Slashdot Mirror
Should You Get Paid While Your Computer Boots?
An anonymous reader notes a posting up at a law blog with the provocative title Does Your Boss Have to Pay You While You Wait for Vista to Boot Up?. (Provocative because Vista doesn't boot more slowly than anything else, necessarily, as one commenter points out.) The National Law Journal article behind the post requires subscription. Quoting: "Lawyers are noting a new type of lawsuit, in which employees are suing over time spent booting [up] their computers. ... During the past year, several companies, including AT&T Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Cigna Corp., have been hit with lawsuits in which employees claimed that they were not paid for the 15- to 30-minute task of booting their computers at the start of each day and logging out at the end. Add those minutes up over a week, and hourly employees are losing some serious pay, argues plaintiffs' lawyer Mark Thierman, a Las Vegas solo practitioner who has filed a handful of computer-booting lawsuits in recent years. ... [A] management-side attorney... who is defending a half-dozen employers in computer-booting lawsuits... believes that, in most cases, computer booting does not warrant being called work."
Do people who work at the local McDonalds get paid for preparing the restaurant to open at the beginning of each business day and for closing up shop at the end? I sure hope so.
This is the exact same situation. If the employers don't like it, they can pay someone to set up a script to automatically boot the computer half an hour before the start of the business day. I'm sure they can justify the cost once the cost is actually there.
How the hell does it take anyone 15 minutes to boot up their computer. Even at it's most malware choked, my girlfriend's took less than 10 to get to desktop.
Then don't do it. Leave the computer off, and ask your boss when to begin working.
I suggest you read Slashdot
Well it wouldn't take half an hour to boot windows if you didn't install every little application you will use once, but must absolutely have running at boot up, then complain about when I get an IT work order to "Fix" your computer.
You mad
I get paid to post on Slashdot.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Which 486 are they using, the 50 or 66 MHz? The faster clock of the 66 may seem like a win, but the 50 MHz version has the faster bus speed.
... also, I can kill you with my brain.
I didn't know you could boot Vista on a PII 233mHz 64mb RAM PC...
If booting up the machine is required to do your job, and your employer owns it, you should be paid. If the boss is expecting you to come in early, that's time on the clock. However if your computer is really taking half an hour to boot, you have larger fish to fry. ...But then officially I get paid by the hour and am paid overtime if I do more than 7.5hrs/day. In reality I have done plenty of days where I'm around for much longer than that, but I've claimed overtime about 7 times in 3.5 years (mostly for weekend work).
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
The person who telecommutes would not get paid for that time, why should the person in office?
If you are required to use the computer for your work and it's your employers or clients computer and you must be there while it boots or shuts down, of course that's time you've committed to the client/employer thus it's valid work to be paid. If the employer wants to avoid this cost then they should either boot the computer for you so it's ready when you show up or they should leave it on all night.
Why? Because if you're hired to do something, waiting for the computer to boot is part of the time they pay you to be there. Anyway, the "article" (more like a blog post) is a little short on details.
Get some electrical timer to turn it on before you get to work. And leave after hitting shutdown.
After I boot my computer, the first thing I do is read Slashdot. And my company pays me for it.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
In every other job the time it takes to park the delivery van, stow tools or whatever, it is working time; why shouldn't it be for computers?
If it takes as much as 15 minutes to log in/out, then there is some serious problem with your computer, unless of course your company is using SAP :->
If it is part of your job to sign in and out of the network, then it is working.
I'd love to read what the courts say about it.
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
workers these days in the big companies. Do they clock in once they log onto their network or what?
If company wants to have the computers shut down at night then the IT department should configure boot on LAN across the organization to boot the computers 30 minutes before the employees are supposed to arrive.
While these employees are waiting those 15 minutes (15? Really??) do they have to listen to/reply to anything their boss says? If I'm not on the clock, not getting paid to sit there and wait for my machine to boot up, why would I have to have any sort of professional relationship in the office...?
This is probably more than Windows booting up and includes the time to fire up the relevant applications (email, office, all custom apps, etc.) and the time these applications take to sync with the server which could take a while due to mass of clients connecting at the beginning of the workday.
...they have to pay you. Whether you have something to do or not is not your problem. But then, the tech industry has successfully hosed labor law already (see "permatemp" and "the IRS loves to host stock option losers") so why not screw us over even more.
As doubtless everyone else will say a million times, computers taking that long to boot is a separate problem.
we will end no whine before its time
Perhaps keeping all the computers turned on and then flipping a single wall switch 30 minutes early would help?
That's the way my old high school did it.
That sitting at my desk waiting on the computer doesn't get anything done is irrelevant.
It started with being 10 minutes early. Then it was at your desk and working at 9 am. Now at your desk waiting for your PC to "show up to work" so you can log in and start getting paid.
Besides, if this goes... the next stop is monitoring software measuring every second that you are actually inputting.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
Well, I can hit "Shut down" and walk away at the end of my work day, and just wait until right before I do so to punch out (if it's PC-based).
Most people I know, however, solve the morning dilemma by leaving their computers powered on overnight. Costs the company more, but if I arrive at 9 and they're going to not pay me (or penalize me, even) because their sluggish PC takes 15 minutes to start, then they're going to pay via the grid.
It's not about the time I give to my employer, it's about the time they take from my day. They PAY for my services, if they want me to arrive earlier because their PC takes forever to start, then they need to compensate me to do so, or find another solution (faster startup time, etc).
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
If your company is run by cheap bastards who have their hourly employee time-clock billing system tied into a booted PC ONLY, I say sue the crap out of them!
I used to work for a really cheap company, but we had a dedicated time clock system with punch cards (that eventually evolved into a magnetic strip w/PIN code system).
I got paid to boot up my PC or to sweep the floor all day and never boot up... no difference really, it is ALL WORK.
NOTE: Booting up your work PC is PART OF YOUR JOB (otherwise I'd leave it on 24/7)...
Just like the State Highway Patrol gets paid for the time Troopers take start and defrost their cruisers. Are they working? SURE ARE! (And they get paid for that time too... not just for 'protecting and serving' and writing speeding tickets...)
Employers generally refuse to pay workers for the time between walking in the door of the factory and reaching the production floor on the theory that they are only going to pay for actual production time. Because of regulations on hourly wages and minimum wage laws this is a big issue. This dispute is partly resolved by the "Portal-to-Portal Act", which generally says (IANAL) that employees have to be paid for tasks which are related to their job (expansively defined). This means that you don't get paid for travelling to work, or for extra hours just because you arrive early, but once the workday starts they can't decline to pay you for the time it takes to put on your safety gear for example, even though putting on safety gear isn't literally your job on the production floor (the Supreme Court has opined on this several times). In this case the employers are claiming that you don't start doing your job until the computer boots up. Now if you weren't required to show up until the boot process is over they may have a case, but otherwise it's rather odd: booting the computer looks (to me) clearly related to using the computer to do stuff.
in most cases, computer booting does not warrant being called work
The way I look at it is I'm being paid for my time. Time that I can't be off doing something I want to do. How much I get paid for my time of course depends on what I can accomplish with the time they are buying from me.
But for ME, time spent sitting idle at work, time that my employer is requiring me to be there, is time I should be paid for. How many people would be OK with their boss saying hey how about you come in an hour early and leave an hour late starting tomorrow? Not on the clock or anything, I just want you to BE here. You don't have to work. But it's going to be a new requirement around here.
Sounds silly and of course you can't find anyone that would be OK with that, but that's just this issue taken to a little of an extreme to prove a point. Your time is your time. If they want you to give some of it up, they better be paying for it. If it took me 15 minutes to get the computer booted up to punch in, and after I punched out I was required to spend another 15 in the office waiting for it to shut down, you can bet I'd be having a talk with my manager about compensation for my lost 65 hrs of pay a year. That's a week and a half of paycheck lost a year. Not really lost, time TAKEN by your employer without compensation.
Little stuff like that adds up. Don't let them fool you by saying oh it's only 15 minutes, you don't mind that do you? That's cheating me, pure and simple.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
The problem is that many employers use a time keeping system which pays employees based on when they log into some system. For example, a friend of mine works through manpower as a temp for $10/hour just answering phones all day. When she gets to work, she must turn on the computer, and wait for it to boot, which is not the same as home computer because it boots from a network and has to log into a Citrix server somewhere. That takes a bit longer. Then, once a desktop appears, you have to open the "soft phone" software to control the phone and log into the queue. Only then do you actually start getting paid.
There is no way for the employer to know that an employee is at work and working unless they are logged into the soft phone. This means that if she has to be at work at 8:00, that really means she has to have the computer on and be logged in by 8:00, so in reality, be there by 7:45 and be "at work" but not be paid for that first 15 minutes.
It's not that the problem isn't solvable, even with a different technical solution, it's just that's the way they do things. The employers don't see it as a problem, and if you aren't logged in by the time you are supposed to be working, you are "late". Rack up around 5 "lates" or so, and you are fired automatically. It's all done by computer systems behind the scenes, so if you log into the phone at 8:01, you risk being fired. All the more reason that it is really underhandedly telling employees that they must show up for work 15 or more minutes early, and that time is unpaid.
It's not just about being at work and having to reboot and go unpaid in the middle of your day, it's about the only way your boss knows you are even at work requires the computer to already be on.
Morphing Software
I don't work hourly anymore but when I did, if I was on the premises I was getting paid. Come in during day shift for a meeting? Clock in. Come in during day shift to get my TB screening injected? Clock in. Come in to get the TB screening read? Clock in.
