5 ms·

At one place I worked full-time, the time-tracking software explicitly had a checkbox, "billable", which meant this time can be directly billed to clients, and

At one place I worked full-time, the time-tracking software explicitly had a checkbox, "billable", which meant this time can be directly billed to clients, and you were expected to be able to check that for some specific percentage of your working day. The percentage I'm expected to bill to clients is 100%, 8hrs a day. We are even expected to make up time spent on non-billable things like company or department meetings. Definitely wears on you for sure.

xarope 4y ago
That's unusual, in consulting days of yore it was about 80%* billable hours * may vary of course, but nobody expects 100%, even the big 5/4.
- Goronmon 4y ago
  Yeah, it crept up over the years. Start at 6hrs a day, then 6.5, then 7 and then 8 about 4 years ago.
  - ubermonkey 4y ago
    8 is just unrealistic, and invites fraud. BigLaw have expectations like this, but the overt toxicity of that is so famous I'd hope tech would avoid it. In some firms, with rounding allowed, it used to be common to schedule 3 20-minute calls in an hour, because it would yield 1.5h of billable time.
  - lmkg 4y ago
    I've worked as a consultant at various jobs, with billable expectations ranging from 55% to 85%. The largest company I worked for, which was a Big Four consultancy, had the highest billable expectation. But they also had entire departments of non-billable support staff. The smallest company I worked for also had the smallest billable expectation, but also expected certain non-billable work of us (which I generally liked). The Big Four company also calculated their billable expectation on a nine-hour workday. So working eight billable hours per day every day meant your billable rate was only 89%. It was fine with them if you only put 40 hours a week into the time-tracker, but the denominator was 45.
mgkimsal 4y ago
I contracted at a place where this was expected, but any 'meetings' you were just supposed to bill to the client/project as well. Some folks were on longterm/large projects - like... 15 people on one client project. 1hr meeting? It's just... billable time. I was stuck on support dealing with 6-8 different clients. I was supposed to split up time between the clients. 1 hr 'all hands' meeting for the company? Just charge each of those 6 clients 10 minutes each - even if you've not done anything on their project for the last 2 weeks (for example). So... I started getting push back from higher-ups asking why I was billing projects I wasn't working on. "I don't get paid unless I put billable hours in your system, and this is what your email said to do". "That's not what we meant..." "Well... what did you mean? Which of the 7 client projects I'm supporting should get billed for the 2 hr 'state of the company' meeting you made us attend last week?" "I'll get back to you..." Which they never did. I'm not there any longer. This was right before covid, and everything got turned upside down after that. I left soon after.
- rendall 4y ago
  I used to scroll through my github history, parseling out which precise minutes went where. No. Life is too short, and the bean counters don't really give a shit, they just want a number. 7.5 hours a day regardless, unless I worked 5 hours or 10 hours, then I put that.
- lesuorac 4y ago
  > "Well... what did you mean? Which of the 7 client projects I'm supporting should get billed for the 2 hr 'state of the company' meeting you made us attend last week?" > "I'll get back to you..." Heh, I've met people who when asked to attend a meeting ask what charge number to use and if they don't get one they don't attend.
rendall 4y ago
In that case, just don't sweat it. It's all billable. Lunch, too, apparently. That's just what the sales contract stipulates, so, it's not your problem. The stress comes from deciding which hour you bill and which you don't. Bill all the things!
- Goronmon 4y ago
  In that case, just don't sweat it. It's all billable. The budget for these projects won't support that. Billing an hour of lunch everyday just for myself would exceed the retainer allotted for some of these projects. And it wouldn't work anyways. Hours are billed to specific tasks, individual to the person down to 15 minute increments.
  - rendall 4y ago
    Ok. So. You are expected to bill 8 hours, and not lunch, so you are tacitly required to work more than 8 hours per day. What company is this? Are you in the US?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]

xarope 4y ago

That's unusual, in consulting days of yore it was about 80%* billable hours * may vary of course, but nobody expects 100%, even the big 5/4.

Goronmon 4y ago
Yeah, it crept up over the years. Start at 6hrs a day, then 6.5, then 7 and then 8 about 4 years ago.
- ubermonkey 4y ago
  8 is just unrealistic, and invites fraud. BigLaw have expectations like this, but the overt toxicity of that is so famous I'd hope tech would avoid it. In some firms, with rounding allowed, it used to be common to schedule 3 20-minute calls in an hour, because it would yield 1.5h of billable time.
- lmkg 4y ago
  I've worked as a consultant at various jobs, with billable expectations ranging from 55% to 85%. The largest company I worked for, which was a Big Four consultancy, had the highest billable expectation. But they also had entire departments of non-billable support staff. The smallest company I worked for also had the smallest billable expectation, but also expected certain non-billable work of us (which I generally liked). The Big Four company also calculated their billable expectation on a nine-hour workday. So working eight billable hours per day every day meant your billable rate was only 89%. It was fine with them if you only put 40 hours a week into the time-tracker, but the denominator was 45.

mgkimsal 4y ago

I contracted at a place where this was expected, but any 'meetings' you were just supposed to bill to the client/project as well. Some folks were on longterm/large projects - like... 15 people on one client project. 1hr meeting? It's just... billable time. I was stuck on support dealing with 6-8 different clients. I was supposed to split up time between the clients. 1 hr 'all hands' meeting for the company? Just charge each of those 6 clients 10 minutes each - even if you've not done anything on their project for the last 2 weeks (for example). So... I started getting push back from higher-ups asking why I was billing projects I wasn't working on. "I don't get paid unless I put billable hours in your system, and this is what your email said to do". "That's not what we meant..." "Well... what did you mean? Which of the 7 client projects I'm supporting should get billed for the 2 hr 'state of the company' meeting you made us attend last week?" "I'll get back to you..." Which they never did. I'm not there any longer. This was right before covid, and everything got turned upside down after that. I left soon after.

rendall 4y ago
I used to scroll through my github history, parseling out which precise minutes went where. No. Life is too short, and the bean counters don't really give a shit, they just want a number. 7.5 hours a day regardless, unless I worked 5 hours or 10 hours, then I put that.
lesuorac 4y ago
> "Well... what did you mean? Which of the 7 client projects I'm supporting should get billed for the 2 hr 'state of the company' meeting you made us attend last week?" > "I'll get back to you..." Heh, I've met people who when asked to attend a meeting ask what charge number to use and if they don't get one they don't attend.

rendall 4y ago

In that case, just don't sweat it. It's all billable. Lunch, too, apparently. That's just what the sales contract stipulates, so, it's not your problem. The stress comes from deciding which hour you bill and which you don't. Bill all the things!

Goronmon 4y ago
In that case, just don't sweat it. It's all billable. The budget for these projects won't support that. Billing an hour of lunch everyday just for myself would exceed the retainer allotted for some of these projects. And it wouldn't work anyways. Hours are billed to specific tasks, individual to the person down to 15 minute increments.
- rendall 4y ago
  Ok. So. You are expected to bill 8 hours, and not lunch, so you are tacitly required to work more than 8 hours per day. What company is this? Are you in the US?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]