“Can’t Approve Overtime? Ok”: Employee Leaves Work During An Emergency Because Manager Wouldn’t Approve His Overtime
In most cases, employees must receive overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek at a rate not less than 1.5 of their regular pay.
Additionally, companies should have an overtime authorization process and inform overtime-eligible employees that they must obtain advance supervisory approval to work more than their schedule requires. These workers must be paid for all extra hours, whether overtime has been approved or not, however, those who putting in unauthorized overtime may be subject to corrective action.
But practice often differs from theory. And this was the case with Reddit user Young-Grandpa when he worked a couple of decades ago as a technician.
After an unfortunate set of circumstances, he was left to do the jobs of 4 people. As you can imagine, he couldn’t complete all the tasks in 8 hours. However, even though his boss was very pleased with the way the employee managed the workload, they refused to approve the overtime and offered for him to clock out early the next day.
Young-Grandpa agreed. And did so when he was needed the most.
This technician carried the workload of 4 people, but his boss refused to approve his overtime
Image credits: Mitchell Luo (not the actual photo)
Which prompted savage malicious compliance
Image credits: Dylan Gillis (not the actual photo)
We managed to get in touch with Young-Grandpa, and he was kind enough to summarize the context of the whole ordeal for us. “At the time of the incident, I had been with the company about 4-5 years,” the Redditor told Bored Panda. “I’ve stayed there and made a career. I should be retiring in about 5 more years.”
The employee also highlighted that he doesn’t blame his boss for what happened. “That was one of the best supervisors I’ve had. I worked with him for about 5 years and we’ve remained friends ever since,” he said. “The overtime ban was not his idea, it was a corporate mandate. I had actually put him in a tough spot by working it and that’s why I agreed to the compromise of leaving early on a different day. I would have preferred the extra pay.”
“The only rules I broke were working through lunch and working unapproved overtime. Thanks in part to a strong union, and a reasonable manager, I faced no repercussions of any kind,” Young-Grandpa explained the aftermath of the incident.
“They did loosen up on the overtime ban and allowed the first-level managers some leeway in managing their workforce. In turn, this allowed my manager to give me the leeway to make reasonable decisions regarding my time. He knew I generally made good decisions and was not happy about having to deny the overtime. In fact, when he left the position a few years later, he recommended me for the job—while warning me against it,” he said, laughing.
Just like Young-Grandpa, most people aren’t thrilled with the idea of working more hours than they should, and for very good reason. Overtime comes with a whole bouquet of problems, and can be symptomatic of:
- An overstretched workforce. If the higher-ups have to ask employees to put in extra hours, surely that’s a sign they simply don’t have enough resources;
- Poor project estimation or time management. Overtime suggests that bosses underestimated the time a project or task would need at the scoping stage, or that they didn’t allow employees enough time to focus on it in addition to their other work;
- Unrealistic client expectations. Having to work overtime can also occur when clients aren’t aware of the time the job takes, aren’t clear that a brief has been finalized, or put pressure on the worker to complete projects in unreasonable time spans;
- Communication breakdown. Overtime can also indicate wider communication issues. Needing more hands on deck suggests that no one is imposing proper work boundaries or setting realistic expectations – or if they are, they aren’t doing a good job of it;
- Toxic company culture. Many workplaces promote a culture of staying late, beyond contractual working hours. It leads to the problem of presenteeism, where employees think they have to put in extra effort – and be noticed doing so – if they want to succeed.
At the end of the day, overtime is very often a result of poor leadership. When it grows into a structural problem, it can breed employee resentment, distrust, and ultimately disengagement, harming the company on a pretty big scale.
In fact, there’s plenty of research that suggests overwork does not help anyone. For starters, it doesn’t seem to produce more output. In a study of consultants by Erin Reid, a professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, managers could not tell the difference between employees who actually worked 80 hours a week and those who just pretended to. While managers did penalize employees who were transparent about working less, Reid couldn’t find any evidence that those employees actually accomplished less or any sign that the overworking employees accomplished more.
