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Law Firm Fighting For White Collar (IT) Overtime
Maximum Prophet writes "Programmers and System Administrators typically don't get overtime. A law firm based in Nevada is looking to stand up for white-collar workers around the country, trying to reverse decades-old (and incorrect) thinking about what it means to work in an office. 'Computer workers of various stripes, for example, have commonly not been paid for their extra hours ... But under California law, the exemption applies only for workers whose primary function involves "the exercise of discretion and independent judgment." In numerous lawsuits, Thierman and other plaintiffs' attorneys have alleged that legions of systems engineers, help desk staff, and customer service personnel do no such thing. Of programmers, Thierman says, "Yes, they get to pick whatever code they want to write, but they don't tell you what the program does ... All they do is implement someone else's desires.'"
Overtime is one of those things both the company and the employee has to consider when taking a job and the salary is based around those terms.
If companies suddenly had to start paying overtime, salaries would have to be adjusted.
Personally, I'd prefer to stick with the deal I have.
It sounds like they are only doing this in California, which has ad the IT exemption for decades. For the rest of the country, IT workers were getting overtime until the so-called Fair Pay Act of 2004, which exempts IT workers (and other fields as well) from overtime, in exchange for guaranteeing overtime pay for anyone making less than about $23,000 a year. Of course, there are no IT workers making such a low wage (except in India), so that means all IT workers became affected.
I, myself was getting overtime pay until 2005.
My blog
Ok, I'm a salaried network admin/systems technician. When I applied for my job as a systems tech, I was assured it would be an 8-5 job. Well, about 2 weeks in I am asked to handle a week of after hours calls. This is fine, except my company is in the Medical/PACS industry. If radiologists can't get their images, people could die. Some nights I will get 10+ calls. Do I get comped? No. Do I get anything for this? No. I applied to build servers and be a backup for fielding calls and was assured a certain set of hours. I did my time on helpdesk and would like to think I'd finally graduated past it. I would just like to see some sort of gratuity from the company for me having to literally go 2-3 days without sleep sometimes because of late night calls. Its bad enough when I work from 8 until 10 at night, but then to get calls most of the night after, I think I deserve something.
If the la says overtime must be paid, contracts who say otherwise are null and void.
It's not for nothing that there are laws, because companies cannot be relied to do the right thing.
for a few years, I think companies have made out like bandits. Companies have always towed the "your a professional" line when expecting overtime from employees. While that may be true, try telling that to your plumber or mechanic. I'm wondering what the impact on general salary would be if some sort of legislation was put into place.
Sig it.
The problem is that IT are the only workers, non-professionals in the traditional sense, that are singled out as exempt from overtime, whether straight time or time and a half.
State laws, like Californias, are all based off the Federal law.
This exemption was written into the law way back in the 1970'or 80's at the behest of big corporate consulting firms based in NYC. Priot to that, IT folks were paid hourly just like most other office staff.
This is a matter of basic fairness. Why should IT be singled out for different treatment from all other technical trades?
I have been biatching about this for years. Equal treatment under the law is a Constitutional requirement in the US, and just plain ethical everywhere else.
This is also the reason why most IT offices are 40 hour weeks on paper, but 50-60 hour weeks in actuality.
All they do is implement someone else's desires -- I love this. i am no longer a programmer, bit pusher, or code grunt! I am an implementer of someone else's desires.
Please note for future reference
Yeah, man. The only people who deserve a pay increase are CEO's. God, everyone knows that.
Really, do you mean to suggest that fewer domestic people entering the business will result in a different outcome (regarding the number of Indian programmers) than current employees getting overtime pay?
I used to work in a company that used to put a lot of pressure on the programmers to work long hours. One old guy there came at 9am and left at 5pm every day, and refused to work any later. They didn't get rid of him because he was good and reliable. In retrospect I realise all of us ambitious youngsters were being taken for a ride and the old guy just wasn't having it.
Not all IT jobs require massive (or any) amounts of overtime. I may work the occasional 50 hour week because of deadline concerns, sure, but I'll never be a permanent 50+ hour employee.
My dad worked in a union for 30 years (small steel finishing plant), topped out at about 50K per year. He had to work a lot for what he got paid (I worked there for a summer, sometimes it's real hard work, sometimes it's easy, but it's always long hours). I make twice as much as he did and I sit all day.
I realize how good I have it.
If you don't like your job, there really are plenty of jobs in IT that don't require overtime, just go find one. One place I worked at pretty much dictated 8:00-4:30 (or 8:30-5 but everyone did 8:00) every day and everyone leaves (medium insurance company IT dept). I didn't like getting there at 8am, but I sure did enjoy a 37.5 hour work week (after lunch).
-- What did Spock find in Kirk's toilet? The captain's log.
I get overtime as a coder. And I have no compunction about saying "Sorry, I'm busy this weekend, I can't do any overtime." when asked (not that I turn it down all the time, but I like to have my time off...off).
You crazy Americans with your 5 days holiday a year, 80 hour working weeks and complete lack of overtime.
My Journal
Simple solution. Contracting. Since I changed, I never looked back. I will NEVER work for free. I will work as long as the job requires, I will bust my ass to get things working, but, I will not do it for free.
It is a plain and simple thing that took ME awhile to realize.
If salary were a two way street ("sure you can leave early this week, since all your work is done") it might be ok, but I find for today, especially in admin jobs, where you are on call and carry a pager (some people actually do this for free??)...salary is just a way to squeeze time away from you for free.
They'd have to pay me a LOT of salary to go back to it.
IMHO, in this day in age, there is no such thing anymore as job loyalty (from either party), nor job security. If that is the case, then the two main things that would draw a person to a direct, salaried job are gone. That being the case, you might as well contract. YOu can find long term contracts....possibly be a contract employee of a company which is kind of a hybrid thing (benefits, and hourly compensation), so it isn't always a hit and miss occupation. If you are really good at what you do, you can do the complete indie thing....make great bill rates, and enjoy more time off.
Sure it takes a bit more paperwork, but, you can incorporate yourself, get tax breaks, write things off.....and you don't have to work for free any more.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
the problem is not whether the law allows the bosses to pay or not pay for extra hours, its all about availability of workers willing to not demand for extra hours to be paid.
