Examples of Employers Stealing Your Time

I have not had to take a commision salary job i’m glad to say. But the most dodgy work i did was for one employer that refused to pay me anything but taxfree or what to call it, i was able to get a written paperwork for it being a legit job but he kept on handing me my salary cash in the hand each month so i had to quit.

I was looking for a job and there was an interesting position with a small engineering firm that was always advertised on several job boards. So I applied and got an interview just a few days later quite early in the morning. I meet the managing director and the chief engineer. We have a pretty standard interview, then the director hands me a list of software tools the company uses and asks me which ones I am familiar with. I answered and he told me that the rest of the day would be a "practical interview" where I would be asked questions on how to configure, use, and troubleshoot these tools.

This went on all day until 6 PM. And it was indeed very hands-on. They would ask questions like "Ok, we just got this tool, how would you configure it for our company?", or "We're having this issue here, how would you solve it?", and so on. When I left I was wondering what had just happened in there. Seemed like I had worked a full day for them for free.

Two days later the secretary rings me back for a "second interview". I expressed my surprise as I had already met with the 2 most senior people in the company. I asked her who I would be meeting this time and she replied the same 2 persons. At that point it all clicked in my head. There was no job. They had very qualified engineers coming in and working for them for free under the pretense of a job. That was why that "job" was always advertised. I periodically checked for it and it was still on even years later.

Unpaid overtime, through encouraging people to work through designated breaks or before and after your work shift, is very common in the workplace

Oh one time I started to work at Asda supermarket here in the UK they put me shadowing the drivers for a week despite my expressed lack of interest in that role. At the end of the week I received another job offer so I just didnt go back to Asda. They basically were reluctant to pay me for my weeks work. It took a few email exchanges in which I had to threaten them under employment law to be paid... I did get paid by cheque about a month later as they obviously had not even put me onto their payroll system. I was told to never apply to them again

My last job, my manager forced the EDI department to go onto unpaid after hours on-call system support. We could get a call at any time of the night or the weekend from system support to deal with some "problem" that was often not even related to the EDI system. I didn't have a cell phone at that time and she wouldn't give me company cell phone even though I found out later that they were available. During the meeting when she ordered the department to go on call she LIED to us and said we were told at our job interviews that there was on-call required. Then why was I working there for six years until the on-call started? And no one could recall being told that. When I got a new manager the on-call continued but we suddenly had a "stipend" for being on-call. I ended up just turning my phone off when I went to bed and if anybody called me for support I'd just say I didn't hear the phone. Any manager can abuse the employees at any time in so many companies. That company was so toxic and I could relate many more horror stories there.

So many companies these days rip-off their employees in many ways. From unpaid O/T to low wages, to reduced benefits, to unrealistic expectations. You know how a job description will say "other duties as assigned"? That means they will have the employee working in other areas not related to the job and not paying them for it.

For years, I was a forklift operator working at a large Tesco warehouse. For the 1st year or so, all staff would be expected to do so many operations per hour "putaways" or "replens". Then they decided, hey we want more from all you guys, instead of x per hour, we want (say) x+10%. It was a bad time after a UK/worldwide economic hit (2008). So no other jobs to jump to. So it wasn't theft ... it was robbery, in my opinion. Your "Christian" boss sounded rather unchristian. It always felt to me when I was a programmer, that it was legitimate to be asked to document your work, as in writing a manual. Though with an inexperienced programmer, that could mean the documents were overly technical & not sufficiently relevant to an end-user. Specs & analysis are a different matter however

Ah yes, selling services, been there, you just gotta learn to breathe between thrusts...

Back in 1999 I knew this Kiwi bloke who came to Australia in W.A. his first job was door-to-door salesman selling Foxtel. He would go to the pub on a Friday and introduce himself and say hello. I’m Bert Im a door to door salesman

and they all sort of snigger and after a few drinks He’d be saying to people what do you make your age is same as me? You’re 27 / 28.

You’re a university trained accountant or chemistry lab technician 45,000 oh 50,000 that’s interesting. I’ve just been in this state for a few weeks and here’s my payslip. I get $350 a week retainer and for every signup I get $80 - even if they pull out after the cooling off period -

and last year I made 84,000

The biggest time waster - speaking of time wasters is pointless university degrees when you’d be better off doing a trade

Sales is a trade

Back in the day, I was offered a job for an insurance agency that paid via a draw against commission. Didn’t ever bother.

Looks like free Dole Unpaid work for 6 months even modern day NGO or Volunteer org what a scam.

Ive experienced so many of these nasty so called Christian people. I currently work for a non for profit Christian organisation, and there’s nothing very Christian about how they treat their workers.

I was “asked” to work on weekends to check up on their systems 3 times per day. They said because it was remote & it’ll take an hour, 3 times per day, it was ok they didn’t pay me.

But that means I couldn’t go anywhere on weekends because I’d be a prisoner in my own home.

I said “no”. My manager took me to HR. I told them “do you walk into a supermarket & demand your shopping for free? So why do you ask me for a service for free?”.

A year later I left. Total a-h.

I found out that they made a new migrant they employed to do that work for them, for free. Rotten.

I don't work for free. Cant pay my bills with servitude 🎉

I had no problems with pay but was " volunteered " for extra hours due to my single status. This was when I first started working in my early twenties as a young teacher. My older, married colleagues " volunteered" us singles for school camps and other " holiday" duties that required us to stay with the kids on school grounds or go on field trips. The married with kids teachers always managed to give excuses .
Fortunately, eventually one of the more senior older staff spoke up and said young teachers needed to have a social life to get married and some had family commitments too so this was unfair.

Crikey! You really have landed some unsavoury interludes (they're not jobs if they're not paying).

I stopped caring some time ago. It is the only defense I can think of.

One could get a commission-only job, but it has to be in something you are already experienced with (say, car sales or IT project sales)

Boomer 🙄

I was a sub teacher once for a staff who went on maternity leave. In my first few days I found out she was behind in her work and I was expected to clear her backlog as well as keep up with current work. This would have meant bringing work home. I quit after 3 days.