Additionally, numerous studies by Marianna Virtanen of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and her colleagues (as well as other studies) have found that overwork and the resulting stress can lead to all sorts of health problems, including impaired sleep, depression, heavy drinking, diabetes, impaired memory, and heart disease.
The companies probably aren’t winning much either, as overtime increases absenteeism, turnover, and rising health insurance costs.
Hopefully, that very bad server malfunction has taught the company in which Young-Grandpa worked why overtime isn’t the answer.
As the story went viral, the original poster (OP) provided more info about what happened in the discussion that followed
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In that scenario, I would have approved the overtime, explained it to my boss, and taken the heat. BUT. I am baffled by the people in the comments - here and on the post - suggesting that the manager DID have the authority and that somehow the money would end up in the pockets of the managers. I don't know the structure of his work, but at mine, I'm a manager and I absolutely DO NOT have that authority. Like I said, I would have done it anyway and taken the heat and explained it to *my* boss, but it's not crazy to think a middle manager might not have that authority. And to suggest that they're getting some kind of kickback from the unused money? lol no. My salary remains the same no matter what. Granted, I work for a place where it's super structured and more regulated, so YMMV, but not all managers are evil people. Some of us are just trying to pay our bills and advocate for our people while also keeping our bosses happy, just like everyone else in this world.
It is generally the norm for OT to be approved ahead of time. I find it interesting how people view lower level managers as being able to do whatever they want. It doesn't work that way. There is certain direction coming from above. Managers may once in a blue moon make a decision against the upper management direction but if done too often. They not only get the heat for it, eventually will be without a job. Because you will be considered a non-team player because you don't follow upper management rules. The money saved goes towards the bottom line. If expectations are met or succeeded, the shareholders actually get the money or it goes towards the upper managements bonsuses.
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This is a large part of what's driving the mass resignations. Workforce teams are often short-handed, and yet they don't want to pay OT. They just expect their employees to get everything done within their 8 hour day; despite the fact that they may be 1-2 people short. If you've ever been in this situation, you know that the extra workload isn't spread evenly; it's 1-2 people doing ALL the extra work for NO extra compensation. Then eventually another person gets fed up and quits, which exacerbates the problem. Or they're forced to pay more than others' are making to get someone in the door; and eventually that's found out, and the other employees are furious and quit. Now you see why unionization is picking up. It's sickening that these companies are actually saving money being short-handed, and want to keep it all to themselves while working their people to death.
I am currently dealing with something like this at my work. You have to get permission from your supervisor to come in early but we have a perpetually short staffed kitchen. A fellow cook asked me if I could come in a half hour early and after texting my manager and him agreeing I did. I went to check my hours at the end of the pay period and the business manager had gone in and manually taken that extra half hour off! Which even if I hadn't been approved to clock on I don't think they are legally allowed to do. They can write me up for doing something without my supervisor's permission, but that doesn't change the fact that I worked that time and am entitled to compensation. My manager has said he will talk to them, but I started with this company six months ago and this isn't the first time they've cut corners. They haven't done something so blatantly against labor laws to me before though.
Yeah, if you're in the US that's very illegal, but they bank on you not being willing or able to sue over it. Might be a good idea to look for another job.
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If I was the manager of an employee who worked that hard, I would have never been afraid to have his/her back when they are in the right. My work philosophy has always been, if you don’t pay me, I’m not going to work. I’m not here for my health or recreation. I’ve seen companies worry so much about overtime that they won’t even consider that their policy is actually costing the firm more than the overtime would. Even when you show them the math. Even when the proof is right in front of their faces.
I drove forklifts all through the '90s, first at a big-box club and later at a distribution center. I almost never worked a 40-hour week. At the second job, overtime was often mandatory for months at a time. At the first job, no one ever told me I had to stay, but I had no life and the overtime probably made me their most expensive hourly. Then one week there was a crackdown: they wanted to keep everyone under 40 hours. After a couple of days of kicking the night crew out on time, things were falling behind pretty badly, and one night manager had quite a lot of freight on the floor at opening time. He begged me to stay and help clean it up, but I told him I couldn't do it. The overtime ban ended after that. That manager was a friend of mine and felt a little let down by the stand I took, but we got past it. And that is my only malicious compliance story.
