'With a smile [my boss told] me, "I see what you did there"': Manager and employee team up to stick it to large company's HR, gets paid extra in overtime

Author image for Elna McHilderson
Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
Aug 29, 2023 7:00 AM EDT

It's not often you read on the internet a good story between manager and employee. Usually, it's an employee struggling with an entitled manager or vice versa. However, we've recently come across a story where the brain and heart finally meet and we just had to share it. 

It all started with a feud with a large company's HR. Apparently, the company's HR was messing up the 3k+ employees' overtime payments and totally trying to pull one over on them. It was a very large issue and, luckily, the managers were on the fighting side for the employees. It finally got all figured out and overtime payments were properly made. However, the system to add in the overtime was still a little whack. So, reddit poster u/Wild_Muffin_8844, an employee at said large company, needed to add overtime and PTO. The system wasn't allowing it so he turned to his manager for instructions. The manager decided that another tussle with HR was not something he wanted to deal with. So with a smirk, he just told his employee to add the hours on top of hours. The employee did what he was told, with a metaphorical wink to the employee, and now he made a nice little extra chunk of change!

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  • 01
    Hand - "He asked how many hours we're talking..."
    via u/Pxfuel
  • 02
    Font - Posted by u/Wild_Muffin_8844 21 hours ago Overtime on overtime M OC Small MC but long text. TLDR: HR messed up overtime pay, boss tell me to just add it later on. Get paid overtime on my overtime. 2
    via u/Wild_Muffin_8844
  • 03
    Font - Happened a few weeks ago. In a company of 3k employees, only 2-3% are paid by the hour. So most of the time HR forget about us when they implement new systems.
    via u/Wild_Muffin_8844
  • 04
    Font - Normally overtime must be approved in advance by the superior. There was a paid national holiday but because of the nature of my specific work I had to come in anyway. It was approved and all was normal until I checked my pay slip.
    via u/Wild_Muffin_8844
  • 05
    Font - Normal week is 40h, thus paid holiday is 8h. Overtime is 1.5x normal hours. We do our time sheet day by day. So I put monday 8h holiday + 8h worked overtime, rest of the week the same (8h each). On my pay slip they paid 40h regular and the 8h holiday so i was missing the overtime part.
    via u/Wild_Muffin_8844
  • 06
    Font - I send an email to HR to see whats up and the reply was that since it was holiday i couldnt possibly be working so the system doesnt allow for overtime on said days.
    via u/Wild_Muffin_8844
  • 07
    Font - At that point i went to see my boss and explained the situation. Why cant i put hours worked on holiday if i must work and why, if i couldnt be working, they still payed me regular hours ? Makes no sence and we have 10 paid holiday per year so its a reccurent issue.
    via u/Wild_Muffin_8844
  • 08
    Font - I also presented the point in our national legislation that said i was right: Holiday must be included in the initial 40h so anything extra is overtime.
    via u/Wild_Muffin_8844
  • 09
    Font - We just came out of a year and a half battle with HR because they didnt took overtime in calculation for our vacations. My boss didnt want to start again so soon, so he asked how many hours we are talking.
    via u/Wild_Muffin_8844
  • 10
    Font - 8h but only the overtime part so 4 actual hours. He told me to just put these hours this week and for next times to put 16h on a work day and no time worked on holiday to not brake the system.
    via u/Wild_Muffin_8844
  • 11
    Font - So i did just that. Normally i would have to take a part of friday off to not do overtime but he told me to put it this week so it was like approval to me. So i did 40h and put those 4h in overtime. The following week he asked me about it with a smile, telling me i see what you did there.
    via u/Wild_Muffin_8844
  • 12
    Clothing - Not much but i did get a few extra bucks out of it.
    via u/Wild_Muffin_8844
  • 13
    Font - 18k_gold 19 hr. ago The company is breaking the law. I worked hourly and people work on holidays. Putting in hours worked on a holiday won't break the system.
    via u/18k_gold
  • 14
    Font - HR is lying, a complaint to the DOL will quickly fix the system. The only time I got spoken to is when I had more than 24 hrs put in for a single day. They couldn't figure out how that was possible. 16.5 hrs worked and 8 holiday pay.
    via u/18k_gold
  • 15
    Rectangle - djh816 15 hr. ago ● "Oh of course you get that government mandated lunch break but we only clock you when you XYZ" equivalent.. F that.
    via u/djh816
  • 16
    Font - Start the conversation NOW, and honestly given context sounds like you should go above whoever gave you that guidance..
    via u/djh816
  • 17
    Font - TheCoolOnesGotTaken ● 5 hr. ago In going to add on here that payroll systems are often designed around these laws. Helping companies stay compliant is part of their value add.
    via u/TheCoolOnesGotTaken
  • 18
    Font - Possibilities here are thath Tey are lying and doing this intentionally or they did not set it up correctly, maybe cheaped or on professional services or set to the wrong countries laws.
    via u/TheCoolOnesGotTaken
  • 19
    Font - Salary_Bulky 17 hr. ago Not the same for me, but were I worked 10 or so years ago, we had set times for jobs (so, this should take 3 hours, this should take 4 etc etc, it didn't matter if you were finished in 1, it was always booked out to the client for the set time)
    via u/Salary_Bulky
  • 20
    Font - I think I ended up booking something like 106 hrs for the week. And all my boss said was "try and spread it around a bit next time" And the best bit? Overtime was 1.5x for the first 4 hours, 2x for anything over... God I miss that job
    via u/Salary_Bulky

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failblog manager malicious compliance healthy-management employees workplace Reddit
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