jerk manager was always biting more than she could chew and caused issues across few departments. She was moved around because ‘second chances’.

Their normal manager was proud.

Well, we went back to our own schedules. When our manager came back from maternity leave and was told what happened she laughed and said she raised us well!!!

Management can have a huge impact on your job for positive or negative.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

Most managers aren’t very good.

You don’t have to know everything.

Strict schedules almost never make sense.

This is nice, but rare.

He sounds like a great manager.

Bad managers cause so many problems.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.