I have better things to do than hang out at work. If I'm going to be there, they have to balance that.
I have never run into this situation, nor am I even an hourly employee anymore, however when I was this sort of thing would have really set me off. If an employer requires you to be there, then you're on the clock.
Assuming there are 2000 employees, each making $12/hr and losing 1.25 hrs/week of pay works out to savings of $125,000 for company(includes 50 weeks - 2 wk vac). I think unions are a detriment to a company's productivity, but this type of behavior is exactly why I'm strongly pro-union.
brandelf -t FreeBSD
my employer is definitely paying me to check my phone messages, read and process all the stickies he and my other colleagues left on my desk, and engage in business conversation with him.
If I have to talk business with my boss, I'm working. If they refuse to pay me those hours, I will refuse to pay attention to anything that is said.
People sometimes forget that computers are not required to be productive. In fact, most of the time it's quite the opposite.
Sometimes it can take this long to log on to a domain and download your roaming account.
most of what high-paid CEOs and upper-management types do does not warrant being called work either, but they get paid for it nonetheless. any time that i spend at the office/workplace is time that i'm denied personal use of, therefore i should be compensated for it.
by their logic a technician who is performing a 2 hr. Windows install should only be paid for the 15 seconds it takes for him to stick the install disc into the CD-ROM drive and hit "y,y,[enter]" since he's not actually physically doing any work the rest of the time. or someone working at an information booth shouldn't be paid for the time they spend waiting for someone to come by.
if an employer doesn't want to pay employees for the time spent waiting for Windows to boot up, then they should have the computers turned on before employees come in. you don't make someone come in to work at 8:00 and then not start paying them until 15 minutes after they've clocked in.
If I don't get paid for the time spent booting up my computer, then that task is not part of my job description. The company can either hire somebody else to turn the computer on or they can see how productive I am without it.
Whose computer is it? Who chose the O/S? The applications?
Have gnu, will travel.
I'm salaried, you insensitive clods!
Anybody want my mod points?
Well after all, you need to format the harddisk and copy all operating system files to it on each boot. That simply takes time.
I'm frankly shocked that this is even being discussed. Do companies get to not pay for any other supplies they fail to use properly? "Oh, sorry, I'm not paying for that last batch of $COMMODITY, I fucked up and wasted it." If you want to cut me in on a partnership, then fine, we both reap the rewards and suffer the losses. If you are buying my time, though, you owe me the same as any other supplier. My obligation is to show up and deliver high quality execution of my responsibilities during the time you are paying for. Turning the labor you purchase into profit is your problem, not mine.
Seriously, this is insane. How could we possibly have gotten to the point where treating sellers of labor worse than sellers of any other commodity seems even remotely sensible?
I get paid even if I'm telnetting into ISCABBS, I can't imagine not getting paid while my computer booted. :)
If you're fine with what you're being paid overall... then you should be content with you're job. If you feel that you need to be paid more - you shouldn't quibble over the hour or more a week you lose while on company property but not getting paid. You should instead, bargain for better pay for the time you *do* spend working.
Next up you'll have factory workers complaining about the 5-15min each day they spend standing in line waiting to clock in. Or places with high security where you have to go through a line. etc etc etc.
Silly people, demand what you're worth, not quibble over time spent on or off the clock. Otherwise, you may find yourself paid for *only* time that you're functionally working... such as time where your keyboard or mouse is actively inputting on a work designated program, etc. Not on the phone as a receptionist ? Oh, no pay for you. Went to the bathroom ? No pay for you. Went to the water cooler ? No pay for you. Checked your email ? No pay for you. Took a personal call ? No pay for you.
Seriously, what's with the 'world owes me something' attitude ?
I believe they call that the "Blue Screen of Overtime"
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
A vacuous truth is a statement of the form if false-statement, then P where P is any statement. This statement is true because any falsehood has no power to falsify anything. It really doesn't matter what P is. P can be true or false, but the statement false-statement implies P is still true.
We're dealing with the statement "if your work computer is booting Vista, you don't deserve to be paid." This is a vacuous statement for the very simple reason that work computers don't run Vista. Sure, industry and big business are trying to send Microsoft a message that society will turn on its head due to the onerous hardships that people have to suffer while using Vista at work, one hardship being not getting paid while Vista does something slow-ass. But people don't use Vista at work unless they're really suckers for punishment, in which case they deserve to be not paid while Vista slows things down.
But with all that out of way, Windows has had a sleep function for more than 10 years, so just what the debate is about, I don't know.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
This is one of those things where employers can readily apply pressure based on common practice, too. You try to ask, "Just how early do you want me to show up so that I can be here on time?" and they bluster about how the expectation is for you to be prepared to deal with a customer at 8:00. All of the other employees do it without complaint. They lean heavily on the "this makes you look lazy" button to get you to give in.
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
..you should hire better IT people to slim that # down instead of hiring that blue-haired lawyer guy from The Simpsons.
In my state, and the state right next door where I currently work, if you are required to be there, then it's work and you must get paid. This holds for after-hours meetings, and any other reason you are required to be there.
Some employers have tried to tell people to show up 15 minutes early so they are "ready to go" when work actually starts at 8:00 (or whenever). Won't wash. If they require the employees to be there for those 15 minutes, they are required to pay the employees for those 15 minutes.
... but you'd be surprised - as a timed employee on an internship over the summer, I lost a ton of money when we switched from paper timecards to an online system. My workstation was slow. It didn't help that it was a development machine with some services that weren't easy to configure for startup. Every day, I spent 5 minutes waiting for my computer to boot up, and another 5 waiting for the absolutely shitty java-based timecard program to initialize. Usually it would throw and error and I'd have to close out of the browser and start it up again. Some simple math:
100 days x 10 minute loss per day = 1000 / 60 = 16.7 hours = 233 dollars lost, assuming a $14/hour wage. That may not seem like much, but often the time I didn't get recorded was that little bit of overtime that I'd get once in a while when I was asked to stay a few minutes longer. I'm guessing in the end I missed out on about $300.
Paid to start up a computer? I still had to be there; it's not like I could sleep in for 10 minutes extra. If they're going to nickel and dime timed employees, we have every right to nickel and dime them back.
I worked many moons ago as a tech support agent for BellSouth Internet - of course, my actual employer was ClientLogic, who no longer exists.
The tech support client was different from all the other kinds of phone support that operated in the facility. The others had at most one app - generally a DOS DB driver app for taking orders. and you'd telnet in, and run it. There was no account for accessing the system, and the departments were small enough that employees used the same cubicle day in day out.
The contract with BellSouth required that a number of applications be opened. Each one had a login. They varied by which kind of service you provided - DSL support, Dial Up support, or the various forms of advanced support. Also managing all those windows was terrible on Windows (hah). In the absence of virtual desktops managing as many as 20 mandatory apps got insane.
And,of course, the number of employees exceeded the number of allocated cubicles. So as soon as you stood up, the next shift was grabbing your cubicle, logging out, logging back in, and starting up those apps.
At first, it was standard operating procedure to walk in, go to one of the various machines hanging around, sign into the phone system, which was also the time tracker, log out so that you weren't taking calls on the machine, and let the next guy clock in, while you hunted around for a cubicle, and brought the machine up. But BLS was the only client who had this issue, and a manager was brought in from another department and removed the machine.
All hell broke loose. I was promoted at that point, and effectively, if not officially, had my own cubicle. I was logged into the system all the time, so I didn't have to get into the various fights about the issue, although several people either quit or were fired.
Over a year after leaving, I got a moderately fat check in the mail from the class action lawsuit which had occurred unbeknownst to me. And damn right. I had to arrive early and setup a computer as required by the client in the contract. ClientLogic got more money per call taken from BLS than from other clients because of the additional requirements the techs had to follow - but I don't get paid for doing the actual leg work?
Ask the people at McDonald's that are standing around waiting for a customer to show up.
Or the doorman at a hotel waiting for someone to walk up to the door so that he can open it for you.
Seriously, this may be the stupidest thing I have every heard come out of lawyers mouth, and I've heard them say some stupid shit.
I get paid when I'm on the toilet.
Reading Slashdot over wifi. :D
And that's the truth, because I am a consultant and I bill for every minute that I'm on-site, working or not.
(Disclaimer: IANAE, but I do have both a minor degree and a personal curiosity in the subject...)
It's simple. When you are booting your computer for work, to perform work-specific duties, are you performing an action you otherwise *would not* have performed, if you were not paid?
That is, would you have booted your work computer if you were not paid to do it?
Not likely, if you are even a *slightly* rational consumer of your time; it's a waste of your time to do so.
So, you boot the computer because somebody else has asked (or more likely, demanded) you to do so. Unless you plan to work for free, in an even vaguely market-based economy, people trade their freedom and their free time (whether an assumed quantity of time, for salaried people, or pay-as-the-employer-goes, for hourly people) for money. That's how most of us earn a paycheck.
Therefore, the employers should pay their employees. Duh.
This isn't a criticism of the poster, but rather, of the state of general human knowledge, reasoning, and our educational system. Why does Econ101 and basic financial literacy remain so elusive a subject to business, government, and the public at-large such that this is a serious question?
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
Seriously?
What's next? If my PC crashes because your software is atrocious is that going to cost me too?
I'm an hourly employee and this pisses me off. If I'm in the building and can't be elsewhere then you WILL be paying me. It's ridiculous. There's plenty of stuff to be done while waiting for a machine to boot anyways. Talk to coworkers, get a feel for whats going to happen that day, etc.
