[engi_nerd]

US engineer here. Agreed on not wanting to start a "war". Allow me to share the rationale that my manager in a previous job shared with me.

This is not an exaggerated quote, it's taken from the notes I wrote immediately after the incident.

"engi_nerd, we at $MEDIUM_SIZED_AEROSPACE_COMPANY expect our engineers to work at least 15 to 20 hours of unpaid overtime each week. This is the minimum of what you need to do to demonstrate that you are ready for a promotion. During that extra time, we'll assign you duties that are beyond your normal job responsibilities. Carry those out well and you'll prove that you're ready for a promotion."

I swear I am not making this up. When I stated that I refused to do what he asked, the manager said, "Then you'll never have a chance to be promoted from what you're doing now." That very day I went home and began updating my resume; my final day at that job was less than 4 months later.

[ToastyMallows]

Good on you. I would refuse to work at any company that places such ridiculous standards on its employees. I'm surprised you even stayed for 4 months I would have been out of there much sooner.

[engi_nerd]

It took that long to get to where I wanted to be -- I had to arrange to sell a house and move, etc. But the actual "find a new job" process took a single email to a key member of my professional network.

It pays to know good people.

[ToastyMallows]

That it does! Glad you're out of there.

[ryguytilidie]

That sounds a lot like the "pieces of flair" from office space.

[ukigumo]

That sounds like a horrible place to work and the arguments are complete nonsense.

To me, and maybe I'm just too cynical, but it sounds like the manager was telling you that the company needed 50% of your work to be off the books in order for them to meet expectations which is a sign of a poorly managed company. But then again it makes sense since, according to him, only people who show no capacity to self-manage, prioritise or delegate get promoted.

I think you did well in leaving that job, good on you!

[engi_nerd]

What makes this story a little more ridiculous (and funnier to tell) is that we were all employed in the business of designing and launching scientific research rockets.

The phrase "it's not rocket science" has a whole new meaning for me now.

[Already__Taken]

Is that researching the science of rockets or using rockets to put research things where they need to be?

[engi_nerd]

The latter.

[Anthony-G]

Fair play to you. That's some shockingly explicit wage theft. Thankfully, skilled workers (such as most Hacker News readers / contributors) usually have other options and don't have to accept such nasty work conditions.

BTW, I'm impressed that you're organised enough to keep notes on such exchanges after they happen; memory alone is too damn unreliable.

[engi_nerd]

I was taking notes because I believed that my manager was unfairly trying to make a case to fire me. Background, if anyone might be interested...

I was proven right two days before I handed in my resignation letter, when said manager called me to the carpet and informed me in very direct terms that he thought I was an extremely poor engineer and was not going to last long without an attitude adjustment. I believe that my refusal to work overtime, as well as my refusal to comply with management directives I found to be unethical, was what triggered that conversation.

The unethical acts they wanted me (and all my fellow engineers to do): work on one mission while billing time to another, which is illegal while working on US government contracts, and tell ISO auditors that we were following our engineering redlining process while actually following a secret, different process that was not officially released in our document management system.

Not going to prison for you, nor am I compromising my professional ethics.

[api]

Wow. That is legally questionable.