There’s a festival coming up in the town that the insurance office I work at is in. It’s in a few months. We apparently sit outside and hand stuff out all day on that Saturday. Saturday is normally our day off. We are a Mon-Fri office. I had a feeling I wouldn’t be getting paid for being here if I were to come to this event. So I told them it was mine and my husband’s anniversary of when we started dating. Which is not a lie. It actually is that weekend and it is a big year for us. But just out of curiosity I asked my coworkers who may be attending if they’ll be paid. I was told “no because we’re salary. It’s part of our job.”
I get that salaried employees aren’t paid hourly in the same way hourly employees are. But salary pays for 40 hours a week. Which means I will work 40 and no more. I’m not going to sit outside at a festival advertising our company for free.
Salary or not, you can’t pay us for being here on our day off? That doesn’t make sense. I’m not coming if that’s the case. It would be one thing if it was a unpaid event that was for us. Like a dinner, laser tag or bowling. But handing out flyers and snacks to passerby’s at a festival is defined as working. And I don’t work for free.