What about all the people who go off and go for a smoke? Half the time they don't clock out for their smoke break. I don't smoke, and therein get more done, but we're being treated the same?
Gimme a break. Seriously.
If you were offended by anything I said... No, I'm not sorry. Please lighten up.
Who owns the computers and the license to the software that is run on them?
from the moment you got to work , to the moment you leave you should get paid . because even if you are not doing a task you are still representing your company.
at least that is how it working at the company I work for . . .
but then again our time is based on the rfid scanner at the building entrance
Fuck the environment / power bill, lock your box and leave it on all night.
I get paid as soon as I walk through the door. The Company is on my time, not the other way around.
Having worked for AT&T I can tell you that it took me around 5 mins to boot up my system and all the programs required to do my job. Since having those programs running was a requirement of my job I was paid for the time in booting up the systems. If a company doesn't want to pay an employee for that time then they need to have the required systems up and running when the employee is set to start work. If a company does not want to do that then booting up a required systems would have to be considered part of my job description or job requirement and I should be paid. Now if employees are leaving their desks during the boot up time for personal stuff they shouldn't be paid.
This is a classic issue. The Federal Portal to Portal Act does not favor the employee, but California has slightly more favorable regulations.
Some current active issues in this area include whether employees who work in places with elaborate security checkpoints should be compensated for delays in getting through security. This came up in the context of a nuclear power plant. The current court decision is that such time need not be compensated. It's also been held that time in line at a time clock isn't compensated either. (But that tends to even out; the delay in clocking in costs the employee, but delay in clocking out pays the employee.)
The "boot time" issue is interesting. Historically, big plants handled "clocking in" at centralized locations near the plant entrance, so, by default, employees were paid for time in the building. With more elaborate timekeeping systems, it's tempting for employers to start timing when the employee reaches their work location and performs some action like a login or a card swipe.
Many union agreements cover this. It's a classic issue in coal mining, which is where the term comes from. The United Mine Workers negotiated "portal to portal pay" in the late 1940s. Previously, miners were paid only for time at the working face (where digging takes place) in the mine. It can take an hour in a big mine to get from the mine portal to the working face, so this is a big deal.
Silly people, demand what you're worth, not quibble over time spent on or off the clock. Otherwise, you may find yourself paid for *only* time that you're functionally working... such as time where your keyboard or mouse is actively inputting on a work designated program, etc. Not on the phone as a receptionist ? Oh, no pay for you. Went to the bathroom ? No pay for you. Went to the water cooler ? No pay for you. Checked your email ? No pay for you. Took a personal call ? No pay for you.
That's what some firm has done already, except they monitor the living daylights out of you.
Booting up a computer IS work. It's as much work as somebody waiting for diagnostic results, or a supervisor "supervising", or a programmer compiling. They may not be making a direct impact at the time, but they have invoked the actions and are required to invoke said actions and required to wait for said actions to complete.
The employee should not suffer a lack of compensation due to the lack of the ability of the equipment supplied by the employer themselves. If they want to not pay the employee, they need to invest in an instant-on technology of some sort.
On the OTHER hand however, if one is, for instance, compiling, and it continues through and beyond a break (such as lunch), it makes sense for the employer to not compensate (if they do not compensate for lunch, as the break time is no longer considered a required period of labor and observation and supervising and what not. The employer can definitely push for such longer periods of time to be started before a break.
And this is not to say that the employer cannot have an employee be productive in other ways while a computer may be booting or whatever. Ask them to straighten their desk or something.
And to echo a lot of other people's comments, yeah, seriously. 15-30 minutes for BOOTING? I don't care if they "start programs". 15-30 minutes?! First off if they're "starting programs" that is DEFINITELY being productive. But if it's seriously taking 15-30 minutes for an individual to wait for a computer to start up or shut down, they have MUCH worse problems on their hands.
Pancakes. Oh I blew it.
XKCD 303: Compiling
This one is a slam dunk for any competent law firm. It used to be the case the coal miners were not paid for the time spent donning and removing protective gear. Despite the very different industries, it basically means that if you are required to do tasks to prepare to do work, then you need to paid for that additional time. It's then easy to apply this logic to a computer booting up, as that is obviously a required task. So is shutting down.
Even in the Windows shops I worked in, most people just locked their systems at the end of the day and left.
Who reboots every day?
and frankly, I don't think anyone would get away with a policy such as you describe. In fact, I am not sure but I believe I recall something about our labor law that addresses situations like that. Hmmm, I am remembering some more. Yes, I think because that is separated by a time period that is not a "break", that would considered to be a "work shift", and someone cannot be required to come in for a work shift that is less than 4 hours long. It might be 2, but I seem to remember 4. But in any case, a "work shift" cannot be 5 minutes.
George Jetson was paid the whole day just to press a button to start the plant in the morning and shut it down before he went home. Same thing.
If a fictional cartoon character from the future can get paid for that, then I don't see why I can't be too.
Conservation of angular momentum makes the world go round.
It seems to me that a reasonably creative mind could find something productive to do for ten or fifteen minutes --- are you really so wired into the machine that your mind goes blank whenever someone cuts the cord?
If employers want to decrease the boot up time, than either leave the machines on 24/7 or in the BIOS Schedule the power on.
However I feel that Boot Time counts as work. If you are a draftsman, you get paid as you set your desk up, tape the paper down, etc. Setup to work counts as work! Employees have no control over the computer gear, the boot up times, or anything of the like.
If they use the logic that boot time does not count as work... Than employers can then not pay you when the network goes down, when your computer stops working, or for any computer/network problem that is outside your control!
However does anyone else feel this may be payback for employees checking personal e-mail, playing games in their browser, ordering personal items online... Basically wasting time on the company dime.
Just leave the computer on. The boss will get the message eventually.
Conservation of angular momentum makes the world go round.
Anyone else thinking thin clients? It's what we use at my workplace, works pretty well.
Seriously, greedy managerial types seem to think that a person's entire job rotates around a computer. A computer is a tool that you use to do your job, not unlike a crescent wrench. You pay a mechanic to take the tool out of his toolbox, you pay a person to turn the computer on. If the systems boot slowly, that's the fault of the corporate IT policy putting slow-booting operating systems on computers. If people aren't being paid, what, does their time card automatically start when it's finally loaded by Windows? Then that's some seriously questionable software practices in regards to labor laws.
If Hibernate worked properly on the work machine I'd use it, but it comes out of Standby very quickly. It gets rebooted when it needs to (Wednesdays after Patch Tuesday, the occasional emergency update, or when it just starts being weird) but I can easily get away with cold booting just once a week. They kinda prefer equipment turned off for the weekend, so it usually ends up cold booting Monday mornings as well.
There's no debate where the responsibility for that time lies -- it's on the employer to either provide you with work-ready tools, or to pay you for time spent rendering your tools work-ready. There have been fundamentally similar cases of employees expected to get in costume before clocking in. They sued, and they won -- probably not what they deserved to get paid for that time, but that became a case of proving how much time they should be paid for, rather than whether or not it was work.
There may be a bit of a moral hazard here. If a company has Wage and Hour coverage in their EPLI coverage, this will pay for (most of) what they screwed the workers out of. They may be thinking "Let them sue us. Even if we lose we still aren't the ones paying them." It's a very short-sighted strategy (as they quickly find themselves unable to afford their EPLI policies), but some businesses don't care.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
...computer nerds making unsubstantiated and unlikely sounding claims about quirky sexual exploits.
Do we have to implement www.isslashdotshittytoday.com?
For the avoidance of doubt, this is where you broke the suspension of disbelief:
Read Pynchon.
but... 15 to 30 minutes? Seriously? I've never worked at a job where the computer took more than maybe 2 minutes to boot to desktop.
Karma: pi (Mostly due to circular reasoning in posts).
I can't believe this is even an issue - if you are 100% obligated to do something for the company you work for then it is their obligation to pay you. Really.
I find it hard to bill for many things - say for instance I'm running benchmarking software. I spend a whopping 10 seconds starting the application and then I spend the next 3 hours doing something else and the next 0-2 hours looking from time to time to see if it is done. How to charge? Dunno - I spent most of that time playing a video game so I can't really charge for that yet my time isn't completely my own. So far it hasn't been an issue with anyplace I have worked - all were more generous with that time than I was so all was good.
I've also worked salary positions where you work more hours than you say. In all cases I have received "other" compensation - be it in equipment to play with (say a new gaming rig every so often at no cost to me), *really* flexible hours, or other perks. That's OK too - I made the decision that the benefits were worth the work.
But this idea? Crap. I mean really - I'm stuck doing something for the company and *only* for the company and they want to tell me to eat it? Give me some flex time in there, give me vacation equal to that time spent, really just allow me to make it worth my while for those 15 minutes a day. Heck let me eat lunch for free from a *decent* company owned cafeteria if I choose to not get payed.
I suspect that most would be happy with the above even if they couldn't post that 15 minutes to their hourly schedule. There are MANY ways to keep it all good and most of us are willing to work with someone who is willing to work with us back. Some will want something incredibly unrealistic, but then you probably do not want them as employees anyway - the same is true of any employer that requires something incredibly unrealistic too.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
They totally need to talk to their state's Department of Labor - in many states laws are on the books (or judgements setting precedent) that require employers to pay for time that they require their employees to put in on their behalf - like booting up PCs.
I simply:
1 sit.
2 punch my code.
3 work.
4 profit! HAha! This time I've got all the steps!
