Workplaces can develop some truly absurd rules.

The following story involves a man working as an account manager who always arrived early and leave about 5 minutes after his shift.

However, his manager insisted that leaving at 5:05 was “too early.”

When he stuck around, he discovered a surreal culture where employees held each other hostage.

Let’s take a closer look!

Worked at a company where no one dared to be the first to go home at five o clock.

I used to work as an account manager for a company that builds and designs bakery stores.

My shift started at 08:30 and ended at 17:00.

I’m a guy who’s always on time, so I’d always start at 08:15.

This person was confronted by his manager, saying leaving “early” was unacceptable.

The first week I worked there, I went home at about 17:05/17:10.

So my manager walks in after a few days.

“What you’re doing is unacceptable.”

I was shocked and said, “What did I do?”

“Well, you’re leaving way too early. Everybody’s talking about it.”

He stuck around and noticed that other employees started going home at 5:20 pm.

I didn’t want to argue but said, “I’m at least 15 minutes early every day?”

That didn’t matter to my manager because “no one sees you coming early.”

So I stuck around the days after to see people only leaving at 17:20 or 17:25 because no one wanted to be the first to go home.

He thinks these employees were holding each other as hostages.

I’m talking about a company with about 75 employees.

And all these employees were holding each other hostage to not leave “early.”

It was 8 years ago when I left the company, but it’s the worst work culture I’ve ever encountered.

I always mention it to people as a bad example. Pure madness.

Let’s find out what others have to say about this on Reddit.

Here’s how the conversation should go…

This user gives their honest opinion.

This office looks cool!

Here’s a good alibi, too.

Finally, here’s how they do it in Sweden.

Some offices act more like a prison than a workplace.

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.