There’s a certain kind of boss who sees an employee’s personal time as an untapped resource.

A nursing home worker who carpools with her mom had been arriving well before her shift started for months, using the quiet time to rest in an empty room before the day began.

It worked fine until her department head caught her and started telling her if she was already there, she should just clock in early and get to work.

But this employee wasn’t about to let herself be taken advantage of.

Keep reading for the full story.

My boss said I can’t come early and sleep at my work place until it’s time to clock in

I’ve been working at a nursing home for 4 years now as a Floor Technician.

I used to be on 2nd shift but through some bull, I now been exclusively working first shift.

Transportation has always been a struggle for her.

The problem is that I don’t drive and it’s hard to find someone willing in the morning to drive me, so I have to carpool with my mom cause her job’s going towards the same way, but she has to clock in at 6 AM while I clock in at 7.

So I have to get up at 5, get dressed by 5:30, and then I usually get dropped off around 5:40.

Otherwise, I have to walk across town to get to work.

Despite the struggle, she still prides herself on being punctual.

I have few qualms about working mornings, but I still arrive on time. Even if I walk to work, I can still be on time.

However, I’m still tired and I wanna catch some sleep before I clock in.

So she has a familiar ritual that seemed to work well at first.

So I usually go into the computer learning room and take a nap. I’ve been doing this for the last few months now and nobody cared.

When I first started here, I worked mornings so I had another spot I slept in before clock in, until they closed it off from employees. Nobody cared then.

It’s not that I’m sleep-deprived, it’s more of a “might as well!” thing.

She thinks she deserves a little leeway.

And if I may add, I always usually show up to work a hour or a half-hour before I clock in anyways and I don’t even sleep.

It’s something I been doing way before even I started this job.

But soon her boss had a lot to say about this habit.

I clocked in this morning and my department head starts chewing me out first thing for using my off time to sleep in a empty public room at a hour where it’s not being used and most of the morning staff isn’t here, including my bosses.

She’s telling me that since I’m here early, which is something I have no say in, I should clock in over a hour and half early and begin working.

Immediately, the employee is against this.

Like it’s not my choice to be here this early, so why should I have to work before everyone else in my department for no reason?

I tried suggesting moving to another room like the employee break room, or putting me back on 2nd shift, but my department head is adamant on keeping me on first so that she can have me right under her wrinkly old thumb.

It just makes her even more frustrated about other work issues.

The worst part is that there’s another fully capable person on first that could be handling 1st shift on his own, yet we both are constantly stepping on each other’s toes finding stuff to keep busy on an eight hour shift.

I was going to have a discussion with the big boss later today, but I’m beyond not having the energy to be patronized and dismissed, so I thinking about calling it quits.

Sounds like this job is starting to give her more frustration than satisfaction.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a mom who homeschooled during the day and worked at night, only to have her employer try to change her schedule.

What did Reddit have to say?

This user suggests building a paper trail.

Maybe there’s an upside to this situation this employee isn’t considering.

Jobs don’t always seem to care about fairness.

This user suggests another option for transportation.

This employee wasn’t doing anything unreasonable, and the fact that she had to defend herself for it says more about her department head than it does about her.

She showed up early because she had no other option, used that time quietly without disrupting anyone, and kept doing her job the same way she had for four years.

The moment her boss caught her resting in an empty room, the conversation stopped being about a nap and became about who gets to decide what someone owes a workplace before they’ve even clocked in.

When every reasonable alternative she offered got dismissed, it reveals this was never really about the room or the schedule. It was about a boss who needed absolute control.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who just let clients complain after her boss refused to approve overtime.