A worker discovered his boss was committing employer wage theft by forcing unpaid lunch work, then spent four years getting paid to do absolutely nothing as revenge. The employee estimates he wasted 2,000 hours on company time after becoming shift manager.
The Backstory
This worker spent five years at a company with a boss who had perfected the art of employer wage theft. Every shift lasted 10.5 hours, but employees only got paid for 10 hours. The boss automatically deducted 30 minutes for lunch breaks.
Here’s the kicker – they weren’t actually allowed to take those lunch breaks. The boss required everyone to answer phones and help customers during their unpaid lunch time. This is completely illegal under labor laws.
The employee calculated that his boss saved over $100,000 in payroll costs over those five years through this wage theft scheme. The owner rarely showed up to work, only dropping by on Fridays to pay bills and occasionally calling to check in.
The Incident
When the worker got promoted to shift manager, he decided enough was enough. He implemented his own creative scheduling system that would make any boss’s head spin.
The team started taking two-hour lunch breaks instead of working through them. They added an hour-long morning break and another hour-long afternoon break. On slow days, they would stand around doing nothing for hours at a time.
The employee took this employer wage theft revenge to new heights in his final year. He spent entire shifts sitting in the break room scrolling his phone. He estimates 15 out of 40 hours each week were spent doing absolutely nothing productive.
Over four years as shift manager, he racked up close to 2,000 hours of paid downtime. The brilliant part? He still showed up on time, stayed late when needed, completed all necessary work, and treated customers well. The absentee owner never caught on.
The final straw came when the boss promised health insurance but mysteriously couldn’t afford it when the time came. The employee quit and took his newfound time-wasting skills to a hospital billing job, where he perfected the art of finishing his daily work queue in the morning and coasting the rest of his shift.
What Reddit Said
Most people applauded this creative response to employer wage theft, though many found the story confusing. The top comment pointed out the contradiction between being overworked and having endless free time.
Some readers questioned how an absentee boss could simultaneously force unpaid work while never noticing employees taking extended breaks. The logistics didn’t quite add up for many commenters.
A few suggested the employee should have reported the illegal lunch policies to labor authorities instead of just getting personal revenge. Filing a wage theft complaint could have recovered money for all affected workers.
Others celebrated the poetic justice of the situation. The boss’s own negligence and illegal practices created the perfect conditions for this extended payback scheme.
The Verdict
Overall verdict: OP was justified in his creative response to systematic wage theft. While reporting the illegal practices might have been more helpful to other workers, it’s hard to blame someone for turning the tables on a boss who stole thousands in wages.
This story highlights why proper labor oversight matters and how employer wage theft often backfires when workers get creative. The real lesson? Bosses who break labor laws shouldn’t be surprised when employees find ways to level the playing field. For more workplace justice stories, check out our work drama and revenge stories categories.
From r/pettyrevenge (1,832 upvotes)