So obvious throw away for legal reasons because of this ruling.
So I worked at a small local business as a sales clerk and manager for several years. Nothing fancy but I liked my job, co workers, owner, and customers quite a bit. When original lockdown started I couldn't go into work, and continued to not be able to work due to some severe medical problems putting me at greater risk of covid. During this time when I was not working I was requesting work to do from home, since the business actually had a variety of tasks that some did from home already and other tasks could be done much more efficiently if done from home and not have to be slowed down by customers in store. No matter how much I asked the answer was always no. But the owner and manager did have a favor I could repeatedly do for them.
As a friend the manager asked me if I could get into contact with a customer who was also a good friend of mine because the customer had an outstanding issue with the store. Sort of as a quick favor to the manager since we were buddies and shit. But it took several tries just to get in contact with the customer over many days. He would relay his messages to me and I would filter, censor, and relay the messages to my manager. Then after some time he and the owner of the business would message me again to do the same thing, but now the owner is involved and I'm not saying no because I am still trying to get work and stay in good standings with him. Rinse and repeat this over about 4-5 months. With the bulk done in the last 2 months. At some point it stopped being a favor because I had contacted the customer so many times to try and get into communication with him (he was ignoring me a lot at this point) that is started to hurt out personal relationship as well as start to negatively impact other relationships due to people hearing how I was treating my friend for the job on top the store harassing him all the time and telling them the same shit he was telling me already. The kind of thing where I found myself explaining the situation to shared acquaintances who heard was going on through a friend of the roommate of the customer, gotta love small communities. Having to explain to 3rd larties I was just trying to do a favor for a friend but being told how it didnt seem like I was doing my real friend any favors and was just doing favors for my work. All of this done one my own personal devices as well. In fact on many occasions me and other employees were told that us staying in contact with the store and answering messages sent to use through facebook messenger not be ignored and be answered ASAP. This practice had been complained about by several employees along with the fact that we are not paid at all for this to both the manager and the boss. We were just told its mandatory and the way it has always been… at a minimum or near minimum wage job.
I even helped fix a problem that the customer had been trying to get solved with the store that ended up costing him money when a service wasnt provided at one point. I laid it out the situation very clearly to my manager, even though it had been brought up several times in store in the past, and shit got fixed. But yeah I just stop harassing my buddy at some point and just stop being in contact with the store because they are not giving me any real work and I was pretty pissed about how doing a “favor” for the manager had started to negatively impact multiple other relationships I had. Several months of no contact later I was asked to give back my key. I ignored the messages because that pissed me off even more. They eventually sent another employee who I'm friends with (small very close business, basically everyone is a friend, many who hang outside of work) to get the key from me. A few months later he quits the job and the boss actually fires him on the spot. That's when I got really mad at how messed up everyone was getting treated. Around the same time I started hearing through the grape vine and even recently ex-employees of the store that people in the store were talking about how I abandoned it, never cared about, might be trying to pull something, and general not nice things about someone who put 110% into a business that I loved. I was beside myself at this point. Of course a few months later when I finally told my boss that I wanted to get paid for all of these hours I had worked and that part of why I'm taking action is because after my key was taken from me now I'm starting to hear around town that the business is talking trash about me, he denies any smack talking by anyone in the store.
At this point he offers me a quarter of what I am claiming I worked. Which I calculated by calling every separate instance of my conversing with my work, conversing with the customer or several failed attempts to do so, and relaying the customers messages each as a separate billed hour. But not only is he super low balling me and calling it a favor to help me through a tough time, but he also says I will be required to sign a contract drafted up by a lawyer saying that neither party will engage in any form of discussing each other in any negative fashion… basically an NDA.
