I've been on the job for about three months now, originally hired at a rate of $20 per hour. But recently, I took a look at the latest payroll and noticed something unexpected: I've been reclassified as a salaried employee, with an equivalent rate of $21 per hour for a standard 40-hour workweek. While it might seem like a nice surprise, I have some concerns about this change, particularly the fact that nobody consulted me about it. I'm also worried that it might come with increased responsibilities and longer hours.
The work itself is generally manageable, but my boss can be a bit unpredictable. They often assign random tasks when they see me with some downtime. As a result, I've learned to keep my workload light and work at a slower pace. Oddly enough, this approach seems to satisfy my boss's expectations so far.
Honestly, I don't see myself sticking around here for the long term. I'm not particularly happy with the work environment. Given that, the sudden “raise” does raise some suspicions and seems out of the ordinary. I'm not even sure if this change is allowed by company policies or employment regulations.
Additionally, I'm aware that my boss has been eager for me to attend company events, which I've been avoiding because I'm not a fan of unpaid teambuilding activities. If I'm now salaried, I'm concerned that there might be more pressure for me to participate in these events. Any advice? I also have suspicions that they did this to avoid paying me for overtime as I've seen in previous pay periods that they have removed the 1 or 2 hours of overtime I worked. I didn't do anything about it because it is a negligible amount of money to me but if they were willing to do that I don't know what other rule-bending they are okay with.