I mean if I start to insist on getting paid for every hour over 42h/week I work, my boss will fire me and replace me with someone that wont ask for overtime.
Sysadmin type work is NEVER simply a 9-5 type job. Why? Because so much maint has to be done during off hours. That's the way it has always been. If you have an incompetent jerk boss that decides that you need to work 9-5 everyday PLUS do off hours maint with no comp. time or anything, then that's YOUR problem. My "night maint" guys start late the day of maint, get free dinner, and only work a half-day the next day (frequently resulting in a less-than 40 hour week.)
An employer has a limited amount of money with which to compensate employees. The exact structure of counting the labor doesn't affect the pay in the long term. Long herre is about a year.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Before the government started dictating terms of employment, working 12 hours per day, 6 days per week was the norm. Maybe you want to go back to that plan.
If you read the article carefully, it actually states that:
-The law says that people must be paid for overtime
-The law says that people can sign a contract excempting them from being paid for overtime (implying, they would look at what the job demands from them as a whole, day and night, and measure the annual salary up against that). This however ONLY if they have jobs that require creative and original thought. You cannot by law sign up as a burger flipper for $20,000 per annum and be on standby days and nights with no overtime comp.
- The law firm says that IT does not require creative and original thought, and hence IT people should not be given contracts (which they almost always are) that exclude overtime
I mean, getting the argument through would be a radical shift in the salary structure of IT people - you would get paid by hour instead - but you might struggle to find people here to agree that IT support is as uncreative as burger flipping.
In New York, HR came to IT and requested job descriptions of all the IT employees; which would ultimately decide who was and was not exempt from Overtime due to the Fairpay Act. IT Mgmt complied, and must not have been told the reasons for the request, because after which 85% of IT employees, HR deemed eligible for Overtime. Not only that, we were eligible for retroactive Overtime for time work since Jan. This was in April. I earned Overtime for a full year at Sys Admin hours, all the time knowing this was never going to last. At my next review, Mgmt gave me glowing reviews and "promoted" me. They gave me a new title, which then exempt me from Overtime pay - however my job duties and hours remained the same. My base salary increased by 3%, which is standard at my company. No matter what the law says and how it is written, Mgmt will always find ways around it. But you knew that going in. No one ever went into IT for the long lunches and 35 hour work weeks. Oh, and just to put this in perspective, my brother-in-law served in the US NAVY for 12 years, has held many jobs outside of the military, has multiple degrees in engineering, currently flies passenger jets for an international airline...and he makes less than I do. For what we do, it's not that bad pay.
Well, trouble is, it didn't use to always be this way. Back in the day (as my Dad was telling me), "professional" people like Engineers, and Programmers, used to get paid time and a half for OT. However, the Govt. didn't want to pay that anymore on their contracts, and came up with that little fun exempt situation for us.....and found a way out of paying.
That being said...with contract now, you 'can' get straight time, but, not 1.5 time.
So, some of this argument isn't so much about the govt. meddling...they always have, it could be viewed as just a push to get back what we used to have.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I make twice as much as he did and I sit all day. ... I realize how good I have it.
That is what I thought myself once upon a time. However, you may have a different opinion after you sat all day for decades (unless you compensate for this hidden torture properly — which I did not).
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
As far as people who don't want government involvement - there are a host of laws limiting what we can do. The Taft-Hartley law allows the government to call off any strike. States are allowed to prevent certain agreements between workers and management (a "closed shop"). Overtime, at least below a certain salary level, is one of the things countering this. If you don't care about the ITAA etc. pushing the salary level for overtime down, down, down until it disappears, all that will exist are laws that give weight to the employer, and have the government take away your freedom in contract-making with the employer (Taft-Hartley, so-called right-to-work laws etc.) Even if you want to do away with all such laws, from our perspective it makes sense to keep these laws until the ones hurting us are done away with first, as in the meantime these just balance things on our side against the laws against us.
I'm a medical student who will be graduating soon and entering residency. I hope any progress from this affects us, too - currently the AAMC (which regulates the medical residency programs) limits interns and residents to an 80 hour work week. Yes, these are the people charged with learning to save lives WHILE saving lives. 80 hours per week. Most of us will sign some utterly unfair, incomprehensible, thick as a dictionary employment agreement with our hospital that basically signs our life over to them for the next 3 to 7 years. Choice tidbits of "policy" included in these contracts mention that we may be expected to be on call for anywhere from 18 to 36 hours - on hospital grounds - multiple times per week. The 80 hours limit, while "technically" weekly is only calculated on a monthly basis. Fun times.
It's great that such important people as those who maintain our information technology infrastructure are about to get a financial boost... what about those of us earning $55,000 a year or less with 8 years+ of college and post-graduate education and charged with taking care of you and your family? Everyone envisions doctors as Corvette-driving, boat-owning, million-dollar mansion homestead people. I assure you that in today's marketplace, NOBODY goes into medicine for the money - unless they're making drugs for a big-pharm company or doing boob jobs.
...In a given week I do 15 hours of REAL actual work...? Let's be honest with ourselves. We work overtime because a LOT of what we have to do must be done during non production hours. There are some days where we're in support mode and just read websites all day...
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
You make twice as much as he made?
Did you figure inflation on that?
I'll bet you make the same or less than he did if you figure that out.
50 grand now is probably worth about 30 grand 20 years ago.
No, you are not.
The law prevents certain employee's from willingly working uncompensated overtime.
You can not agree to certain "services" being provided in exchange for employment. (think bill clinton, tip oneill, etc).
Plus, the employer usually has the upper hand in any negotiation. Not always, but more than not. I have been in IT for a while. Unfortunately it is all I know that can earn me more than being a retail clerk will.
Corporations will rape IT orkers for all they can until the law changes.
If you think outsourceing to India is bad, so is never seeing your family.
I am close to going to truck driving scholl. Those guys earn close to what I do per hour, and then get overtime on top. A union truck driver can earn 6 figures for over the road tractor trailer driving.
How many IT folks can say that, outside of the hottest current tech?
For scientists and doctors that's the current reality... alongside with dropping salaries.
