Imagine being hired for what sounds like a great job with reasonable hours.

But after you start working, you find out that you’re expected to go to work every weekend. Would you do so without complaint, or would you expect to be paid for these extra hours?

In this story, one new employee is in this exact situation, and he insists on overtime. Keep reading to see how his manager reacts to this unexpected demand.

Just tell my how to log my overtime

I was hired into a state job in a very small IT department – a total of one manager, one other programmer and me. Note that this was in the early 1990s.

It didn’t pay all that well, but the benefits of a state job were good and it was sold to me as an 8 to 5, Monday to Friday position.

Within the first month, though, it was explained to me that I would be required to come in twice on the weekends to change the backup tapes. (This was not mentioned in the hiring process.)

The other programmer had been doing it, but now that I was at the bottom rung of the ladder, the task fell to me.

The task messed up OP’s weekend plans.

There were two large windows in which the tape changes had to take place, and the actual time spent changing the tapes was maybe 15 minutes, tops, but my commute was easily a half hour one way. This meant at least two and a half hours of my weekends had just disappeared.

Worse, my impromptu weekend activities were severely restricted.

Plus, even if I planned ahead, there was always a chance that neither one could to cover for me, and I’d be stuck with it.

A friend gave OP some advice.

Talking with some friends, one pointed out that if the state required me to come in on my days off, there was a minimum time that I was supposed to log into my time sheet. Like even if it only took 15 minutes, I was to enter two or three hours on my time sheet. Actually no one knew the exact amount, but my friend knew there was a minimum.

Enter the Malicious Compliance.

I went back to my manager and innocently asked my manager just exactly how I was to log my overtime when I came in to change the tapes.

She was surprised.

OP refused to let it go.

I pressed the issue. “It’s only 15 minutes a day!”

She was losing it. Apparently she and the other programmer lived close by and never thought it was that big of a deal. Besides as a manager she couldn’t claim overtime, but the other programmer had never claimed any over time hours.

I explained that I would claim at least 30 minutes of overtime every weekend. (Overtime that was probably not in her budget.) Then there was the matter of the minimum time I thought I could claim, but I didn’t know how much.

She dismissed me from her office saying she’d have to look into it.

OP never got the answer to that question, but it must’ve been more than the manager was willing to pay.

Apparently, she found out, because I was told that it would not be my task anymore.

Win!

She never mentioned it again, but I noticed that she was doing the tape changes herself.

Much later l felt bad for the other programmer because there was no telling how many times he had changed the tapes with no extra compensation at all.

But there were consequences.

The fallout was that at my first evaluation at six months, I was given a bad score and demoted.

I hadn’t heard any feed back that she was unhappy with my performance.

I started looking for a new job right then and there.

That manager received my very first resignation letter, and I was excited to hand it over.

A place that expects you to work overtime for free doesn’t sound like a very good place to work. OP’s better off somewhere else.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

One person thinks the manager lied.

This is often true.

One boss shares their feelings about commutes.

Another person points out the hypocrisy here.

That doesn’t sounds like a great place to work.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.