Management Insisted A Key Employee Work During Business Hours, So He Agreed And It Blew Up In Their Face

Hey, whatever you say, boss!

Sometimes, that’s all you can do when it comes to a boss who gives you orders that you know are wrong…

Check out how this story from Reddit’s “Malicious Compliance” page turned out!

“This was done by an ex-colleague.

We’ll this happened a few years ago, when I was working as a techno-manager in an Indian startup IT firm.

It was a small firm with less than 50 employees and there were two founders.

Let’s call them Vicky and Joel.

Vicky was a real handful.

Vicky had worked a short time in an MNC, but was not able to stand authority and had to resign,where as Joel had no real work place experience.

Vicky managed the place like a king, show tantrums, anger etc.

Joel was simply a yes man to Vicky.

Now we had an HR lady, who was okayish with the older employees and strict with the newer ones.

They knew their strength at work.

As for me, I was not that good technically compared to my colleagues but was good at people management.

Also I was one of the longest serving employee too. I was friendly with most of the employees especially the new ones. This was due to the fact that I knew it was not easy to work with the founders and I wanted the show to continue as it was my first company too.

So a new joinee, named Bob, joins and after 6 months he is assigned to a project.

Because of the time zone difference he worked up to 4-5 am and the client was happy with him.

Since he was sleeping late this guy always reported at nearly 11:30 am in office.

They got a call…

Out of the blue, founder calls me and HR and asks that why Bob is late to office and said he has to be in office by 10:00am as other guys.(btw forgot to mention Vicky and Joel came into office only once in a while and it was pre corona times,but since they are founders, let’s ignore that).

HR lady took the responsibility of asking Bob about that.

At this point, since HR lady is not aware of Bobs working hours, I interrupted and told that he’s leaving the office by only 2-4 am and it’s kind of unfair to ask him to come early.

Vicky cut me off and says, “No, he has to follow rules and this is the basic etiquette when working in this office”.

I said “okay ”

HR lady, calls Bob in her office and questions him about the timings to which Bob says “okay, mam, will comply”

Now Bob and me have a good rapport and he comes directly to me and tell me what happened with the HR.

Then I ask him, “what are you going to do?”, to which he says, “I will ask for a clarification via mail and then will comply”.

I understood where it’s going and give him a best of luck, trying hard to contain my laughter.

Bob sent an email…

After 10 mins, HR comes to me with her laptop in panic and show me the mail which Bob has sent.

He has cced the founders, the client head he’s reporting to and have written something in lines of this: “Hi Client head name, This is to inform you that as a request from my office to comply to the office timings, from tomorrow onwards, my work timings would be 10am IST to 7pm IST (ie 10:30 pm to 7:30 am Chicago time). I request you to change your meeting times to the times when I am available and if any inconveniences, please contact HR, Vicky or Joel . Thanks Bob”

I asked the HR if this was somewhere mentioned in the offer letter and she nods yes.

I tell her to take the matter to Vicky.

Being the narcissistic guy he is, he scolds HR for not noting this in the offer letter.

Then asks her to correct this. She goes to Bob and asks for correction to which Bob firmly says no to.

HR lady being stupid tells that she told this because Vicky asks her to, and Bob still stands firm and asks HR, if Vicky have said it, then ask Vicky to formally reply in the mail thread asking to revert to his old timings.

Bob also says that he is not going to get back to old timings unless Vicky mails and they have approximately 4 hours to do so before the client reacts .

HR comes to me for help and we go together to Vickys room and brief.

Vicky lashes out at HR and at this point I interrupt and says, it’s better to address the issue as in 4 hours client will get involved and we have to make a decision before that.

Good job, Bob!

Vicky hesitantly sends out the mail saying it was a mistake as Bob’s special case was not considered during the decision making and Bob can continue his earlier timings.

As I walked back to office, I saw Bob looking at me and laughing really hard and I had to hold a straight face as HR lady was also behind me.

Needless to say, Bob has his timings intact!”

Check out what folks said on Reddit.

This person talked about their job…

This individual has seen stuff like this before…

Another Reddit user needs their sleep.

One reader talked about how it worked at their job.

This person said this reminds them of their ex-wife.

Just following the rules.

That was hilarious!

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.