When Overtime is Normaltime

[Ghengis51]

I feel lucky that I don't have to work overtime that often. I do work a second job so that chews up enough of my free time thank-you-very-much. But my full time job is essential, which means we HAVE to have at least one person on. If the scheduled person calls off they start calling for people who want to work it, if no one volunteers the activate Mandatory Overtime. Meaning the call the low man on the list (me until just recently), and say congrats you're working an extra shift. It's only happened to me twice, first time was horrid. I had just worked my first night of 11pm-7am. Anyone knows that switching shifts like that screws you up something bad and takes a few days to get acclimated to. As hard as i try, i can't get asleep till noon. At about 1 my phone rang, they called me in for overtime on the 3pm-11pm shift. . . and i still had to work my shift after that. I had to work 16 hours on 2 odd hours of sleep. I was PISSED, i ended up throwing my poor little phone into the couch as hard as possible (i was mad, but i wasn't about to break my phone). Grabbed a 12 pack of pepsi and made it through the day drinking 1 can every 2 hours.

[Tuxian]

At about 1 my phone rang, they called me in for overtime on the 3pm-11pm shift. . . and i still had to work my shift after that. I had to work 16 hours on 2 odd hours of sleep.

That, I do believe, is classified under the heading of "ILLEGAL" in most jurisdictions. AFAIK, and IANAL, so double-check your local ordinances and labor laws to be sure, but most places I know of require you to be given a minimum of 8 hours between shifts, for health and saftey reasons. A person who has not had a chance to rest is more prone to accidents while on the clock, be they big or small. A lot of places also require you to be given a certain amount of time before the shift change if they are changing a posted schedule, and 2 hours doesn't sound like nearly enough time to force you to work a 16 hour shift.

I sure hope that place has gotten its act together. Might want to let the local labor board know about it, which you should be able to do anonymously.

[Girly]

And it's going to be rough. But when management expects an extra amount out of you, it's always easier to bear when either there's a good reason for it that you understand (and probably should have understood when being hired— like in this case, or working retail around Christmas), or they give you some reason to believe that both they really understand what you're going through and that they're trying to get the problem solved.

It's an absolute bear, however, when they tell you essentially "tough noogies, you're not making enough money for us yet", even if they use politer language. Which has happened to me. By the guy who's recently been promoted to director of company operations.

It is kind of easier, even though we put in 60+ hours a week minimum, because the partners of the firm are right there working, too. The other eight months out of the year, they are nowhere to be found, but for these four, they work longer hours than most of the rest of the office.

When I was interviewing a couple of years ago, one of the partners wanted to make sure I understood that I really, truly would have no life during tax season. I couldn't believe that people actually didn't know that, and expected to work 40 hours year-round, no exceptions, or expected to get 'compensated' for all the work they do put in for four months.

[Ayleah]

We have "mandatory" overtime twice a month on Saturdays for 4 hours each.
It's fine, as far as I am concerned, because we get paid overtime pay, and it's only a few hours. I just wish it was a little later in the day, I'd like to be able to be out Friday night later than 10pm

[Ghengis51]

That, I do believe, is classified under the heading of "ILLEGAL" in most jurisdictions. AFAIK, and IANAL, so double-check your local ordinances and labor laws to be sure, but most places I know of require you to be given a minimum of 8 hours between shifts, for health and saftey reasons. A person who has not had a chance to rest is more prone to accidents while on the clock, be they big or small. A lot of places also require you to be given a certain amount of time before the shift change if they are changing a posted schedule, and 2 hours doesn't sound like nearly enough time to force you to work a 16 hour shift.

Unfortanately my job has extra leeway, when I say we're considered essential I mean cops-can't-keep-me-off-the-road-in-a-state-of-emergency essential. I'm a civilian employee for the our state police. They can force us to do double shifts (supervisor's do ALL the time) but it's when it gets to the 3rd shift in a row they're stuck.

[powerboy]

The only things I care about on overtime is the money. With that being said, I will do the time. I onced worked 11hr days for 5 days a week and 8hr for both Sat and Sun. That was for a month, then it got slow. I brought home some great ass pay.

[AKWalMartCartGuy]

my store is on "no overtime" and probably will be for a long time.

[blas]

I'm applying at Wal-Mart tomorrow then.

[dougiezerts]

It is Sunday morning, and I am at work getting ready for my shift. Last night, the in-charge asked me if I wanted to come in for any overtime, today. I refused.
When it's a Sunday, and they need overtime, things are pretty bad, around here.

[Jbball]

I wish overtime was required, I'd be pulling in like $28/hr!

Sadly, though, things are a bit slow, so I'm usually looking for stuff to do.

I did work for a movie theatre that didn't pay for overtime. At first, I thought it was trash and was upset when I learned about it. At that time in my life, I really only worked and played games, so when I learned that we could work as many hours a week we wanted, I was stoked. When I got into management, I ended up with 50-60 hrs a week. Sure, no over time, but my paychecks were still larger.

*It's a law in Texas that any "service" job isn't required to be paid overtime. Another company I theatre I worked for, was just opening up, made sure to explain in detail how lowly they thought of the staff, by telling them straight out in fairly harsh terms how they're not getting overtime because they're basically cock-roaches to them. Luckily, I was a projection manager, so it didn't apply to me (though, they were only paying me $6.50/hr, so I quit when they were in a bind, just to stick it to them).

[blas]

Um....we're cockroaches to the higher ups where I work, and the reasons we are forced to work mass amounts of overtime is because it's always "Our" fault if we fall behind and when they keep changing the goals, and because we're the scum of the earth.

[Peppergirl]

Um....we're cockroaches to the higher ups where I work, and the reasons we are forced to work mass amounts of overtime is because it's always "Our" fault if we fall behind and when they keep changing the goals, and because we're the scum of the earth.

Blas, you are so silly. The reason you guys fall behind is because of everyone taking the two minutes to start their cars in the cold weather.

::runs away::

[blas]

Oh you silly goose....the reason we fall behind is because of a) idiot higher ups who have no idea how to run a factory b) weekend shifts with plush-toy supervisors who allow them to run amock and not do any work and demand other shifts make up for it by helping them out.

Trust me, we get nailed when we don't come in and help them on the weekends. The weekend shifts are suprisingly better staffed than 2nd and 3rd shift. However, more people doesn't mean more accomplished. Not when they spend all night wandering around the room chit chatting or patrolling the hallways chatting.

They have more people than us, yet can't do the work that WE can do with a skeleton staff.......they come in to "help" us and don't put a dent in the work because guess what, they do nothing at all.

I have better things to do on my Friday and Saturday nights than to even be there in the first place, much less be there to be USED while everyone else fucks around.

[Peppergirl]

There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING worse than management who says they're going to 'help' you get caught up.

They either do absolutely nothing, like you said, or they fuck everything up and make it take 2x longer to fix.