'Either reduce my hours [or] pay me more!': Employee working 6 days a week forced to take a 30% pay cut, hands in his resignation and gets job with a top client

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Apr 16, 2025 8:00 AM EDT

Kudos to this employee for standing up for himself after years of getting overworked and underpaid.

Most folks need to learn to advocate for themselves before things get too messy in the workplace. Unfortunately, that means recognizing when there's a dangling carrot (a raise, a promotion, mobility within the company, etc.) that might not ever materialize. If those mysterious opportunities don't have a timeline, then nine times out of ten, they're being used as a tactic to get you to do more work with little reward. Keep scrolling below for this employee's conflict with their boss…

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  • It's never too late to realize you're being manipulated at work. Sure, this employee should have been able to see that his 6-work day week with no raises or promotions was a bad sign and one that would be unsustainable. He finally came to realize that this was a bridge too far when his boss got rid of overtime pay in an effort to cut costs following the “expertise” of a business consultant. Of course, this was a sudden pay cut that the employee was not willing to handle. Thankfully, he had formed a strong relationship with one of his clients and was able to secure work for himself very quickly.

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    I worked a fairly difficult, but rather rewarding job for a long time in the building materials industry. Working for a small company in a small town meant a whole lot of hours, but also a good amount of freedom to work the job
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    how I wanted. I came on as a consulting sales person, and ended up in charge of nearly half of the business. This expanding responsibility never really materialized as more pay, however
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    I was completely free of supervision. This environment actually lead to a sense of ownership and pride in my job.
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    That said, the business, like many small companies, seemed to always be on thin ice. Slow pay customers, a ballooning inventory, and shrinking margins due to pressure from larger companies
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    made every day an uphill battle. I worked my off carefully projecting sales, ordering just what we needed, and vetting out potential problems and pitfalls.
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    This meant really long hours, but I was hourly so I was at least compensated for my time. I missed a lot of family time, though, and it really started taking a toll on my personal life. I worked Mon-Sat,
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    and every third Sunday. These hours were honestly insane, but we were all just doing what we had to in order to keep the business going.
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    Finally, I hit my breaking point. I asked my boss to either reduce my hours or pay me more, as my time with my family was too valuable to me to continue on the way we were going. He assured me that he would figure something out. Cut to
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    a month later, and he has hired a "business consulting" company to come in and tell him what was wrong with his company. IDK how much he paid (it wasn't cheap) but
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    they flagged his side of the business as being over burdened by inventory (I didn't manage anything in that building), and flagged labor costs as being far too high.
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    I get called in and my boss sits me down and tells me that he is going to cut all overtime for all employees effective immediately. I
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    took a moment, then asked if that also included me. He said yes, I was included. Taking a second to process, I pointed out that I have had a set schedule for years now,
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    and that my entire budget was built around my annual income, which hadn't actually changed for 4 years or so. I said that I am happy to stop working those hours, but that I could not afford for my compensation to change.
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    Salary me, adjust my hourly, give me more responsibility, I cannot afford my home if 30 hours of overtime per 2 week paycheck was going away.
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    He blew up at me, calling me selfish and told me that I was missing the big picture. I pointed out that the savings from having the other employees cut overtime was more than adequate. The
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    work I did was indispensable to the company, and that I was already woefully undercompensated for my work compared to the same position for even our competitors.
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    He conceded that point, but simply said that he could not afford it. So I said, I am sorry, but I cannot afford it either.
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    I handed in my 2 weeks 30 minutes later. I offered to stay on and train a replacement as well as I could, but my boss basically ran me out,
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    saying there was no point in sticking around. I pointed out that I offered a 2 weeks, and regardless of whether he wanted me there or not I wanted paid for that time,
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    which he agreed to. Then I pointed out that I was owed 3 weeks of vacation, and cashed that out, too. Accounting cut me a 5 week check, and I walked out.
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    I made 2 calls on the way home, one to my wife to tell her I had quit my job and to trust me, another to a vendor I did plenty of business with to ask for a job. He said yes immediately, and asked me to come in to fill out paperwork. I
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    have been at that job for the last 6 years. I work a normal 8-5 schedule, and get paid far more than I did before.
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    In all fairness, my former boss was a great guy who helped me and my family a lot. That said, he couldn't afford to keep me and I couldn't afford to stay. The most sour part for me was hearing about how he told anyone that would listen about how I betrayed
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    him and the business in his time of need. The business actually closed 6 months after I left after over 100 years of service.
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    EDIT I appreciate all the feedback here, it has been fun reading all the comments. I wrote this with a single goal in mind, to stress to everyone that needs to hear it to know your worth and stick to your
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    in value negotiations. I had stuck around due to a sense of duty and obligation (and no small part convenience as the business was a block away from my home),
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    but leaving that job was the best thing I ever did for me and my family. My current job that I landed literally hours after walking out pays me twice as much as that one did (three times as much as they were trying to move me down to).
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    To those that insist I was living outside of my means, ask yourself this: If your job cut your hours dramatically and out of nowhere, resulting in a 30%+ loss in compensation, could you make it? I honestly think that few of us could.
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    As for the fact that they went out of business, I admit that a part of it was due to my departure. I was responsible for inventory management, all special orders, all contractor sales, all bidding and quoting, as well as walk in business for well over half the company. I wrote up over half the annual sales.
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    I was replaced by someone with absolutely no industry experience (who I didn't get the opportunity to train), and he very quickly turned all the core customers away from the business due to errors and lack of product knowledge. There was a period of time where I could hardly
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    walk through our local grocer without talking to multiple people about how terrible it was to do business with the company now that I was gone. Between that,
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    dropping six figures on "business consultants", and losing someone who had been carrying half the business, there was just no way forward for the company. That is a big part of why my former boss was so bitter over it all.
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    Anyway, thanks again for the conversation over this. Know your worth.
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