December 14, 2023 at 1:58 pm

New Manager Denies Employee Extra Pay So They Demand To Get Flown Home Every Weekend Instead. – ‘You only get 5 days of allowances.’

by Matthew Gilligan

Source: Reddit/AITA/@dunder_mifflin_paper

If you’ve ever been screwed out of money before at a job, this story will be very satisfying for you!

Because if there’s one thing you should never play around with, it’s someone else’s hard-earned money.

It all started in Australia…

Won’t pay allowances, then fly me home.

“I once built electrical substations in Australia.

The rules about how this all worked were clear.

These jobs were mostly away from home and included some hefty tax free allowances.

We would typically be there for a short amount of time and have to pay short term accommodation costs (which were high) in a motel and eat in restaurants / get takeaway as there were no kitchens.

The rate was 130 a day (910) a week and the incentive was that you could keep what you don’t spend.

But someone had other ideas.

Enter project manager.

“You’re only working 5 days a week so you only get 5 days of allowances”.

Ok PM then what happens on weekends where I’m still in a motel 7 hrs drive from home.

“Not my problem”.

So they laid down the law.

I ring head office in front of PM and say “I’m going to need Taxi to the airport on Friday, flights and Taxi home in city and then a return journey on Monday, which means I should get to site lunch time on Monday.”

PM gets mad and tries to have his cake and eat it.

Head office asks PM what he’s thinking as standard procedure is to pay weekends and maximise time on site (PM did not want to pay OT).

And it all worked out for them!

Long story short is I get 7 days allowance, meet a mature age apprentice on site and offer to pay half his & Gfs rent (200 a week) they both don’t get paid much so I also buy half groceries.

Result is cheap rent, cheap well prepared meals and somewhere to chill on when not Working.

They even added a bonus story on about their job for readers to enjoy!

Special bonus story.

The site was actually two sites and I was running the bigger one as it was less complex and the foreman ran the other one. Every Saturday we would collect a few dollars each and put on a BBQ at each location. Foreman was tight as F and used to buy cheap meat and buns for his side.

I used to reach into my own pocket to make up the difference and get the apprentice to buy top quality eye fillet and nice fresh bakery buns, avocado and all the trimmings.

Showed them!

Everyone would them come back to big site (mine) for the Saturday safety meeting. Other site team would see left over eye fillets, smashed avocado spread and 3x drinks in ice. All the big site guys are sitting straining under their 2x eyefillet burgers and sodas. Cue other Foreman getting **** for buying cheap meat and no salad/sauces.

Ahhhh good times. Seriously that site was stressful as ****, these small things gave the team a laugh and too the pressure off.”

Now let’s see what people had to say.

One person shared their own work story.

Source: Reddit/AITA

This individual has met project managers like this before.

Source: Reddit/AITA

Another reader talked about good and bad bosses.

Source: Reddit/AITA

And this Reddit user shared how they handled a similar situation.

Source: Reddit/AITA

Sounds like this person really knew what they were doing.

You gotta love it!

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