Working Off the Clock, How Much Is Too Much? 582
The Wall Street Journal has word of yet another suit against an employer who required an "always on" mentality to persist because of easily available communications. Most of us working in some sort of tech related job are working more than 40 hours per week (or at least lead the lifestyle of always working), but how much is too much? What methods have others used in the past to help an employer see the line between work and personal life without resorting to a legal attack? "Greg Rasin, a partner at Proskauer Rose LLP, a New York business law firm, said the recession may spawn wage-and-hour disputes as employers try to do the same amount of work with fewer people. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act says employees must be paid for work performed off the clock, even if the work was voluntary. When the law was passed in 1938, 'work' was easy to define for hourly employees, said Mr. McCoy. As the workplace changed, so did the rules for when workers should be paid."
Re:Where do I begin (Score:5, Interesting)
My simple solution?
I refused my last promotion to an exempt position, instead staying a technician. I do engineering level work, with engineering responsibilities, but technician pay. Thing is, while my "per hour" may be lower, my total pay is nearly the same, because engineers are "always on" and I get OT.
Further I can bail after 8 hours and no one can bitch about it. Overall it's a better deal than people realize. Once my kids get older I may take a promo, but not till then.
-nB
Re:Depends of course (Score:1, Interesting)
exactly.
respond to escalating demands with escalating reliance on work-to-rule [wikipedia.org].
malicious compliance is your friend.
Weapon (Score:2, Interesting)
This is best used as a weapon. If you want me to be "on call" then you're going to pay me half time to be sober. If I'm not "on call" then I'll answer the phone if I answer the phone. We don't do "comp time"; that shit has never worked in the history of PHB's. What we do it double time from when the phone rings, and that burns enough that I can leave when I want on friday (generally) because "I've got to leave, I'm over 40 this week." That and in your contract, put in that you won't return to work until 12 hours after you leave. Make sure the union puts that in if you're CWA.
Re:Don't like it? Too bad (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it isn't. Retraining and hiring new people is expensive- they really do need you more than you need them. Just work your 40 and leave. They aren't going to fire you, they'll just bitch. If this is a problem across the company, organize. If your entire team refuses as a group, then they're completely up shit creek.
Re:Don't like it? Too bad (Score:4, Interesting)
When I worked at a large studio in west LA, the VP, a recently retired Army Colonel, asked how long a project would take a group of programmers. He was given an estimate, but cut it in half, saying that people always lied about how long it would take. The project took months, and came in one week late. The entire group was fired. (They found out about it accidently when someone saw the termination notice for a friend and went and asked why they were all being terminated).
When I had the start of a similar thing with my staff, I had a meeting with him in which I pointed out the studio could be sued. He said he didn't care, the legal department was down the hall and would handle it. I left shortly after, having a standing offer at another company. In today's economy, some people may not have that option.
Re:Where do I begin (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Don't like it? Too bad (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe "that's just the way it is" where YOU work. I've had my boss' boss standing in my door tapping his watch at 5 minutes after. "It's Friday. What the Hell are you still doing here?"
Of course, that can burn the other way. There have been several occasions when shit just plain needed to get done and it didn't because my boss did the end-of-day "road runner". Sure, he takes the heat for those situations but I'd much rather spend 15-20 minutes fixing something after hours than have to spend an hour or two cleaning up the mess the next morning. It feels unprofessional to leave a simple job incomplete just to avoid working a few extra minutes.
Re:Where do I begin (Score:5, Interesting)
But what ticks me off is when I roll into work 30 minutes "late" the next day and it's like "Oh look, weave is rolling in late again."
I've had this same problem, though they didn't call me weave. The truth of the matter is, when you're in an 8-5 support job (and admin may include support) people expect you to be there from 8-5. If something goes wrong at 8 AM, and they page you or call your desk or stop by your cubicle, and can't find you...it's a problem. Solution is easy: communicate. Call and email your work POC (boss, administrative person, etc) when you leave the office at 2 AM and tell them you'll be rolling in late.
As to the less powerful people who remark on your apparent tardiness, simply start a numbers game:
"Oh, look who just woke up!"
"2"
"2 what?"
"I left the office at 2 AM."
"Oh..."
"Hah...rolling in late again, weave?"
