Imagine being hired for a job where you think you’re on salary, but then you later find out you’re actually an hourly employee. Would you keep working as usual, or would you find a way to take advantage of the situation?

The salesman in this story uses his knowledge to benefit from being an hourly employee.

Let’s see what he did.

Oh, you’ve made me hourly instead of salary because you’re afraid I’ll stop selling after I hit my commission cap? Should’ve just let me stay home.

Years ago, I was an “inside sales” rep for a simultaneously large and tiny company in a niche market.

The quotes are because it was at least equally outside sales, I just didn’t go outside except to smoke (I’ve since quit).

They had about 50 branches across the country of various sizes.

The smallest was literally one guy who processed local orders and used hot shots for delivery, the largest had about 50 employees. I made 6 for my branch.

He was overqualified compared to all of the other employees.

I was literally the first salesman with a background in anything resembling sales that my branch had ever hired (they’d always hired the least socially awkward industry professionals they could prior to me), and they’d had their CSR doing the selling for over a year until I came on, so expectations were high.

When they hired me, we had somewhat heated negotiations over the comp plan. It was a $42k base salary + commission with a $56k OTE and $65k cap.

I asked what I was meant to do after I hit the cap; to which they replied, “Continue to do your job?” as if I wasn’t going to have a problem with generating new business for free.

He’s not about to work for free.

I said that I was gonna need a bonus structure beyond the cap if they wanted me to do any more hunting after that point. I made it clear that I’d service my accounts when they called, but I wanted to be clear that they were going to be disappointed if they expected me to make outbound calls looking for new business after I’d maxed my comp plan, and that I’d definitely enjoy the extra time at home with my family over the holidays.

They said they understood, and we went through the onboarding.

This isn’t what he agreed to…

I worked almost exactly 40 hours for almost 2 months (early October- early December) before I had jury duty and missed a day.

My check was about $150 light compared to what it had been, so I complained to payroll (benefits kicked in at 90 days).

That’s when I found out I was making $21/hr and was not, in fact, pulling a salary. Presumably, this was to force me into the office, as we didn’t have remote access to the local network that logged our hours, just the ordering/inventory software.

I didn’t get even a prorated Christmas bonus because that counts as “benefits,” and you have to work 90 days to receive those.

Time to change the working hours.

Cue malicious compliance.

I discovered that if I left the house 30 minutes earlier, my 80 minute commute would take less than 25, so instead of showing up around 8:30 and chilling in my car for a bit so I was working at 9, I was there at 7 with the warehouse guy, sending emails.

I started working through lunch as I ate at my desk as opposed to burning an hour off campus or in the break room (I didn’t even realize I was losing an hour/day to lunch )

It was a long time before anyone even noticed how much he had adjusted his hours.

I also discovered that if I stayed til 6:30, I’d get home by 7, as opposed to leaving a little after 5 and getting home around 6:30.

So, I spent an extra 5 hours/wk away from home and worked an extra 22 compared to the 35 I was getting paid for before I figured it out.

With the OT, I was clocking north of $2k more than intended every month, and oddly enough, no one even noticed until the internal auditor verified W2’s and noticed that I made significantly more than the branch manager.

Now they want to switch him to salary.

I didn’t hit my commission cap until late November, so I spent the rest of the year “training” with the tech and/or warehouse guy. Both stoners.

They tried to put me on the same salaried comp plan I’d originally agreed to, but it was enough of a pay cut to qualify for constructive dismissal, so I got to quit and still collect unemployment for a month before I found another gig.

It’s not cool to negotiate a salary and later find out that you’re hourly! Well played clocking all that overtime!

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This company sounds shady.

This is a good question.

He might be able to sue.

This is true.

I’d be upset too!

Nobody wants to work for free.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.