When the day ends, I lock the workstation, and go.
I solve the problem by leaving my computer on with the timeclock webpage up when I walk out the door. When I sit down in the morning, first thing I do is click that "Punch In" button.
The problem is that many corporations use Active Directory to push out mile long security templates and updates to the PCs when they boot up/down. At my regular job, booting up can take 30 minutes, so I refrain from ever powering the machine down, which mostly defeats the purpose of pushing out updates with AD. Not powering down is actually easy lately, since the machine nowadays refuses to power down which is quite convenient actually.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
If you spend 10 minutes per day starting up, five days a week for fifty weeks a year, you're not getting paid for an entire 40 hour work week.
10 minutes per day * 5 days * 50 weeks / 60 = 41.66 hours
This dispute is partly resolved by the "Portal-to-Portal Act"
A good employer would pay their employees from time onto property to time off property. Some former coworkers recently told me about a situation where their parking spaces, a mere 10 minute walk from their desks, were given to more important employees and now they get to ride a shuttle bus to a parking lot 3 miles away, which adds an extra 40 minutes or so to their work-related time, but they get no pay out of it. The employer has closer land but it would cost much more to develop and they incur none of the costs of the hundreds of displaced employees' time, so they don't see the development as worthwhile.
I had the good sense to quit years ago, but the compensation package is pretty good for light work so they suck it up. Anyway, Vader-style negotiations are no way for an employer to behave.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Who the hell owns a computer, any computer, running any OS that takes 30 minutes to boot? Are these people working on 486s or something?
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
I think there are two main issues here.
First, there is the issue of choice. Whoever makes the choice must bear the consequences. If the boot time is determined by company decisions, the company should pay. If the boot time is determined by what the employee does, the company shouldn't have to pay if the boot time is unreasonably long. You can't fault the company for a decision they didn't make, and you can't fault the employee for a decision they didn't make, either. Yet, you have to make one or both pay, either in time or in money.
But what is perhaps more important is that you need to consider how you want to treat each other. Are the company and its employees adversaries or are they working towards a common goal? Do you really want to be so anal about it that you want every minute of employee time accounted for, or, conversely, that you want every minute of your time paid? I would say that the company should be able to trust their employees. Otherwise, they shouldn't have hired them. So, trust your employees to report the time they've worked more or less correctly, and don't worry if they spent the time waiting for the computer to boot talking to a customer, discussing a problem with a colleague, or fetching a coffee that they would otherwise have fetched after booting the PC.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I don't recall the case name, but just a couple of years ago it was ruled that employees had to be paid during periods where they were putting on and taking off protective gear and uniforms. I can't see waiting for a machine to boot up to be any different.
Major back-pay is coming their way for this. All those 15 to 30 minute periods add up. Plus probable punitive damages, and sometimes the feds even decide to toss a fine in for good measure.
I am forced to boot up my laptop everyday.
I am required by my company to turn off my laptop and lock it in my desk or take it home at the end of the day.
If I leave it on the desk overnight I could be written up by our company security.
During the day the laptop is to be chained to the desk unless I take it with me somewhere.
Also all company laptops have the company screensaver installed on the them that turns on after 10 mins and requires a password to gain access. The screen saver if altered or delted will be reinstalled and set the to company standards the next day.
Time to boot up my laptop 6 min 7 sec with all the security and company crap on it. It still uses xp.
I don't worry about the money, it all averages out in the end. Most of the time I get a soda will the laptop boots up.
I count it as work time.
Either they should be expected to find the machine booted before they start work, or should count the logging in of a machine as work (in much the same way as filing forms is work.
The thing with any procedure (like computers), one can not just take the good without the bad. The machines save in retrieving and distributing modified data, but take longer to boot.
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
In the state of Oregon, I believe the time is required to be paid.
http://www.boli.state.or.us/BOLI/TA/T_FAQ_Tawaitim.shtml
-- Quoted:
Q. I ask my employees to be at their work station to be ready to perform their jobs at a prescribed time. In order to do this they must perform certain activities to enable them to be ready to begin work. Do I have to pay them for the time spent in preparation?
A. Yes, if the prep time is an integral part of their principle work activity, and the job could not be accomplished without these preliminary activities. Some examples of preparatory activities are:
* A waitress setting up a work station, i.e., preparing coffee, filling condiment jars, etc.
* A machinist cleaning and oiling the machinery in a plant prior to beginning a shift.
* A bankteller counting a till before the business opens to the public.
-- End quote
Not entirly true. If you are considered a contractor than preparing your tools for use is considered a business expense. A company should not have to pay a contractor for preperation of their own tools...Same with any other B2B, UNLESS it is outlined in an agreement before start of work. For hourly employees; however, I agree. An employees's "time" starts as soon as they are "ready" to be instructed and AVALIABLE to work. In most cases, your paying for someone to be somewhere for a range of time.
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
That company lawyer is exactly right: The time to boot is not work time, and should not be paid for. On the other hand, you shouldn't do anything you are not paid for, so you shouldn't boot. Solution: The employer has to make sure that everything is in place for you to start work when you arrive at work. They can either hire a small army of "booters" who walk around from 8 to 9 to make sure that all the machines are booted, or you arrive at work and wait (fully paid) until your machine is ready. Which could take the whole shift.
A simple test: Who benefits from booting up the computer? Because he who benefits from it should pay for it.
Obviously the employees could not care less about their computers being booted up (unless they read slashdot from work the whole day :) and obviously the computers are booted up in order to be used for work. So I would say the employer should to pay for it.
...in job description, is preparation of your workplace for performing work, and leaving it in order upon leaving. Then booting up the computer should be paid for.
If it is not, then the employer should hire someone to do that for you.
The only other option is if you're paid per service, not per hour, say, per customer served.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I wonder what morons those people are.. in theory, you come in, you clock in, you turn your computer on, you work, you turn your computer off, you clock out, you go home... how in the hell can they claim they are not paid for the time spend waiting for booting the system.. unless their boss tells them they must first turn on their computer wait till it is booted and then 'clock in', that's the only time I would agree with the employee's..
yes, they should
I get paid from the moment I walk into the office, until the moment I walk out.
If my employer doesn't like that, he can sack me.
My life is too short to take any shit from a bean counter.
Lets just say that one of these guys hold some position where they can make important decisions that do not involve using a computer. Now say one of these employees makes a decision before he starts getting paid that negatively impacts a customer who then proceeds to sue the company. Now the company has a MAJOR problem. The time records would show that the person who rendered the decision was actually not on the clock at the time as a paid employee. Where I work this is not a hypothetical, it is a fact of life. As soon as I walk in the door I have people asking me to render decisions that, if I choose wrong could KILL a patient. Before I answer, I have to be on the clock. That's the rule. Same thing here, these guys are doing work for the company and could be asked to do something while their computer is booting(even if their bosses are too busy jerking off in the bathroom to do so). If they loose the lawsuit, the way you screw the pooch is to never lift a finger to do anything until the computer is booted, or on the flip side would be to do something catastrophic to the company while the computer is booting if you are the evil type. This one seems like they were just letting this one go in hopes that nobody would have the guts to speak up about it just like the no overtime for IT industry from awhile ago. http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/13/0114216
The rule really simple, if you can't drop everything and have sex because of work then you're on working time.
So it includes being in the car or on the train, it doesn't include your morning shower though!
If the employer feels that this point in time isn't in your per hour rate all that means is that it's dropping their hourly rate to below the Mc'D down the road. You know what to do.
Of course the problem is some people don't know what to do, or don't think they can do it.
BTW: If you get home and are too tired that time should probably be included too! OTOH TIPS should NOT be included, they aren't paid by the employer after all.
At my company, we have fixed monthly salaries, and it's written in the contract that you're ready at your desk, booted up when your shift starts.
likewise at the end of your shift, you don't log off before it ends.
it's part of your salery.
You don't clock in, your teamleader/manager is responsible for keeping tabs on if you're there or not.
Whether you show up at 08 and putter around and drink coffee and slouch or you show up 5 mins. before, that's up to you, as long as you do your job.
but, hell, we actually do what we can to make people want to come to work, we're kinda funny that way.
~men are from earth. women are from earth. deal with it.~
What a stupid question. I never boot my computer.
-- main(s){printf(s="main(s){printf(s=%c%s%c,34,s,34
... or if you're going to pay me a lousy hourly wage, have the workstation ready for me to use when I show up on time."
Perfectly reasonable.
"I can't imagine how things could get any worse!" (some guy) "That could just be failure of imaginatioÂn on your p
The commuter should be paid from the moment he steps out his front door to go to work.
If that were the case, you can be damn sure traffic problems would disappear overnight.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
What else do they do but call (need the PC to log in) or add to the database of work (need the PC to enter data)?
If you want them to do more work other than their contracted work, pay them for it.
Your company is supposed to pay you if you're working.
If they don't pay you for doing an activity it means that it's not work.
You're only supposed to work for your company when you're at your desk.
So don't boot up your computer if they're not paying you to do it. You might be sued for doing activities not related to your job!
Companies being honest to this policy of not paying people to boot up and shutdown pcs should hire somebody to do it. Considering the required degree of parallelism either they almost double the man power or they write some smart piece of software to bring up the necessary working environment on everybody's desktops.
Because if you count it as *JUST* vista booting, then how would they log in to their process if Vista didn't come with a built-in call centre procedure stack?
Or maybe, just maybe, they have to start programs that enact the call logging etc BEFORE they can start work, and so all the other guff after "booting" the OS when you're "booting the process of work" afterwards adds up to 30 minutes.
