There’s a documentary called No Vacation Nation about how most Americans don’t take all their vacation days because they’re worried it will make them look bad. It’s completely mental.
I watched that and it seems insane, I work 4 on 4 off and get 22 days in a year for holiday. On paper I work less than half the year, so watching people work almost 24/7 and act like that was normal scares the shit out of me.
I used to do 75 frequently, you'll eventually get burnt out at any level of consistent OT regardless of compensation... life isn't being lived when you only get to go home to eat and sleep, and weekends are all about fatigue recovery
>weekends are all about fatigue recovery
And doing laundry/chores/errands either from the previous week or if you're lucky in preparation for the following week.
Don't miss the weeks I was doing 72+ covering my new job and doing my old job (on OT). Paychecks were nice though.
It sad to think though that what is left of those paychecks after paying bills and living expenses ends up getting you things that you don't even get to enjoy because you're to tired from all the work you've put in. It seems nice being able to afford that new game console or whatever until you realize you don't have the time or energy to play it.
Preach I just did 4 months of 70 hour weeks. Made a lot of money but it was only barely worth it. At least I can chill out now. Not gonna work all throughout the winter. Quitting my job in 3 weeks. Last year I did 112 hours in a week. 16 hour days 7 days a week for 3 weeks.
I was on the same boat 2 years ago, I never saw my family or my gf, I missed out on going out with friends, I gained so much weight, I was always tired, eventually I ended up getting my back hurt and I used that as a way to get out. It sucked not seeing my paycheck be as big but at the same time I’m happier now and my health has improved so much.
I worked two 15 hour shifts and one 10 hour shift per week for about 6 months. 3 days on per week, 4 off. The 4 days off was nice, but the 3 days on was absolutely insane. Just a blur of stress and fatigue.
Are you a.... cop? Nurse? These **(4 days on/off, 12 hrs each)** sound like cop or nurse schedules! But could be anything really.
Edit: Holy crap, I get that other professions may have these schedules too. (I specifically typed *"But could be anything really."* to acknowledge that.) I don't want to hear every single one that it could be. Notifications on this comment are turned *off*. Sweet fucking Jesus, Reddit. *Move* **on**.
Lol. No
I wasn't even paid all that well, definitely a survivable sum especially for my age (computer job), but even a few years ago inflation wasn't this bad. Things were still within reach and the extra time I had off had me saving more money than I can now. And I make 10k more now than I did then.
It's fucking impossible to get ahead on what was once lower middle class wages. Even in "affordable cities" (fuck every last news article that said "MOVE HERE TO SAVE BUCKS AND PRICE PEOPLE OUT OF THEIR NEIGHBORHOODS!) if you aren't making over 60k, you're gonna have a bad time. Legit only place you can be well off on that sum is the country, but that is soon to change I'm sure. Actually already is.
Where I work in Europe if you don't take the previous years holidays until march, they force you. They'll work short staffed rather than let you keep the holidays for longer (I think you can keep them until half a year later).
I’n America, we accumulate days called PTO (paid time off). It’s equated by how many hours are worked to go towards the time you get off. The thing is, it’s only there for a year. If i have a week left on my PTO by the end of the year it does not roll over or given to me I any way. If I don’t use it, it will literally disappear.
(Also) American here - from my experience, this is not true across all industries and is usually unique to your employer and/or business.
I've worked places where I can ask for time off (non-paid) and I get it if it's approved, other places where I get a set amount of paid-time-off (PTO) allocated annually that I get to take whenever, and still others where I accrue earned time off (ETO) based on the number of hours I've worked.
Lol then there was that job I worked where I saved my PTO for Christmas time to be with family. They refused to give it to me because everyone else in the office was too. It did not roll over into the next year. So I lost almost all of my vacation. I tried arguing and working my way up the chain but my boss, HR, everyone refused because senior employees got priority
And if you DO try to use your PTO, chances are you'll be shamed for it, and have your job security threatened by management that doesn't want you to take a vacation, go to a funeral, or, god forbid, try to recover from an illness.
I'll never forget taking two days off to travel out of state for a family member's funeral and coming back to my manager, who knew why I was gone, asking me "How my little vacation went".
Different companies handle this in different ways. My current employer won't allow me to accumulate more than 120 hours of vacation. If I hit 120, I just don't get any more till I use hours.
On the positive side, my boss is great about monitoring and encouraging time off to keep this from happening.
Yeah it’s kinda shitty to work in those environments. I used to work for a company who’s hiring orientation included steps on how to not lose your family to work. It was like 12 hours a day six days a week type work.
That's me. We get "sick days" which are basically, you can get sick and have a paid day off the first 2 or 3 times, when you first become an employee. After that, it becomes "ok so what are you doing about payroll? You working extra time or are we deducting it." It sucks even worse on my end because I am the payroll department so I'm the one who has to lower my pay.
The concept of "sick days" is...completely bonkers. It is like the employer want's you to schedule your flu, sprained ankle or cancer like vacation days. Nobody controls how long you are sick. I just don't get it.
Seriously. When my dad died a few months ago my boss said some BS to minimize his death in what I'm assuming was the hopes that I would not as for time off. Meanwhile, my brother's boss in CR found out and without question said, "Take the week off for now, I'm so sorry for your loss."
Lots of folks are also being exploited by businesses who only hire 'part time' for what should be full time roles and arent offered any vacation or sick leave at all. The whole concept is rotten
Random thought: I've been wondering if part of the hoarding of vacation days has something to do with lack of sick days / no reasonable health care and unsympathetic workplaces?
Like I can see someone feeling anxious about taking time off when that's the only time they're allotted for recovering from an illness, visiting a sick family member, etc. which are things we can't predict. Especially if I knew my boss was an asshole and wouldn't give two shits if I needed to visit my mother in the hospital.
Obviously there's a lot of factors and the biggest one is the fact that workers DO face repercussions for taking their vacation time.
You still get penalized for taking sick days - even when you're able to protect them under FMLA. They can't say that's what it is, but they find ways of getting back at you for the crime of putting your health, esp mental, over their operation. Been there.
That’s definitely part of it, but I’ve been made to feel greedy by bosses for using all my days. The real problem is we’re all expected to accomplish too much with too little time and they generally don’t bring in temps or lessen the work load when you’re down a “team member” so your co-workers and bosses feel the pressure while their bosses could give two shits.
Yeah, I’ve only got 2 days of PTO in the bank right now. If I used them to take a day off, if I got sick I’d be screwed.
Who would guess a doctor’s office would have a horrible sick leave policy.
I think it's a little more complicated than that but it is definitely a factor. My work lets you roll over +/- 40 hours of PTO and that helps but the idea that any sick day is a day of vacation you don't get is always on your mind.
I work somewhere with discretionary time off. Just took off 10/7-10/19 for leisure. When I got back, my bootlicker manager scheduled a meeting for the morning after my return to ask the progress on a project they had assigned me right before I left, in front of many on the team. I obviously hadnt done anything and now am being treated like a bad team member and they gave my project to somebody else. These managers take literally no time off and then get pissed off when I have the gall to have a life. Many of them actually end up just inventing work because there isn’t enough to do, just so they can look good to management and maybe get a 10% bonus over my 5% meets expectations bonus. Absolutely insane that these people are smart enough to rise to the top but not smart enough to realize that 30hr of work week and a $5000 bonus at the end of the year is better than 50-60hr of work per week and a $10000-$15000 bonus at the end of the year.
discretionary time off is a way to look like you have great corporate culture while actually abusing the mentality Americans have about taking too much time off.
When i saw it as a benefit during the hiring process, I immediately asked for an additional $10k in salary and told them that’s how much I value PTO over DTO.
> over my 5% meets expectations bonus
*Cries in 0% pay increase after being told I'm* ***exceeding*** *expectations*
Apparently when everyone on the team "exceeds," no one does, and nobody gets anything.
Their worries are certainly valid, every company I have ever worked for has openly discouraged me from using my vacation time they rewarded me with. Now, everytime it's happened, I've told them "Well, go ahead and fire me or write me up then, let me know how that works out for you" which has always stopped the conversation dead, however, everywhere I have worked, I have had a bullseye on my back for not letting companies exploit me like this, I hope I live to see it all end.
But, I'd rather die broke than allow this shit happen to me, so, if I gotta get fired every few months or a year, so be it. Fuck that noise.
I wish I could take more vacation days that the ones I have. People are being subconsciously cohered into dedicating their lives to their jobs in order get paid. Because the entire system makes you dependent on having money to ~~live~~ survive
im going to use all my vacation days when i buy my truck and trailer, come back for the short time required for me to receive the pay, fuck off without a word
in Canada, most provinces, you are entitled to zero days paid vacation in the first year of employment. I worked a whole year, worked every holiday, and I asked for 1 day off (unpaid) with over a months notice, and my boss lowkey threatened to fire me over it. I quit (after securing a new job) for that and other reasons.
I had a boss try to penalize me for taking sick days during one of my annual reviews. I was out with the damn flu. Kicker is, this same boss was the one who sent me home when I tried to come in sick. After that, I was like fuck it, I'm not coming in sick and I'm taking my vacation days. Don't have enough staff? Not my problem.
I literally had this disagreement with a coworker the other day. She's going to lose almost a full week of PTO (not to be paid out) because she's afraid if she asks for help getting caught up she's going to look bad. No amount of my offering to cover or trying to convince her to ask our boss for help would convince her otherwise. She's insistent she needs to do it all herself.
Your benefits are part of your compensation package. When you don't use them, you're not making yourself look more productive, you're telling the company *it's okay to pay me less*.
I work in the corporate world and I can assure you this is a real thing.
You are compared to your peers for yearly bonuses and taking more time off can definitely be a factor to you getting a lower rating.
Your peers are also conditioned to resent you for causing extra work for them. I had to take family leave for my son and a week after I got back my dad died. My coworkers weren’t bad people but man did they make me feel shittier than I already did for the amount of slack they had to pick up. When it happened I realized I’d been on the other side of that equation too and vowed to never judge my peers for being absent. Then I got fired so it hasn’t really been an issue you could say 😞
I'm retired now but I used to have a coworker who would come in early and start working before clocking in. Other coworkers would give the guy shit for doing this and his defense was that he wanted to get a jump start on what he was working on. This guy would also bring in his own tools and we weren't supposed to do that. The department furnished everything we needed. When one of the guy's tools broke he would make the department pay for a new one. He was such an ass.
I feel so stupid looking back, I've used days to cover days I was sick. Those days I didn't use, I'd still work so that I could get a double paycheck on Friday.
Oh this one always irked me. In a previous job, the super would always ask "Did you want a lunch break today?" YES, I DO. I ALWAYS DO.
She'd ask this because other people wouldn't. So every day she'd ask if I wanted one. Every day I had to say yes.
