Things get interesting when a boss’s tough talk about “being on time” comes back around on him.

So what would you do if your supervisor lectured you for arriving six minutes late because of traffic, then tried to make you stay past your shift every day to fix a problem he created?

Would you let him get away with his double standards? Or would you hold him to the same standards?

In the following story, one employee finds himself in this situation and turns it around on his boss.

Here’s what he did.

A bad attitude works both ways

Most jobs, I’ve skipped lunch or worked back to make sure things get done. No point getting petty over a few minutes here or there, right?

One previous manager was a bit blind to my short lunches or long days, but really doubled down on my start times.

I was 6 minutes late because of an unexpected traffic jam. The supervisor didn’t like this at all.

He turned it around on the manager.

I got called to his desk and told, “We start at 9 am, not 9:06 am”

I’m easy-going and, despite not liking being talked down to, would have forgotten about this as he was technically correct (the best kind of correct).

The following week, he decided it would be a good idea for me to work late 5 minutes each day because the change to the process he wrote would stop last-minute customers from being inconvenienced.

I told him, “We finish at 5 pm, not 5:05 pm.”

For some reason, the boss wouldn’t put the policy in writing.

He didn’t like this at all and told me I had a bad attitude.

When I asked him how this was any different from his attitude to getting in early, he told me he was the boss, and that’s why.

But what really made him mad was my asking him to please put the new process that involved me staying late in an email, which, for some reason (possibly because he knew I’d be forwarding it to HR), didn’t happen, and I began to work until 5 pm with a full lunch every day.

Wow! Bet that manager didn’t last long.

Let’s see how the people over at Reddit relate to situations like this.

Good point.

This person deals with something similar.

According to this comment, the boss didn’t see that coming.

For this reader, the company knew what he was doing.

He did the right thing. The manager was rude and deserved to have his words turned around on him.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.