5 ms·

Unless I'm missing something, this would have no impact on engineers and other professional employees who are "exempt" from overtime. My nominal 40-hour work we

by hw-guy 4y ago

Unless I'm missing something, this would have no impact on engineers and other professional employees who are "exempt" from overtime. My nominal 40-hour work week meant nothing if there was a crisis or schedule slip that required putting in many extra hours. The claim that this law would force companies to be more efficient by having fewer meetings assumes management are rational. Also, it's weird that it only applied to companies with >=500 employees; wouldn't this be a strong incentive for smaller companies to resist hiring the 500th employee?

lolinder 4y ago
> The claim that this law would force companies to be more efficient by having fewer meetings assumes management are rational. It also assumes that non-exempt employees are spending 8 hours a week in unnecessary meetings. Aren't most meeting-heavy jobs by definition exempt, since they'll tend to be either professional or administrative?
- shagie 4y ago
  > Aren't most meeting-heavy jobs by definition exempt https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17e-overtime-computer https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17e-overtime-co... > However, Section 13(a)(1) and Section 13(a)(17) of the FLSA provide an exemption from both minimum wage and overtime pay for computer systems analysts, computer programmers, software engineers, and other similarly skilled workers in the computer field who meet certain tests regarding their job duties and who are paid at least $684* per week on a salary basis or paid on an hourly basis, at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour. If you're a computer programmer making less than $27.63/hour (and I have been that situation living in low cost of living area), you are a non-exempt professional worker. I got 1.5x overtime, and since the company had it as policy, working evenings or weekends got a shift differential too.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > an exemption from both minimum wage and overtime pay for computer systems analysts, computer programmers, software engineers, and other similarly skilled workers in the computer field who meet certain tests regarding their job duties and who are paid at least $684* per week on a salary basis or paid on an hourly basis, at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour. NB: California has a much higher exemption threshold for the industry: $47.48/hour or $8,242.32/mo on a salary basis.
- worker_person 4y ago
  Had a few jobs that were mostly just meetings. Mostly because there was so much red tape, that no real work could actually get done. Think, 200 hours of various employees time to approve a 5 hour project.
- thisismyaccoun7 4y ago
  Researcher/Engineer in government here. The project I've been on for the last year has me averaging over a full day a week in meetings. The PM (who has been in charge of the project for five years now and at the research center 25+) is "non technical", so she likes to have multiple tech roles in each meeting for "backup". It's exactly the hell you'd expect. On the plus side (/s), when COVID forced us telework, they put in a policy requiring an email at the end of every of what we did, so I have documented exactly why everything is behind. Unfortunately this law won't apply to us though.
  - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
    > they put in a policy requiring an email at the end of every of what we did Every day? Every week? You left out a word. Every day would be awful. Every week isn't bad. At my work, we recently implemented a Slack bot that would ask you on Friday what you got done, what you wanted to get done but didn't, if you have any blockers, and what you hope to accomplish next week. Honestly, when it was first deployed, I hated the idea of it, but after a couple weeks, I had noticed that there were times when Friday came and I was thinking "I got fucking nothing done this week", but being prompted by the bot to answer the weekly questions made me stop and think harder on it, then I realized I actually was pretty productive.
    - thisismyaccoun7 4y ago
      Whoops. Every day. Goes to the PM and section boss. The latter doesn't look at it. My former PM also didn't look at it. Just a CYA type thing I guess. Passing blockers and the like the way you do it seems decent.
      - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
