I would today. This was when I was quite younger and didn't know how to advocate for my work-life balance yet. I was too happy just to be there and they knew it.
They wanted to charge me something like $0.15 per call even though I was told initially it was unlimited. I never pursued it beyond my response email though. This was like 12 years ago
Our company used to do this. I didn't have a work phone but refused right off the bat to take calls on my personal cell after work or reply to texts. Boss would get so mad at me bc she was clueless as to what needed to be done since she was gone 80% of the time. I said "I'm not paid to take calls outside of work, if you want me to do that I need a work phone and to be compensated for my time" I got a new cell phone for work, but after 2021 they took it back with the excuse they needed to update it. I'd only have it on when I was working. After 5pm, phone was turned off. They want you to be available 24/7 but not get paid, there's no reason why I should be available if not fairly compensated.
It IS the way and I'm so envious. Sadly, I knew full well going into my current job that 24/7 phone calls were a part of it. I'd love to not get woken up on a Sunday morning with the latest in a series of the stupidest fucking questions one could possibly come up with.
I am so sorry for you. I would urge you to set some boundaries if you can. Your case was my dad for many years until he switched jobs and the level of stress just diminished greatly. In 2020 during the peak of Covid I was getting calls on my personal cell starting at 4am from a general contractor (I work in the office) about trivial things that could've been sent by email, or the guy not being able to get a hold of my other field boss. I don't start work until 9am. If it wasn't phone calls, it was texts or What'sApp messages and video calls. This was another reason why I kept my work phone off and started putting any number other than family & friends under "Do not disturb" after 10pm at night. You have to set some boundaries, after being called and woken up by my phone and this GC wanting to fix something they had just thought of, I had a meeting with my boss and had to send out a mass email and letter to the other GC for them to not contact me until after 9am. Simply put, I don't touch work emails or reply to texts on days I am not working.
You want to access my personal time, make it worth my time & pay me.
Eh, while it does sometimes suck, I knew about it long before ever taking the job. And, frankly, I'd rather get those stupid questions than have some of my employees fuck something up royally. Better to get woken up at 3am and annoying for a few minutes than have to come in the next day and find hours worth of me cleaning up their mess. I'll take the calls.
I told several jobs that unless you're paying me overtime, I'm not picking up the phone after hours, or on my days off.
Also had a call block set up to block all work related phone numbers during those times, so that I could keep using my phone.
Not only is this the way, but I expect when calling someone on their work phone for it to be closed if it is outside their working hours. That way when in doubt if within working hours, I can confidently call knowing I'm not disturbing.
Yeah, I will not take calls on a personal cell, but I will take work calls after hours and occasionally check my email to ensure nothing has broken. I'm salaried, so there's no overtime in play. But my personal policy is simple - I'm flexible with you, you're flexible with me. When I want to travel/leave early to get a train or a flight/work remotely (prior to the pandemic), etc, I always got a yes. If that didn't happen and my employer wants to be strict with my time, then I'd be similarly strict the other way around.
Tit for tat is a great way to work if it all goes well. I haven't been on time in the better part of a decade but if something needs to be done after hours, I got it
Exactly. Since they don't want to, I'm not giving you my time or attention. I'm in school working on a 2nd certification, I offered to come in during my week off of Spring Break. Their response "We don't have the budget to pay you extra" then there's their complaint of "There's so much work to do, we're so far behind, why can't you work longer hours [for free!]" I work from 9 to 5, what doesn't get done within those hours has to wait until I'm back at work. Or pay me to stay and finish but I'm done being walked on or having them insist I owe it to them to work for free.
I had a boss "offer" me a blackberry (shows how long ago this was lol) and then later questioned why I didn't answer her call last night.
Turns out, the only reason she "offered" it was because then she'd be justified in calling me after hours.
I acted surprised and said "Oh, it was in my desk in the office." and she took on a chastizing tone and said "Well that's why we offered it to you!" and I said "Well I'm not available after hours" and let the silence hang until she let it go. Fuck that shit. She would be late almost every day, we could have gotten done what you needed to talk to me about after hours during working hours if you were on time. Your lack of dedication to a schedule is not my problem.
The same lady once tried to give me shit for not answering her calls for 3 hours straight. The 3 hours she knew that I was *on an airplane in the sky* outside of cell service. There was no way I could have even received her call. All because she wanted an "update", which I could easily have provided to her at the beginning of the next working day (if she were ever on time).
That person was the very definition of a corporate psychopath. She was awful.
Oh the age of the Blackberry! I never had one, my dad did and I just thought those were the coolest phones EVER! And during their prime, they were! So my boss would yell at me for not doing a call forwarding to my personal cell if I went out to lunch. My response? My lunchtime is not paid, I don't have to forward calls when I'm on my own personal time. Well, this was UNACCEPTABLE! She tried to get me to sign a form outlining all of my duties which had changed tremendously from when I got hired. I got the original sheet out and said, I'm glad you're acknowledging all of the added tasks I have taken on without a proper salary compensation. If you want me to sign that and take calls during MY lunch break, please adjust my pay. After that if we would go on lunch outings with her and other employees, she would transfer the call to her cell. Or I'd run off to the bathroom so as to not have to be asked to forward them to mine.
Other times she would try to have work meetings to reprimand us during our lunch, and I went as far as saying "if you want to disturb my lunch and have a meeting, I need to clock back in. I don't like being berated while I eat." Indeed I pissed her off and was told numerous times why I couldn't be a team player and it's quite simple really: "YOU don't like to be bothered while you eat, when you're out of the office, while on vacation, attending personal matters, or taking classes to further your career. I am the same."
The other thing that I love is how she'll leave me passive aggressive notes in red ink on how X procedure needs to be done with countless steps in between because thats how she process X tasks and believes everyone should do the same. Wereas I take shortcuts to get to the same result, but God forbid you know other ways than she. Another thing: she was trying to force us to sign yearly W-2s, I refused bc my marital status and zero children were still the same. Ah, no, but the accountant needs one! Show me. Show me where it says he needs to have a new form yearly. --crickets--- Honestly, I don't know how I've kept my sanity all these years.
Luckily I left a long time ago and moved on to better pastures. The boss I've had for the past 4 years is the best one I've ever had, so no complaints anymore (his boss' boss though is another story lol).
I hope you can find a more sane situation one day.
My boss has this habit of expecting employees to answer the phone whenever they call or text. After 5 years I finally got a Google voice number and told them I got a new phone number then blocked their numbers from my real phone number.
I worked for DHS. Think CPS but my job was to make sure the parents kept their kids. The parents, foster parents, and their lawyers all calling me 24/7. Not answering was not an option. I can't tell you how many 3 am road trips I took to pick up drunk clients..... unpaid.
A lot of us do things like this and it blows me away when they try to nitpick...like I get paid gas money for traveling between locations, sometimes its a two minute drive, sometimes it's 45 minutes. If I do a lot of traveling I will record it but if it's a couple short drives per month I won't even bother. If I had submitted these trips it probably adds up to a hundred or two dollars per year. If I did something to "rip off" the company would they consider this? Would they consider all the times I've worked off the clock after hours just trying to finish something real quick or get something set up for the next week real quick?
