Call center operator obliged to start 15 minutes before his shift to load the company’s archaic software, told to work until 4:00 PM on the dot, he complies, ending a call right at the end of his shift: ‘I am following expectations and written directions’ – FAIL Blog

Working environments can be ruined by bad bosses, annoying coworkers, or the company building. In the case of this Reddit story, it was completely awful because of the extra time that he was required to work APART from his shift. This is super common in places like call centers because you have to be taking calls all day, back to back. You can’t get up for a coffee or a restroom break without being on break, which is kind of understandable. But you can’t also arrive just in time because you have to be taking calls the moment your shift starts, which makes it really common for people to arrive 15 minutes early just to set up all the systems. This time is unpaid, of course. The manager of this employee was not only required to make an early appearance in the office, but also to stay available till 4 o’clock on the dot. This means that a call may appear at 3:59 and the employee has to stay after time, also unpaid.

I’m not going to go into depth on the legality of this. But what I will highlight is that this user decided to end the call at 4:01 as it was over his shift, and that is something that everyone who has worked in a call center would have loved to do. He was, of course, called out, but the truth is, they should have put a stop to new incoming calls at least 5 minutes before the end of the shift to prevent this. The employee just did EXACTLY what he was told. And that is the malicious compliance we all like so much.