4 ms·

"political suicide" or not, I'm paid for 8h/day. What I do with my free time is nobody's concern and I sure don't have to defend myself for respecting my contra

"political suicide" or not, I'm paid for 8h/day. What I do with my free time is nobody's concern and I sure don't have to defend myself for respecting my contractual obligations.

closeparen 10y ago
Sure, but I'm pretty sure the problem being discussed here is specific to at-will salary workers, who do not have specific contractual obligations and are not paid for specific hours.
- rootlocus 10y ago
  I'm not familiar with "at-will salary workers". How does that work? If they don't have contractual obligations, what do they get paid for?
  - jon_richards 10y ago
    "at-will" refers to the employer being able to fire the employee "at-will", meaning for any reason or no reason (excepting reasons that it is illegal to fire for) and without warning.
    - jdmichal 10y ago
      Technically, it also affords the similar right to the employee to leave at any time for any or no reason. However, with employee / employer relations and power balance as they are, it is a tool that is drastically more powerful for the employer.
  - closeparen 10y ago
    Oh boy, welcome to employment in the United States. At-will: either party may alter or terminate employment at any time for any reason, and the other has no legal recourse. There is no contractual specification of what you're paid for because the employer does not need to prove anything about the relationship between actual and expected behavior to fire you. You get paid the rate that was agreed upon for time already worked, and then you're done. In effect, you get paid for not having been fired yet. Salary: your compensation is per unit of time elapsed on the calendar, not at your workstation. These conditions describe the vast majority of professional, intellectual, and managerial work in the United States. Working 40 hours per week, working 9am-5pm Monday-Friday, etc. are merely cultural norms, not legal standards, and some industries (like tech and finance) have very little respect for them. Working 40 hours per week is encoded as a legal standard for hourly workers (via overtime pay requirements), but only below a certain wage threshold. Many fields, including programming, are exempt from overtime requirements even when paid hourly.
    - ouid 10y ago
      Is it reasonable to assume that you can still do alright by providing exactly the value that you are paid for, and no more? If you can fulfill that value in 20 hours a week, then it seems like you should go home at that point. Otherwise you're just creating an easily consolidated power vacuum above you and contributing to the collapse of civilization.
      - seanp2k2 10y ago
        Depends on the company. Survive? Sure. Advance? There will likely be many others competing for advancement, and longer hours will make them seem "hungrier" than you.
        ouid 10y ago
        That seems false. What is my incentive, as an employer, to give such an employee a promotion or a raise? I'm not trying to get him to work harder for more pay.
        falcolas 10y ago
        They have visibility. "Bob was here until 7 at night fixing bugs in the code! Where was Alice?" It won't matter that Bob didn't fix the bugs; Alice did when she came in the next morning. It won't matter that Bob caused the issue in the first place. Alice probably didn't even hear the above exclamation, it was an internal dialogue in their manager's mind, so she can't even offer a rebuttal. Bob was seen working "when it mattered". Perception trumps performance, sadly.
        ouid 10y ago
        I meant to say that I don't see why I should give someone a raise simply as a result of increased performance. it's my goal as an employer to extract more value from an employee than they cost. The only thing that would compel me to give out raises is a change in market conditions, which can usually be detected by an employee threatening to leave for a job which pays more.
- Retra 10y ago
  But what that salary covers is obviously only enough to maintain satisfactory employment under a certain number of hours. My employer simply doesn't pay me enough for me to work more than 40 hours per week, crunch time or not.
tlow 10y ago
Are you sure? I've seen many salary situations where employees were repeatedly coerced into extra work hours with the rational given by HR that's what Salary meant. I don't know if this is accurate or not, I just am asking if you have somewhere that specifies 8h/day. What would happen if you had a contract stipulating 10h/day in California 3 days/week. Are the 2 extra hours per day OT? edit: it seems this is discussed below, apologies. The OT question is one I am still curious about though.
- cosmie 10y ago
  It depends on if the employee is exempt or nonexempt[1], not just if they're salary or hourly. The majority of professional positions are exempt, salaried positions. Even in California, they'd be exempt from any overtime eligibility. > What would happen if you had a contract stipulating 10h/day in California 3 days/week. Are the 2 extra hours per day OT? If they're in a non-exempt position, whether salary or hourly, then they'd qualify for overtime. If salaried, California has a formula for how to calculate the hourly rate for overtime calculations[2]. Note that those 2 hours/day are particular to California, not universal to all states. California has some robust overtime laws with multiple triggers, including days >8 hours, >40 hours per work week, and > 6 consecutive days of work in a workweek. You can get a whole lot of overtime pay with far less than 40 hours of work in a week. It gets even more complex because you can't double count hours for overtime. Many states don't have explicit overtime laws like California, and just default to the federal laws[3]. In that case, it's simply 40 hours per work week. If you work more than 40 hours per workweek, you get overtime. If you work less, then you don't get overtime. The per-day distribution of those hours are irrelevant. Again, only applicable to non-exempt employees. Exempt are still not qualified. [1] https://justworks.com/blog/understand-differences-exempt-non-exempt-employees https://justworks.com/blog/understand-differences-exempt-non... [2] http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_overtime.htm http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_overtime.htm [3] https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime_pay.htm https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime_pay.htm

