Imagine working for a boss who has inconsistent working hours. If the boss insisted that you had to be at work before he arrived and after he left, how would you know what time to show up at work?

In this story, one group of contractors is in this exact situation. They decide to come in early like usual, but they never know what time they’ll finally get to go home.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

Manager’s Trust Issues Leads to Lots of Overtime

Back in the early 2000’s I was working as a government contractor to a “military client”. Overall, a good job.

Unlike most of these jobs, these paid per hour instead of salary (important later).

I didn’t question it when hired as I was told it was a 40 hour-a-week job. I came in at 0800 and left at 1700 with an hour for lunch.

Here’s some important information about what it means to be a contractor.

A little background on contracting in general. It’s not 100% accurate, but enough that you get the point.

A contractor works for a company that has an agreement, or contract, with a government agency. Often, the company is referred to as The Contractor as opposed to me, a contractor. Big C, little c. See? Si, icy.

The Contractor has a Manager (a.k.a. my boss) who works closely with the the Government Representative (a.k.a. the person responsible for overseeing the Contractor to ensure everything gets done).

A contractor doesn’t technically work for the Government Representative, but that’s not how it works in the real world.

Here are more details about OP’s specific situation.

In this case, the Government Representative drove my workload on a daily basis.

Fortunately he left me alone most of the time because he knew that I knew what I was doing, he had no idea how to do what he “hired” me to do, and he had other problems to deal with.

It took about a week before the nice Government Representative reverts into Hothead Manager.

But OP kept working as usual.

My boss had warned me about this, so it wasn’t unexpected.

It didn’t really cause me any issues as I just avoided him when his “heat was on”.

It also helped that he had some weird working hours (important later); coming into office until noon and leaving at 2100.

We suspected it was issues with his wife, but left it alone.

The Manager makes an accusation.

Fast forward a couple of months and I attend a routine meeting with my boss and Hothead Manager to review the monthly reports for my team – accomplishments, issues, future planning, etc. This is the only time Hothead Manager reviews contract-related activity.

The meeting goes as usual and when my boss asks if there’s anything else we need to discuss, Hothead Manager says that he thinks that the contractors are padding their hours.

We, of course, want to know who so that we can investigate and address the issue.

He says, all of them. Note, I’m one of those “them”.

The Manager wanted the contractors to follow a new rule.

I managed to remain calm and after a few minutes of questions, we ask how he would like The Contractor to handle the situation.

His response, “Have everyone here when I get here and leave after I leave.”

I diplomatically remind him of his unpredictable schedule and how problematic that would be.

He doesn’t back off and we agree to his new terms – with a signed requirements document, of course.

See where this is going yet? MC in 3, 2, 1…

Everyone worked a LOT of overtime.

I informed all of my team members that they would now report to work at 0600 and would not be able to leave until Hothead Manager had been gone for 5 minutes.

I was the first-in and last-out every day.

So much overtime was racked up that next month. My team averaged 65 hours per week for the entire month. That means every team member billed an average of 77.5 hours a week, nearly double the usual 40.

Here’s how the next meeting went…

During the next monthly meeting, I placed the new requirements document the Hothead Manager had signed on top of the handouts – page 1. Then we went over the massive list of tasks the team has accomplished that month.

Hothead Manager was very impressed and congratulated us on a job well done.

Then we turned the page to monthly costs and Hothead went Nuclear.

My boss and I sat through a 10 minute rampage. Papers thrown. Stomping out of the room. Incoherent screaming.

The Manager had nobody to blame but himself.

Once he calmed down and was a shade of red that we humans have a name for, he asked who authorized all the overtime.

I said, “If you turn to page 1 of the handouts, you’ll see that you did.”

He sat there for a good 3 minutes staring at the table before signing off on the monthly reports. He said nothing.

The new requirements were rescinded that afternoon.

I’m glad the Hothead Manager changed the rule back so quickly!

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This wouldn’t work everywhere.

One person has questions.

This is a good point.

Another person shares what they find surprising.

Following the rules can be an effective way of proving why the rules don’t make sense.

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.