Employee takes a stand through deliberate tardiness in reply to new management's unrealistic policy

Coming to work on time is important; however, life often gets in the way and employees may be a few minutes late due to circumstances beyond their control. With more and more establishments adopting stringent late policies, employees undergo a lot of frustration. In addition to the mental load of getting to the office quickly, companies also levy fines on latecomers. While it is only fair to have such policies in place, it is possible that they do not consider genuine reasons for delays. Reddit user u/ActualMis talked about their company's late policy and how they challenged it in a post on the platform. The post has attained 10.5K likes on the platform and 429 comments since it was uploaded. 

The individual states that they work in a low-level corporation with approximately 450 employees. They have been at the designation for five years and have been a major contributor to their division's productivity. Initially, management had a leave policy favoring high-performing employees. The Redditor, being one of the latter, would also come in early, so they would be excused on the few days that they did come in late, owing to genuine reasons. Things changed when new management came in and after the organization was sold to another company.

The new management was mostly looking to "strip them down" and sell the company. They made many unnecessary changes, one of them being a much more strict late policy that would not accept any excuses for coming in late. The individual inquired about the policy at a meeting, asking, "So if someone is 5 minutes late and someone else is 3 hours late, the punishment is the same?" The management replied that with the change, there would be no difference. Seeing the unfairness, the individual decides to challenge it by deliberately coming in late. They say, "I'd still head to work at my usual time, but I sat in a local coffee shop instead of my work's lunchroom."

They would inform the office that they would be late and then take their time to get there. In fact, it escalated to the point where sometimes a 7-minute lateness would be extended to them being 3 hours late. Even though fines were levied against them, the individual states they made as much in bonuses as hourly salary, so it was not a big problem. Seeing them come in late, the higher-ups would be very upset, but they could not do anything except write them up.

Other people on the platform shared their own stories when it came to late policies. u/18k_gold commented, "I had a job; if you were 5 mins late or 59 mins late, it was the same thing. Anytime I knew I would go over, I would take my time and go somewhere. Come in at 59 minutes late. But being so late, they would have to shift and make arrangements to cover my job; it could not go unattended for so long. The supervisor asked why I was so late. Told them about traffic. They were like for 1 hour? Nope, I could have been here 50 mins ago, but it's the same as 59 mins and there is this one store I always wanted to check out, so I stopped by there first. Boy, they were not happy but couldn't do anything about it."