Out of Curiosity

[Paul Sperry]

OverTime never. Comptime allways.

On call one day a week and one weekend per month, for that I get one day off per month.



A whole lot better than my last job. No OT no comp
on call 24/7/365

[Chris Vail]

If your pay is reduced because you worked less than 40 hours, then you are an hourly employee DESPITE whatever else your boss may say. If your paycheck is calculated according to the number of hours you work per week/month/quarter/year, then you are an hourly employee, and they MUST pay you time-and-a-half, or face the wrath of the Wage and Hour Board of the Department of Labor.

If you get the same paycheck REGARDLESS of the number of hours you work in a week (etc.) then you're a salaried employee. The next determination is whether you're "exempt" or "non-exempt" from the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor act of 1933 (as amended and ruled). Primarily, you are exempt if you manage other people, or have some input into their working hours/conditions, set priorities, assign resources, or engage in other management functions.

You are NON-exempt if you, like me, have NO management functions: you don't have a budget, you don't set your own hours, you have no input into what others in your organization do or how they work. IOW: if you are a hardware/software guy ONLY, then you're Non-Exempt. This is a big deal.

We sysadmins are primarily "salaried, non-exempt". This means that we have to be paid overtime even though we have a salary. This additional wage is calculated at "half-time" rather than "time and a half". Your base salary covers ALL of the hours you work in a week, regardless of how many that is. However, if you work more than 40, you must be compensated. There are a couple of ways to calculate this overtime rate, and a HR professional can give you this info--I suspect that it would be on the Dept. of Labor's website, however.

Interestingly, our DBA's are considered "salaried, exempt" whereas we Sysadmins are "salaried, non-exempt". So we get paid for our overtime, they don't. They're not really happy about this. The justification for this difference is that the DBA's are considered software developers, rather than mere technicians such as we Sysadmins.

Do a little research on this. If your job description has NO management functions whatsoever--if you're JUST a technician, your boss CAN'T not pay you overtime for your hours.


Check it out.
Chris

[Ian Kidd_1]

Chris, the information you provided regarding the Fair Labor Act is something many of us should check out.

My company's "official" policy is one-for-one comp time and no overtime. Unfortunately, everyone here - including the sysadmins - are work-a-holics and don't look favorably towards the usage of the official comp time policy. No one says anything but they will all radiate contempt.

Based on observation, the "unofficial" comp time policy seems to be:

up to 50 hours - Come in late one day the following week and complain to EVERYONE about the work load

up to 60 hours - take a half-day off and complain to EVERYONE about the work load

60+ hours - take a day off. Come back and complain to EVERYONE about the workload.

By the way, I just wanted to complain to all of you about my workload.

[Michael Tully]

Sorry Ian, complaining wouldn't work with me ... ;^)

We have a sort of trust policy, you do the time, take the time off after when convenient. We make sure it is not too long after, because management will say "where were you" or, "you not entitled" because they forget...
If we don't take the time, it is your own fault and you and your family miss out ....

regards
Michael
"When I have trouble spelling, it's called fat finger syndrome"

[Suhas_2]

Pete,
We have to work nearly every week-end. There are no standard policy for comp-time, but we are "ALLOWED" to come in late on Monday. Late working is like a routine. If I reach home by 7:00 pm my wife would make fun of me for coming home so "early" ((:o)). I can never explain to my family, what I am doing inside the office for 20 hours in a stretch on a week-end ? and why I have to go to office the following morning.
By now you must have understood that the "POLICY" was very very "PROFESSIONAL".

[W.C. Epperson]

Well, I'm the pointy haired boss here (actually just an old grey haired systems weenie who displayed good judgement one time too many to remain technical staff). Official policy is set by HR, who rule all but one of my staff to be "exempt from overtime" under the FLSA.

In fairness, I handle off-hours work via "schedule adjustments", which are legal under HR rules. In practice, it works like comp time. I give 1 hour for every 8 on a pager, plus 1 for 1 for any actual work time spent. According to various surveys, that's in keeping with industry practices.

The USDOL site for FLSA is at:
http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa
and the "Exemptions" page is:
http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/screen75.asp

[Chris Wilshaw]

Seems like I get quite a good deal.

Time and a half for OT during the week until 12:00 on Sat

Double time from 12:00 Sat to 08:30 Mon

Flat rate per day of on-call, plus a flat rate per call, which depending on how long you're involved in the problem can turn into overtime too.

We get to take the O/T as either paid, or time off (within limits, and with management agreement).

Of course, my last job was the opposite. Overtime was considered as a 4 letter word there.

[Shannon Petry]

Here we have what is called "salary", which means your screwed ;)

Before my previous company was bought out, we had banked hours. Everything you worked over 8 in a day, went into the bank. You could use your banked hours for whatever you wanted, and/or cash them in at the end of the year. However, we were NEVER paid overtime on banked hours.