        Every day? That's just bonkers. I had a guy in a previous position that had a manager that started asking for those kinds of updated every Mon/Wed/Fri. After it became clear that he wasn't even reading the messages (The manager would ask about things he had just included in his report an hour prior), he started including gibberish in them. It was a month before the gibberish was noticed. The boss was noticeably upset when he discovered the last month had been gibberish, but conceded that obviously the reports are a waste of time and stopped asking for them.
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  Yup. This bill seems perfectly tailored to really screw medium businesses that aren't big enough to treat everyone like interchangeable cogs and are in blue collar industries where most employees are hourly. Companies hiring low cost labor already play stupid games to keep people well under 40hr because benefits. They'll just plug a different number into their excel formula and send everyone their new schedules. Salaried professionals are the ones who's time gets wasted in meetings (because there is no obvious marginal cost to doing so) but they're mostly exempt.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Aren't most meeting-heavy jobs by definition exempt, since they'll tend to be either professional or administrative? No. Very many do not meet the salary threshold to be exempt, and others don't meet the detailed nature-of-the-job requirements (though, as with contractor status, there is a fair amount of miscategorization on the latter point that employers get away with unless it is challenged.)
shagie 4y ago
Exempt (and non-exempt) are orthogonal to salaried vs hourly. An exempt hourly worker still gets paid for over time, just at 1.0x rather than the mandated 1.5x. --- The "improve productivity through fewer meetings" assumes that the loss in productivity is through meetings. Things like tech support, facilities, and office administrative work generally don't encounter wasteful meetings to the degree that the professional staff does.
worker_person 4y ago
Many years ago. Knew a tech worker that had worked years of unpaid overtime for IBM. She said it was fine, because she was exempt. So I looked up the definition of exempt. She didn't meet the legal definition. Argued with her for hours over it. She refused to believe that she was being taken advantage of. In her mind all a company had to do was say you were exempt, and that was enough. Eventually I gave up. Following year, IBM lost a big lawsuit. She got a very big check. https://redmondmag.com/articles/2006/11/26/ibm-pays-tech-workers-65-million-to-settle-overtime-lawsuit.aspx https://redmondmag.com/articles/2006/11/26/ibm-pays-tech-wor...
- riyadh144 4y ago
  So what is the definition of an exempt worker? How do I know if I am not exempt and being used.
  - convexfunction 4y ago
    Edit: the downvotes would seem to mean my "often accurate" generalization here is not accurate often enough to be worth saying, which I'm willing to believe. No level of detail in a HN comment can substitute for hours of research and talking with a lawyer, of course! A good indicator is "do you have to fill out a timesheet". If you do, that means you're probably paid an hourly wage, and you should be paid overtime; if you don't, you're probably salaried and overtime-exempt. As usual, it's more complicated than that if you get into the weeds (e.g. in the news article linked in the comment you're replying to), and having a lawyer interpret your employment contract is probably the most authoritative way to figure that out if you feel your situation is unusual.
    - shagie 4y ago
      Exempt and non-exempt are orthogonal to salaried an hourly. --- Overtime for an hourly exempt worker is 1.0x. Overtime for a salary exempt worker is not defined. Overtime for an hourly non-exempt worker is 1.5x. Overtime for a salary non-exempt worker is poorly defined. --- An hourly computer professional making over $27.63/hour is likely exempt. One working under that amount is non-exempt. The specifics of how the FLSA applies to computer professionals is described in https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17e-overtime-computer https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17e-overtime-co...
bitcuration 4y ago
That really depends on the industry and company, if you work for facebook,amazon for example, the hours mean nothing but meanwhile, those who work in these companies usually got 3x, 4x pay over the similar positions in other companies. So it's really the hour rate that matters at the end of day. If you can pull a million a year guess you would be too much adamant about hours. The question is what your objective is, money, or freetime, or whatever your priority.

