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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
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...
The person who telecommutes would not get paid for that time, why should the person in office?
workers these days in the big companies. Do they clock in once they log onto their network or what?
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.
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.
It looks like the issue is that the workers agree with you: The employers do not want to pay for the time to be there. My guess would be that the "clock in" is done on the computer.
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
Seeing as the last big company I worked for used IE6 for "security reasons", I don't think they know how to configure auto-boot.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
if you gave us their IP range and a favorite website of one of the workers, I'm sure we could configure it for for them.
The ______ Agenda
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.
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!
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)
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.
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
My computer burns about 150W idling away (displays eat another 100W, but they turn off after 5 minutes). At a nominal rate of about $.06/kWH, that's 12.6c/day (14H idling) - my free soda costs more. Never mind that most places pay on something like peak usage during the day, so a bit of power wasted at night costs nothing at all.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
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.
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 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.
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.
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
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just quit your job and start a business. Problem solved.
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?
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
...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.
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.
The boss doesn't want to pay for employee bootup time?
The (salaried) boss should come in early and boot every single employees computer.
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.
So the tipping system induced you to steal from both your employer and your customers. Interesting.
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.