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Does Your Company Pay For Broadband?
masq57 writes "My fellow administrators and I used to have company provided ISDN lines in our homes so that we could respond quickly to issues after hours. That was changed in the last few years to letting us expense our broadband service. Now our new CIO has elected to stop that benefit using the argument that we should be dedicated staff who desire to be responsive and should do what it takes to make that happen. The rumor now is that we should also pay for blackberries, cell phones and pagers. What sort of experiences do the rest of slashdotters have along these lines?"
Next thing's to work on finding an employer that isn't run by such cheap bastards.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
In my experience, it's been assumed that IT pros would have home Internet access because, well, what IT pro wouldn't have at least a consumer dial-up account if not broadband.
Paying for those things is a company's way of passing the employee some cash-value compensation without it being considered taxable income. So, add 20%-30% (depending on your personal tax rate) to the cost and consider that as have been subtracted from your pay package... consider yourself insulted.
My opinion and stance has always been "if you want me to have it, then you (the company) will pay for it." I've told employers that if they want me to have a cellphone then they had better pay for it themselves, 'cuz I won't have one if it's my choice.
If you're stuck paying for your own broadband, can you write it off on your taxes like auto milage?
I consistently insisted that my cell phone not be listed in the company employee directory. I threatened to change the number when once it was listed. If someone needed me over a weekend, they could call my home, and if I didn't answer, then tough. If the company wanted to pay for my cell phone service, THEN they could reach me after hours.
Don't give in on this issue. Do you really want your employer to have you at their beck and call 24/7 on your dime?
If your employer wants to be that strict about TOOLS to do you job, they care nothing of you as a person. I would suggest running when they want you to pay for pagers, cell phones, and broadband at home (if its part of your job function). Next they will expect you to work for free!
In my experience, a dialup connection works just as good for a plain text/shell connection - IMHO ISDN lines were overkill (ofcourse this depends on the actual environment context).
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Yes you should be happy to do it, if you were a happy employee. Simply outline that while they want you to innovate, to give your all for the company, to make them better than their competitors, then they should be willing to do the same for you.
Tell them that if they treat you 'competitively' to what other companies are doing, then you will either work as hard as other employees or find a company that treats you better than they do.
We are going through the same thing here, and there is nothing worse than cutting back on employee benefits, pay, and perks and justifying it by saying 'we are doing what everyone else is doing'.
It'd probably help if everyone did it, but if they won't pay for it I don't use it for business. Not that I'd ever get rid of my broadband at home but that's another matter.
My employer will pay for broadband, cell phone but not pager (what's the point? text messages cover paging) for employees it considers mobile which is almost everyone outside of our main sites. Some areas even get better broadband rates because of deals negotiated due to the amount of employees we have.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Your CIO sounds like an asshole. "Dedicated" means dedicated to the work, not dedicated to spending money for your own company. (Hint to CIO: People work to get paid money. Not to spend money for their employers.) If the company needs you to have internet access to do your job, they should pay for it.
Any company which demands you restructure your own personal finances in order to be able to afford an internet connection that they require you to have had their head up their ass. Your personal finances are none of their fucking business. I realize it's much easier said than done, but if I were in your position and had such demands placed on me, I'd quit.
Put this arrogant prick in his place. All of you should collectively refuse to pay for broadband yourselves, and let him see how "productive" you are without his help. It is not your reponsiblity to spend your own money for "the good of the company."
What a crock of shit.
What next, you have to buy your own desktop to use at their location, or you have to pay for the electricity used to power the servers? If you are using something because they _require_ it to do your job then they should be paying for it. If they insist in not paying, drop back to dialup for a while. The only reason to do what they're doing is to save money, a grand or two per year per person probably, and this thing if you having to be a dedicated employee is a coverup.
Personally, I'd suggest polishing up your resume.
Damien
The place you're working for is a sinking ship ... they've run out of cash, and they're trying to download the costs of doing business on to their employees. Having lived through the dot.com bomb, I've seen this thing a half dozen times. If you don't play ball, you'll get bad reviews, and you'll eventually be dismissed for your "poor attitude".
