Workplaces can develop some truly absurd rules.

The following story involves a man working as an account manager who always arrived early and leave about 5 minutes after his shift.

However, his manager insisted that leaving at 5:05 was “too early.”

When he stuck around, he discovered a surreal culture where employees held each other hostage.

Let’s take a closer look!

Worked at a company where no one dared to be the first to go home at five o clock.

I used to work as an account manager for a company that builds and designs bakery stores.

My shift started at 08:30 and ended at 17:00.

I’m a guy who’s always on time, so I’d always start at 08:15.

This person was confronted by his manager, saying leaving “early” was unacceptable.

The first week I worked there, I went home at about 17:05/17:10.

So my manager walks in after a few days.

“What you’re doing is unacceptable.”

I was shocked and said, “What did I do?”

“Well, you’re leaving way too early. Everybody’s talking about it.”

He stuck around and noticed that other employees started going home at 5:20 pm.

I didn’t want to argue but said, “I’m at least 15 minutes early every day?”

That didn’t matter to my manager because “no one sees you coming early.”

So I stuck around the days after to see people only leaving at 17:20 or 17:25 because no one wanted to be the first to go home.

He thinks these employees were holding each other as hostages.

I’m talking about a company with about 75 employees.

And all these employees were holding each other hostage to not leave “early.”

It was 8 years ago when I left the company, but it’s the worst work culture I’ve ever encountered.

I always mention it to people as a bad example. Pure madness.

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Let’s find out what others have to say about this on Reddit.

Here’s how the conversation should go…

This user gives their honest opinion.

This office looks cool!

Here’s a good alibi, too.

Finally, here’s how they do it in Sweden.

Some offices act more like a prison than a workplace.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.