August 6, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Good for the Goose
August 6, 2009 at 10:08 pm
I believe it shows the character of the person as to how they handle the situation. I have worked for State of Alabama for 5 years and now work for private company doing contract work with the Air Force. State of Alabama goes by pay grade exemption for earning comp time or overtime pay. With budgets most was given as earned comp time. You used your comp time up before you had to use your paid time off. I was exempt from this and supervisors would keep up with it "off the books".
I believe if family is involved it should be explained and understood before hand how much you want to put into work. I will do what needs to be done and my wife accepts that (note did not say she liked it:-D.
Even though I may not be given a even swap for extra time worked, there was not issues on the times I did ask for time off. I work as a contract with the Air Force now and they are strict with getting paid for time worked.
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August 7, 2009 at 2:37 am
If you constantly need to work extra hours because you feel you need to get projects completed in this way then the chances are that it isn't being managed correctly/lack of resource. Often my experience of smaller software firms (in UK) is that as the sales grow, the staff requirement doesn't always match & there is pressure to enhance the software. Often this is to meet the demands of the custom/market & comes at the price of de-stabilising the code, therefore increasing 1st/2nd line support burden & subsequently increasing coding times.
I think it depends on what you value most. If you feel you aren't getting a fair deal, move on. Often we stay in jobs because of the good people we work with & a feeling that we want to help improve the products/service but if that comes at the price of your (and family) happiness it's times for a change.
August 7, 2009 at 3:42 am
In my experience the HR dept is frequently by-passed and a quid-pro-quo exists between the IT Manager and his/her IT workers. This quite often because IT depts quite often do not want the overtime bill appearing on its books. As a result most of the overtime that I've done has almost always been TOIL and you come to an "arrangement" with the manager to take informal time off to make up for it. The bad thing with this TOIL is you only ever get 1:1 while if you ask for payment you get 1:1, 1.5:1 or 2:1 depending on whether it is weekday (evening), weekend or bank holiday work. The only official overtime I ever officially claim for is weekend work or evening work and only if it is >4 hours.
At the moment I currently refuse to do weekend work (unless it is something I'm very keen to push through) as my current employer (government) won't pay for the travel time to and from work which on a Sunday for me can be 2-4 additional hours unpaid.
This came to a head for me when I had to come in effectively just to press a button, it took me a total of 2.5 hours travel time and 15 minutes on site. I only got paid for the 15 minutes on site much to my disgust!
August 7, 2009 at 4:25 am
I agree In the UK working in Consultancies are very pressured I put in well over and above the base 40hr week and there was really no acknowledgement of effort put in, an earlier company i worked for did account for extra effort but only minimally.
August 7, 2009 at 6:27 am
Richard Bradford (8/7/2009)
.... As a result most of the overtime that I've done has almost always been TOIL and you come to an "arrangement" with the manager to take informal time off to make up for it. The bad thing with this TOIL is you only ever get 1:1 while if you ask for payment you get 1:1, 1.5:1 or 2:1 depending on whether it is weekday (evening), weekend or bank holiday work. ...
I work in Education and we do get some "lumpy" periods e.g. enrolment. I've come in for 3 or four hours on a Saturday and got a full day off for that. In general, my managers are quite happy to let me work as needed and allow me suitable TOIL at a suitable rate depending on the inconvenience.
August 7, 2009 at 6:46 am
Being in IT all of my career, I've worked quite a bit of overtime in my day. I've always given 125% and was willing to do what was necessary to get the job done. But on the other hand, I've always expected some flexibility from my manager.
In my previous job, overtime was expected as necessary, but any time off was strictly by-the-book. One time I worked from Sunday morning through Thursday afternoon to deal with a particular crisis. I had 70 hours put in by then. All I asked was for comp time on Friday so I could have a long weekend to make up for what I lost. I was told that I had to submit a request for a vacation day for Friday!! That was the final straw and I started looking for another job immediately.