The post-docs in my laboratory, make about $40'000 a year... after a PhD. A clerk in the subway booth makes $55'000 after 5 years with benefits that dwarf any academic institution... with a GED and a demeanor of a world-class asshole. When translated into per-hour payment, the booth clerk makes $27.5/hour, and the post-doc makes $13/hour.
That's the kind of society we live in. Want more unions?
I'll agree..it takes a bit to learn at first, especially if you're like me, and not a real organized, paperwork type person. But, it is easily learned. I got a CPA to show me how and what to fill out. A few hours every month is not that big a price to pay if you want to make and KEEP more of your hard earned money. You pay bills don't you? This is pretty much just like adding a few more bills to the pile as far as time and paperwork go. I'd argue the benefits outweigh extra time consumed.
"In addition, most employer companies will not contract directly, you have to go through another shop, that takes a cut. Nowdays, being independant is far less of an option than it used to be."
To a great extent yes....but, one side benefit of this, it does take a bit of the risk of having to look for all the jobs yourself...which keeps a lot of people out of this type gig. No, you often don't get the full bill rate, but, getting $55-$70/hr isn't that hard, and it can make for a great living if you don't spend a ton, and wisely invest. One thing that companies WON'T do...is generally hire you 1099 directly...too much a risk to them from the IRS or you claiming to really be an employee later in life.
Incorporate yourself (I went the "S" corp route)...and when you do a direct contract gig....you can do it corp2corp which shields everyone from the "employee" entrapment possibilities that can happen.
"The attitude that if you are not willing to jump through all the hoops that the big-business/government coalition puts in your way, you do not deserve to earn a decent wage is just Nietzscheian nonsense."
Well, I don't know about the attitude comment. I take the attitude that I have to be willing to do what it takes or do that bit extra to excel in the current work environment. As I wrote before, I perceive that jobs and employment have changed a great deal....especially since my parents' time. Since I do not perceive a direct job to have the benefits of old (job security, loyalty to employees, room to grow) I see a new paradigm for working if you want to make and keep money.
And also, I guess it depends on what you think a 'decent' wage is. If you are willing to settle for what they'll pay you direct...and the unpaid OT...more power to you. But, in this day in age and the current market and where I think I forsee it going....I think the only way to have a positive employment future is to go more on your own, and take charge more of your own HR needs. YMMV of course.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
IT Managers have no way of knowing if an IT person is productive or not. The only way they know when they are being ridiculous is when you fail.
Fail earlier and they will not push so hard.
You can make the same money working 40 hours a week as you do working 60 hours a week (6 figures +).
Oh-- and those indian programmers got 10% more expensive last week in one day because of currency changes. And we have at least two more interest cuts on the way that will damage the currency but save a lot of homeowners so further currency depreciation is likely. I recently saw a burn rate for Infosys personnel from a project estimate. For onshore resources they are now more expensive ($65/hr + $1k a month housing allowance) than US resources including our benefits.
I think the great offshoring wave is going to stop quickly now... and maybe our wages will start recovering.
The fact is good trained experienced programmers are worth $100k regardless of the nation they are sitting in. As a result of that fact, labor costs in india and china have been going up 40% a year before you take into account the dollar dropping and their currencies rising.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
It looks like your PhD lab rats are getting screwed... perhaps you need a union?
It's really necessary for something to be done about the current environment for IT people. I've been hit by this at several jobs and it really sucked. The worst are integration companies, where you are paid a salary but billed to the client hourly. Deadlines and workloads are setup such that the "engineer" is expected to work 60 - 80 hour weeks for a flat rate salary while the company is being paid for the service, often at an "overtime" rate.
And woe be the guy who isn't back in the office again at 8 AM sharp after working on a project until 1:00 am the day before. I've been threatened with losing pay and even possible termination for just that very thing.
But when one starts to push it a bit farther and point out to the so-called intelligensia that they are wilfully lying down and getting screwed by The Man, then everyone gets all touchy and pissy and the mods start in with Troll or Overrated or Flamebait ratings because the point hits close to home. And this happens in "the Real World" as well as this little nest of geeks here at Slashdot.
People were litereally shot dead for the right to a weekend. This is all extremely well documented, even wikipedia documents a few examples.
So, when people cheerfully surrender to the Boss to do unpaid overtime, they are completely disrespecting the sacrifice of countless millions of people who have struggled to turn our society into something other than cheap wage slavery and a race to the bottom to benefit the few.
So, it's about fucking time IT professionals grew a spine and started demanding their rights. And if the jobs get offshored, then organise the offshore workers as well. No one deserves to be exploited, and we can, by co-operative direct action, invent a better world for ourselves and our descendants. It just takes the ability to see oneself as a responsible citizen in an active democracy, instead of a mindless taxpayer/consumer who pays for services.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
He retired 4 years ago, so no real inflation to take into account. When I was growing up (20 years ago) he made about 35K and my mom was a waitress.
Now my wife doesn't have to work (she's free to do what makes her happy) if she doesn't want to and still I'm way better off than my parents were as children.
Again, I realize how good I have it. I won't ever be a millionaire, but then again I wouldn't be one if I got 10 hours of overtime per week either.
-- What did Spock find in Kirk's toilet? The captain's log.
That's funny. You are actually complaining about other people defending their rights and best interests while you and your class does not have the slightest intention to mobilize and stand up for yourselves. Do you actually believe that the problem lies in the fact that others fought and, as a consequence, are earning more and having a better life than you? Didn't it ever crossed your brilliant mind that the real problem lied with you and your class never fighting for your own best interests and therefore being forced to earn less and having a crappy life?
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
Tariffs can be set. Labor laws can be enforced with handcuffs for violating employers. The private sector can be outlawed as speculation and replaced with state-run entities which don't need to worry about competition. Don't underestimate the power of socialist hand-wringing. The free market is powerful only because the law makes it so.
I agree, after 9 years in IT, a few car accidents and *a lot* of poor personal behavior and I do have the standard "I sit all day" ailments.
I'd stress personal choice (I choose not to do back and neck exercise yet I know them all, as well as I choose to sit in a very poor manner for hours without getting up) and happenstance (a car accident seemed to set this all in motion) more than "it happens to everyone who sits all day".
-- What did Spock find in Kirk's toilet? The captain's log.
