Bosses cut workers' pay for working too fast, so employees slow down and milk the clock until company caves: ‘I'd go grocery shopping, get lunch, read a book, look at social media, anything, until clock out time'

This story sums up how fast hard work turns into a bad idea when management gets weird about pay. The job setup sounds simple enough. You get a zone, a list of tasks, and a time limit to finish each one. The catch is those time limits are huge. Most jobs only take half an hour, but they hand out two‑hour schedules like candy. Everyone used to just log the full time anyway, because it kept pay fair. Then new management showed up and said nope, if it takes less time, you earn less.  

So yeah, everyone started "running the clock." Finish a job in twenty minutes, then stretch those two hours doing normal stuff. Grab lunch, hit the store, scroll social media, kill time until it's safe to clock out. It wasn't laziness, just matching the energy of a company that punished getting things done too fast. The smarter you worked, the dumber your paycheck looked, and that kills motivation fast.

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