Four tens?

[TDAA]

In the US, are there any issues or restrictions (like from the IRS) for a salaried employee working 4 ten hour days? The company I am at says there are issues with that, and you must work on at least 5 days a week, but not necesarrily 8(+) hours a day. I don't want to do it all the time, just occasionally, like this week when I will have 40 without needing to take a day vacation.

I am pretty sure there are not, as there are state jobs that allow for flexibility, including comp time. I think it is just a company policy that they do not want to own up to when questioned. Most people would just let this pass, but this really grates on me that I believe they are lieing. I believe it is just that they won't get the 45+ they want out of you if you are only there 4 days. I would not mind if someone out ther could back them up on this, just want to know where it comes from.

 

[BillBirch]

I once worked on a project with an oil company based in the design consultant's office. Officially the work day commenced at 7.30 am but one of the consultant's lead (discipline) engineers would not come in until 10 am at the earliest. I do know that he would often be in the office at 11 pm.

Our argument was that one of his responsibilities was to mentor the young national engineers within his department, and that often his group would waste hours in the morning if they could not get his resolution to a problem.

One of the solutions that we came up with was to call progress meetings for 8 am.

That, however was for a supervisory role. With the proper back-up in place there should be no reason against four day weeks, but some people I know need re-training after a three day week-end!
Regards,
Bill

 

[tickle]

BillBirch

If the supervisor can assign tasks adequately, there is no need for them to be there at all times. If they are there everyday then the younger engineers have the opportunity each day to get the questions resolved.

Part of mentoring is usually checking peoples work and the supervisor may have been working on this each morning.

The development of all engineers is to find the answers themselves and not ask questions when they come up. Most times the information is there and people are just not looking. If they cannot find the answers then asking the correct question is the best way forward. Therefore there is no reason why the younger engineers are wasting time, they can be trying to find the answer themselves, working out what the correct question is or getting on with the next piece of work.

Tickle

 

[SomptingGuy]

We work for an average of 7.5/day. Each month we can take a day off so long as our average for that month is 7.5/day or more. There are core hours, but not many of them.

- Steve

 

[JStephen]

In the past, I have seen work rules at particular places where anything over 8 hours in a day was overtime, regardless of the hours worked in a week. But that's not an IRS issue, and wouldn't normally be applied to office staff anyway.

 

[11echo]

There use to be issues with working over 8 hours a day and not getting overtime, but these issues have finally been straighten out. A number of people here work 4/10's ...but I work 4/9 and a 4 ...If I had the whole day off Friday I would blow it by sleeping late or the wife would have me "doing something" ...but getting to leave at 11:30 Friday and not come back feels ...wicked! *G* Like I'm skipping work ...which makes it feel all the more better. So I do half-day-Fridays. And I get to do my "own thing" during that time! *G*

 

[KENAT]

I work a semi formal 4X10. I'm in SoCal.

In practice it's more like a 10, 2X11s and an 8. Actually I normally do over 40 by a little so that's not quite right.

I sometimes come back in the evening (I work out of town during the week) and find those some of my most productive hours.

Or else I'll work outside the office and if it's something I don't need network access for that can be productive too.




KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[Snork]

Around here the folks on salary tend to work 5/10 plus a bit on weekends. It would be great to get down to just 40 hours a week.