I know there are exceptions for certain types of work (on-call and salaried, for example). But again, in general, that would not fly here (pardon the phrase).
The issue seems to be how you define "doing the work".
And as for "they aren't mandatory but you're fired if you don't go meetings", here it is illegal to do that. If you are required to be there, they are required to pay you. Period.
my computer atw ork takes forever to boot, its not just the act of booting windows either its all the other programs that you have to load (and hope it actually works first time) before you cana ctually start doing your job, which in my case is call center related.
It can easily take 15 minutes plus to login and load everything on a good day. I do tend to leave my pc running overnight when I leave work (lukcily have this option due to mys hift but most don't since there pc will be used by another person after them) but its actually against company policy to leave your pc running and I hate to think how much power it wastes.
The thing is in my place you can only sign/clock in to the systems when you are rdy to start taking calls why they will pay you for your scehduled hours no matter what you do get marked down for none aderhence if you are not doing your job between hours your employed. This affects your bonus you get from company and I suppose could also get you sacked if it happend all the time.
They specifically tell you to come in 10-15 minutes early to boot up.
I suppose in theory you should get paid for it, but to be honest its probably wise your at work 10-15 minutes early anyway to grab a coffee ect, to make sure your fresh to actually do your job. I suppose its one of them things you just have to live with like having to travel to work if you just accept itspart of your job you won't get annoyed by it, if you think your normal pay is not sufficient to cover this 15 odd minutes then you can always leave to find new employment. The system that they have employed is probably about fair overallwithout bringing in extra systems and checks lots of people do extra work they are't paid for most more than 15 minutes a day.
i figure the person is paying me to simply chose to be there so from the moment i step in the door after all my time is far more important than theres ;) i wonder if i could charge them for riding the bus as well ?
We just fill out our timesheets with the hours we worked. Log in, fill it out, hit submit, done.
.... then they would have a reasonable expectation that their PC is working when they sit on their desks.
Or do people that punch in on a punch clock in the wall are expected to start up that device on their own time also?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I find this kind of discussion rather scary. If you are at work place, setting up the tools you use to do your job, then it is work. Full Stop. The discussion should be about whether your boss should pay you (even maybe with a reduced fee) for time spent COMMUTING to get to the work place. But note that this has nothing to do with productivity. Is just bosses harassing people (to maximize profit). I think i wouldn't like to work in the USA.
i think you should, because the longer it takes the more money the employer would dish out, meaning that it is an incentive to get new equitment when needed.
Solutions:
Either leave the computer on overnight and the employer picks up the cost of the additional electricity to minimise the time lost clocking in/out, or they cover the time in the wages. i.e. "you get paid £10 per hour, but because we know you lose a little time clocking in/out, we'll make that £10.6" (rough %age increase to cover 30 mins lost time per day on a 37 hour week)
1 - Turn up on time
2 - Boot up the PC and login
[2b - Go make coffee and have a chat]
3 - Profit
Typically work computers are out-dated. I had a Mac mini at an old job. It'd averaged 3-5 minutes to boot to where I could USE it to actually clock-in(FileMaker didn't help this). Windows(avg) tends to boot quickly, 1-3 minutes on comparable hardware to a Mac Mini, but you don't have a responsive system at that point! The hard drive is still likely being thrashed for upto 3-5 minutes after power on. This is based on my experiences with my 3 Windows PCs(athlon xp 1600+,p4 2.4Ghz, and p4 3Ghz, all using ATA 100/133, 7200 RPM, 8+ MB caches to boot off). And I don't have a lot of start-ups on any of them.
Maybe you'd have no excuse on a modern RAID0 SATA with a quad core and 16 GB of RAM or whatever.... But for the rest of us, you'd be lucky to find hardware better than a ~2 Ghz (a GB of RAM if you're lucky) and cheap IDE drives that may not even be in UDMA mode 5 or 6.
Enlightenment is the elimination of that which is unnecessary.
Its not just booting PC's like at home... You usually have many more things to boot than at home and lots of things to log into. At an old job I had they allowed for this....then they tried to make you come into work early, to which so many people ignored that management gave up trying...It was actually part of our workplace agreement, having to arrive early to boot our systems. HA, as if...I remember telling some management muppet if he wants my system ready by the exact time my shift starts he better have someone else prepare it for me, before I walked out of his "meeting". I really hope the lawsuit is successful. If its fine for corporations to pay low wages, little tax, externalize a crap load of costs to the taxpayer and make obscene amounts of profit, then its fine for them to pay me to prepare their tools for their job...i just wanted to be paid from when my shift starts and not have to come in EARLY and work for NOTHING....You'd think this wouldn't be too much to ask... make no mistake, bean counters at any corporation will always want to pay you less...If they think they can they definitely will. Never let em think they can....ever.
I've wasted entire years sitting at my desk, at work. At the end of a year-long project, it was scrapped. A complete waste of time.
Seriously, I've wasted at least an hour each day while at work doing non-productive stuff. Worst, I've pulled other workers into this non-productive time and wasted 2-4x my waste.
I was paid, but shouldn't have been.
I've worked at AT&T and was paid hourly. My timesheets/pay had nothing to do with computer boot time. Occasionally, those login scripts were long running or failed or prevented logins. But that happened to me only once or twice in 8 years.
If your off the clock when you punch out on the computer. who turns it off! You can't, your off the clock!
If your required to be there its work...this is like saying a waitress isnt working until a customer comes in.
If the employee is required to be present, they should get paid. It's really that simple.
If the relevant laws in the states concerned don't reflect that basic principle, those laws should be changed.
any employer who doesn't want to pay their employees for booting up their computers needs to be sued.
This is quite asinine. Of course you should get paid for booting your computer up. You must follow the policies of your company which state you must turn off your computer. You also must follow the policies which state that you boot up and log into the system in the manner prescribed by IT. Why wouldn't you get paid for that? "because you're not working" If that's not work, what the fuck is?
They're using their grammar skills there.
This whole issue is nonsense. Of course you should be paid while the computer is booting. And I doubt most employers even debate this. The issue is the way the software tracks the time. We used a similar system at Siemens, but it was configurable to add a few minutes to the start and end of every day to take this issue into account.
If they just used Hibernate and modified power settings we wouldn't have this lawsuit they'd just cycle back up in a very minimal amount of time. I go through this process each day logging into payroll check in/out system.
15 to 30 minutes to boot up their computers and log off at the end? What computer takes a bleeding quarter hour to boot? I mean damn. I'm all for being paid and all, but 30 MINUTES a day? Really? I can boot my Gentoo laptop and be logged in in under a minute. What fucking slacker takes a damn half hour to do that?
Pax Vobiscum
Which would leave Windows with a big question mark over it. Would Microsoft be counter sued as the source of a lot of these reboots since it demands to be done after every update? It takes the "reboot later" option away from the user, who now knows they're gonna lose wages if they reboot during working hours. This would need a PC which can stay on for a full shift with no degradation in performance......and that ain't Windows.
As a mainland european, my jaw is digging its way to australia reading this.
You get paid THE MOMENT you enter the workfloor and stop being paid once you leave. What else is possible?
The notion that somehow you only get paid once your employer thinks you are doing something useful is so ripe with exploits it really shows why captalism is evil to the core.
Imagine a surgeon only getting paid while he is cutting. Not while studying the case, looking at x-rays, talking to the patient, the relatives etc etc. What would that do to medical care.
As you said, in restaurants, if you only get paid while preparing food, cleaning standards are going to drop like mad.
It is as bad as the idea waiters make their money from tips. I prefer the japanese method. You want to be paid, you get a salary, not hand outs. If you run any type of industry you got to pay the salary people need to make a living or just fucking go bankrupt and stop trading.
Because while the workers get shafted like this, don't think for a second that management when they are not productive cut their own salary. Oh no, they get paid the same no matter how much they screw up and a bonus if they do so badly they actually have to be fired.
Frankly, that this lawsuit even has to happen shows you that the neo-con's have been in power way to long. Lets see if Obama can change some of this non-sense.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Where I work (at a software company), everyone is given a pen and paper to write their code on. Then, once a week each group (about 15 to a group) is given an hour of access to a computer that resides outside the mens room. When the time comes, we all scramble to the computer and fight over who gets to enter their code this week. This method definately saves a lot of time booting and shutting down because we only have one computer. It also really weeds out the people who aren't strong enough to code.
"I don't have to think. I only have to do it. The results are always perfect, but that's old news." - Meat Puppets
I simply:
1. Sit
2. Work
3. Profit!
The company states I must work a minimum of 38.5 hours per week. They don't state when these hours must be performed, and the building is open 24/7 (as long as I have my pass to show to the door guard at unusual hours). If I really felt like it, I could turn up on Friday at midnight, work 38.5 hours straight, and go home again before the weekend was over, meaning I'd likely never see a single co-worker. In reality, I don't do that, because working 38.5 hours straight would be very unpleasant, and I actually have FAR too much work to do (I've been averaging 52 hour weeks over the last year).
Once we finally get someone else in to help with the workload, I will probably aim around the "9 to 5 from Monday to Friday with an early finish on Friday" that most people in the company do. I am getting sick of mornings in general as well though, so might instead do more of a "10 to 7 Monday to Thursday" kind of thing with a "show up and make sure nothing urgent is happening" on Friday (probably midday to 4 or something like that) - it all depends how I feel at the time really.
