Office closed + no power at home = PTO?

[rh71]

No power at home? Not their fault. Just like if your car broke down on the way to work.

Power's out? Sparingly use your laptop and tether internet from your smartphone to skip the forced PTO.

 

[MrSquished]

American companies are stealing away many hours from our lives increasingly each year. Sad.

 

[purbeast0]

Poorly ran American companies are stealing away many hours from our lives increasingly each year. Sad.

Fixed that for you.

 

[Cozarkian]

The pertinent question here is whether there is an expectation of working from home. Has the company in the past permitted or required to people to work from home? Do they have a written policy requiring employees to have the capability to work from home (or alternatively do they provide what you would need to do so - like a laptop)?

If the answers to the above are all no, they probably can't force you to use PTO.

 

[Red Squirrel]

American companies are stealing away many hours from our lives increasingly each year. Sad.

The worse are "salaried" positions. I don't even know how that's legal. Get paid 40 hours a week but force to work 80. This is why unions exist and why I would never work in a non unionized work place. The problem is when unions start to get too ridiculous to the point that they greatly impede the work. There needs to be proper balance.

 

[snoopy7548]

Work let us out at noon yesterday, and power is out over there so they're closed today! Going snowboarding later this afternoon if the local hill isn't mobbed.

 

[sdifox]

Well yea you live down south here in the US and you get a few flakes and people freak out. And what worse when does snow like an inch or two its mayhem, since people have no experience with snow.

couple of inches + no experience driving in snow + no winter tire = tow truck paradise

 

[rh71]

The worse are "salaried" positions. I don't even know how that's legal. Get paid 40 hours a week but force to work 80. This is why unions exist and why I would never work in a non unionized work place. The problem is when unions start to get too ridiculous to the point that they greatly impede the work. There needs to be proper balance.

We in NY see what happens when unions become too powerful. Even our kindergarten teachers make $130k/year on LI. The avg teacher income is over $100k and they get free full medical (common for Canada but not for us) for life. Pensions are ridiculous. It drives our taxes to $10k/year for school alone. And this is just teacher unions. Cops are also thieves here.

If public sector unions were able to do their thing without the power to negotiate salary or outrageous benefits, I would agree with you. Controlling work hours up to a certain point is necessary. As it stands, their demands get worse and more greedy every year at the expense of all taxpayers and they don't give a shit as long as they get theirs.

Getting back to salary though - companies are plentiful and so that keeps them in check as far as working conditions and offered benefits. If you are marketable as an employee, you have options. That's why many like unions - they don't have to work for it as much. I do look down upon them all, especially because we see them in action.

 

[PenguinPower]

The worse are "salaried" positions. I don't even know how that's legal. Get paid 40 hours a week but force to work 80.

You are referring to "exempt" positions, as in exempt from the requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act in the US (or the Canada Labour Code for Canada). That's how it's legal.

You can be salaried and still earn overtime.

 

[KMFJD]

having a vacation day taken away is a no no in my book, staying home unpaid i'm fine with

 

[Herr Kutz]

What kind of shit company do you work for? I work for a small to medium size company, and if the power goes out for some reason, employees are instructed to charge to G.O. unless they were actually doing work that does not require power.

 

[bononos]

We in NY see what happens when unions become too powerful. Even our kindergarten teachers make $130k/year on LI. The avg teacher income is over $100k and they get free full medical (common for Canada but not for us) for life. Pensions are ridiculous. It drives our taxes to $10k/year for school alone. And this is just teacher unions. Cops are also thieves here.
........

I doubt its that much. Teachers who make 100k in NY are those who worked for 30 years

 

[Genx87]

Tell them you would rather work in the office. Tell them to have somebody open it up for you to work. See what they say.

I would also find another company to work for. That sounds like a crap company.

 

[tommo123]

Just got an email from my company - due to a storm coming the office will be closed, and if you do not have power at home (to work from home) you must use PTO.

...Does that sound right? Seems somehow illegal.

call in sick?

 

[NoTine42]

We in NY see what happens when unions become too powerful. Even our kindergarten teachers make $130k/year on LI. The avg teacher income is over $100k and they get free full medical (common for Canada but not for us) for life. Pensions are ridiculous. It drives our taxes to $10k/year for school alone. And this is just teacher unions. Cops are also thieves here.

If public sector unions were able to do their thing without the power to negotiate salary or outrageous benefits, I would agree with you. Controlling work hours up to a certain point is necessary. As it stands, their demands get worse and more greedy every year at the expense of all taxpayers and they don't give a shit as long as they get theirs.

Getting back to salary though - companies are plentiful and so that keeps them in check as far as working conditions and offered benefits. If you are marketable as an employee, you have options. That's why many like unions - they don't have to work for it as much. I do look down upon them all, especially because we see them in action.

That teacher salary isn’t the problem, it’s the waste in the rest of the system.
Our nation averages spending $11k/student
http://www.governing.com/gov-data/education-data/state-education-spending-per-pupil-data.html

With a low 20 students/class, that means $220,000 is being spent per classroom. I think teachers should be in charge of all that $ and they can competitively bid out the rest of the exorbitant fees everyone else is fleecing from education.

BTW, you are averaging 20k/student in NY, so that’s $400,000/year per classroom :O

 

[rh71]

I doubt its that much. Teachers who make 100k in NY are those who worked for 30 years

Keep in mind I'm talking about LI districts (of which there are over 100) and their unions. It's all public information since they're public employees.

Our district: http://www.seethroughny.net/teacher_pay/71607898 ... there's something like 200 teachers per district. Notice where it says median... do you think that many have almost 30 years? Nope.

