Provisional Order on Three-day Attendance Math
A counterfactual examination of what would have happened without badge-count verification near week's end.
WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF THREE-DAY ATTENDANCE MATH HAD NOT OCCURRED Counterfactual Record, January 2023
The Factual Baseline
At 4:15 PM on Thursday, the subject reviewed their badge history for the week. Monday: home. Tuesday: office. Wednesday: home. Thursday: office.
Two days. The policy requires three.
The subject rearranged Friday's agenda and came in. The badge count reached three.
What Would Have Happened Without the Check
If Three-day Attendance Math had not occurred:
The subject would have worked from home on Friday. The Friday work would have been completed. The week's output would have been identical. One meeting would have been taken from a desk chair instead of a conference room.
The subject would have been two days in the office for the week.
What Would Have Happened Next
Nothing, possibly. Most attendance policies are not actively monitored at the individual weekly level.
But. Three-day Attendance Math adds one coordination step at the end of the working week. The step now exists. It has been performed. Coworkers who notice the subject in on Friday begin to factor in Thursday-Friday as available office days.
Long-run Counterfactual
In the world where Three-day Attendance Math never occurs, the subject retains some ambiguity about their in-office presence. The policy is a background condition.
In the world where it does occur, flexibility hardens into a checking behavior nobody approved as part of the job.
The subject is in the second world. This record documents the divergence point.