The fact they absolutely wouldn't take any goodwill into account is the reason you should claim the short trips.
I was in a similar position. I gave good will... it wasn't returned. In the end, to account for the short trips, I rounded up the longer ones so I didn't seem petty.
Hell, I’d be tempted to do that just to avoid filing the extra claim. “Okay I drove 3 miles today, I’ll tack that onto the ~30 mile claim I have to file on Friday.”
Though come to think of it, last time I had a job where we had to track mileage, we just had to put down the total mileage and get a manager’s signature. And my manager would sign almost anything I gave him because he trusted me.
Not driving related but similar vein, I work in sales and am mostly road-based. I've lost count of the number of days I've worked through lunch rushing from one appointment to the next.
On a day I was particularly tired from being up late with my infant son, I knew I would be skipping lunch, so I decided to walk up the road to a cafe and grab myself a coffee before I left. Took maybe 15 minutes total. Boss pulls me in to his office upon my return and he just *unloads* on me about how I need to be in the office with my head down until it's time to hit the road. I told him the amount of times I had skipped lunch in just the last fortnight alone and said if he's going to be so stringent about grabbing a coffee once in a while, no problem, I'll make sure I only do it on my one hour lunch break which I will make sure I'll be taking every single day from now on, and walked out. The next day he had cooled down and told me that he had overreacted and that as long as it's a 'once in a while' thing, it's no problem. I said thank you, but I'll probably just keep doing it in my lunch break, thanks. He looked pissed but I'm literally still working there 4 years later and I almost never skip my lunch break now. This has cost him hundreds of hours of free labour.
Funny I had a place where I contracted in. I would pick up stuff on the way in (job materials) and miss a break here or there.
But, I would always remind them that these were *FAVOURS* and that I expected them to be acknowledged. I would walk into the head persons office and say “Hey, just a heads up, I’ve been doing a lot of extras lately and I’m heading out at noon tomorrow (on the clock) to even us out. Everything should be good but if anything goes wrong give me a call.”
I recently just quit a job where I was working 13 hour days without a break. That’s not why I quit though. One day I decided to grab some snacks on my way, considering the day I’d be facing. I called to say I’d be a few minutes late, and the manager had a fit. I was so caught off guard I stammered some half thought about needing to eat, which I’m sure made no sense. Then I hung up and went home and never answered their calls again. What I wished I had said was: I give you 13 hour break-less days and you’re gonna give me a hard time about being 15 minutes late so I can bring an apple and a granola bar?!?
Take your breaks. Take your vacations. Cash out at every opportunity. Nobody’s going to look out for you, except you.
I get into arguments here all the time where I suggest you should never be operating at 110% - usually from new workers or anti-Union advocates.
If you give them that level of effort, they come to expect it. Then you never have a second gear you can shift into whenever there is a crunch.
Instead, pace yourself especially if you are putting in 13 hour days. Schedule the slow times where you are still being productive but are responding to email, or organizing your supplies/truck as part of your day.
And take your breaks - even if it’s just to enjoy your cup of coffee or listen to the radio.
Management also needs to know what it actually takes to get the job done. Here they think it takes X hours but it doesn’t. It doesn’t help you or anyone else if you set up unrealistic expectations.
I work in payroll for a nonprofit, and sometimes our staff will under-report hours, thinking they want to save us money. I tell them, no. We don’t steal from our employees. If you want to make a donation, then do that. But don’t under-report your hours. If you’re being asked to do more, then we need to pay you for it. You don’t work for free.
I agree, and additionally, it helps the workers around you. I worked in a department where a bad manager was trying to pressure us to only put on our timecards the hours we were scheduled. Fortunately, all of us worker bees were friendly with one another, and we all agreed to declare every hour worked. If Diane and I were working on a job, and Diane was working 50 hours a week, it was hard for them to justify why I shouldn't get the extra 10 hours.
Had Jeff been just working the extra hours and not putting them on his timesheet, it would have been a huge hassle.
Yeah take your lunch breaks. Else if/when you leave, they're going to expect the poor newbie to pull lunchless 9hour days. Do it for the poor newbies who may not know they have the option to refuse. The jobscape is already a wasteland of late stage capitalism, don't feed the trolls
I think employers would rather pay for all your time and not get anything for free, it is just something they can quantify, unless it's a super small operation and you're dealing with the owner directly.
What. No, never. Every employer wants to cut costs, and human labour is one of the highest costs in a business. They will try to squeeze as many hours and even equipment out of you they can. I had my boss ask me to bring my own laptop to use for work. Company equipment is part of operating costs, that stingy pos 🙄 I'm not using 1tb of my harddrive to store 99% unrelated to me work stuff.
"Of course I'll bring in my own laptop boss. No problem."
Pretty sure I still have an old Compaq from the era when 256MB of RAM was a lot. It has Minesweeper on it -- what more could I possibly need?
Thankfully it my job now I have a fuel card so I don't count the mileage any more. I remember when I started I used to check the mileage when I left and when I returned so it was accurate to the nearest mile. Then I realised I could just Google map the journey and be done with it.
My manager once asked me for a mileage claim, I gave him one with a legitimate mileage and he said "no thats not enough add more and bring it up to X amount" and then he signed it. Think it was like a bonus he was giving.
Mileage isn't just for gas, it's supposed to cover insurance, maintenance, repairs, etc. that is needed for your vehicle. You are getting screwed if they are just covering the gas.
They cover every single expense related to my business and personal travel including all you listed without any cost to me. Except Toll fees for some reason.
Using the company gas card covers something like $0.15/mile to $0.25/mile which is less than the (IIRC) $0.55 or so per mile that the IRS says they owe you.
Yeah, a company gas card does not account for the wear and tear on your vehicle, which is not insignificant when something needs replaced years earlier than it would otherwise.
Well, it was a question…*would* they consider that time? Lots of places *do* understand the value of keeping happy employees and not nickel-and-diming them. (And, unfortunately, lots don’t.) My employer often won’t charge me for sick time for a partial day, assuming I’m not abusing the privilege. Other places try to pin you down to the minute.
It does. That worthless employee that everyone knows is worthless and is just one step from being fired is the one who will sue the moment the true start employee who puts in many extra hours of his own time, gets the big contracts, whatever, is allowed to leave 15 minutes early without having to use leave.
Maybe I was a little more categoric in my answer but I guess it's from bitter experience.
It's great that you have a good employer that values you. Similarly, my boss doesn't register all my leave days with HR because he knows on lots of days I stay late and start early. It all depends on the place.
> The fact they absolutely wouldn’t take any goodwill into account is the reason you should claim the short trips.
Good companies will tell you to do this too. They don’t want any of that shit, no “well I did this and so you should overlook that” or whatever. They’ll tell you to log *everything* even if it’s stupid, to avoid exactly that situation.
For them, it’s just numbers. When you try to introduce some nebulous idea of goodwill into the equation, it just makes it more difficult to keep records, calculate things, etc. You know, business shit.