IMHO, in this day in age, there is no such thing anymore as job loyalty (from either party), nor job security. If that is the case, then the two main things that would draw a person to a direct, salaried job are gone. That being the case, you might as well contract.
But that would involve taking responsibility for my own welfare and treating my labor and their money like it's some sort of 'thing' to be 'traded'!
No, I'm afraid a much simpler, 'fairer', and efficient solution is to get some fancy-pants lawyer to sue the crap out of the employer I hate so much and yet am unwilling to leave. In the process, the lawyer will make tons of money, the company will have to cut a few jobs to pay for the legal fees on both sides, but at least I'll get half of what I asked for and they'll get their comeupance!
Seriously though, you point out that 'in this day and age' there is no loyalty on either side. I'd say that's partially a reflection of the unwillingness of workers to ask for (demand?) what they're worth. Labor is a business transaction, you shouldn't hate your business partners or let them treat you 'unfairly'. Get a good idea if what you should be paid, ask for it, and leave if you don't get it.
I read an article a few years ago comparing jobs now as opposed to 20 years prior. It said that fewer employees are asking for raises but theft by employees is way up. It quantified the two and estimated that the employers are probably coming out ahead. People are less willing to play by the rules and just play hard; they have this impression that the only way to get ahead is to bend or break them.
Latewire
It's not rocket science, it's law. Rocket science makes sense. I've read some contracts and unless you understand legalese you're doing good to understand maybe 30% of what you're committing to.
I hate to say this (actually no I don't), but when you have a skill that thousands upon thousands of others have ("general IT staff"), as well as anyone who's just "good with computers" you will never make any money.
Also, you aren't really in IT. You are in "plug PC components together"-T. If you want to make money and be shielded from issues in any industry:
1. Be naturally gifted in the area
2. Learn as many general skills in the area you can
3. Learn and be great at at least one high demand skill, that is difficult to learn (yes, being good at programming is difficult to learn; no, setting up simple networks at a 30 person company is not difficult to learn)
4. Continue to learn and develop all skills
Everyone who performs those 4 steps doesn't have to complain about pay, overtime or getting their job outsourced. It's all the rest, who really are just "resources" or "bodies in the workplace" who are going to ruin it for those of us performing the 4 steps above.
Companies have teams of lawyers writing their employment contracts. Did you have a lawyer read over your employment contract before you signed it? Very few people do.
Sorry, I think there's a simpler answer to the question, "Why shouldn't people get paid for the hours they work?" It's because the hours you work aren't valuable, it's only the result of that labor that's valuable. We [should] get paid because we're doing something valuable, NOT because we spent a certain amount of time doing it. Historically, time spent has been used as a way to measure value, because it's an easy way to measure the amount of work done. When the work being done is so standardized that there's no way for one person to do more than another in the same amount of time, hours provides a good measurement. However, it has only ever been an approximation.
I'm totally against any govenment intervention in how I get paid because I know that I am more productive than almost anyone I work with. And while my greater productivity doesn't always result in my getting paid as much as I think I should get, the fact that my pay is more based on my getting the work done than on spending a certain amount of time doing means that there is a possible upside, and at least it means I have some flexibility. I can read slashdot during the day, for example, because I know I'll still be able to get my work done.
"We have nothing in common, your attitude annoys me, and your political views are appalling."
The notion down in the US seems to favour the company far more than the worker as opposed to where I am (Manitoba Canada). Here in Manitoba, the only exemptions to paying overtime involve management, which is specifically defined as having the power to hire and fire, control your own work and discipline others as well as control your own hours. For everyone else, including salaried employees, the exemption where you don't get paid occurs only if you make more than 2-1/2 times the industrial average in the jurisdiction.
The introduction of these laws came after a worker successfully sued their employer over unpaid overtime and the terms under which she was hired. The terms being vague, essentially meant that because she was salaried, she could be compelled theoretically to work 24/7 with no compensation for the extra hours. The court found this unacceptable. Further review by the province found that the number of people in similar situations was huge and this was remedied this spring through legislation.
I find it interesting that in the US, there is not even a legal requirement to pay vacation for full time workers. I find it more interesting that many individuals in these replies seem to support the work until you drop mentality. I also find it interesting that apparently down in the US, your employer can walk up to a desk clerk and force them to pee in a bottle for them. Talk about intrusive. Weird, people don't seem to care about that, but are wound up over google taking picures of people in the street who no one will ever likely recognize or know.
I would think there should be some fairness in how companies treat workers.
No, this will force IT management to be more efficient. Human resources are the most precious of resources. For too long, IT management has resorted to forcing workers to work longer to compensate for poor IT decisions. I'm reminded of why the Egyptians didn't use the steam engine when they invented it; slave labor was cheaper and more adaptable.
This sort of technique get used in agribusiness; a choice between investing in better productivity tools vs. hiring migrant farm workers. I recently was in Kauai where the Kauai coffee plantation invested in productivity methods to compensate for the rising cost of labor. Only when it's more painful not to adapt will IT management adapt.
Best regards.
Or perhaps public employees + unions + (elected mayors and Congress and presidents as bosses) are an unholy triumvirate of sloth.
The elected officials know (or believe, anyway) they will lose more union votes harassing their millions of government employees than they would ever gain standing up to them (not true, Reagan did quite well, but there you go.)
So government employee unions get a rate of success that private sector unions cannot and never will.
There is nothing good about this situation. It's not even something to be proud of. Woo hoo, our jobs cannot be lost to other countries. No pressure whatsoever to reign it in.
It's no wonder nobody likes unions anymore -- except people in those very unions.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Contracting through your own corporation can be easy. I have two organizations that help me with it. A CPA firm obviously, and a PEO. PEO stands for Professional Employment Orgainization. I love my PEO, which is why people don't use them. Imagine that on a t-shirt.
PEO's are a good deal. They take you, your corporation and your contracting money and make you legally into a W2 employee. You pay them a fee per pay cycle to do it. They administrate your health plan (sorry, no volume disounts, at least in my US state), retirement, withholdings, and if you do end up hiring another person later, they make sure you do everything just so, so you stay out of accidental legal trouble.
