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Flexible schedules only work when management understands that flexibility occasionally bends in both directions. In this story, one fleet worker balanced early finishes with a few extra minutes whenever a vehicle needed completing.

That sensible arrangement looked suspicious to his strict boss, who replaced it with a precise quitting time and an unexpected productivity experiment.

Read the full story below.

No more taking advantage of flexible hours your day ends at 4:00 PM from now on!

This happened a long time ago, about 13 to 15 years ago.

I had just started a job at a government agency, where I was responsible for a big fleet of cars.

My duties included driving the vehicles to various places like repair shops, tire companies, glass repair shops, and inspection centers.

I also performed simple repairs myself, like replacing some light bulbs (not all).

In addition to all of that, I hand-washed and cleaned every car, both inside and out, refilled the windshield washer fluid, and made sure all the required items were in each car.

The boss got strict about the working hours.

Washing a car inside and out, checking the fluids, and making sure all the necessary equipment was present took a minimum of 45 minutes and a maximum of about an hour.

About a month into the job, my boss decided I was taking too much advantage of my flexible working hours and told me that I had to stop working precisely at 4:00 PM.

So I decided to follow my boss’s rule to the letter.

The boss noticed a change in the employee’s work.

As the days went on, and if it was after 3:15 PM, I didn’t think I had enough time to start washing and fixing another car.

So instead, I did other small tasks like sweeping the floor or restocking the supply room.

After a few weeks of this, my boss noticed that fewer cars had been cleaned and fixed in total. So he called me into a meeting to ask why.

That’s when I brought up his policy that I had to leave at exactly 4:00 PM and that I shouldn’t be “taking advantage” of my flexible hours.

The boss understood the situation.

The boss suddenly realized why I had been “taking advantage” of the flexible hours before—I was simply working smart.

Some days, I would go home a little earlier after a car was finished, and on other days, I needed an extra 5 to 20 minutes to complete a car.

It wasn’t a daily issue, but it happened often enough that the boss’s new policy created a problem.

The boss made a wise decision.

So After the boss had been thinking for a moment, he said that we should go back to the way I was working before.

He apologized for his poor policy and admitted that he was wrong.

I ended up staying at that job for about two more years, and we got along well for that entire time.

I love that the boss understood and had a change of heart. That worked out well!

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Seriously, what a great boss!

This person is also amazed at the boss.

This person shares a story about their boss.

This person thinks they should’ve worked there forever.

Once required to leave at exactly 4:00, OP stopped beginning 45-minute vehicle cleanings after 3:15 and filled the remaining time with smaller jobs.

Makes sense.

When the completed-car count dropped, his boss understood the old schedule was efficient, apologized, and restored it.

Management tried to stop twenty minutes of alleged time theft and accidentally repossessed several fully serviced vehicles from its own productivity totals.