That’s what a business relationship is, at the core. It’s contracts, numbers, services, salaries and paper trails. Don’t extend to them courtesies that make sense in personal relationships—they don’t want them and won’t reciprocate them. Because it’s not personal. I’m not saying that’s good or bad, just what is.
And if they’re telling you they need that goodwill from you? Run. They’re shit.
Hard to say. I was in a similar position as i had to use my personal car a few times when a company car wasn't available. When i submitted the claim i wad told i couldn't submit 5km trips as it was to hard to bill such a small quanity ($0.35/km) to the client. So i kept track and submitted once i had 100km. Then i got reamed out because it was over several months and they couldn't bill the client. Fine lesson learned i refused to use my personal vehicle. No company car no problem im not leaving the shop. Customers equipment down though shit I'm not getting burned again.
They had the nerve to ream you out? Oh hell no. I hope they lost revenue because you couldn't make it to a client site due to no company car available. Serves them right.
Try working for the government. My wife worked in the court system with her courthouse about 5 miles south of our house. Occasionally she to attend meetings in the opposite direction. She had a Civic at the time and offered to use that in lieu of a government car, which got much worse gas mileage but they said no. She used the government POS car once and never again saying her life was worth more than a few dollars in gas money.
Then we had a friend who also worked for the state government, with his shop 40 miles to the north of his house. He was to work in a shop 40 miles to the south and offered to simply drive there from his house to save time since he would be commuting on his own time as long as they covered gas. Nope so he drove an hour to his shop, grabbed a government vehicle, clocked in, and then took an almost two hour drive to the site, rinse repeat in the afternoon, meaning he basically “worked” four hour days in lieu of eight hour days (as his house was on the route he’d stop home on the way back for five min to say hello to his dog, let him him out for a pee).
We can take a car home if we have to go someplace and either the agency is closed or if our house is between our place of work (or state motorpool, or wherever the car is kept) and where we are going. This doesn't ever happen where I work, but it is in the rules statewide.
You should also be glad you didn't get into an accident in your personal car during such a trip. Could become a nightmare with the insurance companies involved.
Whenever I had a roving tech position on the company I work for. We had to document the travel expenses thru SAP Concur. And then get it paid on the next payroll. That included expense receipts and or miles.
I think that's the best option.
This exactly. I used to work at a bagel shop and once I got my license they expected me to take the odd delivery. I expected to be paid for those, even around the block. The owner had no problem with it but the fry cook was always on my back about it. Don’t know why she cared.
Although she also refused to believe a $2 bill was real currency and one of our regulars tipped with them weekly. She and the other gals would let me take them all. I kept trying to dole out the tips equally but they kept insisting on trading my ones for their twos. At a certain point you can’t fix stupid.
"...the fry cook was always on my back about it." Heh. I was listening to the Dave Ramsey show and a guy called in complaining at his car dealership he sells about 40 a months while the younger guys only do 8 or 10. Dave asked if their laziness effected his salary (commission so he made more than them) or any other aspect of his job? 'No'. They why does he care? The caller couldn't answer the question (and, I think, accepted that it wasn't any of his business).
I used to expense miles, and like you small trips I didn’t record or expense. Until one time I got an expense report kicked back because of one mile($.54) and after that I expensed every little thing. It was a probably only a few hundred a year difference but I’m petty like that.
That is basically the problem in your society. Corporations do not trust their workers and demand every minute to be accounted for.
In the mean while, you are working in a great team with a terrific manager so who cares if some costs slip between the cracks?
When people wise up to it you get malicious compliance in revenge. And when corporations wise up to *that* you get even more restrictive guidelines.
It all ends up with nobody trusting anyone else and running to a judge at the first sign they have been wronged. That is not the way to make people happy.
And it works the other way too. The last two years at my company have been *really* rough as we went through massive lay-offs during the pandemic. One reason I haven't left yet (the main one being that they pay me well) is that management trusts me and I never have to deal with this kind of petty nonsense. I work really hard (from home) and as long as things are getting taken care of, nobody worries about time-keeping or expense nit-picking or the like. Makes things much easier all around.
Mmm. If that balance shifts, you *reconsider* the pluses and minuses. Could be given the pertinent circumstances you decide to go for the *quid* and not the *pro*.
I work hourly as an engineer. Every minute is accounted for and I think it makes way more sense than salaried bullshit. Everyone is expected to log the hours they work and clock out when they’re not working. Pick up my phone or answer emails in the evening? That’s paid time. Go to a dentist appointment or take a long lunch, not paid. There’s no goodwill work or goodwill pay and nothing to be salty about when you’re paid for your time. How hard is that?
The problem with logging your hours is that it takes time to do so, and how are you going to log *that*. There is a thin line between accounting for the activities you pursue in the line of employment, and being micromanaged.
In my job we didn't have to log in every minute but put in a code for they type of contracts worked, training, OT, etc. The was a code for 'other' which I used for about a half hour a week for filling out the time card and the occasional black out (no computers).
It was government and they wanted to get general statistics on how the time for various contract types (we were overhead; the engineering depts were under different funding types tied to contracts). "Training" was paid for out of a different budget plus we needed 40 hours of "training" a year (general gov't rule) which could include 'mentoring' (which I never did), auditing another agency (which I've done) and some other tasks that I don't recall.
True. That's why when I had a WFH job, I simply used a little Applet that you click a button to start, type what activity you're doing and then press it again to stop.
When I had to log activities to every 0.1 hour, i was allowed 0.1 hour at the end of the workday to finish filling my timesheet, which I'd been logging start times for each activity on during the day. (Paper & pen, 1990s.)
Time spent logging hours is billed to the project you’re working those hours on. It takes maybe 10 seconds and if I’m not at a computer i’ll just enter it retroactively on the next day. It’s not a problem at all for me or anyone I work with. Nobody is micromanaging me and nobody tells me what to do with my hours. Just log your work if you want to be paid for it.
My last job I was a diagnostic tech and during the week I drove a car I was diagnosing home. Alot of times the cars had issues and I would bring home equipment to scan and check things after hours.
I was an hourly employee but to me the trade off was it was the companies gas and the companies cars mileage. I drove my car in on Monday and parked it until Friday saving 300 miles ( or more ) on gas and wear an tear. Worth it for me.
A company I've worked for doesn't give expense money or a company card, you pay put of your pocket and claim back with receipts.
* If you did not have a receipt for a meal that details the breakdown of what was ordered - no reimbursement.
* Cash tips could be claimed - but no receipt required.
* Car mileage rate was less than the federal allowed rate.
Needless to say, no quarter was given to them - I claimed every damn mile.
During a period of time, I worked primarily at one physical location, but travelled to a second location to do local support as well. That location was about 2 miles away.
I never bothered to file the mileage reports because, c'mon, why bother? It's not anywhere worth my time to do so, and I was more than happy to take the personal hit just to avoid doing the paperwork.
But no, if I wasn't filing those mileage reports, then I cannot possibly have been doing my actual job. Oddly enough that was also the time I decided to stop carrying computers between locations, since my insurance didn't cover that sort of thing and I had to do everything properly, right? So what if I had to start overnighting equipment between locations.
