max-a-mill

white spandex....

get it a little wet if it STILL isn't working.

NO ONE WILL ASK YOU ANYTHING...

N_C

They do, but by offering VOT. Which I have the choice of signing up for or not. There is a sign up sheet at our Mission Control desk, (our scheduling dept.), for those that wish to do so. They announce how much VOT is available & if there is a cap on it or not via a center wide email.

I work for a telecom. company in an inbound call center in cust. service. The only way I work any overtime is when it is MOT or if I am on a long call when my scheduled time off has occured. After which I sign off & go home, when it is a long call situation I record it as incidental overtime for which I get paid for.

BTW they don't make me stay for training/disciplinary meetings. I have the right to refuse if I want to. I have only been asked once for which I refused, I had already worked 2 hours of MOT & wanted to get the hell out of here. The devo., which is usually a half an hour long, was done the next morning during my regulary scheduled shift.

My company is regulated by among other things public utility commissions in 14 differant states & the FCC. We have to maintain service level metrics. If we don't we are fined for it, big time. So cust. service reps. have to be on desk & available at our scheduled times. But we do not have to work beyond our posted schedules if we choose not to.

This type of work is stressfull, especially when dealing with the american public on a daily basis. Were it not for the union the company would make us stay on the phones as much as they wanted us to & as much as they saw fit, which IMO would be abusive. The union is a nice blanket of protection against that type of abuse.

The CWA, my union is one of the most democratic unions in the country. I exercise my rights under the union contract with out fear or reprisal from the company.

Shiznaz

I guess call centres need crazy organization and regulations. I work for one of the five chartered banks in canada (all of which are very organized) in the real estate department. Staying late at my work is sometimes the only thing stopping a lease from renewing itself with unfair terms, potentially costing tens or hundreds of thousands for the bank. Doing it the next morning just won't cut it given the deadlines and refusing to stay late just wouldn't fly; there is more at stake than a missed tech support call. Basically if I don't pull my weight one of my colleauges will have to do it for me, or we will be letting down our client group.

Lucky for me I get in an hour later and leave an hour later than most of my colleagues so even if they put a pile of leases on my desk at 4:30 PM I still have an hour and a half to work on them before I am 'overtime'.

N_C

My company is a regulated business, as is most of the telecom. industry. If I have to do a follow up on a customers account I usually can not do so until the next day anyway, espceially if it requires a call out.

substructure

I thought this was suppose to be about slvoid's spandex? Let's get back on subject here.

Artkansas 

When I worked at Hughes Aircraft, my job was "Utility Worker B" tasked to move objects and packages from point A to point B and use any tools necessary to move said objects and packages. The company truck drivers were always calling the union stewards on me for working out of my job description. I had to keep a copy of my job description in my wallet to show to union stewards.

I made the truck drivers mad because it might take them a day to get a circuit card from our Airport site over to the El Segundo site. I would pop them into my backpack, get on the old Peugeot U08 and have them at the El Segundo site in 20 minutes. It really tweaked the drivers.

Try as they would, they couldn't bust me for working outside my job classification. The funny thing is that if they had wanted to, all they had to do is go to my desk and see how I also tracked every unit as they moved though the repair cycle of our department and ordered all the necessary parts. I also stripped the units down into their component parts ready for repairs. None of these tasks were in my job description. But it made sense since I was the one who moved everything from test to repair etc.

I finally got promoted to test technician after a number of years. One morning I was at my test station repairing the optical derotation unit for a TOW missile. We were having a new repair station installed and part of it was a giant stone table designed to damp out extraneous vibration by sheer mass. The truck drivers were bringing in the stone slab and having trouble manuvering it into position. They saw me and asked for my help. We got it into place and I walked back to my test station. Then the truck drivers noticed what I was doing and called the union steward. The steward investigated and discovered that I was doing my job at the test station. The drivers then tried to bust me for helping them move the stone block. But the steward wouldn't allow it because they had asked for my help. Sweet.

Artkansas 

Or worse, scheduling the meetings without you.

Shiznaz

Working for a union sounds confusing. Nobody is going to complain if I do extra work thats not in my job description. In fact I do it every day. People actually appreciate it!

slowandsteady

We are all salaried scientists. If a study(a biological system) requires that I or they be at work at midnight on a Friday, we are at work. If we have to be in at 5 am because a mouse needs pain medication, we are there to give it. If the half life of a drug is 8 hours, we have to be here for nearly 24 hours in a row to get the appropriate time points. I don't let an animal suffer for four hours because I am scheduled to come in at 9. And if that did happen, you had better believe there would be disciplinary action. That said, it has never been an issue, ever.

They take great pride in what they do and wouldn't think twice about it. Of course we limit that sort of stuff when ever humanly possible, but some times a disease course is what it is and doesn't fall into a 9-5 work schedule regardless of how well we design the study.

We also get comp time, so if they work a 60 hour week or have to come in on the weekend, they get time off. There is no overtime for salaried employees.

I absolutely hate the union mentality of "it's not my job." I also hate the idea of time based increases and over merit based increases. Ever notice that the industries with the most union influence are the ones that are the most corrupt, poorest performers in terms of quality, and profits. I have three words for you. Ford & Public Education. The schools are failing and Ford just posted a loss in BILLION$ of dollars!!!!!

Unions had their place in the industrial revolution, but their time has passed.

vtjim

Some jobs, sure, it goes with the territory that you keep weird hours. Giving mice pain medication? But, for instance, computer programming... No way. I think someone decided that college-aged computer geeks who stay up all night writing code will want to keep doing that sort of thing for their entire careers.