So can you see how this gets very complicated as time goes on? I was just trying to be helpful to the job I loved and my manager who was a friend but I kept at it for so long and even informed my manager how this was pissing off the customer and still had my boss ask me to do it. So now a “favor” is being asked of me by my boss… who i keep asking to give me some kind of work who already had been asking questions about my willingness to work and wanting me to come in and sign paper work because i wouldnt work in the store (trying to get me to quite for PPP benefits). That's where this sub comes in. I saw so many discussions about people in similar situations who are hourly, have nothing in their contracts of doing work outside of work on their off hours on their personal devices, and exploiting friendships between coworkers for the businesses advantage. Me and my customer friend were getting nothing out of this. In fact my boss was actually trying to screw him by selling him an increasing amount of product that he did not order, my friend on his own and through me told him to not order and put aside from him, on top of that being something clearly written down on his contact info to not do. No party involved in this is happy at this point. The boss is pissed off because he is perceiving this as him loosing money from a bad customer, my manager is getting it on both ends from the boss and I, my buddy is pissed at me for what I'm doing, I'm stuck in the middle and to scared to speak up for myself because I didnt want to deal with threats of being fired which were not uncommon from the boss, and rumors are spreading.
So through reading discussions on this sub is where I learned about the statue of limitations for unpaid wages hadnt passed yet on any of this. Also how generally speaking requiring regular contact with work for work on personal devices is a no-no when not specified in the work contract. Even then it seemed generally speaking that most states have provisions about compensation for having to do work on digital devices. This sub is also where I heard about the labor comission and what it can do for workers. I looked into it and saw that it had whistle blower laws to protect workers from legal retaliation. Which is good because I already knew that my boss in then past had been a very litigious guy and had both won and lost civil cases relating to labor violations. So when my boss gave me his 48 hour offer and told me he would pay me a quarter of what I asked and mentioned the NDA, I knew where I was going. I told he he would be contacted in the near future (ended up being a few months. Whatever. Time wasnt a factor, it was proving a point) by people representing me. At this point he directly threatens to counter sue me for all damages and fees he is capable of if I go through with suing him… lol.
So today was my sitdown with the commissioner and my manager, not the owner. That part was a bit of a bummer. Especially because he is the person who does the most work when he is off work and is not compensated for it properly and legally. He himself has complained many times about facebook messenger being mandatory when we are not working is ridiculous. He has definitely heard it many times from almost every employee in the store. So the hearing wasnt exactly fun cause his argument was that this whole thing was an informal favor between two friends and the work discussions were just extensions of our normal friendly conversations. I did not enjoy having to argue against him especially because he thought my argument was not a truthful representation of the subject. Which really sucked because I can understand from his perspective that looking to be the case. But once the owner started asking me to do shit that's when it just becomes work, which is kind of my whole point.
At one point the commissioner pulls us both aside speratley to mediate a little bit. Doesnt take to long at all. The manager wanted to settle for the original amount offered. I actually informed the commissioner that I wasnt interested in pursuing several of the fines because some of the fines I found to be unfair or erroneous. A compromise was made at the halfway point of the claim. More importantly I do not have to sign my bosses silly contract and instead sign one drafted by the labor board that's more of a gentleman's agreement that we both wont disparage each other and I wont go out and try to write negative reviews and other shit to try and hurt the business. Which I had no interest to. I just wanted to be able to be honest with people about the business, my separation from it, and most importantly be able to tell people who come up to me in public places asking about if they should apply there what it's like. This business is a fairly old one and kind of a major institution in this area and if you know the business you know who works there. So i get asked about it all the time when i am out and about. I really really did not want to be forced under threat of legal action to not be able to say to people who are asking me about working there that they would be better off working just about any other minimum wage job since they wont have to take there work home with them and be oncall as a “favor”. Or that as a customer signing up with some of the services will end up with the owner and manager trying to slip things in your orders that you did not ask for and hope you dont notice at checkout.
That's what a big chunk of my contacts with the customer was about. Its definently what I had to deal with him yelling at me about on several occasions. My buddy ended up having over $1k in products on hold for him most of that he never asked for and had told them repeatedly to stop putting aside for him. This is what I was bothering him about. Asking him to come down to the store to look through a bunch of shit to tell the store what he didnt order. He didnt want to come down due to covid risks which he was not playing around with. Good thing too because eventually the owner and manager did catch covid and bring it into the store. I live in a tourist trap, covid was everywhere.