I discussed this slashdot article with some co-workers and they honestly couldn't believe there are really companies out there that would be so picky about time (we all conceded that if you're a shift worker and someone else going home on time depends on you being there on time, or your work is only possible between certain hours, then it's important, but if it's neither of these cases, then WHY would a company be so evil as to have a "start time" and "finish time" for employees? This is the work-place, not high school... my day starts when I get here, and finishes when I leave. As long as my work gets done, who cares what hours on the clock that happens to be?
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
The executives don't just get paid for their 4 martini lunches and steak dinners with 2 bottles of wine, the lunches and dinners are paid for by the company. And, then they are paid ridiculous salaries to run the companies into the ground.
Hell, most of them are not qualified to run a wet paper bag.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
If you're paid by the hour, then you should be paid from the moment your activities are dictated by your employer.
If you work on a computer, you need to boot it up. You don't do that for your own amusement, you do it as part of the activity directed by your employer - ergo, it's work and you get paid.
How can you question that?
Real happiness lies in the completion of work using your own brains and skills.
Maybe we watched a different version of the show, but his job was to press the button repeatedly, sometimes for up to an hour a day.
http://crummysocks.com
Piss me off some more, while I wait for my computer to boot, I don't just sit there, I still work, going over documents that need filing or talk about what needs to be done with a coworker, I am able to fill up that small amount of time with something else that needs to be done.... this is just a way to make a quick buck by sticking it to the little guy, I hope they rot in hell for this!
I hope they get awarded a MASSIVE obscene amount of money to deter any others from trying this type of thing again.
Typical of blood sucking lawyers...find ANYTHING you can sue over, and run with it all the way to the bank. Blood sucking pigs.
as a computer peripheral I expect to be paid only once: checking out at the counter
Does your boss stop paying you when you go to the bathroom or use the company computer/internet for no work related activities ? Does your boss stop paying you when you have a conversation which is not work related ? What a moron question...
Check your local labour law as it various between jurisdictions.
Up here in Quebec, you are on paid time when you are at your workstation ready to receive work. If the computer takes 15 minutes to start up, it's the company's problem.
Then I am owed several busty beauties, a kick ass giant mecha, strange powers that manifested first a puberty and the ability to defy the laws of physics when I fight people.
I saw that in a cartoon and think real life should reflect that. It's not fair that my life is bound by reality and not the rules of anime.
I work for a very large company... we recently had to take our annual HR training. It specifically mentions the case where Joe Non-Exempt walks in and turns on his computer and that, yes, he is on the clock while the machine boots.
I don't see how anyone could think they could get away with *not* paying someone for that. I've always thought that was a given.
My sig sucks.
If you make it my job to turn on your computer for me to work on, then you owe me money for waiting while it boots. If You don't want to pay me, get someone else to boot it for me in the morning.
DOS is dead, and no one cares...
If there's a Bourne Shell, I'll see you there
Now that's a plan that could require holding a grudge for a Guiness-length of time. And if you kick it before you're 90, you never get your revenge.
Why isn't standby or hibernate acceptable? Both allow a user to power up their machine in a far smaller amount of time than a cold boot.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
My policy is that I am on the clock from the time the paint on my front bumper enters the parking lot to the time the paint on my rear bumper exits. If I have to park 500 feet from the building due to overcrowding or badge-in to 20 doors to get my office, all the better. If my employer doesn't like it, they can fire me. My skill-set is high enough that someone else will snap me up in no time.
The bottom line is the employer needs to provide the employees with the tools to do the job. If those are inferior tools, is that the employee's fault? If the employer wants the employee to start working as soon as they're in the door, either put in a mechanism that starts up the computers 30 minutes before work, or find a computer that boots faster. The employees can only work with what they've been given. The lost productivity is a direct result of the choosing that product, and it is up to the company to absorb that cost. The company should either push back on Microsoft to make it better, or simply just switch to a different OS.
I have a laptop, never shut it down. I restart it for Windows Updates before I leave for lunch if there are any pending. On a side note I do have a timed wake each morning to bring it out of sleep mode 15 minutes before I get to work so I never have to wait on it.
The concept is simple: use the boss's tools get the boss's pay - especially when you have to wait for that tool to to prepare itself to do the work the boss wants done.
Concerning the logging off - unless the boss requires that you wait until the 'tool' is turned off before you can be dismissed, then you shouldn't be paid for it: go home!
I worked for UHG(united health group) as a contractor for there helpdesk. They would log our times via the phone and they would say we needed to be ready to take a phone call at 8am. Well, that means you _need_ to be there 15 minutes ahead of your start time just to get the computer going. And its not just "booting" but also getting all the applications started to take a phone call. I need to get my email going, ticket software, terminals to systems, firefox with gmail and slashdot, and many more apps. This was something we would get scolded on because the manger did nothing but look at our times that we logged in to take calls, not when we were at work. I am glad someone stood up to these people. They are a heartless insurance company with greedy executives. Remove the overhead from the insurance companies and they could pay for all our medical needs with out all the hassle.
Just quit your job and start a business. Problem solved.
Ok, I am sure the rest of this largely uninformed thread will be the same, so I'll insert my comments here where someone went off the deep end, IMHO.
[FACT]
Although there are Federal standards and Labor Laws, complete labor laws vary from state-to-state; consult with a local labor attorney to get a real answer, NOT SLASHDOT!
[/FACT]
[OPINION]
If you put a lot of effort into it, pay for a lawyer, get what you deserved in the first place plus the cost of filing a lawsuit plus getting fired for any reason they can think of, you might be able to get a "fair" deal. For yourself.
This is what unions are for. Don't let Slashdot's libertarianism lead you to oppose your own interests, or the interests of your felling employees.
Union?!?! I hope you were joking. So, you propose to replace a single corrupt manager-whose public flogging through the courts will very quickly change internal practices once brought to light-with an undeniably corruptible bureaucracy that feigns support for "the common man" to line its own pockets while providing meager concessions to its constituency? Yeah, that's a good idea! I don't subscribe to any single ideology, but if by me wanting to negotiate my own deals (thank you very much) makes me a libertarian (in your mind) then so be it.
These problems aren't going to go away until individuals start blowing the whistle and stop standing around and waiting for someone else (a union, a govt, whatever) to do something. Come one people! We're all reasonably intelligent here and we all certainly have access to the Internet and the wealth of information therein. If something doesn't "seem" right to you, educate yourself and talk to people more knowledgeable than yourself about (in this case) labor law. That would NOT be the /. community, that would be a labor attorney. The first consultation is usually free! Don't wait for someone else to do it! Stand up! Be a man, or a woman if you are one! Sic semper tyrannis!
Ok, sure I'm one person, I'm going to be labeled a whistle blower, etc. Would you rather be a whistle blower or a slave? I don't think unions are a good idea, but certainly an ad hoc group of maligned employees does carry more weight than an individual. You don't need to start an organization (union), in the modern world, to be heard. The Internet and the ridiculous, sensationalist attitudes of the media will carry the message around and entice others to stand up as well. It does have to start somewhere with one person saying, "No." Don't fear the consequences of doing the right thing. Doing nothing is far worse. Write that down!
[/OPINION]
I think that is the problem... they only get paid if their computer logs on to the network. It's a bad system. What happens if your PC is down? Do they send you home or move you to another PC...
What's wrong with a sign in sheet? How about a magnetic card that you swipe when you get there - if you want it to be all technology and stuff...
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Whether it's the 20 minute walk to your cubical, or the 15 minute wait for your computer to boot, and for you to get logged into the network, it's all work related, and all on the clock.
Your time is a precious commodity, you only get to live each second once - mark down all time spent in the building (aside from your shift meal, if it's away from your desk).
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
Simple: then don't do it. If your employer wants you to do it, then they should pay you to do it.
If the systems boot slowly, that's the fault of the corporate IT policy putting slow-booting operating systems on computers.
Bingo. Note to all SysAdmins (especially the managers): If your desktops take 30 minutes to boot, your doing it wrong.
Also everywhere I've worked you've been required to leave your desktop on to make it easier to push updates, especially emergency updates.
In my mind it is very clear.
What did the employee agree to as a condition of their hire?
If they agreed to start getting paid when their time-tracking software finally started, or when they logged in to the queue in the soft-phone, that is how they should get paid. If this was not clearly specified during the interview process, it should be considered the employee's responsibility to clarify.
I'm tired of hearing the nanny-state mentality of protecting people from their own inability to understand the caveats and details of an agreement they entered into of their own free-will.
If I sign a cellular contract that states "billing will start when you hit the send key, not when the call connects", well then I should expect that to happen. If it does not state when billing starts, I should clarify it with the cellular carrier before entering into the contract, and if that issue is important to me, make a determination AFTER I know the entirety of the policy.
I'm sure I'll be modded down for my anti-socialist views by some, but its got to stop. The government has NO place telling an employer when to start and stop paying you. That is a private contract, and the US Constitution clearly states "No State shall [create a] law impairing the Obligation of Contracts..." source. Employment is a mutually agreed private contract.
And yes, before anyone asks, I do believe that minimum wage laws interfere with the free negotiation and establishment of work contracts. If my employer wants to give me a home, a car, food, electricity, etc, but only pay me $3.00/hr, it SHOULD BE MY RIGHT to accept that offer. If accepting that offer is a bad decision, so be it...at least its MY decision.
Our governments (state and federal) should have no business attempting to protect people from their own stupidity.
Brad
How is this even a question? If my employer ever attempted to negotiate with me over boot-up time, I'd look for work, that day. What kind of cheap bastards do you people work for?
