The day I received both a reprimand and a bonus on the same day

Back when I was working for a service company, I worked on two big projects for CAC40 clients (the 40 biggest French companies).

Each of these projects lasted several months, and I was, each time, the only developer working on it (fullstack), supported by a project manager and a graphic designer.

Generally, the amount of work to get through made delivery deadlines fairly tight, and for this kind of project rolled out to hundreds (or even thousands) of employees, these large companies particularly like to organize launch evenings, which makes the deadline impossible to push back toward the end of the project.

Toward the end of the project, it wasn't rare for me to rack up (paid) overtime and finish my days around 9pm in order to wrap up the project, while keeping my project manager informed.

But a few days before the launch, at the end of the day, I discovered that one of the last (blocking) features to implement was causing a problem, and I warned my project manager that I was going to work overtime again.

The hours went by, and still no solution in sight. Every answer I found told me that what I was trying to do was actually impossible because of a rule present in most browsers.

Then, giving up on the idea of going home anytime soon, I explored every possible alternative, until I found the solution, in the middle of the night. Pleased with myself, I immediately sent an email to my project manager to tell him the whole story, which he would only read the next morning.

Then, by the time I wrote up the solution, integrated it, and tested it, the clock on my phone read eight o'clock... in the morning, and some employees were already starting to arrive.

After a few jokes about having spent the night at the office around the coffee machine, and still having a few lines of code left to write, I went back to my desk, fully determined to power through my second day in a row at the office, because after all, I still had work to do and a bit of energy left!

But in the early afternoon, I was summoned by the boss, who called me into his office to talk about the project. He then told me he'd heard about my overnight rush, thanked me profusely for my dedication, and expressed concern for my health, because I had just spent about 24 full hours at the office.

I reassured him that everything was fine, but he then told me he had to make a decision against his own wishes... He explained to me that my conduct, although commendable in everyone's eyes, had caused the company to violate labor law.

A night worker is not allowed to work more than 8 hours in a row, and overtime cannot exceed 10 hours a day. Ouch, a double violation.

And since I had sent a few emails during the night (oops), there was evidence, and in the event of a labor inspection, the company could be sanctioned, so the best course of action was to take internal administrative measures, to demonstrate the company's good faith in case of an audit.

So he explained to me:

• That I was going to receive a reprimand (for failing to comply with company rules)
• That the HR manager was going to receive a reprimand (she should theoretically have made sure this didn't happen)
• That I was going to receive a bonus for my dedication and my handling of the project

After discussing it with him, he also explained that the reprimand would have no impact on my current position or any future positions, and that it was purely administrative (for form's sake), congratulated and thanked me again for my work on the project, and of course assured me that all my overtime would be paid!

And that concludes my one and only overnight adventure, at least for a full night, and with proof ;) which earned me a reprimand and a bonus on the very same day!

I then went home to catch a few hours of sleep.