Furthermore, you get to design your own pay cycle, I have a two week one (not bi-monthly mind you, two weeks). It's nice. You get to set up everything the way you want so it's favorable to you. I just have to tell the payroll guy how much to run every two weeks and the direct deposits happen. There's a little bit of bookkeeping you need to do once a year for the CPA, but that's really tiny.
Between your PEO and your CPA you'll have a couple of meetings up front and then you're good to go.
I'm a little surprised more contractors don't use a PEO now. Maybe because PEO is a horrendous acronym.
Perhaps if you had actually driven a bus for a while, you might not say that. I worked my way through school as a bus drive in Seattle. I loved driving a bus. My quality of life was better driving a bus than working in IT/tech.
I am considering leaving the IT/tech field and moving back to Seattle and getting another bus driving job with Metro.
Again, quality of life.
FYI, the city of Seattle has the highest educated bus driving workforce in the country. Many students work their way through a degree at the UW by driving a bus. When they graduate they often realize that finding work in their field doesn't pay as much as driving a bus. Top scale is $25 or so, and overtime is paid time and a half. Next time you work a 60 hour week, think about the fact that bus drives are getting paid the same if they work that much. With a degree, bus drivers can move into management, which pays more.
And there's that quality of life thing again. If you don't want the overtime, if you want to do something with your free time, like flip houses, you have that choice. (I knew two bus drivers who owned apartment building together.) In IT/tech, you're forced to work 50-60 hour weeks.
I blame my generation (baby boomers) for the expectation of 50-60 hour weeks in IT. Screw that.
Best regards.
I worked for a medical device manufacturer in the 90's and they had a small NOC of about 4 people (2 sysadmins and 2 techs). As fate would have it the 2 sysadmins both found alternate employment about the same time so they offered one of the techs a "promotion" to sysadmin. During the meeting to discuss the promotion the tech was given the terms of his role as the new sysadmin. He looked it over, started laughing and handed the proposal back to them. When they asked why he was laughing he replied "I make more than that now!". Techs were Salaried Non-Exempt and eligible for overtime whereas sysadmins were straight salary.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
You speak on and on about fear mongering but all you do not give a single rational argument against unions. All you do is try to associate a simple, healthy, life improving initiative that aims to protect worker's rights with evil, oppressive initiatives like the US's patriot act. If that wasn't enough to satisfy your trolling needs, you go on associating unions with organized crime and corruption.
The thing is, whenever a group of people join themselves to fight for their rights, their lives improve and society improves. History is packed with landmark victories accomplished by people associating themselves and fighting for their rights. You absolutely cannot state that a bunch of IT workers organizing themselves to fight to get their a fair pay earned by their honest work is some sort of evil, oppressive, criminal, abusive act.
You may have been brainwashed against the evils of communism and you may have lost the ability to understand the concept of worker's rights but that doesn't mean that it is wrong or evil.
Oh I see. That must be why there is absolutely no european company. They simply cannot survive under that harsh climate. Damn those european unions, with their minimum wage, their 35 hour work weeks, their paid overtime, their 30 day paid vacations, their Christmas bonus and paid leaves, their national health services and their unemployment benefits. They simply destroyed their lives and reverted back to the stoneage! No small company can possibly survive that, let alone a multinational. Poor bastards.
Yes, you seem to be the smart one here. You completely avoid all unions or worker's association and nonetheless you still got that 35 hour work week and paid overtime. Oh you don't have that? Tough. Keep on bitching about how unions are evil, then.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
So, you want to be subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act (rather than "exempt")? Then be prepared to be at your desk for an actual 8 hours (minus two 15 minute breaks and one 30 minute lunch break). Be prepared to punch in and account for every minute of your time. Be prepared to be a glorified custodial worker...
Don't bitch about what you've got, until you realize what you COULD have.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
That's great to a point--I'm also a contractor and prefer it for precisely the same reasons.
HOWEVER, there are circumstances of our current economy that make it simply not an option for many people. Namely, if you have any sort of medical condition, especially of the chronic and/or cardiac variety, and you don't want to die an early death or live in poverty conditions despite making $100k+ per year, getting individual or small group health insurance is a near impossibility and you're pretty much forced to work for a company with decent large group coverage.
Despite the FUD about "HillaryCare," it is essentially just attacking the primary root problem of that: eligibility. For most of the population, it's not a monetary entitlement, it's just an eligibility entitlement. Essentially, the entire country is the "group" and you are entitled membership in that group, which is as it should be. You still pay for it, sometimes through the nose, but at least you can GET IT.
Should that go through and that major risk is effectively removed, I imagine you'll find a lot more people leaving the ranks of th W2's into the promised land of independent contracting.
I actually agree strongly with your last point, but this is not really about being independent, if you mean being a corporation all by yourself and handling all the tasks it entails to be one. The problem with that sort of independence is the same as trying to be your own lawyer, civil engineer and dentist, all at once.
You don't even have to incorporate (in the US at least). You certainly don't have to incorporate just to level the playing field. You can set yourself up as a sole proprietorship, (or if there's more than one involved, a partnership), and you don't have to incorporate at all. You can enter a sole proprietorship pretty much at will (in some states this has the caveat - if you're not a convicted felon), and you can style a partnership any of many ways so that you are getting paid fairly for what you bring to it. You can even limit your liability in a partnership so you can't be left holding the whole bag, without having to create a LLC or S-corp to do it.
Here's all working for yourself really, absolutely requires.
1. When you are employed, someone else withholds taxes (both income and social security/medicare). To be self employed, you have to hold these out yourself. If you start making a real lot of money, you have to make advance payments once a quarter, but until you are getting some serious income, you can usually just keep the money in an account and keep the interest for yourself until around April 15th. If you're making more money than will allow that, you can definitely afford someone like me to advise you and file your forms for you. I have clients who can afford my services entirely on the interest they are getting on money they would have never seen at all as employees. What you can't do is expect to keep all the money you wold have been paid as an employee, plus all the extra you should be able to make being your own boss, plus all the taxes you would have paid one way or the other as an employee, plus any money (or time) it costs to learn the basics of record keeping and legal compliance for your particular business.