This is one of the worst academic-performing districts in comparison: http://www.seethroughny.net/teacher_pay/71607997 Same, ridiculous deal.

That teacher salary isn’t the problem, it’s the waste in the rest of the system.
Our nation averages spending $11k/student
http://www.governing.com/gov-data/education-data/state-education-spending-per-pupil-data.html

Considering salaries & benefits are figured into that spending per student... it certainly is a huge part of the problem.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

You are referring to "exempt" positions, as in exempt from the requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act in the US (or the Canada Labour Code for Canada). That's how it's legal.

You can be salaried and still earn overtime.

I was a non-exempt manager in BellSouth during the SBC acquisition. SBC immediately changed all such types in the legacy BellSouth to convert to exempt. Then they forced us to work >40/week. This is the SBC way of doing business regardless of the name they use (ahem, AT&T). Last year I made slightly more than a friend. I am at a lower manager level than he is, but I am non-exempt and he is exempt. My OT outpaced his high bonus and salary. BTW, I am not a bargained employee, but it would be nearly the same.

 

[purbeast0]

The worse are "salaried" positions. I don't even know how that's legal. Get paid 40 hours a week but force to work 80. This is why unions exist and why I would never work in a non unionized work place. The problem is when unions start to get too ridiculous to the point that they greatly impede the work. There needs to be proper balance.

You can also be salaried and not even work 40 hours a week, so it goes both ways. Any company that is working people more than 40 hours a week is a poorly ran company anyways, even if they are paying OT. That just means they have completely shit managers who have no clue how to plan properly.

 

[MrSquished]

You can also be salaried and not even work 40 hours a week, so it goes both ways. Any company that is working people more than 40 hours a week is a poorly ran company anyways, even if they are paying OT. That just means they have completely shit managers who have no clue how to plan properly.

That's bullshit. Companies that are working people more than 40 hours a week on salary is the new norm of a good capitalist company.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

If I have to be on call (and not get paid any extra) whenever shit hits the fan or if someone wants something done quick, then it works both fucking ways. If something goes wrong and we can't work - you still need to pay me.

 

[Red Squirrel]

That's bullshit. Companies that are working people more than 40 hours a week on salary is the new norm of a good capitalist company.

Pretty much. Capitalism is all about making as much profit as possible no matter what it takes and at the expense of anyone. The only thing that matters is profit and the share price and it has to go up every year otherwise you failed. If it means cutting more jobs and pushing rest of employees to exhaustion then you do that. You factor in things like the odd person going on stress leave and any lawsuits that occur from you firing them and often times it's still cheaper to deal with that anyway. Capitalists companies have been working on making products cheaper and cheaper so they break more and cost less to make, and outsourcing and automating as many jobs as possible but that only goes so far so the next step is to just overwork everyone that has to be there because their job can't be automated or outsourced.

Thankfully unions exist and help slow down this sort of thing but it only slows it down, it does not stop it. As companies keep buying each other out you end up with a bunch of small unions that have no power over the giant beast.

 

[purbeast0]

That's bullshit. Companies that are working people more than 40 hours a week on salary is the new norm of a good capitalist company.

You sound like you work for a bad company. Sucks to be you.

I've worked in software development now since 2004 and I've worked more than 40 hours in a week exactly 2 times, and it was with the same company, and I was with that company for 7 months which is my shortest job by far, since they were a poorly ran company.

 

[MrSquished]

You sound like you work for a bad company. Sucks to be you.

I've worked in software development now since 2004 and I've worked more than 40 hours in a week exactly 2 times, and it was with the same company, and I was with that company for 7 months which is my shortest job by far, since they were a poorly ran company.

I work for myself, I'm a freelancer. Sometimes I miss the steady schedule corporate life and other times I don't.

But when I was in corporate with a lot more friends with corporate jobs it was almost the same across the board. The 40 hour workweek was going the way of the dodo. Randomly got to talking about some things with my therapist the other week and ended up discussing the main issues for the generation before ours and the biggest issue was work/life balance because people are working more and it's just a given. It's not a 100% rule, there are some generous companies out there that respect the worker more than others but in general that's not the case. You have to move to Europe to get the whole 'a poorly ran company is one that pushes its workers past the standard 40 hour workweek'. And forget about talking about vacation time.

 

[purbeast0]

I work for myself, I'm a freelancer. Sometimes I miss the steady schedule corporate life and other times I don't.

But when I was in corporate with a lot more friends with corporate jobs it was almost the same across the board. The 40 hour workweek was going the way of the dodo. Randomly got to talking about some things with my therapist the other week and ended up discussing the main issues for the generation before ours and the biggest issue was work/life balance because people are working more and it's just a given. It's not a 100% rule, there are some generous companies out there that respect the worker more than others but in general that's not the case. You have to move to Europe to get the whole 'a poorly ran company is one that pushes its workers past the standard 40 hour workweek'. And forget about talking about vacation time.

You can find well ran companies that care about their employees just fine in the states. I know because I work for one. But I do agree with you that in general it's not the case to find a well ran company. The main issue IMO is that there are a lot more poorly ran companies than well ran companies.

 

[snoopy7548]

I have friends who work salaried positions at the big government contractors like Raytheon, and they say you're limited to 40 hours per week; if you work more than I think 44 hours, you automatically get paid overtime. They even let you take every other Friday off if you work nine-hour days.

The place I'm at now expects you to be at work from 8a.m. to 5p.m. (at a minimum). Some places have stopped counting lunch as a "working hour."