Currently, I have the best boss in the world. He doesn't constantly look over my shoulder or nit-pick about my schedule. As a result, I probably work more hours than I really need to and put in my best and then some in all of my work. My boss looks at the results of my work and my willingness to "take the ball and run with it" to evaluate my effectiveness. To me, that's the mark of an outstanding manager!
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August 7, 2009 at 6:51 am
By in large, most companies I have worked for were very fair with their overtime requirements. You put in the hours when you need to, if you are putting in too many there is the off the books agreements to work a 1/2 day, or work from home for part of the day and quit early, leave early, come in late, whatever, etc.
If you are valuable to your company, they will meet you 1/2 way on stuff. HR depts hold the line on the vacation limits for a given corporation, so its almost always a verbal agreement in my experience.
Of course, if I was paid per hour, I wouldn't care how much OT was involved. More money for bier!
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August 7, 2009 at 7:02 am
Wow, I must be lucky. Every place I've worked, I've gotten comp time for overtime worked. Sometimes; it's official; sometimes not.
I'll start my weekend counting my blessings . . .:-)
August 7, 2009 at 7:24 am
I know I'm getting more cynical as I get older, but...
Every hour you work for "free", is money the company doesn't have to spend. Where does that money go... straight into the pockets of senior management or shareholders.
August 7, 2009 at 7:26 am
At the companies I have worked for, overtime has always been expected as necessary. Comp time has always been unnofficial and something that has been worked out with my bosses. My last company allowed me to come in late if I worked overtime the day before or over a weekend as long as I notified my boss. However after awhile, the amount of work on our plates consumed all available time and I found myself working 50-60 hours every week and extra time off was no longer available because of deadlines. That is why that is now my old company. 🙂
I have no problem putting in some unpaid OT as long as I know it is for a good cause. If there is an emergency and it cannot wait for the next day then OT is justified. When OT becomes expected and is baked into project timelines, then it becomes an issue.
August 7, 2009 at 7:30 am
The last two places I worked had unofficial policies that made it possible for me to take extra time off if I worked extra hours. Work the weekend, then take Friday off the following week, that kind of thing. Nothing official, but it worked out.
Current job has no such quid pro quo. If you work extra hours, you work extra hours. At the same time, I can simply tell my boss that I'm sneaking out early on a Friday, and I don't even have to give an excuse, he just tells me to have a nice weekend. So it cuts both ways a little bit, but the employer definitely gets more out of it than I do.
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August 7, 2009 at 8:06 am
For me, comp time is better if I work extra hours in one chunk, say five hours on a Saturday. That usually translates into a half comp day during the week. However, if I work an extra hour every day during the week, that usually translates into leaving an hour early only one day.
August 7, 2009 at 8:35 am
At the bank where I used to work we could take leave or get paid for authorised overtime (meaning that the line manager had approved it before or after the fact)
I don't know what the overtime pay was like, leave was something like 1 day for every 5.65 hours worked (or some strange calculation like that)
Gail Shaw
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August 7, 2009 at 8:58 am
My company has allowed "unofficial" timeoff allowed by the Manager's discretion. Sounds good, but that gets political. I worked 48-50 hrs/wk my first year here. An entire year of that, and I got one "comp" day, as in 8 hours (in my case, I guess that would be 10 hrs :))
That manager has played favorites and I apparently was not one. I was pushed into a position that I never wanted, and I have been looking to just get out of here for three years now. I was a supervisor, now I make reports. Not exactly what I had in mind when I went to evening MBA during the supervisor tenure. The reason I was moved: The manager wanted his favorite buddy to have my job (he had no management experience, no college degree). To make it a real kick in the balls, his title didn't end up being "supervisor", but instead "manager", which is also a better paying title too. Needless to say, 3 out of the 5 staff he inherited from me had quit in his first nine months. I had no quitters in four years, so I guess the situation speaks for itself, even though I still sit here looking to find a way out. Sounds negative, but I have to stay positive. Oh, to stay on topic, the special buddy doesn't even work 40 hours a week and (last I know) regularly got comp days, since some hours actually worked were evenings.
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