Most of us have to work to be able to pay bills, buy something to eat, go out or travel somewhere. That means that sooner or later, we need to face adult responsibilities and work in order to have a decent life.
However, the world is unfair, full of scams and things that shouldn’t be tolerated. And in this case - the corporate world. Most companies don’t really care about their employees, yet employees need to provide for themselves and their families, thus they have no other way but to hold themselves together. Actually, there are so many things at work that we are just so used to them being this way that we have even forgotten that they're not exactly as they should be. For instance - unpaid lunches that result in a 9-hour work day.
So, speaking about that, one Reddit user started a thread in one of the communities asking folks online to share work scams that have become so normalized that we don’t even realize they’re scams anymore. So, pandas, explore these scams, comment your thoughts and maybe you will even spot something that you in fact never thought of as being a scam, but when you think about it… well, maybe it is in fact too normalized.
More info: Reddit
#1
“Be here 15 minutes before your shift starts “Ya bro. Normally I would because I like to ease in, make a coffee etc. but if you require it and don’t pay, I’m rolling in at 9 on the dot.
Image credits: Lazerith22
#2
Having to find someone to cover for you when you call out sick. That's the f*****g managers job not yours.
Image credits: ioncloud9
#3
Companies offering 3% raises while inflation is 8%
Image credits: marchingprinter
#4
HR is there to protect the company, no one is there to protect the employees.
Image credits: Tigger808
#5
"Team lead." It really means "you're going to get management responsibilities without management pay."
Image credits: thomascameron
#6
Go above and beyond and we will reward you with….even more work
Image credits: Maleficent_Sky6982
#7
Wage Theft of almost every type is so normalized we barely notice it.
Image credits: durgadas
#8
For the Americans in the crowd: Let's talk about tying proper healthcare to our jobs, shall we? It's become so normalized that we sometimes forget how wild it is that a huge chunk of our healthcare security is linked to where we work. If you or one of your loved ones requires ongoing medical coverage, you literally CANNOT quit your job.If you're thinking about switching careers or just need a change of pace, there's this looming threat. You can't just leave, cause if something unfortunate happens, you're screwed. We are all hostages of our employers.
Image credits: dtelad11
#9
Unpaid lunches resulting in a 9 hour work day. Absolute f*****g horseshit.
Image credits: Aern
#10
Attendance policies, telling an employee who they can and can’t take time off to grief for.
Image credits: rubygalhappy
#11
Sick days.Don't call them sick days. When I need them they drain my available PTO first before they get to the sick days.
By then I am usually no longer sick and with the little amount PTO I accrue during the year, I am now not getting a vacation.
Out sick is not a f*****g vacation.
Image credits: dartheduardo
#12
A work contest to see who can have the highest sales dollars. We push to make them a c**p ton of profit and they give us s****y rewards like $10 gift cards or the smallest percentage of a bonus they can find. It's total garbage.
Image credits: Deckbothular4
#13
"Do it for the team, others are counting on you" to try and get free labor
Image credits: Psychological-Poet-4
#14
Five day work week.
Image credits: Loud_Internet572
#15
Being expected to give two weeks notice or you get a bad reference/can't be rehired, but we can be fired on the spot for literally no reason at all.what is that horses**t??
Image credits: galaxychildxo
#16
Unpaid internships. How and why have we ok'd this??
Image credits: atomic_chippie
#17
Promising growth and development (dangling the ? on the stick) but not following through.
Image credits: chibinoi
#18
Downsizing and not getting compensated for doing more work.
Image credits: ccafferata473
#19
Saying we get 2 days off. It's more like 1.5 days. Saturday is the only real day off. On Sundays, you try to sleep early to be ready for Monday morning. There is no real rest when Saturday is the only day you can sleep in and sleep late.40 hours a week of work 5 days a week is too long. It's harder to manage your regular life and it's too hard to get anything done in your regular life because you're too burnt out giving your entire days and times at work.
Work should be 6 hours a day (it's hard to stay productive after the 5th or 6th hour) and have 3 days off so we can get real rest and take care of our real life s**t.
Image credits: LuvIsLov
#20
When you're expected to be ready to start when your shift starts, fine. When you come in a bit early to get a coffee and get your work face on and colleagues immediately start throwing work at you.I used to come in 15 minutes early and people who were due to finish when I started would just pack up and go.
Thanks to this sub I no longer tolerate that. I still come in early to prepare for the s**t show and get a coffee but *I'm not working*.
I actually had a nurse storm up to me once saying a call bell had been going for 10 mi why wasn't I responding. I shrugged and asked her where her day staff were.
