Are Company Rules Limiting Your Free Time and Personal Activities?

[trueo]

Company "rules"

Is your company allowing you to play online games at free time ?
I like to work for companies that allow me to do what I want (provided that I don't ruin company's reputation or annoy other people) and they must pay me OT if they ask me to work OT for a project.

(uhmmm..thinking...uhmm but that way what if they assign me many tasks and claim that I can do it within 8 hours of work ? could someone enlighten me about this please ?)

 

[Evo]

Is your company allowing you to play online games at free time ?
I like to work for companies that allow me to do what I want (provided that I don't ruin company's reputation or annoy other people) and they must pay me OT if they ask me to work OT for a project.

(uhmmm..thinking...uhmm but that way what if they assign me many tasks and claim that I can do it within 8 hours of work ? could someone enlighten me about this please ?)

If you are non-management, in other words an hourly employee, the company can decide if work is to be paid as overtime. They can also decide that you should be able to handle extra assignments within regularly scheduled hours. If you are a management (salaried) employee, there is no overtime pay, except maybe in some really exceptional company.

If you want to play at work, you may find some companies that allow that. Good luck.

 

[rootX]

I always find OT quite tricky because in many companies there need to be good justification for OT. If you enjoy your work and so work bit longer than stated each day, you wouldn't get OT. Some employers might give you a bonus but some not. In some places, your supervisor will have to argue with VP to give you a bonus.

 

[mikelepore]

Trueo:

"I like to work for companies that allow me to do what I want." In the United States That's the arrangement called contract work. It's your own decision what you do each day, when and how. Your obligation is to deliver a specific result by a specific date. When we call the plumber, that's an example of contract work. But employment is a different system. What an employer has purchased from you is control over your mind and body for specified durations of time, and no particular products are specified in the agreement.

Evo:

"non-management, in other words an hourly employee" versus "management (salaried)" employee, there is no overtime pay" -- That is untrue in the United States. A company where I worked for 18 years (one of the Dow 30) took full advantage of their legal power to simply change any worker's job title and thereby not pay them extra when requiring them to work overtime. A secretary could be renamed an office system specialist, a bookkeeper could be renamed a cost data analyst, etc., and then any worker would be told to work additional hours without receiving overtime pay, "... now that you have become a professional."

 

[Evo]

Evo:

"non-management, in other words an hourly employee" versus "management (salaried)" employee, there is no overtime pay" -- That is untrue in the United States.

That's not even close to what I said. Don't make stuff up.

What I actually said:

If you are non-management, in other words an hourly employee, the company can decide if work is to be paid as overtime

Go back and re-read my post.

 

[BobG]

Playing online games at work may be pushing it. In fact, most companies delete the games that come installed on the computer from the factory (solitaire, minesweeper, etc).

But many companies allow you to use their computers for non-job related purposes, provided they're not interfering with your job. It's more beneficial to have you make online transactions (buy something, make bank transactions, etc) that only take a short time than have you take off work to complete your personal business. Many companies allow you to use their computers for your school work, provided you're not doing school work when you should be working, etc.

Plus, what you're allowed to do often depends on your job. Back in the old days, the computers we used to convert satellite orbits into schedules for each tracking station was slow, slow, slow. You start the process and have at least 15 minutes, sometimes up to over an hour (depending on the products you were putting out) to kill before the process completes. Nobody cared what you did (within reason) while you were waiting for your processes to finish. Nowadays, our computers are fast, so your wait time varies from seconds to a few minutes - not much time to do much while you're waiting. And the faster times means we put out a lot more products (and a lot more interesting products) - in other words, faster computers mean we have to spend more time actually working.

Lastly, the more time you have at work to play online games, the less essential you are to the company. In other words, if you have that much free time, you'd be better off updating your resume than playing online games, because someone will eventually notice they have no actual work for you to do and don't actually need you.

 

[EricVT]

My company does not allow employees to play online games at any point. In fact, our internet usage is locked down and very tightly controlled so that we can only visit certain types of websites. This is occasionally frustrating when the filter blocks a needed work-related site.

