All you can do is follow orders at work, right?

You know that’s the truth!

And if they tell you can’t work any overtime, you better head out the door right at 5 p.m.!

That’s what this worker did and they told folks all about it on Reddit!

Only management can grant overtime? Sure thing boss!

“I worked as an assistant in a team of 3 for a broker’s office.

When I got hired I was told that since it was a “family business” everyone was expected to make sacrifices which SOMETIMES meant that overtime was needed.

Ugh…

As I came to learn, sometimes was just their way of saying every other day.

Two months in I realized that most people in the company worked at least 5-10 hours of overtime a week…completely unpaid. After a particularly hard 10 hour day (for the 4th day in a row), I went into my bosses’ office and asked how overtime requests worked.

She mentioned that the rule was “if we give you a task that needs overtime, we will let you know”. She then clarified that unless she ok’d that overtime was needed at the beginning of a client request/task, then we could assume we would not be paid any overtime.

This was a terrible arrangement.

For the next week I would receive extremely complicated client requests from our boss that would force me to stay in the office until 7-8 pm (we start at 8:30 am). When I asked our boss she would just say “I don’t know what to tell you, I did not ok the overtime”.

Ok then. So it’s gonna be like that.

For the next month, every time I got a client request I would analyze how long it would take. Most of the time, if I got a request before 2 pm I would be able to complete whatever they asked for before my scheduled time to leave (5 pm).

If I got a very complicated task then I would probably need to finish it in the morning. Of course, my boss never stated that ANY client request/task required overtime.

These would go like this:

Me: oh this looks fairly complicated boss looks at the clock reading 3:45 PM

Boss: yup! Sure is! Thanks [my name].

Me: so nothing special about this? Ok. Then!

See ya!

As soon as 5 pm struck I was out the door.

Oh client really needed this done today? Well I guess it could wait seeing as boss did not mention overtime!

Oh? Client in a different time zone was mad because nobody picked up the phone after 5 pm? Well I sure am glad boss stayed until 9 pm solving his request!

What’s that it’s 4:30 pm and a client will lose hundreds of dollars if their request is not solved by tonight? Sure thing, I am not authorized to work overtime but I will put you through to my boss!

In the five-and-a-half months that I was there I never once heard my boss “grant” anyone overtime.

I guess in her mind you can expect workers to work 60 hour weeks/come in on the weekend but…not compensate them because “I did not approve it”?”

Check out what folks had to say on Reddit.

This person spoke up.

Another person shared their thoughts.

This Reddit user weighed in.

Another individual had a lot to say.

And this reader chimed in.

They were out the door at 5 p.m. and not one minute later!

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.