Someone on The Hill hates their IT StaffFollow

I'm guessing Sen. Kay Hagan got her shopping sites blocked.. this is her payback?



That's right:
No more OT for Kaolian or myself

FINE!; we'll put MineSweeper back on your PC!

When I quit getting overtime, I pretty much quit working more than 40 hours/week. I like it.

Hurrah! One more in the "I don't get it so you shouldn't either " basket. We're going to get you guys screwed with us.

Just messing around.

In my opinion, anyone who takes salary should never get paid OT. Do you give back any of that pay when you work less than 40 hours?

It's law in Alberta (or was 5-6 years ago) that anyone on salary who was not an actual manager (had to meet 3 of 5 criteria to actually qualify as management)got paid overtime after 40 hours/week or after 8hours/day. Really weird, especially given that everyone's so desperate for staff there that they'd be giving bigger perks anyway and laws like this were completely unnecessary.

The ones who are going to get punished with this are not the salaried permanent employees, but the experts hired on a per project basis. Yes, they agreed to do a set amount of work as part of their contract, but they are also at the mercy and whim of the person who is in charge of the project, who works for a completely different company and is going to be making demands and changes and sudden requests at odd times, especially near the end of the project.

Say you hire a dude to code a small Android app to allow interface with your ERP solution. You give him the project parameters, and agree to an hourly wage for billable work. You promise him the API and other necessary code, but don't get around to sending it to him for the next four months, even though he's checking back with you weekly and asking for it. So he's not sending you any billable hours during those four months, even though he had planned on working on your project and may have turned down other jobs because any day now he's got your thing coming in.

You finally send him the API and code he needs, and now he has two months to program the app he planned on having six months to finish. He has to put in 50 hours a week because of your procrastination.

You owe him overtime, dammit.

I can understand that. I have no idea how it operates for anyone else in the same contract situation (say, graphic artists or language translators) to know if I should find this an injustice for IT folks.

There's that. US labor law just stipulates a minimum; you're always free to demand more.

When I was out there I got my home paid for, I got my food paid for, I got my schooling paid for. For the first 6 months I worked 3 weeks on and 1 week off, completely paid for Salaried + OT. I saved a sh*t ton of money. I moved to Red Deer and took school over the next 3 years, paid for by the company. When the economy went south (o8/09) my job vanished.

So I took my Industrial Controls and Electrical Technology diplomas that I got in Alberta and took them to Ontario where I gave up the salary gig and went hourly. I got an education and got paid for it. To bad I still owe a stupid amount of money to the government for my first two trips to school after high school. But Im down to the last 5 grand of a near 45Kdebt. Thanks to Alberta Oil Sands development.

I don't think anyone who has a marketable skill* in todays marketplace should take salaried positions, most Salaried positions pay way less overall for a lot of skilled trades. But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do for work that suits you.


*by this I mean training in any number of marketable fields. Be it education or job specific training.

oh and no provincial tax other than 10% from income tax.

Edited, Dec 3rd 2011 2:21am by rdmcandie

Our "salaried" shift foremen are in a similar boat. During the weekdays, they get paid a set 8 hours per day. If they work the weekends (scheduled work, not just coming in to check on things, etc.), they get paid extra for that day. They usually have to come in an hour early to work with the previous shift's foreman and setup the work schedule for the day, and stay about an hour over to pass on important info to the next foreman.


Also, I'm pretty sure these exemptions are not 100%. Just because they add IT to the exemption list, doesn't mean an employer HAS to make them no OT. It just means they can legally make them no OT. At least, that's how it is in Michigan. Many of the friends I graduated with are doing similar things as me, yet working a job that gets OT.

Where I work, IT staff take comp days when they finish a big time-intensive project. Same way I would.

Don't ever apply at one of my companies, as you'll be greatly let down.