Better start looking for a new gig.
S
Now our new CIO has elected to stop that benefit using the argument that we should be dedicated staff who desire to be responsive and should do what it takes to make that happen. The rumor now is that we should also pay for blackberries, cell phones and pagers.
What your new CIO is not telling you is that your department budget has been cut back and they are no longer able to pay for your broadband. If they won't let you itemize your broadband connection, ask if you can itemize dialup connection and phone costs for every call you have to make for business reasons.
If you have to be on-call, then they should at least reimburse you for cell phone/pagers costs. I'm not sure about blackberries, tho.
My company pays for my broadband and whenever I'm on-call, they pay for my cell phone costs and they provide the pagers. They also pay overtime for on-call related work, but my personal policy is, if I don't have to leave my house, I don't charge them. Also, they usually understand that if I stay up half the night soving a problem (from home or at the office), I'll probably be late for work in the morning and tend to look the other way.
How is your company's overall situation? Are finances suffering? Read between the lines on what your boss told you and figure out wether it's safe to protest or you should simply start thinking about employment elsewhere.
Disclaimer: IANAL, YMMV, caveat emptor, boni anima teuri amen, and all that.
No sig
My fellow administrators and I used to have company provided ISDN lines in our homes so that we could respond quickly to issues after hours.
*AHEM* Not that I'm saying your ISDN line wasn't a good tool to "respond quickly to issues after hours" but...
In reality, your fellow administrators and your used to have a company-provided ISDN line in our home, pretending to need it to respond quickly to issues after hours, so you could get free internet in reality. Trouble is, your company wisened up to the fact that you shafted them, and decided that a a regular dial-up account, an automated phone call, SMS or Blackberry messages work just as well to "solve issues after hours".
Been there, done that. The bubble is finished, get over it...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Essentially institute a "safe auto" contact policy. You have an answering machine on your home phone number that they can call when they need you. You have, as far as they are concerend, no cellphone, pager, blackberry, or non corporate internet. If they send you an email you will get it when you are at work. I can not think of a single profession where there is a similar situation. Do construction works have a BYOB policy (Bring your own Backhoe)? No then why should 24/7 IT guys (which is what your company wants) have a BYOB (Bring your own broadband) expectation?
There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
Blackberry device and pagers should definitely be company paid. You should have a phone yourself, and some internet access, so they would normally be personal expenses. All connectvity software (VPN, etc.) that the company would require for remote connection should also be the corporate $. If a CIO was trying to wring this amount of savings it would signal to me that the end was near, and I would look to jump ship.
I personally find non-reimbursement incredibly insulting, but let's not forget that the employer must be aware that these are deductible business expenses. At the very least, they should be willing to accept that they are getting the money back from your business expenses. There's nothing worse than an employer telling you to get certified or to fly to see client xyz but refusing to pay for the flight or training. I have had to contend with that on a number of occasions, and it's only with small companies. Any fortune .5k company will not only reimburse you, but force you to use the process. They don't want any audit screwing up their investors' opinions!
stuff |
But getting to my Subject Line - Throw this at the VP (or whomever)... How can you ever expect to have an accurate Income / Expense sheet when you are shifting business costs to the workers? You're actually doing a disservice to the shareholders, because they're going to look at the bottom line. They will see smaller (or marginally decreasing) expenses related to reoccurring expenses, and think management is getting more effcient. This works great until the expenses get uncovered somehow (people quit, get a union involved, contact congressional representatives who then ask questions, etc).
To be very frank, bosses like this bury a company. It shows leadership is willing to be unethical to increase margins. As a MBA with 10+ years of network & telecom and military leadership training, I'd say the ship is sinking and it's time for you to get out.
If you are required to use it for work, it's a business expense that should be paid by your employer. If they won't pay, you may be able to deduct some of these expenses as unreimbursed business expenses at tax time. IANAL. IANATA. YMMV.