Overtime pay is non-existent for me since I am salaried. If I work significantly beyond my "scheduled" 40 hours per week then I am free to take paid time away from work without using vacation days (known as compensation time). This will depend entirely on your supervisor.

 

[D H]

If you are non-management, in other words an hourly employee, the company can decide if work is to be paid as overtime.

No, they can't, at least not in the US. Hourly employees are non-exempt. The Fair Labor Standards Act mandates at least time and a half for hours over 40 hours per week for non-exempt employees. See http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs23.pdf.

They can also decide that you should be able to handle extra assignments within regularly scheduled hours.

That part is true, exempt or non-exempt. Also, the FLSA says nothing about maximum hours.

If you are a management (salaried) employee, there is no overtime pay, except maybe in some really exceptional company.

It's not just management. That parenthetical (salaried) is very important. Most employees with a bachelor's degree or higher are exempt employees, management or not.

In fact, employers are at huge risk if they pay their salaried employees overtime on anything close to a regular basis. The risk is that the Dept. of Labor will view every single one of an employer's salaried employees as non-exempt if the employer treats even one exempt employee as if he or she is non-exempt. Salaried means salaried, not hourly. Overtime pay for exempt employees has to be rare and for good cause. No company in their right mind wants to risk paying their 6 figure+ executives who regularly put in 60 to 80 hours (often more) per week time and a half.

 

[Evo]

No, they can't, at least not in the US. Hourly employees are non-exempt. The Fair Labor Standards Act mandates at least time and a half for hours over 40 hours per week for non-exempt employees. See http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs23.pdf.

Ok, I see I need to be clearer, sorry. I forget some of you aren't psychic. A company can decide IF overtime can be worked, not if overtime worked can be paid as overtime.

A company does not have to allow their workers more than 40 hours per week. I was in managaement for many years, I know the laws, whats's worse, our workers were union.

 

[D H]

Ok, I see I need to be clearer, sorry. I forget some of you aren't psychic. A company can decide IF overtime can be worked, not if overtime worked can be paid as overtime.

Ahh. Now I see where you're coming from. For example, non-exempt employees can't decide on their own to spend their 40 scheduled hours playing games and then work OT to get done what they were supposed to get done in those 40 scheduled hours.

An employer could authorize their exempt employees to those kind of hours. If anyone knows of such an employer and it's a publicly traded company, let me know. Not that I want to work there. I just want to sell them short on the stock market.

 

[russ_watters]

Except for the lots and lots of exceptions that enable employers to pay overtime as straight time, of course...

Silly law, imo.

 

[rootX]

Ok, I see I need to be clearer, sorry. I forget some of you aren't psychic. A company can decide IF overtime can be worked, not if overtime worked can be paid as overtime.

Many times you might not even deserve overtime e.g. you have 3 hours of lunch or 3 hours of socializing and then work 3 hours after-work. But, many people don't even consider making up all the time they spend chit-chatting.

 

[Averagesupernova]

Overtime is pretty cut and dried here in the U.S. If you work over 40 hours you get overtime pay. What a lot of companies like to pull is manipulating your hours during pay periods with a paid holiday. Paid holidays (8 hours worth for a day) DO NO COUNT as regular hours. So if your pay period is weekly you can work up to 8 hours extra and not get paid overtime if there is a holiday in that week. So, naturally if there is a fair amount of work to do an employer will demand you put in extra time (2 extra hours per day for the four days) knowing that you will only get regular pay.

 

[D H]

Overtime is pretty cut and dried here in the U.S. If you work over 40 hours you get overtime pay.

It is not cut and dried. I regularly work 50+ hour weeks. I very, very rarely get paid overtime. I'm what is called an exempt employee. Most college grads fall in this category. Overtime pay is not required for exempt employees. Exempt employees are paid a salary rather than per hour worked.

 

[russ_watters]

I'm also an "exempt employee". I get paid hourly, with straight time for overtime, which is a slightly better deal than I think is typical of exempt employees.

 

[Evo]

Here's a good explanation of exempt and non-exempt.

http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/fairpay/fs17a_overview.pdf