Employee starts arriving to work at 7:00 AM to beat his boss, only to realize he's forcing his boss to come in 1.5 hours earlier: 'The director demands all managers to arrive before the first staff member arrives'

This employee sounds like a manager's worst nightmare.

This was the kind of person with an outdated approach to work-life boundaries and an over-the-top desire to go above and beyond for his boss… despite the fact that no one else really cares. 

Unfortunately for this manager, however, he had no choice but to care. There was a clear mandate in this unnecessarily strict workplace environment that managers needed to arrive at the office before the first person on their team shows up. To that end, they also needed to stay late until the last person on their team departs.

Now, to this employee's credit, he was unaware that his manager had to abide by that rule. Instead, he was actually trying to get extra "points" with his manager by attempting to be at the office before he got there. Little did he know, every time the employee arrived earlier, the next day, his manager adjusted his morning schedule so that he could be there before his subordinate. The cycle went on and on. 

One person was trying to impress his manager with an outdated view about corporate optics, while the other had to suffer as a result of those efforts just to follow policy.