I Weaponized the Rules

When I end up oversleeping by one minute during my usual lunch-hour nap, my colleague, Michael Jones, reports me for my "major attendance infraction". Without any hesitation, our boss, Patrick Larkin, cancels my promotion that had been announced three months ago. He says, "Rules are necessary to maintain order. Every employee must abide by company policy." I don't argue or try to explain myself. However, from that day onward, I stop taking naps during my lunch hour. Instead, I use that time to study the employee handbook. Michael mocks me. "What's the point in pretending to be such a diligent employee now? No matter how many times you read the employee handbook, you won't be getting a raise for it." I simply smile to myself. Eight days later, chaos breaks out throughout the entire office. Over 100 employees crowd into the hallway outside the HR department, each one looking pretty frantic. Michael's expression doesn't look too good, either. Patrick storms up to me, glaring fiercely as he confronts me. "What the hell did you do?" I slowly sip my coffee before replying, "I'm just complying with your orders and helping you enforce company policy." Chapter 1 My boss, Patrick Larkin, sat in the center of the conference room holding the promotion notice. Just as he was about to make the announcement, Michael Jones, one of my colleagues, shot to his feet. After pulling out a photo, Michael called out, "Mr. Larkin! I have something to report. I found a problem with Connor Grady's attendance record." Everyone turned toward me, but I kept quiet. Patrick picked up the photo Michael tossed out and examined it carefully. "What's the problem?" Michael loudly replied, "Company policy states that our lunch break is from 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm. However, at 1:31 pm, Connor was still napping in the break area. He exceeded his break time by one minute." Someone in the conference room let out a barely audible snort of laughter, breaking the silence. Patrick's expression darkened as he looked toward me. "Care to explain yourself, Connor?" "I overslept by accident because I didn't hear my alarm," I calmly answered. Michael swiftly fired back, "Failing to hear your alarm isn't a valid excuse. The company has explicit rules in place. Exceeding the allotted time by even one minute counts as an unexcused absence. If we don't put a stop to this kind of lax attitude, who will follow the rules in the future?" He turned toward Patrick, his expression righteous and indignant, but he instinctively avoided my gaze. During last month's technical review, my proposal had received unanimous approval, while his had been rejected. As a result, the core module he had been responsible for had been handed over to me. Patrick set down the photo and looked around the conference room. "Michael makes a fair point. Rules are necessary to maintain order. Every employee must abide by company policy." He rose to his feet and looked down at me with a cold, condescending gaze. "Connor, I'm truly disappointed that a senior engineer like you would make such a basic mistake. You're on track for a promotion, but this reflects extremely poorly on you. To prevent anything like this from happening again, I've decided to revoke your eligibility for promotion this year." Gasps rang out from all around. I had the best performance in my department. The announcement regarding my upcoming promotion from senior engineer to lead engineer had been posted for a full three months now. The increase in salary and equity benefits I would've received with the promotion were worth more than 200 thousand dollars. But it was all being taken away from me, all because I'd returned to work a minute late. The corners of Michael's lips lifted slightly before he quickly suppressed his smile. He chimed in with a look of feigned sympathy, "You shouldn't have been so careless, Connor." I looked at Patrick. He had just been transferred to the tech center and, as our new boss, he was eager to make his mark. I knew exactly what he was doing. He was seizing this opportunity to punish me in order to establish his authority and secure his footing here. I nodded in silence, seemingly accepting this outcome. "Meeting adjourned," Patrick said, looking thoroughly satisfied as he strode out of the conference room. The others also started filing out. No one dared to comfort me. They were all too scared of being the next victim. Before Michael left, he made a point of walking over to me. "It's nothing personal, Connor. I'm just a frank person who believes in following the rules." I looked him in the eye and snorted. His expression stiffened, and he quickly walked away, leaving me alone in the now-empty conference room. I stared at the promotion notice on the table for a long time. Then I took a deep breath and walked out. Chapter 2 After returning to my desk, I checked the system and saw that my attendance record had been updated. There was now a glaring red notice that stated I was absent from work for half a day. I stared at those burning words for a few seconds before closing the webpage. My colleagues were still discussing what had just happened. They whispered among themselves, stealing glances at me now and then. I pretended not to notice. Tapping away on the employee portal, I pulled up the employee handbook. The latest version, V4.2, was 87 pages long. I clicked the download button, then searched the file for the attendance regulations. 