In my previous job, I finally started refusing to pay for things that the company required me to have to do my job. You want me to have a pager, provide it. You want me to have a cell phone, provide it. You want me to have a home computer, provide it. You want me to have an Internet connection, provide it. My boss had a breakdown, and his boss was livid, but Human Resources came to my rescue and told them bluntly they had to pay for what I needed to do my job, and that I couldn't be disciplined for refusing to subsidize my employer.
If you love your job, talk to your personnel department and see if someone can talk sense into your bosses. Otherwise, I'd look for a job where they treat you fairly.
http://drteknikal.blogspot.com/
There is a collective struggle between workers and owners (and their proxies, bosses). This series of events shows the subjective weakening power of the workers side here. They want you to pay for the privilege of being a 24/7 on-call wage slave. There's not much you can do as an individual, although if your company gets worse than industry average you can split.
What you can do is band together with other IT workers and educate and organize. You may remember recently there was a desire to retract the FLSA laws from even moe people. Most IT people legally have no right to overtime anyhow, despite the 19th century battles for an eight hour day. In fact, your time is now around-the-clock, and at your expense. Communicating and organizing with organizations like TechsUnite, the Programmers Guild, Washtech and whatnot will keep you appraised of these things. The ITAA, the IT owners lobbying group, has been lobbying in Washington DC for years, and was flooding newspapers with stories of IT labor shortages in the late 1990s. This has been a common industry tactic - industries used to flood newspapers with stories of labor shortages in the early 20th century, which newspapers like the Industrial Worker used to mock.
The two big factors in the struggle are hours worked and pay per hour. Employers always are trying to expand hours worked, workers if they have any power are trying to reduce the number of required hours. In terms of pay per hour, the fight is over how much of the wealth you create, and workers create all the wealth, goes to you in wages, and what percentage goes to the owner in profit.
Something people say is companies are getting tighter due to the economy, as if political economy was something completely alien from people like the weather. On the contrary, employers felt their expected rate of profit was falling in 2000 so they stopped capital spending, thereby creating unemployment, which drives down wages. They do this until their expected profit rate comes into their expectation range again.
Is the company in dire trouble now (that being the reason for the cutbacks), or are they going to be in dire trouble soon because of such cutbacks?
It's almost certainly one or the other. If the company is hurting, an dthis is a part of across-the-board, temporary cost-cutting measures, they should say so, and you can decide how to react.
Otherwise, there's a clueless twit loose, and s/he needs to be dealt with, or your group (if not the company) is dead, dead, dead unless something changes.
As for the details in the meantime, I agree with the "Easy one" poster. It woiuld be one thing if you'd hired in under those terms. But just yanking them because the new guy has his own definition of reality? Maybe you should explain that a real CIO provides his people with the best tools for their job.
Plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, or pretty much any tradesman, are expected to have their own tools.
Hell, McDonalds' employees pay for their uniforms.
Is it really that unreasonable to expect computer professionals to have a computer and internet access?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
So according to your thinking, anything they pay for shouldn't be used for personal use, right? That means that the broadband is only used for company business and the cellphone is never used to call a friend?
My employer doesn't pay for broadband, since it is just a convenience that allows us to not have to come into the office. We are paid to be on call, which means doing whatever is necessary for access to the systems. They also do not pay for cellphones. That said, if you use your cellphone for work purposes, you can expense that portion of the bill. They do pay for the pagers we are required to carry. I didn't like this at first, but it does make sense. It is a good compromise that lets my employer pay for what they benefit from, and I pay for the rest.
Mike Mangino
mmangino@acm.org
"Go figure. *shrug*" is exactly what's gone wrong in the workforce.
Will you *shrug* your way to 60 hour work weeks, pay increases that don't keep up with the cost of living, purchasing your own software, paying for any equipment repairs?
Will you *shrug* your way back into the conditions that made unionism necessary in the first place?
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Work paid for my cell phone for years.
