Working Off the Clock, How Much Is Too Much?

The Wall Street Journal has word of yet another suit against an employer who required an "always on" mentality to persist because of easily available communications. Most of us working in some sort of tech related job are working more than 40 hours per week (or at least lead the lifestyle of always working), but how much is too much? What methods have others used in the past to help an employer see the line between work and personal life without resorting to a legal attack? "Greg Rasin, a partner at Proskauer Rose LLP, a New York business law firm, said the recession may spawn wage-and-hour disputes as employers try to do the same amount of work with fewer people. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act says employees must be paid for work performed off the clock, even if the work was voluntary. When the law was passed in 1938, 'work' was easy to define for hourly employees, said Mr. McCoy. As the workplace changed, so did the rules for when workers should be paid."

Comments

Where do I begin

[weave]

Oooo, an opportunity to whine! I'll start.

I don't mind working in the middle of the night if nagios wakes me up because something went wrong. Sure beats having to deal with it first thing in the morning. But what ticks me off is when I roll into work 30 minutes "late" the next day and it's like "Oh look, weave is rolling in late again."

But the big scam is comp time. Work after hours? Gotta take comp time. But then there's never an opportunity to use it, and if you do manage to use comp time, you don't get a chance to use all of your vacation time, and at the end of the year you lose unused vacation time. If you insist and take all of your comp time and vacation time, people are whining that you're always on leave and never around and then when projects don't get done, you get dinged on your performance eval.

Re:Where do I begin

[Chyeld]

I'll save you some time, there is no such law. Accrual rates can be capped even in employee friendly California.

On the other hand, Californians are protected from "use it or lose it" plans.

See here.

Re:Where do I begin

[Falconhell]

I cant believe any of this is legal, you really do get totally screwed in the US with working conditions.

In Australia, all annual leave is cumulative, that is all untaken leave adds up. If you leave the employer it must be paid out in full.

Sick leave is cumulative too.

Annual leave is a minimum of 4 weeks and 2 weeks sick leave.

Why are such pathetic working condidtions tolerated?

Re:Where do I begin

[Alpha830RulZ]

Never EVER trust a manager, even if you are friends. They will NOT go to bat for you.

Wow. Just wow. Is this, and the other manager-loathing screeds here just a measure of your own collective self distrust? If you were a manager, would you shed your character and cease to ever go to bat for a member of your team? Would you shed your humanity as if it were a lizard skin?

I think it's smart to have some perspective about the counter incentives in a corporate structure that operate against your own self interest. But if you go through life treating everyone in a management position as a thief and a cheat, you may create a self fulfilling prophesy. If you don't trust, you don't earn the basis for trust.

Says a manager who has:

1) gone to the house of a depressive employee who didn't show up for three days to see if he was OK and get him to a doctor,

2) gone head to head with a VP of HR who was hell bent on firing a junior kid for perceived sexual harrassment (poor choice of a password that someone read over his shoulder)

3) Helped an employee change divisions and towns to elude a stalker.

We're not all compulsively evil.