Worker Penalized For Being Twenty-Two Seconds Late, Calls In Every Time They Leave Home

Brad Dickson • Managing Editor

May 18, 2022 11:00 AM EDT

Enforcing strict rules can be a godsend to help keep an unruly team in line but there always needs to be some room for flexibility and exception. An exception is exactly what this manager should have considered when they decided to discipline their subordinate for being a mere twenty-two seconds late. You might think that this sounds far-fetched and absurd but there are actually managers out there who treat their staff this way (a good portion of them too.)

Some troublesome train tracks made this employee's commute to their facility entirely unpredictable. This uncertainty combined with a brutally unyielding tardy policy meant that things were going to come to a head sooner or later.

This thread was posted to the r/maliciouscompliance subreddit by the employee, Redditor u/ChiefSteward, who tells the story of their delicious malicious compliance when faced with this problem.

Scroll on for screenshots of the full story and the reader's reactions.