Then they decide to stop paying for cell phones. I bitch about it being a short sighted penny-wise pound-foolish policy. Said bitching falls on deaf ears and they cut funding anyways.
Fine. My out of office message now specifies contacting my boss, not calling my cell phone. If work calls outside of my "free" hours timeslots, they pay for that portion of my monthly bill. If I use 300 minutes of the 500 plan minutes in a month, and 30 of those are for work use, then work pays for 1/10th of my bill.
If its the weekend and work calls my cell phone I do not feel an urgent need to pick up. If they leave a voice mail I feel just fine not responding until I'm in the office on Monday.
To put it short, if my employer feels that it is not important for them to be able to reach me when I am not in the building, then I'm going to act like it's not important for them to be able to reach me when I am not in the building.
And you can take your team-player should-be-willing-to-pitch-in speech and stick it where the sun don't shine. You're taking advantage of an expensive resource that I'm paying for out of pocket, if you're not willing to help mitigate that cost then I'm not willing to let you use that resource.
Saying that I should be willing to use my broadband, which incurs a usage fee, for work just because I already pay for it is like saying I should be willing to drive people around in my car just because I already pay for it.
There's a law against forcing someone to use their private vehicle for work related tasks without compensating for fuel and wear and tear... I see no reason that same principle shouldn't apply to any resource.
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
There are some questions that need to be answered:
If the answer to any or all of the above questions is "yes" -- especially the last one -- then the company should pay for it since it is the principal beneficiary of the work that these devices and services enable. It is up to the employer to provide the facilities, materials and tools required to do the job (unless it is explicitly stated otherwise in your employment contract).
If the company is willing to accept lower customer satisfaction ratings or interruptions in business continuity by not paying for these items, then it should be optional for the employee to pay for or use these items in their work. If it's not important enough for the company to pay for these things then it certainly isn't important enough for the employee to do so.
Whatever the case the employees should not be put in a position where they are forced to fund business operations to do their jobs -- which is very much what this sounds like.
You don't work from home, you don't carry a pager, and you don't give them your cell phone number.
Instead, your replacement will take care of all those pesky "issues" like decorating your cube and picking up your paycheck. If you really are an integral part of keeping a company running 24x7, then your salary probably already reflects it. Let's be honest: most folks have 1+Mb Internet connections and cell phones anyways. It's not like the co. is asking you to maintain a DS3 into your basement.
It's easy to sound-off on /. posts, but you're facing a reality of today's business world. Try negotiating an in-between solution. Discuss with management that you recognize most folks have Internet connections and cell phones anyways. (Now, they'll recognize you live in the real world with them.) Then explain you are committed to the company, cite examples, etc... (Yea, basically kiss-up a little). Then explain that you'd like to expense a portion of your business-related expenses. If 50% of your cell calls are work related and a fourth of your Internet time is resolving work issues, then you'd like to expense those percentages of those bills. Explain how this arrangement would help you adjust your budget during this transition period that the co. is going through.
After a while, you can push those numbers up a little since no-one will actually look at every in/out-bound number on your cell phone bill. ;-) And as for the so-called transition period, how many "temporary fixes" are still in place years later? ;-) Don't take any big stands on this issue. Don't bring it up in the weekly staff meeting. Let this negotiation occur quietly between you and whoever approves your expenses. It's the real world, population: us.
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
I work for a major telco, and our management currently pays for broadband for people who are required to provide 7x24 support, people who work from home, and senior management.
In a relentless drive to lower costs, this policy is under review, but we haven't heard the results yet.
Most of my co-workers have laptops (I don't) and they expense their broadband bills monthly. I could expense my broadband, but in order to do my job remotely, I would have to install additional software on my personal computer. Given that there is no place for personal software on corporate assets, I believe that there is also no place for corporate software on my personal assets, so I manage with a 56k dial connection when I do 24x7 support.
I see no need to try to expense my phone bill, because I would have that regardless and there is unlimited local calling anyways.
