I’ll start by saying I’m not generally anti-work, and I don’t mind working very long hours as long as I am compensated fairly.
I started a job last year on an “hourly-salary” position that paid me 40,000/year for 40 hour work weeks. Any hours past 40 were put in “comp time” that was essentially vacation time I could use on any week I worked less than 40 hours to bring the total back up to 40. These comp hours accrued until I hit 150 hours banked, and then I would be paid time and a half over time.
Due to extreme staff shortages, I worked every single day for three months straight and quickly maxed out my comp time and started to get paid overtime. 50-70 hour work weeks without a day off was the norm. After 6 months at the company I made around 33k, which means I was on par to make around 65k from my originally 40k/year job.
Well, they decide to give me a “promotion” to 45,000/year, without ever telling me or negotiating with me, and putting me on full salary.
So now I make no overtime and am expected to do the same job for 20k less than what I was on par to have made.
As an additional way to screw me, they had to pay out my comp hours when promoting me. They paid out those 150hours of comp time, which were all accrued from working past 40hours/week, at a 1x pay rate.
Really feels sleezy what they did to me, and I can’t believe it’s even legal to put someone on full salary without negotiating or telling them in advance. It was late January and they told me they put a promotion through effective January 1st, so all the overtime I had already worked was erased for that month. (I get paid once monthly)