How would you feel/handle this - Salary and time worked / time off

[child of wonder]

You have a shitty boss who has no quarrels about taking advantage of you.

These are your options:

1. Shut up and take it, continue to be his bitch
2. Find another job
3. Stand up to your boss, tell him you're working PLENTY of OT to cover the days you've taken off and he can go fuck himself

 

[Engineer]

I told you...service based engineering sucks.

I was thinking and am curious as to what you mean by "service based engineering"? When I go to a customer site to troubleshoot or upgrade the programming in a machine, I can see that as a service. But, when my company builds machinery (90%+ of our business) and I design the control system, order the components, program and debug the machinery, I consider that a product. Otherwise, everyone that works is a service based job (i.e. time = product as you stated).

 

[notposting]

Good luck, that sucks. Maybe go back in a couple weeks with some documentation (email timestamps you mentioned, maybe a list of the projects from memory etc), make it casual (lunch?) so you can let him know what your workload is like...and what you would expect in return (ie a little bit of flexibility when you need it for things like the dentist).

Luckily I work (ha! when I'm not laid off) union electrical so if they want us working over 8 in a day--OT. Saturday--OT. Sunday--double time. Afternoons/Nights--shift premium. I pretty much get the weekends off and out of work on time 😉

edit: which to be honest, takes some getting used to. I'm the type of person who wouldn't mind staying late uncompensated to get it done in exchange for a couple paid hours off early on a Friday some time in the future. But it's things like bosses with really bad memories that end up getting contracts written like that.

 

[Gibson486]

I was thinking and am curious as to what you mean by "service based engineering"? When I go to a customer site to troubleshoot or upgrade the programming in a machine, I can see that as a service. But, when my company builds machinery (90%+ of our business) and I design the control system, order the components, program and debug the machinery, I consider that a product. Otherwise, everyone that works is a service based job (i.e. time = product as you stated).

It's service based because you would not even build the product if the customer did not request it. In contrast, your typical company builds stuff in anticipation of customers buying it and they make this cookie cutter product. With service based, products are done to custom specs depending on who the customer is and what they want and what environment they will be installed in. If the product fails to meet expectation, you have to pump more money (ie, your free time, because the client will not pay for that) into fixing it during start up or you simply piss the customer off and you lose him. Your customer sees it as paying you for a service to provide capital equipment or whatever else you make. They can buy the stuff themselves, but they would have no idea how to program or put it together so they pay for your time to make it work. Your time is more important because your work is done on a contract to contract basis and funds are VERY tight because you do not get those big DoD type contracts. Yeah, "typical companies" track time and it is important, but performance is based more on how many products sold. And face it, most "typical companies" have huge R&D budgets, while your development budget is probably something like 70 hours from start to finish.

 

[Rage187]

I have to say, I'm a huge anti union individual. Situations like these make me reconsider those views.

I've worked shitty jobs like this. Doing onsite installations that would run into the weekends, even after working 5 16 hour days. The only thing I used them for was a bullet point on my resume to get it nice 40 hour a week cube job. I still occasionally will do an onsite implementation but I volunteer for those and always get a one for one hour swap for the following week.

 

[RockinZ28]

Boss sounds like a douche. Salary also seems to be a scam if they can dock you for working under 40, but give no compensation for anything over 40.

I'm hourly, but my supervisor and manager are really cool. Yesterday we worked around 9 hours, with a 1hr+ paid time lunch and food. Manager said charge 12 hours OT, which is common for an 8 hour day on a Saturday/Sunday.

My supervisor also gives me 8 hours on the occasions that I do need to leave an hour or two early to take care of appointments etc. I'll write like 6 hours on my time sheet for a day, and he'll say what the hell is this, and change it to 8.

 

[Vic Vega]

...

 

[Paladin3]

You've already got time in with this employer and proven you will work hard for him. Don't throw that away on an unknown new job until you at least talk with him about it.

Any decent employer will want to keep their hard working employees happy.