6 ms·

> EDIT: perhaps a clearer example: if you had to crunch and work 50h this week, and couldn’t take 10h off next week, would you require extra pay for that? If no

by Delk 3y ago

> EDIT: perhaps a clearer example: if you had to crunch and work 50h this week, and couldn’t take 10h off next week, would you require extra pay for that? If no, you’re salaried! That's what a salaried position seems to mean in the US from what I can gather. Perhaps a lot of this entire conversation is had from more or less of an American point of view, so maybe your definition is relevant. I don't think that's a universal definition of salary, though. I get paid the same sum every month, and I have a fixed number of hours I'm expected to fill per week. If I work ten hours more than that one week, that counts as +10 hours in the records, and that allows me to do 10 hours less at some point. Maybe next week, maybe next month, but it's in the books. That's still different from an hourly wage where the pay is calculated directly per hour and varies with the exact number of hours worked and recorded. The pay also doesn't directly vary based on actual useful output. Whether I work one day's worth of hours effectively or half as effectively doesn't affect how much I'm paid. So, I'm really directly selling my time, not my output. (The amount of useful output may of course make bosses more or less happy and deadlines reached or not reached.) That, to me, seems to be approximately what some of the other comments in this thread mean when they're saying you're selling your time, not your output. Whether they're talking about the US or not. Of course if you have a set amount of real output you're expected to produce within a day or a week and it's entirely your problem if you don't manage to produce that in a set number of hours, you're in some sense paid for your output. Your quantifiable useful output probably doesn't directly map to bucks paid, though; most knowledge workers probably don't even have such an easily quantifiable unit of actual output that you could do that. I assume that even in the US, you'd still be expected to be present for a set number of hours even if you managed to produce the expected output in less. In that sense you'd also be selling your time, not output. So maybe it's a bit of a mix of both in reality.

nightpool 3y ago
I don't think that's a universal definition of salary, though. I get paid the same sum every month, and I have a fixed number of hours I'm expected to fill per week. If I work ten hours more than that one week, that counts as +10 hours in the records, and that allows me to do 10 hours less at some point. Maybe next week, maybe next month, but it's in the books. Please cite the language in your employment contract that entitles you to this. This would make you a non-exempt worker in the US and in many other similar jurisdictions, meaning that you're being paid hourly instead of salaried. Most companies with similar policies instead have the following language: Comp time is granted to exempt positions. There is no legal requirement or obligation of [Company Name] to grant comp time to exempt employees. A supervisor may choose to grant comp time to exempt employees who are required to work in excess of 40 hours per week for special projects or during weekends or any normally scheduled time off. Note "special projects" and "may choose to". The company is offering this as a benefit, not a requirement of the contract
- Delk 3y ago
  > This would make you a non-exempt worker in the US and in many other similar jurisdictions, meaning that you're being paid hourly instead of salaried. Yes, in the US. I questioned whether that's a universal definition. I'm not being paid hourly. I get paid the same monthly salary regardless of how many working days or hours exactly there happen to be in a particular month. A February that happens to have the fewest possible work days pays the same as a 31-day month that happens to have the highest possible number of working days. The number of hours per working day is set in the contract, but it's flextime so I might work one hour less than that one day and one hour more on another. Paid overtime is also a thing, but either way, I'm entitled to compensation in either form if I work more than X hours a day. "Salaried position" may have a specific meaning in the US but that doesn't mean that's exactly what salary universally means. I think that particular phrase is just language specific to the US and some other similar jurisdictions. "Hourly" and "no compensation for overtime" aren't the only two logical possibilities. And either way, since real output from most knowledge work isn't directly quantifiable anyway, I'd say people are at least to an extent paid for their time rather than directly for their output. That was the original claim, and I think whoever pointed that out was right about it being part of the problem. > Please cite the language in your employment contract that entitles you to this. Please consider the possibility that I'm not in the US. You're just going to have to take my word for it.
  - nightpool 3y ago
    > > Please cite the language in your employment contract that entitles you to this. > Please consider the possibility that I'm not in the US. You're just going to have to take my word for it. I want to be clear—this wasn't intended to be a gotcha or anything! I am honestly curious about how different labor laws exist around the world. But I don't think this distinction is rare. Germany, for example, has one of the most regulated and regarded-as-worker-friendly payroll systems in the world. But even Germany still makes a distinction between the fixed pay scale and außer tarif employees, which almost universally has an expectation of vertrauensarbeitszeit ("trust-based working hours" i.e. non-hourly work) I would be surprised if there is a modern country that does not make this distinction between hourly and non-hourly pay in some way.
cassianoleal 3y ago
> Perhaps a lot of this entire conversation is had from more or less of an American point of view I'm beginning to wonder the same. I don't really understand the "job market" in the US or the regulations around it. Every time I hear or read something about it I get even more confused. > I get paid the same sum every month, and I have a fixed number of hours I'm expected to fill per week. That's the kind of employment contract I'm familiar with. > If I work ten hours more than that one week, that counts as +10 hours in the records, and that allows me to do 10 hours less at some point. That's one possibility. To take time in lieu. Another is to be paid overtime. They're both different ways of dealing with the same situation. > The amount of useful output may of course make bosses more or less happy and deadlines reached or not reached Precisely the point I made prior as well. We seem to have a similar understanding of this. > most knowledge workers probably don't even have such an easily quantifiable unit of actual output that you could do that. Indeed. That's the point I raised in my first comment on this thread. > So maybe it's a bit of a mix of both in reality. There's always an expectancy of output in any work relation. That said, if your pay is more tied to "doing work" for a certain amount of time, you're getting paid for that. Normally your output or some approximation of it will be used to determine better pay, or even whether you get to keep the job. Even if you get fired though, you're normally still given a notice period - and get paid for showing up during that. That's still selling your time, with an expectation of output.
- Delk 3y ago
  It sort of makes sense that working life discussions here tend to have a US-centric bias, considering the connections to SV. But it does seem to lead to kind of narrow assumptions sometimes.

