Employee Gets Raise Using Company Laptop to Watch Movies on Nights and Weekends

A Redditor using the name @bowfly claims that their employer gave them more money when they used their company laptop to watch movies after working hours.

In a post drawing growing attention, the Reddit user says their personal laptop broke, so they decided to use their work laptop for personal use after hours.

Turns out the Redditor's employer supposedly saw them marked online on Microsoft Teams and just assumed they were still working. All that allegedly led to a 5% raise, simply because they were online. All the while he was just watching movies on nights and weekends.

The anonymous poster did not share the place of employment or their identity for obvious reasons.

"About 2 months ago my personal laptop broke and I dont know why but it just cant connect to any wifi network," the anonymous Redditor wrote. "So I started using using the company laptop to watch movies after work hours or on the weekends. I did not realized that but management has been watching me be online on teams after work hours and on weekends and assumed that I have been working. Yesterday my manager called me in his office and said I will be getting 5% raise because I have been working ver hard lately lol. I cannot stop [laughing]."

Other Redditors chimed in, surprised at the matter.

"Any company that uses presence instead of output as a metric for work is shooting themselves in the foot," user @Early_Bad8737 wrote in response.

A lot of users couldn't believe it, with @PapowSpaceGirl writing: "Yeah...they speak the bullshit."

Other user @Cautious_General_177 said: "Nah, they're just getting his pay to the level where he's OT exempt so they don't have to worry about paying him for "working" all the extra hours."

Like many other Reddit posts, the conversation evolved into something much larger. People began discussing fairness in how different trades are paid. One side discussion revolved around truck drivers, debating whether they should be paid by the mile, by time worked, or by another rate.

Another top-voted comment simply read: "Just remember... it never happened! Congrats LOL."