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Imagine working for a small company where there isn’t a time clock where you clock in and out. Instead, it’s just assumed that you’re working 40 hours a week.

What would you do if you knew you were actually working more than 40 hours a week? Would you work the overtime for free, or would you tell the boss?

In this story, one tradesman is in this situation, and he doesn’t mind working the overtime hours. He assumes his boss knows he’s coming in early, but his boss ended up finding that out the hard way after installing a time clock.

Keep reading to find out why his boss made this change and how it ended up backfiring.

Mad I took a long lunch? OK pay me overtime… and then some.

I was a specialized skilled tradesman about 20 years ago, I still am now but in a slightly different field. This particular field is almost always a small business and this was no exception.

I worked full time in a shop with my boss, his brother and maybe 2 other part time emploryees at the time.

Since there was only a handful of us there was no formal time keeping. I was full time so he would pay me 40 hrs a week, actually he liked the old semi monthly system so 8 hrs a day for 12-14 days a check. Which worked out fine by me.

He commuted to work with his wife.

At the time my wife’s work was only about 2 blocks away from mine so we would carpool nearly everday.

Her job was a more corporate, cube-farm type job that kept more formal time records so she would have to be there by a specific time, take a specific amount of time for lunch, etc. She also ended up putting in a small amount of overtime, usually less than an hour everyday.

Since she was supposed to be to work before my job’s buisness hours I would drop her off, let myself into the shop, and get my day started a little bit early, often helping out by getting things started for my boss or his brother.

I didnt mind, just something to do at the begining of the day.

It seemed like everyone was happy.

This routine actually resulted in me being in the shop, doing work related activites about 9 hrs sometimes more a day, without overtime.

Part of the routine was me meeting my wife for lunch which would have me out of the shop 30-60 min everyday.

Worked well, life was good.

One day, he was gone longer than an hour.

One day my wife had a doctor’s appointment. It was scheduled mid day and rather than just taking her car to work that day or having me leave the car with her for the day she asked me to go with her.

The doctor’s office is about 15 min from work, it wasn’t for anything serious and shouldn’t take too long so we should be there and back in about an hour.

It turned out the office was running a bit behind and we had to wait a good amount of time for her to see her doctor.

It took me just over an hour and a half to get back to the shop.

He assumed his boss wouldn’t think the extra long lunch break was a big deal.

I didn’t say anything to my boss when I left since i wasn’t planning in taking any longer than usual and it wasnt any of his business. Besides we’re both profesional adults and we can act as such.

I figured he’d ask why I took so long, I’d tell him what happened and no harm no foul.

Instead he just looked at his watch and then the clock on the wall when I walked in and said nothing.

Ok, whatever, I’m usually longer than 8 hrs everyday I guess he realizes that, right? Wrong.

Things changed.

By the start of the next pay period, about a week and a half, he had installed a time clock.

It’s obvious what happens next, he went from paying me 8 hrs a day to up to 9 or more a day just because he was annoyed I took a long lunch one day.

This is typical, trip over dollars to save dimes, mentality of his.

Wait! It gets better.

The boss wasn’t the best at math.

Remember how i said he liked the good old fashioned semi-monthly payday system?

Well actually calculating pay that way confused him so he would calculate payroll as if he was paying biweekly. So this genius of geniuses was paying me 1-3 days overtime every pay period for only being there just over 8 hours a day 5 days a week.

I tried pointing that out to him but he wouldnt listen so I just cashed my checks and was happy.

Things changed again.

Eventually, i started to get sick of his business practices and attitude and started working shorter and shorter hours since he was paying me extra anyway it gave me time to work on the side or work second jobs.

He ended up laying off myself and another full time employee eventually since his backwards business sense wasn’t managing to make any money for some reason.

I was so relieved.

I struggled for a little while but ended up changing my career focus slightly and am doing just fine.

The boss’s decision to get a time clock really backfired. All of this could’ve been prevented with a simple conversation between the boss and the employee. Nobody is a mind reader, and it can often backfire to assume other people know what you’re thinking.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person’s boss really overreacted when he was a few minutes late for work.

Another person thinks the boss was dumb and stubborn.

This person is confused why the boss was confused.

I don’t think it’s complicated. I think the boss wasn’t too bright.

I don’t think anyone should work overtime for free, but in this case, I don’t think the boss realized OP was working overtime at all until he installed the time clock. If he had, maybe he never would’ve installed it.

If the boss had simply said something to OP when he arrived back from his break later than usual, he would’ve realized that this was a one-off situation and not an employee slacking off.

It’s kind of too bad that the company spiraled downhill after the boss’s changes, but with a boss that dumb, it’s not surprising.

At least he got paid what he deserved.