Overtime Compensation
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Added: Well this certainly got the juices flowing! First let me apologize to Gary. My attempt at being succinct gave the impression I was being critical of him personally. That is not the case and I hope Gary will accept my apology for giving that impression. My response was an attempt to demonstrate the potential downsides that could occur if the OP followed Gary’s advice. Let me give an expanded answer – the message is the same, but perhaps the explanations will make it less disagreeable. Let’s put this discussion into context: 1) This thread started with an apparently new employee who asked a question regarding mandatory OT. 2) Gary’s response was that he declined to work OT and had not suffered any ‘downside’ to refusing to work OT. (Gary later modified that answer to say he did work OT when it was justified.) 3) My response was intended to be the rhetorical “He”, “you”, not Gary as an individual. Again I probably should have been clearer. 4) The reason for the OT is irrelevant to the OP’s question. There are a myriad of reasons both good and bad for the company finding itself in this position. They don’t matter to the OP’s question, although I agree with those that say if it is an ongoing issue, then the employee needs to reconsider his future. 5) Even in today’s hire and fire environment, there is a loyalty to the employees. It’s in the best interests of the company to have the “best” employees. May not be the traditional definition of loyalty, but it exists none the less. And as strange as it sounds, weeding out “bad” employees is a benefit to the “good” ones. Failure to weed out “bad” employees due to a personal loyalty can cause collapse and loss of jobs for everyone. I have been the manager of people that have made comments similar to Gary’s posting in real life situations. I have given them variation of the same advice, but behind closed doors – not in public (and certainly not in a forum) for the very reason shown here – public discussions of this nature are subject to miss interpretation and lack the ability for explanations. For example if an employee made statements in public that he was not working any OT, I would have a serious problem with that employee for the reasons I stated. However if the employee came to me privately and explained he had family commitments that prevented OT on a specific schedule but was willing to do what he could otherwise, I would fully support that position. Just as I would give a salaried employee time off in the middle of the day to g
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You know what? I've been working for the same company for 19 years. I have survived more economic turns of the wheel than I can count.
Snowman58 wrote:
You are obviously not a team player
Wrong. In my department, I have the unofficial position of Departmental Sh!t-Job Boy. As the DSJB, I administer our department server, our source control system, our automated build process, and a host of other activities that keep our development group operating efficiently. Most of this is voluntary, and I consistently receive appreciative remarks on my appraisals for stepping up and doing all the crap nobody else wants to. In case you're wondering, this is on top of my regular responsibilities as one of the three senior developers in a group of 12.
Snowman58 wrote:
You are undermining the moral of the rest of the team by holding yourself above the "pain" of getting the task done on schedule
Not hardly. It's fairly rare that we, as a group, have to put in overtime. I've done it occasionally, when others have done so, even when I was only tangentially involved in the crisis at hand. The biggest reason we have to put in overtime is that we are overcommitted by engineering management. Our group of 12 supports 5 products, some of which have 2 or 3 active branches, along with any number of special projects. Our running joke is that we always have to figure out which of our half-dozen number-one top priorities we are supposed to be working on.
Snowman58 wrote:
You are demonstrating that you are not interested in the success of the company
Bullshit. My contribution to the success of the company is doing the best job I know how to do, in the most efficient manner possible. Overtime burns people out and increases the error rate. It's a losing proposition.
Snowman58 wrote:
Every aggressive company has crunch times when it expects its salaried employees to put in additional effort
Some companies make it a policy for it to always be crunch time. I've worked for a couple of those in the past. A company will take advantage of people who don't say no to overtime.
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold WithGary R. Wheeler wrote:
A company will take advantage of people who don't say no to overtime.
Amen to that. I worked for a small-market radio station (10 - 15 total employees). I also lived half a block away from the studio. I worked a lot of extra shifts for pretty much zero compensation (normal wages, no time and a half). Of course, if I needed to take some time off from being sick, or even for a vacation, the usual comeback was they couldn't find someone to fill in for me. Worst night was being on the air for 11 hours because the person working the shift after mine quit two hours before her shift started. I had started at 3 pm and was supposed to be on the air for 7 hours. I went home at 2 am and only because the news director volunteered to come in early. Had he not done that, I would have been on the air for 14 hours. My voice was pretty much shot by the time I got off the air. Other fun shifts included several times where I finished a 7 hour shift, go home and sleep for less than 5 hours and then back on the air for another five hour shift. *ack!* Where I'm at now, there is technically no overtime. If I work more than 40 hours in a week, I have to take compensation time off within the same pay period so that my weekly hours equal 40 hours. Works for me since I can generally get a Friday afternoon off to run errands and such. :-\ Flynn
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Added: Well this certainly got the juices flowing! First let me apologize to Gary. My attempt at being succinct gave the impression I was being critical of him personally. That is not the case and I hope Gary will accept my apology for giving that impression. My response was an attempt to demonstrate the potential downsides that could occur if the OP followed Gary’s advice. Let me give an expanded answer – the message is the same, but perhaps the explanations will make it less disagreeable. Let’s put this discussion into context: 1) This thread started with an apparently new employee who asked a question regarding mandatory OT. 2) Gary’s response was that he declined to work OT and had not suffered any ‘downside’ to refusing to work OT. (Gary later modified that answer to say he did work OT when it was justified.) 3) My response was intended to be the rhetorical “He”, “you”, not Gary as an individual. Again I probably should have been clearer. 4) The reason for the OT is irrelevant to the OP’s question. There are a myriad of reasons both good and bad for the company finding itself in this position. They don’t matter to the OP’s question, although I agree with those that say if it is an ongoing issue, then the employee needs to reconsider his future. 5) Even in today’s hire and fire environment, there is a loyalty to the employees. It’s in the best interests of the company to have the “best” employees. May not be the traditional definition of loyalty, but it exists none the less. And as strange as it sounds, weeding out “bad” employees is a benefit to the “good” ones. Failure to weed out “bad” employees due to a personal loyalty can cause collapse and loss of jobs for everyone. I have been the manager of people that have made comments similar to Gary’s posting in real life situations. I have given them variation of the same advice, but behind closed doors – not in public (and certainly not in a forum) for the very reason shown here – public discussions of this nature are subject to miss interpretation and lack the ability for explanations. For example if an employee made statements in public that he was not working any OT, I would have a serious problem with that employee for the reasons I stated. However if the employee came to me privately and explained he had family commitments that prevented OT on a specific schedule but was willing to do what he could otherwise, I would fully support that position. Just as I would give a salaried employee time off in the middle of the day to g
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dighn wrote:
therefore the company owes no loyalty to you
Loyalty from a company? Arf! I think even in Japan these things are gone.
You can't turn lead into gold, unless you've built yourself a nuclear plant.
There is probably a reason why we have a "Human resources" department rather than a "looking after our friends" department.