17 results popped up, covering everything from the lunch break policy to the rules for flexible clock-in approvals. After placing the file in a folder labeled "Study Material", I put on my headphones and started reading from the very top. I made sure to read every word carefully. At some point, someone patted me on the shoulder. I took off my headphones and turned around. It was Abe Oswald, a fellow engineer. With a coffee mug in hand, he gave me an insincere look of sympathy and said, "Don't take it too hard. It's just a promotion. You'll get it next time." I nodded. "You're right." Clearly taken aback by how calm I was, Abe froze for a moment before awkwardly walking away. I put my headphones back on and continued studying the employee handbook. Time slowly ticked by, and eventually, it was lunchtime. My colleagues gathered in small groups and started heading toward the staff cafeteria for lunch. When a few of them passed by behind me, I overheard their conversation. "He's still going through the employee handbook, huh? What's the point?" "I know, right? It's not like he can rewrite the rules. He could memorize the handbook from back to front, and it still wouldn't turn into a promotion letter." The second voice belonged to Ian Mosley, Michael's best buddy at work. I ignored him. Just then, my phone screen lit up. I checked the time, and it was exactly 12:30 pm. I heard my other colleagues bustling around behind me. A few of them pulled out blankets and took naps at their desks. The entire office area fell quiet, with only the hum of the air conditioner in the background. I didn't put my head down. I didn't even close my eyes. Instead, I continued going through the files, reading every rule, requirement, and remark. Then I picked up a pen and started copying a few lines in my notebook. At 12:45 pm, Michael poked his head out from his desk. When he saw me still sitting in front of my computer, he frowned. He carried his cup toward the break room, deliberately stopping as he passed me. "Oh. Not taking a nap today?" When I ignored him, he raised his voice, as if to ensure that the entire floor could hear him. "Some people start pretending to be so hardworking the moment they lose their promotion. Hah! What's the point in pretending to be such a diligent employee now? No matter how many times you read the employee handbook, you won't be getting a raise for it." The handful of colleagues who were still at their desks let out a few snickers, but my pen never stopped moving. Michael scoffed and walked off. By 1:00 pm, I'd noted down over 20 rules from the employee handbook. 20 minutes later, I reached the chapter on attendance regulations. Section 3.7 stated, "Flexible working hours verbally approved by the department director must be submitted for formal approval through the employee portal within 24 hours. Failure to submit the required approval within the specified period will be treated as an absence." I stared at the clause for a few minutes before opening up the company's internal directory and pulling up Patrick's profile. He joined the company three years ago. I checked his attendance records. The system showed that over the past six months, he had 23 instances of flexible clock-ins. For 19 of them, I couldn't find any corresponding approval from his superior. I made a note of that detail and put a star beside it. Two minutes before the lunch break ended, I closed my notebook and slipped it into my drawer. Michael woke up from his nap, freezing when he saw me standing by the window. He probably hadn't expected me to forego my usual nap completely. He curled his lip and muttered, "Psycho." I heard him, but I didn't turn around. Chapter 3 After arriving at the office the next morning, I pressed my finger against the scanner, and the machine beeped. My name and employee ID appeared on the screen. I'd clocked in at 8:27 am, which was three minutes earlier than the designated clock-in time. I turned on my computer and continued studying the employee handbook. I jotted down more notes, especially from the sections on attendance regulations and the flexible clock-in procedures. My notebook was filling up fast. At noon, everyone took their lunch before lounging around for the rest of their break. I was the only one still sitting in the office area, still poring over the employee handbook. Michael and Ian put on a little performance in the break room. "Today's the second day he hasn't taken a nap during the lunch hour." "It's obviously because he's feeling embarrassed. Now that he's been caught red-handed once, he's too chicken to take naps anymore. I bet you he's abused company policy like this many times in the past." "Look at him losing his promotion because he overslept for one minute. What an idiot." Every word made its way into my ears, but I continued staring at the document, my expression unchanged. On the third day, I clocked in 15 minutes early. Once again, I spent my lunch break studying the employee handbook without taking a nap. As Michael walked past my desk, he snorted. "Sure. Go ahead and keep pretending." On day four, while I was eating in the staff cafeteria, Michael carried his tray over to my table and sat across from me. "You can't blame me for what happened, Connor. I was just following the rules. Mr. Larkin hates people who aren't disciplined. You walked right into the line of fire yourself. "If you ask me, you should just accept it. If you keep trying to fight the rules and the boss, you'll just be making life harder for yourself." I finished the last bite of my food, wiped my mouth, and got up. Eyeing Michael, I remarked, "Michael, do you know that you clocked out two minutes before the official end of the workday on three separate days last month?" Michael's expression hardened. "What are you getting at?" "Section 4.2 of the attendance regulations states that leaving work two minutes or more early is considered a