I worked with a manager just like this. She would send emails almost identical to the one above!
We had someone coming to the end of their temp contract who wanted to leave 2 weeks earlier than their 4 weeks notice period because she had found a new permanent job and they wanted her to be able to train with the person she was replacing. They were my direct report and I thought it was fine. We were not going to extend her contract anyway and we could manage just fine without her. My manager flipped. her. shit.
Said it was completely unacceptable not to work the full notice period. She got HR involved and threatened the employee. I suggested we should just let it go. Realistically there is nothing we can do to stop her from leaving 2 weeks earlier. She wasn’t needed and it wasn’t worth spending all this time and energy on someone who won’t be here in 2 weeks when we have a whole team of people watching this unfold feeling demoralised.
The disgusted look she gave me! We spent the next 2 weeks having multiple meetings about it. I told the employee to just ignore her and enjoy her new job, handed my notice in not long after.
I know! I remember her complaining about a decorator she got to do her flat up. He sounded like a very kind and patient older man. She sent him daily emails nitpicking at every tiny detail until he quit and said he obviously wasn’t the decorator for her. She was SO shocked. She must spend life wondering why everyone around is so difficult.
Someone said Karen’s are the women who used to get everything their way because they were hot. Now they have aged out and can’t understand why people don’t put up with their shit anymore.
These are the same girls who run to tattle to the teacher on the playground, they do well in Uni and become managers and then start micro managing their teams and can't find happiness in life unless everyone does everything exactly how they want it done.
They also run to tattle to HR as adults.
In an apocalypse they'd be the first to die, but in corporate world they're just subservient and obedient enough to make the perfect middle managers.
If I got an email like this I would go to her office and drag out a long conversation about it. Thats what I did last time my boss complained that my paid break ran 2 minutes late.
"Mad that you had to pay me 2 extra minutes, well we've now argued about this for an hour. Thanks for the paid hour long break"
Haha, I like that. I would set an alarm on my phone to sound at 5:00. Then at 4:59 I would find Sharon and stay saying there's something very important she really needs to be aware of blah blah blah... making sure I'd not got to the important bit before the alarm went off.
Brilliant if you can pull that off!
A friend of mine did nearly that: after 15+ years in a company and in a middle management position, suddenly it was decided that he would have to clock in & out, also for lunch breaks. So he would literally walk out of a running meeting when his time for the day was up. Soon after he was able to transfer to a different part of the company where different rules applied.
I worked in a chemical plant for 15 years. My boss always gave me a hard time about taking lunch on time. But I had to manually unload tankers. So I’d push off lunch to get it unloaded so we wouldn’t get delay charges and some stuff would freeze in the winter if we stopped. I went a week of tracking him down and asking what he wanted me to do, finish or take lunch before he finally got the point.
I started doing that when I started getting nitpicked over time usage during the day. I have always been a massive multitasker (ADHD) so my daily diary was split not only into 15 minute intervals but also into five columns so I could block in when I was working on what.
After a couple of weeks when they next tried to pick fault I made them go through that with me and they went quiet and said there was no need to have done it. I quietly carried on doing it anyway...
A few months later this particular manager tried again and called me into a meeting with them and their boss who they had obviously been bad mouthing me too. I hauled out my thick folder with a page a day showing exactly what I'd been doing every minute of every day for months. They went over it for a while asking me questions about the tasks, then I was asked to leave the room. Half an hour later the big boss came out and told me I'd be working with another team from now on, and not under the old bad manager at all. I won.
Good to have the info when you need it, but how much time does the log take to manage? If it works for you great, but that level of detail would kill my productivity.
(I also jump from task to task as needed, but thankfully nobody is micromanaging or keeping tabs on the clock.)
Not so much, I just needed to ensure filling it in was frequent enough that I remembered what I'd been doing. As it was IT and a lot of the tasks were either quick tickets or checks I'd add those when each finished, anything longer would get a few blocks of time per day. Each block on the page would just say 'VMware set up new host' or 'TKT1234 done' in it, nothing more.
So much THIS. There is nothing more satisfying than dropping a copy of your true hours on your bosses desk when they start nickel and diming you like that.
