I work in a freezer. Shipping Department at a place that makes frozen food. Spend most of my day on a forklift loading pallets of product on trucks.
First shift has 5 people. 2 guys run the production aisle most of the day, while the other 3 of us are loaders. The company doesn't see it that way, and labels all of us “shipping/utility” though, so we're all the same in the company's eyes.
Anyway, first shift is 6-2:30, but trucks are often scheduled as late as 3 and often show up later. Many days, the 3 of us who are loaders don't get to leave until 4, 5, or 6. I didn't leave until after 7 one day a few weeks ago.
As of clocking in this morning, I had worked 40.5 hours for the week, so my entire 8 hours today was overtime, and we're scheduled to work tomorrow, which means I'll end up with at least a 56 hour week. I'm mostly ok with this because the paychecks are way more than I used to make at a previous job.
I loaded a couple trucks today and then my supervisor told me I was being moved to the production aisle to put away product while one of the production guys is trained on how to load trucks. This dude has been wanting to learn to load trucks to help cover for absent loaders and stuff anyway, so he everyone was generally okay with that.
I jokingly told my supervisor “so you're telling me I'm leaving at 2:30 today…” And he made some snarky comment back. The banter back in the shipping office is pretty extreme, and we're all talking shit to each other all day every day, and most of it is pretty hilarious.
Anyway, several hours go by without trucks showing up when scheduled. It's almost 1 when trucks finally show up and the guy training for trucks loads his first one. Then another smaller truck is given to him to load around 2. With that truck, he'd be staying over at least a little bit.
At this point, I've had a good think about it, and I want to leave at 2:30. So I went into the office and told my supervisor exactly that. He gives me a bewildered look and is like “there's still 5 trucks left to show up today… You can help.”
I said “these two guys on production leave every single fucking day at 2:30”. He didn't say anything, and I went out to put production away until 2:30. When I came back into the office, he looked at me and said “go home”.
It wasn't in a “go home and don't come back” way… It was the same way he tells any of us to go home when he knows we want to leave. My supervisor is generally a pretty chill dude, but lately I've gotten the feeling that I'm taken for granted by him and the company. I generally work at least 50 hours a week and almost always volunteer for overtime when it's optional. Out of the 8 people who work there over 2 shifts every day, only 3 of us actually volunteer for overtime, and I'm starting to get a little sick of people just expecting me to sit back and do it every single time.
This isn't really a complaint or anything. I already know I'm not going to get wrote up or anything because while management is able to force people to work overtime I think twice a week, I was never told to do that… And beyond that, I've already worked 8 hours of overtime this week and I have more seniority than the guy who was loading trucks today anyway. I'm a super agreeable person, and this is more of a victory post than anything, because I'm getting older and starting to feel like a bit of a doormat. I'm generally very helpful, but I kinda had enough today.
TL;DR, I left work as soon as my shift was over today instead of staying over because I'm already on track to have worked 56 hours by the end of the week and didn't give in to my supervisor pressuring me to stay.