half-day absence. You left early three times. Per company policy, that means a deduction equivalent to one and a half days' pay, along with the forfeiture of the quarterly performance bonus," I calmly stated. Michael nearly dropped his fork. "H-how do you know that?" I turned around and walked away without answering. On the fifth day, I continued going over company policy. I'd made 57 notes, each one marked with the corresponding page and section number in the employee handbook. And for every single one, I found a corresponding example of a violation committed by someone in the office. I put Patrick's 19 flexible clock-in records that had missing approval forms into a table. I also compiled Michael's attendance violations from the past year. They weren't the only examples I found. Not a single person in the entire company had a perfectly clean record. The employee handbook was filled with overly complicated and excessive rules. Ordinarily, the HR department turned a blind eye to the more reasonable violations, and everyone was used to that. However, I was now the living example of someone who'd been punished in accordance with company policy. I lost 200 thousand dollars for missing one minute of work. This positively draconian punishment now loomed over everyone's head like an ax. I closed my notebook. It was time for me to get the ball rolling. Chapter 4 It was now the eighth day since that meeting. When I walked into the office, everything was as usual. Michael rolled his eyes at the sight of me, his expression scornful. Paying him no mind, I went straight to my desk and turned on my computer. I logged into my company email account and drafted an email. The subject line read, "A Friendly Reminder on Standardizing Attendance Management." Then I attached the "Attendance and Working Hours Compliance Self-Check List" that I'd compiled from the employee handbook. The email itself read, "Hello, everyone. Recently, the company has once again emphasized the importance of adhering to attendance policies. Mr. Larkin made it clear that rules are necessary to maintain order, and every employee must abide by company policy. "After carefully studying the employee handbook and the attendance regulations, I discovered many details that are easily overlooked, which may have resulted in unintentional violations. "I found 32 items in particular, such as failing to submit a request for approval for compensatory leave after working overtime, failing to submit approvals for flexible clock-ins within the required period, forgetting to enable location tracking when traveling on company business, exceeding the lunch break, and leaving work two minutes or more early. "To prevent everyone from repeating my mistake, I have compiled this self-check list for your reference. Please be sure to review all of your attendance records from the past year. If you find any issues, do reach out to HR and take proactive action to handle your violations, lest you end up facing even more serious consequences." After reading the entire thing, I was satisfied with what I'd come up with. It sounded like I was just a model employee trying hard to prove myself after losing my promotion. Without any hesitation, I sent the email to everyone in the company. At first, no one paid much attention to the email. Some deleted it without even reading it, while others merely glanced at it and decided it was too much trouble. However, a few people opened the attachment and saw the list I had carefully prepared as a spreadsheet file. There were 32 attendance rules that were particularly easy to violate. Each one included the specific page number and section in the employee handbook. The first row of the spreadsheet contained a line bolded in red. "Violation Example: Exceeding Lunch Break by 1 Minute. Penalty: Revocation of Previously Announced Promotion Eligibility." The first person to open the spreadsheet was Howard Reed from the tech department. He had worked overtime for several days the previous month. Exhausted, he had forgotten to submit the required overtime approval form through the employee portal. He went through the spreadsheet while checking his own attendance records, and his expression grew increasingly grim. Howard was now discovering that, based on company policy, his instances of overtime qualified as unapproved overtime. Not only would he not receive any overtime pay, but they would also be counted as attendance infractions. And considering the precedent Patrick had set with my case, those attendance infractions would be enough to wipe out Howard's entire performance bonus for the year. He snatched up his phone and rushed toward the HR department. With Howard being the first to catch on, more and more people started getting antsy about it. No one could focus on work anymore. Everyone was discussing the list I'd created. "What the hell? Flexible clock-ins have to be followed up with an approval within 24 hours, or it counts as an absence? I didn't submit mine this week!" "Forgetting to enable location tracking while out on business means losing half a day's pay? I forgot last week!" "The clock-in machine malfunctioned for two days last month, and I forgot to get my clock-in times corrected. Do those count as absences?" "Oh, crap. I arrive ten minutes early every day, but I leave two minutes early. Does that still count as leaving early?" Fear quickly spread throughout the entire office. In the blink of an eye, almost every desk was empty as everyone hurried toward the HR department, including Michael. I raised my hand and checked the time. It was exactly 12:30 pm. I pulled out my blanket and watched with a smile as the tornado swept through the entire company.