Boss Puts Employee on Commission Pay After Deciding They Make Too Much Money, Employee Refuses to Work: ‘I don't get paid to answer the phone’

Author image for Bar Mor Hazut
Bar Mor Hazut • Senior Editor
Oct 21, 2026 10:30 AM EDT

When someone at work has the power to shake everything up and even drive you to quit your job, you have to learn to stand up for yourself to keep it from happening. Anyone who has ever worked in a corporate job knows that no one will do that for you.

One of the most important skills you must learn as early as possible is standing up for yourself. It starts as early as kindergarten, when one of your classmates accuses you of stealing all the crayons, and you know for a fact they are the ones at fault. Even when you're that young, your tiny brain understands the injustice and will do anything to prove to the teacher that you're nothing but innocent. That ability to stand up to someone else and prove oneself will be used countless times in a kid's future, especially in workplace situations.

This may surprise you, but some of those situations are not so different from those we all experienced back in kindergarten. Adults can be just as childish when it comes to taking accountability for their actions, which means that 'standing up for yourself' is no different than how it is when you explain to the teacher who really stole all the crayons.

When it comes to the employee in this story, they actually had to stand up to the teacher, AKA their boss. This boss wanted to shift them from hourly pay to commission, only because, in his eyes, they were making too much money. This workplace situation forced the employee to show their boss they cannot be pushed around, and it didn't take long before they were successful in their methods. Try as he might, the boss couldn't get his way.

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  • Employee refusing to work for boss.
    via fizkes

    Employee refusing to work for boss.

    Scene shown is a visual representation.

  • Boss told me I make too much money so he was putting me on commision

    Years ago, I was working in a small auto repair shop, only two full time employees, plus the boss and a part time office
    via TowerLineTrail
  • worker. Boss always complained that I made too much money. So he decided I was going to get a raise, but he was going.
    via TowerLineTrail
  • to put me on commision. I would only be paid based on the labor charged to customers for the jobs that I did.
    via TowerLineTrail
  • So Monday, the first day of my commision time comes along, and I immediately get busy working on jobs left over from the week
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  • before. Paying jobs. In the mean time, the office is filling up with customers, and the phone is ringing constantly. Boss calls me
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  • up front, says he needs some help. I told him sorry, I don't get paid to answer the phone, or to write up customers, or to
    via TowerLineTrail
  • write up customers, or to call in the stock order, put the stock order away, pick up or deliver parts, drive customers home, clean up
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  • the shop other than my own work area, and pretty much everything else that I could think of that I usually did previously,
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  • when I was paid hourly, but was no longer part of the "payable" package. He said, "that's not how it works."
    via TowerLineTrail
  • Work phone.
    via Bank215

    Work phone.

    Representative only.

  • I said it sure is. I had been there for almost 10 years and pretty much did everything except payroll. It wasn't a
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  • great job, but I enjoyed the work. But he was no longer very interested in the work part of owning a business. He would come
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  • in late every day, promise a bunch of work, then go to the bar down the street for lunch from around 11 until 2 or 3, some times
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  • even later, then come back and then complain that all the work wasn't done.
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  • Sure, it was his place, he could do what he wanted. But if I was doing the work, I expected to get paid for it.
    via TowerLineTrail
  • Being on commision only lasted a week or so, I went back to hourly, and got to keep the raise. Things got a little sour after that, and I eventually moved on to another shop.
    via TowerLineTrail

  • When a boss tries to put an employee in a situation that hurts their job, the only one who can stop that from happening is the employee themselves. No one is going to do that for them, so fighting for what's right is a necessity, especially if they want to keep their job.

    In an ideal world, a good boss will stand up for their employees and ensure they are content and treated well. But we all know our world isn't the ideal one, so we must take action when it is needed, just as this employee did so successfully.

    After reading stories like this one, it's natural to ask ourselves: what would we do in this situation? Sure, we all would love to say we would stand up for what's right and refuse to be pushed around, but that is a lot easier said than done. The reality is that some of us would have accepted this fate and kept going until a better opportunity presented itself. But since we are all here, we might as well take inspiration and learn a thing or two. We are not in kindergarten anymore, and actions have consequences. Learning how to use them to your advantage is a skill worth having.

    Is that enough to stand up to your boss the next time they drop an unexpected curveball in your direction? We'll have to wait and see…

  • cyberspirit777 He effectively wanted you to work for free lol. How in his mind did he think that was going to work??
    via cyberspirit777
  • parkesc Just another example of an owner that doesn't have any interest in TAKING OWNERSHIP.
    via parkesc
  • TheReverendCard How dare you steal his profits through your labour.
    via TheReverendCard

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comission boss workplace-stories employee manager job business owner getting paid overworked-employees workplace company
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