"3"
"Geez, dude. Glad I don't have your job."
etc, etc
Take matters in your own hands... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm hired as a "web developer" by title, and last November, my team lost our sysadmin (he quit -- well actually got a job that paid twice as much or so he claimed). We work with production systems which must serve our customers 24/7, so that guy played a pretty critical role in our department. The company decided to not hire another one, and use a consultant. Seeing I was the only guy on the team who had experience with both production systems and linux, I became the de facto guy to look after the systems. That meant carrying a pager and being called on to work on systems at their beck and call, not to mention I'm still around available as a developer. In other words: I have written enough crappy code that half my life is dedicated to maintaining it, and that world doesn't stop spinning. (that and I work for a smaller company so, having tasks bleed is part for a course)
My job description didn't include anything about carrying a pager sending me dreaded Nagios messages in the middle of the night, nor did I intend for it to... When I had started the job 2.5 years before I made sure to critically evaluate what the other developers on the team had to say about their hours, and made it clear with my boss what my role would be. At first, I was pretty steamed, my hire letter specifically said that I "could schedule no appointment to discuss compensation", and I was expected to do it. I felt punished for competence: You are able to do this, so you must do this as well -- without recompense.
But I turned it around. I started saving extra money to sock away for a rainy day -- specifically to save up to the point where I could tell my boss with authority: to make a deal or I have to hit the road. You can do the same thing: save money, or find another job offer.
Then I broke my contract, asked directly for a raise, and said that my job description had gone severely out of bounds from where it started and that I needed to be justly compensated for it and would like to have my job title, job description and financial compensation adjusted to match. It took 3 months for the company to come back to me. I had to reiterate this to my boss 3 times as well, once a month I did. I had formulated my plans for negotiating, but, I had no chance to negotiate. They came back to me and said "congratulations you got the biggest raise, percent wise in company history! but our HR consulting firm shows that web developers don't make a lot of money..." hand shake, end of story -- I wasn't satisfied.
I went home, did my homework, compared what the HR consulting firm had to say with what the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics ( www.bls.gov ) had to say compared, and compared my roles with what they had listed (and stats work the same way they always do: I have my biases and clearly I saw that I was worth more than they said!). I went back to my boss the next morning and told him straight up: "Your HR consulting firm, and my HR consulting firm, don't match up... The thing is: I do actually want my job, and I do want to help and I want the deal to be good for both parties. I think I can offer you a better deal as a consultant". Maybe you can't afford to do that, but, I am a single guy and I would've wanted to.
There was no way they wanted that, I had proved my worth, AND I had shown that I put a value on myself and my time. They wanted to have me as a regular salaried employee -- I can only guess their reasons, but I'm sure it has to do with being ready and able to take on new tasks instead of getting a bill for everything they ask you to do [however a power negotiating tool, no?].
So in short: I got what I wanted, more money and now I flex my time and my place at my job (what he couldn'
re: How much is too much. (Score:2, Interesting)
Conceptually, take: total time you agreed to and are paid of work per week, subtract time you actually worked (your ordinary 2 break times a day and lunch still count as work, but time spent goofing off on slashdot doesn't count).
If the result is 0 hours, then you are spot on.
If the result is POSITIVE, then you aren't meeting your obligation: work off the normal hours as necessary (or stop visiting slashdot during workhours) until the result is zero.
If the result is NEGATIVE, then stop working off normal hours, until the result is zero.
If for some strange reason you want to work more, you should make arrangements to get paid more when you choose to do so, if you can't, then it's obviously inefficient for you to do so (as you are reducing your average pay), you might as well start looking for a second employer you can work for during those off-normal hours (so that you can financially benefit from them)...
Maybe what you really want though is to select different normal hours from the rest of the population. This is perfectly normal for IT workers that don't deal with users (except in an emergency), since there is no inherent reason the work needs to be done during the day, except during an emergency, or except that some other people you may need to work with prefer to work during the day.
And more work can get done when you don't have all those people to contend with.
There isn't much traffic at midnight, and there won't be any lines to the snack machine, or random people wanting to chat about non-work-related things, for example.
Re:Where do I begin (Score:3, Interesting)
After too many complaints about being 10 minutes late after the previous day having been a "long" one, combined with two consecutive Fridays becoming 24-hour shifts, I finally had enough and just quit.
Funny how the employer who complained about $20 per hour now has no problem with $75 per hour. And I actually have a little liesure time.
Incorporate.
Begin here (Score:4, Interesting)
The U.S. is neither genuine socialist nor fascist, but a perverted development of what USED to be rampant free market. In both socialism and fascism, the state controls/directs the engine of production, either cooperatively (fascism) or by seizing it (socialism). In the U.S., the engine of production has run wild and seized control of the state, mostly through rampant corruption. To the extent the U.S. flirts with socialism, it is a distorted, perverted kind of socialism. In the real thing, the state operates with the welfare of the people at heart. In the U.S. form, the state has only the welfare of special interests at heart: narrow constituency blocks, filthy rich operators who have the goods on the pols and their appointees, and the like. Simply put, the hard working middle class is robbed to support an essentially valueless, parasitic bottom layer and top layer. All the real people get is a kick in the ass by a fat, smug, self satisfied system. And there is a similar perversion of the real thing when the U.S. flirts with fascism.