2. you need to learn what counts as a business related expense, and what doesn't, what you can claim on an IRS schedule and what you can't. For most people in IT, this means learning a 2 page form (Schedule C), and probably the 1 page form to cover your driving expenses, and maybe the 1 page form for having a home office. The government both prints and PDFs complete instructions for all these and gives them away free on the IRS's website. There's about 40 pages of support manuals for all this, but once you learn the basics, those are not something you have to memorize or even read cover to cover. There are all sorts of additional sections explaining what to do if you are a lobster fisherman or a non-citizen, or both, but if you can't figure out pretty quick that this area doesn't apply to you, then you should be working for somebody else, as a burger flipper (and I've known some burger flippers who picked up on these pretty damned quickly). Most people have to get over their fear that government has hidden something vitally important in a tiny footnote in that section that only applies to commercial fishermen - that really seems to be the biggest obstacle, not intelligence.
You just may need to learn how to amortize computer related hardware and software, but probably your beginning business model is simpler than that and you can usually forget about doing any amortization - i.e. you can't claim a personal laptop if you use it for various things besides business, and a cheap old one sufficient for most IT needs is small enough you can just claim the whole thing as a straight out expense in a year. Most admin and diagnostic software is free these days unless you are specializing in certain parts of Windows. Starting out in business doesn't have to be very complex, and if it is you probably need to refine your business model.
Again, this is what I'd claim for a beginning IT, tec
Who is John Cabal?
I am a senior engineer for my company, I travel frequently to meet with resellers and customers. I work partly from home, sometimes in the office, and a lot of time in the field. As a salaried consultant, I put between 45 and 55 hours per week "on the clock" not including my lunch and other personal breaks. If you factor in time I spend in hotels, at dinner with customers or resellers, and other time I spend "tinkering," I'm averaging about 60 hours per week. Some weeks I work closer to 30 real labor hours and do a lot of tinkering, reading up on new stuff, or sitting in a plane or airport for the rest, other weeks I'm nose to the grindstone for the whole 60 hours. Sometimes I get calls at 3 or 4AM and have to wake myself up and handle an isse.
I not only make a fair salary, but I have averaged over 10% annual raises to that salary based on experience and seniority. This is a LOT faster than I'd probably get as an hourly employee. We're a small company (fewer than 100 employees) and to staff enough people, at reasonable rates, to avoid massive overtime pay would add 3-5 people to my team. With overtime in the picture, they'd prefer to call on others to do extended labor when I'm close to 40 hours. I'd also have to deal with explaining WHY I'm in overtime if I did. Most importantly, it's simpler for me to simply get a salary at a point that "expects" a limited amount of overtime, and a predictable weekly paycheck. It's also easier for the finace guy since he doesn't have to worry about overtime when planning the budget month by month and quarter by quarter.
Big sales mean big commissions for some associates, but more money in means there's more in the budget. Us support consultants don't necessarily generate the same return as a lot of our labor is customer and reseller satisfaction or hardware support, and makes no revenue. If we had a bad month, how would finance predict that?
Besides, if they convert me to hourly wage, they'd just take my current salray, divide it by 50 hours, and give me that rate. Then they'd start using metrics to control my overtime use as some employees would likely abuse it to get more money. In the end, I've been down the road before, both overtime and salary. I FAR prefer salary. It's less hassle, more predictable, and I'm still paid fair wage for my time either way. Sure, one or two weeks a year I might put in 70+ hours. There are other weeks they simply overlook my PTO and I only work 30 hours. If I find myself working too much overtime, or they abuse my salary position, I push back and get a raise, more time off, or other compensations.
Salary makes it easy to keep company budgets in line, makes my life easier (on many levels) and I'm paid well either way. If I wasn't paid well, there and 5000 companies I could apply to (and many of my clients have already made me offers that I've politely turned down) that would take my experience at the same or higher pay rate and my company would no longer have me on staff, then I'd probably end up consulting back to them at twice my current pay rate until they hired someone to replace me and spent 6 months training him, as I've already seen happen. In fact, the company knows well that my highly trained position is hard to fill, expensive to train, and giving me a 10-15% raise annually costs less than replacing me. They abuse me, and I just up the ante...
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
Seriously though, you point out that 'in this day and age' there is no loyalty on either side. I'd say that's partially a reflection of the unwillingness of workers to ask for (demand?) what they're worth. Labor is a business transaction, you shouldn't hate your business partners or let them treat you 'unfairly'. Get a good idea if what you should be paid, ask for it, and leave if you don't get it.
You know where workers are getting it from? They just look at the executives of the companies and see them getting paid BIG bucks - way more than they probably should. And see them stealing peoples money (Enron, Worldcom etc...) and bascially getting away with it. How many executives are doing it and NOT getting caught? Probably A lot more than you think! So if the executives are doing it why shouldn't the employees - think about it. You have the RIAA/MPAA stealing from "artists" and US the people who actually buy their crap!
Think about it we have a double standard. The big rich executives get paid WAY too much steal from others and it's ok. But it's not ok for use to get paid well for our hard work and it's not ok for us to steal from them. Companies would rather outsource to some other country whos workers are willing to work for dimes on the dollar than to pay people decently. To me let those FUCKING companies move their business overseas, take the jobs with them and then let the rest of the U.S. QUIT using their products and services. Some other company will just come up and take their place. Maybe learning from the previous companies mistakes.
If the cost of living in the U.S. wasn't so high I bet people wouldn't need such higher salaries. What is the cost of living in India? A LOT lower than it is here, hence they can get away with needing less pay. Corporations don't get this AT ALL. If they would help bring the cost of living DOWN in the U.S. I would bet people would be willing to work for less. how can we compete in a "GLobal Economy" if everywhere companies are sending jobs has far lower costs of living than we do.
But I think corporate EXECUTIVES need to get a pay cut! NO! they would rather "lay off" hundreds or thousands of employees just so they can keep their cushy job, getting paid millions of dollars and getting millions of dollars in stock options. That's utter CRAP! They say "oh we need to pay them well to keep them." BULLSHIT! If you get rid of one executive there is ALWAYS another wiating in line for his job! MBA's are a DIME A FUCKING DOZEN! Engineers are NOT! If anything Engineers and scientist should be making more than MBA exeuctives!
The Truth is a Virus!!!
No, the free market pretty much always exists. If it's not legal it's called the black market or bribery or government corruption or organized crime.
Bang the pool boy for 50+ hours a week?