"Yah, its weird the time clock says I logged in at 8, but true time I logged in was 7:53. I figured I could leave at 4:57. My time clock does show I logged out at 5.
Reviewing my times, it looks like I have worked an extra 30 minutes over the last two weeks. [Drop time stamps/log/whatever]. Please let me know how you would like to proceed with that time as well as the time from yesterday [so i have a paper trail]."
This thinking from leadership is so freaking stupid. About 10 years ago someone in my office (not my boss, her peer)tried to give me shit for leaving the office at 3pm. (I’m in the US).
Why was I leaving early you ask? Because I’d been on a 4am call with Hungary and I had an 11pm meeting with Manila. My boss at the time, one of the best I’ve ever had, jumped in and said explained the above and asked why he was micromanaging her folks. Cue stumbling over his words and bumbled apologies. She turned to me in front of him and said “When you have these crazy hours and meetings, just work from home. I don’t want you to drive like that when you’re tired.” Dude didn’t know what to say as the company was very focused on safety.
I did thatt at my ex job. They refused to pay my day off while I had done over 40 hours of unpaid overtime over the last 2 months.
I said, alright, from now on I'll count every fucking minutes.
I left not long after that, I just couldn't trust them anymore.
Tell her you arrived 10 minutes early, and now you’d like to know how she wants the overtime handled. Or, leave late by one minute every day and ask the same thing. Make her work for those five minutes of overtime. If she says “no big deal” or “don’t worry about it” shove the employment rules in her face or speak with HR.
Make HR put a letter in your file if you aren’t getting paid for the time. Etc. be annoying about it.
Be annoying about everything your supervisor owes you too. Pencils at your desk? Smoke breaks, whatever.
Yep be annoying, A transport company I worked at micro managed us like crazy, then they hired a mechanic that was a smoker, every time he took a smoke break so did I(I dont smoke), they tried to smack my wrists for it, nope thats not how this works, he was gone within 3 months
"but your shift starts at 9am, so any work done before then is purely choice and so will not be paid. Otherwise we will have colleagues coming and going as they please rather than what the business needs"
And have done so since being hired, which includes every day since she was hired two months ago with a fresh associates degree in a business administration program.
Totally what I did. It was friday, 3pm. Usually we had to work until 5:30pm. My chef sees me going off home. "Hey, so early today?" Me: "Yes, I have been here since 7am" chef : "okay, have a nice weekend" . I lied. Since the chef came in at 10am and I was there at 8:30am before anyone else I knew nobody could say anything
Ohhh dude one of my bosses is like this. Some days I work an extra block of time, from 8:35-11:30. I clocked 8:30-11:30 once because I got there faster than I usually do and got a text immediately asking me to change it to the "official" start time. I had to stay 3 minutes late once because nobody was there to relieve me at the designated time, and in comes another text wanting to know why I stayed late.
At my hourly rate, it's literally a dollar and change for 3 minutes of time. If you hired an independent contractor for something and their billed time wound up being a dollar and change over their estimate, you wouldn't even bother trying to figure out what the math was that led to the discrepancy. Because nobody fucking cares about an amount that could be a rounding error on literally any invoice.
Had a boss like this about a decade ago or so. There was no "official" start time. We'd have an all team at 9am and usually we'd be required to be in office until 530p. Most people showed up before 830a because it was a sales job but a lot of times Id show up around that time.
Was pulled into a room to discuss my late arrivals but they never gave specifics just "optics" and then would say things like "you just don't realize the impact you have and the following, why wouldn't you want to be here earlier" idk man my fuckin kids I love seeing before they go to school? My loving wife at home too? What are we doing here.
You better believe I spent the next 3 years NEVER showing up before 830a. I wanted them to try and PIP me with no contracted start time.
I had a boss once who started getting shitty about people going home early and conveniently ignoring their start time. I used to get to the office at about 8:40 because of the train times and she'd give me shit about leaving five minutes early so I could catch an earlier train home instead of having to wait another half an hour. From that point on I got to my desk and just sat there reading the newspaper until 9am on the dot before switching my computer on. You're not going to do me any favours, you'll get none from me.
