It’s hard to find someone who hasn’t worked somewhere that had either unreasonably strict or completely absurd rules to follow. Whether they be far too punishing or it was impossible for an employee to follow it all the time, many of us know the annoyance that comes with it.
When increasingly punishing rules began being enforced at one company, the employees found a way to have it work in their favor, leaving management furious .
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In any job, management can only push so much before employees start pushing back.
A user on the AntiWork subreddit made a post explaining how their employer’s heavy-handed late and absence policies wound up backfiring on them due simply to poor planning and being unable to see how employees would exploit these rules.
The post begins by explaining the late policy.
“We have to clock in at a machine, and in the past, the rule was that if you were late, you’d lose money in 15-minute blocks until you clocked in. Management started crying because suddenly no one who was late was late by less than 10 minutes.”
People figured if they’re being docked the pay anyway, they might as well come in even later on purpose rather than work those minutes for free.
So management upped the ante.
“Now you lose an [hour’s] pay the moment you’re late… I don’t know anyone who has been late by less than 55 minutes since the rule came out.
In the end, anyone who knows they’re going to be late for work now knows to just slow down and relax, grab a coffee, and stop at a shop. No rush.”
Now for the absence policy.
“On top of a 2 day no sick pay rule, they now have a [no-excuses] disciplinary policy. 2 days off, and you get a disciplinary [notice]. Standard chain of disciplinaries that leads up to you getting sacked…
The problem is… Now, if I get sick, and I’m off for 2 days, I might as well make the most of it.”
And the same exact issue happened as with the late policy.
“I’m in no more trouble for being off longer; there’s no maximum time. Whether it’s 3 days or 18 months, I come back and get a stage 1 disciplinary [notice]. So I’ve done my 2 days unpaid. I’m now getting my sick pay; it’s been a while since the last holiday, and there’s a long slog to the next one… How much time can I afford to have off?”
It’s not like management didn’t try to solve these issues.
They reportedly held focus groups where the problems were explained to them plain and simple, but they didn’t seem to want to change.
“If you’re going to beat us for minor infractions, which sometimes can’t be helped, we’re going to make our infraction worth the punishment,” the author wrote.
Management has dug itself a hole it can’t seem to escape from.
This company went from trends of 10-15 minute late starts and 2-4 day absences, then through further worsening their rules, created trends of 45-55 minute late starts and 1-2 week absences.
The employee finished their post by saying that, “Further policy changes are being discussed. I can’t wait for the results of that…”
As expected, the comments were in favor of the workers in this instance.
One user summed the situation up rather nicely, and compared it to a situation lots more of people are familiar with, “This is what happens when you try to control people. Honestly this is how humans work. As someone who has 2 kids, if you try and make a stifling rule, humans will do everything they can to get around it.”
h/t: Bored Panda
