They Were Told They Can’t Clock Out Unless A Manager Approved It, So They Got Petty Revenge

Have you ever had a job before where you were so micromanaged that you wanted to pull your hair out?

I know I have!

And I definitely DO NOT look back fondly on those days…

And it seems like the person who wrote this story on Reddit was just about at the end of their rope when it came to their manager at work.

So what did they do?

Read on to get all the details!

“So to get started some context I work as a technician that does jobs in residential homes. We get several jobs on our routes at the beginning of the day.

After we are done with are jobs we send a message to our manager and the route service rep. If I am done early and another tech is running behind they will send that job to me. If there is no jobs left to be covered we are cleared and we can head back. We also work 4, 10 hr shift days. With the option to pick up a 5th day for over time and choose between a half or a full day.

Now to the story. I like picking up 5th days for a little extra over time. On one of the days I picked up, I had a family dinner I didn’t want to miss, so I made it a half day. It was a busy day and I didn’t get to my last job tell about 2:30.

Lucky for me the customer wasn’t home the job rescheduled. I messaged my manager and route service rep that I was done. I was cleared by the service rep but not the manager. I didn’t think much about it since I was meant to be off 2 hrs earlier, and they never add more jobs to you after your scheduled shift. So I just headed back to the office and clocked out and made it to my family dinner.

The next day I worked I opened my work phone to find a message from my manager an hour after I clocked out that day stating “you are not allowed to clock out unless cleared by a manager.” At first I was like oh snap I must have forgotten to add him to the message.

I checked and no I definitely added him and it shows he saw the message. So I took a screen shot of both messages and thought to myself. Alright I’ll maliciously comply. If I don’t get cleared I won’t clock out. So every day since think I made sure I was cleared by a manager.

Honestly most of the time all managers are really good at being on top of this so I didn’t think I would ever get to take advantage of this malicious compliance. But about a month later I finally got my chance.

On this fateful day it was a busy one and it was winter and we were getting some bad snow. I had several big jobs and was behind schedule. Finally after finishing my last job at almost 8 pm I messaged my manager(same manager that gave me that rule) and the route service rep that i was done.

I started heading back, wanting to get out of the snow and get home. I got home about 8:30 and I still wasn’t cleared by my manager. So I didn’t clock out. I messaged him again asked him if he can clear me so I can clock out. No answer. I sat and debated how much I can milk this. After all I do get paid hourly.

Well I didn’t want to abuse it to much, so I ended up calling him just before 9. He picked up confused. I told him I’ve been waiting for him to clear me. Still confused he responded, Yeah of Course I cleared. I remind him that he instructed me to not clocked out until after I was cleared by a manager, then I thanked him hung up and noted in the message thread I called the manager and was cleared.

It’s been several months since then and to this day that manager still sticks to every thing he says and to this day I still milk an extra 15 to 30 minutes of pay every time a manager forgets to clear me before I remind them.

Well that’s my story. Sorry for no crazy outcome. That manager isn’t a bad manager just micro manages a bit to much from time to time. Sorry again for formatting and any spelling and writing mistakes.

English is my first language I’m just bad at it.

Hope you enjoyed it.”

Here’s how people responded.

One person said this was worthy but they would have liked to have seen them go further.

Another individual said it sounds like they have a bad manager.

And this Reddit user made a very good point.

Play silly games, get silly prizes.