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Subject:Re: Pressure For Free Overtime From:John Posada <jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:Richard Lewis <tech44writer -at- yahoo -dot- com>, techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Sun, 22 Oct 2006 13:54:42 -0700 (PDT)
> Question for all who do W2 contract work:
>
> Do you ever feel pressured to work overtime for free (off the
> clock work)?
No. I'm an employee now, but with the exception of one gig for one
year, a W-2 contractor for about 16 years. In all of them, I never
had a problem with getting OT approvals.
Never
When it became apprent that OT was going to be needed (after the
second or third occurance), I met with my manager and worked out a
pre-approved range in which I could work OT without needing
approval...at my last contarct, it was to 50 hours a week (10 hrs
OT). Only when it would exceed that did I need reapproval. In those
cases, I stockpiled the hours in excess of 10 and at first
opportunity, added them on the current period being approved at that
time.
As far as being out of touch, I'm sure your manager had email
access...even at business meetings in Africa.
> I felt such pressure at a certain company during a couple of
> contract assingments. In talking with a couple of other
> contractors at the company, they confided to me feeling this
> pressure also.
This isn't an approval process problem, it's a work-for-free problem.
> We experienced this in conjunction tight due dates. Technically,
> overtime was to be paid, but, it frequently needed to be approved
> and the approvers were, for a variety of (suspect) reasons, hard to
> reach
They weren't hard to reach to let you know about the deadlines.
> (including, in my case, the sudden need by the approver to
> attend business meetings in Africa).
>
> I just want to know if this is a common situation or not.
The only thing common was that the management is trying to get
something for nothing. There is nothing in the infrastrructure that
is preventing the approval process from working.
John Posada
Senior Technical Writer
"I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is."
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