Law is clear. "Non-exempt" employee works more than 40 in a week, you pay them 1.5x for every hour over forty. You can't "approve" overtime? Your employee doesn't work a minute over 40 hours.
Interestingly "computer employees" have their own subpart that addresses their exempt status but I don't think that applies here. Also "computer employees" is really weird phrasing
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Working hardware repair for an IT department in a ~20,000 user environment, corporate decided that those techs were taking advantage of salaried positions' lack of needing to clock in/out and were "stealing time" from the company. Every non-manager/senior tech and admin got put on hourly, at a rate that matched our current pay at 40 hours per week, and we could only have 1 hour of OT each week without executive-level approval. And then 90 days later we were reverted. The cost analysis deduced that they were actually losing about 10 man-hours PER employee, because most people were working 10+ hour days just to get all the work done. We were originally upset about getting moved to hourly, but once we realized how much time we were getting back for the same pay, we were pretty happy. Company moral had never been higher, until they reverted us back to salary. 90% of employees left within 9 months, & they're paying 3x as many people to replace them.
So funny I am in a situation where we are having global night meetings however our company gets around OT by making everyone salary. I am working modified hours from 11am to 8pm....but of course the meeting went over 1.5 hours last night so for every half hour the meeting went past 8pm I added a half hour to the next day where I am not coming into work. Which is today. It's 927am and I am writing this post, I won't be starting work until 1230pm.
Govt really needs to crack down on this. Salary is meant for really specific job types, and I'm seeing more and more positions that are low paying "entry level" salary positions...those two should never be part of the same job
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I worked job where overtime was paid but when busy and most of us putting 3hours a day overtime the manager would get on us about have to take a lunch break and it has to be done before certain time. Then saying but we did not have to take paid coffee breaks. But good thing we later found out if your work 3 hour overtime your entitled to a 3rd paid coffee break but only took it like 50% of time just because I had to go home eat them maybe watch hour t.v and go to bed and do all over the next day.
There's no "T" like OT. If you're payin' I'm stayin'. I worked at a TV station as an editor but knew all the jobs there. I was able to save for a downpayment on my home by working a lot of OT in a union shop. I worked evening and overnight so I was able to spend time with my young daughter as well. I was one of the only people who didn't have their OT questioned and was able to mostly make my own hours
I have said it for years and stand by it, though there's obviously a need... the world went to c**p when we let accountants run it. Be it instances like this, 12-hour shifts to eliminate an extra person (in high pressure positions and roles performance drops off markedly past 8-hours), or customers receiving poor service or products it damages the workforce and GDP when the primary focus is cutting costs to increase profitability. Quality and efficiency shouldn't be sacrificed for profits.
I used to work in the airlines in ramp, counter, gate, and air freight positions in a union shop. Management eventually figured out that when people worked more than 8 hours/day (more or less), the error and injury rate went up quite a bit. This was especially true during bad weather, multiple cancellation days, or the stretch between the week before Thanksgiving until about a week after New Year's when the stress and workload really ramped up. Like it or not, that's the way it is. People get tired, mentally and physically. All the coffee in the world won't change that.
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The title portrays the manager as the antagonist, but that really wasn't the case. It's quite misleading.
It is? Forcing someone to do the work of four people is misleading? What's misleading is saying to an employee that you can't approve OT, just to pull the authority out of one's a*s a moment later going "oh yeah, I can approve OT because the employee called my bluff". The manager was caught red handed lying.
