Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You

#241

Post by temphn » Wed, Feb 29, 2012, 6:04 AM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #111

grellas wrote: post #48

The U.S. has a strong free enterprise foundation and its laws reflect this. Freedom of contract remains the rule even though it is much criticized in some circles and has been hedged considerably over the years. In employment, the old rule was that you could pretty much fire anyone at will for any reason and, if you did, you incurred no legal consequence. This is pure freedom of contract. In time, this unrestricted f…

There are two problems with your wall of text. Firstly your comparison to lawyering is disingenuous, lawyering has the partnership model, you take a load of young naive idiots, you dangle this partnership jackpot in front of their noses and then you work them to the bone doing dull and even pointless work that you bill your clients many $$$s an hour for while the partners take the bulk of that money home. Lots drop o…

Become a manager or CEO, and you will sing a different tune quite quickly. At that point you will realize that people want to get tons of money for flagrantly doing nothing, and some of them actually resent their peers who bust their humps so that the company can survive. At every company there are a few who do real work, and many who simply serve time.

Government is driving the US economy into a ditch and has also bankrupted the EU. Apple, by contrast, posts record numbers year over year. I think it's clear who should be dictating best practices to whom.

Re: Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You

#242

Post by azth » Wed, Feb 29, 2012, 6:13 AM UTC

x5315 wrote: post #21

I work at Twitter, where i regularly work longs hours (my standard work day is something like 10 - 19:30) and am frequently on call. I even spend time at the weekends thinking and hacking on specific problems. I feel that the author's post doesn't apply in my case, because: - Some of the problems i work on are amazing. They're interesting and fun, and i enjoy them outside the normal "work hours". - Twitter has an "un…

Do you at least get paid for overtime when you're on call?

Re: Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You

#243

Post by wisty » Wed, Feb 29, 2012, 6:27 AM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #226

etfb wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Australian system is quite functional and, unlike the USA, we still have a functioning economy. Granted it mainly comes from digging up bits of the country and selling it cheap to China, but it's not all bad news. The USA could do with a lot more socialism than it's currently got.

Australia was successful before the mining boom started. The policy reforms of the 80s and 90s are the basis of our long-term success.

Well, we were OK in the 90s. The mining boom, and the fact that overseas lenders are only just starting to question our ability to take in more debt has what has kept us out of recession, for now.

Medium term, we might be in for a beating, like the US. Long term, we need more innovation. Name Australian innovation. Easy, right? Now name one innovative Australian company.

Re: Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You

#244

Post by nandemo » Wed, Feb 29, 2012, 6:47 AM UTC

sskcaz wrote: post #218

nandemo wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I regularly work longs hours (my standard work day is something like 10 - 19:30) I live in Japan and what is this?

10AM - 7:30PM

I mean that in Japan, working 8.5 hours (if you subtract 1 hour for lunch) isn't considered working "long hours" at all.

Though I suppose it's not considered long hours in US too, perhaps the commenter above doesn't have a lot of experience or has been lucky till now.

Re: Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You

#245

Post by buff-a » Wed, Feb 29, 2012, 7:37 AM UTC

quatrevingts wrote: post #185

awolf wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You pay 10% more on COBRA than your employer was paying on your behalf. But the gist of what your saying still stands.

Plus, COBRA payments are (generally) not tax-deductible, so add another 30-40% more.

A self-employed person can deduct health expenses against gross income. You are correct in that COBRA cannot be deducted in this way. But it can still be taken as an itemized deduction. I'm not a tax accountant, but my tax accountant is. Another gotcha: if you're taking the 60% markdown on COBRA from Obama, then no, you're not allowed to write it off at all, but I wouldn't be complaining about that.

Re: Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You

#246

Post by jacques_chester » Wed, Feb 29, 2012, 9:09 AM UTC

wisty wrote: post #243

jacques_chester wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia was successful before the mining boom started. The policy reforms of the 80s and 90s are the basis of our long-term success.

Well, we were OK in the 90s. The mining boom, and the fact that overseas lenders are only just starting to question our ability to take in more debt has what has kept us out of recession, for now. Medium term, we might be in for a beating, like the US. Long term, we need more innovation. Name Australian innovation. Easy, right? Now name one innovative Australian company.