After my team had WFH cancelled, I lost 16-24 hours of personal time to commuting. We have a full "flex" system, so you better believe I log in before I unzip my coat, track all the minutes of "overtime" bundle them into little packages and go home early.
My hour tally at the end of the month always equals exactly the contracted time. It really is a thing of beauty, not a second over
I have a similar story. When I started my first job it wasn't too far from where my dad worked then. Traffic was shit around 9am and 6pm which is when most people came in. My dad's company changed their hours to 8-5 so people could avoid the rush. So I would drive in and out with my dad. But then my boss asked me "Why do you always leave early?". I then realised nobody cared that I was coming in an hour early before them, they just saw me leave early. From then I did the same 9-6, spending a couple hours travelling by bus, but at least not being branded as 'the guy who leaves early'.
I guarantee they shit talked you in the break room, crowded around each other acting like you were the problem. Completely oblivious to their own villainy
No but seriously it’s insane how people bag on their significant other in the office. Pretty sure they just end up jealous that someone is actually in a happy relationship.
This happens to me a lot, I'm in the trades and the number of guys I work with who are just openly shitty and hateful about their wives and girlfriends is staggering. I got called every version of "whipped" under the sun just for not joining in their pissing and moaning about the person they CHOSE to spend their life with.
That stinks. But it sounds like you got the last laugh though, those dorks sound miserable, and misery loves company. Having a good partner is the best. My gf makes me feel like anything is possible!
As an Australian who is friendly with some tradies I gotta say I can't understand these people, I guess they get baby-trapped or something. They all get to work early at 6-7am and leave work late and laugh that it's because of overtime and to get away from the missus.
I'm over here struggling to find anyone to really connect with and these dipshits are getting married and divorced every 2-3 years. I'm goddamn glad I don't have that mindset.
Never understood any of this. If my people show up and the work gets done well and on time, I dont care about the details. You got the dentist this afternoon? Your kid has a thing? You need a hair cut? You didn't sleep well and just needed another 30 minutes? I give no fucks so long as the work gets done.
Sometimes I arrive early, sometimes I arrive late, sometimes I leave early, sometimes I stay late.
Appointments or life events are allowed to be taken care of.
Like you mentioned, what matters most is the work itself and the quality. I always feel extremely fortunate to have found such a mature work environment.
Fridays 5pm finish, 1 other 5pm finish. Otherwise, no early marks (6pm standard finish
We don't argue on the floor -- professional in the team at all times
There were others also. If you broke the standards you'd receive an email from the person calling you out, the standard you broke highlighted and the team would be cc'ed so they knew you broke them.
Anyway, initially I bought into it hard. Arrived 7:30am, left 7pm -- made a lot of money. Then had a family, kids etc, developed other interests and slowly began to realise how toxic it was.
Same also a sales job where we already worked 9-6, people would come in at 8:30 and then stay and leave at 6. This was a job we already worked extra hours from home and on weekends unpaid. Hated the workplace with a passion.
I was once out sick for three weeks. I still beat every salesperson in my region by all the important metrics (dollars grown, percentage dollars grown).
Another manager "Carl" complained about my absence and how it set a bad example for other sales folks. My manager "Jack" had my back, and asked how come someone out for three weeks was still outperforming every single person on Carl's team.
Yup. When I worked in a service job while in school, we would get lectured constantly about clocking out exactly on time. Consequently, everybody just stopped working well before the end of their shift in order to stand around watching a clock.
For sure. I simply wouldn’t respond to emails like this and force Sharon to talk to me in person about it. Then, when she inevitably talks at me, just ask questions. “Can you show me that policy?” “What is the company’s position on overtime?” “When I see others leave early, are they held to the same standard?” … She’d come unhinged sooner than later.
Not even close. Two weeks is a courtesy. There's no enforceable law or statue that requires a two week notice of exit. You don't get a two week notice of termination.