Now that my company has been purchased by a public minded (ruled by the CFO and Shareholders, not techies and engineers) we are all on salary. (Note that since the take over and rulers having only $$ in their heads we have lost a tremendous amount of business and are almost 1/2 revenue)

Sometimes, I can take additional time off, but it's not tracked. Usually, it's me telling my boss "I worked 12 hours Saturday, Im going to take tomorrow off to catch up".

The boss is not mad, and it works out okay. Im not as happy as I was, but at least in the crappy detroit economy I have a good job, just not a great job any more.

Regards,
Shannon

[Russ Park]

I work for a large, employee owned company. We have to go through a 1-hour CBT training course every year to review our complex internal policies which includes A TEST to see if we get it. The main reason for this is that a good deal of our work is for the government, and as such, we have auditors looking us over constantly for timecharging violations -there have been other companies that have taken significant advantage of their contractural relationships in this way.

I am titled "UNIX Systems Administrator" and am considered "Exempt" - As I support the NON-direct part of the company, the corporate office, my time is not billed to anyone, so for me, I must record 80 hours every 2 weeks (our pay period) and if I work more than that, I don't even record it. THEREFORE, as long as I work it carefully, when I gotta do weekend work, it's just like any other day of the week. As long as my work is up to date, If I work 8 hrs on the weekend, I could take the day off - I simply have to be sure someone is around to cover me during regular hours. I don't always get my time as I'd like, but it usually works out. If I had 72 hours by Thursday, and then had to work a 12 hour Friday, those last extra 4 hours are uncompensated, I don't get to carry them over. I start fresh each pay period.

Having worked under and seen a variety of situations, I've learned to work within this arrangement, and have for the most part, been a 40/wk guy. I have to work weekends often, but I also get flextime during the week, so I don't complain, and considering what some of you face, I am quite thankful!

-RP

[Mark Greene_1]

Pete,

We get a quarterly bonus check for being on-call 24x7 as part of a rotating schedule. The amount of the check is dependant upon the number of people who participate in the on-call rotation. The on-call policy is that I have to be within 1 hour of work for the entire time I am on-call, so the check is compensation for the limitations place on my life outside of regular work hours.

We do not have a comp time policy. However, I am obligated for 40 hrs/week, 8hr/day. So if I get called at midnight and am there 'til 5am working the problem, I can do "regular" work until 8am and go home for the day. During the weekend is a different story. My manager is cool and allows for a certain amount of in late/out early to make up for it. Not on a 1:1 basis, but the consideration is appreciated.

mark

[Chris Vail]

A lot of you folks need to be aware of the rules by the Dept. of Labor. The rules concerning comp time, overtime, weekend/holiday and evening work are fairly rigidly prescribed.

You HAVE to be compensated in one form or fashion for overtime work. This compensation IS NOT VOLUNTARY by either you or your managers. See also: http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/whdfs23.htm. Neither you nor your employer can waive this.

You are EXEMPT from the overtime rules if you are "Executive, administrative, and professional employees (including teachers and academic administrative personnel in elementary and secondary schools), outside sales employees, and employees in certain computer-related occupations (as defined in Department of Labor regulations); " (from the DOL website).

The kicker is that last bit about the DOL regulations. AFAICT: Systems Administrators are "non-exempt" and have to be paid overtime.

Violating these standards is an invitation to an investigation by the DOL. The investigation can lead to back-pay, penalties, fines and unpleasant publicity for all concerned.

I suggest that y'all do some research, and delicately mention this to the appropriate people at your employer.


Chris

[Mark Greene_1]

Chris:

System Admins are most definitely exempt:

http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/whdfs17.htm

"Professional Exemption
Applicable to employees who perform work requiring advanced knowledge and education, work in an artistic field which is original and creative, work as a teacher, or work as a computer system analyst, programmer, software engineer, or similarly skilled worker in the computer software field; who regularly exercise discretion and judgment; who perform work which is intellectual and varied in character, the accomplishment of which cannot be standardized as to time; who receive a salary which meets the requirements of the exemption (except doctors, lawyers, teachers and certain computer occupations); and who do not devote more than 20% of their time to work other than that described above"

This, however, does NOT mean that a system admin cannot receive extra compensation--it simply cannot be in the form of hourly overtime.

http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/whdfs23.htm

Fixed Sum for Varying Amounts of Overtime: A lump sum paid for work performed during overtime hours without regard to the number of overtime hours worked does not qualify as an overtime premium even though the amount of money paid is equal to or greater than the sum owed on a per-hour basis.

The idea here being if you cannot compensate someone who is owed overtime via a fixed sum, then it ought to be permissable to compensate someone who is not owed overtime with a fixed sum.

HTH
mark

[Chris Vail]

Mark,
As I mentioned, Systems Administrators are specifically "non-exempt". This differs from DBA's, programmers, analysts and the like. This is because, according to the job description, we're primarily technicians or technologists rather than analysts. This has everything to do with job description and not necessarily job title.