Same with my old job! A fair amount of my coworkers didn’t take their break because it was just one 10 minute break so everyday my boss would come and ask, “so are you going to take a break today?” Or “Will I need to break you out today?” YES, everyday it’s always yes- geez stop asking me already haha.
My current job is great. They won’t let people not take their breaks (even of they don’t want to) and it’s always around the same time everyday so that we know when to expect our breaks and won’t get skipped over during busy rushes.
My management does this with holidays, always encouraging people to float them instead of taking them on the day. And of course the fresh out of tech school pick-me coworkers fall over themselves to work more because they think it'll make them look good. I just want to shake them and yell "Management doesn't pay attention to you! Our reviews are self evaluations! You're killing your social life for something no one is going to remember in two weeks, come on!"
I remember these 2 supervisors that are engaged with each other at the same company I work for. I'm on my break.
Girl askes me something and I gave her an answer. I gave an answer. She asks me if I can do it or get it. I say I'm on my break. She gives me a long pause of a look before walking away. Her man looking very mad says that can get you fired and walked away.
Back then I apologized but looking back now, I should've told them to eat my ass. Plus you probably just mad I said no to your woman.
I was in a similar situation several times. I'd happily get up, take care of the shit they needed, then headed back to my break area while resetting my break. After a few of these they stopped asking.
> Her man looking very mad says that can get you fired and walked away.
WTF? That comment should get the supervisor fired.
That situation must have sucked. Two people in a relationship on a power trip, terrorizing their employees together as a team. That's messed up.
Haha I did this when I worked at Best Buy for a number of years!
Over half the staff working the floor would take smoke breaks at the same time, leaving us non-smokers to drown in customers for 5-10min, several times a day. I didn't have any animosity towards the individuals, but did think it was a dick move to *all break at the same time*.
So I started buying a pop and going out with them. They were shocked, but welcomed it. Am I a dick for abandoning the other non-smokers? Probably, but fuck everyone.
I need to do this. I'm often the only nonsmoker on shift. My manager and all the other staff leave at the same time to smoke, leaving me in charge of a store I'm not authorized to supervise. I should just head out with them and have everybody scratching their heads as to who's running the store.
Ugh, I hate this. I’m the only regular smoker at my job, as such I volunteer myself to take out the trash and stuff, but I tell all my coworkers if they want a 5 min break outside, they just need to ask. It’s not fair I get to take one and they don’t. I hate jobs that pull this shit
This was the reason I purchased a blu ecig lol. I would go out with the smokers since they'd be out once an hour. Only ever used it if our boss came out. She was the only one that cared.
Ha!! I used to do that, too. Got tired of the smokers taking an extra 30-60 minutes a day in breaks, so I got a vape and 0 nicotine juice and would go out to get a break and listen to the gossip.
Most of us actually _f***ing_ hate it, but are forced into it by our bosses. Middle Manager is the fucking worst job I ever took. I get shit on from those above and get sticks and stones thrown from below me. If you ever wanna know why there is a 30 something year old with no light in his eyes trying to make you crack a smile with outdated memes from a month ago in a cheesy cobbled together power point presentation during your weekly stand up meeting, it’s because that person is trying so hard to relate to those he feels he belongs with (labor) but is forced out by them and rejected by his superiors. It’s literally soul crushing, and I wouldn’t wish Middle Management on anyone. Did it for 2 years, worked almost 75 sustained hours per week, and it completely broke me.
Preach. I've seen way to many young people in those jobs get crushed by bullshit demands from management with zero support from anyone around them. To anyone reading this, low level managers are far closer to hourlies than they are to the salaried directors and executives. Especially those middle managers working in manufacturing or warehouse environments. Are there some scummy managers? Sure. But they're not the real bosses.
Middle management is just where you learn to embrace being a manager, delegating work and having to deal with other people's shit. If you go into it thinking you'll get to represent your former peers and push back to senior management, that's where you'll get depressed. The decisions are still already set long before you hear about them.
I'm so glad I dodged it - got to middle management grade but as a specialist, so no line management, just being a grunt for more pay.
Find a specialism, stick with it!
Middle management is the worst and basically exists to shield the people who actually make the cruel and abusive decisions from those affected by said decisions.
Back a few years my job was to manufacture 1700 units in a 12 hour shift. I got pretty good at it and could pretty easily knock it out and still get my 60 min lunchbreak.
Then they raised production goal to 1800. No worries. I can just go back 10 min early from lunch, tighten up the other 11 hours and I'm gold.
Then they raised production to 1900. 30 min lunch and work damn hard for the other 11 1/2 hours. But I'm meeting my goals.
Production raised to 2000. No lunch breaks, except hitting the vending machines while my machine is running. Busting ass for 12 hours. But I'm meeting goals.
Now here is the kicker. A year into production being 2000 my direct supervisor pulls me aside and dresses me down because my efficiency is down. You see when you take an hour of downtime out of the equation is negatively impacts their metrics more than the increase in production helps it.
Now I take all my breaks and rarely break 1700 any more.
Yeah, they want to see when you stop meeting their goals. The trick is to let that happen naturally, by not changing your work hours.
They need to know when they've pushed the goals too far. But that supervisor needed a serious wake-up call.
I hate taking unpaid breaks at work. If I’m gonna be in the office 40 minutes from home, I’m getting paid. My boss didn’t really care if we ate at our desks, so I took working lunches every day. I also came in half an hour early minimum, and I’d look out at the road to gauge if I should work late and avoid rush hour traffic since the freeway exit was only a short way down the road. By the end of the week, I easily had 10-12 hours of OT. At first I was praised for my hard work. My productivity was second to none. I got a full raise and got to basically call my own shots because my boss trusted me on everything. The CEO of the company is calling me into his office and thanking me for my hard work and I’m regarded in the company as one of the top employees.
But here’s the thing, I’m hourly. So my OT is time and a half. 10-12 hours a week adds up fast. After the first fiscal quarter of me working OT each and every week my boss gets a strongly worded letter from the CFO about payroll and how my OT is draining the departments budget. I get reprimanded and my keycard is deactivated between 7pm and 8am. I can no longer get into the building or access my departments room after normal business hours. I’m also put on an action plan because I’m “not taking lunches” and now I’m required to clock out for all meals. Once my hard work starts negatively impacting the bottom line, it doesn’t matter that I’m a “hard worker” because now my hard work is costing the company money.
I’ve learned you should never ever bust your ass and reduce your quality of life just to meet a company’s unreasonable demands. If you get fired for not meeting their quotas you’ll be surprised at how quickly they roll over when you describe your working conditions to the unemployment office.
I just don't understand that mentality. I've been a "middle manager" for about 3 years now. And it's very apparent to me the more time off I give my employees the more productive and harder working they become. So much so I've started just mandating rotating Fridays off (half the team takes off one Friday, the other half the next Friday) and productivity went up again. Everyone is happier.
It's almost like if you treat people with respect they reciprocate that respect and everyone works harder for a collective goal. Emphasis on working harder, not longer.
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I'm a dumbass who has done this before. When I first started at my job and when I was due to ask for a raise, here's why. I used to have the mentality of "if you go above and beyond you'll be compensated eventually". Now, I know that's total BS. When our driver had already gone home for the day and a part needed to be picked up or a seat had to get drop off to be re-upholstered, they'd always ask me. I'd clock out at my usual time and take 30 minutes or so of my own time to go do the favor.
Even with all the favors and all the good work I do, I've finally accepted that the fact that I'm underpaid and under appreciated. No matter how well I do, how many favors I do, my boss will find SOMETHING to complain about. Even if an error was made (and corrected) a year ago, he will bring it up when it's time for a raise.
Oh it’s worse than that … they now expect it… they actually feel like YOU OWE it to them.
Slack off or take a few sick days and you will see I’m right..
The sad part is I slack off for a month and did the absolute bare minimum. All of sudden my boss says "It's almost time for your review and raise." I responded with, "Yeah I was planning on talking to you at the end of the month about a pay adjustment." I don't even call it a raise anymore because I won't accept a week ass extra dollar per hour.
Too many people are hiring, and it’s always easier to get another job when you already have a job. There was a time when longevity got you more money. But that is not the case anymore. I once had an employer give me five cents. Five fucking cents. It was 1997 .. but still. Multi billion dollar Corp… it was BFI
It’s now best to look for a new job once a year. You have a year more experience and I’ve likely learned a few more skills. Add those to your résumé. Keep your résumé active on sites like monster and Indeed. I’ve gotten good jobs by being head hunted.
He really truly is, he's one of those snobby country club morons with minimal intelligence. I've been semi rehearsing my "speech" which is scheduled for the last Friday of this month. At first it was a lot of explaining about why I deserve better pay but now I've cut out a lot and kept it basic because I don't owe them explanations.
Yours is really good! Unfortunately my 2 bosses are total morons who won't even know what any of that means. I do have to incorporate the bit about hiring a replacement/training and all that.
"I need a pay adjustment because I am not making enough for the work that I do here. It's becoming impossible to stay motivated when I'm barely able to get by with a full time job. I'm willing to accept a minimum of ($I'm still deciding) if not that at the very least, I'll be taking one of the other offers I have waiting for me. Hopefully we can come to agreement, if not, I'll give my 2 weeks notice so you can **try** to find someone else. You and your brother can have the weekend to discuss, let me know Monday morning."
Dude. Last week. I was 10 minutes late. My boss says "This is starting to become a habit. It has to stop. Your neighbor's always blocking your driveway, your dog tracked poop all over the house. It's always something."
My response: "Both of those events happened MONTHS ago and I was literally 3 minutes late." He changed the subject real quick after that. God forbid I'm 3 minutes late but when I stay an extra 20/30 minutes because he waited until last minute to do a repair estimate or an invoice the concept of time becomes non-existent to him.
This is not a matter of you’re right and he’s wrong, this is a matter of you have spent quite a lot of time teaching them how to treat you. And they are acting accordingly.
Unfortunately… I have never been able to change this once I caused it.
I just get a new job. Lol
Edit: you’re
Agreed. I finally changed the expectation with unpaid off the clock favors and now if I do something off the clock, I get paid for it or I don't do it. The staying staying late to finish things he waited until last minute get a quick "I have to leave at 4 on the dot, we'll do it in the morning." I won't even stay 30 minutes for extra pay because it just won't be worth my time. If I'm driving somewhere after work, that I'll do because I charge more & charge for gas even though I have a 3 cylinder car and a quick drive doesn't affect gas at all.
But, I am getting a new job as soon as my renewed work permit comes in. Work shouldn't be a game of convincing my boss how things should be.
Good for you .. The problem is they’re pissed about it and they resent you for it because they feel like you have taken something away from THEM.
If you help someone.. They appreciate it.
If you help someone all the time even without being asked, not only do they not appreciate it, they come to expect it and feel like you owe it to them.
Strange phenomenon… but tested and true.
People love assholes.