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
God I hate lawyers.
See http://slashdot.org/~SockDisclosure/journal/214377
A post in this article by the same troll with another account: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1033643&cid=25813091
...Just recently where they're timing Dwight, and every time he sneezes or looks away from his desk they start a stopwatch, threatenting to report his 'time theft' to management. Gold.
But seriously, this is a giant load of crap, and it surprises me that employers actually [try to] get away with this. Positions or careers that are paid on a job or comission basis - fine. I used to work commissioned sales way back and we were in the store usually an hour or two before it opened - not paid a dime. But for most other positions, this is laughable.
On both sides of the employee/employer table, I always say it's give and take. If one party nickle-dime's the other, it will always end up reciprocating. If an employer were to nickle dime me like this, then I don't touch my email, blackberry, or whatever after 5:00:00PM, no matter how dire. What goes around comes around.
The reality is there are companies who will get away with this. And in a loose job market where there's plenty of supply, especially at the lower end of the spectrum, people will get away with this, fact of life. Up here in Canada, the job markets are relatively tight, especially in western canada where there's massive shortages, so an employer would never bother trying a stunt like this. Even at the retail level, it's really tough to replace people, so this would never happen. If anything, the employees can take advantage of the employers. Local coffee shops are paying high school kids here $17/hr at Tim hortons. You can fairly easily find work for $20/hr. Advantages of a job-seekers market I guess. Come work up here, god knows we can use it. Entry level help-desk pays even $21-$23/hr at most of the major ISP's.
"Funny thing is, they don't get to fire you for no reason."
Funny thing is, you are wrong.
Actually, they can certainly fire you for NO reason.
"There are lots of reasons that they can't fire you"
Which are not "NO reason". Do you understand the difference? YOu don't appear to.
As you say, if they fire you for A reason that is wrong, like race, illness, or something else illegal, then yes, you have action. But you have to prove it.
So when you say, they "don't get to fire you for no reason" you are not only factually wrong, you're wrong in practice. They frequently do fire you for "no" reason, even when they have a reason, so there is no way for you to bring an action that you can win.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
It's a management failure.
If they don't want to pay the staff their minimum rate wages for getting their computers running in the morning, then would they rather be paying the staff IT wages for those fifteen minutes?
Eric Baird
Ok, so maybe I'm not paid for the time my computer boots up. But what about the boss? Is she working non-stop from entrance to exit?
When the spouse calls to complain about the imported ottoman that's off by 17cm than what was advertised?
When she goes to the bathroom?
When the VP comes in to ask a question about yesterday's meeting then digresses onto that awesome play he saw last night on TV?
When the boss spends 15 minutes looking for a binder she knows she "put right here?"
What if she eats lunch at her desk and works the entire time? Does that mean the time can be taken later? Is she docked per chew?
This is all just a little ridiculous.
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
In Windows, the profile has to be copied locally, because Windows do not really have the concept of 'logging in a server'. In Unix, this situation does not exist, because users actually log into the server, their profile is stored there, and the X-Window system is simply an interface to remotely running applications.
When I was in the University, I could log in from any Sun workstation and instantly get the same desktop, from anywhere in the Campus. I frequently changed stations in a day, depending on course and activities. It would be a great problem to use Windows and have to wait 15 or 30 minutes for my applications to start.
I thought that AT&T has the best and brightest Tech team? They can use the Automatic Boot within BIOS at 30 minutes before work actually starts to get the machines almost fully booted (employees must login when they come in).
Either way, All Employees in large corporations carry RFID cards and therefore, when they walk into the establishment, work pay MUST Start, period.
With today's technology, there is NO Excuse by either the Employer's or Employee's part saying that they were waiting for the computer.
What happens if the Employee's computer crashes? Does the employee's pay get suspended until it is replaced/repaired? I don't think so. It is the Employer's problem to get it fixed asap to get the employee back to work.
*Headline News* censorship shuts down the Internet! More at 6PM!
The boss doesn't want to pay for employee bootup time?
The (salaried) boss should come in early and boot every single employees computer.
Xwing!
I fucking loved that game. Taking out a star destroyer in a Y wing.... Does this ancient, awesome game run on current hardware? I think I will go home and find out.
I work for a competitor to one of the companies listed in TFA. Approximately 4 years ago we had a series of time studies occur to time how long it took us to get ready to be able to take calls. Approximately 2 months later, I received a check in the mail from my employer, of nearly 1.5 times my normal paycheck, in addition to my normal paycheck. We received an email the following day stating that this was the result of a Department of Labor inquiry regarding the time required to prepare your workstation to receive phone calls, and that it was prorated pay based upon the timestudy, across the number of days you worked in a Customer Service position.
After which, they modified the compliance requirements to allow employees to show up "on time" and log in up to that threshold of time "late" without any negative consequences. So if I were to be @ work at 8, and didn't get on the phone till 8:05, I was within compliance.
In an ordinary unwritten work-for-hire situation you are paid to be present at the agreed-upon place at the agreed-upon time and to do what your employer tells you to do. If he tells you to boot a computer then that is what you are being paid to do. If he doesn't like paying you to sit and wait while it boots up he can do it himself before you start work or find something for you to do while it boots.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Seriously, greedy managerial types seem to think that a person's entire job rotates around a computer.
Greedy managerial types think that the right answer to any ambiguity like this one is the one that makes or saves them the most money.
I am officially gone from
Had a boss who was thought he was client-server saavy and that he could save the company time and money if he ran customer care through 'dumb' terminals that only got loaded with the applications necessary for each customer service agent to do their jobs. He figured he would stop all the CS agents from playing solitaire, recreational browsing, etc. At the start of each shift, the CS person put his/her card in a slot on the PC (think it was Sunfire stuff) and it loaded the necessary apps onto ram into the desktop from a remote server. It was a fairly large organization with CS personnel in several different cities. Result of this implementation was a total failure because boot time was HORRIBLE and our staff were paid from a time-clock on the wall, not the PC login times. Looking back, I'm sure the Achilles heel was that not only data, but entire applications had to be pushed and loaded to each desktop and it probably did take 15 minutes or more because I remember the CS reps complaining (and they were getting paid!). I'm sure there are easier/better ways of doing that now, but on-topic....pay the workers you greedy corporate pigs. Enjoy.
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway This is the road to hell
If the people are not working when the computer is not at the desktop, does this mean that they do not get paid if the hardware fails in the middle of their shift?
The employees should never turn off their computers and then wait for management to bitch about the higher energy cost.
My work laptop take about 10-15 minutes to get from off to usable. The joys of application enforced business policies at start up...
I work at a place that has clean rooms. Employees get compensated for the time they spend putting on their clean suits. This is because you are expected to do 8 hrs of work inside the cleanroom. Thus in a work week, you are actually doing about 40.5hrs of work including suiting up.
"But if they fire you after you have filed a complaint w/ the labor bored then that will be seen by the labor board as a retaliatory termination. That is illegal."
Yes. So what, that's A reason, not NO reason and I covered that RIGHT HERE
"As you say, if they fire you for A reason that is wrong, like race, illness, or something else illegal, then yes, you have action."
Try reading what you're replying to, you'll avoid restating for no reason and less eloquently, what has already been covered.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
I work for a company where we clock in/out using a program on our computer. Obviously I lose a few minutes at the start and end of each day, but not 15.
If they were asking me to move boxes or whatever before I was clocked in, I would refuse, and I think anybody else should, too. While the computer is booting, I'm getting coffee, going to the bathroom, or whatever.
And I think the other poster is right - as long as this is a minor annoyance, I don't complain about 5 minutes here and there. Otherwise my employer might start docking my pay for my Slashdot time.
And in his case, no need to be correct.
More to the point though, I wasn't impolite.
And no, your opinion and his don't change that.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
hibernate
suspend
lock computer
i only reboot about once a week (when the system gets slow) and go get a cup of coffee at the same time (MULTITASKING, or doing something while waiting)
i see no reason to reboot every single day
with enough ram (2gb) even running autocad, revit and folding@home all day only really needs to be rebooted every week or two.
i have been running for two days and only using 1.5gb of ram (64mb physical free), 42 processes
worst i have seen on this machine (revit, autocad, photoshop, etc) was 3.2gb of ram
if they're on company time at the job they should be payed for it, it's not like booting the computer is optional, besides these people usual also sort paperwork while this is going on. so this is just employers robbing employee's
"If you had read the full post"
I did, but thanks for making a faulty assumption.
" he makes the same distinction between "no" and "any" that you just did."
No he doesn't. You are also wrong.
"Funny thing is, they don't get to fire you for no reason. There are lots of reasons that they can't fire you, including but not limited to firings for the person's gender or race, the person's age (if over a certain age) and retaliatory firings for the worker filing a worker's comp claim, for taking leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act, or for whistle blowing (which is the specific issue discussed here.)"
Not in there, so far you're still wrong.
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_termination [wikipedia.org]
Now like I said, this varies somewhat by state. There are some federal statutes (like the protected class cases), but mostly, it's defined by the state. And like I said, I don't know of any state where it's legal to fire a person for whistle blowing, though if some allow for that, I'd love to know."
Not in there, so far you're still wrong.
"What often happens in these cases is that circumstances arise for which the employer wants to retaliate against the employee, so they fire him/her. The employee then files a lawsuit claiming wrongful termination, and gives the reason. Generally speaking, these cases are decided upon a preponderance of the evidence, so if the employee gets into court and says, "I reported my employer for doing this illegal thing, and then he fired me!" it's going to be up to the employer to prove that either a) the firing was for no cause (pretty hard to do with) or b) that the firing was with cause, and here's the list of reasons why he was fired."
