How about this policy. IT workers (Programmers, developers, DBAs) were classified as "Salaried/Exempt". Which meant you were not paid overtime, or given comp time off. Now if you did put in more than 40 hrs in the work week the client was billed for each hour you worked. Nice way to increase the companies gross margin, pure gravy. Now say you were out a day, well you got paid your weekly wage and the day you were out was subtracted from your vacation time, or paid sick leave (3 days per year), or holiday time (7 per year). When all time available was exhausted then you were paid just for the hours worked. We defined the Salaried term as the maximum you were paid in a given week regardless of actual hours worked, the Exempt term was defined as the company was Exempt from paying you overtime no matter how many hours you worked in a payroll week. Phone calls, no IT individual admitted to having a cell phone or blackberry, and no home phone was ever answered until you heard the persons voice, if your manager, you let it switch to voice mail and then waited until close to midnight to suddenly "return home" and call the manager back. Needless to say turn over in the IT staff was quite high.