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My contract with a company that had on call read somewhere along the lines of 9 to 5 are the core working times and all work necessary outside these times, incl

by ascar 8y ago

My contract with a company that had on call read somewhere along the lines of 9 to 5 are the core working times and all work necessary outside these times, including Saturday and Sunday, is already remunerated in the base salary. In this case I was being paid for it and I only heard about it in the first week after starting. I asked "how often do I have to work on weekends", but not "will i be on call" in the contract negotiations. Definitely a question I will ask in the future. Although I think being on call is a good thing.

HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
Why do you think it's a good thing?
- ascar 8y ago
  Because it increases responsibility, when you are the who has to clean up the mess. It makes you care more to keep your system reliable and available, because your personal stakes are higher. There are some good comments here along those same lines. Of course getting a call middle of the night, when your system goes down because of an AWS outage you can nothing do about just sucks ;)
tristor 8y ago
Disclaimer: IANAL " all work necessary outside these times, including Saturday and Sunday, is already remunerated in the base salary." That's actually not enforceable in most US states. Typically a base salary cannot cover work which is outside normal business hours if it's a consistent expectation that work will be performed outside normal business hours. Contracts are enforceable because both parties are given "due consideration", so that the terms are intended to be mutually beneficial. As written, what you described is basically saying "Do more work, do it outside typically expected times to perform work, and you're not getting anything more for doing this." As an example of how this works, in a situation in which you will work consistently outside normal business hours but are a salaried employee, such as a manager supervising an overnight crew at a manufacturing facility, you will be awarded "Shift Differential Pay", which is a percentage or dollar amount differential above and beyond normal pay for someone of your position at the company as "due consideration" for agreeing to work outside normal business hours. This would be true for your overnight crew on the line as well, except that it's included in their hourly. Being salaried does not automatically mean you are a slave to the company and their whims, and being overtime exempt does not mean you can be asked to consistently work outside normal business hours week after week without any additional compensation. Overtime is an occasional action, if you are being asked to work outside normal business hours as a standard operating practice, that's something else entirely.
- Celarnor 8y ago
  Do you have any citations/references to support this? All of my jobs have been as the GP describes, where managers see after-hours problems as the dev's responsible for the relevant feature's "fault", and expect them to both manage communication with business stakeholders about the problem and make it go away within short notice.

by ascar 8y ago

HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago

Why do you think it's a good thing?

ascar 8y ago
Because it increases responsibility, when you are the who has to clean up the mess. It makes you care more to keep your system reliable and available, because your personal stakes are higher. There are some good comments here along those same lines. Of course getting a call middle of the night, when your system goes down because of an AWS outage you can nothing do about just sucks ;)

tristor 8y ago

Disclaimer: IANAL " all work necessary outside these times, including Saturday and Sunday, is already remunerated in the base salary." That's actually not enforceable in most US states. Typically a base salary cannot cover work which is outside normal business hours if it's a consistent expectation that work will be performed outside normal business hours. Contracts are enforceable because both parties are given "due consideration", so that the terms are intended to be mutually beneficial. As written, what you described is basically saying "Do more work, do it outside typically expected times to perform work, and you're not getting anything more for doing this." As an example of how this works, in a situation in which you will work consistently outside normal business hours but are a salaried employee, such as a manager supervising an overnight crew at a manufacturing facility, you will be awarded "Shift Differential Pay", which is a percentage or dollar amount differential above and beyond normal pay for someone of your position at the company as "due consideration" for agreeing to work outside normal business hours. This would be true for your overnight crew on the line as well, except that it's included in their hourly. Being salaried does not automatically mean you are a slave to the company and their whims, and being overtime exempt does not mean you can be asked to consistently work outside normal business hours week after week without any additional compensation. Overtime is an occasional action, if you are being asked to work outside normal business hours as a standard operating practice, that's something else entirely.

Celarnor 8y ago
Do you have any citations/references to support this? All of my jobs have been as the GP describes, where managers see after-hours problems as the dev's responsible for the relevant feature's "fault", and expect them to both manage communication with business stakeholders about the problem and make it go away within short notice.