The boom was abruptly interrupted here, as it was everywhere else, in 2008 when the GFC kicked off. My old man works for Rio, who dumped tens of thousands of contractors almost immediately, freezing tens of billions of dollars of projects.

What really saved our bacon was a) labour market flexibility (ie many companies renegotiated hours instead of being forced to sack people) and b) that the Reserve Bank had lots of room to manoeuvre. The Commonwealth could also borrow deeply because it had no long term debt.

None of these conditions was accidental. They were, as I said, consequences of decades of sensible reform by both major parties.

> Easy, right? Now name one innovative Australian company.

There are thousands. They're just not necessarily talked about by the HN set. Off the top of my head there's Cochlear, the half dozen companies spun off from NICTA, Kaggle, Computershare which was the first of its kind and so on.

Re: Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You

#247

Post by prodigal_erik » Wed, Feb 29, 2012, 10:25 AM UTC

temphn wrote: post #240

jberryman wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're not helpless and beholden. For many people, especially those with families (not to mention those with family members with medical issues) the healthcare issue really does leave them beholden. It also stifles entrepreneurship.

If you aren't starting a company because you can't get private health insurance, you are probably not resourceful enough to be a successful entrepreneur. It is just not that hard.

It's a crapshoot. Dirt cheap for some, out of reach for others. Some people have been blackballed by the entire industry for the sin of developing a serious condition—the underwriter finds an excuse to weasel out of the coverage you thought you had, and then you can't get it ever again at any price. Group plans are a lot more likely to be available and to uphold their end of the deal.

Re: Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You

#248

Post by pgeorgi » Wed, Feb 29, 2012, 12:31 PM UTC

mseebach wrote: post #80

alan_cx wrote: post #53

I don't know much about US employment law, and what I do know, I don't like. But what I do know is this: No employer has ever, ever given me free money, and I have never expected it. There for, I have never ever given an employer free time, and never ever will. To do different is insane. It lowers one's worth since the deal is an exchange of money for time. It makes the employer think your free time is theirs to expl…

So, I agree with the point made in another comment about this not being so much about overtime, but about crap jobs. But: > the deal is an exchange of money for time It's not really, no. It's an exchange of work for time. If you're doing an exchange of time, you'll be punching in and out, and the boss worrying about your "butt in seat" productivity metric is reasonable. It doesn't necessarily follow that you should w…

It's exchange of money for time spent according to the boss' wishes.

Employment contracts tend to be "$x units of money for $y hours per week, doing $job".

Your "work for time" proposal ignores money, so that can't be right ;-) "money for work" is "that website for $3000".

So to clarify, I'll propose "money for time spent on work". And in that case, punching out after working the agreed hours per week is okay. Idling in the office is not okay (exceptions apply if you just aren't given enough work units, which is the superior's duty).

Re: Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You

#249

Post by FrojoS » Wed, Feb 29, 2012, 1:22 PM UTC

pilom wrote: post #211

dtparr wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you cite a source on that? As a software engineer for a major defense contractor who works closely with other major contractors, I can say with some degree of certainty that being paid overtime is certainly not the norm, and 60 hour weeks aren't terribly uncommon during crunch periods. We have to report our hours accurately, but they've always been pretty clear that we're exempt employees and so they're under no…

Turns out it isn't legally obligated but it is explicitly discouraged by the government in the Federal Acquisition Regulations https://www.acquisition.gov/far/current/html/Subpart%2037_1....

Mind to edit your orignal comment to reflect this? Thank you.

Re: Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You

#250

Post by WettowelReactor » Wed, Feb 29, 2012, 2:28 PM UTC

jberryman wrote: post #229

dclowd9901 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not helpless and beholden. There's just simply always a smaller fish. If I turn down the job that requires 60 hours a week, they will likely find someone who is willing to do that. It's partly from a week job market, partly because people are so bad at understanding their own financial situations, and partly because the availability of financial leveraging systems like financing and credit. And, of course, a c…

> You're not helpless and beholden. For many people, especially those with families (not to mention those with family members with medical issues) the healthcare issue really does leave them beholden. It also stifles entrepreneurship.

Then instead of regulating wage and hours shouldn't we focus on providing affordable healthcare (including coverage for preexisting conditions). If healthcare is the barrier to fluidity on the supply side then this is where we should focus our efforts.