Attention employees. We’re cutting your pay, but trust us, it’s really a good thing. No really, you have nothing to worry about.

Sit down. It’s not so bad, it’s only 15%. You can handle that if you work your ass off a couple days each week. No, we don’t care what you had planned after work, if you want your money you will bust your ass.

Even as IBM Corp. reports record profits, thousands of its U.S. employees are staring at pay cuts.

It’s the result of IBM’s response to a lawsuit in which the company was accused of illegally withholding overtime pay from some technical employees. IBM settled the case for $65 million in 2006 and has now decided that it needs to reclassify 7,600 technical-support workers as eligible for overtime.

But their underlying salary — the base pay they earn for their first 40 hours of work each week — will be cut 15 percent to compensate.

The spokesman says the employees “overtime” will compensate for the pay cut, yet internal documents prove otherwise. Damn those internal documents.

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