Employee uses loophole in strict time-tracking policy, takes extended sick leave instead: 'It's not my business'

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Jan 20, 2025 2:00 PM EST

Where there's a rule, there is often a loophole. They don't necessarily teach you that one in school, but those of us who have a natural inclination to do things our own way are likely to find ways to bend rules when it's appropriate. This applies to the student, the employee, the friend, the family member, etc.

The common perception of these kinds of individuals is that they are lazy and stubborn. However, the idea that you have to do something simply because that is what is expected of you regardless of whether or not you want to do it can only go so far. Questioning rules should be encouraged; it's the strict enforcement of policies without much justification or explanation that will unintentionally encourage folks to rebel.

Here, we have the story of an employee who had enough of his company's silly time-tracking policy!

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    Cheezburger Image 10456049920
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • This worker had the unfortunate responsibility daily of recording his productivity and activity during each hour of the workday. If there was an hour, for instance, in which you didn't have work to do, that was on you. Never mind if you were waiting on some direction from a manager or if you need a breather after finishing a significant task. If a single chunk of time was not attributed to productivity, you could be in trouble.

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    So, in my job we need to track explicitly our effort and the time that we spent on which tasks. Each day must have at least 8 hours of recorded effort, and if there is not
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    enough work or for some other reason you are not working productively the whole day, you'll have a hard time to think about where to put your efforts. If you
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    record less than 8 hours, your bonus for the quarter will be less (what a stupid rule, I know). If you don't have enough work.. that's also your problem.
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    Cheezburger Image 10456047360
    via charlesdeluvio

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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    Lately, I took sick leave for some days as I was really not well. But after a few days, and as I had a bad feeling about letting the team down, I continued to work, even
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    though I was sure that I could easily get another medical certificate to extend my paid sick leave. However, I was only able to work some of the hours and needed to rest/sleep the other half
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    of the day (I was working from home). Remember the rule about time tracking? I didn't know where to put the remaining hours and actually didn't bother to invent something. The next day my boss commented with me why my time tracking is not filled correctly...
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    Safari File Edit View History Bookmarks **!: slack Why Slack? Solutio
    via Stephen Phillips - Hostreviews.co.uk

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • Naturally, the strict enforcement of this policy only encouraged this employee to poke holes in the argument and to find loopholes within this unnecessary time-tracking policy. It turns out, he discovered, that the policy encourages extended sick leave over the inability to fill out the day. So, the employee used that to his advantage…

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    On the other hand, if you just report sick, you don't need to worry about the time tracking as the whole day will not count. So I just decided to go the doctor on the next day and extended my sick leave for a few more days, without
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    worrying now about where to put my hours. The company apparently prefers people to not work at all instead of only working half-days without correct time tracking. I don't know how that makes sense from a business perspective, but its not my business.
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    TL;DR: The company enforces stupid time tracking policies where it's more encouraged to take sick leave for the full day than working half days and not knowing where to register your effort.
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  • Several members of the online community weighed in on this situation with similar stories about their toxic work environments. Here is what they had to say!

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    CoderJoe1 21 hr. ago Whenever my employer decided I needed to account for minutes, I would waste hours doing so until they changed their minds.
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    Prof1959 20 hr. ago Fairly common, actually, even though it is dumb. And hey, the only "team" you are letting down is a few millionaires way above your pay grade,
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    because your coworkers are still going to get paid either way. Don't fret about that.
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    beerbellybegone 20 hr. ago I'm not sure about your company, where I used to work we tracked time in 15-minute intervals to charge to customers.
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    throwaway1337_acc OP 20 hr. ago We also Track 15 min intervals.. and everything that is not booked on customers must have some justification.. for example, I cannot book too many hours on internal stuff
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    soap_coals 20 hr. ago So... You are complaining that your employer wants you to have more time off? You'd prefer to work while sick rather than spend time to recover properly? Why?
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    DaBooba 17 hr. ago Billable hours are important to track correctly. I know you're thinking "I don't want to let the team down" but you're ending up being
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    less productive for the same amount of time, which is not super desirable for a company that bills by the hour to clients.
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    Yes, take the time to be back to full capacity. Both for your company's sake, but also for your sake. If you can't work a full day because you're not feeling up to it and they're giving you the option not to, take the leave.
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    Zoreb1 17 hr. ago I worked for the gov't and we had telework. Theoretically if i was sick and had my computer at home I could work an hour or two just answering emails and not use sick leave for that time.
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    Tikki_Taavi 16 hr. ago It encourages me to do things the slow way rather than the fast. I can do this in 4 minutes but if you want to waste
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    time I can justify a 1/2 hour on the same task all within the company guidelines. This is just another way for management to justify having 3 bosses on every employee. and of course they all want different things prioritized.
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    CaptainBaoBao 10 hr. ago Where I work, we don't care how and when you do the job. We have an app that sums up our tasks and when it is due.
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    You do it home at night or on the desk at 11h. If you won't get there, you call the boss and HD extend the target date.
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    The motivation is high, and the mood is good. Now my boss considers you adults. It changes all.
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    voidtreemc 10 hr. ago In the early 90's I worked for a company that implemented a very primitive, very stupid time tracking software package. I had admin
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    privs on it because I was in IT, so I added a category for tracking the time you spent using the time tracking package. Because it had
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    performance and you spent a lot of time staring at spinning beach , that category got heavy use.
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