Boss makes overworked employee sign new contract to work 50-55 hours per week: 'I have to work 10 [...] hours a day for no additional pay'

It's not easy to stand up to your boss when you are being overworked. Burnout is real and it's not beneficial for anyone involved. Of course, the most aggrieved party is always the employee, who has been taking on too much, but the output of their work will inevitably be affected as well. It's best to normalize conversations about burnout in the workplace and to never use those honest conversations against the employee down the road.

One would think that most decent employers would never dare to be so manipulative, but then again, not every employer is decent. Take a look at this story about an overworked employee who was asked to sign a new contract agreeing to work 50-55 hours per week while doing the equivalent of two jobs with no additional pay.

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via Annika Wischnewsky

_{The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.}
Here, we have an overworked employee who was already working two jobs for the salary of one when she tried to have a reasonable conversation with her employer about burnout and the need for a change. Her boss granted her the ability to shift her work hours a bit to temporarily help the situation, though, of course, that change was never going to be more than a bandaid on the problem.
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"Boss Gives Me a Written Reprimand for Not Working 50-55 Hours Per Week"

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This is when the boss started to get particularly shady. He manipulated his employee by using the agreement they made about her new work hours as well as the knowledge he obtained that she was overworked against her.
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via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.
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Imagine being asked to work between 10-16 hours MORE per week with no discussion of a raise. In fact, imagine that your boss was framing this change as if it was already a part of the employment agreement and that it was the employee's mistake for not adhering to this nonexistent policy.
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Several members of the community weighed in with their responses to this shady employer. Here's what they had to say!
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