This is why I get paid half-time (not time-and-a-half) for hours worked more than 40 per week. My employer WAS investigated by the Wage & Hour Board subsequent to a complaint, and was found to not be in compliance with administrative law decisions handed down in the previous years. Because the case law was fairly recent, and the employer was very quick to begin compliance, no fines or penalties were assesed. However, had they tried to delay, forestall or circumvent the findings of the investigator, things could've gotten nasty (and a lot more expensive).

As part of the compliance agreement, signed 8/2001, the company had to pay back overtime wages to 1/1/2001 based on estimates given by each employee. Since then, this policy has remained in effect.

It has caused the company to complete its staffing. Nowadays, significant amounts of overtime are fairly rare.

Fundamentally, since they were expecting 60-70 hours/week EVERY week from us, they had to pay us. However, t'is just us line weenies who get this: the bosses don't.



Chris

[Ken Penland_1]

Yeah, gotta love "salary"... Since we are salaried employees, we dont get paid for working overtime, we just have to "eat" that time if we have to come in during off hours. If we can, we try to flex those hours, by taking a couple hours off here and there, but it has to be within the same pay period. This causes all of our outages to somehow always seem to happen the last Friday in the period ;)
Whenever you work over and ask for "overtime" they love to remind us that we are salary employees and get paid a set amount....but work UNDER your 40 hours a week, and see what happens....can ya say leave without pay?

[Mark Greene_1]

Chris,

Interesting. Good for you that your company played by the rules once they were pointed out.

I'm curious though, does your job description require a degree? Mine does, but then I'm labeled as a "system engineer", so perhaps my currently employer has circumvented the issue.

Anyway, anywhere I have worked, whether as a sys admin or not, the admins were always exempt, and the degree and "specialized knowledge" parts of the job descriptions were the drivers behind that.

mark

[Shannon Petry]

Yeah, the problem sighting the DOL policies is that there a tremendous amount of flaws (work arounds from the employer perspective).

I went round and round about this and ended up in court about 8 years ago. It was a combination of Workers Comp and salary issues. I learned alot about this issue back then. I fell and separated my shoulder (put the ball joint over top of my collar bone). I will state "If your severely hurt at work, never try to be a good guy and work injured."

I tried to help out for 2 days, but job was semi-physical. I was hurt more, and worse because I worked 2 days the workers comp insurance refused to make payment when I had to get 3 surgeries to get my shoulder fixed. I was initially stuck with $260,000.00 of doctor bills and had no revenue for 4 months. To top that off, I did not receive any money for 2 1/2 years (how long it stalled in court with good insurance attorneys), etc...

But enough of my blabber and sob story.

Lets just say it's not as easy as giving the DOL links and calling it a good day.

Regards,
Shannon

[Chris Vail]

Mark & Shannon:
My comments were that RECENT changes in administrative law decisions reclassified us sysadmins as technologists rather than analysts. My degree is in Theatre Arts (I kid you not), but this marks my 20th year in Unix (it was Xenix then--shudder). So I have a degree, but no real advanced training--I became HP IT Certified last year. My cow-orker has no degree at all, but 4 years experience in HPUX. But we're both considered non-exempt.

AFAICT: this change has only been within the last couple of years. When I started here in January 2001, I was an exempt employee, but became non-exempt in August of that year. The HR people themselves were unaware of the changes in the employment law.

The determining factor is your job description plus case law. Y'all should probably contact the DOL and ask for additional information. It'll be well worth your time to do so.

Chris

[Berlene Herren]

Comptime? I still can't believe HP PAYS me to do this job :-)
Berlene

And Steven, it is always a pleasure!

[Pete Randall]

Berlene,

I was looking for a more serious reading on this subject, but, after I thought about it, I realized you probably were serious (and there are many days when I feel the same way) - so I couldn't give you any less than my standard 5 points!

Have a great weekend!


Pete

[Berlene Herren]

I am glad you understood, Pete. After 20 years in the US Army, this job is GREAT!

Berlene

[Khalid A. Al-Tayaran]

Hi all,

We are paid on a hourly basis. New procedures are developed...

[Pete Randall]

Here's an interesting article about a proposal from the Bush administration:

http://money.cnn.com/2003/06/26/news/economy/epi/index.htm


Looks like Dubya is out to screw the little folk again!


Pete

[RAC_1]

In this part of world, rather with our company it is good.

We put in extra hours, we get a comp off.

I can club it together and take when I want.

But that lapses after a year.

So OK to take comp off when need it. Money part ok, so it is great to be with family rather than thinking of money for extra hours.

[Tim D Fulford]

My compamy have cut back considerably. As far as they are concerned we should be thankful for a job.

Just wait till the up-turn arrives!!!

Tim

[Elena Leontieva]

As a salaried employee I do not have an overtime, just have to flex off the after hours and weekend hours during the current pay period. We got weekly on-call schedule (three persons), although we are supposed to carry pager all the time, because you are either 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person to call. Obviously I have a monthly maintenance weekend. To take a 1 week vacation is always a big deal, - it has to be coordinated well in advance from my side, but can be cancelled any time. The idea here is to be happy having a secure job and tolerate its inflexibility. I am not sure about $$$?