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“Be Here 15 Minutes Before Your Shift Starts”: 30 Normalized Work Scams According To This Thread
Most of us have to work to be able to pay bills, buy something to eat, go out or travel somewhere. That means that sooner or later, we need to face adult responsibilities and work in order to have a decent life.
However, the world is unfair, full of scams and things that shouldn’t be tolerated. And in this case - the corporate world. Most companies don’t really care about their employees, yet employees need to provide for themselves and their families, thus they have no other way but to hold themselves together. Actually, there are so many things at work that we are just so used to them being this way that we have even forgotten that they're not exactly as they should be. For instance - unpaid lunches that result in a 9-hour work day.
So, speaking about that, one Reddit user started a thread in one of the communities asking folks online to share work scams that have become so normalized that we don’t even realize they’re scams anymore. So, pandas, explore these scams, comment your thoughts and maybe you will even spot something that you in fact never thought of as being a scam, but when you think about it… well, maybe it is in fact too normalized.
More info: Reddit
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Having to find someone to cover for you when you call out sick. That's the f*****g managers job not yours.
RELATED:
#2
Companies offering 3% raises while inflation is 8%
MaryHadaLittleLamb 2 years ago
This should be higher! My 3% raise is effectively a pay cut due to inflation, and they also raised our healthcare premiums last year by $200 a month. I'm taking home less cash than ever.
#3
“Be here 15 minutes before your shift starts “
Ya bro. Normally I would because I like to ease in, make a coffee etc. but if you require it and don’t pay, I’m rolling in at 9 on the dot.
Donkey boi 2 years ago
The way I understand it is, you pay me to work from x time. Turning up at x time is a 'no no', because by the time I've got settled it's 5/10/15 minutes past time. I get there early, to make a drink and sort myself out, but I'm not doing a jot of work until I'm on the clock.
#5
"Team lead." It really means "you're going to get management responsibilities without management pay."
DennyS (denzoren) 2 years ago
100% true but in some cases they are paid well but I can only comment for the industry I'm in.
#6
Go above and beyond and we will reward you with….even more work
Luke Branwen 2 years ago
If you always work 110%, never miss a day, go above and beyond and dedicate all your life to work... then one day, your boss might go to space.
#7
Unpaid lunches resulting in a 9 hour work day. Absolute f*****g horseshit.
Jan Rosier 2 years ago
This one seems normal to me... in the 30+ years I've worked now (Belgium) lunchtime has never been paid.
#8
For the Americans in the crowd: Let's talk about tying proper healthcare to our jobs, shall we? It's become so normalized that we sometimes forget how wild it is that a huge chunk of our healthcare security is linked to where we work. If you or one of your loved ones requires ongoing medical coverage, you literally CANNOT quit your job.
If you're thinking about switching careers or just need a change of pace, there's this looming threat. You can't just leave, cause if something unfortunate happens, you're screwed. We are all hostages of our employers.
#9
Being expected to give two weeks notice or you get a bad reference/can't be rehired, but we can be fired on the spot for literally no reason at all.
what is that horses**t??
bigoldthor 2 years ago
In the U.S., few employers will give official "references" for former employees. Too much risk of litigation. The most you'll usually get is yes, he/she worked here and from when to when, and maybe what position(s) they held, if even that. You can always ask for individual references, though.
#11
Attendance policies, telling an employee who they can and can’t take time off to grief for.
bigoldthor 2 years ago
This is true but also a double-edged sword. Sadly, there are many people who will take advantage of liberal bereavement policies to take off whenever they feel like it. Not fair to those who play by the rules and to those who are genuinely grieving, but I do get the sentiment.
#12
Sick days.
Don't call them sick days. When I need them they drain my available PTO first before they get to the sick days.
By then I am usually no longer sick and with the little amount PTO I accrue during the year, I am now not getting a vacation.
Out sick is not a f*****g vacation.
Caroline Nagel 2 years ago
This is not the case in Europe. We don't have a set amount of sick days. When you're sick you're sick and it's the doctor who decides how long you need to stay home. Why do Americans keep saying they live in the land of the free?
#15
A work contest to see who can have the highest sales dollars. We push to make them a c**p ton of profit and they give us s****y rewards like $10 gift cards or the smallest percentage of a bonus they can find. It's total garbage.
kitten levels tokyo 2 years ago
Today’s managers want employees to work with as much enthusiasm as entrepreneurs, but without receiving any of the rewards a successful entrepreneur gets.
#17
Five day work week.