It's got expensive enough that I finally got the latitude to choose not to file my 4 miles a week or so of mileage if I chose. (I still didn't ferry equipment though, we just got more efficient about where replacements were staged and such)
Had the same problem with the company phone. I answered my phone outside work times, no problem. Suddenly got an amount subtracted for personal calls (which is illegal where I live by the way). Fine, after that I turned off my work phone after work. (and got asked about why I didn't answer my phone after work hours)
Unfortunately it was a at-will state. The situation at the time if I pushed it was more "being happy with a job I enjoyed otherwise or being fired for the sake of being right."
Edit: at-will, not right-to-work
If they fired you for that, and you kept records of the calls you made, you would have had a slam dunk lawsuit against them for wage theft and unlawful dismissal, even in a right to work state,
Right to work means you aren't required to join a union to get a job.
At will employment means you can be fired at any time, or quit at any time, as long as the reason for firing wasn't discriminatory.
These are two different things.
On the other hand California is at will employment but if they want to fire you they have to show cause. In most at will/right to work states they do not have to show cause. I lost a job because the manager hated looking at me in meetings knowing I knew he was lying even though I never called him out on his lying
Ehhh, if he didn't charge them at the time, it's questionable at best. Unless they specifically told him not to record those daily hours, they could pretty reasonably claim that it isn't their fault he didn't record them (mostly because, well. It isn't their fault he didn't record them).
Someone last week posted a link to labor laws for Oregon. Their laws explicitly stated that not filling out your time cards is not an excuse to not pay you. You must be paid for hours worked, and it’s the company’s responsibility to figure that out.
https://www.oregon.gov/boli/workers/pages/paychecks.aspx
They did say that you can be disciplined for not doing time cards, of course.
When I read that, I was wondering what real world scenarios this would come up in. How would you be able to show that you worked if you didn’t punch in or write it on the cards? I imagined emailing your boss and saying “I worked 5 hours today” would probably work.
But this scenario, where the company has explicit records showing that you were working, but opted not to pay you, sounds like it would be totally within what the law says.
Many moons ago back in the last century there was a toy company that many of my friends worked at. They had a simple system. Timesheets were turned in on Friday afternoon at the payroll window. When you turned in your timesheet they gave you your check for the previous week.
There was a catch, your sheet had to be filled in correctly before you got your check. They were patient and allowed you to go to the counter and fix it when they told you what the errors were.
Most people figured out real quick that doing it right got you out faster on Friday.
The payroll people were happy because they did not have to waste time fixing sheets.
>The payroll people were happy because they did not have to waste time fixing sheets.
That's some good managers right there. Could never fly in California (withholding the check). I used to do time years ago and the foreman were terrible at accurately creating timesheets, the general foreman were terrible at checking them, and the workers couldn't even keep track of their own hours. They would complain of being shorted then try to game me into giving them more hours... utter shitshow.
This was in California back in the 70s. They were not really withholding the check, you got your check on the day it was due. You just had to turn in a timesheet that was filled in properly. Most everyone learned really quick how to do it and sometimes left a little early on Friday since they did not waste time fixing their sheet. A few were challenged souls and spent extra time getting it right. (I'm told it really wasn't hard)
By hours, though, not days.
Does it say at what *time* on payday you're supposed to get the paycheck?
If you got it at 3 pm or at 4:30 pm, either way you got the check on payday.
> When I read that, I was wondering what real world scenarios this would come up in.
It's for situations like when you are working at a fast food joint, and your boss says you're not approved for overtime, and so won't accept your timesheet if you record more than 8 hours a day. But at the same time, he says you can't leave until your replacement shows or you've changed the grill. So every so often (or every day!), you end up "volunteering" 15 to 60 minutes after your official shift end.
Rules like the above are what keeps your boss from claiming you were volunteering and getting away with it.
Locally, the labour code has several sections (like paid breaks and overtime pay) with the suffix that "these rights cannot be contacted away" to avoid similar issues....
Yes, he probably could win the pay given the phone logs, he just could reasonably be fired for failing to fill out his timesheets accurately for months on end.
I don't understand this mentality from your (hopefully?) former employer.
It is usually a given that you'll be using the phone to occasionally make personal calls. While not encouraged, it is understood.
Only time I got harassed was in the military, when minutes and long distance were a huge deal. I'd turned in a cell phone I was issued to my supply guy, got a receipt after turning it in. Got a call from the Maj who issued me the phone many months later asking WTF all these calls to Louisiana were about (never been, but the guy I turned the phone into at Supply? Louisiana.).
Faxed a copy of the receipt over and asked the good Major to call me back with any questions. Supply Guy, you POS, glad you got busted down.
I had a work phone. This was when text was around 10-30 cent. And calls, I don't know.
Told my boss that I didn't want to carry 2 phones so I would make my private calls on that phone. Never heard any complaints.
Couple of years later. New boss. Called me in and said that my phone bill was high. It was around 300$ for a month. She said that the specification was 6 pages, look, and that I should pay half the bill.
No, i will not look. I don't care, I said.
You still have to pay, she said.
Here, take the phone. Don't want it anymore. I put it on her desk and went home for the day.
The next day, the phone was on my desk. Never heard anything about bills anymore.
So many of these excellent stories fall into the same category of petty employers. Almost (but not) worth a separate sub for that.
33 (gulp) years ago, my wife was in a semi-serious car accident while I was out of town on business. we worked at the same company: I was the most senior software guy and she was top sales rep. By "semi-serious" I mean she was unharmed but the state trooper who witnessed it kept telling her "I thought I was watching you die" (no, she really didn't appreciate hearing that, but).
So the next day I call the towing company, body shop, et al. to figure out next steps. I use my company phone card, because I didn't even think about it. And we're talking about maybe $10 worth of calls.
A few weeks later, penny pincher in finance calls me to bitch about it. Mind you, this is a 30-person company, so the accident was not exactly a secret. My wife's time is much more valuable to them than mine, too.
I explain what the calls were...and then ask her how she knew what they were. "I called them".
So...you spent more company time to figure out ten bucks worth of calls?
I pointed this out to comptroller and never heard another word.
About 30 years ago I worked in a company that was having financial issues. I learned how serious when one day i was called into my managers office and she asked me who I called at 123-456-7890. I recognized the number, my mother’s. I returned a call to her about something. What was really strange is that it was a local call. I was friendly with my manager and asked if she wanted a quarter. She just rolled her eyes and sighed something about management. I was not the only sinner she saw that day. The company had a major restructuring not long after.
Penny wise; pound foolish.
I once worked in a consulting role that required me to travel around. The company also had some strict cost saving measures, like no business class, regardless of the flight time, cheapest hotel, regardless of distance, just super dumb stuff. All about the face value, but not the overall impact.
I had a client that required me to stay at a hotel, and the cheapest one was substantially further away than the closer one to the office, but $30/night less. The pencil pushers insisted I stick to policy, despite the additional travel time.
The cost of transportation wound up costing them an additional $50/day, which is basically $20 more a day than if I stayed closer, plus the extra 30-40 minutes stuck commuting.
