‘He worked for one hour from home and that was it’: Undervalued employee finds loophole in company half-day policy, barely works until he quits

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Feb 21, 2024 8:00 AM EST

There is a special place in heaven for employees who discover loopholes and share about them with their fellow coworkers. It's perhaps the most rewarding phenomenon within the battlefield that is toxic workplace culture. The only thing better than discovering a loophole within company policy is, well, being treated well by your company. However, we're realists over here, and we understand that proper treatment of all employees is merely the stuff of dreams.

This story, however, surely provides some hope. The original poster shared his friend's tale of discovering a loophole within his company' half-day policy via the following thread on Reddit's r/MaliciousCompliance subreddit. Essentially, this finance employee negotiated alternate hours where he would start work earlier and end earlier so he could have his late afternoons free. When he tried to take a half-day, his bosses enforced that he could only take off from 2pm onward despite his different hours, so his half-days weren't really half-days at all. Well, it turns out he found a way to maliciously comply that meant he only needed to work one hour every Friday. 

Keep scrolling below for the full story. When you're done, check out this collection of hilarious interview flops.

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  • 01
    Half Days Entirely Depend on the Set Lunch Time? Alright Then! SOC My friend used to work in finance for a company which generally treated him pretty poorly. He was paid far less than he knew the company could afford, and was generally overlooked. They had home working for a while
    via u/PigeonLass
  • 02
    Half Days Entirely Depend on the Set Lunch Time? Alright Then! SOC My friend used to work in finance for a company which generally treated him pretty poorly. He was paid far less than he knew the company could afford, and was generally overlooked. They had home working for a while because of and then were allowed to come back to the office 3 days a week,
    via u/PigeonLass
  • 03
    working from home 2 days. Whilst working from home, my friend loved missing the commute. Being an early riser anyway, he decided to ask his boss if he would be allowed to start work at 7am and finish at 3pm so as to get to and from work quicker, and because the office was open at that time anyway.
    via u/PigeonLass
  • 04
    This was okayed, and so he started to work 7am-3pm, which he then extended to his work from home days as he enjoyed having his late afternoons free.
    via u/PigeonLass
  • 05
    Now, so that everyone was available at the same time, lunch time at the company was set at 1-2pm, no leeway. One Friday my friend wanted a half day to begin the start of a long weekend.
    via u/PigeonLass
  • 06
    Because he would usually finish work at 3pm, he asked if half day for him could be earlier - around 11am - since he would be putting in more hours before lunch than anyone else.
    via u/PigeonLass
  • 07
    "No," he was told, "half day means finishing at lunch." So he had to work from 7am-1pm (6 hours) despite it counting, holiday-wise, as a half day. This annoyed him for obvious reasons, until he found a great benefit to this.
    via u/PigeonLass
  • 08
    Working from home on Fridays, he started booking mornings off work, meaning he didn't have to work until 2pm. Then he worked for one hour from home and that was it. His colleagues thought it was genius. His boss had very firmly told him that half days revolve around lunch times, so couldn't do anything about it! So my friend enjoyed a few months of practically doing no work on several Fridays for the cost of a half day at a time, until eventually he left the business and moved on to a job where
    via u/PigeonLass
  • 09
    zEdgarHoover. Still trying to get my head around fixed lunch hour "so everyone is available at the same time" in a company where WFH exists. I mean, in manufacturing, maybe, but this isn't that. That's so stupid it can only be a "leadership" decision. 1.6k Reply Share
    via u/PigeonLass
  • 10
    Cow_Launcher. I can visualise the cogs whirring in the boss' head, as he tries to work out how he can have it both ways. Reply Share 171
    via u/PigeonLass
  • 11
    nalanajo Brilliant, and awesome.
    via u/PigeonLass
  • 12
    CoderJoe1 · A classic case of the halvsies and the have-nots.
    via u/PigeonLass
  • 13
    purgruv MC to the letter!
    via u/PigeonLass
  • 14
    RemLazar911 Is the PTO not hourly anyway? Wouldn't you still be using 6 hours of PTO to take the morning off?
    via u/PigeonLass
  • 15
    HelloJoeyJoe Joe. I need a job when I can take multiple hours off every week and not have it affect my performance.
    via u/PigeonLass
  • 16
    EarlyGoose9284 Isn't the "lunch break" effectively a legally mandated break in the middle of a shift? It is in the UK, I am not allowed to work (from memory) more than 4 hours without a break
    via u/PigeonLass
  • 17
    KTB1962. So between 1:00 and 2:00 there's absolutely no one working at that time?? That's not productive...
    via u/PigeonLass
  • 18
    FoolishStone. Some offices, especially medical practices, close for lunch, which means everyone needs to take the same lunchtime. This helps avoid a situation where, say, a nurse has to cover for someone at their regular lunchtime, and end up getting no break at all.
    via u/PigeonLass

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workplace-stories work stories toxic-workplace job malicious compliance work malicious-compliance-reddit satisfying quitting story reddit thread Reddit company quitting toxic-work-environment
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