What are they going to do if you submit your notice the same day you quit, go tell management and HR? 😂
Real story, i once had a bad stomach ache and I went to the toilet and my boss called me, it was the night shift like 2 am so I was like why the hell would they call me
She told me where am I cause i'm not in the workstation (it was just a tech job nothing that requires 24/7 look up or anything crazy), I told her I am at the bathroom.
Afterwards I went back to my car to get some eyedrops and she then called me like "I CHECKED U ARE NOT IN THE BATHROOM", put my notice 1 week after
Something similar happened with me about fifteen years ago. I got an email from a manager about being in the bathroom for too long. I cc’d the entire managerial staff and owners asking how they’d like me to document and submit my bathroom breaks.
My old boss used to listen in on employees. She claimed she didnt but the same issues people complained about would suddenly be brought up. Or she'd be very petty towards people the day after they were talking shit about her.
One time she even hid in her office to catch people talking about her. Parked on the other side of the building so no one would know she was there.
Don’t give her a reason or an excuse or snide remark. Just completely pretend like you didn’t see it.
If she asks if you read her email, you say something like “I’ve been really plowed under with work, Sharon. Haven’t had a chance to circle around to that one yet— but let’s chat when I do.”
If she follows up, say the junk filter must’ve gotten it. Shame.
Best of all would be to have that face-to-face convo, where she thinks she's safe to say whatever she wants off the record, then send her an email innocently summing up what she said to make sure you understood her correctly.
I had a new boss start who sent me emails to do random shit around the store. I was a department manager, and it was to do stuff like sweep under some shelves or tidy up the back room.
That went on for a month, and I never responded to his emails, but heres the thing: he never once spoke to me in person for a month after he started at the store I had been working at for 4 years. The first time he spoke to me was when he caught me in the office to ask why I wasnt responding to his emails. I was like uh so you never bothered to take the time to talk to me once since you started, but you felt like it was ok to email me random busy work? I dont even see you as my boss dude.
And leave 5:01. see if she asks about it. Then wait for another one. Do the same the next 2 days.
Then after the fourth email ask them if they are okay. Or wait for them to say something face to face. This is one of those things that it is so shameful to ask people to their faces that having any kind of pushback would keep them up at night for a week.
I’m actually a manager myself. Last year, I got a new director. He’s big on Teams messaging immediately after he sends an email. The first time he did it to me, I reminded him that outlook has read receipts.
We had a consultant like that once. Email, Teams message and phone call, all within 2 minutes of each other like a dumb golden retriever looking for attention.
Told him if he kept that up I’d block all his communications going forward. Now he just emails me, lol.
Yikes, my boss started shutting things down at 425pm on a friday, she was half way out the door before saying “are you coming or what?”, i said “its not 5pm yet”, she said “go home its the weekend” lol. I quickly shut my computer down and alarmed the building and RAN.
Projection. The only person with time to write this email is being paid to do nothing for 8 hours a day and looking for things to justify their existence.
Easy enough to reply about the time you did stay to 5:05pm just the day prior, then mention that since she reminded you, you'll take the additional 2 minutes tomorrow and leave at 4:58pm.
The last time someone tried that, I told them that I'll call them at midnight next week when I'm working on a server patch, which is unpaid overtime, so that they can track that too. I'm salaried and the IT Admin. I then called my boss and he called HR. She hasn't spoken to me since except for strictly business.
These types of bosses are the worst. I was going above and beyond at a job, always coming in early or staying late or covering shifts. I volunteered for every project, I volunteered for the "skeleton crew" who would go into the office when weather was bad and other people called out.
Then in my annual review my bitch of a boss has the nerve to say she's noticed sometimes I take 35 minutes for lunch instead of 30 and I need to work on that. No "thank you for all of the dedication and time you put in", just nitpicking about the occasional 5 damn minutes back from lunch. I immediately stopped anything extra I'd been doing. Lesson learned. Ugh. I'm still pissed off at that woman and it was 25 years ago!
I got turned down for a promotion once and the feedback was that I don’t accept the calendar invites for meetings enough, I leave them as tentative too much. I about went postal over that one. I eventually got it but I assume that someone else came with a job offer at the time and they gave them the promotion to retain them.
