Imagine working at a company where everyone’s hours have been drastically cut back to try to save the company money, but there’s too much work to get it all done in the amount of hours you are getting paid to work. Would you work overtime for free, or would you stop working when you stop getting paid, letting the work pile up?

In this story, a bunch of employees are in this situation, and one of them finally had enough and stopped working extra hours for free. Was that the right thing to do?

Let’s read all about it to decide.

AITA for not working overtime while my coworkers do?

Due to Covid, our boss has decided to cut our hours in order to save on expenses (in my country you can be ‘temporarily jobless’ so the company doesn’t have to pay you, instead you get a reduced wage from the government).

We are a team of 8 people who normally work full time, so 5 days a week.

Ever since march, this has been reduced to around 2 days a week.

It varies based on workload, but there’s never enough people for the amount of work we have.

Nobody should have to work for free.

We have flexible hours, so we can choose when we start and when we leave, but at the end of the month, we have to have worked a certain amount of hours.

For the past few months, me and my coworkers have been working overtime in order to try and get all the work done.

This means we have been doing hours of free labour, because at the end of the month, we lose the hours we worked overtime.

OP has stopped working for free.

This month, I stopped doing this.

The way I see it, our bosses won’t give us more hours as long as the work gets done for free, and I know my coworkers agree, except they’re still doing it.

I’m starting to feel guilty that I show up for work when they’re already there, and leave before them, even though I am working as much as I should…

Am I a jerk for letting my coworkers do all the work?

The coworkers working for free are the jerks. If they stopped, the company might be forced to hire someone else or start paying them for more hours.

Let’s see how Reddit feels about this situation.

This person thinks OP is doing the right thing.

Another person calls the coworkers foolish.

Here’s how it works in France.

And here’s how it works in Germany.

Nobody should work overtime 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.