So I worked for a newspaper that had deadlines, I understood that. I worked there for about 12 years selling advertising space, it took from Tuesday to Thursday night/Friday to put our section of the paper “to bed”, we spent Monday visiting clients.
We had to work overtime at times to meet these deadlines but we could take time in lieu, sweet, until we got a new manager who just really didn’t understand our work load.
On top of that the paper made most of the admin staff redundant so now we sales reps also had to input our own bookings, it took us till at least 7.30-8 at night, not to mention the night prior to going to publication which was another lengthy evening.
I was working a 9 day fortnight (Friday off) and because of the extra hours over those 2 weeks I was working enough hours to have the second Friday off as well so I was effectively working 4 days pw due to the lay off in admin staff which was all good until we got a new manager. She made us cake to try and butter us up, it was the worst fucking cake I have ever pretended to like in my life lol, then she started sitting with us while we were doing our work, groan, micromanaging at its finest!
It all came to a head when I emailed her to advise that due to the extra hours that I had worked I would be taking the “other” Friday off as time in lieu. She replied that I didn’t understand the in lieu guidelines and that she would talk to me about it the next day (the day that I wanted in lieu) so I asked her to please explain, she said that in lieu was not counted between 8.30-9 nor 5-30 so I said that I am not prepared to work 5 hours pw for nothing and I resigned immediately giving my required notice of one week) it should also be noted that during the rendancies one of our reps was made redundant and myself and the other rep left were expected to divide his clients in half and take them on board as well!
She said that we would discuss it the next morning at 9:30, okay then. She had HR in the meeting with her and she put forward the fact that the extra working time was valid because my contract allowed for extra “reasonable” hours, I countered with “define reasonable” because I don’t think that 5 hours per week unpaid is reasonable, especially when I have had my commission reduced to the point that I am now earning less than I was 12 years ago, it’s not reasonable. We went back and forth for a while disagreeing about what reasonable was, the HR rep agreeing that I had to work these extra hours every week as part of my contract. So after a while of me refusing to agree or retract my resignation my manager finally agreed to accept my resignation, keeping in mind she said “so your last day will be next Friday”, I said no Friday is my day off next week so my last day will be Thursday!
We went back to our desks and as she had to decided to sit with us I asked her about the time off that I believed was still owed to me, she said “what would like to do about that?”, I said “I will just go home now and picked up my bag and walked out lol!
Ended up with a job from one of my clients within two weeks.
Don’t work for nothing and don’t take shit!!