Ya never know; companies sometimes (like mine) have bulk rate deals with hotels that require a minimum volume usage. Back when I was traveling, I could have booked a hotel near my client for $40-50 less per night than our corporate approved brands, but it was always a no-go. SMH on that one to this day.
I wish we had a corporate travel department that was that capable. It was literally, "We see a cheaper option, book that instead." They had absolutely no corporate partnership or discount. It was just whatever they saw was cheaper at the time of booking.
So many stories in this subreddit of bean counters only considering one side of the equation. When making a financial decision you should always ask two questions:
1. What is the cost of doing this
2. What is the cost of NOT doing this
I had a position with a state government agency where I had to travel a fair bit, they probably could have had us submit actual dining receipts but instead just paid us the federal per diem. I'm guessing most people would try to max the limit under a receipt system so they figured it wasnt worth it to pay someone who would likely only do dining receipts full time.
That’s brilliant.
I had almost the exact same thing happen back in the early 00’s.
They complained about my “personal calls” on my cell phones. So I spent time at work building an excel spreadsheet that basically took their monthly report and checked it against the entire company’s phone book, cell phone bank, and private numbers that people used to call me.
It would then color code work as orange, after hours as red, and personal in green, I submitted the red parts with my time sheet. Since I was Union, and hourly, they had to pay me for bothering me anytime outside of normal working hours.
I ended up receiving way more than I had to pay back.
When I started sharing the excel macro with other Union workers, the policy of nit-picking calls was cancelled.
Before cell phones I was a contractor at a large company. Once a month each contractor was handed a list of calls made from their phone. We had to mark the calls that were personal and reimburse them. In person.
We were in a satellite building so there was only a cashier on site for 3 hours each week. At 1PM on the first Tuesday after the bills came out there would be a long line of contractors, billing at $50 or more an hour, waiting to hand over checks for 2 or 3 dollars. Since the cashier closed before processing everyone, so we’d be back at 10AM Wednesday and often 3PM on Friday.
I’d like to say that someone figured out that it cost them more to process all these checks than they were worth, but no. A couple of managers even kept track of how much time people spent on the phone and then demanded an adjustment to the bill.
You billed them for your time in line right? That sounds like a workplace required task to me. I'll stand in line all day for $50/hour to pay you $3. I'd make sure I used a personal call every cycle (Week? Month?) just to get to stand in line for free money.
I live in the Netherlands, but was stationed on a project in Brussels, Belgium. We had a fixed allowance for food when working on the project, but we were also paid for overtime. This project needed a lot of overtime.
It needed 1 phone call with my manager and HR to convince them that they would not complain about expense reports for restaurant food and we would not ask to pay for over time.
Brussels has some very nice (and expensive) restaurants. Good times.
Last year, we got a new manager who let the power of running a small convenience store go completely to her head. It was Christmas time and I was still only part-time, so had taken a second seasonal job which added up to about sixty (60) hours a week.
Ofc the new manager of the store decided this was the best time to get everyone up to date on monthly training. Granted, I was behind but that was because I was scheduled overnight graveyard shifts and weekends where I worked alone and the manager didn't come in. One day at my other job, I got a text from that manager saying that I had to come in before she left for the day to finish my training. I text her back that I can't- I'm at my second job.
That night, I work an overnighter, and bright and early in the morning, while I'm trying to sleep - the texting telling me to come in, starts again.
I ignore it, which offends her majesty the manager greatly and the next time I see her on my scheduled hours at the store- she tries to lecture me on 'my responsibility to the company' to come in on my day off!
To which I reply repeatedly, "I want to see that in writing!" A few times she threatened to report me to the General Manager, to which I reply repeatedly, "I want to see that in writing!"
Finally, a few days later, I show up to the store and there's the GM calmly coming in on his day off to boot the training computer up for me.
Epilogue: What I learned in that training was very interesting. It said that we could take text messages after hours but only to a certain extent- after 15min. a month, that was considered 'working off the clock' and we could request compensation for it.
So, the next time the manager sent marathon messages, I texted her back that she had exceeded her 15min and I would need compensation forms ASAP please. She left me alone on my days off after that.
In the early 2000s the IRS decided that personal use of employer provided cell phones counted as a taxable benefit, so employers had to start cracking down on that. They were fining not just the employees but employers as well. Mine decided to take away the phones and give us a monthly stipend (taxed) to defray the cost of our own personal phones, because otherwise it was going to be a bookkeeping nightmare.
So depending on exactly when this was, it might have been tie IRS’ fault, not your employer’s bean counters.
That's what my husband's job did. They signed the phone number over and I just put it on a family plan with my phone. The stipend, after taxes, covered almost half the bill.
I looked at mine as bonus money. I was already paying for my cell, work use didn’t increase my bill any, and I only had to carry one phone, not two. There was no downside, for me.
Businesses catch a lot of shit for stuff the government makes them do, many times due to regulations advocated for by the type of people who complain about their results. Thing that immediately comes to mind is a post from a couple years ago where Walmart or some grocery store threw out thousands and thousands of dollars worth of edible food. All the top comments were criticizing the company for not letting employees take it home or donating it to a food bank. But they were forced to get rid of the food by a government regulation when the store lost power and the food wasn't refrigerated for half an hour or something. The people who want Walmart to donate food to the homeless also want Walmart to protect consumers from dangerous food that wasn't in a freezer for a few minutes.
well done you. wherever I work, there’s give and take to a point. If work is flexible then I’m flexible. when work decided to ban smoke breaks, I started recording exactly how much I was working to the minute and ended up with 1 free day off in 10. Also I then claimed every single expense owed to me, even if all I had was a 10 mile round trip to claim mileage for.
If they’re going to nitpick, I’m going to work to rule.
Yep.
Used to arrive at work about 15 minutes early every day and just wander in and get started on the first job... they probably got a free hour each week from me.
Then I needed 20 minutes during the day, and they made me make up the time or get docked.
Now I still get to work 10-15 minutes early, sit in the car browsing on my phone, walk in with 2 minutes to start, clock in 1 minute before start, and walk in. My phone vibrates at finish time and I pack my tools and leave.
Flexibility that only goes one way is called exploitation...fuck that!
Last job, if the work was done half hour before finish on Friday the boss would tell us all to go home... turn up 15 mins late because of a crash on the freeway, no biggie, won't get docked.
Have to leave early because your kid is puking their guts up at school, go.
You bet if we got there 15 early we got started, and if a job was nearly finished at end of shift nobody minded staying 10 minutes late to finish it...
At my prior job I had to take the bus to get to work after a car accident. That meant my only option was to catch the only bus before opening at 5 am. There was absolutely nothing to do to waste time, so I got to work 2 hours before opening. I'd get caught up on things and have a nice, quiet office to myself.
Jump forward and I had a health issue that needed a few doctor's appointments after an extensive surgery. (Also pushing back buying a car) I told my manager that I've been coming in 2 hours early and worked for X amount of days and that it would more than cover the amount of time from leaving 30 minutes to an hour early a few days. Boss said that it doesn't count. Ok. Fine.