The U.S. is an inbred, self perpetuating corruptocracy, plain and simple. Uncontrolled free markets cannot exist stably. This is what they degenerate into.
Overtime expected (Score:1, Interesting)
The company I work for told me that overtime, in emergencies, is just part of the job. At first, that's really how it was. Then it started to grow into everything being an emergency, and bothering me all the time at home. I started to make it very clear that I was bothered by this and they were interrupting me in my life. Then I moved onto being in a pissy mood at work. Suddenly things started to clear up.
Every once in a while, they fall back into it. Now I just have to make it clear that they are bothering me and it never has to get to the pissy mood part. Yes, I still do overtime... But it's generally for an actual emergency.
The last time my direct boss manufactured an emergency "because it's the only way things get done around here", I let his bosses know quite clearly what I thought of that. Attitudes changed very, very suddenly.
Also, they usually give me a day off if I have to work several hours from home on something, now. Smart, too, because they aren't likely to get any actual work from me for the rest of the week otherwise.
You don't get away with screwing your good employees.
Re:Depends of course (Score:1, Interesting)
Frankly, if you are salaried, and you aren't looking to be the CEO some day, then letting yourself be put into a situation where you are putting in more than 40 hours a week on a regular bases is both foolish and harmful for the rest of your peers.
Amen to that. And for those developers who need to be in the office 40+ hours but whose employer has no way of making sure you are doing company-related work for the whole duration of your time there, feel free to work on and contribute to open source projects during that time. Code looks like code on your screen no matter what it is for (eg if the boss walks by) and so long as you're also meeting your job requirements, noone will be wiser (just make sure to send out patches and emails after 'working' hours). Even if your boss notices a decline in productivity (try not to allow this) you can easily say you got caught up on something or some bug took a long time to fix.
Unfortunately this won't work for the people who signed contracts assigning ownership of all code worked on, even during your own time, to the company.
Re:Must be nice... (Score:5, Interesting)
What, there's no company email? If they ask, respond "yes" in an email. "Sure, I'll work the requested overtime until I complete the project." Then follow it up the next day with "it took me 3 hours more to complete the task." Feel free to not actually put that on your OT card. Then, after 6 months to a year, do the same thing, but start putting it on your timecard. If they fire you, sue for millions. You will win, easily (and for about 10 times your yearly wage, give or take). If they don't fire you, then you'll either get lots of OT pay or never have to work OT again, also both being wins. I don't mind when companies break the law to harm me (presuming they are big enough to survive the judgement). I would just document it, then sue.
Re:US laws are not the best (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Where do I begin (Score:3, Interesting)
At our firm, the max you can carry over year to year is 800 hours... aka 20 weeks.
Once you've built up 20 weeks vacation, additioally accrued vacation is paid out in the last pay check of the month automatically. You can't earn more vacation, but they have to pay it to you.
Also, Vacation accual is also subjec tto overtime. If you make time and a half, vacation accual is at time and a half too. If you would earn 8 hours vacation for working "one month", so that's typically 2 hours per 40 hour week, and you work 60 hours, and get overtime at 1.5, you earn 3.5 hours that week instead. Vacation can only be presented as "3 weeks per year" to salaried exempt employees. Hourly employees must earn vacation by the hour.
You can't take more than 4 weeks vacation concurrently without working at least 1 week for each week taken before taking another week (or more) of vacation. That's just to protect the company from people quitting with 20 weeks vacation built up and having to pay them out. The maximum disbursement upon self termination (resignation) is 8 weeks, so you actually have to burn off the rest first (in 4 week chunks, accounting for accruing more inbetween, which also gets harder the longer you've been there), or saccrifice the rest. If they decide to terminate you instead, they not only have to pay your full vacation (which they can do over that many weeks), but they also have to pay a one time severence payment if you;ve been there at least 1 year equal to 2 weeks +1 week for each additional year.
Re:Where do I begin (Score:4, Interesting)
I always found it very weird, that a manager with a specific competence level gets more than a specialist of the same level in any other job. They just assume to deserve more. "For the responsibility." While in reality, you're the one who is going to get blamed and dumped, as soon as something goes wrong. While he gets a raise for dumping you!
