My last job they kept cutting all of our pay in half and then making the salary people work more and more on 40 hrs of pay. I’d work 235 hrs in 2 weeks and get paid for 40 and half pay! I added up the hours i did in 1 month I did over 3 months of work in 1 and was only paid for 1. And I’m not exaggerating, they actually brought cots in for a project so everyone had to pull all nighters! A lot of my department would sleep at their desks cuz they’d be to tired to drive home. I’m talking 8 am- to 3 am shifts each day. If you left before midnight you were scoured at.

The company had a policy of “team spirit” so we had to act positive and smiley all the time or you’d loose your job. It made things way more stressful having to put on a fake show from 8 am to 3 am shifts. AGAIN 40 hours pay!

Well they laid me off the fist time with no notice and I’d been there for close to 4 1/2 months. Then after their slow season they brought me back, turned out it was so they didn’t have to pay the original temp agency that had landed me the job. So they made scammed the people you help me get a job… then they started with the pay cuts as I mentioned earlier.

Then they wanted to cut me even lower then half of what I was making before and keep me as salary. which on salary you have to do their mandated extra hours and legally you can’t look for a second job!

I felt like a slave they took advantage of me again and again. I looked into it and at the pay they wanted to give me and the direction of the company, I’d make more on unemployment then I would on my pay checks and if I stayed in 6 months if they laid me off then, I’d be making even lower on my unemployment because of my mass pay decreases. So I convinced my department manager to help me out and just lay me off.
Which he was able to do…

So I’ve been searching for a new job but reaching the end of my 6 months of Unemployment… so I need to extend it. My problem is my old job called 2 weeks ago and is trying to hire me back at that lower wage and on salary again! I can’t work like that! If they brought me back at my original pay I would… But I know they wont and if they did in three months they’d give me a pay cut again and make me work these insane hours.

Here’s my questions… On salary can they legally make you work over 80 hrs a week on 40 hrs pay year round?

And on unemployment do I have to take my old job back if it’s at lower pay from what they originally hired me??? They’d take me back at the pay I technically ended at… but that was un-livable after so many pay cuts! I could not survive on that! I’d loose my house while working 80 hr weeks! and would have no time to find a real job and would not be allowed to find a 2nd job. Can they cancel my unemployment as a “refuse a job position” type situation? That’s what I’m scared of.

This post was submitted by Frob.

I was one of five corporate level fitness faculty members for a company with a significant presence in nine different states. Our responsibilities included, but were not limited to, teaching the basic fundamentals of personal training, facilitating personal training certification workshops, leading a workshop on the company’s fitness policies and procedures, all of which were two or three day events, in addition to overseeing certain aspects of the fitness departments of all of the clubs within the region.

I was the epitome of a successful teacher, especially since the company would hire anybody with a pulse that the club managers thought had what it took to be successful, I had people in my classes that knew absolutely nothing about the human body. That was one of the perks of the job because, while I refer to myself as a teacher, I must relay my favorite quote from Socrates: “I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think,” I got to form the foundation of a new train of thought; and I had no trouble making the learning process fun. In fact, here I am 13-months later and still in contact with several of the people I had in my classes. So, on second day back from two weeks of vacation and I’m doing a site visit with my immediate supervisor when he gets a page and informs me that he has a conference call at 12 and I should come in 15 minutes later.

I enter the office, close the door and make myself comfortable. Next thing I know, the two HR reps on the line inform me that due to the [workings of the Obama agenda], they were eliminating the position of fitness faculty to reduce company expenditures. My last day on salary was two weeks to the so I guess that was them giving me two-weeks notice.

As for my responsibilities, they were added to those of the person that taught the “business” aspect of the business to sales people and GMs. The first question from my mouth was, “What does he know about fitness?” Their response… “He has seven personal training certifications.” I responded with “What does that tell me about his knowledge of the human body?” They were positive that those certifications made him an expert, but, as most are aware, all a PT certification tells you is they know how to study the way (insert your choice of any PT cert here) wants you to know how the body works to fulfill THEIR objectives in the way that THEY dictate when it should be your client telling you their objectives so that you can fulfill them based upon your knowledge of how this magnificent machine works. I was pissed, especially I’ve forgotten more since grad school than he’ll ever know, and I let them know it, but what’s done is done. By the way, to supplement my point, he resigned from his new responsibilities just a few weeks into the mission. So because I’m still unemployed, I’ve returned to school for a PhD and they are still losing market share!

This post was submitted by Sheik Yerbouti.