A previous manager once asked me for my personal cell phone number so that he could have it printed on my new business cards. I asked if I could expense the bill for my cell phone if I agreed, only to be told that the company does not pay for personal use items. That being the case, I decided that my personal cell phone would remain for personal use only.
I don't view this as not being a team player. I work a lot of unpaid overtime, and when there are fires to be put out, I stay for the duration until things are under control.
I do not see it as being part of my job description to subsidize a multi-billion dollar corporation. If they want me to be available outside of the office, they can provide me with a cell-phone and/or pager. I will not use my own assets to help them do their job
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
I have 2 quick points.
1. I'm a dispatcher and work with mechanics. The mechanics make really good money, however they're expected to buy their own tools. Some of the tool boxes have $20,000 in tools. And that's normal for mechanics. The world might be going that way, but if you can make more money someplace else it's your right to go do it.
2. By being a company man, doing whatever it takes to be available, working inconvenient hours, and being a team player I've managed to double my salary in a few years, and expect to do so again in a few more. Hosing everyone else by being unavailable and not doing your job isn't going to get you anywhere.
There's my 2 cents
CIO's wouldn't be able to pull this kind of shit if we were a union trade. We could demand better pay for having to subsidize company architcture or they would have to pay for it themselves. Otherwise we walk while the windows worm of the week burrows unopposed.
If half the CIO's of the fortune 500 were giving evil eyes to your CIO because of a sympathy strike on your behalf, this would be an entirely different story. Such a CIO could be endangering their carreer if they turn the screws too tight on their staff.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
"There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore."
...but remember that if you don't want your job, someone else does. Remember that if you want your job, so does someone else who will work for less. The company doesn't truly care about the "best" in most cases, rather "good enough"; you should think the same way. In the "best case" scenario, the company pays for broadband; in the "worst case" scenario, you have to... but not like you weren't going to anyway. If need be, look at the expense as an investment in keeping your job.
While Carly's alturism is questionable, the statement is very poignant. Regardless of what your personal feelings on your employer are, the reality is that they provide a means to live. Very few of us grow our own food or own land on which to build a house meaning we must buy these things. In order to buy these things, we must involve ourselves in the societal structure of work.
For a momentary aside, I recently left the technology sector to try my hand at marketing and frankly the payscale/workload equation outside technology is terrible by comparison. In an ideal technical situation, a system administrator is doing the job best when the phone never rings thus leaving free time to improve. Not many jobs are like that.
So integrating into the society of work requires a few things above and beyond the listed requirements of adequate skill. For many jobs in many locations, a worker must have transportation and a wardrobe of some effect. Neither of these are required specifically by an employer, however, if an employee cannot make it to work or looks below standard upon arrival, chances are that employee will not be employed for very long.
Carly's quote is of relevence because in order to keep that nice, well-paying tech job, the employer must remain competitive in the field and the employee must as well.
If you have a stable tech job and make a fuss about the cost of broadband, you are ceasing to be competitive. If the employer pays for the connection, that's icing on the cake.
I've read all the ranting about "my time" and "their time" and all of that nonsense. Above all, an employee should enjoy their job, else everyone suffers. So if an employee reasonably enjoys their job, they will do what's required to keep that job. If that means taking a $45 a month unofficial paycut, so be it.
But chances are anyone truly invested in technology will have a broadband connection at home and often carry a cell phone. Share it, answer it, don't answer it, do whatever you want to...
To continue my aside, tech. works are seriously among the most spoiled individuals in the workforce. While our roles are crucial, they are also often overstated as well. If you ever leave the fluff of the tech. sector, you will find that many jobs are way more ass-kicking and paying for broadband is the least of your concerns... after health-care in many cases.
nuckcl(at)yahoo.com
--
Elizabeth sent me this story called "Geek Player, Love Slayer" out of the Missouri Review. Being the production monkey formerly known as the IT Guy, I found a bit of humor in it as well as some relevant commentary, including the line Liz originally quoted in her email, How did Computer Guy become the lifeguard of the decade? as well as How much cultural power will the Geek Player amass before people realize he's just a guy who can talk to machines? and Those guys had a certain pathetic, introverted arrogance because they knew they had the rest of the office by the stones. But they were basically frightened of people.
