Workplace BlackBerry Use May Spur Lawsuits 286
An anonymous reader writes "From an article on cnbc.com: 'As employers hand out electronic devices to their employees at a greater pace, there are growing concerns that workers eligible for overtime pay, known as non-exempt employees, could begin suing their employers for overtime hours earned while tapping on their devices during after-work hours. As a result, lawyers are advising their corporate clients to update their policies and handbooks related to BlackBerry use and reconsider who gets a device.'"
Blackberries establish your dominance! (Score:3, Funny)
It clearly separates you from the sheeple and establish your dominance over the herd. It establishes that you're a go-getter, instead of one of those hippies with an iphone.
And everyone knows, blackberries make assholes more versatile [theonion.com].
Turned it down (Score:5, Interesting)
In 2003-2004 at my previous employer the company rolled out Blackberries to management and "key" personnel. Being responsible for a relatively large part of the infrastructure at this joint, I also got one.
One day I arrived at work and found the messaging group folks had delivered the BBs to some of the people in my area, and there was a box in my desk as well, with a little booklet (the must have cost a fortune to print, it was that well done) with usage policy (of course), instructions and steps for setting it up. The younger kids were besides themselves and already setting up the sync cradles and sending messages to each other. I picked up the phone and called the project manager, who was a friend of mine. I asked him to send one of his people to pick the box up.
"But everyone's getting one."
"I don't care, I don't want it."
"You are on Tier 1 and you're supposed to be on call..."
"I am. I have a cell phone, and if the IPC melts down at 3 AM, someone can call me."
"But this lets you check your email!"
"That's exactly why I don't want it"
A few days of back and forth politik ensued, and eventually my boss relented and let me be. Note that this was the time when the devices could not make phone calls - I hear they can now. Oh joy.
I figured that once I had that thing I'd never be able to get away from it, even on vacation. And that's exactly what happened to everyone else. People won't think twice about sending you an email for stupid little things at 10:00 PM, because they're working and figure everyone else should be as well. But making a phone call is very different, and most people won't do it unless it's something really important. People think it's no big deal because it's just a message. Bullshit.
If the data center is on fire, sure I want to know, no matter what time it is. But I don't want to hear little pings and murmurs from a PDA next to my bed because some VP couldn't find a file for tomorrow's presentation, or a fscking file server is down and Julie in accounting can't get to it. All that can wait until the morning.
If I had taken the thing and ended up in that 24/7/365 situation I don't think I'd sue my employer, but I would have probably ended up leaving a lot sooner than I did. Probably even if I were eligible for overtime. A case of "they ain't paying me enough for this crap" if I ever saw one.
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If you're not willing to call: it ain't important (Score:2)
Having just got off the phone to get a password from someone on vacation... I couldn't agree more. If you don't think it's important enough to wake someone up in New York when you're in California, then it can wait.
OTOTH: When I was supporting a system that was supposed to be 24/7/365 we did have BBs that the Monitoring System would send alerts for down time... if it exceeded X minutes and didn't automagically come back up.... but PEOPLE didn't have the address for the thing. That was fine too. But I wou
Re:Turned it down (Score:5, Insightful)
I figured that once I had that thing I'd never be able to get away from it, even on vacation. And that's exactly what happened to everyone else. People won't think twice about sending you an email for stupid little things at 10:00 PM, because they're working and figure everyone else should be as well. But making a phone call is very different, and most people won't do it unless it's something really important. People think it's no big deal because it's just a message. Bullshit.
See, I never used mine that way when I had it. My policy was if it was really important, you gave me a call. Emails were only checked maybe twice a day on the weekends and if it wasn't important (which it hardly ever was) it would wait until Monday.
Berries are one of those tools that are very good when used appropriately and hazardous to your well-being if used improperly. Most people use them improperly. I feel the exact same way about remote access tools. As an IT guy, I think they're great. I can log in, do the two second task I have to, and then I'm done. Regular employees don't like it because it means that the big pile of work on their desks feels like it's staring at them through the intertubes, demanding their attention. "I don't want to be able to work from home, I don't even want to know I'm able to do so!" some people have pleaded with me. I can understand.
Re:Turned it down (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm the same way. I give notice to my colleagues of when I'm going on vacation, and I make it clear to them that for the duration of my vacation, I will NOT have my Blackberry with me. To make the point doubly clear, on my last day before vacation, I will point out that the Blackberry is in its cradle at the end of the day, and not on my person.