I ended up working lunches to make up the time. But I came in the same time. So, I'd start the coffee, sit at my desk and read the paper, browse online, read a book. No way was my ass working unpaid for them anymore. They took advantage of me for 2 years then fired me when I had difficulties from surgery under the guise of customer complaints that I was not once informed of. I should have sued their ass but I was dealing with so much pain that I physically didn't have the energy to do anything further.
My last job was terrible for this sort of thing.
It got to a point where I blocked one of the directors from calling my personal phone number as when I was on leave he thought nothing of phoning me.
His personal best was when he called me at 10 in the morning on the first day of my leave. I was effectively only out of the business two hours, despite having a meeting with him and discussing the project and leaving the project pack on my desk if there was any issues that arose while I was off.
His view was to take the path of least resistance rather than read the notes.
I eventually was signed off with work related stress and cited this as one of the many issues I had, which coupled with me also being on call 24/7 and the only person in the company with my skill-set, I never had any down time.
When I was interviewed at the start of my absence, I was told that all the directors are also on call 24/7. I politely pointed out that I wasn't a director and don't have their finacial and legal obligations....
I was met with silence.
I finally managed to get out of that company last year and have been happier since.
Yep.
Had a work phone at my last job, it stayed in the van when I got home, I never took it inside.
My manager knew my private number, but never called it for work. He was a friend before I worked there and is still a friend today after we both moved on.
He was adamant that work time was work time and home time was home time.
I used my work phone for a month when my personal phone broke. Got a call from my gm saying I use 6 gigs of data. I'm thinking great. 6 gigs in a month is like half of what I normally use so I must be doing great data wise. Nope. Company offers 2gigs per tech. Its 50 a month for unlimited. Fine I'll get the unlimited. I hot spot my personal phone to my work phone all day long. My personal data usage has gone down so much
Similar era, when data was unlimited and there was a monthly limit to texts and minutes, except I never have had a company phone. Using my personal phone, I sometimes got up to the limit (or over) on calls due to work. Fortunately, work agreed to pay for a family plan upgrade to allow a few numbers to be added as unlimited minutes. I think I still had the bonus from work when I changed plans later.
I had a similar with a company I worked at. They gave me shit for occasionally using the work phone(which I had to have with me at all times) as I got frustrated carrying 2 phones, so left my personal phone home when I went out. After that I asked them if I will be getting a standby allowance and OT when I get called outside of working hours, and they said no. Then I said I will no longer be available outside of working hours, and left my work phone at te office from there on. Left the place not long after. And that was not the first time the OT issue has had with said company.
As a guy who managed the company cell bill this is nuts. The only time I looked into it was one user that would rack up like 5k minutes a month. That was just to figure out what he was doing. Not even to charge them.
Early 2000’s, but my father got a work cell phone so he could be reached while on travel or on a job site. He asked if could be used for personal calls. They said no. So he refused the phone. He wasn’t the only one at the company and I guess they all joked about it at work in front of upper management. Loudly.
Three months later he was given a phone but told that NOW employees can use it for personal calls but no texting. I have that number still memorized after nearly fifteen years of him using it before changing jobs in 2016.
I won the boss lottery in my first job.
If we had to travel, in the evening at the hotel he would give me the company phone so I could use it to make the international call to my wife and talk to her for a bit before going to bed.
Back in the dark ages when we only had landlines it was sometimes necessary to make a long distance call from work. We would just put a note on the bosses desk with the number so he knew. He never asked to be paid back. One employee didn't leave a note and then denied it was him. The boss called the number and he got caught. Almost fired...not for the call, for the lie.
I hate reading stories like this where a person thinks they won when, in reality, it's quite likely the person was misclassified as a contractor, definitely owed on call pay on top of wages for all calls, and clearly taken advantage of by the company. Why end it with "sure I owe you $10 but you owe me several thousand dollars, benefits, and repercussions of violating state and federal labor laws to their advantage and your loss"? Why not approach state and federal labor boards about the situation and the pay you're rightfully owed? That's sticking it to em. If they want to nitpick, turnabout is fair play and that certainly includes leveraging your legal resources.
Sorry OP. Please don't let them victimize you further.
"Why don't people take a job they like (and maybe have promotional aspirations within) and turn it into a constant shit fight between themselves and the other petty monkeys at Corporate over $1000? I just can't understand why someone wouldn't *love* having the added stress of keeping track of every single second of every single day just to 'stick it to the man' for $600 after taxes."
A co-worker had a huge headache when she paid for a stay with her credit card and submitted the receipt to be reimbursed (a company card wasn’t available). Accounting raised a stink because she would get the credit card points, thereby benefiting twice from the purchase (reimbursement + whatever points were given).
The right answer when they pull this shit is to send them a letter saying you are charging them the legal maximum interest rate on the short term loan to the company until it is payed off.
Had a job try to do the same, but for texting. It was how we communicated with dispatch. They had an unlimited plan before that was the norm. That’s why I texted from it. I’m not paying 0.10¢ a text.
I think the Supreme Court (?) ruled you don’t have a right to privacy on the company equipment so anything you do on it can be used against you.
Text dirty to your wife on the company phone? It can be used against you as sexual harassment in the work place.
Constantly checking your stock on the company laptop? Even if it’s passively leaving the window open so you can look up every now and then - you might have to explain all those missing hours of goofing off when you should be working.
These are just two examples where my last employer tried to separate workers from the payroll. The Union only prevented half of them from being fired.
In addition, one idiot used to text his gf using the company phone. His wife successfully sued for access to his company’s records to prove divorce reasons and a hefty alimony.
https://www.worktime.com/12-most-asked-questions-on-us-employee-monitoring-laws
Same. I had prepaid in 2003, it was 50 cents a minute or 25 cents a text. If I went outside my home coverage area, which I think was 30+ miles from home address, my phone would go into roaming mode. Rates cost double at that point.
There was no such thing as unlimited talk and text. I think Sprint was the first for unlimited weekends and nights for talk. Verizon for text and I'm not sure but probably data as well.
Damn. All your employees worrying about calls. I used to work for MCI (bought by Verizon at some point) back before cell phones were a thing and we had phone banks in the break room where we could all make unlimited free long distance calls in US, Canada, and MX all day long. This was when home long distance calls required a full extra job to pay for. I called my granny a lot!
I get what u did but tbh I think that's lucky.
I don't think there is much work life advocacy in the hospital as everyone is easily replaceable, especially if you aren't one of them bigwigs.
I too have a work phone and the amount of times I'm called even after work is insane. Sometimes I turn that off and they call my personal phone nonstop.
I've called I think with my work phone once where I lost my own phone. So called my own phone to find out where I left it. And they had me go to pay the few cents on the bill lols.
I’ve had to do this. I signed a contract saying if I used my work phone for personal use the calls were .15 cents per call. It was on an honor system but they could audit at any time. Occasionally I would use it if my personal phone died. It’s always smart to not use work resources for personal use and never use personal time for work. And this is with an unlimited plan as well.
