We talk about this a lot when we cover “Malicious Compliance” stories from Reddit, but it’s time to say it once again: some people just can’t get out of their own way and they have to learn everything the hard way!

The person who wrote this story said that they were working a job when they received a new order from the bigwigs at Corporate.

Must check my work email every single day? Ok!

“So I was working for a small private ambulance company that ended up getting bought out by a larger corporation. To folks that have done this kind of work, no it wasn’t the company you’re thinking of, but this new corporation wanted to be just like them.

So corporate sends out a directive that all employees must check their work email at least once every 24 hours. No exceptions! Now I’m a lowly part-timer, so it would occasionally be weeks in between my shifts. The fun part is, I usually played Field Supervisor on my shifts I did work.

So they did as they were told…and they followed the law and made sure they charged the company for their time, as well.

So in order to be in compliance with the corporate directive, I set my work email to update every day at the same time on my phone. I would then log my 15 minutes of email checking on my paycheck so I would also be in compliance with state and federal payroll laws. I also made sure to inform as many employees to do the same.

Didn’t check your email while you were on shift because you were too busy trying to figure out what made grandma’s ambulance ride to the doctor medically necessary? That’s ok. Just check it when you get home. Make sure you put it on your timesheet, though!

And then they got a call about their timesheet…

It took a couple pay cycles, but eventually I get a call (on my day off), asking why I’m logging 1.75 hours on weeks that I didn’t even work. I explained that I was just following their corporate directive.

So they decided to put these folks in their place!

I was told at that point that I no longer was able to log those hours. I told them to give me that in writing as that goes against labor laws. Needless to say, the directive to check email every day got revoked.

Oh, but I did put down 30 minutes on my timesheet for the call as it took 22 minutes.”

Check out how people reacted on Reddit.

This person thought this was BEAUTIFUL.

Another individual said they would never, ever work for free.

This Reddit user made a great point.

Another person said you should never be doing any work without keeping track of your time if you’re not salaried.

Whatever you say, boss…

That’s all you say sometimes…