Cincinnati Bell worker built the system that sank his overtime claim

Getting the new IVR system off the ground took roughly two years. He sorted through documentation from the company’s previous system, mapped out technical specifications for the replacement, and worked out how to connect it to Cincinnati Bell’s databases. A “huge endeavor,” in his own words. 

When Cincinnati Bell later brought its contact center operations back in-house, he was the one “guiding them through the dark” – the internal team simply did not have the knowledge he had built up over years of working on the system. 

In May 2016, Cincinnati Bell offered him a W-2 position. The offer letter described him as a “Contingency 3 – IT” employee – a classification the company treats as exempt from overtime protections. It quoted a rate of $75 per hour if he declined medical coverage, which he did, but stated twice that it “does not constitute an employment contract.” He signed it and was subsequently paid a flat $3,000 per week – $75 times 40 hours – no matter how many hours he actually worked. 

He stayed for several years, continuing to design, document, and update the IVR system, acting as the company’s point of contact with an outside IT provider, and troubleshooting infrastructure problems. When Cincinnati Bell acquired Hawaii Telecom in 2021, he led the integration of its contact center operations. The workload became crushing – days stretching to 18 hours, odd shifts to cover the time zone gap. After raising concerns with supervisors without success, he left in June 2023. 

He then sued on two fronts: that the company violated the FLSA by failing to pay overtime, and that the offer letter created a contract entitling him to $75 for every hour worked.