I am part of an on-call rotation. I will answer the phone if it rings while I'm not on-call, but I do not check my e-mail unless I hear it buzzing incessantly (I leave it on vibrate) for an inordinate amount of time, which means that a lot of messages are coming in and something is probably seriously broken and I'll be called anyway. If I am on-call, I check the subjects of messages but will only open them if they appear to be something about which I need to be concerned. Other than that, it goes back in the holster.
The Blackberry has its use. Its use is not to enslave me. Considering that the employer recently took actions in my favor to try to ensure that I will not leave in the near future, I suspect they know that pushing me on this (if they were so inclined) would not improve their position.
Movie theater mode (Score:2)
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If an employer is using it in that fashion, then I'd view a Blackberry as a tool to transfer funds into my pocket in chunks of 15 minutes x $SALARY at a time.
Made me get up from the dinner table and spend 30 seconds sending a 20-word explanation on how to find that file for your presentation? Thanks for the 15 minutes worth of extra pay.
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There's times I do wish it wouldn't ring, though. Like at movie theaters. They should put a movie-theater mode that you could just leave on when you don't want to be bothered by it.
It's called the off switch or the vibrate mode. If it buzzes in your pocket, do have a care for the rest of the people in the theater and ignore it.
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Re:Turned it down (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone else find it ironic that someone who complains about people bugging him at all hours of the night for work, has his twitter info in his sig?
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So, does that make him a twit?
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Wrong twitter... The twitter he's referring to is a fairly well known Slashole who uses multiple accounts to spread his mostly anti-MS agenda.
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I accepted the BB when they were given out and I only configured one particular e-mail alias to send mail to it - the one used by our system monitoring software. So I am notified when critical infrastructure goes down and can even ssh from the BB to our systems if needed but I don't read my normal work
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Mainly because the idea of setting it up so you only get email on it if it comes from a specific address probably never even occurred - in fact, I daresay a lot of blackberry users aren't even aware it's possible.
As soon as words gets back that this has been done it could go one of two ways:
1. Everyone starts doing it. (Not necessarily a bad thing)
2. Manager starts jumping up and down for someone "subverting" the system.
I don't fancy risking option 2 myself.
Re:Turned it down (Score:4, Insightful)
You must be new here - you're much too normal to be a real /.er.
One young whippersnapper made the comment that you must be an ornery old-time that didn't want to learn new technology. He may be joking, but he's probably a complete ageist, as you know your industry is full of them.
While I appreciate and enjoy the incredible technology that has made the BB possible, these kids need to know there was a good life before BBs and cell phones and 24/7/365 connectivity. I don't want any of it to go away, but all the tech has one common trait - a switch that allows the user to turn them off. And if they don't, take out the damn battery.
Life can be so quiet.......
Just mute the volume, that's what I do for my cell (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:Turned it down (Score:5, Insightful)
Well you don't have to look at it.
I've carried a work BB for a few years now and I don't think it's been a negative thing at all. No one expects me to be checking email at the weekend so they still have to phone if it's urgent. If I'm on vacation the BB loses it's battery and goes in a drawer. However, if I want to check my morning meeting schedule before going to bed it takes 30 seconds (rather than having to fire up the VPN) and if I do get a call at some ungodly hour I can quickly check the mail trail to see what's been going on. I find it very convenient to be able to get to my work email quickly when I choose to, I don't feel under any pressure to do so more than I would do anyway.
One thing I'm very clear about is that I still carry a personal phone. That way, when I'm not on company time I can choose whether to take the BB or not. Clear separation of work and home life is important.
Bunch of whiny babies (Score:2, Insightful)
Grow some balls and be responsible for your self and your own work. It is just a tool - no one is standing over you with a gun to use it - and if they are you have a much bigger problem than a crappy PDA.
As an employer I would expect my employees to do their job. If a tool like a blackberry is useful to someone, more power to them, if they don't want it, I couldn't care less. Does not get you off the hook for doing your job though. Now, your job either includes off-hour support or it does not. No PDA will c
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You're exactly the kind of shit who will use a BB as a leash "to make sure the job gets done." Guess what, shitbird -- in these days of "at will employees", it ain't that fucking easy to tell your over-prick to shove it. If I have a family to support in this economy, I can't easily get real choosy about how I support them. Sure, if someone is a top gun star who can stop in the lobby on the way out of the building, make one phone call and hang up having gotten an even higher-paying job, that's fine. But you'd cower if that kind of person told you to twist your PDA back up your ass.
