IT employee gets 90 seconds of work to cost 15-minutes due to new manager's negligence, Director throws a fit: ‘Be careful what you standardize.’

Author image for Elna McHilderson
Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
Nov 10, 2025 9:00 AM EST

There is always that new manager that comes into the business that thinks they know more than all of the employees who have been there for years. That is ridiculous. A good manager would take time to learn from those employees. Unfortunately, this does not tend to happen. Like this manager who came in hot to the IT team. They have a system that has worked for them for a while. The manager said, "nope" and completely changed it. Now, the IT team could have complained, but they know it would have been fruitless. That's just how entitled new managers behave. So, they did the next best thing, they maliciously complied. The results were just as they planned!

 

Because of the new time keeping that was required of them from the new manager, they were now getting paid for way more time then needed. Now, instead of getting paid for 90 seconds, they were getting 15 minutes. Great for them, horrible for business. You better believe that the higher higher ups caught wind of this and did not like it at all. 

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  • "Manager demanded 15 minute time tracking per ticket, rounded up. I did that, and finance begged me to stop within a week"

    IT employee gets 90 seconds of work to cost 15-minutes due to new manager's negligence, Director throws a fit: ‘Be careful what you standardize.’
    via Unsplash+ (and Getty Images)

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

  • I am on an internal tools team for a mid sized company. We do quick fixes and small features for other departments.
    via SolarGlyphs
  • Historically we tracked time in big chunks, one line per day, because work arrives like popcorn.
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  • New manager arrives from a consulting firm. He loves "visibility". He sends a long email with a shiny spreadsheet and announces the new policy.
    via SolarGlyphs
  • Every task must be logged as a separate line, in 15 minute increments, rounded up. Even if it took 3 minutes.
    via SolarGlyphs
  • Context switching should be captured for "true cost". No exceptions. He even bolded no exceptions twice.
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  • I asked for clarity. If I answer an access request in 4 minutes, that is 15, right.
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  • If I get interrupted mid work to unblock someone for 2 minutes, that is another 15.
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  • He writes back, correct, this will show stakeholders the price of interruptions. Great, I thought, we will show them.
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  • Day one with the policy, I kept a little kitchen timer next to the keyboard. Ping, finance needs a report column renamed, 6 minutes.
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  • Ticket line, 0.25 hours. Ping, Sales wants a spreadsheet exported, 9 minutes. Ticket line, 0.25 hours.
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  • Ping, two separate Slack pings that were technically different tickets, 2 minutes and 5 minutes. Two lines, 0.25 and 0.25.
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  • Before lunch I had 14 lines totaling 3.5 hours, despite having worked about 90 minutes. I felt like a petty librarian with a stamp, but also strangely calm.
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  • was doing exactly as asked. By Friday I had 73 lines. The totals said I worked 58 hours.
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  • My badge times said 39. Manager was thrilled. He forwarded my sheet to leadership with a note about "revealed operational load".
    via SolarGlyphs
  • IT employee gets 90 seconds of work to cost 15-minutes due to new manager's negligence, Director throws a fit: ‘Be careful what you standardize.’
    via Unsplash (and Zan Lazarevic)

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

  • Then finance noticed that our internal chargeback model pulls from those sheets. Facilities got billed 11.25 hours from me alone for door badge resets that week.
    via SolarGlyphs
  • Sales got 13.5 hours for CSV pulls. HR got 7.5 for password unlocks. That is only me.
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  • We are a team of eight. Monday 9.12 am I get an invite titled Urgent timekeeping sync.
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  • In the room, Finance director, my manager, and two department heads who looked like they had slept under a printer.
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  • Director opens with, help me understand how a 90 second CSV costs 15 minutes. I said it is the policy, rounded up, no exceptions.
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  • I pulled up the email and the bold line, because I am a helpful coworker. Silence that tasted like a lemon.
    via SolarGlyphs
  • Fallout came fast. Finance put an immediate hold on chargebacks from our team. My manager had to write a "temporary suspension of the 15 minute rounding rule" and propose a new plan.
    via SolarGlyphs
  • The new plan is honestly great. We now reserve 2 hour focus blocks in the calendar where pings are triaged by a rotation.
    via SolarGlyphs
  • Anything truly urgent goes to the on call person. Everything else becomes a sane queue. Time is logged in half day buckets, with one note of what moved.
    via SolarGlyphs
  • My favorite part is a tiny line in the memo, interruptions have a real cost and will be batched where possible.
    via SolarGlyphs
  • The policy did exactly what he said he wanted, just not the way he hoped. I still keep the kitchen timer on my desk as a paperweight and a reminder to be careful what you standardize.
    via SolarGlyphs

  • Plus, out of all the teams to mess with in a company, you do NOT want to mess with IT. They truly hold everyone's well-being in the palm of their hands or with one stroke of their computer key.

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