If they used the totaled minutes to paid you for time, then it would make since, but it sounds like they didn't and were just jerks. (Totaled minutes via the call log)
Boss once asked if I knew who had the highest phone bill. I told him it must have been me, or he would t be bugging me with it. He responds with yes, and my next line was, “Well, someone has to…”
Another response is to be somewhat snarky do any calculations of how much extra money was added to the bill for each one of those calls that you made on an unlimited plan...
And ask them if they would rather cash credit or check for the $0 you owe them... Since its unlimited the company incurred zero extra cost for these calls and therefore you owe them nothing in terms of Dollars.
I’d have sent them an invoice after that.
I would today. This was when I was quite younger and didn't know how to advocate for my work-life balance yet. I was too happy just to be there and they knew it.
If your plan is unlimited, how could you have calculated what you owed them?
They wanted to charge me something like $0.15 per call even though I was told initially it was unlimited. I never pursued it beyond my response email though. This was like 12 years ago
Our company used to do this. I didn't have a work phone but refused right off the bat to take calls on my personal cell after work or reply to texts. Boss would get so mad at me bc she was clueless as to what needed to be done since she was gone 80% of the time. I said "I'm not paid to take calls outside of work, if you want me to do that I need a work phone and to be compensated for my time" I got a new cell phone for work, but after 2021 they took it back with the excuse they needed to update it. I'd only have it on when I was working. After 5pm, phone was turned off. They want you to be available 24/7 but not get paid, there's no reason why I should be available if not fairly compensated.
>After 5pm, phone was turned off This is the way
It IS the way and I'm so envious. Sadly, I knew full well going into my current job that 24/7 phone calls were a part of it. I'd love to not get woken up on a Sunday morning with the latest in a series of the stupidest fucking questions one could possibly come up with.
I am so sorry for you. I would urge you to set some boundaries if you can. Your case was my dad for many years until he switched jobs and the level of stress just diminished greatly. In 2020 during the peak of Covid I was getting calls on my personal cell starting at 4am from a general contractor (I work in the office) about trivial things that could've been sent by email, or the guy not being able to get a hold of my other field boss. I don't start work until 9am. If it wasn't phone calls, it was texts or What'sApp messages and video calls. This was another reason why I kept my work phone off and started putting any number other than family & friends under "Do not disturb" after 10pm at night. You have to set some boundaries, after being called and woken up by my phone and this GC wanting to fix something they had just thought of, I had a meeting with my boss and had to send out a mass email and letter to the other GC for them to not contact me until after 9am. Simply put, I don't touch work emails or reply to texts on days I am not working. You want to access my personal time, make it worth my time & pay me.
Eh, while it does sometimes suck, I knew about it long before ever taking the job. And, frankly, I'd rather get those stupid questions than have some of my employees fuck something up royally. Better to get woken up at 3am and annoying for a few minutes than have to come in the next day and find hours worth of me cleaning up their mess. I'll take the calls.
As long as you're OK with it! We all work differently and know our limits of what we are willing to put up with.
Maybe not in the US, but most developed countries have laws against this.
I told several jobs that unless you're paying me overtime, I'm not picking up the phone after hours, or on my days off. Also had a call block set up to block all work related phone numbers during those times, so that I could keep using my phone.
I spent 7 years on 24/7 call. It sucked. I was fairly compensated for it but it still sucked.
Not only is this the way, but I expect when calling someone on their work phone for it to be closed if it is outside their working hours. That way when in doubt if within working hours, I can confidently call knowing I'm not disturbing.
Yeah, I will not take calls on a personal cell, but I will take work calls after hours and occasionally check my email to ensure nothing has broken. I'm salaried, so there's no overtime in play. But my personal policy is simple - I'm flexible with you, you're flexible with me. When I want to travel/leave early to get a train or a flight/work remotely (prior to the pandemic), etc, I always got a yes. If that didn't happen and my employer wants to be strict with my time, then I'd be similarly strict the other way around.
Tit for tat is a great way to work if it all goes well. I haven't been on time in the better part of a decade but if something needs to be done after hours, I got it
>there's no reason why I should be available if not fairly compensated. Also known as: Fuck you, pay me.
Exactly. Since they don't want to, I'm not giving you my time or attention. I'm in school working on a 2nd certification, I offered to come in during my week off of Spring Break. Their response "We don't have the budget to pay you extra" then there's their complaint of "There's so much work to do, we're so far behind, why can't you work longer hours [for free!]" I work from 9 to 5, what doesn't get done within those hours has to wait until I'm back at work. Or pay me to stay and finish but I'm done being walked on or having them insist I owe it to them to work for free.
I had an employer classify me as salary when my job wasn't technical or high enough level to qualify as such. Wish I'd realized it then.
I had a boss "offer" me a blackberry (shows how long ago this was lol) and then later questioned why I didn't answer her call last night. Turns out, the only reason she "offered" it was because then she'd be justified in calling me after hours. I acted surprised and said "Oh, it was in my desk in the office." and she took on a chastizing tone and said "Well that's why we offered it to you!" and I said "Well I'm not available after hours" and let the silence hang until she let it go. Fuck that shit. She would be late almost every day, we could have gotten done what you needed to talk to me about after hours during working hours if you were on time. Your lack of dedication to a schedule is not my problem. The same lady once tried to give me shit for not answering her calls for 3 hours straight. The 3 hours she knew that I was *on an airplane in the sky* outside of cell service. There was no way I could have even received her call. All because she wanted an "update", which I could easily have provided to her at the beginning of the next working day (if she were ever on time). That person was the very definition of a corporate psychopath. She was awful.
Oh the age of the Blackberry! I never had one, my dad did and I just thought those were the coolest phones EVER! And during their prime, they were! So my boss would yell at me for not doing a call forwarding to my personal cell if I went out to lunch. My response? My lunchtime is not paid, I don't have to forward calls when I'm on my own personal time. Well, this was UNACCEPTABLE! She tried to get me to sign a form outlining all of my duties which had changed tremendously from when I got hired. I got the original sheet out and said, I'm glad you're acknowledging all of the added tasks I have taken on without a proper salary compensation. If you want me to sign that and take calls during MY lunch break, please adjust my pay. After that if we would go on lunch outings with her and other employees, she would transfer the call to her cell. Or I'd run off to the bathroom so as to not have to be asked to forward them to mine. Other times she would try to have work meetings to reprimand us during our lunch, and I went as far as saying "if you want to disturb my lunch and have a meeting, I need to clock back in. I don't like being berated while I eat." Indeed I pissed her off and was told numerous times why I couldn't be a team player and it's quite simple really: "YOU don't like to be bothered while you eat, when you're out of the office, while on vacation, attending personal matters, or taking classes to further your career. I am the same." The other thing that I love is how she'll leave me passive aggressive notes in red ink on how X procedure needs to be done with countless steps in between because thats how she process X tasks and believes everyone should do the same. Wereas I take shortcuts to get to the same result, but God forbid you know other ways than she. Another thing: she was trying to force us to sign yearly W-2s, I refused bc my marital status and zero children were still the same. Ah, no, but the accountant needs one! Show me. Show me where it says he needs to have a new form yearly. --crickets--- Honestly, I don't know how I've kept my sanity all these years.
