Things That Are Bothering You, Got You All Hibbeldy-Jibbeldy, or just downright pissed, RIGHT NOW!

[Liam O]

E-Mart, I understood almost none of that but it sounds painful as hell.

__________________________________________________________________

Managed my time alarmingly well today, did as much as I could and still got less than half the **** I needed to done, some of it was because I was waiting on other people for ****, some just because I ran out of time and need to sleep. They really need to add hours to the day. Or I need to stop biting off more than I can chew. Either way.

 

[in stitches]

EMart - oy, that is really rough man. when you do get the surgery, i hope it goes well. my heart goes out to you.

 

[GreenFrog]



well...not hourly. They are salaried but they are not exempt employees (more on the exempt thing later...). Honestly, I don't know why more companies don't do it this way. Entry level employees don't really know what they want and you don't know if you like them.

Start them with a relatively low base salary based on a 35 hour week. It provides strong incentives to work more(we never have trouble rounding up some analysts on the weekend to do ****** data entry since if you didn't have any plans on sunday, why not make a few hundred bucks while you listen to music and sit around in your underwear?) and saves the company money when you are underutilized. Since they are billable, an extra hour worked is far more money for the company than an extra hour of OT. Work as much as a banker? Get paid like a banker. Come it at 9, take an hour for lunch and leave at 5? Won't pay you as much but as long as your work is good and you are billing, you can stay around as an analyst.
If times are slow and there's not a lot of work, the payroll also goes down (or if you suck and nobody wants to give you work, then at least they aren't paying you a lot just to sit around).
Really seems to help with the motivation and morale I think...new employees don't really have the buy-in that more senior people have so they see the extra work show up as extra money next friday (while more senior people are more motivated by projects being successful, professional reputation being good, and knowing that it should all get worked out come bonus time).

As to the companies that don't pay OT...I'm not sure I know how they get away with it.
There are a few tests to qualify as exempt. Most consulting employees meet the salary level test (something like 23k a year), but I don't see how they meet the duties tests.
-They don't supervise other employees
-management is not a primary part of the position (buget, interviewing, planning work, etc)
-they have no hiring/firing/raise input.
-most of their work isn't independant (not deciding the course of a project, not interacting with clients without direction from above, etc).
Then, they aren't learned professionals (pretty much all out of undergrad, so no doctors/lawyers/architects, etc), and they aren't administrative (they are all directly working on the core business).

Obviously there is something that lets the company claim them exempt...but I think that a lot of it is that entry level employees don't know **** about the world and thus don't know that they are really supposed to be eligible for overtime (and are happy just to have a job).

Wow, to your point in the last paragraph, I had no idea about this whole exempt vs. non-exempt employee thing. I'm fairly certain that most consulting companies have their entry level analysts as exempt employees so they can work them as many hours as necessary without having to pay OT. Makes sense for the company as it probably saves them a **** ton of money since most analysts will definitely hit a lot of OT hours.

One of my past managers told me a story of how at a past consulting gig as an analyst, some restructuring took place and his job title changed, putting him technically in a lower level position temporarily for a couple months. Well, I guess he was non-exempt because he was still doing the same work at the same number of hours and because of the insane hours he was working, he got INSANE OT. Apparently was making at least 2.5 his regular salary.

And then he was back to being exempt

OTC, how many hours do the analysts at your company end up working on average? If you're willing, can you simply work a lot of hours and make bank and vice versa, given that your work is good? It sounds like most people will end up working similar hours, with a couple here and there working a ton and a couple doing the whole 9-5 thing.

 

[Connemara]

As many of you know my grandmother passed away last August. My grandfather has been taking it as well as anyone could expect; he's a stoic guy and has been spending a lot of time with family friends. I guess he drove my younger sister somewhere this morning and opened up to her about how lonely he is, and how if my grandma were still alive they'd be snowshoeing and cross-country-skiing and going to art shows. Knowing he feels that way (I mean, I've known, but the confirmation is now there) really makes me sad.

 

[otc]



OTC, how many hours do the analysts at your company end up working on average? If you're willing, can you simply work a lot of hours and make bank and vice versa, given that your work is good? It sounds like most people will end up working similar hours, with a couple here and there working a ton and a couple doing the whole 9-5 thing.

The ones who get promoted or the ones who linger around doing boring work forever?

