He Was Told The Time System Automatically Deducted 30 Minutes For Breaks, So He Stopped Clocking Out And Started Taking Longer Ones
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Broken time systems can create very generous loopholes.
This employee asked HR how to record approved longer breaks.
The written answer was surprisingly simple.
They followed it perfectly.
Read on for the full story.
Don’t clock out on breaks? Why yes I will gladly comply!
My former small company was bought by a much bigger one. When this happened, our time management system changed to a new one. Nothing extraordinary here.
The new system, however, had a major flaw: it subtracted half an hour of mandatory break every day from your hours, but you could not manually clock out for longer breaks, or the system would break.
I, however, was taking longer breaks on some days. This was common before, and I (and my colleagues) had the approval of my supervisor for it.
So, with the new system, I could not clock out for my breaks properly – it had to be manually adjusted each day.
HR told this employee not to clock out for breaks.
I talked to my supervisor about it, and he told me to go to HR and let them sort the system out. I went to HR, explained that I had approval to take longer breaks, and asked how to use the system correctly.
I got this exact reply in writing: “don’t clock out on your breaks, the system works automatic.”
It was clear from the phone call earlier that what they wanted to say was: don’t take breaks longer than 30 minutes. But that was not what was written. I answered and thanked them for the clarification.
Cue malicious compliance.
So he did exactly what he was told and got paid for longer breaks.
I did exactly as I was told: I took long breaks every single day but the system only ever counted them as 30 minutes.
On some days, I took like 2 or more hours of break, went into the city from the office to get some ice cream or do some shopping and did never use more than 30 minutes of time for it.
My “overtime” hours were going so high that I was ordered to take multiple days a month off to compensate.
This went on for about 2 and a half years, until we were sold again, and the new system sadly did not have the same flaw.
They gave him the green light, and he complied.
Other people in the comments section have something to say.
This one is piping up.
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This user is pushing it.
Some valid advice.
Another person chimes in.
And this one agrees with him.
HR told this employee not to clock out, so long breaks were always recorded as only thirty minutes.
For two and a half years, the extra hours became overtime that had to be exchanged for additional days off.
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