Overtime pay

It reminds me of Starman's performance art.

 

I wish I could be fired (again) for refusing to work for free. Even in an at-will state, that wouldn't fly.

Issue is the fact I put "(again)" as I was once fired for refusing to work off the clock at a retail store when I was in college (high school?). But, my official reason was that I told someone an item was being sold at Walmart. I remembered the incident and it was a hot-ticket item we didn't have in stock but Walmart had gotten a shipment that morning but since it was a front to fire me for the OT fiasco, it obviously fell on unhearing ears.

 

My company appears to have a problem. If new OT rules come to pass, they're trying to figure out how the managing editor and I, the only two salaried people, are going to be handled.

One way they appear to want to handle it is by having us chart how many hours we're working and turn in an average. Then they'd base our salary on that average.

If this is true, this sounds like a pay cut. But they're asking for an average over the last two months and this has been a slow summer. I've had several weeks under 40, so my average hours would be less than 40... and if I understand what they're trying to do correctly, I'd end up with a raise.

Not that I do understand. Not a bit. Mostly because this is how the ME is saying it and I'm pretty sure she's confused. But maybe this means that I'd get some legitimate part-time help. And if I don't have time to update the web site on Friday night ... oh, well.

 

I had a sports editor job at a Gatehouse paper a few years back where I received $13 per hour compensation and actually was making $19.50 per hour (after time and a half). Managing Editor approved it, but Human Resources person was a bitch and treated me like shit and give me dirty looks constantly, when I would turn in 4-6 overtime hours per week. After about four times, the Publisher stuck his nose into the situation and question me about my hours and would question if I, a one-person staff with stringers where I actually was woking 45 or so hours per week. He didn't always understand that I would spend probably those overtime hours editing stringers copy, littered with mistakes. It got to a point where they let me go because they felt I could put in 40 and stop when I got there. Hard to do when you're working six days pes week. Finally, I got sick of it and took another job. Wasn't worth the hassle I had to go through. They wanted me to work the hours and basically not turn in my OT. It's really against the law. Lesson learned: how paper was spineless. Their loss, and their ripoff. Typical Gatehouse scum of the earth.

 

That's where you say, "Sure, I'll stop after 40. Have fun reading all the mistakes from the stringers and oh, Mr. Publisher, I'll be skipping your kid's Little League game on Saturday, that you wanted me to cover. After all, we can't afford the overtime, right?"

 

Reminds me of a joke we'd tell at my small daily in Michigan. The ME was a classic "make sure the time card totals 40 hours" guy, with the BS line about "when things ease up, you can work a few hours less and still put down 40." Of course, those easy weeks never came.

So on election night, he wanted people proofing pages to double-check the math of vote totals, percentages, etc. He handed out calculators. And our photographer says, "This is a (Podunk Press) calculator, so the totals never go beyond 40."

 

I wish we'd hear more stories like this because it goes on everywhere I've been and all the sportswriter I talk to laugh and say they put down 40 hours on their pay sheets when they usually work seven days a week about 8-10 hours a day, good for 65-70 hours and get paid for 40 ... In this instance you fought them on it and they let you go and you were in a constant battle with HR you indicated. So like Fredrick posted ... you either play the wink/wink game and work 60 and get paid 40 or you are in a constant fight and eventually get fired. Whatever ... nobody ever said being a "Journalist" was a good way to make a living.

p.s. I once heard of an editor who, while drinking with some staff members slipped and said, "No real journalist expects to work 40 hours a week. A true pro puts in the time it takes to cover the beat and doesn't think about the money!!" There'e a term "clock-watcher" ....

 

I'm surprised some people here have college degrees if they work 70 hours a week and put down 40.

 

Fredrick is the Rickey Henderson of the board.

 

No one is working 8-10 hours a day seven days a week. Hyperbole does not help your point.

 

Performance art is performance art.

A much larger problem at newspapers is making up some bullshit title and declaring that newly titled person salaried.

 

You went to college to make 5 bucks an hour?