Slashdot Mirror
Workplace BlackBerry Use May Spur Lawsuits
An anonymous reader writes "From an article on cnbc.com: 'As employers hand out electronic devices to their employees at a greater pace, there are growing concerns that workers eligible for overtime pay, known as non-exempt employees, could begin suing their employers for overtime hours earned while tapping on their devices during after-work hours. As a result, lawyers are advising their corporate clients to update their policies and handbooks related to BlackBerry use and reconsider who gets a device.'"
In 2003-2004 at my previous employer the company rolled out Blackberries to management and "key" personnel. Being responsible for a relatively large part of the infrastructure at this joint, I also got one.
One day I arrived at work and found the messaging group folks had delivered the BBs to some of the people in my area, and there was a box in my desk as well, with a little booklet (the must have cost a fortune to print, it was that well done) with usage policy (of course), instructions and steps for setting it up. The younger kids were besides themselves and already setting up the sync cradles and sending messages to each other. I picked up the phone and called the project manager, who was a friend of mine. I asked him to send one of his people to pick the box up.
"But everyone's getting one."
"I don't care, I don't want it."
"You are on Tier 1 and you're supposed to be on call..."
"I am. I have a cell phone, and if the IPC melts down at 3 AM, someone can call me."
"But this lets you check your email!"
"That's exactly why I don't want it"
A few days of back and forth politik ensued, and eventually my boss relented and let me be. Note that this was the time when the devices could not make phone calls - I hear they can now. Oh joy.
I figured that once I had that thing I'd never be able to get away from it, even on vacation. And that's exactly what happened to everyone else. People won't think twice about sending you an email for stupid little things at 10:00 PM, because they're working and figure everyone else should be as well. But making a phone call is very different, and most people won't do it unless it's something really important. People think it's no big deal because it's just a message. Bullshit.
If the data center is on fire, sure I want to know, no matter what time it is. But I don't want to hear little pings and murmurs from a PDA next to my bed because some VP couldn't find a file for tomorrow's presentation, or a fscking file server is down and Julie in accounting can't get to it. All that can wait until the morning.
If I had taken the thing and ended up in that 24/7/365 situation I don't think I'd sue my employer, but I would have probably ended up leaving a lot sooner than I did. Probably even if I were eligible for overtime. A case of "they ain't paying me enough for this crap" if I ever saw one.
The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.
You have to pay for people to work. What a novel concept.
I'm currently a IT professional that is actually paid overtime for > 40 hours of work per week. Guess what - I don't have a blackberry.
If I want to earn more money, the next pay grade is exempt and (shocking) includes a blackberry.
It's like looking at crackpipe and trying to talk yourself into it. :\
And since I spend NO time after work sending any work emails ... someone out there is spending an awful lot of time to make up for my slacking.
Yeah, I know that person. I work for them...
Maybe there's a generational gap here, but as a 20-something just entering the working world, I've found it striking how those 20-30 years older than myself have come to see email as the Infallible Silver Bullet of instant office communication. Email isn't always reliable, or instant, or even secure, yet it's increasingly treated that way.
For example, I receive one-liner emails from someone sitting at a computer in an office less than 30 feet from mine. Just walk over and ask your question, you know where I am. Well, okay, so I'm not always at the computer- in which case I'll get a followup email (or two) within 10 minutes asking why I haven't replied to the first message. We have numerous people who use email as an instant message service, shooting single sentence messages back and forth all day long. Our workstations even come with an IM client installed, and I've tried to instruct people to use it, but nobody does. They'd rather make a show out of spending at least an hour or two every day "doing email", as it's called around the office.
I'm convinced that the use of Blackberries will only make the problem worse. Email is quickly becomming the text messaging of the workplace, something it was never designed nor intended for. God help me if the boss ever gets a Blackberry, and figures out how to use it...