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Some people love overtime because of the extra money in their paycheck. Other people hate overtime because it means most of their time goes to their job instead of having time for a life outside work. Which stance you would take would probably depend on your finances, your social life and whether or not you get paid for overtime.

In this story, one accountant who was on salary worked as little overtime as possible since she wouldn’t get paid more if she stayed at work longer. When the rules changed, she decided to start working overtime, but when she was told she needed approval in order to work overtime, she made sure to get it in writing.

Keep reading for all the details.

No overtime without management approval? Great

Background:

I was in my 3rd year of an accounting job I absolutely hated, but I also hated the industry as a whole and was essentially using the position to bide my time as I learned a new skill to eventually jump to an entirely new career.

My boss at the time, who I’ll call Tia, was the shining example of the specific flavor of toxicity that I’d found sinking its teeth into most of the accounting departments I’ve worked in (imagine the power trip of middle management + the prestige of managing multi-million dollar transactions).

She was coasting on confidence.

She was the first accountant for the company when it started and had become the de-facto choice for ‘new highest position in the department’ every time the company’s growth called for a departmental restructuring.

The only thing I could determine was earning her these positions was her confidence and conviction in the way she’d determined things needed to be done, which C-suite just ate right up, even paying for her to get whatever training/certification she needed to qualify for the new roles presented to her.

In the meantime, she’d given me 3 consecutive annual reviews scoring a solid 0% satisfaction rate each time, which was always enough to justify a 0% raise but never enough to justify actually letting me go and putting me out of my misery, so at this point I was fully checked out, especially after finding out I’d become the lowest paid employee out of ~100 (including interns and the front desk clerk).

For the first time, Tia didn’t get her way.

In the latest restructuring, Tia was not promoted to the new CFO role as the board wanted real experience, but was given a Controller role while a new level of management was added between us.

HR had also become its own department, no longer falling under accounting’s perview.

Tia didn’t seem to like simultaneously becoming 2nd in accounting’s command while also losing control of HR.

She convinced the company to send her to law school so she could eventually transition into some kind of frankenstein-esque accounting/legal/HR position that would oversee essentially everything the company did outside of actual production. This required her to leave the office around 2-3pm every afternoon to attend classes, making her unreachable until the evenings.

At least someone looked out for her.

The new management position that opened between us saw 3-4 employees join and leave for greener pastures over the course of a year and a half, but the story takes place while I was under the only manager I actually liked, who I’ll call Kevin.

I could see him doing what he could to advocate for me while still being forced by Tia to treat me the way she had previously treated me, and I could tell it made him feel awkward handing these decisions down my way.

I respected his attempts to work with us and he actually helped us create a functional/efficient department for a few glorious but short-lived months.

Story:

Here we go…

Suddenly, a bill was passed in the U.S. stating that salaried employees making less than 40k/yr would be eligible for overtime pay, taking effect later in the year. After 3 years of no raises, I was sitting at around $37,500/yr, making me eligible for the for the eventual overtime.

Working in accounting, it’s pretty much expected that you’ll be working 50-60 hours a week, especially when closing out the monthly/quarterly/annual financials.

However, after being shafted for so long and still being stuck with bad work that had little effect on the actual financials, I was actively giving them as close to 40 hours a week as possible, only staying behind if we’d gotten an important request towards the end of the day that Kevin begged me to take care of before leaving.

I knew it would look a bit off if I suddenly started working a bunch of overtime after this change took place, so I planned on very slowly ramping up my hours over the preceding months to eventually take advantage of the extra pay.

But the overtime didn’t last long.

After 1-2 months I was regularly putting in 45-55 hours a week (with most extra hours spent remoting into my home computer to practice programming) and looking forward to the income this new workflow would provide me.

I guess they eventually caught on, as Kevin pulled me into a conference room and presented me with a contract to sign stating that I wasn’t to work any overtime without Tia’s approval.

For reasons you’ll see below, I quickly recognized this as a way to never have to work an extra hour for the rest of my tenure at the company.

I signed it and immediately cut out all overtime, leaving at 4pm that day as I’d worked through lunch. The next day I stopped showing up early, started taking actual lunches, and could be heard peeling out of the lot at 5:01 every day.

Kevin was just a puppet in Tia’s game once again.

Kevin noticed my sudden lack of hours and tried to mention the contract not being in effect until the bill kicked in.

I reminded him that we had a signed contract that failed to list a start or end date so I considered it fully in effect.

I could see the “oh no” realization hit but he begrudgingly accepted the loss. (I’ll mention again that he was great and this action had obviously come from Tia and he was now stuck dealing with the repercussions the same as I was, so he really didn’t fight me too hard on it).

No overtime means no overtime.

Later that week, an important client request came in around 4:45. He asked If I could stay behind to work on it and I asked if he had Tia’s approval.

This was his second ‘Oh no” moment, as unfortunately, due to her classes, Tia had become unreachable between 2-8 pm every weekday for the foreseeable future and he didn’t usually know he’d need extra work from me until after 4.

Everything went exactly to plan as I got to enjoy a comfortable 40 hour week, throwing the contract back at them any time they tried to squeeze even an extra minute out of my time.

Now for the real kicker.

OP has it in writing.

Before the new bill took effect, a judge blocked it and shut it down entirely, meaning no more overtime pay for salaried employees. A crippling loss for the workforce but I at least still got to enjoy my new schedule.

Management tried to claw back my hours but, hey, I still have a contract that says I can’t, sorry guys.

I was finally pulled into Tia’s office, who tried to explain the lack of necessity for the overtime approval now that the overtime bill wouldn’t be coming into play.

I again reminded her we had a signed contract with no dates and no mention of this being in relation to impending overtime law.

This had to be quite satisfying to say.

Then came my favorite part of the conversation:

So, yes, this is still a valid contract, but I want to be clear that it doesn’t override your original employment contract here with us.

You mean the employment contract that states 40 hours a week?

And that was that.

OP has moved on.

I was eventually let go a few months later after replying “Because I don’t” when the CFO mentioned people saying I look like I don’t care about my job, but I’d finally built up my skills enough to find a position in my new industry while still enjoying my severance, so I consider it a win.

4 years later, I’m doing work I enjoy from home, hanging out with my dogs with a calmer mind and a fatter wallet, all while they’re still stressing over someone else’s money.

Nothing’s worse than having a job you hate and working for a boss who hates you. I’m glad OP moved on.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

One person shares what they hope she told the CFO.

Here’s some information about overtime in Washington.

This is a good point.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employer who has an unexpectedly hard time retrieving a company vehicle from a fired employee.

Another person thinks this was a missed opportunity.

It’s hard to want to work overtime if you’re not getting paid for it. It’s also hard to care about your job if you don’t actually like the career field or your boss.

I’m glad she sounds happier now.