Dissatisfied Employee Fools The Managers Into Thinking He Is Working More Than He Is Because They Wouldn’t Let Him Work From Home

The way managers measure productivity is ridiculous.

Damjan

• Published in Interesting
• February 25, 2022

For millions of working people around the world, the sudden shutdown of many offices and businesses during the peak of the pandemic ushered in a new era of remote work. According to Pew Research, more Americans today say they work from home out of choice rather than necessity.

Among those who have a job outside the home, 61 percent now say they prefer not to go there. Companies are increasingly adopting hybrid or fully WFH models, making the choice a no-brainer.

That's what one Redditor and an unnamed firm employee felt. He said he wanted to work from home full-time and "hated the office with a burning passion" in a post on the Malicious Compliance subreddit.

But, contrary to his expectations, the Redditor was allocated as a full-time employee in the office. He wrote, "It made no sense to me." It turns out that his firm used an unusual productivity metric to determine who was allowed to WFH and who wasn't.

"Basically, we have a company-wide instant messaging system that displays whether you are available, idle, or in a meeting." "You show as idle if you don't touch your keyboard for 5 minutes," they explained.

OP was shown as idle too often for him to be allowed to move to remote employment.

The Redditor, however, did not let up and devised a cunning strategy to defy their control. Continue reading to find out what he did.

This employee recently reported how he was denied the ability to work from home since he was frequently seen idling on work chat.

OP shares his story

He hates the office and don't want to return. But he has to

OP asked the managers about the logic behind the decision

Because it was hard to understand

And the explanation was ridiculous

OP doesn't have to be active all the time - just when he has work to do

Thanks to his capabilities and good time management, his queue is always empty.

So, he wrote a code that would make him appear always online

And now he is the star of the company.

OP posted an update. Apparently, many people had the same problem and solved it with a mouse jiggler.r

OP even shared the code

And explained how it can be adjusted

Some people criticized OP, so he gave them a piece of his mind

What do firefighters do? They fight fire when there is fire. They don't run around pretending to work when there is no fire around.

Redditors were angry about the way the company measures productivity

Others shared their tricks

Primitive, but it works...

Managers can be fooled so easily...

In a nutshell:

Some ridiculous rules there:

Other Redditors shared their experiences:

Bots rule!

The bottom line:

One rule that the managers still haven’t learned is that- whenever they impose some ridiculous rule, employees will find a way around it. Being honest with employees and listening to their suggestions is the best way to run a company.

But somehow, they fail to see it. And cooperation ends up being a competition.

Damjan