"political suicide" or not, I'm paid for 8h/day. What I do with my free time is nobody's concern and I sure don't have to defend myself for respecting my contractual obligations.

closeparen 10y ago

Sure, but I'm pretty sure the problem being discussed here is specific to at-will salary workers, who do not have specific contractual obligations and are not paid for specific hours.

rootlocus 10y ago
I'm not familiar with "at-will salary workers". How does that work? If they don't have contractual obligations, what do they get paid for?
- jon_richards 10y ago
  "at-will" refers to the employer being able to fire the employee "at-will", meaning for any reason or no reason (excepting reasons that it is illegal to fire for) and without warning.
  - jdmichal 10y ago
    Technically, it also affords the similar right to the employee to leave at any time for any or no reason. However, with employee / employer relations and power balance as they are, it is a tool that is drastically more powerful for the employer.
- closeparen 10y ago
  Oh boy, welcome to employment in the United States. At-will: either party may alter or terminate employment at any time for any reason, and the other has no legal recourse. There is no contractual specification of what you're paid for because the employer does not need to prove anything about the relationship between actual and expected behavior to fire you. You get paid the rate that was agreed upon for time already worked, and then you're done. In effect, you get paid for not having been fired yet. Salary: your compensation is per unit of time elapsed on the calendar, not at your workstation. These conditions describe the vast majority of professional, intellectual, and managerial work in the United States. Working 40 hours per week, working 9am-5pm Monday-Friday, etc. are merely cultural norms, not legal standards, and some industries (like tech and finance) have very little respect for them. Working 40 hours per week is encoded as a legal standard for hourly workers (via overtime pay requirements), but only below a certain wage threshold. Many fields, including programming, are exempt from overtime requirements even when paid hourly.
  - ouid 10y ago
    Is it reasonable to assume that you can still do alright by providing exactly the value that you are paid for, and no more? If you can fulfill that value in 20 hours a week, then it seems like you should go home at that point. Otherwise you're just creating an easily consolidated power vacuum above you and contributing to the collapse of civilization.
    - seanp2k2 10y ago
      Depends on the company. Survive? Sure. Advance? There will likely be many others competing for advancement, and longer hours will make them seem "hungrier" than you.
      - ouid 10y ago
        That seems false. What is my incentive, as an employer, to give such an employee a promotion or a raise? I'm not trying to get him to work harder for more pay.
        falcolas 10y ago
        They have visibility. "Bob was here until 7 at night fixing bugs in the code! Where was Alice?" It won't matter that Bob didn't fix the bugs; Alice did when she came in the next morning. It won't matter that Bob caused the issue in the first place. Alice probably didn't even hear the above exclamation, it was an internal dialogue in their manager's mind, so she can't even offer a rebuttal. Bob was seen working "when it mattered". Perception trumps performance, sadly.
        ouid 10y ago
        I meant to say that I don't see why I should give someone a raise simply as a result of increased performance. it's my goal as an employer to extract more value from an employee than they cost. The only thing that would compel me to give out raises is a change in market conditions, which can usually be detected by an employee threatening to leave for a job which pays more.
Retra 10y ago
But what that salary covers is obviously only enough to maintain satisfactory employment under a certain number of hours. My employer simply doesn't pay me enough for me to work more than 40 hours per week, crunch time or not.

tlow 10y ago

Are you sure? I've seen many salary situations where employees were repeatedly coerced into extra work hours with the rational given by HR that's what Salary meant. I don't know if this is accurate or not, I just am asking if you have somewhere that specifies 8h/day. What would happen if you had a contract stipulating 10h/day in California 3 days/week. Are the 2 extra hours per day OT? edit: it seems this is discussed below, apologies. The OT question is one I am still curious about though.

cosmie 10y ago
It depends on if the employee is exempt or nonexempt[1], not just if they're salary or hourly. The majority of professional positions are exempt, salaried positions. Even in California, they'd be exempt from any overtime eligibility. > What would happen if you had a contract stipulating 10h/day in California 3 days/week. Are the 2 extra hours per day OT? If they're in a non-exempt position, whether salary or hourly, then they'd qualify for overtime. If salaried, California has a formula for how to calculate the hourly rate for overtime calculations[2]. Note that those 2 hours/day are particular to California, not universal to all states. California has some robust overtime laws with multiple triggers, including days >8 hours, >40 hours per work week, and > 6 consecutive days of work in a workweek. You can get a whole lot of overtime pay with far less than 40 hours of work in a week. It gets even more complex because you can't double count hours for overtime. Many states don't have explicit overtime laws like California, and just default to the federal laws[3]. In that case, it's simply 40 hours per work week. If you work more than 40 hours per workweek, you get overtime. If you work less, then you don't get overtime. The per-day distribution of those hours are irrelevant. Again, only applicable to non-exempt employees. Exempt are still not qualified. [1] https://justworks.com/blog/understand-differences-exempt-non-exempt-employees https://justworks.com/blog/understand-differences-exempt-non... [2] http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_overtime.htm http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_overtime.htm [3] https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime_pay.htm https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime_pay.htm