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I was either the NDPSC or CMAC tech on that call... he's absolutely right we had an OT moratorium for about a year after we were purchased by a different telecommunications company. The screw up was he worked it without prior approval during a moratorium. My department was one of the few who it didn't apply to due to understaffing. His boss could have been terminated for letting him work that OT without director level approval. I don't know if it was the exact same call, but I had a guy who had to go and we had to wait for a floater from another CO to cover.
I was told I had to have the OT approved ahead of time (Like beginning of the shift) now how would you know. So, when it was time for OT I would tell them I didn't know I would need OT and hadn't got it approved at 9AM.
Years ago I was the only one in my small IT department who could manage the mainframe operating system. We were about to have a completely new third-party op system installed over a weekend with me supporting the vendor's techs. Company revenue depended on whole new system working on Monday. I was hourly, looking at huge OT for this. Manager called me into his office to congratulate me on changing from hourly to salaried, so he wouldn't have to approve the OT. Worked out in my favor in the long run, as it took the cap off my salary range, and I took it off in random comp time over the next year.
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Management are forever trying to save "costs." I worked for a small company who asked me to take a training for a new system. The training session was to be in Lubbock, TX for a week (lived/worked near Seattle). The comptroller asked me to take my accrued vacation for that week. Probably illegal ... though he promised that the vacation time will be re-entered into the payroll system (I had serious doubts about that, but don't know since I refused that training & arrangement). I hate people who rise to the "management" position for penny pinching. Left that company soon after ... long story to that one, but it cost them a lot to lose me.
Find it exceptionally hard to believe one person doing 4 people's work. If this is true they are not very busy workers. FACT
In some positions, the speed at which you can get work done is directly related to the work methods you are able to create. I can imagine one person with high experience, great skills, careful analysis of what's needed and what's not, plus creative approaches, doing the work of four - or, conversely, doing their own work satisfactorily but in far less time than management realizes.
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I'm kinda struck by the hour lunch break and two 15 minute breaks: a friend who until received worked in IT support got the same and it'd be weird having "complaining about work" conversations where I'd b***h about getting a 5 minute break in a six hour shift and an unpaid half hour lunch break in an eight hour shift and he'd be complaining about being bored while basically working 6 1/2 hours out of an eight hour shift getting paid at least twice as much as me. The maths is off on "spent 9 hours doing the work of 4 people (32 hours worth of work)" not just because 4x9 isn't 32 but because from knowing multiple IT guys some days they do the work of at best half a person. It's a bit like that in all jobs: some days hectic, other days snoozy, still get paid the same and this story makes this one day seem like a one off...so, kinda...so what? You had one really busy day 30 years ago? Lastly, the part about "only taking half my lunch break so I could leave earlier" just seems greasy af
Continuing from my first post. Comments, making me believe you choose to do the work without first making sure you will be paid for overtime or maybe other reasons. To me you sound like you are a mole for the company or you are management. I work with people just like you every day. They complain about having to cover for call ins and do their own jobs, yet they work it every time. Also, have those who claims to be with us but run to management with everything to work against the union. I believe you management or a mole.
Young-grandpa, I have read the article and all your responses to the comments and I have come up with a couple opinions. First, I have been in the Union for twelve years and a committee person for six of them. You say your supervisor told you overtime was not approved, well, did he tell you that before you did the job of four people at the beginning of your shift or at the end of the shift? Had he told you at the beginning, then it's on you for working over your scheduled time but if he waited until after then your supervisor already knew this prior to the event and he screwed you intentionally by not informing you first and giving you the choice of working overtime or not. Next, you defend him and say he couldn't authorize overtime because it was corporate policy, yet he authorized you to stay in the first place so, he must have been trying to screw you to begin with, hoping you would do it without compensation. You actually defend your supervisor and at multiple points in the commen
Amazing how first world problems go. In Brazil missing lunch or leaving one hour later is just a tuesday. Not that I think that is OK, but you guys live in a shinny pink bubble. In Sao Paulo this story would never reach the news, especially if it took place 20 years ago.
