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I've always found it weird that working a salaried position means you've got to have your butt in a chair 9-5 regardless of anything else going on - but you als

by munk-a 5y ago

I've always found it weird that working a salaried position means you've got to have your butt in a chair 9-5 regardless of anything else going on - but you also need to be on hand to fix problems at 10PM without any compensation earned. It might honestly be nice if we transitioned professional work to hourly compensation - I think that would strongly reinforce the bounds of what you, the employee, owe the company and what compensation you should earn in exchange.

handrous 5y ago
If a shift to hourly happens, I suspect we're going to see reluctance from a lot of businesses to pay actually-equivalent hourly rates, which will give them sticker shock ("$200/hr!? I was only paying about $100/hr before with salaries!" Right, but your workers were only spending an average of half their time on stuff that will count as hourly-billable work—numbers exaggerated for ease of calculation, but that's the reaction I expect, in general), coupled with a lot of newbies willing to take those too-low rates because they haven't done the math, and think the rates look high, especially if we're talking (as we most likely are) contract-type work without any kind of benefits. IOW I expect a reduction in total effective comp for the sector, at least for the first few years, if that shift is widespread.
pnutjam 5y ago
I push back on that and comp the time. I wish there was better regulation around comp time.
- munk-a 5y ago
  At least in BC (and this is almost certainly illegal) a coworker of mine was once working for Telus and was denied the ability to take vacation in November and December due to it being a rush season - but was then also denied a request to have their unused vacation time either paid out or carried over. Neither of these halves are illegal on their own - together they're almost certainly illegal but damnit if labour laws aren't as clear as mud.
passivate 5y ago
In my state (WA), we can't have all of our employees in the exempt status [1]. I'm guessing its the same for most companies in WA? [1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/exempt-employee.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/exempt-employee.asp
steveBK123 5y ago
Exactly, showing up at 9:05am makes us late, but feel free to keep us late on some fire drill to 7pm, light up our slack/email after hours and occasionally call us in the dead of night. (How many people logged into HN after dinner are still logged into work on another window?) I worked somewhere where we had a multi-week emergency with basically the entire team working 12-16 hours/day including the weekend. They then ceremonially gave us some comp days to use, not even making up for the weekend days loss, let alone the double/triple weekday time. The joke of course is our firm already had "unlimited" vacation time so... infinity+X = infinity. Also they were picky about how soon we could use the days, and that we couldn't use them consecutively, etc etc.

by munk-a 5y ago

handrous 5y ago

If a shift to hourly happens, I suspect we're going to see reluctance from a lot of businesses to pay actually-equivalent hourly rates, which will give them sticker shock ("$200/hr!? I was only paying about $100/hr before with salaries!" Right, but your workers were only spending an average of half their time on stuff that will count as hourly-billable work—numbers exaggerated for ease of calculation, but that's the reaction I expect, in general), coupled with a lot of newbies willing to take those too-low rates because they haven't done the math, and think the rates look high, especially if we're talking (as we most likely are) contract-type work without any kind of benefits. IOW I expect a reduction in total effective comp for the sector, at least for the first few years, if that shift is widespread.

pnutjam 5y ago

I push back on that and comp the time. I wish there was better regulation around comp time.

munk-a 5y ago
At least in BC (and this is almost certainly illegal) a coworker of mine was once working for Telus and was denied the ability to take vacation in November and December due to it being a rush season - but was then also denied a request to have their unused vacation time either paid out or carried over. Neither of these halves are illegal on their own - together they're almost certainly illegal but damnit if labour laws aren't as clear as mud.

passivate 5y ago

In my state (WA), we can't have all of our employees in the exempt status [1]. I'm guessing its the same for most companies in WA? [1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/exempt-employee.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/exempt-employee.asp

steveBK123 5y ago

Exactly, showing up at 9:05am makes us late, but feel free to keep us late on some fire drill to 7pm, light up our slack/email after hours and occasionally call us in the dead of night. (How many people logged into HN after dinner are still logged into work on another window?) I worked somewhere where we had a multi-week emergency with basically the entire team working 12-16 hours/day including the weekend. They then ceremonially gave us some comp days to use, not even making up for the weekend days loss, let alone the double/triple weekday time. The joke of course is our firm already had "unlimited" vacation time so... infinity+X = infinity. Also they were picky about how soon we could use the days, and that we couldn't use them consecutively, etc etc.