Worker who always comes to work 20 to 30 minutes early is late to work once, prompting reprimand from their boss, the next time they're late they show up 2.5 hours late instead: 'Same penalty for being 6 minutes late as for being 3 hours late? Ok boss'

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Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Jul 12, 2025 12:00 PM EDT

When you're strictly following rules, there's a good chance that you might come to realize the folly of doing so. Sure, you should always seek to do the right thing, and whereas you might think that that's always following a rule to the letter, but rules are as flawed as the people who made them, and following them without question might not get you the result that you were intending. 

Disclaimer here: I'm talking about the silly little things you'll see in your handbook at work, the things that your boss might read and decide that they're going to enforce with impunity, and this is not a justification for speeding or breaking whatever laws you don't feel you're beholden to.

But, when it comes to the strict enforcement of rules, there's a clear difference between understanding the intended effect or purpose of a rule and blind enforcement, simply following the rule to the letter, no matter what ridiculous, inconsistent, or unintended end of that enforcement. Of course, at the end of the day, in either case, there is a need for consistency, or else you'll run into issues with things like fairness.

You'll encounter leaders who follow either philosophy of rule-following throughout the course of your career.

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  • 01

    "Same penalty for being 6 minutes late as for being 3 hours late? Ok boss."

    I have always been the kind of person to arrive at work/events early. I hate the stress of running late, so I always allow more than enough travel time on my commute to avoid lateness. I always stopped for a coffee first thing on my morning commute to work. It was a half-hour drive to work on the highway, so I liked to sip my coffee and listen to tunes to relax before work. Even though it's only a half-hour commute, I would leave for work an hour before my start time just in case there were any
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  • 02
    Cheezburger Image 10527376384
    via Musa Haef

    The image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 03
    One particular day there's a massive jam on the highway. Now normally I get to work 20-30 minutes early because of the extra travel time. But this traffic jam was bad enough that it still made 6 minutes late for work. Supervisor starts giving me sh for coming in late but having a coffee, publicly calling me out in front of the other employees. "Hey everyone, look at Icy! His morning coffee is more important to him than respecting his coworkers!" No amount of "I bought the coffee before I knew th
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  • 04
    Now, my company had a policy that less than 5 minutes late is ok, but 5+ minutes late means a potential write- up. Doesn't matter if it's 5 minute and 30 seconds or 2 hours late, the punishment was the same. However, supervisors were given leeway on this and were encouraged not to penalize people unless they were consistently late. I was almost never late, almost always early, but my supervisor decided to punish me anyway.
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  • 05
    So fast forward a couple of weeks, another delay, and looks like I'm going to arrive at work about 15 minutes late. So, knowing that I'm going to get written up no matter what, I pulled off the highway, found a nice little restaurant, and had a leisurely 2-hour breakfast. Showed up at work 2.5 hours late, and got the same write up I would have done if I had been 15 minutes late, but at least I also go to relax and eat bacon.
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  • 06
    I still showed up at work early 99% of the time, but every now and then there might be a delay that would mean I'd be 6 minutes late, or 10 or 15. Rather than take the penalty for a lousy couple of minutes, each time I'd extend the late time a couple of hours and have a nice, relaxing breakfast.
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  • 07
    JANUARY OCTOBER DECEMBER 1
    via Kateryna Hliznitsova

    The image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 08
    Varnigma Reminds me of my senior year in HS. The penalty was the same if you were 1 minute late to first period or if you missed first period completely. You could be late 3 times in a month. 4th time you got assigned to study hall. So 3 times a month we'd skip first period completely and go have a nice breakfast somewhere.
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  • 09
    undergroundnoises I had a very boring sales job that they would write you up for being 1 minute late, but have absolutely no fecking problem with calling out. Several times I'd go to clock in, see the minute over, turn around, walk out to my car, and call in. I LOATHE this mentality of clock watching.
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  • 10
    CheapConsideration11 At a previous job, one of the guys showed up a couple minutes late. The owners daughter (HR department) was standing next to the time clock. She says, "I'm docking you for a half hour." He turned around and started back outside. She asked what he thought he was doing. He replied that if you're not paying me, I'm not working during that time, so I'm going to McDonald's and getting myself breakfast. She never stood by the time clock again.
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  • 11
    hsh1976 My son did something similar. He has some bank stuff he needed to take care of so he went on his lunch break. It went long so he called his boss and said he'd be 10 or 15 minutes late returning from lunch. His boss knew he was going to the bank. The boss tells him that per the attendance policy, he'd get a half point "infraction" for returning late, even if it was 10 or 15 minutes....no exceptions.
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  • 12
    So after he concludes his banking business, he goes home. His boss called him to see where he was. My son told him that if he was getting a half point infraction for being 15 minutes late, he decided to get the half point infraction for taking off the rest of the afternoon off and he'd be back in the morning.
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  • 13
    StuD721 It's silly how write-ups are seen as the answer in the first instance, rather than one of the tools a manager can use.... System falls apart with managers!
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