Manager demands to see no more reports of hourly workers arriving late, employee cleverly complies by requesting HR stop sending attendance reports to manager altogether

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    "As you wish❞
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    "I don't want to see these anymore!" - Me: No problem!
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    I previously worked at a place where I was hourly but should have been salary (they later made me salary) and had to work odd hours at times due to the demands of the job. Despite the extra time that I worked, I was still expected to be clocked in at 8 and to leave no earlier than 5, all while making sure I got as little overtime as possible because they didn't want to pay overtime. They also expected me
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    to take lunch at a pre-determined time, even though it conflicted with the nature of the work I did. Every time I clocked in late, clocked out early, or clocked out for lunch at the wrong time (this was the bulk of the issue), a report was generated from HR and sent to my supervisor. Despite my making the case that it was basically impossible to adhere to these
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    requirements, my supervisor point blank told me "I don't want to see these anymore" in reference to the report they were waving around in the air about my comings and goings on the time clock. So I said "ok I'll make sure you don't have to see them anymore." I then walked down to HR and informed them that my supervisor was tired of seeing these
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    reports and no longer wanted to see them. I told them verbatim what I was told and they accepted it without question as I said it came straight from my supervisor. Surprisingly they didn't double-check the request at all, they simply stopped sending the reports to my supervisor. To be fair, they were tired of sending the reports and knew the situation was not tenable.
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    After that, things were great, my supervisor was happy, and had always been happy with my work. Many months down the road I spoke with one of my salaried co-workers about it when they remarked that our supervisor hadn't been griping about the reports in a while. So I told.
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    them what had transpired. They remarked "I don't think that's what they meant when they said that." Ultimately, I don't know how they actually meant it, all I know is that I fixed the issue by doing exactly what they said and everyone has happy after that.
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    river running This is exactly the kind of story I am here for.
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    Zoreb1 I thought you'd stop working the extra time.
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    itsallgoodintheend I used to work at this place that was pretty far away from home. Had to take some extra time for my travel in case there was trouble on the road, but if there wasn't any trouble I'd be at work early. So what I'd do is I'd get started on work early since we didn't really clock in or anything. Usually I'd just get on with my own
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    work, but if the previous shift was in a hurry to get home and had a time sensitive job on their hands, I'd basically get around to it much earlier than normal. Since I was not expecting to get extra pay for simply showing up early, I'd just add the amount of time I was early and add it to my break, working standard hours for
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    standard pay. So in essence, the company was paying me the same amount of money for the same amount of work, but occasionally they would look good to their customers when a job was handled in a timelier manner than was expected, a win-win for all involved. A couple of years later I was written up for taking breaks that were too
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    long. I explained the situation but they didn't care. I even explained that I set a timer for my breaks, but they just wanted a set time. So I stopped doing anything extra. If I was fifteen minutes early to my shift and even if there was some kind of work that
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    should be handled in a hurry, I'd sit in my car for fifteen minutes before starting my shift. Then when I did start my shift, I got on with the work and hoped that it wasn't anything critical.
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    wdjm This is why lazy supervisors/HR is costly for a company. They didn't want to make the effort to actually make a determination about your time use, so they stuck on a 'one rule for everyone' inflexible mandate instead. And that cost the company both money and reputation.
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    But then, the supervisors & HR got away with it because THEIR managers were lazy, also, and didn't bother to track down the cause of the decrease in production.
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    (Note: 'Lazy' could also be translated as 'not paid enough to care about losing the company a few bucks', so mostly companies bring it on themselves.)
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    Raccoononmyazz I was expecting something along the lines of so I was there at 8 and clocked out at 5 always and always always took lunch at lunch time regardless of what was going on with my work
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    civiljourney OP That was the next plan if the first plan didn't work out. First plan was a lot smoother to execute though, and I'm happy it worked.
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    ResponseMountain6580 Fantastic. I love a literal interpretation.
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    civiljourney OP Can't go wrong because it's literally what they asked for.
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    bobarrgh Back in the late 1980s, I was teaching a class in our computer's operating system to a bunch of programmers at a manufacturing plant in Scotland. At this plant, there was a hardware manufacturing side where the workers were making the devices, and there was also a bunch of software developers working in
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    the non-factory part of the building. So, essentially, the site had hourly staff for the hardware side, and salaried staff for the software side. (I don't know for sure, but I think the folks on the hardware side may have been unionized, whereas the software folks were not.)
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    The plant had a single entrance that everyone had to pass through, and there was a huge book on the counter. Think back to the huge ledger books that were used at hotels back in the day. Everyone called it the "Doomsday Book". If you were more than a certain number of minutes late (again, I don't recall, but I think it may have been something like 5 minutes), you
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    had to sign the Doomsday Book. This was required for everyone, both the hourly hardware folks as well as the salaried software folks. There was only a single shift at this plant, from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and everybody was expected to observe those hours. And, by golly, they did just that!
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    Before I started the class (all software engineers), my main contact there casually mentioned the strangeness of the working hours, and he told me that, since the software engineers were treated like hourly employees for the start time, most of them would likely not be working past 5:00 PM.
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    I was wrapping up my first day of class, and we were in a lively Question/Answer session, which had started about 4:45 PM. People were asking questions, I was explaining things, and imaginary lightbulbs were burning brightly above each person's head as they grasped these very important concepts that were absolutely vital to their success in programming for the operating system.
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    All of a sudden, the notification went off at 5:00 PM, right as I was in the middle of providing clarification of a core, technical concept. Every single person in the class of 10-15 people got up, packed away their bags, and walked out of the room, except for my main contact person.
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    He turned to me and said, "It's been like this for years. They can't or won't give the engineers the benefit of the doubt, and can't or won't understand that, sometimes, software developers need the flexibility to be able to stay after work to continue working on
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    solutions. Therefore, since they treat everyone the same as the hardware engineers, not a single developer in this building is willing to stay one minute longer than required. He then looked at his watch, then looked me in the eye and said, "Pub?"
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    Buddy-Matt Op's happy, supervisor's happy, HR are happy. And presumably the work is still getting done. And this, ladies and gentlemen is why blindly clock watching, and letting it rule your life, is f ng d b.

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