http://www.missourireview.org/index.php?genre=Fi ct ion&title=Geek+Player%2C+Love+Slayer
Over the years of spending so much time in the lurid blue embrace of the cathode ray tube (and now the pale glow of ubiquitous liquid crystal flat panels), I understand these concepts. Technology was raised to a power in that wrinkle in time when everyone needed a computer to do busines
If they demand broadband, then they pay for it. However, they reserve the right to demand that it only be used for their purposes. Same for cell phones, etc - if they want it, they pay. However if they pay, they can (and probably should) dictate how it's used. ...which is pretty much what we do here.
For general users, I provide them with a machine, and we pay for the cablemodem. The caveat is that the machine will be used *exactly* for work, and nothing else. They're free to connect a personal machine to that cablemodem, but the stuff I provide had better not ever touch anything other than here.
At home, I pay for the cablemodem since it's a legacy anyway. I do have, however, a machine that is dedicated for work - simply because I've told my employer that I will *not* pollute my personal property with their required software, nor will I compromise my machines' usability with their software's requirements... unless they wish to take responsibility / liability for the impact of their software on my machines - if their crap bones it, they pay. Obviously, they got me a dedicated box for the task.
So, fair's fair. If they want you to be accountable for providing equipment, then you have complete authority over how it gets used. Likewise, if they want authority over how it's used, then they are accountable for providing it.
Sounds like your CIO wants the authority, while sticking you with the accountability. Use that exact expression when you discuss this topic, and you'll discover that your CIO must change his verbiage one way or the other, very quickly.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
That was YOUR choice. You volunteered to do those things, and at a startup, it was recognized and appreciated. This guy's boss is just cheap. It's more of the same old mentality: Let's squeeze as much profit and productivity from these people as we can without spending any money on them. And if they balk, hint at layoffs.
He may not have any choice, but his piece of mind will be greatly increased if he can find another job with reasonable superiors. The ones he has now are making unreasonable demands at his fiscal expense.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Yup, you sure do.
You get the "freedom" to come in on the 4th of July to work on someone else's server.
You get the "freedom" to spend your money on work related Internet.
You get the "freedom" to spend your money on work related cell phone minutes.
And for what? To be treated like a professional? Wouldn't you rather be compensated like a professional?
Where I work, we have what's called "leave days", and when we need to take leave, we do, it's why they give them to us. When we are sick, we take "sick days", we don't have to ask, that's what they give them to us for. If work requires us to be on a pager, they supply it, common sense says it's their responsibility.
I'm very sure your boss "loves" you. But as for me, I don't own the company, I require compensation for my work. And, because I work for professionals, they treat me as a professional, without asking me to shell out a lot of cash for the privilege.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Yep, we should all be dedicated to the corporation. Of course, the corporation will lay me off in a nanosecond if it will bump the stock price by a point, or if the company moves my job to an offshore company that the CEO just happens to be invested in, or if my new boss wants to hire her best friend for my job. And I'm supposed to foot the bill for work-related items to "help out the team"? Not bl**dy likely. It was exactly this mentality at corporations that pushed me into becoming an independent hourly worker.
if you pay for it then you have 100% freedom to turn it off at any time for any reason. that goes for bandwidth or wireless leashes, doesn't matter.
Just remind your employer that as their policy states, any data that runs on their network is their property because it is on their network. This means that if you pay for your own Broadband, it is your network, and thus any data on it belongs to you. Of course this would be more convincing if the broadband connection in your home were in someone elses name, such as your spouse.
I've been around the corporate racetrack a few times; long enough to know that when your boss starts counting pennies, it means that she don't consider your services crucial to the bottom line.