But anyone without that kind of star power is just a pissant standing in your way and you'd stomp on him.
Fuck you and all the other soulless bastards like you.
So to summarize this insult-laden diatribe: Your social skills are limited to either Miltonesque grumbling under your breath and posting anonymously on /. or telling your boss to "shove it" and quitting your job. And you cannot do latter because you are too uncertain of your competence.
Well, Milton, I do feel sorry for you. Life does not have to suck that bad. Before you go postal on your office, learn some social skills and TALK to your boss. Don't hide from him or tell him to "shove it" - TALK. You know,
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Seems like the problem with Blackberries is their users, not the people messaging them. A phone call is for something urgent, an e-mail isn't. Unless you've got some dingwad who thinks e-mails should be replied to within five minutes, having e-mail available at all times is just fine so long as you have the discipline to either a) not read it, or b) not act on it.
Re:Turned it down (Score:4, Insightful)
At the end of the day, it boils down to the lifestyle that you choose to have, I guess. Me, I cannot imagine my work life without my Blackberry.
That said, it is a very conscious choice that I made. I am a management consultant (cue the Douglas Adams jokes), and if something needs to be done at 2 AM on a Saturday night while on vacation, I do it. Hell, my manager is on vacation in the Virgin Islands this week and I get emails from him at 5 AM asking for updates.
To me, this is perfectly acceptable because I chose this lifestyle knowing full well the ramifications. I had a nice 9-5 corporate job, but at the end of the day, it was slow, work was challenging but not trying and there was a ton of mediocrity around. These days, I've a job where I fly out every week, work 60 hours on a good week and 80+ on a bad one, and it is strictly up or out. Given my lifestyle and the amount of travel I do, my Blackberry is my lifeline.
And just to your point, at least in my friends circle, receiving phone calls at 10 PM, 12 AM or even 4 AM is not out of the ordinary (and we are not talking about IT, either - a lot of them are in consulting or finance). It is just part of the lifestyle that we chose, and to us, it is quite normal.
That said, there are also times when folks decide to go incommunicado because they can't take it. That's fine, too. But I guess my point is that just because you can receive an email in the middle of the night does not mean you should reply to it. Secondly, you can always turn it on Silent - which is what I do if I do not want to be interrupted (important presentation, dinner date etc).
And oh some level, I find it strange when someone does not want a Blackberry. My only phone is my Blackberry, and to me, it is a one-stop solution. My calendar, my address book, my email, IM and everything else is all rolled into one. I can travel wherever I want, and as long as I have my Blackberry, I am quite content.
And to the point about compensation for overtime - while I do make a decent amount of money, I also put in enough of an effort in it. I do my job because I enjoy doing it, and folks that signed up for something knowing full well the outcome, and seek compensation later, should perhaps look for a different career path.
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Uh, no.
We mail other people at 22.00 because we are working at that time, and we expect other people to read the mail when they arrive next morning.
If someone think he has to read my mail outside his working hours, that is his problem, not mine.
Re:Turned it down (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not going to let my blackberry wake me up for every little email thrown out.
Re:Turned it down (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't PAY me for 24/7 support,
Then turn off the Blackberry. It DOES have an off switch, right??
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So turn the notification off for e-mail. My Blackberry doesn't do anything when an e-mail comes in. When my schedule permits and it is convenient to me, I look to see if I have any new e-mail. Even if I'm on call, the only way the Blackberry is going to wake me up is if someone phones me.
Re:Turned it down (Score:5, Informative)
If the file server is that important, they should have 24/7 staff on-site to keep it running.
You can't complain about the prohibitive cost of having a professional IT staff available all hours and then turn around and say what a financial disaster it would be if they weren't there.
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Most smaller businesses don't even need 24/7 staff. It's easy these days to have a proper redundancy and a "file server" crash shouldn't even be a noticeable hiccup.
If he wants something to brag about, he should be bragging not about his uptime, but that when one of the servers crashed, all the company lost out on was the server that died, and no one but IT knew it did.
Re:Turned it down (Score:5, Insightful)
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Hehe, he said "comp day".
Re:Turned it down (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, if you like being the hero and accepting more responsibility with no increase in compensation, feel free. If I need to be on call 24/7 to personally reboot computers, it will be reflected in my paycheck and scheduled in a professional manner so I know which periods I need to be available. Don't just hand out Blackberries and act like you're giving employees a treat by allowing them to instantly respond to any issues that arise any time of day or night.
If you need 24/7 support, then you pay for it. If 24/7 support is necessary for your company to be efficient, then pay for it. If you call a plumber at 3am, it will cost you a small fortune. But if the option is waiting until 9am when the plumber is cheaper and having the entire building flooded and all your employees sent home, then I guess the cost is worth it. Why do you think IT staff should behave less professionally than the average plumber?
If you expect to be treated like a professional, you have to act like one, and part of acting like one is negotiating responsibilities and compensation.
If someone needs me at 3am to accomplish a critical task, it's important enough for them to pick up the phone and call me and personally explain why I need to get out of bed and do this task right at this moment. I guaran-fucking-tee you that's the same answer your CEO would give to this question. And when we're done with the 3am task, he and I are both going to sit you down and ask why your poor planning required us to get out of bed at 3am to save your ass.
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It's not about being lazy. I'm all for resuscitating a dead server, but I WANT TO BE PAID FOR IT.
I can't understand what's so difficult to understand about this concept??? If I do work, if I answer emails, if I field phone calls at 3am, if I get text messages from my server that I'm obligated to read, I AM ENTITLED FOR COMPENSATION for my time. I don't see the problem here.
The whole reason this discussion started is because some VP or CEO is too cheap to pay for extra time (*1.5 in some cases) in order to s
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Simple job? It might not be rocket science, but if the network goes down half the company will be sitting there twiddling their thumbs. I'd say that maintaining the IT infrastructure is a rather vital and critical job, and being well paid reflects the difficulty of keeping such an important and complex system running well.
That counts for any complex infrastructure position - we had planned maintenance on our building's electricity panel ye
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If your boss suggested that you came in at 4am regularly with no commensurate recompense we'd be hearing the howls of outrage around the globe.
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You buy a second fileserver and set it up in a redundant configuration.
What do you mean "that's too expensive?" - you just pointed the potential risk for the whole company if the fileserver is down for half-a-day ...
Oh, you mean "too expensive compared to unpaid 24/7 support from our IT people", I see.
---
Any (and I do mean, ANY) IT infrastructure risk can be pretty much eliminated by using redundancy - fail-over fileservers, databases, application servers, web-servers, switches, backup sites, DR instances,
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The key there is that this crap does happen and they do expect 24/7 coverage even if they pay fuck all. To be honest, "those" customers are at the bottom of the pile when it comes to support.
I have a friend who works for a major credit card company, they gave him a Blackberry, he works 24/7 when he has it. When he visits us he doesn't even bring it, and for good reason. He gets paid well, but not enough for being there when the bastardised database screws up after hours.
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24/7 staff ... that's two normal guys, an amputee and a midget?
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The only mentality you need to handle UNIX is a common sense. Not so sure about the Windows but little I did with it implied different kind of mentality.
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no way (Score:3, Insightful)
If they fire me I will tell the boss, "I was looking for a job when I found this one".
Re:no way (Score:4, Funny)
That's kinda like telling someone you know Martial Arts after they've just broken your nose.
Gotta agree with that. (Score:2)
From TFA:
And since I spend NO time after work sending any work emails ... someone out there is spending an awful lot of time to make up for my slacking.
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Lots of lawsuits over this issue will change the work relationship between employee and employer -- to disadvantage the employee, I think. If you have the type of job you need to be on-call for, you obviously have much more value to your employer than a burger-flipper, and the worker should be looking to enhance that, not to sue for after-hours work.
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i don't agree with your comment, but i also don't agree with it being modded flamebait, because it does address an important idea.
do you live to work, or
do you work to live.
i don't think its its a selfish attitude to demand a fair amount of 'me-time'.
I believe it is selfish for companies to demand that we sacrifice our 'me-time' to work unpaid overtime after we have put in a full day in the office. if they need people working my job 24/7, then that company can hire 3 people to work in shifts.
why is it my p
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Make it easy on all...be upfront when you sign the contract...demand to be paid for every hour you work. Then, there is no need to sue.
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Too many in the US have this "gimmie something" attitude, not the attitude of "how I can be a better worker", or "how I can enhance my value to the company".
You must have to have a pretty empty life for those things to be the most important issues in it.
Re:Gotta agree with that. (Score:5, Interesting)
And since I spend NO time after work sending any work emails ... someone out there is spending an awful lot of time to make up for my slacking.
Yeah, I know that person. I work for them...
Maybe there's a generational gap here, but as a 20-something just entering the working world, I've found it striking how those 20-30 years older than myself have come to see email as the Infallible Silver Bullet of instant office communication. Email isn't always reliable, or instant, or even secure, yet it's increasingly treated that way.
For example, I receive one-liner emails from someone sitting at a computer in an office less than 30 feet from mine. Just walk over and ask your question, you know where I am. Well, okay, so I'm not always at the computer- in which case I'll get a followup email (or two) within 10 minutes asking why I haven't replied to the first message. We have numerous people who use email as an instant message service, shooting single sentence messages back and forth all day long. Our workstations even come with an IM client installed, and I've tried to instruct people to use it, but nobody does. They'd rather make a show out of spending at least an hour or two every day "doing email", as it's called around the office.
I'm convinced that the use of Blackberries will only make the problem worse. Email is quickly becomming the text messaging of the workplace, something it was never designed nor intended for. God help me if the boss ever gets a Blackberry, and figures out how to use it...
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This applies to your job, and if you enforce it, then I applaud you. Some of us aren't so lucky and have to maintain 24/7 shops. However, as I mention above, it's still possible to craft personal rules within policy that ensure that my time actually is my time, and not stolen by the employer.
Obviously given to the wrong employees (Score:5, Insightful)
Blackberries are imho meant for those people who for whatever reason can't stop working. Business owners, sales people working on commission only, that idea. And of course that are exactly the people for whom working hours don't count. I'm one of them, even though I don't have nor want a blackberry. If people need to reach me so urgently they can use the phone.
This also makes me wonder, what is a blackberry doing in the hands of employees with fixed working hours? Why are they given one by the company in the first place? This are generally the lower ranked people (now I don't know US labour laws very much) - they have fixed working hours obviously, and are supposed to do (and finish) their work within those hours. I can't think of any reason why they would possibly need one such devices. They are at work, then work, and then will have a computer at hand. If it is the kind of employee that is supposed to run around all the time, e-mail won't be of much interest for them either.
No matter what I think this is mostly a story about the inappropriate use of a technology. The enormous urge of being "ahead of the pack" when it comes to adapting new tech. It is high tech, it is new, "everybody" uses it, etc. That kind of thinking. It sounds like a disconnect between the ideas of the top management and the actual tasks of the workers.
Add to that the idea that all employees want to be important, and having a blackberry these days is for sure equivalent to being important (until recently it were only the high-fliers that would have a need for it and could afford one), so everybody will happily accept a blackberry without thinking about whether they really need one. And then those lower ranked employees also get addicted, forget that they have working hours, start working overtime, and poof, lawsuit!
I truly hope the employees lose in this case, as I consider it unasked for overtime. Completely voluntary overtime. Unless the employers gave the blackberry with the message "now you are reachable at all times", in which case the employer deserves to lose - if only for sheer stupidity.
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I truly hope the employees lose in this case, as I consider it unasked for overtime. Completely voluntary overtime.
But isn't your boss sending you a message at 10PM and giving you a blackberry so that he knows you can receive it an implicit request to work overtime?
Re:Obviously given to the wrong employees (Score:4, Insightful)
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"But there are many messages a boss might send after hours (perhaps just because he is working late, and that includes sending emails) that don't require any action until the following day.
In which case I will action it when I read the email after I get to work the next morning.
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My understanding is (and this may be limited to my sub-segment) you *can* work over-time,
but the rules surrounding it are so convoluted (you can't be asked and must volunteer;
you can't be compensated for it, nor must there be any implied statements regarding future
compensation) that in practice it amounts to it being forbidden.
Uhm... (Score:2)
Exactly how many employees who are required to carry a blackberry and perform work on it are also "non-exempt"?
Let's not forget corporate laptops... (Score:5, Insightful)
They've been issued for far longer than Blackberries and haven't spurned lawsuits so far.
Basically, it's not a question of the technology: if you have hourly employees working unreported time, you're asking for trouble. The labor laws are fairly clear in this matter. Whether it's on a Blackberry, laptop, or otherwise is beside the point.
But let's not forget that employers can simply reclassify their hourly employees as salaried and get as much unpaid overtime as they want. And that's perfectly legal, Blackberry or not. This question is more a matter of your employer's semantic classification of your job than whether or not you get paid for your overtime.
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Don't like the policies? Go get another job. It's that easy, really.
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I'd like to see less government involvement in the workplace, and just let the employee and employer agree on work conditions and rules and expectations. Don't like the policies? Go get another job. It's that easy, really.
It's not really that simple. It might work in the case of a few bad companies, but what if all companies adopt the same work conditions? That is the thing about pure capitalism, that companies can become too greedy at the expense of human beings, so there needs to be a balance of regulations that protect the factors that are not purely financial (human health, environmental, safety, non-discrimination, etc). This happened a lot in the industrial revolution before labor laws and still happens in other pa
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I'd like to see one of those stony heart libertarians get really fucked-up in the arse to the hilt by one of those wall-to-wall lawyered mega croporations and lose everything down to the last fermion of his soul.
Then we'll see if he's still against "government involvement" in life...
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Re:Let's not forget corporate laptops... (Score:4, Informative)
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University of California policy is if one of your non-exempt employees replies to emails you sent them out of work hours you're supposed to reprimand them, for exactly this issue - if someone sues the university for unpaid overtime and can show a string of timestamps on emails to their supervisor of record outside normal work hours, this demonstrates a) they were doing uncompensated overtime, and, more importantly, b) their supervisor knew about it and did not stop it, which counts as approval in the eyes o
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They've been issued for far longer than Blackberries and haven't spurned lawsuits so far.
Basically, it's not a question of the technology: if you have hourly employees working unreported time, you're asking for trouble. The labor laws are fairly clear in this matter. Whether it's on a Blackberry, laptop, or otherwise is beside the point.
Not and yes.
The laptop doesn't automatically bleep at you every time you get an email and isn't designed to be left on running purely on battery power for days at a time.
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Wow...that is CA? That sucks. I've worked as a W2 employee for companies...usually with them putting me onto govt contract jobs, and was hourly, I got straight time OT..and was WELL over $36/hr. I was non-exempt....I'd never work it any other way either.
Can you not even negotiate this for a job in CA?
Have you tried ... (Score:5, Insightful)
On a side note, I had a previous employer offer me a Blackberry as an enticement to stay when I gave my notice to leave. Needless to say my decision remained the same.
I own a Blackberry (my own, I'm self employed and also an ISV of a Blackberry app) and the biggest complaint I have about them is many companies hand them out as status symbols and not to the people who could really make good use of them.
Re:Have you tried ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I own a Blackberry (my own, I'm self employed and also an ISV of a Blackberry app) and the biggest complaint I have about them is many companies hand them out as status symbols and not to the people who could really make good use of them.
My biggest complaint is that people keep fiddling with them in meetings. When people call me over for help on something and then take a five minute personal call, I leave. "Where did you go?" Back somewhere productive. Bad enough when we're talking about going to someone's desk, it's absolutely infuriating when there's a big meeting and everyone is on the berries. New rule: your berry gets turned off and goes in the basket. Your people know the room you're in; if something important happens, you will be paged.
Personally, I think it's incredibly rude to let a phone call interrupt a conversation. It's one thing if it's someone's boss calling, nothing can be done about that, same as if he pokes his head in the door. But anything less than that, ask if it's important, if not, call them back! Big pet peeve.
Games (Score:2)
If meetings where more interesting and actually valuable, people would not be so inclined to >i>playing solitaire during them.
Etiquette guide (Score:3, Informative)
I remember reading an etiquette guide where the rule of thumb was 'proximity'.
So if you are talking to someone face to face and you get a phone call/pager/email/IM, then you ignore those and focus on the face to face conversation because that person is closer.
Or if you are on phone call, and you get a pager/email/IM, then the caller is 'closer' to you (since you are engaged in a real-time voice conversation) and you would ignore the others including the IM (which is real-time, but less 'close' since it's no
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FWIW - its totally cultural. In Korea (yeah, cue the jokes) answering a cell phone almost always takes priority over whatever is going on in person and that's considered absolutely normal. I've heard Japan is the same way, but maybe to a lesser extent.
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It's their choice (Score:3, Interesting)
I've got a friend who have been given one. In my opinion it's both good and bad. The good side is that if you must send an E-mail, you can, and you don't have to stop your leisure and go home or go to workplace. The bad side is that more people expect you to reply quickly. But if you don't start replying quickly, few get such expectation. So my friend end up not attending to that new gadget when peaceful moments are more desired (which is most of the time).
At the end of the day, it's just a tool. They give it to you, it's their right. You might watch for message in it every second you're not sleeping, or you might just turn it off unless somebody makes you a phone call and you decide it is urgent enough, it's your choice. They can fire you, but they can always do so anyway.
Sure (Score:4, Interesting)
You have to pay for people to work. What a novel concept.
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If I hired you for $10000/hour, issued you a corporate blackberry and asked you to be on call 24/7 as well as frequently check in and inquire weather the car has crashed and needs to be restored, your claim sounds legit.
During regular hours, people are usually in office and for occasional evening calls people can just burn through a few rollover minutes on their personal cell and in the worst case submit an $5 expense report. If a company is willing to pay $100/month for your wireless plan, you can bet they
I agree! (Score:5, Funny)
Now, I do think it provides some leeway - I have some employees who I allow somewhat flexible hours and for that they trade some amount of availiblity.
Others, I just like to irritate by sending emails a 4:30AM.
Oh, wait, my master is buzzing...
How hard is it to ignore them? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's really not that hard to ignore them. I've had one for about a year (the 8830). I tune out the blinking red light when I'm not working, or if it is annoying me I turn the phone upside down so I cannot see it.
I find it very useful when I'm on site and I can keep up a bit more, whereas otherwise I'd be a day or two behind on emails.
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Non-exempt is a great thing. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm currently a IT professional that is actually paid overtime for > 40 hours of work per week. Guess what - I don't have a blackberry.
If I want to earn more money, the next pay grade is exempt and (shocking) includes a blackberry.
It's like looking at crackpipe and trying to talk yourself into it. :\
It is easy really. (Score:2)
Don't use it after business hours. Make it clear that if there is an emergency (a real emergency, as in money lost by the second kind of emergency)you should be called.
Why use a blackberry when you can txt? (Score:3, Interesting)
If something is down, you've got 140 characters or so to tell me about it. If it takes more than that, it's either not serious enough to make me care about, or it's serious enough for you to call me about.
Either way I'm fine with my LG 10000 Voyager, and personal laptop to remote in when travelling if needed beyond that.
They day I have a blackberry is they day I've sold my soul (and/or am making more ... heh).
Who needs a Blackberry... (Score:5, Funny)
Blackberry != "the problem" (Score:5, Insightful)
Improper handling of "exempt" employee status is probably the most frequently screwed up HR liability in the corporate world because half of managers "heard somewhere" at one point that if you're on salary you're exempt. Wrong. The same people fabricated "flex time" which has no basis in law in the state of California (maybe in other places).
The level of ignorance in upper management with regard to employees rights is mind-numbing.
As an Exchange consultant... (Score:4, Informative)
I'm surprised (Score:2)
that companies would actually give, let alone expect non-exempt employees to be in contact after hours. There are very few nob-exempt positions at the company I work for and they're relatively simple tasks. If you're actually someone who needs to be in contact with others on a regular basis, like myself, who gets calls at 10pm or 2am for "emergencies" then you're an exempt aka salaried position, which also means I get to leave when I want when it's dead...of course I have worked 14 days straight near deadli
Boundaries (Score:4, Insightful)
If you make that argument, you have already lost. It means you have given your boss the authority to rearrange your life for greater productivity; you're just giving advice on the best way to do it. To establish boundaries, you should let them make the first move. Just don't respond to emails or calls outside of working hours. If they want you to be available for work during certain hours, they need to negotiate those hours and convince you -- preferably with arguments you can take to the bank.
Lawyers trying to make a buck (Score:5, Insightful)
The lawyers are stirring the pot. Nothing else to see, move along. These are not the lawsuits you are looking for.
Don't even give them your cell number... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll be the first to tell you that I hate my cell phone. When I got to undergrad, everyone was getting one. We knew it would be a part of life. I resisted until my 4th year and still made sure that it was a bare-bones phone-- a brick by modern standards. No internet, no special ringtones, nothing that would potentially add additional cost to my life.
When I entered the work force after graduation, everyone wanted to give their cell numbers to their various supervisors. I didn't. When asked by my supervisor why I didn't, I told him:
1) You don't pay for my minutes
2) You don't pay me for taking calls and doing work before 8am nor after 5pm
3) I don't like phones, let alone cell phones.
He and I had a very humorous conversation until I asked him why *he* gave his cell number to *his* supervisor. "It just streamlines everything. It's less work," he responded.
"Less work" I retort. "Tell me, without a cell phone, how much work would you do in the car on the way to and from work? How much work would you do at lunch? How much work would you do traveling from point-A and point-B on the job?"
"I wouldn't get any work done. That's the problem," he insisted.
"No, you're missing something... you said cell phones help you do less work. However, you do work in all that time where, prior to cell phones, you did no work. The drive to work was relaxing. On the drive home, you could think about home, not the office. You could relax at lunch. You're commuting from one meeting to another during the day so you're already working for the company/school -- so how are you doing less work when you're working when you shouldn't?"
He paused, opened his mouth, closed it again, and breathed.
I start again, "... and do you pay for your phone and minutes? Or does the company/school?"
"Well it's my phone. I pay for it," he says.
"And who uses it more: you for your life or the company/school through you as its employee?"
He smiles as if empowered. "You're right. If I'm working off the clock, the very least the company/school could do is pay for this phone or another and the minutes."
"Now you're talking. Of course, you could even record the minutes you work in your off time and claim them as time put in. Remember, the company/school only works in 15-minute increments so, round up where necessary," I say with a grin.
Afterward: A month later, the company/school ended its policy of requesting (requiring) employees give up their cell numbers. If they needed you to be on call, they'd buy you a cell phone and subscription. The people didn't get paid for their time on the phone, but it was a start.
After-Afterward: I still don't give my cell number out to anyone but Human Resources. Those guys are rabid bulldogs about privacy and will only call me in an emergency or if there's something wrong with my paycheck.
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While I agree with you in some respects -- in fact, a lot of folks are saying the current economic downturn is WORSE than normal because people are being expected to keep up with so much more in terms of insurance and other safety nets compared to previous recessions -- just because a subsection can't handle the control doesn't mean everyone should give it up.
I don't use a blackberry (because I'm still, admittedly, on my parents' plan and nobody involved wants to pay the extra per-line-per-month data charge
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Then DON'T be!!
You don't have to be...I've worked W2, and was hourly, and got OT pay. You can too..just ask for it, or go work where they will let you.
Personally...I'll never work for free ever again. Salaried pay is a rip-off. I don't mind wokring OT, going above and beyond when it is needed, but, I will not do it for free. If you get paid hourly...they will think twice about asking to you to work OT; only when they really need it. Over 40 hours a week should not be 'ex
Depends on the salary (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally...I'll never work for free ever again. Salaried pay is a rip-off.
That depends entirely on the salary. In many cases you are quite correct but not always. Once you climb up towards management, hourly pay generally is no longer an option. Plus in some professions (ex. doctors or investment bankers) hourly pay is simply not going to be an option on the table. Fortunately the pay and bonuses (should) make up for it so long as you don't mind the hours. Whether the hours vs. pay trade-off is worth it is an exercise left for the reader.
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Well, of course not...if your a Doctor, you're usually working for yourself...
Being married to a physician I can assure you that most doctors do not work for themselves - at least here in the US. Most either work for a hospital or are employed in a group practice. Frequently the group practice is a partnership but not always. In the larger groups the doctor is usually an employee, especially if they have just finished a residency. The volume of paperwork and insurance issues plus lifestyle considerations make it increasingly un-economic to have a solo practice or even a small pra
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I'm with you on this. I left the company I used to work for partly because they abused the 40-hour, exempt-employee workweek. Sometimes, we would spend 14-16 hours on-site without breaks, and I simply got sick of working hours of 2 weeks and getting paid for one.
Then I came back as a part-time W2 employee, only to be met with "Well, we have this approval process for overtime."
Fine by me.
The whole "exempt" employee thing is a sham -- I'm not sure how companies can legally declare non-managerial employees (s
Re:Now is about the time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Over 40 hours a week should not be 'expected', it should only be required for emergencies and last minute pushes on big deadlines
Please understand that emergencies and last minute pushes on big deadlines are to be expected at all times. No overtime means no overtime. If you want to do a good job at leading a team, make it a rule without exceptions.
As an employer, don't pay for overtime, don't ask for overtime and don't allow overtime. It will ruin quality and cost you more.
I used to work at one of the big consulting firms and the following pattern was almost a rule:
1. not finished, stay late
2. come in late or unrested
3. be less productive, deliver poor quality
4. not finished after staying late
If you see that pattern, stop it at once and follow these simple rules:
1. everybody is on time each day
2. no working after 6
3. max 40 hours a week
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