December 16, 2023 at 10:28 am

Boss Tells Employee They Must Work 40 Hours per Week, So They Maliciously Comply And Get The Policy Changed

by Matthew Gilligan

It’s the perfect example of how a “Malicious Compliance” story on Reddit should be.

And we think you’re going to be mightily impressed!

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Required to work 40 hours a week?

“Years ago I worked for a company that tried to skate by with as little labor overhead as possible.

A lot of micromanaging was going on.

They’d hire under qualified people and then expect top results. Management was a husband and wife who ran the company like it was a Fortune 500 company. We maybe had 30-40 employees.

They’d implement all sorts of policies. Most of them were arbitrary and very micromanaging.

One of the policies they created was a “mandatory 40 hours” policy. If you missed any work Monday-Friday you’d have to come in on Saturday to make it up, no excuses accepted. If you didn’t come in on Saturday to make up the time you’d get a strike.

3 strikes and you’re gone.

They got a call from the owner…

One day I needed to take off from work 1/2 an hour early and I cleared it with my on-site boss.

On Friday one of the owners calls me and says she double checking to make sure I’ll be there on Saturday. I explain it was only a 1/2 an hour I missed and she said there were no excuses accepted.

I needed to work my 40 hours otherwise I’d get a strike.

It was time to maliciously comply!

Cue my malicious compliance.

I told her okay and I’d be there on Saturday. I get to the site on time for 7 am roll call. The on-site boss takes roll and starts telling people what projects they are going to work on.

There’s about 15 people on site and I deliberately stand in the back waiting. By the time the boss makes it to me it’s about 7:25 am.

He starts detailing my job and I cut him off and explain that I’ll be leaving in 5 minutes.

He looks at me and asks why?

Well, let me fill you in!

I explain to him that I was told I needed to work my 40 hours and that since I missed 1/2 an hour of work I only needed to make up 1/2 an hour and would be leaving at 7:30am.

He asks why can’t I stay all day and get the overtime.

That’s the good stuff!

I reply that I’m only required to work 40 hours and that I have plans.

I left promptly at 7:30am and had a great weekend.

Come Monday I got a “we’re disappointed that you chose not to stay to help your coworkers” speech from the bosses and that was about it.

That policy went away a few weeks later.”

Here’s what people said about this.

One reader talked about a “mandatory” meeting they had to go to.