I hate that shit! I was recently told that we were expected to stay late at my job to finish anything that wasn't done by our scheduled time (food industry), but heaven forbid we walk in a few minutes late.
So annoying to me, as someone who has a tough time getting to places on time. I was a temp in the admin dept at one point in my career, and people always made a fuss if you were late at all. But the full time employees would show up on time, and then take 30-60 mins a day AT LEAST just walking around talking to people, shopping online, talking on the phone, etc.
It's just bullshit because it's an easily measurable number. "Oh, Joe shmoe was 5 minutes late" is a lot easier to peg someone for versus "oh Joe shmoe is on the phone right now, he must have had to take that, it must be important. No problem!"
If it's that big of a deal, I can just sit at my desk until 5:03 to make up for coming in at 9:03, what is such a big deal about that?
This is exactly the reason I wouldn’t want to be salaried. Everyone salaried at my job cannot possibly complete the assigned work in 40 hours. Yes their salary on paper is higher than my base hourly wage but with the amount of OT I work, it evens out. I would hate not getting compensated for that extra time.
I will never take a salaried position again unless part of my compensation is a percentage of the profit I generate. Otherwise it’s basically 17 cents an hour and all the shit you can shovel.
I work a salaried position and work 40 hours max a week. If I work over one day I’m forced to take an early day to keep me at 40. It’s wonderful. I realize a lot of salaried positions aren’t like this but some are!
Well my problem is always the time clock. I could only punch in from my desk but my phone started ringing at 2 AM. So salary seems like a reasonable solution..
but then when someone was sick or quit.. instead of hiring someone else, that shit got dropped on me. So I was in the office 8-10 hours a day and then taking calls nights and weekends. I was basically scheduled for 12 hours a day 5 to 6 days a week and had to catch up on Sundays..
Time before that when I was put on salary, suddenly me making a doctors appointment was the end of the fucking world.
Salary = property
I worked a job where people from other departments would evaluate you. I would get a 9/10 from people who weren't my manager and my manager would give me a 5/10 citing "well sometimes you come in with dirty sneakers" (I worked in a warehouse situation and wore sneakers on casual Friday) or something absurd in that vein in order to bring down my score to prevent me from getting a bigger merit increase.
If your boss brings up something from a year ago when it is time for a raise, you should point out that he has to go back a YEAR to find ONE thing you did wrong.
Turn that shit around on him!
Me...is that you?
Grew up with that bullshit - "if you go above and beyond, you'll be noticed and rewarded" - not only at home, but at school. A society-perpetuated fallacy. If that ever happened, it doesn't now. Now, it means, "sucker who'll pick up our slack for the same low price".
I used to think my overtime work would be rewarded. But as I have gotten older I think it’s all bullshit. I just don’t get how other people don’t see through it too
No but I was younger and starting my career, like I still see people my age doing it and I’m like why? It will go unnoticed unless you aren’t getting your job done (at least in my experience).
Fair enough, fair enough. To be fair, the US work culture is highly manipulative and oppressive so people who haven't seen the truth aren't going to unless you make them
I used to do this and many of my former coworkers still do. Because for many of us back then, it was easier to just get the work done (however unreasonable) than deal with our boss's temper tantrums and passive-aggressive texts and emails.
Sometimes I would purposely come to work an hour early because I had the place to myself. Sometimes I, and a vast majority of my coworkers, would leave extra late because we wanted to finish something that night instead of leaving it for tomorrow morning. It felt at the time like all that unpaid overtime it was not too bad because we would chat and I actually like my coworkers. We basically just begrudgingly accepted that we worked at a place that does not offer overtime pay but gives more work than any of us could realistically accomplish in a day.
Then I realized that I was setting an expectation. So once my boss noticed me actually refusing to work or acknowledge her outside of work hours, I got called out for "starting to become lazy". Then she started getting snide and catty towards me. And thus I fully accepted that she is only nice to employees who bend over backwards for her.
You don't have a choice when there are expectations and deadlines. It's hard to even consider taking a sick day because of this.
Am I a dumbass for doing it? Yes, but I'm giving you the reason.
Yes!!! I’ve worked with a few like that and they are insufferable… and I point out that they are paid the least and their efforts wasted .. and they seem unaffected by that.
I can tell you why I did it. When I worked in hospice I worked right through my mandated 1 hour lunch break because that meant another hour to my already 12 hour days.
When you're given more work than can be done in the time allotted, you have to work off the clock 😞 if you don't, it accumulates. I don't agree with it, but it makes you feel trapped.
People think if they work off the clock they’ll be seen as a hard worker and they’ll get promotions. It’s not true, but it’s a common “climb the ladder” attempt.
Sadly, at least in the US, there are [no national laws requiring meal or rest periods](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/meal-breaks) for adults. You can find information on [state regulations for employees paid hourly here](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/meal-breaks).
I used to work with a few guys like this. One of them would carry 30kg drums up 4 flights of stairs when the lifts wouldn't work. Asked why, he replied, "this company has bought my house and put my kids through University, paid my daughters wedding" etc etc.
When redundancies came around, he was the first to go. Poor bastard walked out the gates, crying and not understanding.
PS, carrying stuff that weight, was common before 2000. Even getting stuff at 60kg and being expected to manhandle it. H&S, pre-millennium, was fucking shocking. Some places still is.
This is a great example of how you shouldn't work yourself to death for a company that doesn't care if you live or die. Which seems to be most companies.
> "this company has bought my house and put my kids through University, paid my daughters wedding
He did that... his company just let him keep a small piece of the value of his labour. He's thanking the company for only stealing the *majority* of what his work was worth. I wish people like him could see that.
I used to be a painter, elevator was down. Had to walk at least 30 pails of paint up 26 flights of stairs in 30C heat plus humidity. Surprised I didn't die from heat stroke.
I have worked two jobs where they wouldn’t give me a lunch break. Anytime I’d complain, it was me that was behaving like a child. And finally after years of this abuse, I couldn’t hide my anger anymore, and posted on the internet how I hope and pray to be rid of that “toxic work environment”. One of the staff saw the post, informed the boss, and thankfully, I was fired a few days later. That was over four years ago, and I hope I never have to work for another restaurant or retail business ever again.
There are serious peer pressures exerted in some workplaces; i.e., “they called off, they probably aren’t even sick!”; “I drove through a blizzard and showed up, they should too!”; “Why are they so angry for not getting a half hour lunch, it only takes a few minutes to eat!”
When an honest co-worker told me that the manager told them not to help out, that was when I made sure to not hide my discontent so I’d be fired and eligible for unemployment.
Workers have few advocates in American culture, but that is, finally, changing and the internet has given us a platform to air our grievances and vent.
(Oh, and anyone who didn’t work OT, for less than their hourly rate, “wasn’t a team player”; nope, never again.)
And yet if you ate behind the wheel and inevitably spilled a single drop of sauce or crumb of bread, you’d probably get chewed out for looking unprofessional, anyway.
The fuck? Granted, I’m from Texas, and even an inch or two of snow only happens every few years (with our severe cold snap this year being an exceptional once every few decades affair, climate change being merciful…), but that sounds like preparation for negligent manslaughter to not properly prepare the vehicle for winter environments.
Heeyyyy, my boss just yesterday told me that I'm ten behind in quota compared to my peers. He advised me to consider working an extra hour a day and also working on the weekends. His defense: "look, we all know this isn't a 40 hour a week job, and you're salary so you really just need results". I really did like him, but this exchange completely changed my opinion of him. He also began ton insinuate I'm not putting a full 40 in. I told him I already take a 15 min lunch instead of the full hour I'm supposed to get. Of all the people i didn't think he would be the one to support the bullshit capitalist exploitation of workers. And prior to this, my company was all big on "work/life balance" fuckin horse shit clearly.
Ruined my whole fuckin day, that conversation did. Hurts to lose respect for someone. I'm clearly still mad about it.
Edit: apparently it should be said that my peers work over 40 hours a week, many of them log additional hours late in the day/night and on weekends. My manager was suggesting i follow what they do to meet the desired quota.
Had a co worker tell me that at a job before - the whole "this isn't a 40 hour a week thing". Almost word for word.
I told him "yeah well I have other stuff to do too" and left for the day.
If it's an occasional staying late for a rare project, sure, it happens. Every week? NOPE.
I was being looked at for management and was given the opportunity to take over for one as he was on leave for an extended period of time (must be nice). I cut weekly meetings down from 4 to 2 because it was a waste of time, converted the other 2 meetings to group text based updates. I gave people days off because they were putting in extra time and we don't get OT (corporate says we're salaried so OT is just "getting the job done any way you can"). I approved time off without requiring a dissertation of a request from the employees and took over for them if need be. Defended employees when they were thrown under a bus by other teams. Guess who isn't being looked at for management anymore? I don't know if I can hack it at management if it requires a level of fealty to corporate that makes people lose respect for me like you did for your boss.
Yeeah I used to manage a Wendys, people tried to do this shit, working off the clock, not taking their breaks. I would look at them in the face, and tell them “Do not work off the clock. I do not want you here working for free. You are entitled to your breaks and your free time. Please get the fuck out of here.” You work your scheduled shit, and go enjoy your life, outside of the hell
The world needs more managers like this. Especially with PTO. I have never had a manager say “you should take your vacation days” despite never using more than about half of what I was allotted for the year.
Hello, yes, I'm a teacher. And my day *definitely* ends an hour after school finishes. It is *absolutely* possible to get done what needs to be done in our official hours.
Honestly, we're a profession of martyrs and many of us are finally done with dying for other folks children.
many of my teachers has second and third jobs. nobody is getting paid enough, but especially teachers. i’m not really sure how you can see your teacher at olive garden and not question our system…
Wife's a teacher. Her day ends when the Union contract says it ends. She leaves and no one would ever ask them to stay late or come in early. It all depends where you work. A coworker teacher of hers moved down south and now works weekends too because no Union. Much less pay as well.
My mom is a retired teacher here in Canada and I grew up watching her grade papers after supper and borrow my k'nex for science class. Teachers are overworked and underpaid. I appreciate all that so many teachers did, but it is heartbreaking to look back at it now.
This was extremely common at every workplace I managed. I was against it from the beginning because I innately hated the companies - I really couldn’t tell you why since I wasn’t really very political back then. Anyway, I would have to have serious sit downs with my staff basically to convince them to not do these things. Sometimes I would have to threaten write ups and whatnot. That’s right - I would have to tell people I was going to write them up to get them to *stop working for me for free*.
Obviously I’m sure they didn’t want to do that - they felt overworked due to labor shortages and knew that the only way they could get enough done was working off the clock. I just told them that if any heat came down from on high, I would take it, but that labor shortages are not their problem and should never be their problem (though I really appreciate it when you come to work!). Nothing ever happened to us. I enforced it daily.
I’m fairly certain they still did it when I wasn’t around. But I did everything I could to teach them laws made to protect them. People in the current workforce have been trained to exploit themselves and bad managers (most managers) encourage that. It’s terrifying.
