Everyone knows your break is the best part of a shift, so when bosses start messing with people’s breaks all bets are off!

That’s exactly what happened when this Redditor, who worked in the cafeteria at her university, had her boss constantly deny her breaks during her shifts. Look how they got back at her!

Manager kept “forgetting” my break

I worked in a cafeteria on campus at my university. The manager used to sit in her office on the phone or just disappear for long periods of time.

I didn’t mind because I liked my other coworkers and she left us alone to do our thing.

I always volunteered to do the closing shift because the owner let me take home all the leftover food, it basically kept me and my housemates alive and we were very grateful.

Free food at the end of every shift? Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me, even if it is cafeteria food!

The problem was, on a 5 hour or longer shift, you had to take a 30 minute break.

I’d always ask when mine was but she’d always say later, we’re too busy.

I’d usually end up just working the whole 5 hours.

I don’t know if I would have given up my break so easily but as it turns out that wasn’t even the worst part of the whole thing!

I didn’t mind until I realised she was only paying me for 4.5!

I asked her about it and she said if I didn’t take my breaks that wasn’t her problem.

Cue malicious compliance.

Now it wasn’t only their break at stake, but their money too! Luckily for them, their next shift was perfect for showing their boss not to mess with them.

My next closing shift was 4.5 hours of opening hours and finished 30 minutes after closing.

Everyone else went at 7 and I stayed back by myself to clean everything in 30 minutes.

They even gave their boss a chance to make things right, asking them again the simple question of if they could finally take their break.

The entire shift I kept asking her if I could take my break and she kept saying no.

So, at 7, I took my apron off and walked out, saying I’ll be taking my break now since we were too busy before.

I sat in the cafeteria and watched her clean that entire place.

It took her well over an hour.

The next day she had a break schedule up!

Looks like some people never learn until they have to do something themselves! Reddit loved her revenge, but almost everyone told her how illegal it was for her manager to only pay her 4.5 hours!

Another user shared a less than legal way they got back at their boss for a similar situation!

And her story even inspired some people to go back and see if they could get justice for their own experience of wage theft!

Seems like Reddit agrees.

It was awesome to make her clean the whole cafeteria, but this user needs to get their money back ASAP!

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.