As you grow up, work goes from being something to aspire to, to an every day necessity. After all, when you’ve left home and have your own commitments and responsibilities, no one is going to bail you out if you don’t have enough money to pay your electric bill. And where does the money come from to pay the electric bill – and for everything else that makes your life comfortable and safe? Well, for most of us, it comes from work.

That career path that you studied for at school and college? It’s your reality now, and the vocation you chose – whether you’re in construction or medicine, education or retail – is a massive part of your everyday life, consuming vast parts of your working day. Though never fear, if you’re regretting your decisions, it’s never too late to retrain!

The guy in this story has a job, and turns up for work diligently every day, trying to accumulate cash so that he can move in with his friends soon. But unfortunately his employers have other ideas, and keep sending him home before his guaranteed hours are over, meaning that he’s not close to being paid his minimum amount.

Read on to find out why.

AITA for wanting to make sure I’m working at least the amount of hours per day that I’m contractually guaranteed?

At my workplace, all part-time union workers are guaranteed a minimum of 3.5 hours per day.

If a supervisor tries to let you go before you’ve reached 3.5 hours, you are allowed to ask them to find more work for you, and if they can’t you are allowed to ask that you still get paid for 3.5 hours of work that day.

If you decide to go home though, you effectively surrender your right to the minimum time and you only get paid for the amount you worked.

When I first started working last year I didn’t have issues getting at least my guaranteed number of hours, that changed after the beginning of this year.

Let’s see what happened more recently.

From sometime in January onward, a large number of our start times have been stupidly late (like 1:30-1:45 when we used to always start sometimes from 12:00-1:15 before that).

Due to when the shift after mine starts, getting 3.5 hours of work on a day with a 1:30 or 1:45 start time is virtually impossible, especially since they shut everything down before when my earliest end time should be (I’m on a ten minute stagger currently, so that only adds to the issue).

For the first bit I really didn’t care because I’m living at home rent free, and I only had a few small expenses each week, so it didn’t affect me that much to not have as much money.

But recently I have decided that I’d like to start saving money that I can use to get started renting an apartment with roommates next year.

Read on to see what that means about this part-time worker’s expenses.

Rent for a two bedroom in my area is $400 a month at the low end, and right now I’m not pulling enough hours at work to be able to pay my fair share if I were to get a place with two roommates.

This is why I’ve decided to start being more persistent about getting my minimum time.

But the way my supervisor phrases it when he says I’m free to go home, is as a statement rather than as a question, so I feel uncomfortable and like I’m being too argumentative if I tell him that I would like to be given additional work.

Plus, on days where we have late start times, it is virtually impossible to find more work for me to do by the time I’m told I can go.

And there are more reasons that are making this more complicated.

Additionally, I have gone without asking for several months, so I feel like if I try to start asking now that will be used against me.

I’m considering asking for the stagger on my start times to be removed, so that I will start being paid/start working from the time my shift starts, rather than ten minutes after.  The issue with that is that the truck I’m assigned to doesn’t have enough from early in the day to justify that.

So would I be wrong if I insisted on being able to work for at least 3.5 hours per day, even if that means putting the supervisors in the tough spot of having to “make up” some extra work for me?

Both the supervisors in my work area are great guys and I rarely have any issues with them, except regarding this issue.

AITA?

Honestly, it feels like rather than asking for the additional time to be made up according to the contract, this worker would be better off looking for work elsewhere.

Steady, reliable work is important, and the supervisors need to realise that their workers are reliant on their income, so to keep cutting their hours beyond what they are contractually guaranteed just puts their workers in a really difficult spot.

If he is going to keep working there, he needs to be putting his own needs first, regardless of how awkward it might make things for his supervisors.

Let’s see if folks on Reddit agreed.

This person thought this working arrangement was ridiculous.

While others encouraged him to look for a more consistent job.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a employee who airs every last grievance in his resignation letter.

Meanwhile, this Redditor encouraged him to rest on the union.

There is a reason that his contract has guaranteed minimum hours, and that’s because if you have a job, it’s important that you know if and when you will be working. Adults who have jobs generally also have other responsibilities, including things that need to be paid for, and that in turn requires a guaranteed income. The fact that he has no clue how much money he will have coming in every month makes it extremely hard to plan for life, and, as he says, to move out of his parents’ home and in with his buddies.

The truth is, he needs to learn to advocate for himself, and now is as good a time as any to start doing that. He seems to have a decent relationship with his managers, so he needs to reach out and discuss this with them, and insist that he works the minimum hours he’s legally entitled to, even if they don’t have work for him to do. But honestly, in the long term if this is to be the arrangement, it really seems like he needs a new job.