I worked for a big hospital as a housekeeper for 6 years. My first boss was a man who was AMAZING…. or so we thought.
This man would never hesitate to give us time off for family things, allow us to come in early/late for appointments, constantly buying us lunch from the Cafe, ( he was also the supervisor of the food dept too). He fixed my brakes on my car, and replaced an expensive part for me out of his own pocket!
He also kinda stirred the pot ( worked with a LOT of women… OLD women, small town gossipy women) and would allow rumors and drama to fly at times… I think he got a kick out of it, but that's just me.
Now, weekends were super slow at this hospital and I've been a redditor for years.. legal advice is one of my favorite subs, and I've learned a lot from there. Especially about laws regarding pay.
I was sitting in the breakroom with one of said older ladies who happened to be working in the kitchen. She told me that our boss had just called her and told her to make cookies even though she was scheduled off in 10 minutes. I told her just stay clocked in, he's gonna have to pay you overtime then.
Coworker: oh no, he will just go in and change my time. He won't give me overtime.
Me: uhhh that's illegal. He can't do that.
Coworker: oh no, is it? He does it all the time! Please don't say anything..
So I started watching my time card and sure enough this mofo was taking 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there from my time card. I was pissed. All the times I had stayed over, come in when someone called off, busted my butt for him and he was taking money from me. Not from me, from my daughters mouth.
So I called the anonymous hotline and reported it. I had 2 weeks of proof. And because it was wage theft I couldn't stay anonymous and had to meet with HR who opened an investigation.
Turns out he had been doing it to EVERYONE in BOTH departments for at least 18 months.. or that's as far back as the DOL would go back. ALL of the time was Overtime. We were all paid back our overtime, they had a huge meeting with us and the legal team. In all they handled it pretty well and I stayed on for another 2 years before it went to shit.
He was obviously fired, and I never heard where he ended up. I'm still salty he thought he could get away with it… but thanks to Reddit I was able to stand up for me and my co-workers.