Hourly vs. Salary
Well. I never dreamed it in a million years, but my company has found a new and interesting way to torture me.
Some of you may have heard about an interesting little lawsuit in California (several, in fact) that have sought to change the overtime laws in favor of the employees. Meaning that, instead of being an exempt professional employee with the full entitlement to do my job at my discretion and set my own hours, I now am a non-exempt nonprofessional employee, I have to keep a set schedule, work no more than 38.75 hours per week, and report my daily doings to my supervisor. And every hour that I work over 38.75 is paid to me rather than being absorbed as part of my salary.
Granted, this is a great idea, but what has happened as I predicted is that my company now will not permit me to work overtime, and I have LONG maintained that my job can not be done properly in that short of a time period per week. And, of course, the job itself is not changing, so what is now happening is that I have the same job duties and a hell of a lot less time to do it in.
It's torture.
A perfect example of this torture is today. I left my house at 9:30 am. I got to my first appointment at 10:15 am. I worked solid all day at my fire house. Because of the fact that my customer kept me there answering question after question after question, not only did I get home late, but I didn't finish what I had to finish and have to go back tomorrow to finish up. Hence, I didn't get to sign on to my company's claim system and work at all, and won't be on tomorrow until late in the day. Maddening!
I know that as the typical employee, I should not care a bit about this and should just work my allotted hours and not worry about it, but I feel like this is going to cost me my performance and I just can't accept that. At all. It really bothers me!
Talking to Queenie accomplishes nothing. She refuses to approve any overtime and basically has made it known to me that she doesn't want to debate the issue. Period.
I am at a loss as to what to do. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Some of you may have heard about an interesting little lawsuit in California (several, in fact) that have sought to change the overtime laws in favor of the employees. Meaning that, instead of being an exempt professional employee with the full entitlement to do my job at my discretion and set my own hours, I now am a non-exempt nonprofessional employee, I have to keep a set schedule, work no more than 38.75 hours per week, and report my daily doings to my supervisor. And every hour that I work over 38.75 is paid to me rather than being absorbed as part of my salary.
Granted, this is a great idea, but what has happened as I predicted is that my company now will not permit me to work overtime, and I have LONG maintained that my job can not be done properly in that short of a time period per week. And, of course, the job itself is not changing, so what is now happening is that I have the same job duties and a hell of a lot less time to do it in.
It's torture.
A perfect example of this torture is today. I left my house at 9:30 am. I got to my first appointment at 10:15 am. I worked solid all day at my fire house. Because of the fact that my customer kept me there answering question after question after question, not only did I get home late, but I didn't finish what I had to finish and have to go back tomorrow to finish up. Hence, I didn't get to sign on to my company's claim system and work at all, and won't be on tomorrow until late in the day. Maddening!
I know that as the typical employee, I should not care a bit about this and should just work my allotted hours and not worry about it, but I feel like this is going to cost me my performance and I just can't accept that. At all. It really bothers me!
Talking to Queenie accomplishes nothing. She refuses to approve any overtime and basically has made it known to me that she doesn't want to debate the issue. Period.
I am at a loss as to what to do. Does anyone have any suggestions?
posted by Erica at 5:41 PM
MoiraKatydid
emgonz
emgonz@msn.com
3 Comments:
Erica-it's Hula. Go check your LL journal....
I usually underreport my hours, like the conversation with the client at the fire house. I tend to list those as personal conversations and off the clock time. Basically it's "lawyer style" billing,I only count time that I'm productive on the job.
Hmmm... I wouldn't do that because talking to clients IS part of your job. If your company doesn't care enough to pay you to work those additional hours, you should care even less. Keep EXTREMELY good records of how your work hours are being spent and let the chips fall where they may. The end result will be that either they will change the current policy, or approve those hours, either way, there's no point in you stressing if they are not.
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