Steve Jobs is a real slave driver. Or so says the former Apple engineer who's suing him for violating California labor laws. He claims that over the period of 12 years that he worked at Apple, he was treated like a "modern day slave," according to his complaint. He also alleges that Apple simply promotes workers to higher positions simply so they have titles that make them ineligible for overtime.

Here's the thing: that's kind of par for the course when you're working at a company like Apple. And as Valleywag points out this morning, the same is true of working at a start-up. Long hours without overtime are all but expected. But that's because at the end of the day there's typically a BIG pay-off. At a start-up, those hours spent toiling to get the company off the ground may be rewarded with serious bucks a few years down the road (if things work out). And if you're working at as a senior employee at Apple, the compensation's probably pretty sweet already.

That's not to say though that employees shouldn't be paid fairly for the work they do. It's just that isn't the point of a salaried position that you're not paid as an hourly worker? And if you don't feel that your salary is sufficient for the work you do, you either negotiate a new salary with your boss or get a new job.

What we really want to know though is why it took this guy 12 years to decide that Apple was screwing him.