Employee triples workplace productivity, but her boss still complains about her leaving early a few times, pushing her to deliberately work slower instead of making the company more money

• Tripling production at a job where the previous employee was described as already doing as much as possible for one person is not a small achievement. It is the kind of result that gets used as a case study. The reward for this particular case study was unpaid overtime, a vacation that was not a vacation, a boss who went back through security footage to document early departures, and a lecture about working the full eight hours regardless of whether the work was finished.

• 
  via Rodrigo Rodrigues | WOLF Λ R T

  Woman working on a laptop at a café table with modern interior decor.

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• Tripled productivity at workplace, boss still complains so I'm undoing all improvements

  Kilek360

  Disclaimer: English is not my first language and I learned it on my own so expect some weird phrasing etc.

  Last year I started a new job, I was hired to replace someone who was about to leave within a month, that person was the daughter of my boss, the company's owner

• I've always focused on improving efficiency, on every aspect, finding if I can do the same thing with even just one less move and identifying every friction point of a process is something I'm very proud of, and I stated that in the interview since in my previous workplace I managed to reduced some times by 60%, and during the interviews I focused on this since they also offered me flexible working hours so the agreement was that as long as I covered the production necessities I could establish my routine, that was the whole selling point for me because the salary was noticeably lower than the job I was supposed to quit in order to start ther but I knew that I could find the way to have a lot of spare time so it was a situation where I considered that at this moment of my life I needed more time than money to find a work-life balance

• During that month she showed me everything she did there and their methods the company has been doing since it started, I noticed a lot of possible improvements on the process but at first I still applied their methods, at that point she was making around 30kg of product per week thar they distributed to four stores

• The company was about to start selling at a new location that summer so they needed to increase their production, so they, listening to my predecessors advice, agreed I was going to need help and they hired someone else temporarily under my supervision since the previous person was already "doing as much as possible for just one person", the idea was that I should take the decision of keeping the assistant, or even hire another one, or decide when she was no longer necessary according to seasonal demand, let's say they supposedly gave me full control over the workplace

• Okay, that month as she left they started the new location and they were planning to start another one by the end of the following month, so I kept the assistant just in case that new stores needed a lot of stock

• 
  via Rodrigo Rodrigues | WOLF Λ R T

  Woman working on a laptop at a wooden table

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• Then as the weeks went by I started to think of ways to improve productivity, reaching a point where I alone was covering all the requiered production so there were times where the assistant and I had nothing else to do, even when they started the second location (the sixth) I still managed to cover the full demand, at that point I was producing 70kg per week, more than doubling my predecessors production and exceeding the demand so for the first time we managed to have remaining stock to cover unexpected peaks on demand

• so I talked to the bosses and told them the assistant won't be necessary at least until we started selling at more stores, we agreed that they will call her to help in holiday season since it's peak season in our business and also to replace me when I went on vacation

• During that time I managed to keep improving the process until reaching a point where I was able to make 80kg per week

• One of the easiest ways of improving productivity was not taking any break during the day, when talking about the job they told me every employee has a 30min lunch break included in their shift and the month I worked together with my predecessor we took it at different times but since now I work alone that required me (and the person before me when she was alone) to completely stop the process, wich was like 20min of "stopping", 30min of lunch break, and then like 25min of getting everything running again, so instead of doing that I pushed that 30min to the end if my shift and "gained" 45min of effective time in exange of leaving 30min earlier

• Okay, my vacation leave was approaching and I talked to my bosses about it and asked them to call the assistant to do "just a bit since there's enough stock but it will be smart to keep stock available for the holiday season", they refused and asked me to basically overwork myself to do my vacation days in advance, which ended with me working unpaid overtime so basically there's no vacation it's just doing the same work but in advance

  The day before leaving for my vacation we talked about the stock and they told me they finally agreed on calling the assistant to come a couple days just to try to run out of the holiday stock

  I went on vacation and as I returned I discovered they actually didn't call her, so they indeed ran out of stock

• 
  via Rodrigo Rodrigues | WOLF Λ R T

  Woman standing indoors holding a tablet in front of tall windows.

