Are you a salaried employee?

[rgf207]

I am salaried and I manage the I.T. Department at my company. I honestly can't remember the last time I worked only an 8 hour day. My average day is about 9.5 hours

 

[MadScouser]

I'm an Accountant for a UK company - but whose Head Office is now in the US (was Canada)

I sometimes have to work late - usually related to time of month deadlines - and I have to travel quite a bit (Europe as well as US - typically 3 or 4 days per mth)

Do i do more than my contracted hours ? Yes
Have I had to 'miss out' on things sometimes due to an unexpected work request ? Yes

But at the same time, I know I am blessed in that I do have a good job (having spent many years studying and working my up the ladder), and I know that I have a really good boss who is flexible in terms of if I need to leave early / work from home etc

I guess my point is, it's not ideal - but if you are appreciated (in say, the small things) then it does help balance out those extra requirements

 

[Pakey]

I'm a salaried employee and have been for almost all of my career. I've worked 80 hour work weeks for most of that time. I've never known any salaried individuals with a 40 hour work week; what a treat that would be.

 

[frndshpcptn]

At my previous job, I would work 11-12 hours a day at the office, plus check email when I got home at night, on the train in the morning and all day (via Blackberry) on weekends. I slept with my Berry next to my bed and it was the first thing I looked at in the morning and the last thing I looked at in the evening.

Now I work closer to 9 hour days, with only one or two email checks per weekend. No Blackberry.

 

[Aristomommy]

I'm a salaried employee and have been for almost all of my career. I've worked 80 hour work weeks for most of that time. I've never known any salaried individuals with a 40 hour work week; what a treat that would be.

My manager is salaried and she works 7-3:30pm every day. I have not seen her stay late more than a handful of times. Maybe healthcare is different than other industries, but she is not expected to stay later.

 

[POOHDRMR]

My husband is project manager in IT and is salaried.His regular workday is 8-6 but when there are big projects or problems it is later.He gets call at home any hour(he runs the website for a major camera company)and always has his work phone on him.He worked for a different company before this that he was first hourly and then became salary-once he was salary his work day was much longer.He gets more work done after 5 when most people do go home because he doesn't have all the meetings and everyone always asking him things.

 

[Fintastic]

DH is a salaried employee at his company that is fortunately growing in this economy. They had a meeting today where management stressed that they hate to see employees routinely leave at 4:30pm (usual work day is 8-430pm) when the economy is what it is. They want employees who enjoy their work instead of looking at the clock for their day to end.

That made me wonder, if others who are salaried usually work an 8 hour day (or however long a regular work day is) or if there is some unspoken rule that you should stay longer routinely? DH is not a manager, but a highly specialized engineer that can get his stuff done in an 8 hour day. He doesn't come in late, takes a short lunch and will stay if needed. But why stick around just for the perception that you are a good employee? What do you think?

I think it's ridiculous to have to put in face time if your work is done.

I'm salaried and my work day is 8:00 - 4:30. I'll stay late if necessary, but if I'm done with my work? Yeah, I'm going to be living right at the stroke of 4:30!

 

[Liberty Belle]

My husband's job is salaried. He normally leaves around the same time every day (5), unless a problem has come up, a meeting has run over, or it's move-in or move-out week (he works at a university). Sometimes, during those weeks, especially, he'll have to work a few Saturdays and a few hours on Sunday.

 

[Liberty Belle]

I'm a salaried employee and have been for almost all of my career. I've worked 80 hour work weeks for most of that time. I've never known any salaried individuals with a 40 hour work week; what a treat that would be.

My husband's work week is around 40 hours (some really busy weeks might go up to 53 hours or so). He works for a university, though, and his pay is not what it would be if he worked for a private company, so I guess it's not all rosy anywhere you go.

 

[bumbershoot]

In hubby's last job (that ended 2 months ago when the dept closed) he was salaried. He was extremely organized, extremely focused, and he knew how to manage his time. He rarely needed to stay over. There was another guy there who got in 1 or 2 hours early every day, stayed 1 or 2 hours late every day, and was perceived as a hard worker...but he got *maybe* half the work done that hubby did every day. Their quality was the same. Thankfully hubby had a good rep too; another person with a different personality might have been perceived as a slacker, since he so rarely stayed late.

