
A bestselling author from the New York Times has recently recounted an astonishing true story about two employees who managed to work half days at their local bank branch for an entire decade without anyone noticing. Chelsea M Cameron, hailing from the United States, revealed that these women were able to pull off this deception because they were the only two employees at the branch, and the bank’s upper management never realized that they were leaving well before their shifts were supposed to end.
To ensure the success of their scheme, one of the women would leave at the end of her half-day shift without clocking out, while her co-worker would clock her out at the actual designated time for her shift to end. They continued to do this for each other for ten years until management finally caught on and both employees were fired.
Cameron shared this incredible story on the social media platform X, stating, “Sometimes I think about the two women who were the only employees at one of our bank branches and for nearly TEN YEARS had been working half days and clocking each other out and no one noticed. They got fired eventually but honestly? That’s on the bank.”
In the comments section of her post, the author, known for her Sapphic romance series, explained the system that the branch’s only two employees had in place to avoid getting caught: “The lobby was only open until noon or so, and they were supposed to stay until 4. So one would stay to work on projects and the other would leave and clock them both out.”
Cameron herself worked at one of the bank’s other branches, as she revealed in earlier tweets where she mentioned having a minimum wage job answering phone calls at the bank. She recalled, “I was helping out while one of them was on leave having surgery, and I’d drive back to my regular branch after lunch and see the other’s car parked in her driveway when she was supposed to be at the branch. Never said a word.”
According to the Boston-based author, management never visited the branch, allowing the elaborate plan to evade full-time work to go unnoticed for over ten years. “No one from upper management ever paid attention or even went there. Turns out the building needed a bunch of repairs after they left that had been ignored for years,” Cameron stated. However, eventually, the two women were discovered and fired from their jobs.
In a similar tale of workplace deception, a man in Italy managed to skip work and receive a full salary for an astounding 15 years. Dubbed Italy’s “king of absentees,” the 67-year-old man was charged with forgery, aggravated extortion, and abuse of office when his elaborate ploy was uncovered.