Imagine working for a boss who doesn’t want to pay you any overtime. If you couldn’t finish all of your work during your shift, would you work overtime anyway, or would you leave as soon as your shift was over?

In this story, the employees are told not to work overtime, so they refuse to work even one minute longer than their shift.

Keep reading to find out what happens when the boss needs help.

Can’t get paid overtime? Don’t call us outside of work hours.

For the longest time working at the previous Home Health, I’ve noticed some coworkers would work couple of minutes past end of the shift. From my understanding, this was to prevent any field agents contacting whoever is on call until the next day.

Now quick backstory… the person on call is the boss, aka OWNER, DON, ADMIN, ETC.

One day, we had a conference meeting that the boss wasn’t happy some of us were working past work hours and makes a statement to clock out exactly at the time we close for the day.

Of course that meant she refuses paying us overtime if we’re working over 8 hours.

It didn’t go well when the boss had to take a call.

So since our work hours are from Mon – Fri 8 hours each day, we have to make the best of it being productive within those hours.

Why emphasis about the days and hours you ask…? Since the calls have been transferred to on call, which is the boss, this also means she’s responsible taking calls until office opens.

You’d think she’d know the basic knowledge what to say or instruct when someone calls…. wrong. She’d basically call one of us late at night to assist her with any issue and it usually takes 1-2 hours tops to finish assisting the issue.

Here’s the malicious compliance.

The boss had to call OP for help.

One day, half of the coworkers were on vacation and we’re understaffed. We finished work for the day and transferred calls to the boss.

At this time, I wasn’t feeling so good and I wanted to rest for remainder of the evening.

It wasn’t even 8pm and I received a call from my boss.

Me: Hello, ma’am?

Boss: Oh good! I’m able to reach you on time.

I’m proud of OP for standing up for themselves.

Me: Ok. What’s wrong?

Boss: I need you to call this patient and…

Me: I’m sorry… I cannot do that at this time. I will follow up in the morning.

Boss: No! This needs to be done NOW!!

Me: I understand, ma’am. But I cannot work outside hours as you officially said. I will follow up on this patient in the morning.

Stuck up and wanting to be paid are not the same thing.

Boss: I DID NOT PAY YOU TO BE STUCK UP!! NOW HELP ME OR YOU WON’T WORK FOR ME ANYMORE.

Me: But don’t you remember what you told us. Because we cannot work overtime and it’s past work hours, we cannot assist. This issue with the patient will be done soon as I come into the office TOMORROW. -hangs up-

The next day, I come into the office and the alt DON arrives in time asking what happened last night.

I explained to her the scenario and she took my side.

Here’s how they were eventually allowed to work overtime again…

We had a three way call with the boss and the alt DON gave her a long lecture how she told everyone we are NOT to be bothered after work hours even when she told us we cannot work OVERTIME.

The shivers I can hear from her side of the call belittle her.

After that, we were allowed to work extra 15 mins with extra pay past work hour to complete whatever needs to be done. She slowly stopped contacting us late at night but would bug the alt DON instead.

And the issue she wanted me to assist that time with the patient…. the patient couldn’t find their pillbox and end up finding it later in the morning. So what the actual fudge.

The employees shouldn’t have even answered the phone when they were off the clock. Talking to the boss about work is working.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

One person shares a story about their former manager.

Another person would’ve hung up a whole lot sooner.

This sounds like a great policy.

Answering the phone was a bad idea.

Another person takes their breaks seriously.

When you’re not getting paid, you shouldn’t be expected to work.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.