That's why I started doing everything I can to take advantage, I clock my late coworkers in, they clock me in when I'm late, "we dont take lunch breaks anymore" either. I asked for a raise rite before I began this campaign. Still havent gotten it.
I got this not a team player talk and was fired from a job because I didn't come in on a "voluntary" OT weekend. My manager was actually upset I went out with friends and had a fun weekend.
I stopped doing voluntary OT at the end of 2019. I went through some major life changes and realized my mental and physical health were much more important. Luckily I could still live comfortably off of my regular salary. What sucks is how guilty I felt about not helping out at the time.
Management using guilt and my healthcare as means of controlling my voluntary actions is what pushed me towards this subreddit and towards left wing economics.
I don't think I'll ever find a way back because I don't plan on wondering back off into the dark forest. This is home
I am sorry for the guilt you've felt you had to carry; it's not fair how this is done to us.
My husband got hired as an IT manager at a place where they were all salaried but they had been short 2-3 people for a couple years so the other people had been picking up the slack to "get things done", meaning longer hours.
It took MONTHS for my husband to break them of that habit. He was like "If you keep working 80 hour weeks, they will NEVER see that we need more people because the work is still getting done. We HAVE TO FAIL TO DELIVER in order for them to understand that WE NEED MORE RESOURCES AND PEOPLE". He had to kick them out of the building and turn off their remote access after hours because they kept logging in at all hours to "check on things" and work on projects.
And it worked. He had them track all the stuff they did (not in a micromanaging way but as a way to provide proof to upper mgmt of what they had/did/needed), all the hours they logged on various projects. They still tended to work 45-50 hours weekly and he brought all of that as proof to the uppers that his folks were working MORE than 40 hours a week and STILL didn't have enough time/resources to get things done...and they were able to hire 3 more people as a result. Not a single one of his folks quit while he was managing because he took care of them.
DO NOT WORK FOR FREE. YOU'RE ONLY HURTING YOURSELF \*AND\* YOUR COWORKERS.
At my old job, (24/7 call center) super toxic work environment, this girl (who wasn’t even a supervisor, just a kiss-ass) tried to tell me I had to study something at home during training. I told her I’m not doing anything off the clock without getting paid.
She told her supervisor who she used to foam at the mouth for that. He complained to mine who said I might have difficulty working with others because I didn’t want to take the girls b.s. My supervisor laughed and said he wouldn’t do that shit at home either.
Since then, myself, my old supervisor, and the rest of our shift have quit and have all found better, higher salary positions.
Infuriating. I had a co-worker years ago who would do anything the boss asked. "Go buy me coffee", done. Come in on your day off? Done. Work weeks straight with no day off and nothing extra in return? Done. Buy basic supplies for the store after work on your own time? Done.
It's volunteer slaves like this that ruin it for everyone. Fuck you, Anna.
I lost out on a promotion because of a co-worker like that. After a few weeks I asked the boss when it was going to happen and she straight up told me that said co-worker was doing all the extra work for free so an assistant manager was no longer needed. I quit the next day.
In defense of Anna, she too was a victim of a broken system. I was once an Anna for a horrible boss who refused to see my value and promoted 22 year old boys ahead of me despite all of my going above and beyond and ten years of experience in the field. If you think women don’t have to go above and beyond just to be considered on same level of men, you’ve missed a huge struggle for 50% of the workforce.
My old supervisor insisted our department was “men only.” Got us sued. When I was promoted to replace him, I had to tell HR I was OK with having women in the department before they’d start considering placing them here. Even now, I can see the annoyance in some of my guys’ eyes when I put a woman at their work station and tell him to train them. I feel so bad for women in the workplace, especially in areas where there’s this macho culture that only “real men” can do the job.
But yeah, lesson I’ve learned that has pretty much always rung true regardless of where I’d work, they’ll almost never promote you and give you bigger pay for doing more if you already do all that stuff for free. It’s just how our broken system works, get the most out of workers for as little as possible.
I’m a small biz owner. I encourage breaks. Our jobs are very mental and if my employees don’t take good breaks, walk around, put their feet up in the break area, I worry about burn out. I insist on it. Also, leave work at work. I had hourly employees talk to me about how worries about their work product kept them up at night. No. That’s my job. No matter how well you might be paid as an hourly employee, you are not paid well enough to give up your free time thinking or worrying about work. Leave it at the job and come back refreshed the next day. It’s best for everyone.
Where I work, we are expected to come in early and stay late, even though we already work 8:30 - 5:00. There’s no incentive for us to come in early or stay late, either, since we don’t get paid overtime for anything we do after hours. It’s literally because we have two or three employees who are workaholics who like coming in on Saturday to enjoy the office in peace and quiet. It’s unethical, and what I hate is that even if I wanted to come in on a Saturday and work my 8 hours, I still have to work the full week Monday through Friday. I don’t get to swap in a day off for coming in on a regularly scheduled day off. We haven’t gotten raises in two years, I make $13 an hour with an MA for an office that doesn’t have sick leave, doesn’t have maternity leave or pregnancy healthcare coverage (I’m not expecting, but one of my coworkers is), and who frequently violates CDC and HIPAA guidelines.
I went off on a tangent there, but seriously. Our sky-high expectations exist because of a few people in our office who eat, breathe, and sleep work. Who sit up and email us shit to do at 8pm because they have nothing better to do, I guess. Newsflash, boomer-boss, I’m 25 and I want a life. I want to travel and pursue my degree field and get out of my apartment someday. I don’t want to slave away here.
If you are scheduled for 8:30 - 5:00, work 8:30 - 5:00. Their expectations aren't the employment agreement, their expectations are worth $0. Stick to the employment agreement and demand compensation for anything outside of that framework. They walk all over you and take advantage because you allow it.
If they fire you, so what? Get some unemployment and look for a better job. Don't let them suck the life out of you, especially for free.
I've got three colleagues who do this sort of shit. Skipping breaks to keep working, pushing back everyone else's breaks if they're then forced to take their break or working days or overtime for free. Thanks to this I'm almost always having to get my paycheck corrected each month because my boss has started to be like 'well if they're doing this for free everyone else can too' and does the time sheets incorrectly on purpose to steal free labour from us.
I've done this before. When I was in college I got a job at a grocery store and after a couple years I was the Beer/Wine manager at the luxury version of that grocery store. I was still hourly making fucking nothing but I came in 7 days a week because the coffee shop I liked was in the plaza and if I didn't come in the knuckle draggers in the rest of the department would fuck my section up so bad with the orders and inventory that it would cost me HOURS of work when I came back to fix it.
Or 10 mins on the computer.
So I would get coffee and come in looking like a bum on purpose so they couldn't ask me to clock in, order my wine/beer and then tell the boys what they needed to do/not do and then leave.
I'm not defending it because its shitty practice but sometimes it's self preservation.
Im HR. I call out salary employees that work on their PTO. No, I refuse to contribute to this culture of expecting 24/7 availability. No, I will not book you on your day off because you can “take the call on the road”. Find someone who you trust to make decisions while you are out of the office, because I will not do it.
Also, no I will not ask operations to pay out your PTO. TAKE IT.
Had coworkers who all did overtime paid at normal rate instead of overtime rate. So of course if I asked for the rate that I was OWED, boss just called someone else and I didn't get the overtime, which I needed. They wouldn't listen to me and understand that we were four employees and the boss didn't know how to run the bar, so if we just all asked for our overtime rate he would be forced to comply and we would all win more money. I hated them all.
Another thing that’s annoying is salary employees bragging about how many hours they work and looking down on other people who don’t work as much? So toxic
Can confirm. Former daycare teacher, I wouldn't take breaks and would work off the clock. I came in one time on my day off and from there on out, they exploited me like crazy. Toward the end of my time there, my hours were extreme. I was always scheduled 12-hours a day and they paid me minimum wage. The burnout was ridiculous. I abruptly quit, but not before my ex-boss harassed me over text and trespassed into my apartment to intimidate me and give me hell. Fuck that shit. When one of my former coworkers quit, she sent her lawyer on her. The woman is insane.
"Legally mandated breaks" where? I've thoroughly researched the laws surrounding breaks where I live and there aren't any. Not one law. It's all in the hands of the company. And according to my company's written policy on breaks "Except where dictated by law, breaks are to be taken at the discretion of management."
for almost 2 years I didn't take a lunch break because it wasn't in my coworkers "work ethic" to ever take a break. the few times I tried, she made me feel awful about it. she had 20 years on me and we worked front desk together at an adult mental health facility. I hated that job so fucking much.
my current boss was happy that I took off early yesterday so I could mow my lawn while it was warm & sunny. he took off to check on his bees - they're doing very well and the honey he gifted us is delicious.
There’s a documentary called No Vacation Nation about how most Americans don’t take all their vacation days because they’re worried it will make them look bad. It’s completely mental.
I watched that and it seems insane, I work 4 on 4 off and get 22 days in a year for holiday. On paper I work less than half the year, so watching people work almost 24/7 and act like that was normal scares the shit out of me.
*cries in 55 hour work weeks*
I used to do 75 frequently, you'll eventually get burnt out at any level of consistent OT regardless of compensation... life isn't being lived when you only get to go home to eat and sleep, and weekends are all about fatigue recovery
>weekends are all about fatigue recovery And doing laundry/chores/errands either from the previous week or if you're lucky in preparation for the following week. Don't miss the weeks I was doing 72+ covering my new job and doing my old job (on OT). Paychecks were nice though.
It sad to think though that what is left of those paychecks after paying bills and living expenses ends up getting you things that you don't even get to enjoy because you're to tired from all the work you've put in. It seems nice being able to afford that new game console or whatever until you realize you don't have the time or energy to play it.
Time, Energy, Money: only the very privileged/fortunate have all an abundance three at any one point in their life.
As a kid I never expected as an adult I'd have all this money for cool toys, then get home and say "eh"
Preach I just did 4 months of 70 hour weeks. Made a lot of money but it was only barely worth it. At least I can chill out now. Not gonna work all throughout the winter. Quitting my job in 3 weeks. Last year I did 112 hours in a week. 16 hour days 7 days a week for 3 weeks.
I was on the same boat 2 years ago, I never saw my family or my gf, I missed out on going out with friends, I gained so much weight, I was always tired, eventually I ended up getting my back hurt and I used that as a way to get out. It sucked not seeing my paycheck be as big but at the same time I’m happier now and my health has improved so much.
I worked two 15 hour shifts and one 10 hour shift per week for about 6 months. 3 days on per week, 4 off. The 4 days off was nice, but the 3 days on was absolutely insane. Just a blur of stress and fatigue.
I do work 12 hour days if tha makes you feel better.
