Nurses get back at toxic manager by finding loopholes in the hospital's overtime policies

A toxic workplace is hell on earth for employees. There is a severe lack of communication, comfort and understanding. All of this forces employees to compromise on their mental and physical health. Reddit user u/damishkers was working at such a place that had demands which humanly could not be fulfilled. The schedule, especially log-out time, was a mess, and it felt like the supervisor was taking personal satisfaction in seeing their team suffer. It was becoming increasingly difficult to manage working at a place that refused to consider their needs. But, the game changed when they and the whole team found a loophole in the policies, which they were more than happy to use.

The Reddit user shared how early on in their career, they were employed as a nurse in a hospital, which gave tenths of an hour as a wage. It was not an issue, as it was up to industry standards. The problem was their overtime policies. The nurses were overworked and were expected to finish everything by 7:30 p.m. By 7:36, they had to be out, otherwise, they were dealt with a warning. The situation kept on worsening as the new director's stringent policies made more and more nurses quit. The hospital was getting short-staffed and there was more pressure on the nurses. They could not even take their 15-minute breaks anymore.

The lunch breaks became a facade. The policies dictated that the nurses had to clock out for lunch breaks. Unfortunately, most days, they had to work after clocking out, as there were patients to look after. Since it was a matter of life and death, there was no way the nurses could sideline the patients. In the Reddit user's own words, they were in no position to say, "What am I going to do? Sorry, you're dying, but my lunch is getting cold?" The only place a compromise could have been done was in administrative work, but for those, they had to rush on because of overtime policies.

Matters came to a head when the manager brought a huge overtime crackdown. In this crackdown, nurses with more than one late clock out would receive a permanent mention of it in their records. This was huge as the records had a lot of impact on career prospects. The nurse shared that they worked their "tail off" to clock out on time. But, no matter how hard they tried, some days they were 0.1-0.2 hours late. Almost everyone on the team got a warning and a permanent reflection on record in two weeks. Another rule came out, which dictated that if nurses clocked out 30 minutes late, the management would understand and let it go.

The expectation was that no one would want to work for 30 minutes more without any extra wages. The management believed it would rush the nurses more and get more output from them. The nurses instead used it to be more detailed in their work and took that lunch break. Most of the nurses, like the Reddit user, did not want the overtime, they just wanted to function on the job healthily. Therefore, everyone on the team began to clock out an hour late, being slow and precise in their work. "Slow" was not on the management's agenda. The management soon got rid of the rules and policies. Yay!! For teamwork.

The comment section loved the collective stance of the nurses. u/horsewoman1 spread awareness about the labor law violated by the hospital, writing: "One of the most violated labor laws is, when you are clocked out for an unpaid lunch and you even get asked anything about the job, let alone get up to do work, you must be paid for the entire break. It is a serious fine." u/Safe_Butterscotch239 explained how such policies hurt customers: "This is why people dodge customers when it's five minutes to home time."