When you work at a hotel, you need to make sure that someone is covering the front desk to ensure guests are properly taken care of.

What would you do if you always had to stay late because your boss showed up late, but then they tried to write you up for excessive overtime?

That is the situation the hotel worker in this story was in, but she made sure the truth came out.

Let’s read all the details.

Who is Really Watching the Clock?

Backstory: I used to work in hotels years ago.

The hotel I worked at has a policy where there must be at least one staff member at the hotel 24/7.

I worked the unenviable but fireproof position of part time front desk and relief night audit so I never knew when I was going to be working.

Now that is a long day.

16 hour shifts were uncommon but expected of me when the main night audit called in sick.

The story: I had a middle manager who got bored and liked to ruffle feathers for entertainment.

Annoying, but I only had to deal with it for 2 to 3 days a week because no one else wants to cover the night audit so I suck it up and deal.

They also love to sleep in and would routinely call in late in the mornings.

This is a horrible way to wake up.

I really couldn’t stand them but they were my boss so after giving the essential information and passed the torch from the night audit to the morning manager and crew, I clocked out promptly and got out of the line of fire.

So I thought.

I get a call waking me up at 11 a.m (because I was sleeping off my graveyard shift that night).

I was told to report to the hotel for a disciplinary meeting that includes middle manager and the general manager of the hotel (my boss’s boss).

Why couldn’t that wait?

I asked them what the meeting was about and they replied that it was due to my excessive use of overtime.

I then asked them if I could come in before my shift that night so that I could actually get some sleep for my next graveyard shift.

They replied that I would have to arrive within the hour (took me 30 minutes to drive to get there) or they would tack on insubordination or some other nonsense to my file as well.

I needed the job for rent so I complied and got to the hotel half asleep.

The middle manager was to blame.

As I am driving, I am trying to figure out how to explain away the nice overtime additions on my paycheck.

Took me a solid 10 minutes but I remembered that the middle manager had yet to actually show up on time for the past month.

That wakes me up more and I show up to the meeting absolutely cheerful and smiling, much to the displeasure of the GM and my boss.

She is hoping that it isn’t discovered that it is because of her.

Boss goes on a tirade about how abusing company time is horrible in many different ways.

I no longer have my big grin but I am also unfazed by the dressing down and let them blow out their steam that was likely put on them by payroll or HR about how my paychecks were getting too fat for their liking.

This is confirmed by a shorter but more professional dressing down by my GM about me costing the company excess money and that I should know better because I run the hotels books.

The punch times and staffing schedule don’t lie.

I calmly state that all of the overtime statements were true and that I would like to compare my punch times to the staffing schedule and the start / end times of the people I was relieving in the evening and who was relieving me in the morning.

I explained to them that I was only staying on until the next crew relieved me and I had sufficient time to brief the incoming crew per the corporate policy of the hotel must be manned 24/7.

They do and see that there is only a 3-5 minute overlap between my shift and the person relieving me.

She knew she was in trouble now.

GM looks mad and middle manager went from smug to looking like they got their hand caught in the cookie jar as their clock ins showed usually 7 ish and sometimes even 7:30 when their start time was 6.

I was then told by the GM that they would reimburse me for the minutes to drive to and from the hotel as well as the duration of the meeting and that the write up was being dropped in light of new information.

Fallout: Middle manager still made my life miserable until I left, but at least they never gave me grief about overtime after that and actually started showing up to work at 6 a.m and not snooze until 7.

My paychecks were less, but at least I got more sleep because I was now better able to beat the morning commute at the end of my shift.

I’m surprised the manager didn’t try to cover it up to protect herself.

Let’s see what the people in the comments think of this story.

I’m curious about this as well.

This seems like a great law.

This person says management was unprofessional.

I bet he wishes he had asked nicely first.

This really is not safe.

That was a jerk move to make her come in during her time off.

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.