'[It] cost them 100k': Workplace "no cellphone" policy costs employer $100k when employee maliciously complies

Depending on your age, you probably had a teacher who constantly reprimanded students for having their phones out in class or even just the presence of any sort of technology or devices that they felt detracted from their lessons.

When you get out of school, you come to find that some managers operate in exactly the same way, seemingly confusing effective management with policing their workers as if they were still children. You've probably worked for one of these places or one of these micromanagers at some point who constantly track your phone usage, bathroom breaks, and even water-drinking habits as if their own job depends on it. 

This, of course, is sometimes a result of incompetence but can also be intentional, there's a pervasive and cynical idea within some schools of thought in business operation that speculates that a comfortable worker is an inefficient one, giving rise to practices like depriving them of a place to sit in order to ensure they're always moving and never comfortable.

And what is there to discourage employers from such cynical behavior? Such attitudes and policies do little to directly affect business operations outside of the grumblings of disgruntled workers, decreasing workplace morale and eventually leading to higher turnover. But, these aren't things that most organizations even pay attention to, so they continue with their distrusting ways rather than trusting and empowering their staff.

This overbearing workplace policy, however, did cost this employer directly when this contractor's inability to use their phone led to a stall in operations that cost the employer big time.