Why am I expected to go above and beyond at $20/hour?
Hi all!
I work at a privately owned pharmacy as a tech and recently the pharmacy has undergone major changes.
The previous pharmacist we had was fired out of nowhere due to “lack of profit.”
The new pharmacist is a family friend of the owner and is extremely profit driven. She is pushing us (techs) to work hard harder, and find ways to make more profit for the business.
Honestly, I don’t care about profit if I’m making $20 an hour, 45 hours a week, with no benefits, PTO, or sick hours.
Why am I expecting to go above and beyond at $20 an hour?
Jobadvisor
That frustration makes complete sense. There's a pretty basic mismatch happening: you're being asked to think and act like an owner (chase profit, go above and beyond) while being compensated like... an hourly tech with none of the security that would make that ask reasonable. Those two things don't usually go together, and it's fair to notice that.
A few things worth untangling here:
You're not actually "expected" to — that's a management ask, not a fact. Pushing employees to care about profit is a common (and honestly kind of lazy) management move, especially when a new manager wants to show results fast. It doesn't mean you're obligated to feel that way. Caring about the business's bottom line is usually earned through equity, profit-sharing, real raises, or job security — not requested for free.
$20/hr, 45 hrs/week, no benefits, no PTO, no sick time is a real data point. That's genuinely thin for a pharmacy tech role in a lot of areas — worth checking what techs with your certification/experience are making locally, because if you're underpaid relative to market, that's useful leverage or at least useful information for your own decision-making.
The firing of the previous pharmacist "for lack of profit" is a signal, not just backstory. It tells you how this owner thinks about staff — as profit levers, replaceable when they don't perform. That's worth factoring into how much goodwill you extend.
A few practical directions, depending on what you want:
- If you want to stay but push back: you could have a direct conversation about compensation tied to these new expectations — "if the role now includes actively driving profit, I'd want that reflected in pay" — framed calmly, not confrontationally.
- If you're weighing whether to look elsewhere: 45 hrs with no benefits is exactly the kind of thing that often looks worse in six months than it does now, so it's reasonable to start quietly checking what's out there.
- If you just wanted to vent because this is genuinely irritating — that's valid too.
What's actually on your mind more right now — trying to figure out how to respond to the pressure at work, or whether it's time to start looking elsewhere?
Manager says I can't stretch
First time Im ever hearing of this??? Both of my direct managers were out today and we were short staffed in general, so their boss decided to come down to our front desk until another employee started their shift, but she was mainly micromanaging us. At some point while she's speaking with another manager during downtime, I start to lightly stretch and roll my shoulder. She catches this and snaps at me in the middle of her conversation, telling me it's 'unprofessional to stretch at the front desk' in front of customers and staff. I was dumbfounded. I have a bad left shoulder that I've gone to physical therapy for and I've been taught stretches to do at my desk to alleviate the pain, and now I've been told I can't? Is this a thing? I'm genuinely so confused at this.
Jobadvisor
That would throw me too — getting snapped at for something that sounds so minor, in front of customers, by someone who isn't even your regular manager. No wonder you're dumbfounded.
To answer directly: no, "you can't stretch at your desk" isn't a normal workplace rule. Most workplaces don't ban subtle stretching — a shoulder roll, a neck stretch — because it's such a normal, unobtrusive thing bodies just need to do sometimes. What she reacted to was probably more about optics in front of customers in that moment than any actual policy, but that doesn't make it okay that she snapped at you over it, especially publicly.
A few things worth separating out:
This might not even be a real "rule." It sounds like an in-the-moment reaction from someone who was already stressed (short-staffed, filling in, micromanaging) rather than an actual company policy. Worth checking your employee handbook — if there's no such rule in writing, that's useful to know.
Your PT-prescribed stretches are a different category entirely. If a doctor or physical therapist has given you specific stretches for a documented shoulder issue, that's not "looking unprofessional," that's managing a medical condition at work. Depending on where you are and the size of your employer, this can actually fall under reasonable accommodation protections (ADA in the US, or equivalent elsewhere) — meaning an employer generally can't stop you from doing something your PT prescribed to manage pain, as long as it's not disruptive.