by hw-guy 4y ago

lolinder 4y ago

> The claim that this law would force companies to be more efficient by having fewer meetings assumes management are rational. It also assumes that non-exempt employees are spending 8 hours a week in unnecessary meetings. Aren't most meeting-heavy jobs by definition exempt, since they'll tend to be either professional or administrative?

shagie 4y ago
> Aren't most meeting-heavy jobs by definition exempt https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17e-overtime-computer https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17e-overtime-co... > However, Section 13(a)(1) and Section 13(a)(17) of the FLSA provide an exemption from both minimum wage and overtime pay for computer systems analysts, computer programmers, software engineers, and other similarly skilled workers in the computer field who meet certain tests regarding their job duties and who are paid at least $684* per week on a salary basis or paid on an hourly basis, at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour. If you're a computer programmer making less than $27.63/hour (and I have been that situation living in low cost of living area), you are a non-exempt professional worker. I got 1.5x overtime, and since the company had it as policy, working evenings or weekends got a shift differential too.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > an exemption from both minimum wage and overtime pay for computer systems analysts, computer programmers, software engineers, and other similarly skilled workers in the computer field who meet certain tests regarding their job duties and who are paid at least $684* per week on a salary basis or paid on an hourly basis, at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour. NB: California has a much higher exemption threshold for the industry: $47.48/hour or $8,242.32/mo on a salary basis.
worker_person 4y ago
Had a few jobs that were mostly just meetings. Mostly because there was so much red tape, that no real work could actually get done. Think, 200 hours of various employees time to approve a 5 hour project.
thisismyaccoun7 4y ago
Researcher/Engineer in government here. The project I've been on for the last year has me averaging over a full day a week in meetings. The PM (who has been in charge of the project for five years now and at the research center 25+) is "non technical", so she likes to have multiple tech roles in each meeting for "backup". It's exactly the hell you'd expect. On the plus side (/s), when COVID forced us telework, they put in a policy requiring an email at the end of every of what we did, so I have documented exactly why everything is behind. Unfortunately this law won't apply to us though.
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  > they put in a policy requiring an email at the end of every of what we did Every day? Every week? You left out a word. Every day would be awful. Every week isn't bad. At my work, we recently implemented a Slack bot that would ask you on Friday what you got done, what you wanted to get done but didn't, if you have any blockers, and what you hope to accomplish next week. Honestly, when it was first deployed, I hated the idea of it, but after a couple weeks, I had noticed that there were times when Friday came and I was thinking "I got fucking nothing done this week", but being prompted by the bot to answer the weekly questions made me stop and think harder on it, then I realized I actually was pretty productive.
  - thisismyaccoun7 4y ago
    Whoops. Every day. Goes to the PM and section boss. The latter doesn't look at it. My former PM also didn't look at it. Just a CYA type thing I guess. Passing blockers and the like the way you do it seems decent.
    - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
      Every day? That's just bonkers. I had a guy in a previous position that had a manager that started asking for those kinds of updated every Mon/Wed/Fri. After it became clear that he wasn't even reading the messages (The manager would ask about things he had just included in his report an hour prior), he started including gibberish in them. It was a month before the gibberish was noticed. The boss was noticeably upset when he discovered the last month had been gibberish, but conceded that obviously the reports are a waste of time and stopped asking for them.
throwaway0a5e 4y ago
Yup. This bill seems perfectly tailored to really screw medium businesses that aren't big enough to treat everyone like interchangeable cogs and are in blue collar industries where most employees are hourly. Companies hiring low cost labor already play stupid games to keep people well under 40hr because benefits. They'll just plug a different number into their excel formula and send everyone their new schedules. Salaried professionals are the ones who's time gets wasted in meetings (because there is no obvious marginal cost to doing so) but they're mostly exempt.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> Aren't most meeting-heavy jobs by definition exempt, since they'll tend to be either professional or administrative? No. Very many do not meet the salary threshold to be exempt, and others don't meet the detailed nature-of-the-job requirements (though, as with contractor status, there is a fair amount of miscategorization on the latter point that employers get away with unless it is challenged.)

shagie 4y ago

Exempt (and non-exempt) are orthogonal to salaried vs hourly. An exempt hourly worker still gets paid for over time, just at 1.0x rather than the mandated 1.5x. --- The "improve productivity through fewer meetings" assumes that the loss in productivity is through meetings. Things like tech support, facilities, and office administrative work generally don't encounter wasteful meetings to the degree that the professional staff does.

worker_person 4y ago

Many years ago. Knew a tech worker that had worked years of unpaid overtime for IBM. She said it was fine, because she was exempt. So I looked up the definition of exempt. She didn't meet the legal definition. Argued with her for hours over it. She refused to believe that she was being taken advantage of. In her mind all a company had to do was say you were exempt, and that was enough. Eventually I gave up. Following year, IBM lost a big lawsuit. She got a very big check. https://redmondmag.com/articles/2006/11/26/ibm-pays-tech-workers-65-million-to-settle-overtime-lawsuit.aspx https://redmondmag.com/articles/2006/11/26/ibm-pays-tech-wor...

riyadh144 4y ago
So what is the definition of an exempt worker? How do I know if I am not exempt and being used.
- convexfunction 4y ago
  Edit: the downvotes would seem to mean my "often accurate" generalization here is not accurate often enough to be worth saying, which I'm willing to believe. No level of detail in a HN comment can substitute for hours of research and talking with a lawyer, of course! A good indicator is "do you have to fill out a timesheet". If you do, that means you're probably paid an hourly wage, and you should be paid overtime; if you don't, you're probably salaried and overtime-exempt. As usual, it's more complicated than that if you get into the weeds (e.g. in the news article linked in the comment you're replying to), and having a lawyer interpret your employment contract is probably the most authoritative way to figure that out if you feel your situation is unusual.
  - shagie 4y ago
    Exempt and non-exempt are orthogonal to salaried an hourly. --- Overtime for an hourly exempt worker is 1.0x. Overtime for a salary exempt worker is not defined. Overtime for an hourly non-exempt worker is 1.5x. Overtime for a salary non-exempt worker is poorly defined. --- An hourly computer professional making over $27.63/hour is likely exempt. One working under that amount is non-exempt. The specifics of how the FLSA applies to computer professionals is described in https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17e-overtime-computer https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17e-overtime-co...

bitcuration 4y ago

That really depends on the industry and company, if you work for facebook,amazon for example, the hours mean nothing but meanwhile, those who work in these companies usually got 3x, 4x pay over the similar positions in other companies. So it's really the hour rate that matters at the end of day. If you can pull a million a year guess you would be too much adamant about hours. The question is what your objective is, money, or freetime, or whatever your priority.