#18
My employer keeps paperwork that we are supposed to be filling out regularly in the break room. A lot of people have too much to do and they fill it out on their breaks. I never have. I don’t care how behind I am, if the company wants something done, they are going to have to pay me to do it.
bigoldthor 2 years ago
Agreed, but what kind of paperwork would an employer keep in the breakroom to be filled out by employees?
#19
When you're expected to be ready to start when your shift starts, fine. When you come in a bit early to get a coffee and get your work face on and colleagues immediately start throwing work at you.
I used to come in 15 minutes early and people who were due to finish when I started would just pack up and go.
Thanks to this sub I no longer tolerate that. I still come in early to prepare for the s**t show and get a coffee but *I'm not working*.
I actually had a nurse storm up to me once saying a call bell had been going for 10 mi why wasn't I responding. I shrugged and asked her where her day staff were.
#20
Promising growth and development (dangling the 🥕 on the stick) but not following through.
bigoldthor 2 years ago
Yeah, this is baked into every HR/corporate performance review and development program I've ever used, and it's usually just lip service. Rarely have I seen any follow through, and I've been around for a lonnnnnnng time.
#21
Being gainfully employed without being able to even make basic ends meet.
bigoldthor 2 years ago (edited)
If you can't make basic ends meet, then you are, by definition, NOT "gainfully employed". You're just employed.
#22
Saying we get 2 days off. It's more like 1.5 days. Saturday is the only real day off. On Sundays, you try to sleep early to be ready for Monday morning. There is no real rest when Saturday is the only day you can sleep in and sleep late.
40 hours a week of work 5 days a week is too long. It's harder to manage your regular life and it's too hard to get anything done in your regular life because you're too burnt out giving your entire days and times at work.
Work should be 6 hours a day (it's hard to stay productive after the 5th or 6th hour) and have 3 days off so we can get real rest and take care of our real life s**t.
#23
After work activities being “not mandatory but advised” or affecting your standing at work.
I used to have a two hour turnaround commute for work and at least once a month my bosses would look to have the whole team go out for a few hours after an 8 hour shift starting at the crack of dawn where every minute of our day was accounted for. I just wanted to clock in and then go home because i was just mentally exhausted by the end of the day, but would always get the stink eye when i would politely decline the three hour detour for “team building” with a team we couldn’t even socialize with since we were on the phone 8 hours a day.
bigoldthor 2 years ago (edited)
I absolutely DESPISE any type of after work social gatherings, team-building, whatever. I mean, I don't HATE all y'all but dammit I want to go home after my workday is over.
#24
Business tax cuts. The politicians say that it will create jobs, but they don't. The big businesses just use the money to buy out their competitors and they pay lower wages after removing redundant staff.
kitten levels tokyo 2 years ago
Greed-fueled capitalism doesn’t seem to work well for everyone.
#25
So, so many but to name a few:
1) Having to pay for parking just to go to work. This blew my mind as a New Yorker when I met people from other parts of the US. They’re forcing you to be at their premises yet you have to pay for a separate parking facility, or worse yet, one of those corporate park deals where the employers there can easily cover employee parking but they don’t.
2) Hell, the notion of paying for commuting altogether is a scam that Americans have been suckered into so long and the lowest-paid workers get screwed the most.
3) The expectation that you have to give two weeks notice to quit, but you can get fired overnight with zero warning because a graph made the chairman of the board’s portfolio sad.
4) That it’s 2023 but employers and policymakers still cling to the 40-hour work week model for knowledge work. It was designed for assembly lines long before we had powerful computers that fit in our pockets.
5) Skilled and educated professionals having to practically beg for jobs they can damn well do but if you’re not automatically tossed by ATS, you’re not given a chance because your background doesn’t PRECISELY fit the criteria on the list. Then you have to answer a bunch of really stupid questions where you’re expected to lie a little, but not too much, when you know you can just DO THE THING THEY NEED.
6) Having your time wasted with 4+ interviews and employers constantly toeing the line between “skills assessment” and “free work”.
#26
Unable to leave early once you fulfill your daily/weekly quota. Must stay so they can exploit more of your energy.
#28
Capitalism is the ultimate pyramid scheme.
#29
the part where i make 100 bucks for my employer and he gives me 10 for my efforts.
bigoldthor 2 years ago
This is just the nature of business. No matter what we do as employees, we are technically contributing to corporate profits. They are not going to turn around and give all of that back to the employees, unless of course it's an employee-owned business.
#31
Not being paid extra for working unsociable hours or the weekend.
So I've worked in hospitality getting paid minimum wage working 7am to 12am then another shift from 5pm to 10 or 11pm and not knowing what your days off are gonna be until less than a week before you get them. How am I supposed to get anything done in my time outside work and how am I supposed to plan anything for my days off when I don't know when they are gonna be.