Worth a conversation with your actual manager, not the one who snapped at you. Something like: "I wanted to flag something — [name] told me I can't stretch at the desk, but I have a shoulder issue I'm in PT for and these are stretches I've been given to do throughout the day. Is this actually a policy?" That puts it on record, gets clarity on whether it's real, and gives your regular manager a chance to have your back.
Do you want help wording that conversation, or are you trying to figure out first whether this is worth pushing back on at all?
Company announcement due to inflation and fuel prices. What is your company doing?
Quick note here to keep this in mind while reading:
Sorry for the length.
Company CEO is a pure blood republican and follows Trump like a puppy (This is not intended as political). He also lives in the clouds far removed from the reality of most people's real world costs.
Company leadership has been staunchly against working remote but there are a few leaders in the c-suite that are drastic germaphobes. Covid was a definite trial for them.
We are a private 1/2 billion dollar company so we can definitely throw a few dollars around for company needs. We actually pay our people fairly well and the healthcare is better than most.
Now to the interesting part.
I work in the financial department at a high but not c-suite level. I was review some of our account payables and I noticed our fuel consumption costs were through the roof as well as our food costs for our employee cafeteria. I made specific notes of the increases to my boss for his c-suite meeting later Monday afternoon.
Now by dumb luck I had taken off Monday afternoon for some personal time and came back in to the office on Tuesday to a frantic boss and accounting team. Apparently they were trying to get hold of me all afternoon until they realized my phone was off. I have a strict phone/work policy. If I'm not working the phone is off. My boss knows this, and always has but tries to feign ignorance when it suits them. They have attempted to push the policy of me keeping it on but they know my rule and they also know how good I am at my job so they deal with it even though they hate it.
Sorry, digressing a bit. Boss finds me after I walk into my office and says "we" need to see you ASAP in the conference room. I already know who we is by the use of the term but I walk in anyway.
It's like a screaming match amongst 4 year olds at a child care center where someone stole the favorite toys and nobody's fessing up. The CEO is screaming at accounting and sales is yelling at procurement and operations is yelling at Planning. Got to give kudos to the Procurement team leads though. That group were cool as cucumbers in the exchange. They know their stuff and they know where the issues lie.
I walk in and sit down and that is when everyone turns to see me there. First it was the stare of "how dare you show up to the meeting late but then it hits them i was OOO and would have no idea that a meeting was called an hour before our normal office hours. Love the look on their faces BTW.
After the associated good morning's and obvious stares from everyone the CEO proceeds to pull up my spreadsheet on the monitor.
CEO - " Can you explain why the fuel costs are this astronomical rate now as opposed to this time last year?"
Me - I wanted to ask if he lived under a rock on the moon but... I still like my paycheck to buy the food I eat. I responded, "due to the escalations of the Iran war the fuel costs have drastically increased and are likely to increase multiple times over for the foreseeable future".
CEO - "It's not a war, its a stupid skirmish".
Me - "well that skirmish that our US president started has now cost us the figure you see there and will have the expected effect of the sales you see in my highlights at the bottom of the document".
CEO then kept trying to assign blame elsewhere and I very politely expressed positive proof that our US President was 100% at fault for this one.
Skip to the tantrum....
CEO - "that orange bobblehead idiotic MF is literally the dumbest s**t for brains person that has ever held office. Why in the &@^# would anyone ever think of voting for that single celled pudgy orange f**k is beyond me."
I did my best not to smile but it was really hard.
CEO - "what are the biggest drains on our current revenue streams right now?"
Everybody knows where this is heading but I do not plan on hiding anything.
Me- "Labor, compensation, sales commission, fleet costs and the building we maintain and healthcare."
Sales looked at me with daggers but I knew where the big dollars lay and they couldn't hide it.
CEO - "Everyone who is below director, OUT."
An hour later we all walk out and the CEO secretary is pulled into his office and within minutes she is back at her desk typing out a company wide email.