In the US, pay in companies is pretty much determined by pay reference points (PRP) -- i.e. "average" salary statistics for job families and positions in the same locale, industry, company size, etc. These numbers are obtained by HR departments from different companies sharing amongst themselves. While you can reconstruct rules from surveying PRP (e.g. first line managers in my company typically average 4-5k over their direct reports), the pay values are not actually based on any parametric model (such as the one you describe).
As for small group managers and their salaries, I couldn't disagree more. Their average day may not differ much from that of their direct reports, but they get the salary bump for other reasons, which you will figure out if you are in one of these positions for long. And FWIW if I have a manager fire a staff member it pretty much reflects back on them. Hiring staff, retaining good employees, and remediating the less productive ones is all part of what they are "graded" on.
Re:Where do I begin (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds good. I'm a little different because I'm an embedded software engineer, and I have no desire to manage any people at all, but most of your advice works for both professions. Be careful which positions you get into, because each one is like a stepping stone to the position after that, and while you should have no loyalty to any company and as I said before, don't put in a lot of extra work, you do need to make sure that the experience you gain at each job is worthwhile, and looks good on your resume, as it makes you more marketable to the companies you're going to apply at later. I've found having lots of varied experience, rather than becoming an expert at one small field (or worse, one software package), makes me much more employable, and appeals to a lot of companies.
Since I loathe management, I'm planning to either build a small (very small) business, or become a consultant, or both. I'd be happy if I never made more than $100k (in today's dollars) as long as I was able to work for myself and not put up with all that corporate BS.
Re:Where do I begin (Score:4, Interesting)
Stop estimating completion date and start delivering your estimates measured in "uninterrupted hours". The boss will push back but hold firm. If he insists on a calendar date, tell him "10-Oct without any other interrupting assignments." NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER unconditionally commit to a calendar date. EVER. You're guaranteeing failure.
Re:Where do I begin (Score:5, Interesting)
I've given up treating myself as a traditional "employee". I refuse to work any amount of time uncompensated. Much like my employer refuses to do charity work for his/her customer. Every hour I work without getting paid is ultimately reduces my hourly rate.
I treat myself as a business. If I am not getting paid, I am not showing up. All life long we trade time for money. If your not getting anything for your time, than you are losing out. Some could argue that money isnt worth time, but thats a load of horse crap (since you'll run out of time if you dont eat).
Anyway. I've been able to do this because I stopped thinking like my parents trained me too as soon as I realized 1. corporations are going to do whatever it is they need to do to maximize profite, 2. i need to think EXACTLY like corporations, 3. that there are other companies out there that are willing to compensate me better than my current employer. All I have to do is provide the skills and expertise to entice them to give it to me. And thats one part training, and two parts marketing.
Re:US laws are not the best (Score:4, Interesting)
Not here in Portugal. We have European-grade labour laws that no company respects. They always count on you to work late and on weekends without any pay, which is illegal. And the corporate lobbies keep whining on TV about how hard our labour laws are...
Not all is bad, though. At least about climate, you can't get much better than us :-)
Re:Begin here (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow! Out of the park.
The death of the middle class in America is cause for real terror. You are either moving up, and therefore fodder for the future guillotine, or moving down, and looking at barely surviving.
What you are describing is what I mean when I refer to Libertarians as "neo-feudalists." An uncontrolled market leads to serfdom.
Re:Don't like it? Too bad (Score:3, Interesting)
this administration and Congress has redefined the meaning of tyranny!
Tell me about it! The chargeless, indefinite incarceration, the denial of fair trial, secret prisons, sanctioned torture, warrantless wiretaps, and a war of agression... Oh wait... That was Bush.
What are you talking about?
That's an honest question. Because if proposing regulations on the health insurance system so that people aren't just kicked off all the time and so that everyone can get basic coverage is tyranny... Um. You're wrong.
And while we're at it? Obama didn't try to take our ammo away. That was just a chain letter, which had its intended effects: More people hated Obama and ammo sales went through the roof.
Re:US laws are not the best (Score:3, Interesting)
I"m surprised that the truth you've spoken is tagged 'flamebait' at this moment.
I'm guessing slashdot readers in the middle class are not immune to aristocratic influence...
I mean... hell... we've politicized science in the US! people actually think global warming is a conspiracy among science! thats how easily manipulated people are here... what the fuck!
There is more to consider (Score:1, Interesting)
Jumping ship too soon will cause you to loose any unvested retirement funds. Also, if you switch you get bumped back to the bottom of the PTO ladder. Not to mention all the time one usually spends the first year just getting the hang of things. Then there is also the likelihood that if there are any layoffs at the new place, you may one of the first to be cut. And the more you bounce around the harder it becomes to explain.
