I took a new job and something isn’t adding up.

TLDR I think I'm getting shafted on salary and I'm curious what I need to do besides "find another job".

I started a new job this week as an assistant store manager at a national retail company. The hiring process went fine but my first week is giving me some bad feelings. Unfortunately I found this job because I had a temp contract end, and I haven't found anything else in my job search.

When I interviewed I was told about the salary and benefits. I was told the schedule would be 40 hours a week on a flexible schedule (retail life) and there could be some overtime required. I was told it's OT exempt.

When I was offered the job I was told I'd actually work at a different store and store manager but that seemed fine. The store just opened and lots of people are getting trained with me. But the new store leader gives me a bad vibe based on our conversation about the schedule on my first day.

I was told by the recruiter to show up at 8am. I met the store manager and started doing computer-based training. I was told to take a 30 minute lunch. I finished training at 4pm. By my math, this is 7.5 hours working and a .5 hour lunch. I checked in with my boss about what to do for half an hour, and she said "oh, the schedule is 8-5". Even with a half hour lunch? "Yes". So I'm on the schedule for 42.5 hours of work? "Yes".

So besides the fact that I can't stand taking a short lunch break on a long day, it doesn't feel right that my boss is scheduling me for 2.5 extra hours in a week to hit what is expected of me. This was not communicated by the recruiter or the other store manager who interviewed me and I'm very suspicious of it. It's one thing to stay late, it's another to be expected to work more than 40 hours every single week.

On top of that, it sounds like my boss and colleagues could be misclassified for OT exempt status. People are running registers, receiving product, sorting product, doing production, and stocking product. I've been learning the ins and outs in my first few days, but I'm watching other assistant managers spend maybe 30-60 minutes a day on admin tasks right now.

We don't have an HR member in-store, so I've been thinking of calling the department to ask some "orientation related questions". What should I be asking? What should I advocate for to get paid fairly?