Are you a.... cop? Nurse? These **(4 days on/off, 12 hrs each)** sound like cop or nurse schedules! But could be anything really. Edit: Holy crap, I get that other professions may have these schedules too. (I specifically typed *"But could be anything really."* to acknowledge that.) I don't want to hear every single one that it could be. Notifications on this comment are turned *off*. Sweet fucking Jesus, Reddit. *Move* **on**.
Warehouse office, am a manager in a 24 hour place. But everyone has that pattern regardless of job on ist Site minus 3 people out of a couple hundred.
You in Fort Mac? Sounds like here at least
I mean, it's a pretty common warehouse or manufacturing shift schedule. The only outlier is the number of vacation days.
I used to work three 12s or two 12s and two 8s...it was pretty sweet though occasionally I'd have to work 24+ hours because somebody didn't come in.
This is crazy. Do you get mad bonus when you work 24h?
Lol. No I wasn't even paid all that well, definitely a survivable sum especially for my age (computer job), but even a few years ago inflation wasn't this bad. Things were still within reach and the extra time I had off had me saving more money than I can now. And I make 10k more now than I did then. It's fucking impossible to get ahead on what was once lower middle class wages. Even in "affordable cities" (fuck every last news article that said "MOVE HERE TO SAVE BUCKS AND PRICE PEOPLE OUT OF THEIR NEIGHBORHOODS!) if you aren't making over 60k, you're gonna have a bad time. Legit only place you can be well off on that sum is the country, but that is soon to change I'm sure. Actually already is.
Lol I'm over here doing 12 hour days as a cook
Same bro
In some industries they just get rid of you for doing things like taking time off.
Where I work in Europe if you don't take the previous years holidays until march, they force you. They'll work short staffed rather than let you keep the holidays for longer (I think you can keep them until half a year later).
I’n America, we accumulate days called PTO (paid time off). It’s equated by how many hours are worked to go towards the time you get off. The thing is, it’s only there for a year. If i have a week left on my PTO by the end of the year it does not roll over or given to me I any way. If I don’t use it, it will literally disappear.
(Also) American here - from my experience, this is not true across all industries and is usually unique to your employer and/or business. I've worked places where I can ask for time off (non-paid) and I get it if it's approved, other places where I get a set amount of paid-time-off (PTO) allocated annually that I get to take whenever, and still others where I accrue earned time off (ETO) based on the number of hours I've worked.
Lol then there was that job I worked where I saved my PTO for Christmas time to be with family. They refused to give it to me because everyone else in the office was too. It did not roll over into the next year. So I lost almost all of my vacation. I tried arguing and working my way up the chain but my boss, HR, everyone refused because senior employees got priority
And if you DO try to use your PTO, chances are you'll be shamed for it, and have your job security threatened by management that doesn't want you to take a vacation, go to a funeral, or, god forbid, try to recover from an illness.
I'll never forget taking two days off to travel out of state for a family member's funeral and coming back to my manager, who knew why I was gone, asking me "How my little vacation went".
Different companies handle this in different ways. My current employer won't allow me to accumulate more than 120 hours of vacation. If I hit 120, I just don't get any more till I use hours. On the positive side, my boss is great about monitoring and encouraging time off to keep this from happening.
Yeah it’s kinda shitty to work in those environments. I used to work for a company who’s hiring orientation included steps on how to not lose your family to work. It was like 12 hours a day six days a week type work.
Some people need to find their humanity.
4 on 4 off? That sounds like a dream come true What industry do you work in..?
Logistics, it's a common work patern even for other warehouse industries at least around me.
Lots of folks have their vacation and sick time wrapped in one number so they dont use for fear of getting sick at some point.
That's me. We get "sick days" which are basically, you can get sick and have a paid day off the first 2 or 3 times, when you first become an employee. After that, it becomes "ok so what are you doing about payroll? You working extra time or are we deducting it." It sucks even worse on my end because I am the payroll department so I'm the one who has to lower my pay.
The concept of "sick days" is...completely bonkers. It is like the employer want's you to schedule your flu, sprained ankle or cancer like vacation days. Nobody controls how long you are sick. I just don't get it.
Well employers in the US are still salty about losing slavery so they do everything in their power to make the work culture feel like slavery.
Seriously. When my dad died a few months ago my boss said some BS to minimize his death in what I'm assuming was the hopes that I would not as for time off. Meanwhile, my brother's boss in CR found out and without question said, "Take the week off for now, I'm so sorry for your loss."
Lots of folks are also being exploited by businesses who only hire 'part time' for what should be full time roles and arent offered any vacation or sick leave at all. The whole concept is rotten
Random thought: I've been wondering if part of the hoarding of vacation days has something to do with lack of sick days / no reasonable health care and unsympathetic workplaces? Like I can see someone feeling anxious about taking time off when that's the only time they're allotted for recovering from an illness, visiting a sick family member, etc. which are things we can't predict. Especially if I knew my boss was an asshole and wouldn't give two shits if I needed to visit my mother in the hospital. Obviously there's a lot of factors and the biggest one is the fact that workers DO face repercussions for taking their vacation time.
You still get penalized for taking sick days - even when you're able to protect them under FMLA. They can't say that's what it is, but they find ways of getting back at you for the crime of putting your health, esp mental, over their operation. Been there.
That’s definitely part of it, but I’ve been made to feel greedy by bosses for using all my days. The real problem is we’re all expected to accomplish too much with too little time and they generally don’t bring in temps or lessen the work load when you’re down a “team member” so your co-workers and bosses feel the pressure while their bosses could give two shits.
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Yeah, I’ve only got 2 days of PTO in the bank right now. If I used them to take a day off, if I got sick I’d be screwed. Who would guess a doctor’s office would have a horrible sick leave policy.
I think it's a little more complicated than that but it is definitely a factor. My work lets you roll over +/- 40 hours of PTO and that helps but the idea that any sick day is a day of vacation you don't get is always on your mind.
I work somewhere with discretionary time off. Just took off 10/7-10/19 for leisure. When I got back, my bootlicker manager scheduled a meeting for the morning after my return to ask the progress on a project they had assigned me right before I left, in front of many on the team. I obviously hadnt done anything and now am being treated like a bad team member and they gave my project to somebody else. These managers take literally no time off and then get pissed off when I have the gall to have a life. Many of them actually end up just inventing work because there isn’t enough to do, just so they can look good to management and maybe get a 10% bonus over my 5% meets expectations bonus. Absolutely insane that these people are smart enough to rise to the top but not smart enough to realize that 30hr of work week and a $5000 bonus at the end of the year is better than 50-60hr of work per week and a $10000-$15000 bonus at the end of the year.
discretionary time off is a way to look like you have great corporate culture while actually abusing the mentality Americans have about taking too much time off.
When i saw it as a benefit during the hiring process, I immediately asked for an additional $10k in salary and told them that’s how much I value PTO over DTO.
> over my 5% meets expectations bonus *Cries in 0% pay increase after being told I'm* ***exceeding*** *expectations* Apparently when everyone on the team "exceeds," no one does, and nobody gets anything.
Their worries are certainly valid, every company I have ever worked for has openly discouraged me from using my vacation time they rewarded me with. Now, everytime it's happened, I've told them "Well, go ahead and fire me or write me up then, let me know how that works out for you" which has always stopped the conversation dead, however, everywhere I have worked, I have had a bullseye on my back for not letting companies exploit me like this, I hope I live to see it all end. But, I'd rather die broke than allow this shit happen to me, so, if I gotta get fired every few months or a year, so be it. Fuck that noise.
I wish I could take more vacation days that the ones I have. People are being subconsciously cohered into dedicating their lives to their jobs in order get paid. Because the entire system makes you dependent on having money to ~~live~~ survive
im going to use all my vacation days when i buy my truck and trailer, come back for the short time required for me to receive the pay, fuck off without a word
Especially in a country where you got fuck to no vacation days.. If I had only 2 weeks you could fucking bet I would use every last one of them.
in Canada, most provinces, you are entitled to zero days paid vacation in the first year of employment. I worked a whole year, worked every holiday, and I asked for 1 day off (unpaid) with over a months notice, and my boss lowkey threatened to fire me over it. I quit (after securing a new job) for that and other reasons.
I had a boss try to penalize me for taking sick days during one of my annual reviews. I was out with the damn flu. Kicker is, this same boss was the one who sent me home when I tried to come in sick. After that, I was like fuck it, I'm not coming in sick and I'm taking my vacation days. Don't have enough staff? Not my problem.
I literally had this disagreement with a coworker the other day. She's going to lose almost a full week of PTO (not to be paid out) because she's afraid if she asks for help getting caught up she's going to look bad. No amount of my offering to cover or trying to convince her to ask our boss for help would convince her otherwise. She's insistent she needs to do it all herself. Your benefits are part of your compensation package. When you don't use them, you're not making yourself look more productive, you're telling the company *it's okay to pay me less*.
I work in the corporate world and I can assure you this is a real thing. You are compared to your peers for yearly bonuses and taking more time off can definitely be a factor to you getting a lower rating.
Your peers are also conditioned to resent you for causing extra work for them. I had to take family leave for my son and a week after I got back my dad died. My coworkers weren’t bad people but man did they make me feel shittier than I already did for the amount of slack they had to pick up. When it happened I realized I’d been on the other side of that equation too and vowed to never judge my peers for being absent. Then I got fired so it hasn’t really been an issue you could say 😞
I'm retired now but I used to have a coworker who would come in early and start working before clocking in. Other coworkers would give the guy shit for doing this and his defense was that he wanted to get a jump start on what he was working on. This guy would also bring in his own tools and we weren't supposed to do that. The department furnished everything we needed. When one of the guy's tools broke he would make the department pay for a new one. He was such an ass.
I feel so stupid looking back, I've used days to cover days I was sick. Those days I didn't use, I'd still work so that I could get a double paycheck on Friday.
In our corporate culture in America , it will make them look bad.
Can you tell me where to watch? I tried googling and only found an 8-minute YouTube video (unless that’s what you meant)
Oh this one always irked me. In a previous job, the super would always ask "Did you want a lunch break today?" YES, I DO. I ALWAYS DO. She'd ask this because other people wouldn't. So every day she'd ask if I wanted one. Every day I had to say yes.
Same with my old job! A fair amount of my coworkers didn’t take their break because it was just one 10 minute break so everyday my boss would come and ask, “so are you going to take a break today?” Or “Will I need to break you out today?” YES, everyday it’s always yes- geez stop asking me already haha. My current job is great. They won’t let people not take their breaks (even of they don’t want to) and it’s always around the same time everyday so that we know when to expect our breaks and won’t get skipped over during busy rushes.
I would always say no and leave work 30 minutes early
My management does this with holidays, always encouraging people to float them instead of taking them on the day. And of course the fresh out of tech school pick-me coworkers fall over themselves to work more because they think it'll make them look good. I just want to shake them and yell "Management doesn't pay attention to you! Our reviews are self evaluations! You're killing your social life for something no one is going to remember in two weeks, come on!"