STILL not in there, so far you're still wrong.
"The judge or jury or whomever then weighs the evidence to determine whether or not the termination was illegal.
"At will" isn't as simple as you tried to make it."
Nope, nowhere to be found.
You read something that was not there, and are wrong.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
Looks like work to me!
What I meant was, your PAY appears to be based on a very narrow definition of what your "work" is.
I don't know how that would apply in my state with its labor laws. But that is all I meant: it would seem to me that your contract needs to include a broader definition of what your work entails.
More and more it seems to me that employers want to shift the focus of employee compensation from paying for an employee's time to paying for specific tasks to be accomplished. Now, more and more, technology makes it easier to try to accomplish this. You have to use the bathroom? Go ahead, but if you're gone for more than 4.5 minutes we're clocking you out automatically. Booting up your machine? Madness! The company can't make money off those 15 minutes so it simply won't pay for it. Attend the after-hours meeting off the clock, it's really for your own benefit, not the company's. The computer will monitor your activity, and management will get a regular report on your efficiency at a level only dreamed of by generations of managers past.
Efficiency is a good thing, but humans aren't machines and numbers on a report don't tell anywhere near a complete story when it comes to a given employee's work-life.
I love technology, I really do, but I hate that I see it being used in ways that seem to dehumanize workers, that make them just additional parts in the machine. I don't want to come off as having nostalgia for an age that never existed, but it seems to me that in the past 10 years or so the trend towards using technology this way has taken some really rotten turns. Not because companies have become more evil, just because they have tools to track what workers are up to that were unheard of in the past.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
Don't let your boss fuck you, that's anti-capitalist. Fuck back.
Apparently, I wound up in the wrong line of work.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
why not? i'm getting paid while i read slashdot.
I punch in and out using a crappy Java-based time clock that can take over a minute to load. My PC stays on 24*7, and I just lock the screen when I leave, so "logging in" takes a few seconds, when I have to wait a minute or so to punch in.
When it's time for me to punch out, though, I get to "waste" a minute or so of the employer's time waiting for the same time clock to load. I punch out, hit Windows+L, and walk away.
A police department in NC required there officers to wash their patrol cars but wouldn't allow them to wash them on the clock. When the hourly employees question the legality, they were told that police departments had certain exemptions. Finally, someone had the guts to call the Federal Labor Board. The feds surveyed the ~45 officers to learn how often they washed their cars and how long it took. Then the city had to pay back wages to the tune of several thousand dollars an officer. The city quickly made a contract with a local car wash to keep the department's fleet clean.
THEIR officers.....
Grammar Nazis please forgive me. I promise to use the preview button in the future.
That was his work week. I remember George saying "these hour long work weeks are killing me".
But yes he did press that button the whole time though. And often his "button press finger" was swelled up.
And now I feel very old and stupid for remembering that.
Seems to me if this is becoming widespread, which I don't believe it is, then it's time for the employees of the world to find jobs at better companies. When these awful companies have difficulty finding decent labor, they'll start treating their employees with some respect. But as long as employees put up with this bullshit, the companies will continue to demand more and more. Perhaps it's because I have a good job at a company that treats it's employees like they're a valuable commodity, but I just don't see what the fuss is all about. Put up with the nonsense or move on, it's pretty simple.
In the early 90's, I worked for a nameless (begins with an M, located in Boise ID) semiconductor company.
Some employees complained to the State Department of Labor about a policy. If you worked in the Fab, you were required to be dressed in your bunny suit and in the Fab when your shift started. Employee's complained that putting on the suit properly took 15 minutes and that the company should pay them for that time.
Department of Labor agreed and required the Company to pay the time into the future, but also go back 3 years and pay all current and former employees 10 hours of overtime per week.
I know of a major NJ utility that requires its employees to be logged in and at an applcation screen by the start of their shift. They have 15+ min login times due to network delays, login servers and CICS apps that were badly outdated 10 years ago.
(yes, CICS)
(no, the union won't touch these folks)
THEN YOU DO IT
These people probably do not get paid for the time it takes to get to work from home. They don't get paid for having to sit in their car driving for the 5 minutes to 2 hours it takes to get to wherever they work. They don't get paid for the 5 minutes to 2 hours they have to sit on a bus or train to get to work. If they don't start getting paid until they log on to the computer those X minutes of boot time can be considered part of the commute to work.
They wake up leave their house without being paid, get into their car and drive to work without getting paid, walk from their car to their desk without getting paid, why do they need to be paid for the x minutes they sit in front of their computer before they can log in and start getting paid for working? If they feel inconvenienced for that time then they should have a job that requires a shorter commute. They could also leave the computer on when they go home.
Make it so they have to clock in and out from their computer. That way, they're not wasting time booting it
You're insured on your way to and from work.
sig? Oh, that sig...
You're right. I was thinking of the movie.
Conservation of angular momentum makes the world go round.
You guys are all making it way too complicated. The question is: Do I get paid to *push the button* to boot up the computer or not?
If not, my work day never starts, I sit there all day long and do nothing because no one booted up my PC and they cannot fire me for not doing something not in my job description that I have been explicitly told I will not receive pay for because it is not my job.
If so, then the entire boot process is covered already as I begin working the moment I push the button as part of my job description, and these people are owed back pay if it has been withheld.
Everything else is semantics and lawyer-speak.
If you start work at 9:00, put the time switch to boot your computer at 8:45. That should leave a lot of time. Now, if a password must be entered for the boot to proceed, the question is : is it your job ? Then you should be paid as soon as you begin it. If it is somebody else's job, just wait for him/her to do it.
Signature omitted in order to save space. Thanks for your understanding.
At least in some types of jobs, like teaching at the university.
Life insurance in case of death while working, and travelling to and from work is covered too.
GPG 0x1B479C78
Even better:
If I'm getting paid to do my job, and I'm not getting paid to boot up and power down my machine, then booting up my machine and powering down my machine is not my job. Therefor, I do not have to do it.
Leave it running until you get a memory leak that makes you want to reboot.
Organization: alphabetical, sometimes numerical or messy
Seriously, is there nothing more interesting going on in the world right now? If this is indeed the case, that employees don't get paid before they log in, then go and buy a friggin' timer, or get a mac or linux, where these things are easy. Better yet, keep the machine running all night long at the expense of your employer! BETTER YET: hire somebody to walk around and turn on all the machines PRIOR to all the regular employees coming in! Disappointingly uninteresting story.
Damn. I recognised the snake when they said 'you dont get paid, util you clock in' and put a timer on the wall plug, and jimmied the power button. When, and if I got there, it was always ready to cook. I left it there after I had left, and Hmm got paid ( on auto-deposit for another two months! ). Pay clerk was a moron. But the job at the hauling complany was the worst. Clock in when you climb in the truck. Trouble was, the damn supervisor always left the truck a freaking dump! ( the cab...he always ate IN the cab! Jerk! ).
Welcome to the 20 minute working day ...
Me, I'm investing in a 300Hz metronome factory.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
so they can surf the net while booting up. They're only pissed off becuase there's nothing else to do.
I expect that the post only addresses non-salaried employees. If somebody has to spend time waiting for a computer to bootup it is only fair that they should be compensated. If a tool needs to be prepared by the operator before it can be used in the production of a good or service then it is still work.
This sort of "reasoning" (it's hardly reasonable) by those filthy scum suckers in corporate law is the reason why the trade union movement needs to get as militant as ever. Your employer inflicts a slow, piece of shit OS on you. It requires a daily reboot to stay half reliable, and you're expected to do this on your own time? Fuck capitalism, it's fucked and works for nobody but the greedy cunts who rip off the share market! Unionise, you have nothing to lose but your chains.
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1
If you are required to be away from home, in the workplace, to accomplish a task for your employer, guess what? That's work. You aren't free to do as you please and you are completing a task for someone else's benefit so hell yes you should get paid.
If your job involves using said computer, then turning the damn thing on is part of your job. And logging in. And opening your email program. That argument is like a plumber claiming that his job is just to use the torch to join pipes, not to get the thing lit up before use. That kind of grade-A bullshit is probably what leads to employers making a huge fuss over five minutes a day (any computer that takes 15 minutes to boot has other problems).
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
euh ...
Yes, if he can't stand to pay you to wait while vista boots up, he should :
a) get up earlier and start up the computer so it's up and running by the time you have to start work
(as in getting paid from 9 to 5 ???)
or
b) let you install linux, make it easier for you, cost less time for him, and make it more secure for both ...
No ?
beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)
Oh, I agree with you that it is my job. And I should get paid for doing my job.
My point is that if I'm doing my job and not getting paid for it, then it's obviously not my job, because my job duties require that I get paid for completing them. Therefor, pay up, bitches!
I agree that it shows professionalism to show up and take care of such things early. But that is really beside the point, because those things are not required anyway... so they are not covered by the law.
The law was intended to discourage abusive business practices that I am sure you have seen from time to time: requiring people to show up 10 minutes to even 30 minutes early, just to get the machines up and running before they go to "work". And similarly on shutting down. I have seen it and I know many others who have too.
I do not know many people who mind showing up a little bit early to get things taken care of before getting down to business. But the law clarifies, for a change, that this is voluntary rather than mandatory. And it actually gives people more opportunity to show the difference between those who want to excel and those who do not.