Company forces employee to work after they got assaulted then gives them extra work.

Profits for a company exist where you can pay less for high production. That's why your boss wants to load you up with as much work as possible before overtime kicks in. Advocate for yourself and make sure you get compensated adequately for your work.

On a popular Reddit thread in the Malicious Compliance Subreddit, one person is asked to do extreme work but isn't allowed to take overtime.

They write:

I was working remotely for a staffing agency, organizing and managing events. When I was initially hired, it was because three employees were quitting. They all seemed to be leaving amicably to pursue other ventures, so I didn't think anything of it.

They had hired me and another person to replace them, and everything was going fine. Over time I started to notice little things here and there, like issues due to miscommunication between the owners (married couple) and a heavy workload.

A few months in, I was assaulted and injured badly. It wasn't easy, but I worked remotely and could still work. I told my bosses I had an emergency, was injured, and needed time off. Almost immediately, one of the owners called and left an angry-sounding voicemail.

I called him back and had to tell him I had been assaulted and went to the hospital and all that. He seemed sympathetic, but near the end of the conversation, he noted that I was supposed to be managing an event that weekend (Fri-Sun) and that they had no one else to manage it. He didn't do any of that, but his wife did; however, we always had at least five events we were organizing and managing.

I feared getting fired, so I had to work that weekend. It wasn't so bad, but I was in an incredible amount of pain, and due to my injuries, the doctor said they couldn't prescribe me any strong pain medication due to complications that may arise. I worked that weekend and pushed through.

Shortly after that, they fired another employee and gave me her workload. THEN they chose me to do a very long-running (2+ months) event in two different time zones. They initially decided the event would be split between myself and another employee (she was pregnant, it matters for context) due to the program's size.

So while I was dealing with the assault and healing (it took one month for my injuries to heal), I was also doing the majority of the workload of this event. I also had to plan a move, put my stuff in a storage unit, and live in a long-term sublet while looking for a place. I was also organizing other events, so there were days when I would easily work 10+ hours.

Eventually, the employee helping me went on maternity leave, so the whole program landed on my shoulders.

One day I got reprimanded for working overtime. I explained that the workload was heavy and since I was managing events in two time zones, I had to wake up super early in the morning (4 AM), work during the day, take a long lunch, work some more, then wrap up the other event which ended in the evening (10:30-11 pm).

They told me I needed to manage my time better. I was not doing well mentally or physically, so my cognitive abilities weren't the best. I was making small (easily fixable) mistakes here and there, but nothing damaging or severely detrimental to the business.

There were days I would sit there crying at my desk. It was awful. Another employee had also been reprimanded for working overtime, and she was as swamped as I was.

Eventually, one of my bosses emailed me and said I was still working too much overtime and wanted me to work only five hours on days when I wasn't managing the big event. I was relieved, honestly. I was looking forward to having more time for myself to heal.

I emailed him back to confirm the non-show management days he wanted me to work five hours the following week. He didn't tell his wife (the other owner) about my new hours, and she tended to ramble about stuff during meetings, making them last way longer than they needed to.

One day we had a meeting in the morning that lasted three hours, and it was the first day I was only to work five hours. I didn't need to be in that meeting, but they forced me to stay and would get irritated if they knew I or other employees were quietly working while listening to the meeting.

After that meeting, the wife sent me messages asking about the progress of some things I was working on. She then added more stuff for me to do. The back and forth with her took about twenty minutes.

I told her I knew I wouldn't have enough time to finish those things that day because I only had an hour and a half to complete the other tasks I had already been assigned.

She had no idea what I was talking about, so I told her that her husband had reduced my hours on non-management days and forwarded her our email exchanges where he confirmed I was only to work five hours that day. She got an attitude with me and said, 'Well, these are high-priority things, and we need you to work on them. You can go ahead and work longer today.'

I told her I couldn't because I had confirmed a week prior and had made arrangements and was not able to work. So once I hit my five hours, I clocked out and put my phone on 'do not disturb,' ignoring all the messages she was sending me. She had to work on all the tasks she had given me late into the night.

I followed the new schedule, and they just dumped my workload onto other employees or had to do it themselves. I eventually got fired because they said that was the 'last straw' However, I was relieved and got unemployment benefits, even though they tried to fight it.

The internet can smell a red flag from a mile away.

G-Kira says:

The first red flag was that three employees quit, and they only hired two to replace them.

Tina_Belmont says:

It sounds like they expected you to work the hours, not charge them for those hours.

yParticle says:

Oh man, I'm so sorry. There's no way that could have ended well with that sort of dysfunctional 'family business', but you did the very best you could with what you had to work with! Perfect malicious compliance.

OP, make your bosses pay you for those unemployment benefits!