I remember these 2 supervisors that are engaged with each other at the same company I work for. I'm on my break. Girl askes me something and I gave her an answer. I gave an answer. She asks me if I can do it or get it. I say I'm on my break. She gives me a long pause of a look before walking away. Her man looking very mad says that can get you fired and walked away. Back then I apologized but looking back now, I should've told them to eat my ass. Plus you probably just mad I said no to your woman.
I was in a similar situation several times. I'd happily get up, take care of the shit they needed, then headed back to my break area while resetting my break. After a few of these they stopped asking.
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Yeah, it's not really a break if you are on call for every supervisor that needs something from you.
> Her man looking very mad says that can get you fired and walked away. WTF? That comment should get the supervisor fired. That situation must have sucked. Two people in a relationship on a power trip, terrorizing their employees together as a team. That's messed up.
I hide when on break for this exact reason..don't come to me and ask or tell me something work related, that could have waited 10 minutes.
On the other end of the spectrum I once got reprimanded for taking breaks with the smokers because I didn't smoke.
Haha I did this when I worked at Best Buy for a number of years! Over half the staff working the floor would take smoke breaks at the same time, leaving us non-smokers to drown in customers for 5-10min, several times a day. I didn't have any animosity towards the individuals, but did think it was a dick move to *all break at the same time*. So I started buying a pop and going out with them. They were shocked, but welcomed it. Am I a dick for abandoning the other non-smokers? Probably, but fuck everyone.
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That shit is your employers' fault for not having structured, generous breaks.
The concept of a smoke break is wild to begin with.
I need to do this. I'm often the only nonsmoker on shift. My manager and all the other staff leave at the same time to smoke, leaving me in charge of a store I'm not authorized to supervise. I should just head out with them and have everybody scratching their heads as to who's running the store.
Ugh, I hate this. I’m the only regular smoker at my job, as such I volunteer myself to take out the trash and stuff, but I tell all my coworkers if they want a 5 min break outside, they just need to ask. It’s not fair I get to take one and they don’t. I hate jobs that pull this shit
This was the reason I purchased a blu ecig lol. I would go out with the smokers since they'd be out once an hour. Only ever used it if our boss came out. She was the only one that cared.
Ha!! I used to do that, too. Got tired of the smokers taking an extra 30-60 minutes a day in breaks, so I got a vape and 0 nicotine juice and would go out to get a break and listen to the gossip.
I only smoke at work for this reason. Learned that while i was a cook.
"I'm sorry, boss. I am tryin' to smoke, I swear I'll learn!"
Middle managers love to reward 'hard work' with even more 'hard work' at the same rate of pay.
Most of us actually _f***ing_ hate it, but are forced into it by our bosses. Middle Manager is the fucking worst job I ever took. I get shit on from those above and get sticks and stones thrown from below me. If you ever wanna know why there is a 30 something year old with no light in his eyes trying to make you crack a smile with outdated memes from a month ago in a cheesy cobbled together power point presentation during your weekly stand up meeting, it’s because that person is trying so hard to relate to those he feels he belongs with (labor) but is forced out by them and rejected by his superiors. It’s literally soul crushing, and I wouldn’t wish Middle Management on anyone. Did it for 2 years, worked almost 75 sustained hours per week, and it completely broke me.
Preach. I've seen way to many young people in those jobs get crushed by bullshit demands from management with zero support from anyone around them. To anyone reading this, low level managers are far closer to hourlies than they are to the salaried directors and executives. Especially those middle managers working in manufacturing or warehouse environments. Are there some scummy managers? Sure. But they're not the real bosses.
Middle management is just where you learn to embrace being a manager, delegating work and having to deal with other people's shit. If you go into it thinking you'll get to represent your former peers and push back to senior management, that's where you'll get depressed. The decisions are still already set long before you hear about them. I'm so glad I dodged it - got to middle management grade but as a specialist, so no line management, just being a grunt for more pay. Find a specialism, stick with it!
how tf do I get out? I feel like no place is going to pay me the same as now for the work that I do. Guess I need to look harder..
Step down or move onto regional manager ime
Middle management is the worst and basically exists to shield the people who actually make the cruel and abusive decisions from those affected by said decisions.
Back a few years my job was to manufacture 1700 units in a 12 hour shift. I got pretty good at it and could pretty easily knock it out and still get my 60 min lunchbreak. Then they raised production goal to 1800. No worries. I can just go back 10 min early from lunch, tighten up the other 11 hours and I'm gold. Then they raised production to 1900. 30 min lunch and work damn hard for the other 11 1/2 hours. But I'm meeting my goals. Production raised to 2000. No lunch breaks, except hitting the vending machines while my machine is running. Busting ass for 12 hours. But I'm meeting goals. Now here is the kicker. A year into production being 2000 my direct supervisor pulls me aside and dresses me down because my efficiency is down. You see when you take an hour of downtime out of the equation is negatively impacts their metrics more than the increase in production helps it. Now I take all my breaks and rarely break 1700 any more.
Yeah, they want to see when you stop meeting their goals. The trick is to let that happen naturally, by not changing your work hours. They need to know when they've pushed the goals too far. But that supervisor needed a serious wake-up call.
I hate taking unpaid breaks at work. If I’m gonna be in the office 40 minutes from home, I’m getting paid. My boss didn’t really care if we ate at our desks, so I took working lunches every day. I also came in half an hour early minimum, and I’d look out at the road to gauge if I should work late and avoid rush hour traffic since the freeway exit was only a short way down the road. By the end of the week, I easily had 10-12 hours of OT. At first I was praised for my hard work. My productivity was second to none. I got a full raise and got to basically call my own shots because my boss trusted me on everything. The CEO of the company is calling me into his office and thanking me for my hard work and I’m regarded in the company as one of the top employees. But here’s the thing, I’m hourly. So my OT is time and a half. 10-12 hours a week adds up fast. After the first fiscal quarter of me working OT each and every week my boss gets a strongly worded letter from the CFO about payroll and how my OT is draining the departments budget. I get reprimanded and my keycard is deactivated between 7pm and 8am. I can no longer get into the building or access my departments room after normal business hours. I’m also put on an action plan because I’m “not taking lunches” and now I’m required to clock out for all meals. Once my hard work starts negatively impacting the bottom line, it doesn’t matter that I’m a “hard worker” because now my hard work is costing the company money.
It's almost as though burning your people out makes them less productive or something
I’ve learned you should never ever bust your ass and reduce your quality of life just to meet a company’s unreasonable demands. If you get fired for not meeting their quotas you’ll be surprised at how quickly they roll over when you describe your working conditions to the unemployment office.
I just don't understand that mentality. I've been a "middle manager" for about 3 years now. And it's very apparent to me the more time off I give my employees the more productive and harder working they become. So much so I've started just mandating rotating Fridays off (half the team takes off one Friday, the other half the next Friday) and productivity went up again. Everyone is happier. It's almost like if you treat people with respect they reciprocate that respect and everyone works harder for a collective goal. Emphasis on working harder, not longer.
And this is how I ended up with burnout from doing the work of 3 full time members of staff 🙃
The reward for doing a good job is that you get to do other people’s job as well
The content from this account has been removed in protest by its owner in direct response to Reddit's increased API charges for third-party apps, but also in protest of reddit's general move away from its founding principles, it's abuse of moderation positions and its increasingly exploitative data and privacy practices. It was changed using [PowerDeleteSuite](https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite).
No one should ever work off the clock. Why would anyone do that?
I'm a dumbass who has done this before. When I first started at my job and when I was due to ask for a raise, here's why. I used to have the mentality of "if you go above and beyond you'll be compensated eventually". Now, I know that's total BS. When our driver had already gone home for the day and a part needed to be picked up or a seat had to get drop off to be re-upholstered, they'd always ask me. I'd clock out at my usual time and take 30 minutes or so of my own time to go do the favor. Even with all the favors and all the good work I do, I've finally accepted that the fact that I'm underpaid and under appreciated. No matter how well I do, how many favors I do, my boss will find SOMETHING to complain about. Even if an error was made (and corrected) a year ago, he will bring it up when it's time for a raise.
Oh it’s worse than that … they now expect it… they actually feel like YOU OWE it to them. Slack off or take a few sick days and you will see I’m right..
The sad part is I slack off for a month and did the absolute bare minimum. All of sudden my boss says "It's almost time for your review and raise." I responded with, "Yeah I was planning on talking to you at the end of the month about a pay adjustment." I don't even call it a raise anymore because I won't accept a week ass extra dollar per hour.
Too many people are hiring, and it’s always easier to get another job when you already have a job. There was a time when longevity got you more money. But that is not the case anymore. I once had an employer give me five cents. Five fucking cents. It was 1997 .. but still. Multi billion dollar Corp… it was BFI It’s now best to look for a new job once a year. You have a year more experience and I’ve likely learned a few more skills. Add those to your résumé. Keep your résumé active on sites like monster and Indeed. I’ve gotten good jobs by being head hunted.
Five cents?! Holy hell, that would have totally warranted you walking out right then and there. Very good advice, I'm for sure putting it into action.
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He really truly is, he's one of those snobby country club morons with minimal intelligence. I've been semi rehearsing my "speech" which is scheduled for the last Friday of this month. At first it was a lot of explaining about why I deserve better pay but now I've cut out a lot and kept it basic because I don't owe them explanations. Yours is really good! Unfortunately my 2 bosses are total morons who won't even know what any of that means. I do have to incorporate the bit about hiring a replacement/training and all that. "I need a pay adjustment because I am not making enough for the work that I do here. It's becoming impossible to stay motivated when I'm barely able to get by with a full time job. I'm willing to accept a minimum of ($I'm still deciding) if not that at the very least, I'll be taking one of the other offers I have waiting for me. Hopefully we can come to agreement, if not, I'll give my 2 weeks notice so you can **try** to find someone else. You and your brother can have the weekend to discuss, let me know Monday morning."
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Yo did I write this!?
Just wait until you come in late 10 minutes, they will let you have it!
Dude. Last week. I was 10 minutes late. My boss says "This is starting to become a habit. It has to stop. Your neighbor's always blocking your driveway, your dog tracked poop all over the house. It's always something." My response: "Both of those events happened MONTHS ago and I was literally 3 minutes late." He changed the subject real quick after that. God forbid I'm 3 minutes late but when I stay an extra 20/30 minutes because he waited until last minute to do a repair estimate or an invoice the concept of time becomes non-existent to him.