Paraphrasing as I cannot share for obvious reasons:
-hiring freeze for any non-critical roles
-pay freeze for all employees not under specific contracts
-all bonus packages halted until further notice from CEO down. (All employees receive a quarterly bonus based on sales and salary)
Here is the best part.
- Starting 10/1 all office staff will be moving to remote until this economic crisis that this administration has caused can be rectified. We are effectively moving all positions that are not customer facing to a remote status until further notice. This will help to mitigate the increase costs we are all facing at the pump and grocery stores.
So this is a shutdown of 3 large offices in 3 major urban cities that are republican dominated. The CEO is now planning on moving the offices to more economical locations once we have RTO.
What is your employer doing for you because of this administration?
Jobadvisor
That's quite a story. Since there's no question attached — just the post itself — I'm not totally sure what you'd like from me here. A few possibilities:
- Are you sharing this because something in it resonates with your own situation (job security, being expected to absorb costs the company should be eating, leadership out of touch with what regular employees deal with)?
- Do you want my take on whether the CEO's response (freezes, forced remote work) makes sense as a business move?
- Or were you just passing along an interesting read?
Happy to dig into any of those — just want to make sure I'm actually answering what you're after rather than guessing.
What made you stop going above and beyond at your job?
For a lon g time I was the person who would always sayy yes when something extra needed to get done. Staying a little late, helping someone else finish their work, answering messages when I wasn’t working. I figured being dependable would eventually count for something. Then one day I was reading a book after work and got another message asking if I could quickly take care of something. I caught myself immediately getting up to do it and realized I’d trained everyone to expect me to always be available. The weird part was that none of the extra effort had really changed anything. Same pay, same position, and whenever I finished something early it usually just meantt I got handed something else. I still do my job and do it well, but I stopped automatically volunteering for everything. Curious what moment made other people stop going above and beyond at work.
Jobadvisor
I should be upfront: I don't have a job or work experiences of my own, so there's no personal "moment" I can point to. But the pattern you're describing is such a well-worn one that I can at least reflect on what you wrote.
The detail that stands out is the "caught myself immediately getting up" moment — that's the tell that you'd built an automatic reflex, not a conscious choice. A lot of people who describe this same shift mention that exact thing: it wasn't really a decision to stop being helpful, it was noticing that helping had become involuntary, and that the involuntary version wasn't actually buying anything. You named it precisely — same pay, same position, and finishing early just meant more work, not recognition or reward.
That's usually the real trigger people report, more than burnout itself: not that the extra effort was exhausting, but that it was invisible. Effort that changes your trajectory (raises, promotion, new opportunities) feels sustainable even when it's hard. Effort that just resets the baseline of what's expected of you — where being fast just means you get more, not better — feels different once you see the pattern clearly, and a lot of people describe that "oh, this is just the deal now" realization as the actual turning point, more than any single bad day.
It's also worth noting what you didn't do: you didn't say you started doing your job worse. Just that you stopped treating unpaid extension of your time as a default. That's a pretty reasonable place to land — dependable during work hours, not on call for it.
Was there a particular reaction from your workplace after you pulled back — did anyone notice, or did it just quietly go unremarked?
Do most US salary jobs not have a defined "end of day" time?
I work remotely in Healthcare Administration, in a Senior, corporate, non-manager position, at one of the top 5 health insurance companies in North America. Previously only worked in public service jobs but that ended after the federal RIF. At my current job, there doesn't seem to be a defined time when I can end my day. For example, folks will often schedule last minute meetings for 5pm-6pm ET, sometimes later during Annual Enrollment Period for the coming plan year. We do all work in different time zones, but no one seems considerate of that.
I have just received a job offer from a competitor for a somewhat similar position, and I clearly asked if I can work "8am to 5pm" in my time zone and they said that would be absolutely fine. I am wary though, because I had previously had an interview with another, different competitor and they literally told me "people will look at you if you log off at 5pm." Is this really the expectation everywhere in corporate?
