I have to get certifications as part of my job and because all of my coworkers and I keep failing these really hard tests, we aren’t allow to study during downtime on the clock. We were told to study on our own time.

Getting certs is part of what is required for me to get bigger raises and get promoted and all that jazz. I don’t want to use my personal time for this. None of the people who are in this predicament do.

I have a meeting in a few days to discuss goals and I need to figure out how to tell my boss that using my own time for work shit is unacceptable.

I really like this job other than this one aspect of it and I don’t want to make anyone mad, but I need to express my boundaries and all that

  • Badabinski@kbin.earth
    8·
    1 day ago

    There’s the magical term! God I fucking hate wage theft. OP, the company is trying to steal from you. Your time is money and if they’re not paying you for work then they’re, by definition, stealing from you.

    I’ve had conversations like this before, and usually you only have to hint that it’s wage theft for dumbfuck managers to realize and back down, especially if you’re assertive but polite with them. If you’re not getting anywhere with the manager, then you should go to HR. HR’s job is to protect the company and the obviously correct move for an HR person is to keep the DoL out of the situation. If you go to HR and then get fired, then that may be even better evidence against the shitheads.

    If you do go to HR, try to get your manager to admit to wage theft in a way that gives you evidence. If you can’t get the manager to admit to wage theft on paper or electronically (which you should immediately back up), you’re going to the DoL, and you live somewhere with one-party consent, then surreptitiously record your manager saying it. It may be against company policy to make this recording (and should be your last resort, don’t go to HR with audio recordings!), but it’s legal as long as your jurisdiction has one-party consent laws on the books.

    Don’t let them steal from you, OP. The other magic words that have already been mentioned in this thread are “fuck you, pay me.”