Some managers seem to be perpetually suffering with intense delusions of grandeur, that culminate with them truly believing the idea that they are entitled to their employee’s free time. The concept that most people engage with work as a thing that starts and, mercifully, ends at a set time is almost alien to them.

A worker shared their annoying experience with a boss who demanded they clock in early every day despite them always showing up on time. We reached out to the employee in the story via private message and will update the article when they get back to us.

Some bosses think it’s ok to ask employees to come in early or stay late

Image credits: LightFieldStudios (not the actual photo)

But one worker, despite always being on time, was told to clock in 15 minutes early every day

Image credits: Vojtech Okenka (not the actual photo)

Image credits: sydneyghibli

People should not be expected to do more than they signed up for

While fifteen minutes might not seem like a long time, it still adds up to five hours a month, assuming the employee works five days a week. Five whole hours of unpaid time, in the morning no less. Maybe this isn’t a dealbreaker for some, but it’s worth considering if it’s a good idea to let one’s manager dictate these sorts of things.

If a manager, feeling empowered for the pettiest reasons, can ask people to be on the clock an extra fifteen minutes, why stop there? Why not make it twenty, thirty or even more. Without some pushback, those five hours a month can multiply quite quickly. After all, if a manager is willing to exceed an agreed upon and binding contract by a bit, employee pushback is the only thing stopping them from doing more.

Of course, the employee in question could just quit, and in a perfect world, that’s what they would do at the first signs of manager overreach. Since we all live in an imperfect world, this worker did the next best thing, protest. If every employee refuses to back down, managers become a lot less able to push folks around.

Image credits: Pixabay (not the actual photo)

While some jobs need a bit of preparation, this was not the case here

It’s important to note that the employee here was by no means causing issues. They were on time and the manager seems to have had no other complaints. Similarly, they themselves stated that they didn’t actually need to be there to “set up” in any way. Some might argue that it’s impossible, but if it really was an issue, it would have come up earlier in this employee’s work.

Similarly, there could be a risk that, by leaving no room for error, like traffic, some difficulties finding one’s keys in the morning or any other issue. This would mean that, inevitably, they show up late. However, again, this employee has not had punctuality issues in the past and, importantly, “spending” hours every month on the off chance that you might be twenty minutes late one day or another is overkill.

Image credits: Marc Mueller (not the actual photo)

Overbearing managers tend to leave workers annoyed and burnt out

All in all, the real issue is manager overreach. If this worker was actually causing issues, this request would be in order. However, it’s simply not the case. Indeed, the manager’s reaction, or, in reality, overreaction to the pushback should be a significant red flag for anyone. In general, when employees are asked about what they don’t like at a job, bad management is often a very dominating answer.

There are all sorts of reasons why a manager might decide to not manage but terrorize their workers, from poor people skills and a lack of knowledge of how things work to some sort of externalized insecurities. The results, unfortunately, tend to be the same, unproductive, scared and burnt out employees.

Image credits: CoWomen (not the actual photo)

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