A few months back at my job we were extremely short staffed (shocker, as I make $14/hr, at a job that has a decent risk for injury) and our manager basically told my entire shift that we could either volunteer for OT to help the other shift on Sundays, or we would be assigned it as mandatory OT. Everyone on my shift said they would be willing to help, and we worked out a schedule where we would be working 6 days a week every other week to help out the opposite shift.
I showed up for this OT shift twice, and both times someone had called out, and once someone left mid shift because they didn’t feel good. (Mind you, this is a person who is a chronic slack ass and will do anything to get out of any kind of work)
I was angry, so I sent a long email to my manager about how I agreed to work OT to help with short staffing and NOT to just cover other peoples shifts.
Long story short, we had a meeting with all of the staff the next day, and my manager proceeded to tell us all that she’d be working on Sundays instead of our shift, and then guilt tripped us by saying that she “didn’t get paid OT” and to check our contracts because they are 100% able to make us work mandatory OT.
It was like almost a threat?
Then today, I requested off on a Saturday (our busiest day of the week) because my family is in town, and was informed that since I took 3 approved days off two weeks ago, I’d have to either work at least a half day or get it covered.
I’m angry, I’ve already got one foot out the door looking for another job, and I’m really tired of having been so reliable and hardworking in the past that they’re now punishing me by requiring me to do all of this extra work.