New management tells employees that if they aren't at their desk, it means they aren't working, so employees comply, and it doesn't go as expected: 'Alert fired at 5:06. Nobody was at their desk, that meant nobody was working. So nobody looked'

Author image for María Cetra
María Cetra • Writer
Sep 19, 2026 2:30 PM EDT

If you encourage new rules, don't be surprised when your employers follow through with them.

Some bosses love setting up new rules without thinking about whether they will work or if they are even right for the work that is done at that particular office. And to me, that is simply and directly bad management. Not every rule will work in any office. You have to take into account the employees, the systems, the product, the clients, and so much more before applying a new rule. So, blatantly placing it as an obligatory curse can cause major disasters at the company. That's why not everyone is born to be a boss. A good one would have taken all that and more into account before making it a direct order. And then, a bad boss has even the nerve to act surprised when things do not work out, and they don't know where to hide. They want to blame somebody for the rule not working, but it's just their fault, due to their lack of abilities toa ctually be a boss. 

In this story, we get to see the reality of when you fix something that isn't broken --I love that phrase. This person, the boss, decided to change something that was working fine. I assume he had two reasons to do so: one, to avoid paying extra time to the employee, which is illegal. And two, because it was his way of making people understand that he is the new boss and he can do as he pleases. Well, he got exactly what he deserved. A new problem was born from trying to fix something that was working perfectly fine. He could have just accepted that he had no place to change anything, and everything would have been fine. But no, he needed to put his head in something that didn´t require anything from him. Sometimes, some bosses need to understand that not everything needs their opinion or supervision. You can just remain quiet. If anything needs to be changed, you will notice that there is a problem, like the one this boss created after changing things up. 

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  • 01
    Quick background: mid-size B2B software company, hybrid since forever. The unspoken deal was simple a couple days in office, and if prod broke at 9pm or a client panicked on a Saturday, someone fixed it from home. Unpaid, but nobody minded. Goodwill. New CTO arrives from a much more rigid company. Second all- hands, he kills the flexible days: 9- 5, in office, no exceptions. Asked
    via plaintextcoder
  • 02
    An office meeting at a corporate job. Recreated scenario included to enhance reader understanding.
    via Smartworks Coworking

    An office meeting at a corporate job.

    Recreated scenario included to enhance reader understanding. 

  • 03
    about after-hours emergencies, he says, paraphrasing only slightly, "If you're not at your desk, actively working, I don't consider it work. I don't care what you'd have done from your couch at 9pm." Someone half-jokes, "So nothing outside 9-5 at the desk counts?" Him, de d serious: "Exactly. Glad we're aligned." We were aligned. So we complied fully, literally.
    via plaintextcoder
  • 04
    Slack got muted at 5:00 sharp. Nobody checked email after leaving. A PM pinged on-call at 6pm about a broken integration and got silence until 9am the next day. Then, one Friday, a deploy went out at 4:52, minutes before the freeze a configuration value missed one customer segment. Under the old system, someone would've caught it from their phone by 5:30. Under the new
    via plaintextcoder
  • 05
    one: the alert fired at 5:06. Nobody was at their desk, and per the CTO himself, that meant nobody was working. So nobody looked. It ran the whole weekend. Our biggest client had a fully broken dashboard for 61 hours. By Monday at 9am there were 200+ support tickets, a furious VP of Sales, and a client using the word "churn" a lot. The CTO demanded to know how
    via plaintextcoder
  • 06
    nobody noticed for two and a half days. Our team lead completely deadpan pulled up his exact quote from the all-hands: "if you're not at your desk, actively working, I don't consider it work." Nobody was at their desk all weekend. By his own definition, nobody was working. Nothing to notice. I've never heard a room go that quiet. We got a real on-call rotation
    via plaintextcoder
  • 07
    within the week actual comp time, not vibes. Hybrid quietly. came back a month later as a "pilot." Nobody's said "if you're not at your desk" out loud since. Turns out a lot of "not real work" had been holding the place together for free.
    via plaintextcoder
  • 08
    An employee talking to a coworker at a corporate job. Image for illustrative purposes.
    via Vitaly Gariev

    An employee talking to a coworker at a corporate job.

    Image for illustrative purposes. 

  • 09
    runner64 Deploying at 4:52 on a friday is crazy work.
    via runner64
  • 10
    Fermi_Amarti The real mystery is how you guys didn't have an on call rotation in a mid-sized company on a live service
    via Fermi_Amarti
  • 11
    The_Nepenthe Wait, did he inadvertently make it so that you all would be paid for this "Not real work?" Kind of a W actually, maybe he was just playing stupid.
    via The_Nepenthe
  • 12
    XenoRyet Ok, there's malicious compliance, and I applaud the effort of zero work outside the 9 to 5. But a Friday deploy at 4:52PM? Calm down Satan.
    via XenoRyet
  • 13
    FreydounHosseini What kind of company do you work for that doesn't do a change freeze on a friday?
    via FreydounHosseini
  • 14
    warpedspockclone I mean, great, but the fault rests with deploying at 4:52 on a Friday. Whoever did that, knowing you wouldn't be around for immediate support, is culpable.
    via warpedspockclone
  • 15
    arachnobravia And your on-call rotation is extra compensation, right?
    via arachnobravia
  • 16
    Mach5Driver How strange that a CTO couldn't have not only NOTICED it, but FIXED it, himself! Will wonders never cease?
    via Mach5Driver
  • 17
    Johnsooooooooon The worst part about corporate leaders at this point is that when they arrive they feel the need to shake the place up to prove themselves or whatever the f they are doing for their egos.. And most of the time by the time the miserable change actually is implemented and starting to cause failures they find a new place.
    via Johnsooooooooon
  • 18
    I have zero respect for any of these leaders they are not real leaders they're just sociopaths
    via Johnsooooooooon

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Tags

corporate malicious compliance new management office life overworked-employees
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