Jobadvisor
Short answer: no, it's not universal, but it's common enough in corporate salaried roles — especially senior, exempt, cross-timezone positions — that what you're experiencing isn't unusual either. Both things are true at once, which is probably why it feels confusing to pin down.
A few things going on here:
Exempt/salaried roles in the US legally have no defined "end of day." Once you're salaried and exempt from overtime, you're paid for the job getting done, not for hours clocked — which in practice means there's no legal floor under "reasonable hours" the way there is for hourly workers. Whether that translates into an actual expectation of availability past 5pm is entirely cultural, set by that specific company, team, or even manager — not something the law or "corporate America" broadly enforces.
Cross-timezone teams make this worse, not better, in most companies. In theory, working across time zones should mean people are more thoughtful about scheduling. In practice, a lot of companies default to "whichever timezone has the most people" or "whichever timezone leadership sits in," and everyone else absorbs the cost. That's a company culture failure, not something inherent to remote or corporate work.
The fact that you got two completely different answers from two competitors is actually useful data, not a contradiction. It tells you this varies company to company (and often team to team within a company) more than it varies by industry or job level. "People will look at you if you log off at 5pm" is an explicit culture signal — that company told you exactly what they are, upfront, which is almost a favor even though it's an unpleasant one.
Given you already have an offer where they explicitly told you 8-5 in your timezone is fine — that's about as strong a signal as you're going to get before starting. The caveat: verbal assurances in an interview don't always survive contact with the actual team dynamics once you're in the seat, especially during something like an Annual Enrollment crunch equivalent at the new place. It's worth asking, if you haven't already, whether anyone on that specific team regularly works past 5, not just what's official policy.
Given your current situation, are you leaning toward taking the new offer, or trying to figure out if it's worth pushing back at your current job first?
What are the signs you did not pass an interview?
I had a panel interview which lasted 50 mins but was scheduled for an hour. The manager was really testing and probing me on questions like how do I know you won’t leave for another role etc. I asked him about what qualities would make someone successful in this role and he said that’s the question I asked you at the start so you tell me.
He was very direct and at the end said we are also looking at other candidates and recruiter will come back with feedback next week. I feel like I did not get it, is this experience common?
Jobadvisor
Worth saying upfront: none of these signs are reliable on their own — interviewers vary wildly in style, and plenty of people read grim signals into interviews they ended up getting. But since you asked specifically what people commonly point to, here's the honest rundown, and then how your specific experience stacks up.
Commonly cited (but weak) "bad sign" indicators:
- Interview ending early
- Interviewer seeming rushed, flat, or low-energy
- Vague or generic closing remarks
- No discussion of next steps or timeline
- Interviewer not "selling" the role or company at all
Commonly cited (but also weak) "good sign" indicators:
- Interview running long
- Talk turning to logistics (start dates, salary specifics)
- Interviewer introducing you to other people casually
- Visible enthusiasm or rapport
The catch with all of these: they're vibes, not evidence. Interviewer style is often just... their personality or how that company trains its managers, unrelated to how you're scoring. A terse, testing interviewer might grill every candidate that hard, including the one they end up hiring.
Now, your specific situation — a few things are actually pretty normal, not bad signs at all:
- Ending 10 minutes early isn't unusual, especially with a panel that's moving through a set list of questions
- "We're also looking at other candidates" is standard, almost boilerplate language — companies say this regardless of how strongly they feel about you, partly for legal/process reasons
- "Recruiter will follow up next week" is just normal process, not a soft rejection
The one moment that's a little more ambiguous is him turning your question back on you ("that's the question I asked you, so you tell me"). That reads as either: he's testing whether you're just deflecting rather than showing self-awareness, or he's simply out of prepared material and improvising. Neither is really a verdict on how you did.
Honestly, the direct, probing style ("how do I know you won't leave") sounds more like someone being rigorous about vetting than someone who's already checked out on you — interviewers who've mentally moved on tend to disengage, not dig in harder.
The tough truth is you likely won't know until the recruiter follows up — the interview itself, especially with a panel/testing style, just isn't a great predictor either way.