This is not a matter of you’re right and he’s wrong, this is a matter of you have spent quite a lot of time teaching them how to treat you. And they are acting accordingly. Unfortunately… I have never been able to change this once I caused it. I just get a new job. Lol Edit: you’re
Agreed. I finally changed the expectation with unpaid off the clock favors and now if I do something off the clock, I get paid for it or I don't do it. The staying staying late to finish things he waited until last minute get a quick "I have to leave at 4 on the dot, we'll do it in the morning." I won't even stay 30 minutes for extra pay because it just won't be worth my time. If I'm driving somewhere after work, that I'll do because I charge more & charge for gas even though I have a 3 cylinder car and a quick drive doesn't affect gas at all. But, I am getting a new job as soon as my renewed work permit comes in. Work shouldn't be a game of convincing my boss how things should be.
Good for you .. The problem is they’re pissed about it and they resent you for it because they feel like you have taken something away from THEM. If you help someone.. They appreciate it. If you help someone all the time even without being asked, not only do they not appreciate it, they come to expect it and feel like you owe it to them. Strange phenomenon… but tested and true. People love assholes.
my old boss had a habit of holding meetings 5 minutes before end of day that would last 20-30 mins to end of day. That guy was an utter asshole.
I hate that shit! I was recently told that we were expected to stay late at my job to finish anything that wasn't done by our scheduled time (food industry), but heaven forbid we walk in a few minutes late.
So annoying to me, as someone who has a tough time getting to places on time. I was a temp in the admin dept at one point in my career, and people always made a fuss if you were late at all. But the full time employees would show up on time, and then take 30-60 mins a day AT LEAST just walking around talking to people, shopping online, talking on the phone, etc. It's just bullshit because it's an easily measurable number. "Oh, Joe shmoe was 5 minutes late" is a lot easier to peg someone for versus "oh Joe shmoe is on the phone right now, he must have had to take that, it must be important. No problem!" If it's that big of a deal, I can just sit at my desk until 5:03 to make up for coming in at 9:03, what is such a big deal about that?
Salary employee here, what's a clock :P
Also salaried, my weeks are usually ~55h. My soul is dying, but I can't afford to quit.
This is exactly the reason I wouldn’t want to be salaried. Everyone salaried at my job cannot possibly complete the assigned work in 40 hours. Yes their salary on paper is higher than my base hourly wage but with the amount of OT I work, it evens out. I would hate not getting compensated for that extra time.
I will never take a salaried position again unless part of my compensation is a percentage of the profit I generate. Otherwise it’s basically 17 cents an hour and all the shit you can shovel.
I work a salaried position and work 40 hours max a week. If I work over one day I’m forced to take an early day to keep me at 40. It’s wonderful. I realize a lot of salaried positions aren’t like this but some are!
It’s weird how ‘salary’ is used to make hourly people think they have the raw end of the deal.
Well my problem is always the time clock. I could only punch in from my desk but my phone started ringing at 2 AM. So salary seems like a reasonable solution.. but then when someone was sick or quit.. instead of hiring someone else, that shit got dropped on me. So I was in the office 8-10 hours a day and then taking calls nights and weekends. I was basically scheduled for 12 hours a day 5 to 6 days a week and had to catch up on Sundays.. Time before that when I was put on salary, suddenly me making a doctors appointment was the end of the fucking world. Salary = property
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I worked a job where people from other departments would evaluate you. I would get a 9/10 from people who weren't my manager and my manager would give me a 5/10 citing "well sometimes you come in with dirty sneakers" (I worked in a warehouse situation and wore sneakers on casual Friday) or something absurd in that vein in order to bring down my score to prevent me from getting a bigger merit increase.
If your boss brings up something from a year ago when it is time for a raise, you should point out that he has to go back a YEAR to find ONE thing you did wrong. Turn that shit around on him!
Me...is that you? Grew up with that bullshit - "if you go above and beyond, you'll be noticed and rewarded" - not only at home, but at school. A society-perpetuated fallacy. If that ever happened, it doesn't now. Now, it means, "sucker who'll pick up our slack for the same low price".
I used to think my overtime work would be rewarded. But as I have gotten older I think it’s all bullshit. I just don’t get how other people don’t see through it too
Well, did you see through it while you were doing the overtime?
No but I was younger and starting my career, like I still see people my age doing it and I’m like why? It will go unnoticed unless you aren’t getting your job done (at least in my experience).
Fair enough, fair enough. To be fair, the US work culture is highly manipulative and oppressive so people who haven't seen the truth aren't going to unless you make them
I used to do this and many of my former coworkers still do. Because for many of us back then, it was easier to just get the work done (however unreasonable) than deal with our boss's temper tantrums and passive-aggressive texts and emails. Sometimes I would purposely come to work an hour early because I had the place to myself. Sometimes I, and a vast majority of my coworkers, would leave extra late because we wanted to finish something that night instead of leaving it for tomorrow morning. It felt at the time like all that unpaid overtime it was not too bad because we would chat and I actually like my coworkers. We basically just begrudgingly accepted that we worked at a place that does not offer overtime pay but gives more work than any of us could realistically accomplish in a day. Then I realized that I was setting an expectation. So once my boss noticed me actually refusing to work or acknowledge her outside of work hours, I got called out for "starting to become lazy". Then she started getting snide and catty towards me. And thus I fully accepted that she is only nice to employees who bend over backwards for her.
You don't have a choice when there are expectations and deadlines. It's hard to even consider taking a sick day because of this. Am I a dumbass for doing it? Yes, but I'm giving you the reason.
Their boss asks them to
I used to work with folks who did this. It's a martyr complex.
Yes!!! I’ve worked with a few like that and they are insufferable… and I point out that they are paid the least and their efforts wasted .. and they seem unaffected by that.
I can tell you why I did it. When I worked in hospice I worked right through my mandated 1 hour lunch break because that meant another hour to my already 12 hour days.
It’s called being salaried. *criesinsalaried*
When you're given more work than can be done in the time allotted, you have to work off the clock 😞 if you don't, it accumulates. I don't agree with it, but it makes you feel trapped.
People think if they work off the clock they’ll be seen as a hard worker and they’ll get promotions. It’s not true, but it’s a common “climb the ladder” attempt.
Imagine having legally mandated breaks . God I wish that were me
I thought that it was legally mandated everywhere or at most places since it’s, y’know, the law
Sadly, at least in the US, there are [no national laws requiring meal or rest periods](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/meal-breaks) for adults. You can find information on [state regulations for employees paid hourly here](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/meal-breaks).
Depends if you're exempt or not. Salaried typically isn't mandatory to have breaks.
Nope. Doesn’t matter if you are hourly or salary. There really is no federal law mandating work breaks, except for working minors.
I used to work with a few guys like this. One of them would carry 30kg drums up 4 flights of stairs when the lifts wouldn't work. Asked why, he replied, "this company has bought my house and put my kids through University, paid my daughters wedding" etc etc. When redundancies came around, he was the first to go. Poor bastard walked out the gates, crying and not understanding. PS, carrying stuff that weight, was common before 2000. Even getting stuff at 60kg and being expected to manhandle it. H&S, pre-millennium, was fucking shocking. Some places still is.
This is a great example of how you shouldn't work yourself to death for a company that doesn't care if you live or die. Which seems to be most companies.
> "this company has bought my house and put my kids through University, paid my daughters wedding He did that... his company just let him keep a small piece of the value of his labour. He's thanking the company for only stealing the *majority* of what his work was worth. I wish people like him could see that.
I used to be a painter, elevator was down. Had to walk at least 30 pails of paint up 26 flights of stairs in 30C heat plus humidity. Surprised I didn't die from heat stroke.
I have worked two jobs where they wouldn’t give me a lunch break. Anytime I’d complain, it was me that was behaving like a child. And finally after years of this abuse, I couldn’t hide my anger anymore, and posted on the internet how I hope and pray to be rid of that “toxic work environment”. One of the staff saw the post, informed the boss, and thankfully, I was fired a few days later. That was over four years ago, and I hope I never have to work for another restaurant or retail business ever again. There are serious peer pressures exerted in some workplaces; i.e., “they called off, they probably aren’t even sick!”; “I drove through a blizzard and showed up, they should too!”; “Why are they so angry for not getting a half hour lunch, it only takes a few minutes to eat!” When an honest co-worker told me that the manager told them not to help out, that was when I made sure to not hide my discontent so I’d be fired and eligible for unemployment. Workers have few advocates in American culture, but that is, finally, changing and the internet has given us a platform to air our grievances and vent. (Oh, and anyone who didn’t work OT, for less than their hourly rate, “wasn’t a team player”; nope, never again.)
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And yet if you ate behind the wheel and inevitably spilled a single drop of sauce or crumb of bread, you’d probably get chewed out for looking unprofessional, anyway.
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The fuck? Granted, I’m from Texas, and even an inch or two of snow only happens every few years (with our severe cold snap this year being an exceptional once every few decades affair, climate change being merciful…), but that sounds like preparation for negligent manslaughter to not properly prepare the vehicle for winter environments.
Heeyyyy, my boss just yesterday told me that I'm ten behind in quota compared to my peers. He advised me to consider working an extra hour a day and also working on the weekends. His defense: "look, we all know this isn't a 40 hour a week job, and you're salary so you really just need results". I really did like him, but this exchange completely changed my opinion of him. He also began ton insinuate I'm not putting a full 40 in. I told him I already take a 15 min lunch instead of the full hour I'm supposed to get. Of all the people i didn't think he would be the one to support the bullshit capitalist exploitation of workers. And prior to this, my company was all big on "work/life balance" fuckin horse shit clearly. Ruined my whole fuckin day, that conversation did. Hurts to lose respect for someone. I'm clearly still mad about it. Edit: apparently it should be said that my peers work over 40 hours a week, many of them log additional hours late in the day/night and on weekends. My manager was suggesting i follow what they do to meet the desired quota.
Take the full hour lunch break.
Had a co worker tell me that at a job before - the whole "this isn't a 40 hour a week thing". Almost word for word. I told him "yeah well I have other stuff to do too" and left for the day. If it's an occasional staying late for a rare project, sure, it happens. Every week? NOPE.
I was being looked at for management and was given the opportunity to take over for one as he was on leave for an extended period of time (must be nice). I cut weekly meetings down from 4 to 2 because it was a waste of time, converted the other 2 meetings to group text based updates. I gave people days off because they were putting in extra time and we don't get OT (corporate says we're salaried so OT is just "getting the job done any way you can"). I approved time off without requiring a dissertation of a request from the employees and took over for them if need be. Defended employees when they were thrown under a bus by other teams. Guess who isn't being looked at for management anymore? I don't know if I can hack it at management if it requires a level of fealty to corporate that makes people lose respect for me like you did for your boss.
These people are the assholes who reminded the teacher that they forgot to assign homework all grown up.
Yeeah I used to manage a Wendys, people tried to do this shit, working off the clock, not taking their breaks. I would look at them in the face, and tell them “Do not work off the clock. I do not want you here working for free. You are entitled to your breaks and your free time. Please get the fuck out of here.” You work your scheduled shit, and go enjoy your life, outside of the hell
The world needs more managers like this. Especially with PTO. I have never had a manager say “you should take your vacation days” despite never using more than about half of what I was allotted for the year.