Artkansas 

The truck drivers' contention was that I was doing work that rightfully belonged to them when I worked "out of my job classification". That was their basis for calling the steward, that I was taking work away from them.

They got away easy, really. If my bosses had given me something large enough, I was authorized to requisition their truck. If my bosses had needed a package on the moon, I was authorized to requisition a moon rocket. Sadly, it was never needed.

At least I got to ride my bike a lot and get paid for it.

capejohn

Did you ever read only the first and last posts in a forum? Or maybe go right to the last post to see what the subject is?

slowandsteady

N_C

I don't have that mentality, sorry if it seemed that I do. I was trained to do a specific job & it is what I do. I am not a mgr, nor do I want to be one & I never assume the duties as one. I am also not a repair tech. DSL tech, etc. but get calls all the time for repair & DSL support. I have to transfere those calls to the right departments. I disagree with your comment about unions had their place, they still do. Without the CWA my company would really abuse us more then they already do & our benefits would suck.

I am taking classes with the education benefit to become a network technician. If after I have my degree there are no openings in my company I will leave to go to another company where there is a tech. job. I like the company I am with & want to stay with it. I should have some good options to choose from when I am done with my education. We have service in 14 states. In fact when May of this years comes I will have served my time on title & will be eligable to bid for a differant occupational job. I will start bidding for tech. jobs then if there any openings. Who knows, maybe I can start a new position before I finish my education.

slowandsteady

I was also trained to do a specific job, and if I never learned anything new I would be making half of what I make now. I am not abused and my benefits are wonderful. It is called a free market society. I am treated well, because there is another company not far from here where I can work. There is competition and it drives wages up and essentially forces them to treat us well.

ahpook

you are fortunate to be in a place (physically and mentally) where this is true for you -- however these conditions are not universal. in places and for people not so fortunate, collective bargaining is the only tool powerful enough to get employers to provide the work environment and benefits comparable to those you enjoy.

(you're also not in a free market economy, but that is beside the main point and way, way off topic)

slvoid

I'll have to agree with the other guy, the problem is, I don't mind staying late a couple of times but when it's a regular thing and they start assuming you're staying late, that's bad.
Even worse is when your boss says, "you're not leaving till this is done" and you're like, it's a multi-day project you dumb f**k.
Or when it's friday night, just about every dept's emptied out, all of the regular lower guys are gone and then it's just us sitting around and I leave at 6:30 and he's like, "what's going on? short day?"
But then again, the 2 hr lunch and almost no supervision is good too. Unless it's the 5pm "you should've had this meeting earlier" supervision.

substructure

I get this type of B.S. during a review:
"You know, when it's 5 you're out the door. It seems like you don't want to stay to finish things if need be."

I'm thinking, "Five? When it's 4 I'm already thinking of ways to get out of here early and cleaning my desk."

I have a partial owner here that comes in at 8:20 - 8:30 every morning wanders around talking to everyone about nothing for an hour, takes his lunch whenever he wants, comes back whenever, makes useless phone calls, plays on the internet till 6 and leaves. He calls that a full day of work. He had the audacity to flap his boot-lips about me to others when I was on vacation about leaving at five everyday. I FREAKING TOOK WORK HOME ON MY VACATION DAY. I also put in 50 hours that week with a vacation day. Plus, I commute and beat his sorry @$$ into work and he lives 20 minutes away - if that. He's such a pretentious jerk cause he owns like 20% stock of the company. God, I'd love to kick him in the nuts with my Sidis.

slvoid

You know what, that's BS.
I mean, you plan to get everything you need done in an 8 hour day and call it quits. If it takes more than 8 hours, it's cause they're pissing their time away during the day. Someone told me, if it takes more than 8 hours to do your job, you're either saving the world or someone's managing their time very poorly.

substructure

True.
If this guy doesn't get canned, I'm looking for a new job. (Man, I shouldn't be on this subject about him and swallow some of my anger, but it's only getting worse with him). He told everyone that I was the reason he isn't out in the field making notes on this 3 million dollar project he's heading. He said I need to complete the maps for his field work. The GD idiot wants me to engineer preliminary plans without any notes about the site. He's a moron. We have 87 prelim plans that have been laying around waiting to be marked-up with his notes but it's not what he wants. He wants me to predict the future - wave a wand and have plans finalized. WTF! And me leaving at 5 is what causes him not to do field work. Man, I hope my foot is wide enough to get both of his nuts.

jbrians

Dispresectful to the 100,000's of people who you have over a barrel for service?

jbrians

I found working for a union took away all my incentive. Lowest common denominator and all that.
I left to become self employed. Working longer hours ( sometimes until AFTER 5:00pm!!!!) now and making 10 times the wage.
The group I used to work with don't talk to me now lol

ollo_ollo

In the 80s I worked for a small co in Portland doing animation & titles for tv & films. Standard turn around was 3 days but for a 100% surcharge we would do it in 2 days or for 200% we would attempt a 1 day turnaround. This could mean an 18 hour shift & since our OT was calculated on an 80 hour basis, if you took time off afterwards to recover it could reduce the overtime pay. Naturally, we didn't like OT work & this came up with the owner repeatedly. Eventually profit sharing was instituted & suddenly everyone wanted to get in on these projects. Much better than MO, like when I worked at Boeing & was told "just keep coming in every day until we tell you not to". Don