It's the same here. People are just finally talking about it openly and pushing back is less stigmatized. We have a real problem culture of glorifying overwork and exploitation that these kind of discussions are trying to move the needle on. The latest media reports on "quiet quitting" and productivity drops are just a mass of underpaid workers saying enough, were only going to do work we are paid for, and being vilified by corporations for it, as if we're supposed to joyfully work unlimited hours for free forever.
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I just think if 1 person can do 32 hours of work in 9 hours then it is NOT 32 hours of work. Maybe the coworkers are just slackers. I certainly would not expect to see 350%+ efficiency ever and if I did then something is wrong.
Did the work of the entire department with only one hour overtime worked? Wow, good job man. I do like the comment later where someone's like "your biggest mistake was blah blah" and he says "no, my biggest mistake was two years later when I took the manager's job". Isn't that just the way of things. I worked for a telecom company about the same time, and everything I read here is believable.
I've worked plenty of jobs where there was one key person who did most of the work and the others were basically placeholders to answer phones and emails. Also he did say he only covered the time sensitive stuff and left any work that could wait.
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My company had something like a t3 connection years ago, pretty sure someone told me you needed a special licence to have such a fast connection 20 odd years ago.
Like that last comment says, those manager "I ****ed up!" moments are my favorite part of malicious compliance stories. Oh so you CAN pay me...you just didn't WANT to huh.
No, honestly, if this is the company I think it is that manager could have lost his job over this. Huge telecom is like that.
Load More Replies... A lot of first line managers don't get bonsuses. It's usually the next level and up.
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Salaried employees usually don't get overtime. And if one guy can "do the work of four people", then it's really just the work of one person, and they've been over-employing under-performing people up to that point.
If you did 32 hours of work in 8, sounds like you have 3 too many employees... Union people and their unrealistic idea of what a hard days work means. If you have 1 guy who can do the work that 4 people normally do in a day, it sounds like you could do with 2-3 less employees and get the same productivity simply by making those union snowflakes do an honest days work.
The person stated that he performed the other three employee's high priority tasks, not all those that the person normally does during their shift.
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Poor kids are being taught that their employer is their mortal enemy. Gonna be some tough lessons forthcoming
Yeah. Companies are going to learn that exploitative employment practices aren't sustainable and create adversarial working relationships.
Load More Replies... In that scenario, I would have approved the overtime, explained it to my boss, and taken the heat. BUT. I am baffled by the people in the comments - here and on the post - suggesting that the manager DID have the authority and that somehow the money would end up in the pockets of the managers. I don't know the structure of his work, but at mine, I'm a manager and I absolutely DO NOT have that authority. Like I said, I would have done it anyway and taken the heat and explained it to *my* boss, but it's not crazy to think a middle manager might not have that authority. And to suggest that they're getting some kind of kickback from the unused money? lol no. My salary remains the same no matter what. Granted, I work for a place where it's super structured and more regulated, so YMMV, but not all managers are evil people. Some of us are just trying to pay our bills and advocate for our people while also keeping our bosses happy, just like everyone else in this world.
It is generally the norm for OT to be approved ahead of time. I find it interesting how people view lower level managers as being able to do whatever they want. It doesn't work that way. There is certain direction coming from above. Managers may once in a blue moon make a decision against the upper management direction but if done too often. They not only get the heat for it, eventually will be without a job. Because you will be considered a non-team player because you don't follow upper management rules. The money saved goes towards the bottom line. If expectations are met or succeeded, the shareholders actually get the money or it goes towards the upper managements bonsuses.
Load More Replies... This is a large part of what's driving the mass resignations. Workforce teams are often short-handed, and yet they don't want to pay OT. They just expect their employees to get everything done within their 8 hour day; despite the fact that they may be 1-2 people short. If you've ever been in this situation, you know that the extra workload isn't spread evenly; it's 1-2 people doing ALL the extra work for NO extra compensation. Then eventually another person gets fed up and quits, which exacerbates the problem. Or they're forced to pay more than others' are making to get someone in the door; and eventually that's found out, and the other employees are furious and quit. Now you see why unionization is picking up. It's sickening that these companies are actually saving money being short-handed, and want to keep it all to themselves while working their people to death.