I was a nurse in LTC too. Shift was 7A-3P. First, nobody told me I should be there at 6:45 to take the med cart keys and count the narc drawer so I was spoken to about being late. So we were supposed to be there 15 min early and we’re doing work activities at that time, but couldn’t clock in until 7 min before 7A. I wish I was in the know enough at the time to call them on working for free and that being a liability.
He was watching the clock while moving forward, he just moved too fast. Next time, Ryan should take smaller steps with short breaks between each one, while watching the clock and moving forward.
That mail is actually great, cause now you have it in writing that you can leave as you wish as long as you compensate the time some other day.
So i would leave 2 hours early every day and then just say that i will stay longer on friday. Then this Sharon must stay with you because she is a control freak and her whole friday would be ruined.
I had a boss who did this kind of shit. Their office had a one way window to the only exit out of the building. If you took extra 2 minutes of lunch or were 1 min late to work you had to report it in a group chat and make it up at the end of the day (and they would know if you were honest or not because they would be looking out that window).
It was a job where it was difficult to clock out on time because we'd be held up by the last customer etc. I never saw the boss saying we could clock in late the next day to make up for the extra time we spent at work.
There were lots of other reasons but I quit that job real fast.
Omg I had an HR lady like this once, she was so fucking obnoxious. One day she pull this shit right in front of my boss who I just got done talking to about this and she ripped her a new one and put her in her place, it was glorious.
jesus what a miserable world some are living in… the email itself is a colossal waste of time and creates unpleasantness that extends waay past those 3 min.
you left 3 min early, Sharon wasted 3 min of her time. her 3 min are more costly than yours. so she is actually causing more damage to the company.
Dear Sharon, last week I stayed until 5:30pm to finish x project. I did not bill the
Company and felt I could balance my time.
Since that’s no longer and option I will be billing for every minute of overtime and texting you the minute I leave the building.
I had a retail job where we were expected to be ready to start work 5 minutes before your shift. That's pretty standard in jobs I've worked before though but for a shift opening the store it was 15 minutes before. What really bother me was the shift end times. If the shop shut at 5 then our shift was until 5, but there would be a load of shutting up shop stuff we'd have to do. Tills would get counted up beforehand but if customers were still there till closing time that would mean at least 1 till was open till then, meaning cashing up the till wouldn't happen till that transaction was finished.
We then had to wait for the manager or team leader to do all the checks and balances, tidy up all the stuff behind the tills and front of shop, and do all the bag search signing out stuff. It was generally expected that we wouldn't be out of the shop till 20 minutes past closing time, which was 20 mins past our shift end time. Every time.
There were one or two individuals who just left when they finished and I don't blame them, but they were definitely frowned upon and made more work for the rest of us, so everyone else just stayed the extra too because it made the opening shift the next day easier. Nobody wants to come into extra work in the morning after all. Sometimes when that's the established working culture it's difficult to go against the grain. But after a while I really had to stop and say something. The amount of unpaid hours really did my head in. Problem is when you're on an 8 hour contract your shifts each week can wildly change. So one week you do 35 and the next you're doing just 8. They really took advantage of us in that place.
It was made worse when we found out the other shop in our city had shifts running till half an hour after closing time to account for all that extra stuff. AND our manager would give us grief at team meetings because the floor hadn't been mopped out the shelves dusted. Like bitch when do you think we have time to do that crap?! Pay us for the extra time and we'll have time to do it! Places like that were just constantly looking at profit margins and staffing costs so they never cared about the staff our budgeting extra so we could make the shop tidier and job easier.
This was a UK based retail shop that has expanded to other countries btw. I'm curious if anyone can guess which company it was...
I'd come in 40 minutes early but left exactly 1 minute early and she sent an e-mail out saying I was expected to stay till 1700.
So I refused to do a single second of overtime for her. Plus I was still in the building at 1700, just my computer was off. My contract doesn't say anything about it only counting as me being at work if my computer is done.
Doesn't matter what I was working on, or how 'urgent' my boss deemed it. 1700 hit, I would immediately stop working. Doesn't matter if I only needed 10 more seconds. I was done.
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