This is how it’s done, folks!

If you only read one malicious compliance story today, this is the one!

Check out what this Reddit user had to say!

This is Not On-call or Overtime Work? Okay!

“I was a programmer working to build up a new department, where I was the only staff member other than my manager.

My manager would talk to clients and I did everything else.

I had about 40 clients with websites getting information from 80ish satellite-communication sensor arrays with up-to-the-minute updates on those web pages (which I also built). I built a whole monitoring system to text or email me if there was an issue.

They had to put in a lot of extra work.

As more clients came online, the notifications of systems being unresponsive or missing data retrieval windows became more frequent, and I had to often log in after hours to fix things. I was mostly doing this because I cared about my work and I knew we were still ironing out issues.

When I would fix things after hours my manager was very stingy, and told me unless it was more than an hour of work at once I should not get paid for that time.

I told him that it was getting to be a lot of little intervals in the evenings and weekends, and I should be paid to be on-call.

He refused to discuss on-call, and even the few times he did get some of the evening time paid out it was my regular hourly rate – no extra pay for overtime.

I also found out a few months later that I was paid over $10k less than the sales people selling the services I created.

This wasn’t cool AT ALL.

So, I confront my manager about the on-call and overtime again. I tell him that my time outside of work is being significantly affected by these after-hours issues (and waking me and my partner up in the middle of the night), and that he needs to pay me to do on-call. I had done this for over a year now, with literally no breaks.

“Well, it’s not really on-call.” He says.

“If something breaks in the evening, if I’m watching for it and then fixing it, what is that?” I ask calmly.

“You just… occasionally see if things are working and fix them if they’re broken, but that is not on-call. That’s just caring about your job while we get things working. We’re not paying you for after-hours work.” He says.

“Okay. I understand.”

It was time to relax.

That weekend, I turn off my phone, since I am not on-call. A system that my system relied on goes down, and all of the data flow stops. Everything comes crashing down.

I turn on my phone Monday morning, and my phone tries to process over 1,100 text notifications and even more emails, and freezes.

I get to work and my manager’s phone is ringing off the hook and I can hear clients yelling at him on the phone.

He’s red like a tomato and freaking out. He demands to know what happened and why it has not been fixed yet.

Beats me!

I reply: “I don’t know. I wasn’t on-call.”

And I walk out of his office to leave him with the angry clients. I quit a month later.”

Check out what folks had to say about this on Reddit.

This person weighed in.

Another individual shared their thoughts.

This Reddit user spoke up.

Another person chimed in.

And this. reader shared a story.

They taught these folks a lesson about how valuable they are to the company!

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.