November 2, 2026 at 8:45 pm

Manager Makes Employees Stay At Work For Two Hours Without Pay After A Power Outage

by Matthew Gilligan

man sitting down in a warehouse

Shutterstock

Well, all I can say is…

This is simply outrageous!

I’ve heard a lot of shady stories about bosses taking advantage of their workers, but this one is off the charts!

Check out what this employee had to say about how he and his co-workers were ordered to stay on site when the power in their building went out…

And they didn’t get paid for it!

Get started now…

Our manager made us stay at work for two hours without paying us.

“I work at a home improvement store and we had a power outage that forced us to close temporarily.

Our manager told everyone the time wouldn’t be paid since we weren’t actually working.

What?!?!

Fair enough, except he also told us we had to stay on the property in case the power came back.

Someone asked if they could just go home and was told they’d be marked as leaving their shift early.

This is so dumb…

So about 15 of us sat outside for almost two hours doing nothing.

The power eventually came back and we reopened like normal.

Checked my hours while I was on moon and sure enough those two hours are missing.

I asked my manager about it and he said we weren’t performing any work during that time.

How can you require someone to stay at work and then claim they weren’t working?”

Folks on Reddit spoke up.

This person had a lot to say.

Screenshot 2026 11 01 at 8.30.52 AM Manager Makes Employees Stay At Work For Two Hours Without Pay After A Power Outage

Another reader spoke up.

Screenshot 2026 11 01 at 8.30.35 AM Manager Makes Employees Stay At Work For Two Hours Without Pay After A Power Outage

This Reddit user shared their thoughts.

Screenshot 2026 11 01 at 8.31.09 AM Manager Makes Employees Stay At Work For Two Hours Without Pay After A Power Outage

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who can’t complete her work-from-home duties because her mom’s houseguest won’t stop talking.

And another individual weighed in.

Screenshot 2026 11 01 at 8.31.32 AM Manager Makes Employees Stay At Work For Two Hours Without Pay After A Power Outage

Is this crazy, or what?

I can’t believe they didn’t just walk out!

Wow…

This sounds illegal to me…

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