by Delk 3y ago

nightpool 3y ago

I don't think that's a universal definition of salary, though. I get paid the same sum every month, and I have a fixed number of hours I'm expected to fill per week. If I work ten hours more than that one week, that counts as +10 hours in the records, and that allows me to do 10 hours less at some point. Maybe next week, maybe next month, but it's in the books. Please cite the language in your employment contract that entitles you to this. This would make you a non-exempt worker in the US and in many other similar jurisdictions, meaning that you're being paid hourly instead of salaried. Most companies with similar policies instead have the following language: Comp time is granted to exempt positions. There is no legal requirement or obligation of [Company Name] to grant comp time to exempt employees. A supervisor may choose to grant comp time to exempt employees who are required to work in excess of 40 hours per week for special projects or during weekends or any normally scheduled time off. Note "special projects" and "may choose to". The company is offering this as a benefit, not a requirement of the contract

Delk 3y ago
> This would make you a non-exempt worker in the US and in many other similar jurisdictions, meaning that you're being paid hourly instead of salaried. Yes, in the US. I questioned whether that's a universal definition. I'm not being paid hourly. I get paid the same monthly salary regardless of how many working days or hours exactly there happen to be in a particular month. A February that happens to have the fewest possible work days pays the same as a 31-day month that happens to have the highest possible number of working days. The number of hours per working day is set in the contract, but it's flextime so I might work one hour less than that one day and one hour more on another. Paid overtime is also a thing, but either way, I'm entitled to compensation in either form if I work more than X hours a day. "Salaried position" may have a specific meaning in the US but that doesn't mean that's exactly what salary universally means. I think that particular phrase is just language specific to the US and some other similar jurisdictions. "Hourly" and "no compensation for overtime" aren't the only two logical possibilities. And either way, since real output from most knowledge work isn't directly quantifiable anyway, I'd say people are at least to an extent paid for their time rather than directly for their output. That was the original claim, and I think whoever pointed that out was right about it being part of the problem. > Please cite the language in your employment contract that entitles you to this. Please consider the possibility that I'm not in the US. You're just going to have to take my word for it.
- nightpool 3y ago
  > > Please cite the language in your employment contract that entitles you to this. > Please consider the possibility that I'm not in the US. You're just going to have to take my word for it. I want to be clear—this wasn't intended to be a gotcha or anything! I am honestly curious about how different labor laws exist around the world. But I don't think this distinction is rare. Germany, for example, has one of the most regulated and regarded-as-worker-friendly payroll systems in the world. But even Germany still makes a distinction between the fixed pay scale and außer tarif employees, which almost universally has an expectation of vertrauensarbeitszeit ("trust-based working hours" i.e. non-hourly work) I would be surprised if there is a modern country that does not make this distinction between hourly and non-hourly pay in some way.

cassianoleal 3y ago

> Perhaps a lot of this entire conversation is had from more or less of an American point of view I'm beginning to wonder the same. I don't really understand the "job market" in the US or the regulations around it. Every time I hear or read something about it I get even more confused. > I get paid the same sum every month, and I have a fixed number of hours I'm expected to fill per week. That's the kind of employment contract I'm familiar with. > If I work ten hours more than that one week, that counts as +10 hours in the records, and that allows me to do 10 hours less at some point. That's one possibility. To take time in lieu. Another is to be paid overtime. They're both different ways of dealing with the same situation. > The amount of useful output may of course make bosses more or less happy and deadlines reached or not reached Precisely the point I made prior as well. We seem to have a similar understanding of this. > most knowledge workers probably don't even have such an easily quantifiable unit of actual output that you could do that. Indeed. That's the point I raised in my first comment on this thread. > So maybe it's a bit of a mix of both in reality. There's always an expectancy of output in any work relation. That said, if your pay is more tied to "doing work" for a certain amount of time, you're getting paid for that. Normally your output or some approximation of it will be used to determine better pay, or even whether you get to keep the job. Even if you get fired though, you're normally still given a notice period - and get paid for showing up during that. That's still selling your time, with an expectation of output.

Delk 3y ago
It sort of makes sense that working life discussions here tend to have a US-centric bias, considering the connections to SV. But it does seem to lead to kind of narrow assumptions sometimes.