You know things are backwards when you cover everyone else’s workload and still get lectured about overtime.

So what would you do if you spent an entire day handling the jobs of your entire team, skipped your breaks to keep everything running, and your supervisor still told you he “couldn’t approve” the extra hour you worked?

Would you push back? Or would you take him at his word and show him what it means?

In the following story, one technician finds himself in this scenario and takes full advantage of the situation.

Here’s the full story.

Can’t approve overtime? Ok, I’ll just leave early on Friday.

This took place in the 1990s when a T1 (1.5 Mbps data connection) would run you over $500 a month, and only the phone company and a few very large, data-centric companies would even dream of having a T3 (43 Mbps).

I was working for one of those telephone companies in the central office where we provisioned and trouble-shot those very lucrative services. There were 4 people in my department, making it one of the larger such offices in the state.

One day, there was one person on vacation, and another one out of the office for some other reason. Tech #3 called in sick. I was alone for 8 hours with the workload of 4 technicians.

He reminded the boss that they were down three employees.

Well, as a good employee, I prioritized and got all the trouble tickets done, and all of the most urgent new services installed. Everything due that day was done. But in the process, I missed my two 15-minute breaks and worked through lunch.

My supervisor came down at the end of the day to congratulate me for my good work, and he was watching me fill out my timesheet for 9 hours.

He started to get a little panicky and said he couldn’t approve overtime. He would get in trouble.

I reminded him that I had just spent 9 hours doing the work of 4 people (32 hours worth of work), but he said it wasn’t approved.

He wanted to take full advantage of the situation.

I asked what we could do then? I worked it, and I need to get paid.

He suggested I leave an hour early on Friday. So I agreed.

Come Friday, I decided to take full advantage and only take a half-hour lunch so I could leave at 3:30 instead of 4:00.

Well, guess what? The vacationer and the sick person had not returned, so it was just the two of us. The other person disappeared around 1:30. I found out later she was interviewing for a management position.

It was finally approved… too late.

At 3:00, I got paged for a ticket on one of those very expensive T3s “down hard.” I was to join a conference bridge to assist in troubleshooting. I joined the call, then at 3:25, I said, Sorry, I have to drop off. I’m not approved for any overtime.

The night shift person will be here in a half hour to help.” I dropped off, knowing the night person on duty had never worked on a T3 before.

I hadn’t even reached my car when the pager started blowing up. Overtime is approved, please stay on. But I had already clocked out, and so I just smiled and got into my car. Drove home and took my wife out for a long overdue date night.

Wow! What an ending!

Let’s see how the folks over at Reddit responded to this story.

This person did a similar thing.

This would not go over well.

Exactly!

According to this comment, some companies actually allow overtime.

The best part was that he made it to dinner with his wife!

That was a big win!

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