Imagine working in an office where your team has the option of working flexi hours where you can come in and leave within a certain time range or there’s the option of everyone working the exact same hours.

Which would you choose?

In this story, one employee loved the flexible hours, but the coworkers wanted everyone to work the exact same hours.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

Workplace revenge

Worked in a large office with multiple departments. Each department could choose whether they wanted to have flexi-time or not.

Most chose to have this option. The core hours were 10am – 4pm, so everyone needed to be in the office during this time. The phone lines were open from 9am – 5pm.

So long as there was phone cover the hour before and the hour after core time, no one minded how people managed their flexi.

Living the furthest away, I chose (after making sure it was ok) to come in at 8am everyday and leave at 4pm so that I could avoid the worst of rush hour traffic. I had been working these hours for the better part of 4 years and no one had a problem with it.

Until I changed departments.

These coworkers sound really annoying.

Despite there always being cover up until 6pm most days (office was open 8am-6pm) my co-workers had a problem with me being the only one leaving a 4. They complained constantly to the department manager.

He gave them the option of leaving early if they wanted, setting up a rota of people leaving early, basically any workable solution that was feasibly possible.

Nope, nothing was acceptable. None of my co-workers wanted to leave early (unless there was an emergency, drs appointment etc) so if they chose to stay until 5pm, then I should also fit in with the team and do the same.

The manager seemed to want to help, but I’d think the manger could just tell the coworkers to quit complaining.

Exhausted, my manager spoke to me and said he’d tried everything but they just wouldn’t back down.

I asked if I could move to another department that didn’t mind me leaving at 4.

But he gave me a piece of information which made me smile and I decide to stay.

I asked if he wouldn’t mind batting them off for the next couple of weeks because I had a plan.

Here’s how the team meeting went.

Team meeting was held after a couple of weeks to discuss working hours and I sat back and allowed my co-workers to get themselves worked up.

I decided to throw in a few comments here and there to rile them up some more and when I thought it was the right moment, I held my hands up and conceded defeat. I asked the team if they prefer I work 9-5.

They all agreed.

Giving a quick look to my manager, I repeated that we should all work the same hours, considering their argument was that I was the only one leaving early.

Everyone seemed to like that idea.

Unanimous agreement.

So I suggested that we should all, as a team, work 9-5.

Enthusiastic nodding. Starting from tomorrow.

Silence. My manager spoke up saying that was a wonderful idea and was a brilliant solution. He’d put it in place immediately, so that we could all come off flexi-time and as a department, all work the same hours, which is what the team wanted in the first place.

But there was something the coworkers didn’t consider.

Now is a good time to mention that there was a worldwide sporting event taking place at the time. Living in the UK but not being British, I didn’t feel the need to follow the UK teams.

The event was being held abroad, so due to time differences, some of the games were played in the morning, UK time, meaning that my co-workers could watch the games and still be in at work by 10am.

I piped up to remind my team that this meant I would no longer be the only one covering the phones from 9-10 and phew (yes, they conveniently forgot that they left me to answer the phones for that hour pretty much every day since me starting on the team) what a relief because the phones did get busy first thing in the morning.

One colleague tried to speak up but my manager reminded them that this is what they’ve been asking for all along – that the whole team worked the same hours.

It would impact the lunchtime schedule too.

Oh yes, this was also the time to mention that seeing as I couldn’t leave early anymore, there was no need to work through my lunch break (something I offered to placate them and I didn’t used to have lunch that often back then.

Flexi meant that people had the choice to take two hours for lunch and I’d offered to cover the phones when the games were on) so I’d stop doing that, otherwise I’d be worn out working flat out until 5.

That meant that the quarter and semi finals they had planned to watch, which so happened to be played over UK lunchtime and our office were showing on the large screen in the main conference room would only have a restricted viewing time of 1 hour now.

I announced that I could see I was being selfish for being the only one to leave early and I was pleased to fit in with everyone else by working 9-5.

It got even worse for the coworkers and better for OP.

That also meant that I wouldn’t be signing off the payments from the previous day, something I would do between 8-9 when it was nice and quiet, albeit that I chose not to remind them of that but I did like seeing the look on their faces when they realised they had extra work to do the following morning – work that they should’ve been doing in the first instance (again, something I volunteered to do to try to placate them).

Oh and that information that my manger gave me in our meeting 2 weeks prior?

In a cost cutting exercise, my office was relocating to another one which happened to be a lot closer to where I lived, so ultimately the removal of flexi-time worked in my favour as it meant I could then walk to and from work.

Oh it was difficult not to pull a smug face when the relocation was announced.

I think the British term “Don’t **** on your chips” definitely applied here.

They got what they wanted, but they didn’t really think it through very well.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person loved the revenge.

It really worked out well.

Another person shares their work hours situation.

Here’s another story about flex time.

As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for because you just might get it!

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.