I always like it when companies act like they have brains; unfortunately, there aren't many. My brother seems to work for one, but he's really had to convince them that they have brains and should use them, LOL. Those middle managers, I tell ya, it really does seem to be all about perception instead of reality...

 

[ORMom2Four]

DH is a salaried employee at his company that is fortunately growing in this economy. They had a meeting today where management stressed that they hate to see employees routinely leave at 4:30pm (usual work day is 8-430pm) when the economy is what it is. They want employees who enjoy their work instead of looking at the clock for their day to end.

That made me wonder, if others who are salaried usually work an 8 hour day (or however long a regular work day is) or if there is some unspoken rule that you should stay longer routinely? DH is not a manager, but a highly specialized engineer that can get his stuff done in an 8 hour day. He doesn't come in late, takes a short lunch and will stay if needed. But why stick around just for the perception that you are a good employee? What do you think?

The meeting sounds like it was a way of confronting your Dh without putting him on the spot directly.

My Dh is salaried, as are all of the people in his department. They all work at least a 50 hour week, most often more. Dh normally gets into work at 7:30am and gets home around 6pm. They have had situations where one of them will start leaving early, and have needed to talk to the person about it. (Dh is the lead of the dept, so he has done those "we can't be leaving so early" meetings) I wish Dh could leave at 4:30 I'm sure he does too, lol.

I think the 8 hour work day is a thing of the past.......

 

[Mandychelle79]

Im salary for now. Theres a slight issue with school next sememester. I have worked 50 hours unpaid since the beginning of the year. I will not do to my children what my mom did to us with her job. My job will never be more important than my family. I dont usually answer the phone on the weekends unless a message is left and if I work extra one day, i will leave early the next. I may give 15 mins per day if I get to work early. Our boss makes it a contest on who can work the most for free and I refuse to play the game. I havent had a raise in over 2 yrs. My mom used to work so many hours for free as the director of nursing she was making less per hour worked then the nurses aides.

 

[manning]

As salaried you are not paid hourly. If they want you to work 24/7, they don't have to pay you anymore. However there are benefits. If you come in for a minute and leave you are paid for the full day.

I thought it sucked when I was put on salaried status years ago. However it worked out for me. I had to take time off for an opertion. To get back my sick time I had to work 6 months without taking any sick time off. Once a week I had to leave a half a day for chemo. After six months my records showed I did not get my sick time back because I was takiing time off for treatment....until I pointed out I was salaried and all I have to do to get paid is show my face at the office.... and have my work done of course.

 

[adkkev]

Employees that are excited about their jobs often stay at least a little late because they are in the middle of something and don't want to put it down. Really good employees know how to manage their time so they can accomplish tasks within a set period of time. Staying late at one's job is absolutely not an indication that the employee is "excited" about their job. Maybe they were goofing off all day & suddenly realized that the task they'd been procrastinating about is due ASAP!

Another bad sign is when an employee is totally non-responsive during non-work hours. Baloney. My time is my time. Not the company's time. Non-work hours are NON-WORK hours. IF the company has given the employee notice of their expectation that they HAVE to be responsive 24/7, and is compensating that employee for such, then that's one thing. But if it's not part of the job description, then no company should expect it. In my line of work, employees that like their jobs are often on their computers at home sending and responding to e-mails as interesting ideas hit them. I love it when someone sends me an idea on Sunday evening because it usually means they're excited about something and can't wait for the "work week" to get moving on it. So your measure of a good employee is the amount of time that employee spends on their computer at home? Especially if they're working on something for the company? So the employee who values his family and spends little time, if any, on the computer when with his family, is a bad employee? Really?

On the flip side, I hate clock watching managers. They're the guys that walk the floor a little after 6:00 PM to see who is still there putting in the hours. I've yet to see one that shows up at 6:30 AM to see who is getting a jump on the day. Most places I've worked at have flexible hours and the people that show up early each day get shafted by the clock watchers. Fortunately, most of the managers I've worked for reward people based on what they do and not how many hours they take to do it. But you just said that a good employee who likes their job is one who spends extra hours working, and the bad employee is one who does not! People should be rewarded based upon what they do ... but what about that non-responsive employee that you criticized? What if that employee does a great job, well within their prescribed working hours?

 

[Quiksilvr]

My job requires something close to 24/7 awareness (via blackberry, remote access, etc.). It's not exactly stated anywhere in the employee handbook, but it's the expectation. I don't really have anything such as "Non-Work Hours". I miss those.