Also I used to work maintenance at this holiday park where I regularly worked weekends, and all the old holiday goers always used to make comments about getting double pay on Sundays and 1.5 pay on Saturdays, and when I told them that was not the case they pretty much all said it was very common in their day
And also I was working at this restaurant and they wanted me to do the late kitchen porter shift cleaning up the kitchen after service by myself on new years eve . I said I wasn't happy doing the shift because I was on a zero hour contract I was not abliged to accept every shift they offered me, and they let me go, didn't fire me just never gave me another shift
Seadog 2 years ago
Always got me when the people that work holidays don't get extra pay but they claim they'll give you another day instead. What that means is instead of working 40 hours in 5 days, you work 40 hours in 4 days. So then you're so wore out you can't enjoy any of your days off. Keep in mind too that everyone at corporate is off the holiday with pay as is everyone DM and above.
#32
Yep. Had an employer who would strip the client info from the pay stub, so it was just random billing hours, and then they’d “shuffle” those hours so they weren’t in any kind of order. I started matching them up, and once I did that caught them short changing me every week. Finally i threatened them with going to DOL over it and the shortchanging stopped but I still had to spend an hour making sure I was being paid correctly every check.
#33
Working most of the day for most of the week.
bigoldthor 2 years ago
Yeah, this sucks the life out of us all. Unfortunately, I don't see it changing for decades, and that will evolve very slowly.
#34
probably cellphones. most jobs require in some way a smartphone, but you have to pay for it.
Kathleen McGann 2 years ago
You want me to be on call? You pay for the phone, the calling plan, and ever hour you expect me to drop everything to pick up. You don't get to call me on weekends or days off unless I'm being paid to be on call.
#35
At-will employment.
Lady Lava 2 years ago
As an European, to me this is a totally bonkers concept... It must be so stressful to know you could lose your job and your financial stability, and as I understand in many cases also your health care insurance, at any time for any reason. That means your boss can fire you for not coming to work when you got into a traffic accident, so all at once you're jobless, not able to work for a while and you have to pay the hospital bills yourself... 😱
#38
Showing/Adding up health insurance as a part of Total Compensation.
bigoldthor 2 years ago
I've had companies tell us how much they spend on non-wage benefits, but I've not yet had one try and convince me it is part of my total compensation package. Those are just the costs of doing business. My compensation is and will always be how much they put in the check, whether salary, bonuses, overtime, pension, 401(k), etc. Show me the money!
#39
Being on salary. Salary is SUCH a scam that only benefits a company in that they can get free labor and not pay OT. There is ZERO benefit to the employee. Why this even exists is something I find baffling.
Donkey boi 2 years ago
I disagree. I'm salaried and my contract states my working hours. If you want me to work OT, you're going to have to negotiate, because there is nothing in my contract that says I need to do it. I've asked for (and been given) triple pay for OT, because they need me, not the other way round.
#41
work is the scam.
Freya the Wanderer 2 years ago
I am 100% in favor of working for a living - if you can. However, I believe that you should be paid at least a living wage and provided with reasonable benefits, so you can a) pay rent and utilities, b) buy healthful food and decent things, c) save "for a rainy day" and d) not have to worry about going bankrupt because of a catastrophic illness or injury.
What do you think ?
Fora Nakit 2 years ago
I hope you guys realize that a big part of these problems are US-only problems.
Anony Mouse 2 years ago
Well that's all this site does - point out US problems, both real and imagined.
Load More Replies...
Lily Braunekatze 2 years ago
Most if not all of these can be fixed by forming or joining a union. I get fantastic returns on my $100 a month union dues. Workers need to wake up and demand proper treatment and their fair share
Rob Chapman 2 years ago (edited)
Mandatory "unpaid" meetings. Sorry, if you're requiring me to show up, you're paying me, or I'm not showing up. And if you try to write me up for a "no show", you better get ready for a call from the labor board.
Fora Nakit 2 years ago
I hope you guys realize that a big part of these problems are US-only problems.
Anony Mouse 2 years ago
Well that's all this site does - point out US problems, both real and imagined.
Load More Replies... Lily Braunekatze 2 years ago
Most if not all of these can be fixed by forming or joining a union. I get fantastic returns on my $100 a month union dues. Workers need to wake up and demand proper treatment and their fair share
Rob Chapman 2 years ago (edited)
Mandatory "unpaid" meetings. Sorry, if you're requiring me to show up, you're paying me, or I'm not showing up. And if you try to write me up for a "no show", you better get ready for a call from the labor board.
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