There is nothing quite like the petty tyranny of a middle manager with a clipboard and a watch. We have all met them. They are the people who believe productivity is measured not by what you actually produce but by how firmly your rear end is planted in your office chair the second the clock strikes the start hour. One manager on Reddit decided to enforce a strict “butts in seats” policy for his salaried engineering team, and the way they fought back is a thing of beauty.
Our narrator used to work in the engineering department of a mid-sized company. Generally, engineering is a field that runs on results, creativity, and problem-solving. It is not an assembly line. But one manager started getting “upset” because when he walked around at exactly 8:30 AM, not everyone was physically in their seats. He felt they were being too “lax.”
Now, anyone who has worked a salaried job knows the trade-off. You might come in at 8:45, but you also might stay until 6:00 PM to finish a project. You check emails at night. You solve problems in the shower. The flexibility goes both ways. But this manager didn’t want flexibility. He wanted control. So the edict went out: All engineers had to be in their seats exactly at the start time.
The narrator, being young and perhaps a bit idealistic, tried to push back with logic. They told the boss they were a salaried professional and expected to be treated as such. They even pulled the “if you don’t trust me, fire me” card. It was a bold move, but ultimately, it wasn’t the move that won the war.
The real heroes of this story were the older, wiser engineers. They didn’t argue. They didn’t complain. They just looked at the new rule and decided to follow it to the absolute letter. They realized that if the manager wanted to watch the clock, they would give him a show he would never forget.
So the malicious compliance began. The engineers showed up five minutes early every day to ensure they were in their seats at 8:30 sharp. The manager was probably thrilled for about six hours. But he forgot about the other end of the day. Because if the start time is strict, then the end time is sacred.
These geniuses set alarms on their phones for 5:00 PM. And when those alarms went off, it didn’t matter what was happening. It didn’t matter if the building was burning down. They dropped everything. Literally.
The narrator describes the scene beautifully. Was the manager running a meeting that went a few minutes late? Too bad. At 5:00 PM, a symphony of alarms would ring out, and the entire staff would stand up in the middle of the meeting and walk out the door. It creates a mental image that brings a tear of joy to my eye.
It wasn’t just meetings either. If operations needed technical support at 4:55 PM, they got exactly five minutes of help. At 5:00 PM, the engineer would hang up the phone. Sorry, strict hours! And in the mornings? If someone had a question at 8:28 AM, they were met with silence. You had to wait two minutes until the official start time.
This is the perfect example of “work to rule.” The manager wanted to treat his salaried professionals like hourly factory workers, so they gave him exactly what he asked for. They stripped away all the extra effort, the late nights, and the flexibility that actually keeps a company running.
Needless to say, the policy didn’t last very long. The manager learned a very expensive lesson about the difference between attendance and performance. You can force people to sit in a chair, but you cannot force them to care once that clock hits five.