Corporate agency demands more detailed timesheets, worker charges all their bureaucratic tasks, gets time off as a result: 'They freaked out'

Author image for Brad Dickson
Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Mar 31, 2024 10:00 AM EDT

Dealing with needless paperwork and bureaucratic annoyances is just a part of working for an organization. Chances are the larger the organization, the more they're going to have a strong attachment to arduous processes and ever-increasing stacks of paperwork. There are other factors, too; depending on how controlling and pedantic each manager up the chain of command is, you might end up with more or less paperwork than the expected amount for your organization. If the biggest baddest boss loves process, you bet you'll be drowning in oceans of red tape.

Whatever the requirements of your specific organization, one rule will always hold true: The amount of paperwork you have to complete associated with your job will only ever increase, never decrease, ensuring that each task associated with your role only takes longer and requires more unproductive time and effort. This paperwork will increase in perpetuity until the entire organization eventually folds in on itself and another emerges… Thus completing the circle of life.

Advertisement
  • 01
    "[He] worked there for another year effectively having Fridays off..."
    via Christa Dodoo
  • 02
    Posted by u/_cth_ 10 hours ago Another timesheet drama MOC Hey! I have a friend who works for digital agencies doing analytics for fortune 500 corps. Let's call him Dan. And usually those agencies don't do much more than proxying the contractor and surcharging a percentage on every hour. They actually rarely contribute anything to the work process or end product. They sometimes wouldn't even have a PM/Account manager involved. They would just literally resell the contractor.
    via u/_cth_
  • 03
    And usually those agencies are smart enough to shut the heck up and not bother the client or the contractor. They know that they actually have no reasonable justification for the surcharge. Well, in this case Dan's agency (I think it was P☐ at the time) suddenly started asking for more detailed timesheets. You see, more senior contractors usually won't bother. They would have some generic one-liner like: "worked" and 8hrs charged towards that. Because it's not really worth it to go and detail ev
    via u/_cth_
  • 04
    My friend, of course, pushed back and asked the client whether they needed that level of detail. The client had no problems with the timesheets whatsoever, and when he raised it with the agency's manager, they informed him that it was a new corporate policy or something to that extent. Well, Dan had to comply. And he started charging the agency for it. He started adding time expenses unrelated to the client work. Stuff the agency casually got used to getting for free: two-factor authentications,
    via u/_cth_
  • 05
    correspondence with the agency staff like. accountants, account managers, PMS, IT; useless recurring learning courses, etcetra, etcetra and, of course, the time wasted on timesheets. In total it would have effectively been anywhere from four to eight hours/week. He got himself almost one whole paid day off effectively.
    via u/_cth_
  • 06
    He told the client that his capacity on fridays would have been lessened due to the new rules the agency pushed, so he blocked the whole day to avoid any meetings. That would effectively leave his whole friday to himslef. The client actually kinda liked it cuz fridays were half days off normally for their regular staff, plus no production releases were allowed on Fridays anyhow, but they couldn't enforce the half-days on contractors. And basically what it meant to the client is that they would h
    via u/_cth_
  • 07
    Now not only the agency lost 4-8 hours/week of their profit, they now introduced an expense cuz those 4-8 hours they lost now suddenly became a liability that they had to pay for cuz these hours were billable, of course. Dan's hour back then was over $100, but let's just pretend it was a hundred per hour. The agency likely charged at least double, so $200/h. so the net difference would have been $100*6h = $600 from their net revenue plus $100*6h that they would have to now to pay our of their ow
    via u/_cth_
  • 08
    They freaked out. There was a lot of back and forth. In the end... What? You think they removed the requirement? You haven't worked much for bureaucracies, eh? No, they just went with it, lulz. My dear friend worked there for another year effectively having fridays off and then left the agency when they started pushing new corporate contracts onto the contractors. And the new contracts were kinda unreasonable. Asked for some odd
    via u/_cth_
  • 09
    things, one of which would be to fill the timesheets immediately after a given task was completed. Heh. He pushed back, but the director at the agency claimed they couldn't change anything in the contracts since these new contracts were coming from D☐ I, the parent agency that would have apparently acquired C: P○ around that time.
    via u/_cth_
  • 10
    yParticle 10 hr. ago Nicely done. One thing about bureaucracies is that if they can solve problems with more money and less effort they'll tend to take that route. Especially when the more money isn't coming out of the pocket of the guy who has to put in less effort. Vote Reply Share
    via u/_cth_
  • 11
    Lashless Mind 9 hr. ago When I was at L they wanted timesheets at the end of every week. I always took 15 minutes (the minimum granularity) for "Filling out this time sheet" out of the day on a Friday. It caused no end of headache for the guy wanting the timesheets (my boss's boss) because there was no cost-center associated with the task. The rules were clear though, time must be associated with the action taken for the time reported... Vote Reply Share
    via u/_cth_
  • 12
    . GreenEggPage - 8 hr. ago My last real job required timesheets by noon on Friday - to include what you worked on after the timesheet was submitted. And don't lie on or falsify your timesheets! Vote Reply Share
    via u/_cth_
  • 13
    • yParticle 10 hr. ago Nicely done. One thing about bureaucracies is that if they can solve problems with more money and less effort they'll tend to take that route. Especially when the more money isn't coming out of the pocket of the guy who has to put in less effort. Vote Reply Share • • •
    via u/_cth_

Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.

Tags

workplace discussion workplace-stories jobs job malicious compliance work workplace workplace malicious compliance employment in the workplace
Scroll Down For The Next Article