I am currently dealing with something like this at my work. You have to get permission from your supervisor to come in early but we have a perpetually short staffed kitchen. A fellow cook asked me if I could come in a half hour early and after texting my manager and him agreeing I did. I went to check my hours at the end of the pay period and the business manager had gone in and manually taken that extra half hour off! Which even if I hadn't been approved to clock on I don't think they are legally allowed to do. They can write me up for doing something without my supervisor's permission, but that doesn't change the fact that I worked that time and am entitled to compensation. My manager has said he will talk to them, but I started with this company six months ago and this isn't the first time they've cut corners. They haven't done something so blatantly against labor laws to me before though.
Yeah, if you're in the US that's very illegal, but they bank on you not being willing or able to sue over it. Might be a good idea to look for another job.
Load More Replies... If I was the manager of an employee who worked that hard, I would have never been afraid to have his/her back when they are in the right. My work philosophy has always been, if you don’t pay me, I’m not going to work. I’m not here for my health or recreation. I’ve seen companies worry so much about overtime that they won’t even consider that their policy is actually costing the firm more than the overtime would. Even when you show them the math. Even when the proof is right in front of their faces.
I drove forklifts all through the '90s, first at a big-box club and later at a distribution center. I almost never worked a 40-hour week. At the second job, overtime was often mandatory for months at a time. At the first job, no one ever told me I had to stay, but I had no life and the overtime probably made me their most expensive hourly. Then one week there was a crackdown: they wanted to keep everyone under 40 hours. After a couple of days of kicking the night crew out on time, things were falling behind pretty badly, and one night manager had quite a lot of freight on the floor at opening time. He begged me to stay and help clean it up, but I told him I couldn't do it. The overtime ban ended after that. That manager was a friend of mine and felt a little let down by the stand I took, but we got past it. And that is my only malicious compliance story.
Law is clear. "Non-exempt" employee works more than 40 in a week, you pay them 1.5x for every hour over forty. You can't "approve" overtime? Your employee doesn't work a minute over 40 hours.
Interestingly "computer employees" have their own subpart that addresses their exempt status but I don't think that applies here. Also "computer employees" is really weird phrasing
Load More Replies... Working hardware repair for an IT department in a ~20,000 user environment, corporate decided that those techs were taking advantage of salaried positions' lack of needing to clock in/out and were "stealing time" from the company. Every non-manager/senior tech and admin got put on hourly, at a rate that matched our current pay at 40 hours per week, and we could only have 1 hour of OT each week without executive-level approval. And then 90 days later we were reverted. The cost analysis deduced that they were actually losing about 10 man-hours PER employee, because most people were working 10+ hour days just to get all the work done. We were originally upset about getting moved to hourly, but once we realized how much time we were getting back for the same pay, we were pretty happy. Company moral had never been higher, until they reverted us back to salary. 90% of employees left within 9 months, & they're paying 3x as many people to replace them.
So funny I am in a situation where we are having global night meetings however our company gets around OT by making everyone salary. I am working modified hours from 11am to 8pm....but of course the meeting went over 1.5 hours last night so for every half hour the meeting went past 8pm I added a half hour to the next day where I am not coming into work. Which is today. It's 927am and I am writing this post, I won't be starting work until 1230pm.
Govt really needs to crack down on this. Salary is meant for really specific job types, and I'm seeing more and more positions that are low paying "entry level" salary positions...those two should never be part of the same job
Load More Replies... I worked job where overtime was paid but when busy and most of us putting 3hours a day overtime the manager would get on us about have to take a lunch break and it has to be done before certain time. Then saying but we did not have to take paid coffee breaks. But good thing we later found out if your work 3 hour overtime your entitled to a 3rd paid coffee break but only took it like 50% of time just because I had to go home eat them maybe watch hour t.v and go to bed and do all over the next day.
