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Imagine working retail at a store where there’s a no overtime policy. If the manager made an exception to the rule for the week of Thanksgiving, would you jump at the chance to work overtime, or would you work your normal hours and go home?

In this story, one young man was in this situation. It was his first job, and at first he was bummed about being scheduled to work on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Then, the manager announced that everyone was allowed to work overtime that week, and suddenly, instead of being bummed about working, everyone wanted to work as much as possible.

That ended up being a problem for the manager.

Keep reading to see how the story plays out.

“All the overtime you want” Okay.

So, this happened a couple years ago when I was 19-20, somewhere around then.

As a wee lad I got a job working at a local superstore while attending college. I was a cashier, it sucked but honestly wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

My immediate manager helped protect the cashiers from the higher ups, but those are war stories for another day.

He hated having to work on a holiday.

As time went on, as it does, eventually the dreaded holiday season came around, Thanksgiving week to be exact.

I got the week off of school due to the holidays and was scheduled to work a juicy 40 hours that week, but unfortunately was scheduled to work all Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

My schedule had Thursdays off, but Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday and I was being forced to work.

The good news is at least they fed us a ton of food in the breakroom. That was honestly nice. But I was bummed that I had to miss the holiday with family since I had prepared to have the day off as I thought I would.

The overtime policy was that there was no overtime.

Now, before we get into the MC, a quick note. The store DID NOT allow overtime (OT). You were given extra lunches, sent home early, whatever they had to do to avoid paying out.

If you got OT, you were either lucky or you had a major problem you were being made to handle.

Management was salaried, and the “enlisted” workers were lucky to get 38+ hours. No extra money for the folks in the trenches.

It’s going to be a crazy week.

As we are a major store that caters to everything from groceries to electronics, we prepare for a very long week that tends to mark the hustle and bustle of the holiday season as a whole.

The energy is pretty low as we all really dread this time of year, and I am extra nervous. This is my first retail job in the front lines during the holidays, and I heard of all the horror stories about what is coming.

The Store Manager (SM) gathers up a lot of the workers for a quick announcement that Monday. He tells us that essentially, we are really behind and have a ton of work to do, and this is going to be a rough and wild week.

So, he is authorizing any and all OT across all departments from today until Sunday. He told the managers and department heads that if an employee wanted to work, let them work. We need the coverage.

The manager should’ve been more specific.

Later on, we would discover what he meant was letting us come in on our days off to work an extra shift or two, tack on a nice 8 hours to our paychecks. Whoops.

“If an employee wants to work a shift, let them work.”

And oh boy, oh lord, oh gosh, oh golly gee wilikers…. Did we want to work.

Let me tell you, we went crazy.

The employees didn’t want to go home.

I pulled 6 doubles that week.

Someone parked their RV in the parking lot and worked what had to most likely be forbidden due to labor laws.

People were working maximum hours.

One day I worked so long our manager gave me 3 lunch breaks.

Everyone took full advantage of the overtime.

Dozens of people jumped at this opportunity.

The next day I came in and saw the overnight guys still petering around.

We milked that week for every hour, every cent of possible overtime.

I don’t recall all the numbers and such directly, but I think I went from a 72-hour paycheck to one that had about 118, and around 42 was OT, which was 1.5x paid. It’s been a few years, but those numbers feel right.

Everyone got away with working the overtime.

Also, if you work on Thanksgiving. You are given a single use 25% off coupon to use in the store on one big order.

Since I used my overtime on stuff to buy in the store, it felt like I earned an extra 25% on top of that.

Management let it happen, no one said anything to SM that week and he sat in his office.

It was 2 days after that week that some corporate suits showed up and gave him a verbal beating when they realized he blatantly authorized that.

The manager had no one to blame but himself.

I think early on he realized his mistake, but the die was cast, and truth be told we did need to get the work done.

All that OT and we barely were ready for the open door on black Friday.

He was mad, shouted at a couple managers after he got yelled at asking why they let us work so much but they just shrugged, “If an employee wants to work a shift, let them.” It was immediately dropped, and was clear it would never be allowed again, and policy will remain as it was.

I bought a T.V, a month+ of groceries, Christmas gifts for everyone, a new car battery, 2 new tires, and some random things here and there for myself. It was worth it. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Clearly, corporate didn’t authorize letting the workers get as much overtime as possible. That was on the manager. But for that one week, it sounds like it was glorious.

Let’s see how Reddit responded.

This person thinks the manager did a great job.

Another person gives the manager praise.

This person makes a good point.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a burned-out employee who finds a way to ease his stress with an extended daily lunch.

One person made a lot of money doing almost nothing.

It’s too bad corporate cracked down on the overtime. Maybe unlimited overtime was going too far, but the manager clearly didn’t know how excited the employees would be to make some extra money. In the future, it would be nice if they allowed at least a couple extra shifts during the crazy Thanksgiving week. The store never would’ve been ready if the employees hadn’t been willing to work so much.