Does your shop force you to take breaks?

maybe that, too.

 

These laws make sense if you are a grocery store clerk or a bank teller or somesuch, having to be on your feet constantly waiting on people.

If you are an editor or reporter, I am convinced you can find time in your day to goof off without your boss mandating it.

(But you still need to play the game with the time card.)

 

We joke that the only fiction we write in our office is our timecards.

 

Expense reports should also be included

 

Exactly. And I feel for those who have to use actual punch clocks or pretend they do on their time card. The system at our place? An electronic system that has a 7.5 hour day already filled in. You just check the correct days, add night/supervisor pay, and you're good.

 

I'll agree to both points. I guess the problem is I care too much.

I just went out and shot Little League for no other reason than the fact that I wanted to and I wanted to play with my new camera. It was a blast. I guess I just wish those moments where everything is so right, where the work is what matters, were the only moments I had to deal with.

 

Either Kansas is a strange little state or our company is a weird little company. We don't have to clock out for breaks and they're only 15 minutes. Two in an eight-hour day, one if you're scheduled for seven hours or fewer. Lunch can be between 30-60 minutes. You must clock out for lunch and must be out a minimum of 30 minutes. They don't care a bit about the salaried people but hourly people get hammered with that every so often.

Or is it that what we call "lunch" everyone else is calling a "break"?

 

Maybe if you would have taken a break and thought about it, you would have finished that sentence with something such as ", at least the way I like to work."

 

I think Schieza - and mine, for that matter - is the fact that our publisher specifically tells us to not to play games with the time card. When we explain to her that there are times when we can't take breaks - at long events, for example - she says we have to. We tell her we will put down a break if she wants, but we won't actually be taking them because there are times when it's impossible. Then she says we don't have a choice. Then we tell her we will put down the breaks, but she needs to understand the timecards won't be accurate and she has to accept that.
It's like arguing with a four year old. I think all we want is for her to give us the wink, wink and go along with it. When our last publisher told us not to put in more than five hours of OT and we kindly told her that was impossible, but we'd track the hours we did work and credit ourselves, she looked at me and said "you never said that and I never heard that," nodded and we went about our work and did just that. I would work 10 hours of OT, put down five, then credit myself with 7.5 hours of work after the spring season during one of the weeks when I only worked 32.5. New publisher found out I did that this year after I told her that's what I was going to do and she told me not to and I got written up.
I hate our publisher.
And our main paper's news editor.
In fact, just about the only person at my chain I like is schieza and a few of the newbie reporters that we have taken under our wing, because they realize the higher-ups at our chain have no clue how this business works.

 

Your boss cannot tell you to fake your time cards and cannot agree when you say it forces you to fake your time cards.

And what you were doing with the OT was against labor laws, too.

The problem is not your bosses so much as you. If you would rather fudge your hours and breaks then keep your yap shut about it.

 

Hero complex. What would really happen if you took breaks and worked 40 hours? Would the product be that much worse? Scheiza has said other editors don''t put in the same hours as they have a family life. Are their papers that much worse?

Can your job be done in 40-45 hours? More than likely, especially when Scheiza admitted covering a game because he wanted to dick around with his personal camera.

 

You know, I've read a lot of funny shit on this site, but this might be the best ever.

You are arguing -- well I'm trying to be nice. You're position is that your bosses are clueless because they are telling you to follow state labor law.

And the old publisher let you do what you wanted. And, pray tell, what happened to him/her? Did they get let go because they were letting reporters run the show?

Truth be told, my participation in this trainwreck of a thread far out exceed my interest but you have two options: Keep an honest time sheet or figure out your workload over the year and ask to be put on contract where you never have to worry about a timecard again.