December 25, 2023 at 10:47 am

Boss Restricts Employees From Working Overtime, But Still Calls Them After Hours For Help. – ‘I did not pay you to be stuck up!’

by Matthew Gilligan

Source: Reddit/AITA/@tokiohy

No overtime?

Then don’t call me when I’m not on the clock!

That’s the way it should be when your work arrangement calls for no OT…but we all know how bosses can try to take advantage of their employees from time to time.

The person who wrote this story on Reddit’s “Malicious Compliance” page talked about what happened at their job.

Can’t get paid overtime? Don’t call us outside of work hours.

“My last workplace is a Home Health agency where we coordinate with nurses and therapists on field when visiting patients.

DON is Director of Nursing, Alt DON is Alternate Director of Nursing and Admin is Administrator.

For the longest time working at the previous Home Health, I’ve noticed some coworkers would work a couple of minutes past end of the shift.

There was a reason for this.

From my understanding, this was to prevent any field agents contacting whoever is on call until the next day.

Now quick backstory… the person on call is the boss, aka OWNER, DON, ADMIN, ETC.

The boss wasn’t cool with this.

One day, we had a conference meeting that the boss wasn’t happy some of us were working past work hours and makes a statement to clock out exactly at the time we close for the day.

Of course that meant she refuses paying us overtime if we’re working over 8 hours.

So since our work hours are from Mon – Fri 8 hours each day, we have to make the best of it being productive within those hours. Why emphasis about the days and hours you ask…?

The boss didn’t know some basic details…

Since the calls have been transferred to on call, which is the boss, this also means she’s responsible taking calls until office opens.

You’d think she’d know the basic knowledge what to say or instruct when someone calls…. wrong.

She’d basically call one of us late at night to assist her with any issue and it usually takes 1-2 hours tops to finish assisting the issue.

Here’s the malicious compliance.

The boss was about to learn how this whole thing worked…

One day, half of the coworkers were on vacation and we’re understaffed. We finished work for the day and transferred calls to the boss.

At this time, I wasn’t feeling so good and I wanted to rest for remainder of the evening. It wasn’t even 8pm and I received a call from my boss.

Me: Hello, ma’am?

Boss: Oh good! I’m able to reach you on time.

Me: Ok. What’s wrong?

Boss: I need you to call this patient and…

Nope! Sorry!

Me: I’m sorry… I cannot do that at this time. I will follow up in the morning.

Boss: No! This needs to be done NOW!!

Me: I understand, ma’am. But I cannot work outside hours as you officially said. I will follow up on this patient in the morning.

The boss gave an ultimatum.

Boss: I DID NOT PAY YOU TO BE STUCK UP!! NOW HELP ME OR YOU WON’T WORK FOR ME ANYMORE.

Me: But don’t you remember what you told us. Because we cannot work overtime and it’s past work hours, we cannot assist. This issue with the patient will be done soon as I come into the office TOMORROW.

-hangs up-

They explained what happened.

The next day, I come into the office and the alt DON arrives in time asking what happened last night.

I explained to her the scenario and she took my side.

We had a three way call with the boss and the alt DON gave her a long lecture how she told everyone we are NOT to be bothered after work hours even when she told us we cannot work OVERTIME.

Looks like she learned her lesson!

The shivers I can hear from her side of the call belittle her.

After that, we were allowed to work extra 15 mins with extra pay past work hour to complete whatever needs to be done.

She slowly stopped contacting us late at night but would bug the alt DON instead.

And the issue she wanted me to assist that time with the patient…. the patient couldn’t find their pillbox and end up finding it later in the morning.

So what the actual ****?”

Check out how Reddit users reacted.

One person isn’t answering their phone when they’re off-duty.

Source: Reddit/AITA

Another reader had a manager that sounds like a real pain…

Source: Reddit/AITA

One Reddit user won’t even give bosses their real phone number!

Source: Reddit/AITA

And one individual has it made at their job.

Source: Reddit/AITA

Sorry, boss!

You’re on your own!

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.