I am a salaried employee working in the retail industry for a very small family run business (I am their only employee). I know the question probably depends on whether or not I am an exempt employee or not but I left other threads with my eyes crossed trying to figure out if I am or not. My work weeks consist of 5 days of working just over 9 hours per day. I recently took a week off and when I came back to work my paycheck was half of what it is supposed to be. Is that ok? They did the same thing when I took 2 hours off for a doc appointment. Just took off the equivalent of two hours from my salary. I always thought salary was salary and pay doesn't reflect the number of hours worked. I am feeling a little hot today because I decided to take a lunch break today. I had to close shop for 15 mins to get food. It just happens that the family calls right after I left and kept calling every minute until I got back to rip me a new one for leaving the store. Am I supposed to get an uninterrupted break at some point?

Even an exempt employee does not have to be paid when they do not work an entire week. So that part was entirely legal.

The rest does depend on whether you are exempt or non-exempt. While I agree that it does not make sense to pay a non-exempt employee on a salaried basis and then dock them, it is legal - a non-exempt employee never has to be paid for time they do not work, no matter how they are paid. An exempt employee cannot be docked in partial day increments unless they are on FMLA, but they can be required to use vacation or sick time to make up any partial day absences.

Colorado law does require breaks in certain industries, but it is unclear whether this is required of both exempts and non-exempts, or just non-exempts.

Then what are the benefits of being a salaried employee? It appears that in my situation, it would be greatly more beneficial for me to be on an hourly wage.