She Won’t Work Overtime. Now Her Coworkers Are Stuck Covering Every Shift
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Imagine working at a company that is short-staffed and asks you to work overtime to cover other shifts. Would you do it?
In this story, one woman is in this situation, and she is unwilling to work overtime; however, her coworkers are willing to work overtime. That means they are working a crazy amount of overtime to cover the shifts and wish she would help them out.
Should she help out her coworkers by agreeing to work overtime, or should she keep saying “no”?
Let’s read the whole story to decide.
AITA for refusing to work overtime resulting in my other coworkers not getting any days off?
I (20sF if it matters) have been working at the same place for 2 years.
In the beginning I went above and beyond. Worked extra days, covered shifts, came in early and left late, the whole nine yards.
Eventually I realized there wasn’t much of a point.
I haven’t received a raise in two years (no one else has either they just don’t give them) and promotion is literally impossible as there are only two higher positions (manager and assistant manager) and those are likely to never become available. I was made a “shift supervisor” but it came with no added bonuses and more responsibility.
She wants to find a different job.
Being here this long I have come to see that this job is not one worth putting extra work in for as you will never be rewarded for it or even acknowledged for it.
Management openly talks badly about employees behind their backs and fires or writes up anyone who disagrees with them.
Needless to say I’m planning on leaving soon as I finally accept this place for what it is.
However with such a high turn over rate newer employees don’t quite understand all of this.
It’s even worse that the company is short-staffed.
My shift specially has been short staffed since I’ve been here. Even more so since they fired someone on my shift months ago and never replaced them like they said they would.
Other shifts are starting to become just as short staffed as well.
Recently a few people have been out of work and management has been scrambling to cover their spots. They have specially been depending on people (3 people including myself) from my shift.
Why they ask the most over worked and under staffed shift to help cover is beyond me. But I’ve said no every time. And at this point I don’t even bother trying to explain or justify it. I just say no.
She feels bad for her coworkers.
But my other coworkers haven’t been.
They’ve been covering when asked and working upwards of 6 days straight on 12 hour shifts.
I do feel bad that anytime they try to talk to me about us “splitting” the days that need covered.
I say no making one or both of them cover them instead.
She’s wondering if she should be willing to work overtime.
But to me that’s on them for agreeing.
They could be saying no as well but don’t (although management did say something along the lines of if we don’t cover the shifts they’ll be angry but imo not my problem).
AITA for not helping cover shifts and essentially “forcing” other coworkers to do it instead?
Also worth noting that we don’t get paid over time for it. We get comp time at the rate of one hour for every hour over we work and even then we can never use the comp time because we’re so under staffed and all of my requests for time off get ignored or denied.
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Heck, no! She should keep saying “no,” and she should tell her coworkers to start saying “no.” I doubt they would get fired since they’re already short-staffed. They can’t handle losing any more employees. Who cares if management is “angry”?
Let’s see if Reddit agrees.
This person reassures her that she’s not doing anything wrong.
Another person explains what the company is really doing.
This person thinks her coworkers need to learn to say “no.”
Everyone thinks she needs to keep saying “no.”
They can’t make her work overtime. They also aren’t making her coworkers work overtime. They need to learn to stand up for themselves.
I can completely see why this company is short-staffed. They are working their employees past the point of burnout.
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