I work maintenance for the townhome/apartment complex I live in. I started about a month and some weeks ago. Recently, over the last 2-3 weeks I started clocking in 15 minutes early in order to get a jump on the day. One main reason is that our groundskeeper took a week vacation and it fell to me to do his trash pickup rounds. I got used to walking out my door 15m early and having the extra few minutes to get oriented for the day, so I continued.
Last Friday I mentioned this to my “boss” (allegedly he isn't a supervisor, just acts like he is) and he got upset and went to the property manager and had her change my start time for the last 2 weeks. His reason is that “my schedule is 8:30am to 5pm.”
Is this legal? Can they do that? I feel pretty shafted because I felt I was doing them a favor making myself available for whatever tasks might pop up a bit early. Instead, I get rewarded by having my pay removed and losing the priceless minutes of my life I devoted to this.