During my 8 year stint as an engineer at a major medical device company there has been a lot of good and bad. As the economy started tanking the company laid off like a lot of other places did. I fortunately was deemed valued enough to survive a few years of cuts. Earlier this year the CEO announces in an all employee meeting that there will be no layoff this year. Great thing to hear, but it turned out to be a false sense of security. A company can reduce people without having to pay benefits, severance or even unemployment. The powers that be decided to pressure people to leave on their own. The pressures became so intense that employees of 20+ years just walked out the door. In addition many went on medical leaves due to the stress to come back to a reorganized department and a released position. Those that put up with the stress (including myself) were then amazingly put on PIPs despite solid reviews (including myself). Wasn’t going down without a fight therefore I excelled on the PIP to a level the HR and management questioned if it was established at a sufficient level. After several attempts to push me out the door I was then given blame for a component engineers mistake and subsequently let go for that. A company has no loyalty to employees anymore and although it was a huge initial ouch I have never felt better. I am working at a transition job for a little less money but haven’t felt this good in years. I lost almost 20 pounds primarily from the lack of stress and burden from that previous place.

This post was submitted by RJF.

I worked for a title company for four years with the knowledge that it wasn’t going anywhere and the benefits were nil. But the work was easy, I got along with my boss and it was a pay check every week, so I thought why not? Times were tough and our work was a little slow, but I always had stuff in my inbox to work on and I wasn’t afraid to take on the nastier stuff others didn’t want. Dedication is my thang.

Monday morning: The previous week my car finally bit the dust and I had something lodged under my conjunctiva in my eye, so I was on the phone with my doctor when an e-mail popped up on my screen. The subject line was Can You Please Come Upstairs?

Didn’t take a genius to figure that one out. Into the phone I muttered an expletive, a nice way to impress the appointment setter at your doctor’s office, hung up and went upstairs. I got a ‘well you’ve probably known for a while we were going to lay you off’ speech, even though I hadn’t. It came as a total shock because I’d just received a new batch of no-on-else-wants-to-do-this-you-do-it work.

I got handed a check and a letter of resignation. He didn’t even pay me a full week, he cut off four hours and used my vacation time to cover the four he cut out.

Seriously, why bother having me come in on a Monday for an hour and a half? Most of which I spent goofing off on the internet, mind you, but why not let me go on Friday afternoon so I didn’t have to get up early and bother getting dressed the following work day?

I keep getting e-mails from him because I guess he still thinks we’re “friends”. How are you doing? Well, I’m about a $1000 behind on my electric, whatever was in my eye is STILL there and oh, by the way, the day you laid me off, I ran over my dog with the new car I’m still working out payments on. The economy sucks and I can’t find a new job. How do you think I am?

This post was submitted by Beckie C..

After I graduated college I took this great job at a large bank where I would be doing a 2 year rotational program. I would rotate within all the different departments of the bank i.e Finance Credit Risk etc etc. Well 6 months into the job the economy started tanking and the rotations were canceled due to saving costs.

So in the meantime I was stuck at my home base in this terrible department where the managers were the biggest low lifes. The department i was stuck in is the one department no consumers ever see or could even imagine a bank has. Its called payment processing. They take people who have GED’s (if that) and put them into this factory like setting but call it a bank job. None of the managers had a college education, which is not a big deal if you don’t have a degree, but at least bring some professionalism into your work. These managers all came from these rough upbringings and would swear at employees. You had to tell them if you were going to the bathroom that’s how badly they micro managed. I remember an incident where my manager came up to me and said we need to you start coming in at 6am I said no because I drive my mom to the train every morning. She has the nerve to tell me because my family is wealthy that my mom should just buy a car. I told her that’s great my family is rich but my mom doesn’t know how to drive a car. It was all these different incidents week after week that would just irritate me. So I decided to stick it out till the economy got better.

In the meantime, I went above and beyond everything they asked me to do. I got along with everyone so well that people would come up to me and say thank goodness you’re here because without you I would be so miserable. I became the go to guy everyone would ask for help. So one day the department manager made an announcement that our department was being sold off to another company and starting Sep 1st we would all work for this new company.

Well 4 months later I took a day off of work for personal reasons and got a telephone call from a manager saying please call the department manager a quarter after 12. So I did that and he laid me off. How terrible is that to lay someone off over the phone? The thing that gets me the most is he said to me I hope you don’t think that I couldn’t face you and do this it was just the only time HR had? What a tool you just lay me off and you’re worried about my impression of you?

This post was submitted by Paul M.