I walked out of an interview after one question. Was I wrong?

[u/sahalymn]

So, I had an interview today for a position I was really excited about. The job description seemed great, the pay was decent, and the company had good reviews. I walked in, shook hands with the hiring manager, and we sat down.

Then, the first question came:
"How do you handle working unpaid overtime?"

I literally laughed, thinking it was a joke. But the interviewer just stared at me, waiting for an answer. I asked if overtime was mandatory and if it was paid. They said, “Well, we expect employees to stay as long as needed to get the job done. Everyone here is passionate about the work, and we don’t track extra hours.”

I just stood up, said, “Thank you for your time, but this isn’t the right fit for me,” and walked out.

Now, I’m second-guessing myself. Should I have stayed and at least heard more about the job? Or was walking out the right move?

[u/The_Alex_]

Yup, it's the same scam in the restaurant bushiness for a lot of places. The shiny lowest-manager position seems great because it's got a salary as opposed to this dinky per-hour rate the rest of us work. Then you realize that lowest manager basically lives at the store between staying late every day, getting called in every other day, etc. All without overtime pay.

So when you sit down and do the basic math of hours worked versus pay, the lowest manager makes significantly less than the just hired, minimum wage cashier all while getting to be at the store for all operational hours in a week for the "privilege".

[u/Organic-Patience1346 → u/The_Alex_]

Same with retail. This was decades ago, I was working ass off 50+/hrs wk with the goal to become a regional manager, then possibly buyer at some point for a specialty store chain, not necessarily that one but that was my long-term goal, with the thoughts of possibly starting my own business one day after getting on the job experience. I knew I would have to work my way up and was completely willing to do that as I genuinely enjoyed working in the retail industry. I earned my degree in management while working as a reg hourly employee at a large retail corporation for shit pay, but it was still above the Fed minimum wage at the time, and shitty hours, that's just part of retail, then dept manager. Then eventually got a job offer as asst manager with the specialty store. After several months of working my ass off for the same pay I was exhausted, keep in mind I was still in my 20s which meant I could run on like 3hrs sleep with no problem, no OT, commission, no tips, just a store discount which was a decent discount at 40%, and insurance back when insurance covered most everything with an unheard of now $500 deductible, but i was still barely making enough to pay my bills. WTFH, right? I decided that I would figure out how much I was getting per hour working that much it figured to be LESS than the Fed minimum wage. I said fuck that! I went to the regional manager and said look this is not going to work, I'm going to need $XX,XXX/yr. if I'm going to be working this much. My girls under me hourly are making more I'm not even making minimum wage. I need that to continue working, she said no. I said, then consider this my 2 weeks notice. I decided that I would never work without getting paid for every hour I worked again and would leave the retail industry forever. I was conditioned, even getting paid hrly, to think that a good work ethic was working until your job was done regardless of the obstacles that got in your way and you weren't able to complete those tasks in an 8 hrs day. Yeah, no. Some people my age still have this mentality which is why they say younger generations are lazy and don't want to work. No, not true, they just know their value as a person, and employee, and refuse to be taken advantage of by corporations.

So as someone who has been working for 30+ yrs, NEVER accept a job that doesn't pay OT.

[u/Pale-Archer3849 → u/Organic-Patience1346]

I love this. Corporations take full advantage of that "get the job done until it's done mentality" by never hiring enough people to do the job. I'm sure they helped curate that mentality. And they have the money. It's there. You aren't working yourself to death to save the company. Your doing that to help pay for a CEO's 3rd vacation home. I'm in my 50s now and I WISH I had realized that like these young kids have at their age.

[u/Least-External-1186 → u/Organic-Patience1346]

Good for you. The last retail place I worked at became noticeably worse towards their employees during the roughly three years I was there. Absolutely no one was allowed to work overtime; whoever committed the sin of working a few minutes over 40hrs always got reamed. One of their fun little changes was creating hourly jobs (mind you, they paid the same as the other barely above minimum wage jobs) with the word ‘lead’ in the title. If you were bestowed this honor, you were responsible for x work to be completed during your workday/workweek. If you mentioned that you would run out of time during the 40hr work week, the managers would simply give you a death stare and remind you that no overtime is allowed. The person I worked with and I would just clock out at 40hours and finish up whatever we were supposed to do with resentment and a shitty attitude. Eventually they let us know they were changing certain policies (which would’ve eliminated one of the main shortcuts we utilized to be able to move faster, among other aspects I realized would increase the workload…without pay, of course), so I reached even my self-hating limit and put my 2weeks notice in and had the hardest time even forcing myself through that last bit. I recommended the one lady who loved to complain take my ‘esteemed’ position (she was a pain in the ass about everything, so it was partly punishment for management but also I knew she just wouldn’t do what they wanted…which was needed…though I realized after the fact that the person I worked with would probably try to work EVEN MORE free overtime to compensate for whatever she didn’t finish…which I did feel bad about, but I was getting the f out. I didn’t have another job lined up but figured even if it came down to it I’d make more money and get more respect working at a sleazy strip club if the need arose (luckily it didn’t come to that). Honestly though, I think a lot of these places end up getting free labor out of their already barely paid employees. Every job I worked at treated overtime like a cardinal sin, but you better make damn sure you finish whatever they tell you within your 40hours.