For a number of years I worked a meaningless job at a community college in the south that was famous for fraud and embezzlement by the higher ups. For a while I honestly enjoyed everything about my job until the college system reorganized and I was moved to a new position where my duties involved sitting at a desk and watching Netflix. That was glorious for a few weeks until the crippling depression over wasting my life a meaningless job kicked in. Be careful what you wish for.
I automated most of my job functions so really all I had to do was show up everyday and not jump out the window or hang myself in the supply closet.
One day I was looking at my time sheet and noticed that there were two columns. One column showed my total hours work and a different column show my “calculated hours worked.” Noticing that there columns weee different I did some quick math, looked at the times I clocked in and out and figured out the college rounded your total hours up or down to the closest 15 minutes. If you clocked in at 8:07 and 31 seconds your timesheet would record your clocking in at 8:00. If you locked in at 8:07 and 29 seconds, the time sheet would say I clocked in at 8:00.
Using my newfound knowledge, I was able to strategically cock in early -wink wink- and late -wink wink- and I was also strategic about the times I clocked in and out for lunch. I was able to shave off on average 4 hours a week this way.
My OCD boss was totally pissed about this but there was technically nothing she could do about this. The college recorded time this way to get out of paying overtime and the higher ups didn’t want to start paying everyone like 12 minutes of overtime a week. That money was earmarked for embezzlement and not for the rank and file.
Honestly, I spent more time figuring out the mechanics of how to work the clock in system to my benefit than doing my actual job the week I figured this trick out. I got paid for hundreds of hours this way before I quit -my letter of recommendation was on haiku form- before moving on to a job that pays me pretty well and I actually enjoy. If you work at a college and use PeopleSoft HR to clock in, look at your time sheet and get a little piece of your soul back.