The way it is set up now, pay doubles at 60 hours (1X from 35-4 and 1.5X from there) so if your base was 50k and you average 60 a week, you get paid 100k (and I'd bet you would get a pretty good bonus that year too). If you are in demand and people want you...you can come up with enough work to get there. You can extrapolate that out to the hours an analyst at an ibank would work (although that person wouldn't be getting OT very much longer since they would get a couple of promotions if their work was good)

I personally have very little interest in working a ton of hours and don't care *too* much about the money so I didn't work that much. And now that I don't get paid OT, it is kind of nice that my paycheck is always the same whether I work 43 hours or 60 (or god forbid, take a vacation week which was only paid as a straight 35 hours with no OT).

Although it still sucks when I work 70+ hours like last week and know that a year ago, my paycheck for the same week would have actually been a lot bigger despite the promotion.

 

[in stitches]



As many of you know my grandmother passed away last August. My grandfather has been taking it as well as anyone could expect; he's a stoic guy and has been spending a lot of time with family friends. I guess he drove my younger sister somewhere this morning and opened up to her about how lonely he is, and how if my grandma were still alive they'd be snowshoeing and cross-country-skiing and going to art shows. Knowing he feels that way (I mean, I've known, but the confirmation is now there) really makes me sad.

thats rough, man. the more time he can spend with family, the better. my gramma is in the same boat. dont know he she does it.

 

[GreenFrog]



The ones who get promoted or the ones who linger around doing boring work forever?

The way it is set up now, pay doubles at 60 hours (1X from 35-4 and 1.5X from there) so if your base was 50k and you average 60 a week, you get paid 100k (and I'd bet you would get a pretty good bonus that year too). If you are in demand and people want you...you can come up with enough work to get there. You can extrapolate that out to the hours an analyst at an ibank would work (although that person wouldn't be getting OT very much longer since they would get a couple of promotions if their work was good)

I personally have very little interest in working a ton of hours and don't care *too* much about the money so I didn't work that much. And now that I don't get paid OT, it is kind of nice that my paycheck is always the same whether I work 43 hours or 60 (or god forbid, take a vacation week which was only paid as a straight 35 hours with no OT).

Although it still sucks when I work 70+ hours like last week and know that a year ago, my paycheck for the same week would have actually been a lot bigger despite the promotion.

You have an office. You have no right to complain. That in and of itself is probably worth.. I don't know -- a lot (in intangible benefits).

 

[L'Incandescent]

Sometimes people ask me in a somewhat prosecutorial tone why I don't teach this or that book for some class I'm teaching. There are many, many books that would be perfectly reasonable to teach; I cannot teach all of them. The burden of proof is not on me to explain why I am not teaching this or that book.

 

[StephenHero]

It's hard for stubborn people to understand the concept of finite time unless you teach Proust.

 

[Rambo]

Today was just an all around crap day. Nothing really went right all day long and it culminated in a rather ****** way.

 

[Liam O]

Roommates take too damned long in the shower.

 

[why]



Wedding planning BS. My fiance and I have different values with regard to the importance (expense) of weddings. Off the bat I resigned myself to paying much more than I would like and having little to no control over things. One of my few requests was that I be left alone to deal with what I and my groomsmen will wear. Cut to her slowly edging in on what me and my groomsmen will be wearing . . .

She seems oblivious to the fact that asking leading questions "what kind of vests will they be wearing", is in fact putting forth her opinion, not merely asking a question. So, SO, so ready to be married.

Is her family paying for it?

 

[why]



It's hard for stubborn people to understand the concept of finite time unless you teach Proust.

Yeah, L'Incandescent, why don't you teach Proust?

 

[aravenel]



As many of you know my grandmother passed away last August. My grandfather has been taking it as well as anyone could expect; he's a stoic guy and has been spending a lot of time with family friends. I guess he drove my younger sister somewhere this morning and opened up to her about how lonely he is, and how if my grandma were still alive they'd be snowshoeing and cross-country-skiing and going to art shows. Knowing he feels that way (I mean, I've known, but the confirmation is now there) really makes me sad.

Sorry to hear that Conne. When my grandmother passed, my grandfather was despondent as well. Gotta be tough after being with someone that long

 

[StephenHero]

I forgot to order ski pants online before my trip this weekend, so now I have to go to one of those outdoor stores and communicate with people that wear lanyards around their necks.