What I learned is it is best to work for a large company. You may be a number but they tend to have better benefits and yearly raises. Also the pay scales tend to be a bit more standardized. On the other hand the small companies I worked for never dished out raises unless you went and asked. Even then I had to give a sales pith and still walked away with less than I wanted.
Re:Begin here (Score:3, Interesting)
Australias national health scheme is totally paid
by a 1.5% tax levy on incomes above a threshold of about $40K.
I have always been stunned that such a small ammount that could do so much good for so many, is so bitterly opposed in the US, especially when so many of you profess to be christians.
I believe the US govt already spends more per capita on health care than we do, and get far less services, in some case none at all.
We also have a prescription benefit scheme, much hated by the US drug companies, that forces reasonable prices for drugs.
When the free trade agreement was brought in the pharma companies tried very hard to get the PBS changed, but our govt, for once stood firm!
One day the US might catch up with most everyone else in the civilised world, and have decent public health, good employment laws, and that defining factor of civilisation, a national test cricket team! (-:
Re:Where do I begin (Score:2, Interesting)
Let me throw another one out there: Everybody hates the office martyr. You know the one. She seems to be there every night until long after everybody leaves, but she never seems to get anything done. Whenever more work lands on her plate, she complains, "OMG, can I possibly get any more work? I never have time to get anything done as it is!" You suggest that maybe she's burning out and should take some vacation time. "I caiiinnn't! Have you seen how much work they pile on me? This place would fall apart if I took three days off." Eventually everybody else starts picking up work from this employee's plate "as a favor," because she never gets anything done, and still she won't take vacation, and still she keeps complaining. Encountered one of those before?
These people are quite annoying. They usually "Work" long hours but those hours consist of getting coffee/socializing/surfing the internet until morning break and stopping with any actual productive work by 2 or 3 PM.
Where I am at I get the real early morning/late night calls and do all the at home, off hours work. It is a pain when it happens, but it doesn't happen all that often. Aside from that I come into the office, sit down, and am working within five minutes. While at work I actually work. My managers can see that I am doing actual work by the fact that I actually get stuff done. Because of those two things (Working hard the entire time I am there, doing all the crazy hours crap) I come in when I want and only actually stay in the office 24-30 hours a week (usually over 4 days). I've been doing this for three years now. Nobody complains about my hours at all. They wouldn't want to deal with some of the crazy times I have to do work at. I don't complain, as it fits pretty well with my lifestyle. I don't want to deal with being actually at work for 50+ hours a week. It works out wonderfully for everyone. My pay isn't mind blowingly awesome but I could be doing much worse for myself.
I know it isn't an option for most people these days when we are all mostly lucky to have a job, but I got the position I wanted by moving around a few times and not just taking new positions because they offered a slightly higher wage. "How flexible are you with working hours? Not very? Ok, I like your company, but I am probably not the ideal candidate for the job and you aren't the ideal employer for this candidate." If you are employed, take the time to look for a job that you think will come closest to treating you as you expect to be treated.
That is your fault. (Score:3, Interesting)
When on of my previous UK companies asked me to opt out of the EU Working Time Directive I said no.
I was told how my career would suffer, about not getting bonuses, etc.
Then 2 months later the company reorganized personnel, several of the people that issued the "advice" were moved or let go, and I got my bonus and career progression continued as expected, but without ever killing myself (for the last 11 years I rarely have worked more than 35 hours per week).
In another job I knew I was the person clocking the least hours (35/week). Other people were doing 50 or 60. At the end when the crisis came that devotion counted for precious little, since people were made redundant irrespective of their contribution to the company.
People allowing companies to exploit them have nobody to blame but themselves (unless you live in Cuba or Vietnam, then you may be screwed).
Re:US laws are not the best (Score:4, Interesting)
Could be worse. Try Spain. The wages in Spain suck badly compared to the cost of living and even though I get payed well above average if I wanted a decent place to live I would expect to spend 50% of my income on rent. My employers here keep going on about how much I'm making compared to Canada (I make $500 more per month than I did in Canada) but the cost of living means I actually have the spending power that someone that in Canada would consider below the poverty line.
To top it off most Spanish companies work by seniority rather than skill and their culture seems to dictate that if they have a complaint they will tell everyone (including the boss) except you about it. And don't even get me started on how the average Spaniard would rather leave something partially working rather than fix it if it means putting in effort and if said fix has even the smallest chance of breaking something I am outright banned from doing it. I actually caught someone trying to disable my security update notifications on one of the servers.
Throw in a huge government bureaucracy where the rules depend on who you talk to and you can spend weeks trying to get permits and never be quite sure if you will succeed and have to start over from the beginning.