Some workplace rules are so frivolous that the only way to end them is to follow them to the letter.

When a hospital janitor’s boss demanded that every staff member call him every single time they left their assigned hallway, the janitor decided to take the rule at face value and comply with it completely.

By call number 150, the calls were aimed at making the boss as uncomfortable as possible.

You’ll want to keep reading for this one.

You HAVE to call me every time you leave this hallway! — Sure thing boss

My brother used to work in “environmental services” at a rather large hospital. For those of you not fluent in corporate nonsense, that means he was a janitor.

He had a lot of cleaning duties that took him all over the hospital each day. However, each person was assigned a hallway that they had to maintain during the shift.

My brother did not have an issue with this and did all of his work as assigned.

At this particular job, he often bumped heads with management, but in fairness, the way he describes it, he was working for a bunch of idiots.

Management didn’t seem to really know what they were doing.

On one particular day, management tried to implement a new rule. All staff members were now supposed to call the boss whenever they left their designated hallway.

The boss, Joe, just wanted a quick notification.

I’m sure the reason for this rule made sense at the time, but it’s one of those things that is just so stupid no one ever did it.

The boss didn’t seem to understand just how trivial his request really was.

That didn’t prevent the boss from trying to enforce the rule though. He harassed everyone — my brother included — all the time about “leaving their workspace without notifying him.”

One day he was really going after my brother hard, until finally my brother had enough.

He decided that it was best to follow the rule.

So the employee decided he was going to follow the rule, but he was going to be annoying about it.

The very next day he began.

At the start of his shift he called his boss: “Hey Joe, I’m going to my hallway now.”

A few minutes later, my brother realized he didn’t have enough supplies on his cart, and the required supplies were in the closet ten feet outside the area he had been assigned.

Another call was made, then another.

So he called his boss again. “Hey Joe, I need to leave my hallway. I forgot some supplies.”

He did so. Then once he got back to his hallway: “Hey Joe, I’m back in my hallway now.”

You can guess what happened next.

An hour goes by and wouldn’t you know it, he had to use the bathroom. “Hey Joe, I need to go use the bathroom. It’s a number 2 in case you were wondering.”

Then he went to the bathroom.

Upon completion of the “subtask” he went back to the hallway and called again.

This time, he decided to throw in a little TMI for good measure.

“Hey Joe, I’m back in the hallway. I had a good bowel movement, no trouble to report there. The color and size all seemed healthy.”

At this point Joe was getting annoyed, but he couldn’t go back on his rule that he had gone through so much trouble to enforce.

Meanwhile, my brother’s calls and “mini reports” became increasingly elaborate. He was no longer just calling to say when he left and came back, but to explain why he was leaving, how long he would be gone, where he was going, etc.

Eventually, the boss grew tired of fielding these excessive calls.

Joe eventually stopped picking up his phone, so my brother would just keep calling until he answered.

My brother said he thinks he must have called his boss over 150 times during his 8-hour shift. Each time leaving a very detailed report.

With each report, his boss just replied something along the lines of “Okay, okay, okay, Chad. Uh, okay,” clearly just wanting to get off the phone.

Finally, he ended up dropping the whole thing.

The next day he came back to work and didn’t make any calls.

And Joe never bothered him or anyone else about “calling to check in with him” after that.

And that’s how you put a silly rule in the grave for good!

What did Reddit think?

In important jobs like this, the last thing you want is an employee getting bogged down by busy work.

This user doesn’t think highly of anyone in a management position.

This user could have been even more scientific in these reports.

This was the perfect compliance in this user’s eyes.

This boss demanded constant check-ins, so that’s exactly what he got.

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.