Imagine working at a company where you’re always traveling for work, and every week you’re staying in a hotel.

If the new company VP changed the business travel rules to save the company money, would you keep doing what you’ve been doing anyway, or would you adjust your work week to follow the new policy?

In this story, one network technician at a telecom company is in this exact situation and decides to comply. It resulted in 3-day weekends instead of a massive amount of overtime, but there were other consequences as well.

Let’s read all about it.

No more overtime? Ok

Backstory:. From 2008 to 2017 I worked as a network technician for a major telecom company.

At first a normal work week was 54 hours, 9 hour days 6 days a week.

Projects often took a month or more to complete. These projects were also in different locations. So it was normal for myself and others like me to stay in hotels for several weeks in a row.

We had 4-5 break days home at the end of the month.

A new VP changed the rules.

The reason for the MC:. Around 2012 a new VP decided no more overtime.

She also didn’t want the company paying for extra hotel nights if we didn’t work that day. 1 night was ok, but not 2 in a row. So I wasn’t supposed to stay in hotels over the weekend.

Now for the MC:. At the time I was working on projects that were 5 hour drive from home.

Here’s how she handled the work week with the new rules…

With the permission of my team lead, Monday morning I left home and made the 5 hour drive. I continued working 9 hour days. Come Thursday with about 35 hours worked. I would make the drive home.

Both the drive to work and the drive home were on the clock, but with zero actual productivity.

Plus I was getting 3 day weekends.

Eventually, the rules changed again.

After a month and a half of this, completion deadlines were getting missed.

It didn’t take much longer things to change again. It was wasn’t exactly as before, but still an improvement over what the new VP had done.

I forget to mention that this was using a company vehicle. 4×4 truck which back then got crappy gas mileage.

So in addition to the above, I was putting extra wear and tear on their truck.

Also I doubt I was the only net tech doing it this way, but not everyone was. Some were doing 5 8s and/or not claiming the drive time. Others may have been staying in the hotels on their own dime (or using points).

I get the MC, but I would’ve thought the team lead would’ve wanted the employee to make the drive on Friday instead of Thursday so there wouldn’t be a 3-day weekend. Regardless, following the new rules seemed to be an effective way to get them changed.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person would not want a job where they’re always traveling for work.

Save those points!

It seems to happen a lot.

Following the rules can be the best way to get the rules changed.

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.