Where is the fine line between frugality and greed? Between an effective manager and a Scrooge who counts every single coin? Many bosses have crossed this line – and that’s when we witness some weird stories about toxic working environments.

This happens especially often when employees use work equipment for personal purposes – be it office equipment, a car or a cell phone. Things happen like bosses stepping over dollars to collect dimes, only to spoil their relationship with a valuable employee.

More info: Reddit

The original poster’s boss gave him a phone with an unlimited plan

Image credits: NEC Corporation of America (not the actual photo)

This happened, for example, with a Reddit user whose post in the r/MaliciousCompliance community definitely hit a lot of users right in the feels, having already gained 15.7k upvotes. And yes, we are talking about mobile phones.

Just to mention – it happened, as the original poster himself notes, about twelve years ago, when cell phones had minutes. However, the OP’s boss gave him a phone with an unlimited plan.

Image credits: u/juicybuttfarts

Any co-worker within the department could call the OP whenever 24/7 for troubleshooting

The OP worked as a contractor in a hospital for a medical supply company. There were about twenty people in his small department, and the OP himself acted as a team lead. He was an hourly employee, but the boss asked him to carry around a departmental cell phone at all times so that any coworker could call him whenever 24/7 for troubleshooting.

This particular area was also in the mountains, where OP’s personal phone did not have great reception, while everything was good with the work phone. So the team lead sometimes used it for personal calls.

This went on for about a year, and then suddenly the team lead received an e-mail from his boss’ boss’ secretary demanding that he pay for each personal call. The OP simply asked her for records of all the calls he made throughout this year.

Image credits: u/juicybuttfarts

Only about ten percent of the total number of calls were actually personal calls

Image credits: u/juicybuttfarts

The team lead maliciously complied to pay the bills if he would be also paid for his overtime work

It turned out that only about ten percent of the total number of calls were made for his personal purposes. The team lead then emailed the secretary back.

OP admitted that he was willing to pay for each personal call he made – an amount he calculated. But taking into account the fact that for the whole year, he had made many more work calls in addition to working hourly, he said he would not mind if he was paid for the spent time, having deducted the amount for personal calls.

The team lead tells he never heard back. Neither he, nor any of the board brought it up again.

Image credits: Morgan (not the actual photo)

People online supported the OP, telling him his case was not the only one

In the comments, people basically supported the OP, remembering many similar cases – both with cell phones and with the use of work cars.

Someone said that if they were the OP, they would have called a lawyer immediately, so the team lead replied he was still young in those days and not so experienced. If something similar happened now, he’d be headed straight for the court.

Another commenter faced with the demand to pay half of the bills just put his phone on the desk and simply left

One of the commenters recalled an almost identical situation from his own work experience, when his boss officially allowed him to use the work phone for personal purposes occasionally. After some months, the new boss called him in and demanded that he pay half of the bills, which were around $300 per month.

The employee, in response, simply put the phone on the boss’ desk, said he didn’t care and he no longer needed this phone – and then simply left. The next day, the phone was on his desk and no one else talked about bills anymore.

In other words, as one of the commenters summed up, when making a financial decision, one should first of all ask two questions: what’s the cost of doing this, and what’s the cost of not doing this?

We are pretty sure some of you have been in similar situations and maybe you’ve been the bean-counting boss as well. In any case, feel free to share your stories – after all, any interesting narrative always finds grateful listeners.

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