Employee quits after having their paid time reduced for taking a 10-minute break

Time management and scheduling are the primary duties of a manager. They are responsible for assigning shift timings and ensuring they have enough staff to tolerate the work load. However, at times employees face situations where managers fail to perform these duties well. Reddit user u/thefinalgoat shared a story of how poor time management on the part of their manager led to them taking a pay cut. The situation was so unfair and infuriating that they decided to quit immediately.

In the post, the employee explained their past working situation. They were employed in a pizzeria as a shift manager. Their new store manager had just joined a month ago. The manager did not have a proper idea of everything and struggled to learn his way around the place. His mismanagement had huge mishaps, but everything came to a head on a Thursday, one of their busiest days. Unfortunately, the employee was managing the shifts that day and had to bear the burden of his poor skills.

The store manager made mistakes in scheduling and put in two drivers that were not available. One of the drivers could not manage to work that day and therefore asked for a leave. The employee, after considering the driver's situation and the store's mismanagement, let her take the leave. They arranged for another driver who left the facility without informing them. The second driver got a memo to make videos and therefore, got busy with that.

In the kitchen, everything was a mess. The cooks arrived late. One was 30 minutes behind schedule, while the other was 2 hours late. There were only 4 people in the store, and all hands were on deck. The employee got overwhelmed and took a break of 10 minutes so they could again pick up. They mentioned, "I was getting overwhelmed so I sat down for 10 minutes because if I didn't, I was going to walk out the door." Even though they somehow managed with their small staff, the "rest" cost them. The store manager gave them only 20 hours in the next schedule and pulled them off from next Thursday. The store manager told the employee it was their punishment for sitting down for five minutes.

They brought to light how they were exhausted because of "poor scheduling" and "chronic lack of communication" on his part. He casually replied, "Well, that's how the schedule's gonna be." He was using his position to shift blame and put it all on the employee. Having had enough of this manipulation and no longer willing to contend with it, the employee quit. Even though they could have taken options like threatening him more, working on that pay or being fired and filing for employment, they ultimately chose to prioritize their mental health. They shared, "I feel more relieved than I've felt in a long while."

The comment section sympathized with the employee and gave them suggestions on handling the situation. u/pegasusCK suggested how they could move on from the predicament, "Cutting someone's hours to make them quit lets you claim unemployment. It's called 'constructive dismissal'. You can look it up. Employers do this all the time to try to get people to quit so they won't have to pay unemployment and it works most of the time because people don't know it counts as constructive dismissal to get the other person to quit. If you have proof, your hours were cut you can apply for unemployment." 

u/Destinlegends had some words for the businesses, "What businesses don't realize when they try and run their site like it the military, is that in the military, the soldiers do get to rest all the time."