So sorry for the wall of text. But I really wanted to lay out the picture about how weirdly personal all of these interactions were for the job. I had given up hope of being able to do anything with this stupid bullshit that had happened to me because it was going to be all this arguing about what was and was not a favor and if it even qualifies as work. The manager and boss may not see it as exploitation of me and my commitment to the job, but that's not the case. This sub helped me see just how simple it was that favor or not doing something for the owner of a business you work for at their request is work and there are people and institutions out there interested in looking out for me.
I could have denied settelment and taken this to an official hearing. Frankly though I wasnt even interested in a 4 digit settlement. I just wanted more than that offensive offer he gave me for “charity”, to prove the point that the labor comission is more than happy to take a claim like this that is based entirely of text messages during off time to hearing, to not have to sign that stupid NDA. It's really all about the mandatory messages off work first. I wouldnt have even made this stink if I had been given a work phone to do this shit with, or some kind of subsidy for a data plane or personal internet. I really hope the boss gets the point that he can not explicitly demand mandatory involvement in work group chats and private messaging when you are not compensating the employees in any way. As well as the threats of firing someone when these practices are brought up. To be fair he threatens firings or your devotion to the job when anyone brings up problems with the business being run improperly or the mistreatment of employees.
Also if you cant tell by the throwaway account i dont want to get in legal trouble so that's why I made it. But me not mention the business or what we do in anyway way isnt actually because of that, I earnestly do not wish to hurt the business or any shit like that. It's why I hated the NDA so much. I loved the business for decades before I ever worked there and I do not want to hurt it or anyone who works there. I did not want to get rich off doing this. I wanted to prove a point and have that hopefully create a better working environment for future employees. Because it's not going out of business any time soon and I want everyone there to have the best experience that job can offer. Being texted at 9:30am when you got off work from a late shit at 1am to help solve the mystery of some bad records over the period of 30 minutes of texting back and forth only to discover you had absolutley nothing to do with the error being investigated… all the fucking time
Yeah that's not a good working environment.
I burnt down a lot of bridges today, it will probably have a ripple effect if there are loose lips. But at least I can now say that I stopped letting that place take advantage and me and my devotion, and I can get some closure on something that has kept me up at night many many times. This sub and all the people in it helped me realize what I needed to do to be able to stand up for myself and not have to deal with being sued by someone eager to do it.
Also I know there is a chance my manager could see this. I gotta say I'm sorry dude. I really didnt wanna fuck with your shit and I am sorry that you dont see things my way. I do hope that you might be able to see how this applies to you and every other employee as well. We dont need to be “company men” like this. If we ignore the bosses mandated BS he cant actually do anything. Yeah he will threaten and even cut hours like he has done, but as you saw the labor comission is there for that stuff as well. It will all stop once you and the others say it's not ok and you wont do it anymore. But you are the voice of the employees and when you dont talk to the boss about a problem we have brought to you because he is not opening to having a discussion about it, or even worse forgetting the employees asked you to do these things, it just allows their bullshit to continue. He uses your kindness and love of the store more than he does anyone else. You deserve to be paid so much more or you should have so much less asked of you for what you are paid. That store runs because of you. Also this was nothing personal against you, you just got stuck being the middle man for a bunch of BS because the boss wanted to use your friendship to use my friendship to get some shit done. Maybe I should have talked to you about all of this stuff first before I went the nuclear route. But to be fair nothing ever came out of me asking you to talk to the boss about this “mandatory response when off work” shit in the past. I didnt think it would do any good this time either. Either way I do wish the best for you, but seriously you should demand more or demand less. Stay cool.
Well thanks for reading all of this folks. I hope this can be useful for someone like post like it were useful for me.