Corporate executives frequently get all kinds of benefits and bonuses, anything from hard cash, interest-free loans, company cars, company-financed homes, dry cleaning, free lunches, maid service, etc. all because there is a perception that these individuals are difficult to replace and are critical to successful implementation of the company's long-term strategy. I've rarely heard anyone in a boardroom argue over the merits of any company-financed perk, except in cases where management was looking for an excuse to get rid of someone and wanted to encourage that person to get rid of themselves. The message is clear - if your company is tightening the ropes on this type of spending, than there's a good chance that someone has determined that you are:
Don't fool yourself into thinking that flexible hours or last week's heroics in fixing the email server mean anything to the people at the top of the corporate food chain. The problem with IT is that every system failure is often seen as an indication that you're not doing your job properly, and even when nothing fails, it's a red flag to your boss that she can probably get someone less qualified and less expensive to do the same job that you're doing. It's a no-win situation. Unless you're dealing some moneymaking aspect of the company (i.e., that the company generates cash via IT services) than chances are good that you're about to be sidelined and replaced. Cash and compensation is always the bottom line for respect in any business endeavor; if you're not seeing dollars or perks, you have no respect coming down from upper-management.
We stupid American money chasers... We forget that our ideals, morals, and families are all that really matters. We're slaves to the almighty Buck, and those of us who manage to see clearly enough to realize that this is ludicrous, are branded as either stupid, or hopelessly idealistic.
I say those who are willing to give up their ideals and lives for the sake of a corporation don't deserve them in the first place. Kind of like what Ben Franklin said regarding security vs. freedom.
I'd say fine.
But no off hours stuff. If they ask why? Well, I don't have internet access/cellphone/whatever anymore.
A company shouldn't be burning your personal assets (cell phone minutes, bandwidth etc.).
So if they need you to do work, they should be providing the means to do so (that's why companies have offices).
I'd play hardball. Want me to do work? Provide the means.
Want me to be accessible via my cell phone? Reimburse me for the minutes you use.
Simple as that.
Shouldn't have to pay a company to do work for them.
My current company pays for broadband access. If they did not, I would not admit to having it, nor a cell phone and certainly not a pager or any after hours stuff at all. If they want the resource they have to pay for it. Go find someone who actually wants to pay you. F**k em.
>Frankly, I'd rather be able to do 30 sometimes,
/logging all my hours for my unpaid overtime claim in case they have a "reduction in force"
>50 others, and enjoy what I do.
So would I.
Where I work (yay, supposedly we're one of the top 10 place to work for) in theory, we are supposedly expected to work until the job is done. Oh, sure, if its done, we can leave early.
Now reality rears its head...my team is understaffed by 50%, and there is no budget to hire more people. Never mind that our Director makes a big deal at every staff meeting about how the company has so much money coming in they don't know how to spend it.
In the rare instances where one is actually done early and heads out...they get the evil eye from managers who arrive at 10:30A.
The deal was that we put in insane hours, and by now we should have been rich from those stock options and bonuses. When they start handing out the options and bonuses like '99, they can expect 60 hour weeks. Until then, I'm doing my job the best I can in 40 hours.
Because they can.
Because the employees let them.
I live 10 time-zones away from the current client I'm supporting, which means their working hours are 6pm till 2am my time.
So, I have a full development environment at home, including legal copies of all the software I need, broadband access, etc. All paid for by my employer (actually, the PC belongs to me).
When the phone rings (never after 10pm) the meter starts running, every call, every email, every 'log on at 9 and check everythings ok' is billed for.
Why does my employer pay for all of this?
Because they want the work done, and I don't work for free.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
A decade or so ago, one of my friends had the recommendation that you should always have your own email, independent of your employers, so you've got continuity and people can reach you even if your job situation changes - especially so you've got an email account for your resume. It was good advice, as I found out six months later when I got laid off :-) These days, of course, the idea of not having independent connectivity and half a dozen email accounts seems old-fashioned, but back then it was important. I haven't done that with my cellphone (I suck at doing regular paperwork, and I've had the company-provided phone number for almost 10 years, and we're a quasi-stable company though we do keep laying people off.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks