Are you allowed to charge your phones at work? Don’t be so surprised because some people are not allowed to. Charging phones at work is considered “electricity theft” by some workplaces.An interesting note of a boss asking his employees to stop charging their phones in the office has gone viral. The boss clearly seems annoyed with his employees’ habit of charging phones at work and calls it electricity theft in the viral note.

It is a bit unreasonable and bizarre at the same time when you are stopped from charging your phones in the office. That is because the employees spend close to ten hours at a workplace and their phones are bound to run out of charge. There is only one way of saving your battery and that is by not using it throughout the day or by keeping the mobile data off. Keeping your phone away for too long is not a good option either if you work demands calling and being available on your phone all the time. In such scenarios, if you are stopped from charging your phone you may land in trouble when you step out of the office.

The boss, whose note went viral on the internet, got so angry that he even threatened his employees to deduct money from the salaries of employees who charge their phones. His note read, “Nobody is entitled to ‘charge up’ any mobile phone or other electrical devices on these premises. It is theft of electricity and you may find a deduction has been made from your pay. Phones should be switched off.” The picture of the note was shared by a user on Reddit. “One of a seemingly endless series of unreasonable notes left by my boss. It’s great here,” he captioned the image.

The post on Reddit got over 3000 comments and reactions. A user narrated a similar experience that he faced at his workplace and commented on the post saying, “I used to work at a gas station that was taking money out of peoples paychecks without signed written consent to do so. If the drawer ever didn’t come out, even the difference was always taken from the paycheck. I asked around to make sure nobody had signed anything ever stating it was okay, and I reported the store and got them in a lot of trouble when I quit.

While another user wrote that popular e-commerce platfrom Walmart also stopped employees from charging their phones. “They did this at Walmart once. I was on my lunch hour and they said I couldn’t plug my phone in. It was the same claim to electricity theft. Prison is what it’s like really.”