February 15, 2008 at 7:45 am
It's a hard battle and I think many companies try to do the right thing, but there are always managers that will abuse things. And I do think tech/software companies can be worse than others since lots of developers are younger and enjoy working late hours on projects that are fun.
In my first job, with a large power company, we had salaried people that had to "give" 12 hours a month of overtime and after that they earned "comp time" for hours worked. I was hourly so I didn't care, but it made them work to bunch up hours in a month, either bringing them forward from the next month( doing work early) if they could get over 12. Or they'd move them forward if they couldn't.
I thought it was an interesting system to prevent payments for some one-time event that might require a few hours of overtime, but prevent longterm abuse by managers. If you worked people 60 hours every week you'd raise your budget amounts substantially.
February 15, 2008 at 9:08 am
In case you did not know about overtime and IBM, from http://www.theinquirer.net
January 24, 2006 -- Current and former employees of International Business Machine Corporation (IBM) today filed a nationwide class action lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco charging the computer giant with failure to pay overtime wages in violation of federal and state labor laws.
January 24, 2008 -- ( two years later )
IBM is cutting the wages of 7,600 technical support staff and has admitted many won't make up the difference in overtime. The move is being marked as "retaliation" by the firm after workers won a legal dispute and it was forced to hand over $65 million in unpaid overtime in 2006. The firm is putting technicians on an hourly-pay basis and said workers may suffer 15 per cent pay cuts but that they can make up the difference in overtime. However, AP reported that an internal IBM memo has admitted that there won't be enough overtime for nearly one third of workers.
Last week the IBM reported 2007 profits of $10.4 billion.
SQL = Scarcely Qualifies as a Language
February 15, 2008 at 9:23 am
During the periods of 1997-1999 and 2001 thru 2004, I was an employee of two different major consulting firms where, when assigned to projects, 60 to 70 hours per week was expected. As most of the personnel was assigned to projects for 9 to 10 months out of the year, 2 to 3 months of down time was typical.
But not for DBAs !! There was a shortage of personnel and significant turnover (40% per year !). In those 7 years, I did not have any downtime. In at least three years of those years, I was not able to take any vacation time-off. I also had periods where the work week was in excess of 90 hours and a few over 100 hours.
This is why I have reverted to working as an hourly contractor and averaging about 55 hours a week for the last 3 years.
SQL = Scarcely Qualifies as a Language
February 15, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Wow - IBM just made the case for why IT workers should unionize! Sounds like a good company to leave, if you ask me. (I do get tired of companies that build their profits on the backs of their salaried workers - it's often a sign of poor planning/managing at the higher levels.)
Steph Brown
February 15, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Just to be clear, neither of the two different major consulting firms that I have worked for were IBM.
SQL = Scarcely Qualifies as a Language
February 18, 2008 at 2:15 pm
So I must live in a strange fantasy land, where those who will develope the project tell management it will take 4 weeks or such to build this, and management does not turn around and say, well finish it in 2.
Hmm.. its nice here in fantasy land, now I just need a nice river of soda, and perhaps a few griffons...and to hope management here does not start taking pointers from other companies less reasonable..
😀
February 19, 2008 at 8:41 am
I work for a fairly conservative company, so if you're not here before 8 am, it's frowned upon. We work Mon-Thurs 8-5 with a 45 min lunch. (Funny thing - they don't really enforce the 45 min lunch, though). Then Friday, it's an hour lunch and we get off at 3:45, which is really nice. I usually come in around 7 am to check on the previous night's processes and make sure all the reports came out fine. Since I don't have kids at home, working late, if needed, is not that big of an issue. The company provides laptops if we want to check stuff from home, but there is very little telecommuting allowed here - unless you're snowed in or something like that.
February 19, 2008 at 3:39 pm
My first job after college was for a US govt agency. Different divisions of the agency could elect to pay overtime, give comp time, or nothing for working over your 40 hours. Our division gave comp time, which the rulebook said you could accumulate up to three days' worth without special permission from HR. The guy who sat at the next desk, Jack, used to put down 15 minutes of comp time on his timecard every day so that he accumulated three days of comp time in about ten pay periods. Then Jack would take the comp time as extra vacation twice a year. Our division chief was so spineless he never called Jack on it, even though Jack spent most of his day chain smoking, scalping Washington Bullets tickets (he had a source at the team), and selling used golf balls that he would collect from the golf course near his house when they drained the water hazards in the winter and then clean them up with his "secret formula". No, I am not making this up. It's a wonder the Soviet Union folded first.
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