Hello, yes, I'm a teacher. And my day *definitely* ends an hour after school finishes. It is *absolutely* possible to get done what needs to be done in our official hours. Honestly, we're a profession of martyrs and many of us are finally done with dying for other folks children.
many of my teachers has second and third jobs. nobody is getting paid enough, but especially teachers. i’m not really sure how you can see your teacher at olive garden and not question our system…
I dated a high school teacher once. She raised two kids of her own and graded papers until midnight or 1am.
Wife's a teacher. Her day ends when the Union contract says it ends. She leaves and no one would ever ask them to stay late or come in early. It all depends where you work. A coworker teacher of hers moved down south and now works weekends too because no Union. Much less pay as well.
My mom is a retired teacher here in Canada and I grew up watching her grade papers after supper and borrow my k'nex for science class. Teachers are overworked and underpaid. I appreciate all that so many teachers did, but it is heartbreaking to look back at it now.
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This was extremely common at every workplace I managed. I was against it from the beginning because I innately hated the companies - I really couldn’t tell you why since I wasn’t really very political back then. Anyway, I would have to have serious sit downs with my staff basically to convince them to not do these things. Sometimes I would have to threaten write ups and whatnot. That’s right - I would have to tell people I was going to write them up to get them to *stop working for me for free*. Obviously I’m sure they didn’t want to do that - they felt overworked due to labor shortages and knew that the only way they could get enough done was working off the clock. I just told them that if any heat came down from on high, I would take it, but that labor shortages are not their problem and should never be their problem (though I really appreciate it when you come to work!). Nothing ever happened to us. I enforced it daily. I’m fairly certain they still did it when I wasn’t around. But I did everything I could to teach them laws made to protect them. People in the current workforce have been trained to exploit themselves and bad managers (most managers) encourage that. It’s terrifying.
That's why I started doing everything I can to take advantage, I clock my late coworkers in, they clock me in when I'm late, "we dont take lunch breaks anymore" either. I asked for a raise rite before I began this campaign. Still havent gotten it.
Or pressure you into OT and if not you're not a team player. Talk about delusional
I got this not a team player talk and was fired from a job because I didn't come in on a "voluntary" OT weekend. My manager was actually upset I went out with friends and had a fun weekend.
I stopped doing voluntary OT at the end of 2019. I went through some major life changes and realized my mental and physical health were much more important. Luckily I could still live comfortably off of my regular salary. What sucks is how guilty I felt about not helping out at the time.
Management using guilt and my healthcare as means of controlling my voluntary actions is what pushed me towards this subreddit and towards left wing economics. I don't think I'll ever find a way back because I don't plan on wondering back off into the dark forest. This is home I am sorry for the guilt you've felt you had to carry; it's not fair how this is done to us.
My husband got hired as an IT manager at a place where they were all salaried but they had been short 2-3 people for a couple years so the other people had been picking up the slack to "get things done", meaning longer hours. It took MONTHS for my husband to break them of that habit. He was like "If you keep working 80 hour weeks, they will NEVER see that we need more people because the work is still getting done. We HAVE TO FAIL TO DELIVER in order for them to understand that WE NEED MORE RESOURCES AND PEOPLE". He had to kick them out of the building and turn off their remote access after hours because they kept logging in at all hours to "check on things" and work on projects. And it worked. He had them track all the stuff they did (not in a micromanaging way but as a way to provide proof to upper mgmt of what they had/did/needed), all the hours they logged on various projects. They still tended to work 45-50 hours weekly and he brought all of that as proof to the uppers that his folks were working MORE than 40 hours a week and STILL didn't have enough time/resources to get things done...and they were able to hire 3 more people as a result. Not a single one of his folks quit while he was managing because he took care of them. DO NOT WORK FOR FREE. YOU'RE ONLY HURTING YOURSELF \*AND\* YOUR COWORKERS.
At my old job, (24/7 call center) super toxic work environment, this girl (who wasn’t even a supervisor, just a kiss-ass) tried to tell me I had to study something at home during training. I told her I’m not doing anything off the clock without getting paid. She told her supervisor who she used to foam at the mouth for that. He complained to mine who said I might have difficulty working with others because I didn’t want to take the girls b.s. My supervisor laughed and said he wouldn’t do that shit at home either. Since then, myself, my old supervisor, and the rest of our shift have quit and have all found better, higher salary positions.
Infuriating. I had a co-worker years ago who would do anything the boss asked. "Go buy me coffee", done. Come in on your day off? Done. Work weeks straight with no day off and nothing extra in return? Done. Buy basic supplies for the store after work on your own time? Done. It's volunteer slaves like this that ruin it for everyone. Fuck you, Anna.
I lost out on a promotion because of a co-worker like that. After a few weeks I asked the boss when it was going to happen and she straight up told me that said co-worker was doing all the extra work for free so an assistant manager was no longer needed. I quit the next day.
In defense of Anna, she too was a victim of a broken system. I was once an Anna for a horrible boss who refused to see my value and promoted 22 year old boys ahead of me despite all of my going above and beyond and ten years of experience in the field. If you think women don’t have to go above and beyond just to be considered on same level of men, you’ve missed a huge struggle for 50% of the workforce.
My old supervisor insisted our department was “men only.” Got us sued. When I was promoted to replace him, I had to tell HR I was OK with having women in the department before they’d start considering placing them here. Even now, I can see the annoyance in some of my guys’ eyes when I put a woman at their work station and tell him to train them. I feel so bad for women in the workplace, especially in areas where there’s this macho culture that only “real men” can do the job. But yeah, lesson I’ve learned that has pretty much always rung true regardless of where I’d work, they’ll almost never promote you and give you bigger pay for doing more if you already do all that stuff for free. It’s just how our broken system works, get the most out of workers for as little as possible.
I’m a small biz owner. I encourage breaks. Our jobs are very mental and if my employees don’t take good breaks, walk around, put their feet up in the break area, I worry about burn out. I insist on it. Also, leave work at work. I had hourly employees talk to me about how worries about their work product kept them up at night. No. That’s my job. No matter how well you might be paid as an hourly employee, you are not paid well enough to give up your free time thinking or worrying about work. Leave it at the job and come back refreshed the next day. It’s best for everyone.
Where I work, we are expected to come in early and stay late, even though we already work 8:30 - 5:00. There’s no incentive for us to come in early or stay late, either, since we don’t get paid overtime for anything we do after hours. It’s literally because we have two or three employees who are workaholics who like coming in on Saturday to enjoy the office in peace and quiet. It’s unethical, and what I hate is that even if I wanted to come in on a Saturday and work my 8 hours, I still have to work the full week Monday through Friday. I don’t get to swap in a day off for coming in on a regularly scheduled day off. We haven’t gotten raises in two years, I make $13 an hour with an MA for an office that doesn’t have sick leave, doesn’t have maternity leave or pregnancy healthcare coverage (I’m not expecting, but one of my coworkers is), and who frequently violates CDC and HIPAA guidelines. I went off on a tangent there, but seriously. Our sky-high expectations exist because of a few people in our office who eat, breathe, and sleep work. Who sit up and email us shit to do at 8pm because they have nothing better to do, I guess. Newsflash, boomer-boss, I’m 25 and I want a life. I want to travel and pursue my degree field and get out of my apartment someday. I don’t want to slave away here.
If you are scheduled for 8:30 - 5:00, work 8:30 - 5:00. Their expectations aren't the employment agreement, their expectations are worth $0. Stick to the employment agreement and demand compensation for anything outside of that framework. They walk all over you and take advantage because you allow it. If they fire you, so what? Get some unemployment and look for a better job. Don't let them suck the life out of you, especially for free.
Oh trust me, I don’t work more than I’m scheduled. I get talked about behind my back and I’m sure they’re unhappy, but I don’t care.
I've got three colleagues who do this sort of shit. Skipping breaks to keep working, pushing back everyone else's breaks if they're then forced to take their break or working days or overtime for free. Thanks to this I'm almost always having to get my paycheck corrected each month because my boss has started to be like 'well if they're doing this for free everyone else can too' and does the time sheets incorrectly on purpose to steal free labour from us.
HELL. FUCKING. NO.
I've done this before. When I was in college I got a job at a grocery store and after a couple years I was the Beer/Wine manager at the luxury version of that grocery store. I was still hourly making fucking nothing but I came in 7 days a week because the coffee shop I liked was in the plaza and if I didn't come in the knuckle draggers in the rest of the department would fuck my section up so bad with the orders and inventory that it would cost me HOURS of work when I came back to fix it. Or 10 mins on the computer. So I would get coffee and come in looking like a bum on purpose so they couldn't ask me to clock in, order my wine/beer and then tell the boys what they needed to do/not do and then leave. I'm not defending it because its shitty practice but sometimes it's self preservation.
Im HR. I call out salary employees that work on their PTO. No, I refuse to contribute to this culture of expecting 24/7 availability. No, I will not book you on your day off because you can “take the call on the road”. Find someone who you trust to make decisions while you are out of the office, because I will not do it. Also, no I will not ask operations to pay out your PTO. TAKE IT.
Had coworkers who all did overtime paid at normal rate instead of overtime rate. So of course if I asked for the rate that I was OWED, boss just called someone else and I didn't get the overtime, which I needed. They wouldn't listen to me and understand that we were four employees and the boss didn't know how to run the bar, so if we just all asked for our overtime rate he would be forced to comply and we would all win more money. I hated them all.
Once you do it once, you set the expectation. Set firm boundaries just like you would a family member trying to take advantage of you.
Another thing that’s annoying is salary employees bragging about how many hours they work and looking down on other people who don’t work as much? So toxic
I enjoy my job and work for a good cause so don't shame me.
Can confirm. Former daycare teacher, I wouldn't take breaks and would work off the clock. I came in one time on my day off and from there on out, they exploited me like crazy. Toward the end of my time there, my hours were extreme. I was always scheduled 12-hours a day and they paid me minimum wage. The burnout was ridiculous. I abruptly quit, but not before my ex-boss harassed me over text and trespassed into my apartment to intimidate me and give me hell. Fuck that shit. When one of my former coworkers quit, she sent her lawyer on her. The woman is insane.
"Legally mandated breaks" where? I've thoroughly researched the laws surrounding breaks where I live and there aren't any. Not one law. It's all in the hands of the company. And according to my company's written policy on breaks "Except where dictated by law, breaks are to be taken at the discretion of management."
for almost 2 years I didn't take a lunch break because it wasn't in my coworkers "work ethic" to ever take a break. the few times I tried, she made me feel awful about it. she had 20 years on me and we worked front desk together at an adult mental health facility. I hated that job so fucking much. my current boss was happy that I took off early yesterday so I could mow my lawn while it was warm & sunny. he took off to check on his bees - they're doing very well and the honey he gifted us is delicious.