I'm finally working
RetroGamer87
Veteran
Joined: 30 Jul 2013
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,185
Location: Adelaide, Australia
16 Jun 2015, 11:12 am
kraftiekortie wrote:
Sometimes, though, their definition of "optional" crosses the line into "mandatory," without it being explicitly "mandatory." This is when it can get somewhat screwy.
Yeah, like last month when it was "strongly recommended" we go to a meeting during our lunchbreak. They wanted us to eat during the meeting. I refused to go not because I can't survive without a break but because I wasn't on the clock. The others in my team went willingly, save for one besides myself.I wonder about the corporate culture of the guys who came up with this "lunch meeting" as they called it. It was scheduled by someone higher up, not someone I have contact with.
Last year my supervisor gave us an orientation in which he told us we'd be required to eat lunch at our desk everyday as we spent half an hour reading documentation during our break. I asked if we'd get paid for this half an hour and he said "no because it's not work time". I thought this was a contradiction.
However, he has to comply with the regulations of the site owners. They have stricter idea of what constitutes work. I told my uncle about it (he works directly for the client organization) and he said he'd have a word with them. My supervisor hasn't suggested we do that since.
kraftiekortie wrote:
I happened to be salaried, and non-exempt. I'm entitled to time-and-a-half after 40 hours/week if the overtime is MANDATORY. If it is "optional," I am given "comp time" in lieu of the overtime.
I haven't heard of such a thing down here. At the start overtime was mentioned and I asked if it was at a higher rate of pay. I was told that it was at the same rate of pay. No mention was made of "same rate of pay if voluntary". He even hinted that he'd only give out the overtime pay application form if it was for a large amount of overtime (e.g. Saturday).kraftiekortie wrote:
If a person is "salaried and exempt," the person is not entitled to overtime pay at all.
That's one of the things that bothers me. That years down the line I seek a higher position and then I'm salaried and exempt. If it was for a high salary I might not mind too much but my uncle does that and he only gets $70,000 per year. Exempt workers are supposed to be well over 100K, aren't they?
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The days are long, but the years are short
16 Jun 2015, 9:10 pm
RetroGamer87 wrote:
Can I safely assume that you're an IT worker? In the last few months I've been wondering why I'm trying to break into an industry where this is commonplace (or is it just commonplace in any career field?)
It's commonplace in a few industries. IT, finance, law, consulting, medicine... The job I was talking about was in consulting. Now I work in corporate finance, and while I still have the occasional 80-90 hour week, I'm averaging around 50. It's a huge relief. The big name firms like BCG or McKinsey are pyramid schemes and most people willingly work themselves to the brink of death (if not to death) because they think that's the way to get ahead. Fortunately, I got out quickly enough to preserve some of my humanity.
RetroGamer87 wrote:
I take it as a salaryman you weren't paid overtime, right? One of the things that bothers me about this is that I've heard that IT managers purposely place deadlines too early because they know that will force the devteam into longer hours, thus effectively giving the company more hours of work for the same salary.
In the industries where I've worked, the crazy-time work weeks were either before product/service roll-outs, M&A activity, liquidations, implementations, or required government filings. Most consulting is deadline driven and these are just a few things that can set a deadline. I would imagine that IT consulting isn't very different. One of the most difficult responsibilities for a professional services manager is to balance workflow with the various cram times and lulls in their industry.
Of course, some of them are just bad managers and don't staff up when they need to. Sometimes it's for self-serving reasons, but usually I think they're just not as good at management as they were at their job--these are the guys/gals that should have been on SME tracks.
RetroGamer87 wrote:
If I may ask, what proportion of your weeks were spent in this kind of crunch? In a typical year would that be 10% of your weeks, 50%, etc? Also, what were your hours on a normal, noncrunch week?
It's project-based. About 20% of my weeks were like that. Another 30-40% of my weeks were 80+ hours. And the rest were 50-80 hours, also known as down time. In that job, I never came in under 50. Not even once. At my firm, everyone's billable hours are compiled and circulated throughout the group. If anyone ever had such a slow week, they would be toast.
RetroGamer87 wrote:
I'm sure it was a well paid job but if you were paying hotel bills that would effectively decrease your salary. Hope that never happens to me because my commute is an hour each way.
Like most firms, if you work after a certain time (10pm in this case) the firm pays for your dinner and a taxi home, if needed. I paid the hotel. The salary was nice, but it wasn't nearly enough to take every waking hour of my life, and anyway I make more at my current job.
RetroGamer87 wrote:
::Yet another thing that bothers me is that [working overtime] is going from the exception to the norm. Workers will do it if their teammates are doing it and if one company does it, the others must follow suit to remain competitive::
This is a company culture problem that you see often in the big professional services firms. It's an unspoken rule that keeping your job or moving up depends on face time, billable hours, likability, and job performance. The proportional mix of these things varies for each firm or group within a firm. Professional services work is definitely becoming more competitive, and most people are already doing the best job they can do, so the only card they have left to play is to ramp up face time and billable hours.
