March 27, 2026 at 12:00 am
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Is Your Time "Free"?
March 27, 2026 at 5:13 pm
My previous employer did not value my time (even though I did,) if I were a vindictive sort I could probably have gotten them in hot water for fraud (OT worked but not paid, I was hourly.)
My current employer may not value my time, but they at least DO compensate for working off-hours or extra hours in the form of comptime. They also don't try to prevent me from using any comptime, when I want, but if it interferes with something important, they will ask "could you perhaps use the comptime another day?"
Largely speaking, as I've gotten older, my mindset has shifted from "be a nice guy and do what needs to be done even if they don't pay for your time because it'll look good come annual review time" (spoiler alert, it never did), to "{bleep} you, compensate me."
March 27, 2026 at 6:51 pm
Or "no", I'm not being paid to do that and so I won't.
March 28, 2026 at 4:53 am
This is a sensitive topic for me. My current employer doesn't value my time. And I am hourly. My supervisor has tried to bully me into working overtime, without actually telling me that I have to work overtime. I think she wants me to put in the extra time, and make me feel guilty for not working overtime, but without having to claim the overtime pay that I am due. And I'm seeing this same tactic being used by other managers on their hourly employees, so I get the feeling its sort of an unpublished strategy. It isn't easy working like this, because you're damned if you do and your damned if you don't.
Rod
March 30, 2026 at 4:34 pm
I think it's really important when you start a new job that you show them you're willing to work hard and get stuff done, but at the same time establish boundaries so they don't take advantage of your time. Work is a means to an end and nobody wants to end up with a eulogy about how much of time they spent at work.
Be still, and know that I am God - Psalm 46:10
March 31, 2026 at 1:00 am
As somebody who supports 24-7 production manufacturing operations, some after hours and weekend work is part of the job. The goal always being to make the after hours work a planned event. When it happens we are always told to grab back our time and the fact that it is a regular part of the job has resulted in the DBA team remaining full time WFH with flexible schedules. An hour or two after hours work in the evening, turns into an extra long lunch the next day for grocery shopping. An all day server migration on the weekend means I won't be online one day the following week. Been doing this here long enough that it is just how life works now.
April 1, 2026 at 7:53 pm
A lot of the struggles with overtime or extra hours come down to management. Either they're willing to be fair and work with you or they aren't. Most will be, but there are always some that are not.
April 2, 2026 at 10:58 am
...resulted in the DBA team remaining full time WFH with flexible schedules.
Is your work hiring? LoL
But in response to your post, where I am our systems, in the event of a crash / disaster can be down for up to 30 days before the bosses have to explain to their bosses what's going on. Don't tell the customers that, though, they think their applications need to be 24x7x365. But our team does try to minimize the impact of patching, updates and upgrades, migrations to new versions of software.
When we could work remotely, a lot of the patching and updates would be done off-hours or on the weekend, with compensation time given to be used later (up to a year later, and if you didn't use your comp time within a year, you got paid for it) Right now the higher-higher ups have deemed remote work / work from home / telework to be forbidden, so we now have to squeeze patching and updates / upgrades into the mornings or coordinate during the day downtime with the customers.
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