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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Short-Farmer-5991 on 2025-05-31 02:05:03+00:00.

1st time poster so please be nice. Not even sure if I should be posting in this sub but here goes. This happened many years ago and I’m in a much better position now.

Back when I was just a 2nd year apprentice (builder). Myself and and qualified builder got the job of renovating an upstairs block of a comercial building (basically just a big concrete box.) There was also a business directly underneath our building site. This business had the working hours of 9am to 5pm. Our normal working hours were 7.30am to 4.30pm. Having said that, obviously having an active building site above their heads could get loud and annoying. So we made a plan with them and all other contractors that we would do a majority of the loud work before they started at 9. Made sense.

Now, we had thousands of concrete bolts to install. I remember sitting down with the builder and ordering 6000 bolts. (Frames were being bolted top and bottom). We quickly realized that we weren’t going to be able to drill enough holes in the 1 and a half hours before they started work to keep us busy for the day. So again we had a meeting with everyone (our own bosses included) and said that we were going to start at 4am in order to get more of the loud work done. We also stated that because we were going to be starting early, we would also be finishing early. We decided that we would work until 2pm. Still longer that we would normally work but seemed fair at the time. Everyone agreed.

Now, we only got to do this for 3 days until the boss stopped in and started yelling at us for leaving work early. The builder and I both said that we had all agreed that when we started at 4am, then we would leave at 2pm. Not good enough apparently. The boss demanded that we stay until 4.30pm when the work day ends. He said he was being generous because other places make you work until 5pm. I was pissed and about to question him but the builder put his hand on my shoulder and said “no problem boss”. I was confused but stayed quiet. The boss was happy and left.

When the boss left we started talking about how to proceed. The builder said that when I get home, look through my contract and see when my hours were. Surprise, it said my hours were 8am to 5pm. So were the builders. The bosses wanted us to stay until 4.30pm. No worries we will stay until 5pm. Unfortunately it also meant we weren’t starting until 8am. Needless to say, work quickly fell behind due to us still honoring our agreement with the business below of no loud work after 9am.

It didn’t take long for our boss to stop in and yell at us again for not being far enough along on the job and that we should be starting earlier to get it done. We simply stated that we could no longer start earlier and that rest assured, we are on-site until atleast 4.30pm just like he wanted. I’ve never seen someone turn purple with rage before. But before he started yelling again, the builder showed him his contract and show him his contracted hours. The look of rage never left the bosses face but he walked out without a word.

As you can imagine, a job that should have taken as a week and a half or 2 weeks at most ended up taking us a little over a month to accomplish. The rest of the job went on without incident but as a surprise to noone. We were made redundant as soon as that job finished. We knew it was coming and already had jobs lined up but we got the last laugh when that business went under investigation a few months later and subsequently closed after it was found they weren’t paying anyone properly. Story for another time but basically everyone (including subcontractors) would complain about not being paid.

That builder and I became goid friends and I told this story to as many people as I could at his funeral a few weeks ago. Thought I’d share this story here because it’s to good to be forgotten.