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Don't worry. The comment that surprised you is not really true. The 81k figure is for "overtime-exempt" employees (often just shortened to "exempt"). I.e., i

by mturmon 13y ago

Don't worry. The comment that surprised you is not really true. The 81k figure is for "overtime-exempt" employees (often just shortened to "exempt"). I.e., if you make less than that, you are considered "overtime-eligible" (opposite of exempt), and in that case, if you work more than 40 hours per week, you have to be paid overtime. Also, the 81k figure pertains only to software people. There is a figure for other occupations, but it is much lower. There are also differences in how business travel is treated. Overtime eligible employees have to be paid for all time spent in transit, but exempt do not get extra pay. (Of course, in both cases, travel expenses will be paid by the company, I am speaking of pay for travel time.) In fact, the 81k figure is a marker and not a bright line. The actual separator between overtime eligible ("OTE") and exempt employees considers several factors, including job responsibility and experience. The OTE/exempt distinction has become more rigid in recent years because of lawsuits by attorneys representing low-paid (e.g 60k/year range) employees who had been considered "salaried", and asked to do extra work for free (e.g., the travel time mentioned above) because they were salaried. These suits resulted in the distinction between OTE and exempt shifting. If you ask me, it has in general hurt very early career engineers making 70k per year, because they have to account more strictly for their time than before. For instance, they cannot redistribute their hours between work days the way salaried employees can. (Only speaking of California here.)

jimmaswell 13y ago
>they cannot redistribute their hours between work days the way salaried employees can. As far as I can tell, they can, they just have to get compensated for it ie the employer can't abuse it.
- mturmon 13y ago
  I believe the driver for day-to-day recording of work hours is that if they work beyond a certain limit (could even be 8 hours) on a given day, they get OT for that. Thus, you can't work 12 hours one day and 4 the next day without pay consequences. There are other workplace rules for OTE employees as well, which in some cases include mandatory lunchtimes and breaks (but I'm not sure how widely this applies to software people). I think supervisors and organizations look the other way on some fine points, but I'm describing the letter of the law. I have one OTE employee, and I'm desperately trying to get them promoted beyond this threshold so we don't have to deal with the hassle. Because I've already learned more about CA labor law than I want.
  - jimmaswell 13y ago
    >I believe the driver for day-to-day recording of work hours is that if they work beyond a certain limit (could even be 8 hours) on a given day, they get OT for that. Thus, you can't work 12 hours one day and 4 the next day without pay consequences. Yeah, I knew that when I wrote the post. Seems to make sense to me as it is. So if this person gets promoted, they won't get more pay than otherwise when they're doing overtime a certain day? Or do you count it by hours in a week, month?
    - mturmon 13y ago
      "if this person gets promoted, they won't get more pay than otherwise when they're doing overtime a certain day" ? -- yes, because they will be a regular salaried ("exempt") employee. "by hours in a week, month?" I think there is a daily threshold, and a weekly threshold, for overtime. I don't think there is anything else. But I don't figure the pay, so I don't know the ins and outs. * Where I work, you have to justify overtime, so in effect the employee was prevented from moving work hours between days unless the resulting increase in effective wage could be justified. ("Feeling in the zone" is not enough...)

by mturmon 13y ago

jimmaswell 13y ago

>they cannot redistribute their hours between work days the way salaried employees can. As far as I can tell, they can, they just have to get compensated for it ie the employer can't abuse it.

mturmon 13y ago
I believe the driver for day-to-day recording of work hours is that if they work beyond a certain limit (could even be 8 hours) on a given day, they get OT for that. Thus, you can't work 12 hours one day and 4 the next day without pay consequences. There are other workplace rules for OTE employees as well, which in some cases include mandatory lunchtimes and breaks (but I'm not sure how widely this applies to software people). I think supervisors and organizations look the other way on some fine points, but I'm describing the letter of the law. I have one OTE employee, and I'm desperately trying to get them promoted beyond this threshold so we don't have to deal with the hassle. Because I've already learned more about CA labor law than I want.
- jimmaswell 13y ago
  >I believe the driver for day-to-day recording of work hours is that if they work beyond a certain limit (could even be 8 hours) on a given day, they get OT for that. Thus, you can't work 12 hours one day and 4 the next day without pay consequences. Yeah, I knew that when I wrote the post. Seems to make sense to me as it is. So if this person gets promoted, they won't get more pay than otherwise when they're doing overtime a certain day? Or do you count it by hours in a week, month?
  - mturmon 13y ago
    "if this person gets promoted, they won't get more pay than otherwise when they're doing overtime a certain day" ? -- yes, because they will be a regular salaried ("exempt") employee. "by hours in a week, month?" I think there is a daily threshold, and a weekly threshold, for overtime. I don't think there is anything else. But I don't figure the pay, so I don't know the ins and outs. * Where I work, you have to justify overtime, so in effect the employee was prevented from moving work hours between days unless the resulting increase in effective wage could be justified. ("Feeling in the zone" is not enough...)