Why must I suffer as an IT professional because your lack of management forethought. If we are a 24x7x365 company, act like one. Spread the work to multiple shifts. I volunteered to work a night/later shift. I was denied because we are an 8 to 5 company. Well then why am I putting in 8 hours during the day just so I can schedule my real work for a 3am maintenance window that night, and then they would really like you to be back to work at 8am. Companies don't change unless it's painful for them not to change, or the government tells them to. Your forgetting that we are the little guy and the company is the big guy we have no power. my 2 cents
About a year ago, there was a finding that the institution I work for had misclassified about 300 positions, including mine, and we should be eligible for overtime pay. I'm a sysadmin, DBA and a few other things. We are also now eligible for membership in the union. I did, in fact, decide to join the union, mainly because of one particularly bad manager, who is going to become my direct supervisor starting in a few months. Most of the people who I work with are fine people but this manager is well known to have had problems with many employees.
It is also interesting to note that salaries do seem to be being passively adjusted because of the change. June is the time that we typically get pay raises and every year, up until this one, there were both general pay raises (which essentially adjust for market conditions, inflation and cost of living) and merit pay raises. This year, after the overtime decision, there were only merit pay raises.
If you don't like the hours, don't get into the business.
Close, but not exactly right. The credo goes: "show me an IT guy consistently working more than 40-42 hours a week and I'll show you an incompetent boob that needs to be flipping burgers." IT is a field whose simple purpose is to increase the efficiencies of our organizations. If we're so inefficient at our jobs that it takes us more than 40 hours to regularly do it, then we're doing it wrong. Now, that's not to say you don't chip in and do what needs to be done when things need fixing, but that's true in any job. But, if you're working 70 hours/week in IT, you're a twit who has no idea what he's doing and need to be fired. Period. As a PART of my job, I maintain a set of (Windows) servers that process approximately $25 trillion/year worth of payroll transactions for over a million individuals...and I RARELY work more than 40 hours/week.
However, that being said, there's nothing wrong with companies not paying their employees overtime. If they want someone to work 70 hours/week for a 40/hour a week salary...well, that's their perogative, but employees need the abilty to not work there. Your basic premise is that if you work in IT, you work overtime, right? Do you negotiate salaries based on that? For example, one potential employer I interviewed with while unemployed asked if I had a problem with working 70/hours a week and I told him no, if he's willing to pay for it (as soon as he asked that question, I decided I didn't want to work there. I know where it leads). He said they didn't pay overtime and I told him flat out..."the salary we've discussed is for a 40 hour work week. If you want me to work almost twice that, you're going to have to pay me almost twice that. I don't give up my time for free." He quickly concluded the interview and I never heard from him again. I did, however, notice the ad in the paper week after week. So, to be a prick, I'd write him every week "I noticed you hadn't filled the position yet. If you can't find someone to fill the position at the salary you want to pay, I'd like to discuss further the possibility of my employment at a proper salary level."
Which is more painful? Going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon? Find out!
http://www.workorspoon.com
...and fortunately I just turned 40, so I can actually half-sort-of claim to be old, too.
I took a job at a small business consultancy and found myself IMMEDIATELY pressured to work for free after hours (returning emails, looking over proposals, as well as some miscellaneous work that had to be done after hours like reboots). Most of the pressure of course came from the principals, who have the most to gain from "extra" work.
I pushed back immediately, not answering phone calls or email after 5, when asked when I would look at something not related to on-site client work, I'd schedule time during the day to do it vs. doing it at home after hours.
Strangely enough, the only place where one of the principals complained was about daycare pickups when my wife was out of town! He actually had the gall to ask me what I would do if a client site was down or having problems and I had to pickup my kid -- I told him "Easy question -- I don't even have to think about it. My son comes first, every time." He kept it up, suggesting I should have a "backup" plan with friends or neighbors in case I had to work, and I just told him to "Put any further suggestions about my child's welfare in writing along with any repercussions should I fail to follow them."
I'm not sure such a written letter would have done much for me, but I can only imagine how it might have gone over should a situation have ever reached court or had I filed for unemployment claiming I had been terminated without cause.
But since then, nothings happened and both principals have been pretty conscientious about work/life balance. In fact in my last performance review, I made the point explicitly that the job lacked the compensation or advancement to merit becoming a 60 hour a week job and they pretty much agreed with me.
I just think it pays to work hard during the day and then ignore them after hours.
Sounds like heaven compared to sitting down at my desk at 7:00 am. Then working until noon, taking 5 mins to get my lunch from the refrigerator and heating it up, then eating it at my desk. Followed by working straight through until 6:00 PM or so. Only to be on call if anything 'comes up' that evening.
$70,000 a year is based on a 40 hour work week. If your working 60 hour weeks or more, you are probably worse off THAN a custodial worker. With more stress, and less family face time.
Do not try to make us think 'exempt' is better until you have not seen your kid for three days due to 'crunch' time.
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
Your arrangement can be nice, especially where there aren't a lot of physical assets to control compared to the bottom line.
Just for people who are reading this thread, and now think S-corps are always a great idea, remember any basic corporation can dissolve itself and reform as a S-corp if it meets certain common tests, such as not having more than 100 stockholders, and not having non-citizen stockholders (except for certain trusts and international funds). Since there are many medium sized firms (and a few large ones), that don't issue common stock at all, there are quite a few corps that could convert to s-corps if they found their taxes onerous.(What cayenne8 is calling double taxation - that phrase is a frequent shortcut to describe something more complex, so don't take it without a grain of salt). That they don't switch says they generally like their existing incorporation better than the alternatives, usually (but not always) because of the liability limits.
Also, where you see the phrase 'reasonable salary' in cayenne8's post, that's not some tax-cheater's code for "whatever I damned well choose" - he's phrasing it just as the IRS does. The government actually looks at these to see if they fall in the range an employee doing that sort of work could normally expect. For executive work, that's pretty broad, and you can low-ball it somewhat, but you can't pay anyone the equivalent of 5 cents/hour just to reduce FICA responsibility.
One last problem with S-corps - if you start as a partnership or LLC, and convert to an s-corp, what happens if you no longer meet the tests to stay an s-corp? You don't revert back to your old status, but instead you become a regular corporation. This can hit people with a real tax burden if the IRS rules the s-corp became invalid at a prior date, like the date it gained it's 101'st stockholder.