There's no "T" like OT. If you're payin' I'm stayin'. I worked at a TV station as an editor but knew all the jobs there. I was able to save for a downpayment on my home by working a lot of OT in a union shop. I worked evening and overnight so I was able to spend time with my young daughter as well. I was one of the only people who didn't have their OT questioned and was able to mostly make my own hours
I have said it for years and stand by it, though there's obviously a need... the world went to c**p when we let accountants run it. Be it instances like this, 12-hour shifts to eliminate an extra person (in high pressure positions and roles performance drops off markedly past 8-hours), or customers receiving poor service or products it damages the workforce and GDP when the primary focus is cutting costs to increase profitability. Quality and efficiency shouldn't be sacrificed for profits.
I used to work in the airlines in ramp, counter, gate, and air freight positions in a union shop. Management eventually figured out that when people worked more than 8 hours/day (more or less), the error and injury rate went up quite a bit. This was especially true during bad weather, multiple cancellation days, or the stretch between the week before Thanksgiving until about a week after New Year's when the stress and workload really ramped up. Like it or not, that's the way it is. People get tired, mentally and physically. All the coffee in the world won't change that.
Load More Replies... The title portrays the manager as the antagonist, but that really wasn't the case. It's quite misleading.
It is? Forcing someone to do the work of four people is misleading? What's misleading is saying to an employee that you can't approve OT, just to pull the authority out of one's a*s a moment later going "oh yeah, I can approve OT because the employee called my bluff". The manager was caught red handed lying.
Load More Replies... I was either the NDPSC or CMAC tech on that call... he's absolutely right we had an OT moratorium for about a year after we were purchased by a different telecommunications company. The screw up was he worked it without prior approval during a moratorium. My department was one of the few who it didn't apply to due to understaffing. His boss could have been terminated for letting him work that OT without director level approval. I don't know if it was the exact same call, but I had a guy who had to go and we had to wait for a floater from another CO to cover.
I was told I had to have the OT approved ahead of time (Like beginning of the shift) now how would you know. So, when it was time for OT I would tell them I didn't know I would need OT and hadn't got it approved at 9AM.
Years ago I was the only one in my small IT department who could manage the mainframe operating system. We were about to have a completely new third-party op system installed over a weekend with me supporting the vendor's techs. Company revenue depended on whole new system working on Monday. I was hourly, looking at huge OT for this. Manager called me into his office to congratulate me on changing from hourly to salaried, so he wouldn't have to approve the OT. Worked out in my favor in the long run, as it took the cap off my salary range, and I took it off in random comp time over the next year.
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Management are forever trying to save "costs." I worked for a small company who asked me to take a training for a new system. The training session was to be in Lubbock, TX for a week (lived/worked near Seattle). The comptroller asked me to take my accrued vacation for that week. Probably illegal ... though he promised that the vacation time will be re-entered into the payroll system (I had serious doubts about that, but don't know since I refused that training & arrangement). I hate people who rise to the "management" position for penny pinching. Left that company soon after ... long story to that one, but it cost them a lot to lose me.
Find it exceptionally hard to believe one person doing 4 people's work. If this is true they are not very busy workers. FACT
In some positions, the speed at which you can get work done is directly related to the work methods you are able to create. I can imagine one person with high experience, great skills, careful analysis of what's needed and what's not, plus creative approaches, doing the work of four - or, conversely, doing their own work satisfactorily but in far less time than management realizes.
Load More Replies... I'm kinda struck by the hour lunch break and two 15 minute breaks: a friend who until received worked in IT support got the same and it'd be weird having "complaining about work" conversations where I'd b***h about getting a 5 minute break in a six hour shift and an unpaid half hour lunch break in an eight hour shift and he'd be complaining about being bored while basically working 6 1/2 hours out of an eight hour shift getting paid at least twice as much as me. The maths is off on "spent 9 hours doing the work of 4 people (32 hours worth of work)" not just because 4x9 isn't 32 but because from knowing multiple IT guys some days they do the work of at best half a person. It's a bit like that in all jobs: some days hectic, other days snoozy, still get paid the same and this story makes this one day seem like a one off...so, kinda...so what? You had one really busy day 30 years ago? Lastly, the part about "only taking half my lunch break so I could leave earlier" just seems greasy af
Continuing from my first post. Comments, making me believe you choose to do the work without first making sure you will be paid for overtime or maybe other reasons. To me you sound like you are a mole for the company or you are management. I work with people just like you every day. They complain about having to cover for call ins and do their own jobs, yet they work it every time. Also, have those who claims to be with us but run to management with everything to work against the union. I believe you management or a mole.
Young-grandpa, I have read the article and all your responses to the comments and I have come up with a couple opinions. First, I have been in the Union for twelve years and a committee person for six of them. You say your supervisor told you overtime was not approved, well, did he tell you that before you did the job of four people at the beginning of your shift or at the end of the shift? Had he told you at the beginning, then it's on you for working over your scheduled time but if he waited until after then your supervisor already knew this prior to the event and he screwed you intentionally by not informing you first and giving you the choice of working overtime or not. Next, you defend him and say he couldn't authorize overtime because it was corporate policy, yet he authorized you to stay in the first place so, he must have been trying to screw you to begin with, hoping you would do it without compensation. You actually defend your supervisor and at multiple points in the commen
Amazing how first world problems go. In Brazil missing lunch or leaving one hour later is just a tuesday. Not that I think that is OK, but you guys live in a shinny pink bubble. In Sao Paulo this story would never reach the news, especially if it took place 20 years ago.
It's the same here. People are just finally talking about it openly and pushing back is less stigmatized. We have a real problem culture of glorifying overwork and exploitation that these kind of discussions are trying to move the needle on. The latest media reports on "quiet quitting" and productivity drops are just a mass of underpaid workers saying enough, were only going to do work we are paid for, and being vilified by corporations for it, as if we're supposed to joyfully work unlimited hours for free forever.
Load More Replies... I just think if 1 person can do 32 hours of work in 9 hours then it is NOT 32 hours of work. Maybe the coworkers are just slackers. I certainly would not expect to see 350%+ efficiency ever and if I did then something is wrong.
Did the work of the entire department with only one hour overtime worked? Wow, good job man. I do like the comment later where someone's like "your biggest mistake was blah blah" and he says "no, my biggest mistake was two years later when I took the manager's job". Isn't that just the way of things. I worked for a telecom company about the same time, and everything I read here is believable.
I've worked plenty of jobs where there was one key person who did most of the work and the others were basically placeholders to answer phones and emails. Also he did say he only covered the time sensitive stuff and left any work that could wait.
Load More Replies... My company had something like a t3 connection years ago, pretty sure someone told me you needed a special licence to have such a fast connection 20 odd years ago.
Like that last comment says, those manager "I ****ed up!" moments are my favorite part of malicious compliance stories. Oh so you CAN pay me...you just didn't WANT to huh.
No, honestly, if this is the company I think it is that manager could have lost his job over this. Huge telecom is like that.
Load More Replies... A lot of first line managers don't get bonsuses. It's usually the next level and up.
Load More Replies... Salaried employees usually don't get overtime. And if one guy can "do the work of four people", then it's really just the work of one person, and they've been over-employing under-performing people up to that point.
If you did 32 hours of work in 8, sounds like you have 3 too many employees... Union people and their unrealistic idea of what a hard days work means. If you have 1 guy who can do the work that 4 people normally do in a day, it sounds like you could do with 2-3 less employees and get the same productivity simply by making those union snowflakes do an honest days work.
The person stated that he performed the other three employee's high priority tasks, not all those that the person normally does during their shift.
Load More Replies... Poor kids are being taught that their employer is their mortal enemy. Gonna be some tough lessons forthcoming
Yeah. Companies are going to learn that exploitative employment practices aren't sustainable and create adversarial working relationships.
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