Image credits: DifficultCurrent7
#21
My employer keeps paperwork that we are supposed to be filling out regularly in the break room. A lot of people have too much to do and they fill it out on their breaks. I never have. I don’t care how behind I am, if the company wants something done, they are going to have to pay me to do it.
Image credits: happyme321
#22
Business tax cuts. The politicians say that it will create jobs, but they don't. The big businesses just use the money to buy out their competitors and they pay lower wages after removing redundant staff.#23
the part where i make 100 bucks for my employer and he gives me 10 for my efforts.
Image credits: lobsterdog666
#24
After work activities being “not mandatory but advised” or affecting your standing at work.I used to have a two hour turnaround commute for work and at least once a month my bosses would look to have the whole team go out for a few hours after an 8 hour shift starting at the crack of dawn where every minute of our day was accounted for. I just wanted to clock in and then go home because i was just mentally exhausted by the end of the day, but would always get the stink eye when i would politely decline the three hour detour for “team building” with a team we couldn’t even socialize with since we were on the phone 8 hours a day.
Image credits: mbattagl
#25
Pensions are an easy one.
Image credits: matty_nice
#26
Capitalism is the ultimate pyramid scheme.
Image credits: Rough_Ian
#27
The standard 40 hour work week.#28
Unable to leave early once you fulfill your daily/weekly quota. Must stay so they can exploit more of your energy.
Image credits: been2busy
#29
Working most of the day for most of the week.
Image credits: DrSnap23
#30
Not being paid for commute time and its expenses.
Image credits: Darnocpdx
#31
Not being paid extra for working unsociable hours or the weekend.So I've worked in hospitality getting paid minimum wage working 7am to 12am then another shift from 5pm to 10 or 11pm and not knowing what your days off are gonna be until less than a week before you get them. How am I supposed to get anything done in my time outside work and how am I supposed to plan anything for my days off when I don't know when they are gonna be.
Also I used to work maintenance at this holiday park where I regularly worked weekends, and all the old holiday goers always used to make comments about getting double pay on Sundays and 1.5 pay on Saturdays, and when I told them that was not the case they pretty much all said it was very common in their day
And also I was working at this restaurant and they wanted me to do the late kitchen porter shift cleaning up the kitchen after service by myself on new years eve . I said I wasn't happy doing the shift because I was on a zero hour contract I was not abliged to accept every shift they offered me, and they let me go, didn't fire me just never gave me another shift
Image credits: crazytib
#32
Being gainfully employed without being able to even make basic ends meet.#33
So, so many but to name a few:1) Having to pay for parking just to go to work. This blew my mind as a New Yorker when I met people from other parts of the US. They’re forcing you to be at their premises yet you have to pay for a separate parking facility, or worse yet, one of those corporate park deals where the employers there can easily cover employee parking but they don’t.
2) Hell, the notion of paying for commuting altogether is a scam that Americans have been suckered into so long and the lowest-paid workers get screwed the most.
3) The expectation that you have to give two weeks notice to quit, but you can get fired overnight with zero warning because a graph made the chairman of the board’s portfolio sad.
4) That it’s 2023 but employers and policymakers still cling to the 40-hour work week model for knowledge work. It was designed for assembly lines long before we had powerful computers that fit in our pockets.
5) Skilled and educated professionals having to practically beg for jobs they can damn well do but if you’re not automatically tossed by ATS, you’re not given a chance because your background doesn’t PRECISELY fit the criteria on the list. Then you have to answer a bunch of really stupid questions where you’re expected to lie a little, but not too much, when you know you can just DO THE THING THEY NEED.
6) Having your time wasted with 4+ interviews and employers constantly toeing the line between “skills assessment” and “free work”.
Image credits: Jealous_Location_267
#34
Yep. Had an employer who would strip the client info from the pay stub, so it was just random billing hours, and then they’d “shuffle” those hours so they weren’t in any kind of order.I started matching them up, and once I did that caught them short changing me every week.
Finally i threatened them with going to DOL over it and the shortchanging stopped but I still had to spend an hour making sure I was being paid correctly every check.
#35
At-will employment.
Image credits: italyqt
#36
Showing/Adding up health insurance as a part of Total Compensation.#37
Employee surplus value is effectively stolen.#38
probably cellphones. most jobs require in some way a smartphone, but you have to pay for it.#39
Being on salary. Salary is SUCH a scam that only benefits a company in that they can get free labor and not pay OT. There is ZERO benefit to the employee. Why this even exists is something I find baffling.
Image credits: RichRichieRichardV
#40
I don’t know if it’s normalized but it seems to be growing: “Unlimited” PTO.
Image credits: Carnifex72
#41
work is the scam.source https://www.boredpanda.com/normalized-work-scam/
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