Who is John Cabal?
I'd like to emphasize a point suggested by the parent: "the employer usually has the upper hand in any negotiation"
The subject of unpaid overtime / legal protection / unions has come up many times on slashdot. The most frequent responses I read to this subject are along the lines of "it's your responsibility to look out for yourself. Negotiate a fair wage and fair conditions for yourself at the time of hiring. If your employer screws you, quit and find a new job." I think that the people who post those responses are hardworking, ethical, probably libertarian, believe in the free market economy. I have a lot of respect for them.
However, I think there is a flaw in this thinking. Within this paradigm, the only time that the employee has the capability to affect their working conditions is at the bargaining table at the time of hiring. But the power relationship between the 2 parties at the bargaining table is not equal. It hurts the potential employee more to walk out than it hurts the employer to look for a replacement. The same relationship applies if conditions become abusive during employment. It hurts the employee more to be out of a job than it hurts the employer to be temporarily short-staffed. As long as the balance of power is heavily in favor of the employer, they are in a position to make excessive demands.
I don't think you can rely on market forces to fix this problem when there is such an imbalance of power between the employer & the employee.
friends don't let friends teleport drunk
Give it a few more years and robots and computers will do the entire job of a business.
There will be the CEO, his robots and racks of computer of equipment...and a bank vault to keep his goldz safe from the starving unemployed mobs. Oh, and maybe a few menial jobs so he can get those tax breaks.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
This is a recipe for disaster unless something is done about executive turnover.
What's to stop someone from coming in, slashing headcount to pump up the stock price, collecting their booty and then off to fuck the next company?
I've seen way too many short-term executives come in and ruin things, make obscene profits, then high-tail it leaving a smoldering wreck of a company. All the good people are gone, morale is in the toilet, customers are leaving in droves, and it'll take years of brutal effort to salvage things. All to make one person rich.
Man, you really need that seminar!
I do believe they make standing desks nowadays if you want a more permanent solution.
Bullish Machine Tzar
When you are the rare person on /. with a wife & 2 small children, this is not *always* possible. I rent a crappy apartment, we have 1 car, haven't eaten out since at least February, no cell phone, only borrowed (read neighbour's unsecured) wifi, you name it & we are doing it. I'm the kinda guy that pokes fun at tree-huggers, but I'm probably greener than a lot of them - electricity/gas/whatever costs money!
I currently make just under 30 in DFW, if not for side work, we wouldn't make it. Your advice would be well taken by many here, I am sure, just remember not everyone *can* live under their means if their means are small and their needs are great (I could live very comfortably as a bachelor on 30,000 but not with kids). Yes, a wife and kids were my choice, but I shouldn't have to chose between a family and the ability to have a decent job.
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
I'd like to add an item to your otherwise fine list:
Having such an esoteric skill can mean making even more money because people having such a skill are very difficult to find, and can improve your overall retention as you can be difficult to replace (so long as an organization needs that skill, so don't get pigeonholed by it). Being irreplaceable gives you some advantage in dictating your work-life balance with your employer.
Yaz
Yes, doing contract work can be a major boon for your bottom line. I've done quite a bit of it in the past and always faired well come tax day. You can declare all kinds of expenses if you know what they are. I never depreciated any of it. I took it all lump sum that year. It worked well for me. I even did the home office thing the year that I worked from home. That worked out well too. Keep good records though. An audit will hurt no matter what but not being prepared with a basic amount of paperwork housekeeping will be a real bummer when the IRS comes knocking.
It's also important for non-contract employees to know what they can deduct as non-reimbursed employer expenses. My employer creatively reinterpreted the company mileage policy to exclude my 52mi/day to my customer's site as non-reimbursable even though it still qualified under the IRS's rules. I ended up declaring almost $7000 in mileage last year. I also declared my professional journals, professional memberships, professional development items (books, lab gear, tests, etc) which amounted to another whopping sum. In total I declared almost $17,000 in expenses last year and I'm not a contract employee. Oh if only I was...
Much like Microsoft, it isn't so much that one particular set of alternate vendors from a particular nation are better but that ALL OF THEM ARE.
.. having to ape Netbios... I still wonder why Novell won't bundle Netware with Linux and open source it.
I wouldn't be so quick to say that. Linux is not better than Windows, it simply is an ok, and incomplete, alternative that is attractive because of its price and its ideology appeals to those with a leftist bent. But, from a technology perspective, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 remain on par with Linux for web development, lead, if you have Monad, even for scripting, exceeds it significantly for gaming (not from OpenGL versus DX, but for sound, joystick, etc). Linux has a better networking stack than Windows does..but I believe Vista fixed that, although some reports suggest that they broke sound to do it. Linux, gasp, has no native file sharing and network printing protocol
Visual Studio, when working in C#, remains the premier development environment on any platform. Office is better than OpenOffice... Access remains the best desktop database, and SQL Server is really only answered by Oracle, which is, incidentally, another American company.
Screw the Japanese, XBOX360 is better than PS3 and iPod is better than walkman. I'm with Bill Gates and Microsoft and Steve Jobs and Apple over Sony ALL THE WAY. You see, I used to work for RCA, and Sony kicked our Ass, and I gleefully hope for Bill Gates and Steve Jobs to plant the red white and blue back into consumer electronics.
Now, that's not to say that the USA is automatically the best in IT. It's not. Europeans are damned good programmers... I used to play French games on my Atari 800, and I still remember when I first played Beast on the Amiga, with its obviously intimate knowledge of hardware, thinking, oh christ, the Germans are coming. And so they have came. They are very good, and I would more worry about the Europeans blowing us away in the low level O/S type of stuff, than I would about Indians filling out forms.
This is my sig.
Actually, at the engineering company I last worked at, there was an employee in software testing who DID stand all day. He had no chair in his cubicle, and you would often find him wandering around the office holding some random hardware, fiddling with it. I see the parent as far more informative than funny.
Lukstr
Whatever your core competency is (what yer sellin'), do that. Everything else, you outsource.
I am not a lawyer. I am not an accountant. When I need one, however, I call one.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock