Work-Life Balance and Pay 42

[DirtSmuggler]

Hello
I've become a salary (field) employee now. Finding myself doing a lot of overtime that I'm not getting paid for. How do I address this with management? Find myself taking work home and working for additional 2-3 hours because EVERYTHING is "urgent" and "asap". I'm not getting compensated for the additional time, even though I'm billing the client for the time. What do I do?

 

[DirtSmuggler]

An update for anyone that cares.

I've managed to arrange myself to work for two other managers. They liked my work and ethics and have been grabbing me for all their projects, as well as spending time to teach me more as well. I'm no longer working with that past manager anymore and my work life balance is significantly better. As long as I get all my work done and the quality is there, they don't care if I work 35 hours or 45 hours. When there's deadlines, I do work overtime, but now it's my choice, and I willingly do it.

The past managers was just creating unnecessary work and standards. None of the other managers demand what he did. And they are better at setting up the projects.

I've also received offers from other companies for 15% increase in salary but did not take it. Now that my work environment has improved, I'm good where I'm at now.

 

[KENAT]

Youniccon well that's a nice update - good to hear it.

I now feel less guilty responding to phamENG so..

In my experience 'money being tight' had little to do with the engineering workload - joys of being in the manufacturing field I suppose. We could be crazy busy working on multiple projects all the hours God sent etc. but if sales dipped, engineering still had to take a hair cut and to compound it they wouldn't necessarily reduce the number of projects or consciously push out schedules so the workload would actually increase. In 'Engineering as a service' environments I can see how it may be different.

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[phamENG]

Youniccon - excellent news. Glad you were able to work things out successfully.

KENAT - guilt? You mean that wasn't an honest accounting of what happened? I'm shocked. Kidding aside, the difference in market is a good thing to consider. Regions and countries have different standards and laws, and different industries within engineering have different modes of operating. For you, the engineering is likely your way out of the hole - create a better product, improve a product, make the manufacturing more efficient, etc. For us, the engineering is the product, so if nobody is buying there's nothing to do. Marketing has to get us out of the hole to start working again.

 

[KENAT]

The guilt was at straying off topic, my story is 100% accurate I swear.

Yeah you got my implicit point on how engineering behaves in different sectors/business structures etc. - it's something posters should remember in this type of soft forum - I'm definitely not saying people from other sectors shouldn't answer but the context of their input needs consideration on occasion.

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[CWB1]

The idea of not having enough work to fill 40 hours (or 37 back in Blighty) is hard to imagine.

That's a regular occurrence in the modern corporate world, bust your ass then relax. Occasionally a new, lousy manager will try to fill those weeks with random tasks on other projects but those folks dont last long. Intentionally inducing employee burnout and killing other projects' efficiency never goes over well with management, and modern PM tools give everybody access to the data to prove those managers lousy. Yet another reason why the M-F, 8-4 week has largely disappeared - data.

 

[KENAT]

CWB1 your experience of modern corporate America does not match mine.

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[GregLocock]

...and the first McDonalds coffee lawsuit was an adult American 'victim'. So I think we'll put that one to bed as well.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[CWB1]

Yet despite the McD's "tragedy" only a few chains stateside actually print warnings on their coffee cups. Given that coffee sales here are measured in tens of millions of cups daily, are often self-dispensed (the most likely time to spill) by customers, and that we dont see an epidemic of burns leading to lawsuits then I'd say consumers really dont need legal protections in that area. Most recognize coffee is hot and take appropriate precautions, just the same as they realize that income is important and negotiate accordingly.

As to the "modern" corporate world, apologies if I tend to be a bit suspicious of others' opinions on the matter. Ask any PM consultant what their biggest struggle is when hired to modernize basic PM process and they'll say it is employees who mistake their employer's antiquated methods for "modern" - the old "aversion to progress."

 

[IRstuff]

Note that Liebeck had asked for a measly $20k to settle, which were her actual damages and had not even asked for covering here partial disability from the injuries; McDonalds refused to settle. McDonalds refused all offers to settle.

Note also that McDonalds ran their coffee on the hot side 180F to 190F, the high side of which results in nearly instantaneous 3rd degree burns; the ostensible reason is that people can't drink coffee as fast, thereby reducing the amount of refills McDonalds have to pour, thereby maintaining their high level of profits from that product.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[geotechguy1]

This thread has gotten offtrack but I think my key learning is I'm glad I don't work for CWB1

 

[TigerGuy]

Congratulations on moving into a better position. Despite everything that has been said, it is up to you what fits your goals best. Take the lesson from the experience, and leave the emotional baggage behind.