Workplace flexibility works great until a new boss wants to flex authority instead.

So when one disabled employee had their flexible schedule revoked by a power hungry boss, he decided he was done handing out free favors for a job that didn’t value him.

Keep reading for the full story.

I gave more than required. New manager didn’t like this and made some changes to my contract.

Thirteen years ago, when I worked for the UK government, I lived on the south coast of the UK and worked in London.

So I had a reasonably long commute of about 90 minutes on a train each way.

I had a motorbike accident which severely injured my left leg and hip.

So he worked with HR to put some reasonable accommodations in place.

So I asked my HR department and boss to allow me to come in earlier and finish earlier to avoid rush hour, so I wouldn’t have to suffer the pain of standing on a packed train all the way to work and back.

They both agreed.

For a while, this schedule worked out perfectly for him.

Our office had a flexi-time workday of eight hours (seven hours plus a one-hour lunch break) between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m.

How you chose to do that was up to you.

However, business needs often dictated that some people needed to stay later or whatever, so my agreement with HR allowed me to circumvent that and just stick to my new agreed-upon hours of 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Of course, due to the train times, I would get into the office about 30 to 40 minutes before I was due to start and would leave 30 minutes after my agreed-upon finish time.

Out of gratitude, the employee always made sure he was holding up his end of the bargain.

I always put in an extra hour of work a day because of that.

I also often skipped my lunch break and just worked through it if needed.

There followed a blissful year of me managing my time perfectly and getting into the office without being in pain.

But when a new boss came in, everything changed.

When a new manager came into our office, he pulled me aside after a few weeks and said, “There is a perception in the office that you leave early.”

Of course, he wasn’t privy to the agreed-upon change in my hours.

He didn’t like the fact that I got in early and left early when he usually had to stay until 5 p.m. at the earliest and 8 p.m. at the latest.

So he arbitrarily changed my work hours to 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day.

This meant a much longer, and more painful, commute for the employee.

That meant I had to stand on the train to and from work again.

It also meant that by the time I got into the office in the morning, I was in extreme pain.

He still expected me to start work early and finish late, though, like I had been.

The boss didn’t at all seem to understand the reality of his injury.

He told me that this had been agreed with HR, as it had been over a year since my accident and I was expected to have made a full recovery.

I hadn’t, though, and in fact I still suffer from a weakened leg to this day.

But this employee looked closer at the contract and found something interesting.

However, my new “contract” hadn’t removed the clause that allowed me to only work eight hours without any expected overtime.

So I would get into the office at 8:15 to 8:20 each day and sit reading the newspaper, or sometimes literally doing absolutely nothing, which infuriated my boss even more.

So his approach to the workday completely changed.

I would “clock in” exactly at 9 a.m. and then “clock out” exactly at 5 p.m., no matter what I was doing.

I would also take exactly one hour for lunch each day, regardless of whether I was in the middle of something.

He tried to arrange meetings for before, after, and during those times, and I would decline them or leave during a meeting if it overran.

The boss’ hands were tied.

There was nothing he could do about it.

When he complained to me, I pointed out that it was in the contract that he had signed off with HR.

The boss did retaliate, but luckily the employee eventually got out of there.

Sadly, he made my life more difficult in other ways, and the pain in my leg got worse due to having to stand to and from work.

So this crappy situation only lasted for a few months before I quit.

Still, those few months made him very angry, so it was kind of worth it.

What a truly terrible boss.

Redditors chime in with their thoughts.

People usually sue over something this egregious.

Apparently workers in the UK can utilize a specific labor law to their advantage.

This employee could have made some serious cash.

In this day and age, you just have to act your wage.

If this boss wanted a 9-5, that’s exactly what he would get. Nothing more, nothing less.

When you cut the flexibility, you also cut the freebies.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.