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• So I used the remaining weeks until holiday season re-stocking and when holiday season came and the average demand during that month was about 110kg per week, I did 80kg per week and covered the remaining with the stock, until we ran out of stock and there were a couple weeks I had to work unpaid overtime, when I complained about this being their fault and I told them that I already warned that was going to happen they just told me to rush for those weeks (as if I was being just working slowly the rest of the year or something lmao)

• I had to rush during those weeks and I get obviously mad and I decided to cap my production at 90kg per week despite I keept improving the process and had a bunch of new ideas to improve times, but even if I could do it faster it was already physically exhausting

  90kg were already thrice as much as they thought was even feasible for a single employee, keep that in mind

• Fast forward a few months, after holiday season we have a few slow months where the demand was like 60-70kg per week, since we can't hold that much stock on the selling points neither at the workplace I started applying a few new ideas and I started leaving a bit earlier after finishing 80-90kg of production, it was exhausting but I chose to push myself in order to get home a bit earlier

• Until one day the boss happens to come for a visit about an hour before I'm supposed to finish and sees that I'm already turning everything off, I told him that I ended earlier that day because it was a productive week and he didn't say anything, but I noticed him acting awkwardly, until a week passes and he calls me and says he has been watching the security camera recordings of the past months and has seen me leaving early a few times (he basically never did before and he never cared if I stayed late because "i managed my time" )

• At first I just talked about that was the deal we had, I manage my time as long as I fulfill the demand, but he replied that I could do more, and I stated that I don't think he has any right to question my productivity since I've basically single-handedly tripled the productivity far beyond their own thoughts about what was possible in less than a year and even thinking about asking for a salary increase, and one of the reasons I didn't ask for it and I was able to work hard while I'm at the workplace is thanks to having that extra time to rest and keep the work-life balance where I'm happy while keeping the production exceeding the demand

• He didn't want to hear about it and he demanded to work the full 8h without exception, and that was it.

  Turns out I'm someone that doesn't tolerate when a workplace doesn't pay me when I do overtime and then complains when I leave a bit early AFTER having exceeded the needed production for that week

  So I went home mad about it and have decided to apply the following:

  I will NEVER do overtime again, not a single minute

• I reversed a bunch of my production process improvements so when he watches the cameras he's seeing me working non stop but despite that the productivity has decreased, the total remains I just do it slower, so he won't be able to say "see you could do more!"

• Now on peak season I could be able to make up to 120kg taking into account the new improvements and a bit of overtime I was willing to do in exchange of leaving early during the slow season, but after that? It's gonna be 70-80kg at most and he won't be able to say anything because the cameras will show me working non-stop, despite being slower and way less physically demanding for me, so I'm okay with that

  I'm going to take that lunch break when I'm supposed to and leave at my time despite it wasting 45 extra minutes of the company time

• I'm done with any kind of $#it, I will no longer help them whenever they ask for a favor (they usually ask me to help with things that are not my department) or answering the phone after hours, or trying to improve any process to maximize the revenue, in fact I have undone a bunch of improvements they were not already aware since they gave me freedom to fully manage the workplace, for f sake I will even start buying again from the expensive distributors they used to get even when I have found cheaper alternatives since they haven't even realized and doesn't want to involve on that

• Edit: Disclaimer 2: I choosed to keep some things ambiguous and I used a scale of quantities to keep it proportional but non related to my actual process, but a comment made me realize this could be interpreted as some kind of illegal substances production, it's not hahaha I just kept it ambiguous so it's not that easy to identify me

• TL:DR: I tripled the productivity at my workplace, leaved early a few days during slow season, the boss gets mad about me leaving early, now I won't leave early but work slower so they will make less money

  Kilek360

• 
  via Rodrigo Rodrigues | WOLF Λ R T

  Woman holding a tablet while sitting indoors in front of large windows.

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

• The camera audit is the detail that really sets everything in motion. This man never checked the footage when his employee was staying late. He started checking the moment he noticed her leaving early. The lesson the boss intended to deliver was about time discipline. The lesson that actually landed was about exactly how much discretionary effort had been quietly subsidized by flexible hours and goodwill.

• Malicious compliance as a workplace strategy is genuinely elegant when executed correctly. She is not doing anything wrong. She is taking her lunch break at the designated time. She is leaving at the designated time. She is working steadily and visibly the entire shift. The cameras will show exactly what the boss demanded to see. What the cameras will not show is the gap between what she was capable of and what she is now choosing to produce, because that gap lives entirely in the process improvements she reversed before he ever thought to ask about them.

• Peak season is going to be an interesting conversation. Eighty kilograms where there used to be a hundred and twenty, from an employee who is visibly working nonstop, with no overtime to offer and no goodwill left to spend. He will not be able to point to anything specific. He will just have to sit with the feeling that something is different, without being able to name what changed or when.

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