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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/my-reddit-saga on 2025-08-09 20:37:13+00:00.
This happened a long time ago, about 13 to 15 years ago. I had just started a job at a government agency, where I was responsible for a big fleet of cars. My duties included driving the vehicles to various places like repair shops, tire companies, glass repair shops, and inspection centers. I also performed simple repairs myself, like replacing some light bulbs (not all). In addition to all of that, I hand-washed and cleaned every car, both inside and out, refilled the windshield washer fluid, and made sure all the required items were in each car.
Washing a car inside and out, checking the fluids, and making sure all the necessary equipment was present took a minimum of 45 minutes and a maximum of about an hour. About a month into the job, my boss decided I was taking too much advantage of my flexible working hours and told me that I had to stop working precisely at 4:00 PM. So I decided to follow my boss's rule to the letter.
As the days went on, and if it was after 3:15 PM, I didn't think I had enough time to start washing and fixing another car. So instead, I did other small tasks like sweeping the floor or restocking the supply room. After a few weeks of this, my boss noticed that fewer cars had been cleaned and fixed in total. So he called me into a meeting to ask why. That's when I brought up his policy that I had to leave at exactly 4:00 PM and that I shouldn't be "taking advantage" of my flexible hours.
The boss suddenly realized why I had been "taking advantage" of the flexible hours before—I was simply working smart. Some days, I would go home a little earlier after a car was finished, and on other days, I needed an extra 5 to 20 minutes to complete a car. It wasn't a daily issue, but it happened often enough that the boss's new policy created a problem. So After the boss had been thinking for a moment, he said that we should go back to the way I was working before. He apologized for his poor policy and admitted that he was wrong. I ended up staying at that job for about two more years, and we got along well for that entire time.