A viral Reddit post details how an employee accidentally turned a manager’s life into a 7 AM nightmare. The professional began arriving early to secure an early exit, unaware that company policy forced the manager to be the first person in the building every day.
“I’m forcing my boss to arrive at the office every day at 7AM,” the employee wrote. “I just started a new job and decided I want to make a good impression by being in the office a little early (also so the manager cannot see if I’m only here for 5 minutes or if I was already here for 1 hour, so nobody questions me if I leave early). So I started coming in between 8:00-8:15. The first day I noticed I was the first, but the rest of the week my boss would already be there as 8:00. Apparently he is an early bird as well,” the Redditor added.
However, every time the employee shifted their start time earlier, they found their boss already sitting at his desk. The employee inadvertently started an “early arrival” arms race, unaware that his manager was under a strict corporate mandate to always arrive before the employees.
The professional came to know about it when he finally asked the boss. “So yesterday I asked him; what time do you usually arrive at work since you are here extremely early. And he confessed that the director demands all managers to arrive before the first staff member arrives and leave only after the last staff member leaves.”
That is when the employee realised that accidentally they have been forcing their boss to “get out of bed 1.5 hours early to be at the office at the a** crack of dawn.” The Redditor added, “Anyway, tomorrow I will be at the office at 8:30 sharp then”, and concluded the post.
How did social media react?
An individual joked, “My only worry was that, if it had continued, then you’d both be at the office yesterday for today’s shift.” Another added, “I hope you told him you’d be in the office at 8:30am. I can only imagine how he’d feel if he were in the office at 7:00 am only to not have anyone turn up for 1.5 hours.” The OP responded, “Thanks for the reminder! I just told him.”
A third posted, “As a manager, what a horrible directive.” A fourth wrote, “This is exactly why I work from home. Y’all both are miserable.”
The OP in comments updated that they works for an “European division of a large American corporation.”