For example, I was in a meeting this morning and it became clear that we'd have to do a conference call sometime this weekend for an update on the project (which assumed that we'd all be working on the project during the weekend to move the ball forward and thus give rise to the need for a call). No one in the room batted an eye.

Still, I get compensated very well for what I do. It's part of the trade-off.

 

[Mom2Nick]

DH is an Electrical Engineer and is Salary. He is one of only a handful of Engineers in a very technical company so he is always swamped and "in demand". His hours are 7 - 3:30however he typically works 6-6. Last night he left at 7. He does not work not until the clock says it's ok for him to go home if he wants, he works until he has done everything that he needed to do that day - within reason. He has a job in this economy because he is dedicated and will do whatever it takes to get the job done without regard to the time of day.

 

[SundancePass]

If a person is salaried, there is no such thing as overtime. The "extra" 50 hours the OP worked are not compensable.

I've had as many as 60 direct reports (I know, I know...waaayyy too many) who were all salaried. The Executive VP I reported to demanded that I not leave before 6PM and didn't care if I traveled 3 weekends in a row. It was "part of my job".

That was OK with me but not for my direct reports. If they were gone the weekend, I made certain they got 2 days off the next week.

It all depends on the company and the "boss". Most, IMO, people these days are terrified of losing the job they have so will put in as much time as needed to either get the job done and "look good" or just get the job done. For most of my career, I never paid attention to the time but rather to the work. Some days I showed up for 5 mintues and left and other days I slept there. Being salaried, to me, means I chose and had to do whatever it took to get the "job done" and if that meant hanging around in the office of the EVP "after hours" because he didn't want to go home, that's what I did.

Now that we own our own firm, we make certain that it gets done between 8 and 5 with no weekend or holiday work.

 

[Caradana]

I'm surprised that two magical words haven't come to dominate this conversation: "performance bonus." I'm a salaried employee in an industry that culturally delivers once-yearly performance bonuses from anywhere between 10%-1000%+ of our base salary. I'm very passionate about my work, but I'm not embarrassed to say that the prospective bonus has been a huge motivator on nights, weekends, every time I've ever checked my blackberry discreetly under the restaurant table, every time I've ever run out of the movie theater to answer a vibrating work cell phone ... our bonus day is in the middle of January, and we literally treat it like a secular holiday. It is a celebration. A guy here at work reset one of those New Years' countdown clocks to hit zero on bonus day, and it counts down in fractional seconds. It's hysterical.

The extra 20 or 30 hours a week I deliver on top of the 40-base that's contractually required have had a huge impact on my income.

D

 

[Maridw]

In our office with have full salaried employees and Hourly-Salaried employees. Our president and two other are regular salaried employees. They get paid a set amount a week no matter how many hours they put in. Myself and one other are hourly-salaried. We get paid for the total number of hours we work each week. We get a set annual amount instead of a set hourly amount. We weren't hired at $xx.xx an hour, we were hired at $xx,xxx.xx a year.

Then our work week is 37 hours (8-4:30 M-Th; 8-4 F). If we work over 40 hours a week, we get time & a half. To figure out our hourly rate, we divide the annual amount by 52 and then that number by 37. Confusing huh?

I don't mind the way I am paid. Last week I worked 42.5 hours so I got an additional 3 hours for the week at regular pay and then 2.5 overtime.

I don't mind staying late when needed, but if there is no reason to stay and nothing urgent that needs to be done or can't wait until the next day, I go home at 4:30 (or 4). Last Thursday we had to be at an event at 7:15am and then I ended up staying late to help out on another project.

Friday, I had to attend a meeting in a place 3 hours away and had to meet my boss at 6am and we did not get back to my car until 6pm. 11 hour day.

 

[AshleyW]

Wow, I can't believe how much some of you guys work! I'm hourly, so I don't mind working longer than I'm scheduled.. but seeing you how much you guys work makes me even more annoyed with my supervisor I work in quality assurance at a call center (theres 2 of us in QA.. me and my supervisor), and he's salaried 8am to 4:30pm M-F. At least once or twice a week, he comes in around 10 or 11. Every day he takes 60-90 minute lunch breaks instead of 30 minutes, and is always out the door by 4:30. And then he wonders why things aren't getting done..