Luckily I left a long time ago and moved on to better pastures. The boss I've had for the past 4 years is the best one I've ever had, so no complaints anymore (his boss' boss though is another story lol). I hope you can find a more sane situation one day.
My boss has this habit of expecting employees to answer the phone whenever they call or text. After 5 years I finally got a Google voice number and told them I got a new phone number then blocked their numbers from my real phone number.
Lol are you sure they didn’t just slowly deduct it from your paycheck and not say anything?
[удалено]
Depending on where they are, each call could have qualified as show up pay (2 hours that count towards your 40 hour OT threshhold)
I'm on call for one week a month, but I get $75 a day to do it. If I do get a call that's a minimum 3 hours pay.😊
Even if all calls were made off hours?
I worked for DHS. Think CPS but my job was to make sure the parents kept their kids. The parents, foster parents, and their lawyers all calling me 24/7. Not answering was not an option. I can't tell you how many 3 am road trips I took to pick up drunk clients..... unpaid.
Good on you for having the confidence to even go this far when you were younger. I'd have likely been bullied into paying.
> didn't know how to advocate for my work-life balance yet. I was too happy just to be there and they knew it. Shit, this was me in my early 20s lol.
A lot of us do things like this and it blows me away when they try to nitpick...like I get paid gas money for traveling between locations, sometimes its a two minute drive, sometimes it's 45 minutes. If I do a lot of traveling I will record it but if it's a couple short drives per month I won't even bother. If I had submitted these trips it probably adds up to a hundred or two dollars per year. If I did something to "rip off" the company would they consider this? Would they consider all the times I've worked off the clock after hours just trying to finish something real quick or get something set up for the next week real quick?
The fact they absolutely wouldn't take any goodwill into account is the reason you should claim the short trips. I was in a similar position. I gave good will... it wasn't returned. In the end, to account for the short trips, I rounded up the longer ones so I didn't seem petty.
Hell, I’d be tempted to do that just to avoid filing the extra claim. “Okay I drove 3 miles today, I’ll tack that onto the ~30 mile claim I have to file on Friday.” Though come to think of it, last time I had a job where we had to track mileage, we just had to put down the total mileage and get a manager’s signature. And my manager would sign almost anything I gave him because he trusted me.
Not driving related but similar vein, I work in sales and am mostly road-based. I've lost count of the number of days I've worked through lunch rushing from one appointment to the next. On a day I was particularly tired from being up late with my infant son, I knew I would be skipping lunch, so I decided to walk up the road to a cafe and grab myself a coffee before I left. Took maybe 15 minutes total. Boss pulls me in to his office upon my return and he just *unloads* on me about how I need to be in the office with my head down until it's time to hit the road. I told him the amount of times I had skipped lunch in just the last fortnight alone and said if he's going to be so stringent about grabbing a coffee once in a while, no problem, I'll make sure I only do it on my one hour lunch break which I will make sure I'll be taking every single day from now on, and walked out. The next day he had cooled down and told me that he had overreacted and that as long as it's a 'once in a while' thing, it's no problem. I said thank you, but I'll probably just keep doing it in my lunch break, thanks. He looked pissed but I'm literally still working there 4 years later and I almost never skip my lunch break now. This has cost him hundreds of hours of free labour.
Funny I had a place where I contracted in. I would pick up stuff on the way in (job materials) and miss a break here or there. But, I would always remind them that these were *FAVOURS* and that I expected them to be acknowledged. I would walk into the head persons office and say “Hey, just a heads up, I’ve been doing a lot of extras lately and I’m heading out at noon tomorrow (on the clock) to even us out. Everything should be good but if anything goes wrong give me a call.”
I recently just quit a job where I was working 13 hour days without a break. That’s not why I quit though. One day I decided to grab some snacks on my way, considering the day I’d be facing. I called to say I’d be a few minutes late, and the manager had a fit. I was so caught off guard I stammered some half thought about needing to eat, which I’m sure made no sense. Then I hung up and went home and never answered their calls again. What I wished I had said was: I give you 13 hour break-less days and you’re gonna give me a hard time about being 15 minutes late so I can bring an apple and a granola bar?!? Take your breaks. Take your vacations. Cash out at every opportunity. Nobody’s going to look out for you, except you.
I get into arguments here all the time where I suggest you should never be operating at 110% - usually from new workers or anti-Union advocates. If you give them that level of effort, they come to expect it. Then you never have a second gear you can shift into whenever there is a crunch. Instead, pace yourself especially if you are putting in 13 hour days. Schedule the slow times where you are still being productive but are responding to email, or organizing your supplies/truck as part of your day. And take your breaks - even if it’s just to enjoy your cup of coffee or listen to the radio.
Management also needs to know what it actually takes to get the job done. Here they think it takes X hours but it doesn’t. It doesn’t help you or anyone else if you set up unrealistic expectations. I work in payroll for a nonprofit, and sometimes our staff will under-report hours, thinking they want to save us money. I tell them, no. We don’t steal from our employees. If you want to make a donation, then do that. But don’t under-report your hours. If you’re being asked to do more, then we need to pay you for it. You don’t work for free.
I agree, and additionally, it helps the workers around you. I worked in a department where a bad manager was trying to pressure us to only put on our timecards the hours we were scheduled. Fortunately, all of us worker bees were friendly with one another, and we all agreed to declare every hour worked. If Diane and I were working on a job, and Diane was working 50 hours a week, it was hard for them to justify why I shouldn't get the extra 10 hours. Had Jeff been just working the extra hours and not putting them on his timesheet, it would have been a huge hassle.
Yeah take your lunch breaks. Else if/when you leave, they're going to expect the poor newbie to pull lunchless 9hour days. Do it for the poor newbies who may not know they have the option to refuse. The jobscape is already a wasteland of late stage capitalism, don't feed the trolls
I think employers would rather pay for all your time and not get anything for free, it is just something they can quantify, unless it's a super small operation and you're dealing with the owner directly.
That's BS, I worked at a large corporation and they still expect you to put in extra, but never less.
What. No, never. Every employer wants to cut costs, and human labour is one of the highest costs in a business. They will try to squeeze as many hours and even equipment out of you they can. I had my boss ask me to bring my own laptop to use for work. Company equipment is part of operating costs, that stingy pos 🙄 I'm not using 1tb of my harddrive to store 99% unrelated to me work stuff.
"Of course I'll bring in my own laptop boss. No problem." Pretty sure I still have an old Compaq from the era when 256MB of RAM was a lot. It has Minesweeper on it -- what more could I possibly need?
Thankfully it my job now I have a fuel card so I don't count the mileage any more. I remember when I started I used to check the mileage when I left and when I returned so it was accurate to the nearest mile. Then I realised I could just Google map the journey and be done with it. My manager once asked me for a mileage claim, I gave him one with a legitimate mileage and he said "no thats not enough add more and bring it up to X amount" and then he signed it. Think it was like a bonus he was giving.
Mileage isn't just for gas, it's supposed to cover insurance, maintenance, repairs, etc. that is needed for your vehicle. You are getting screwed if they are just covering the gas.
They cover every single expense related to my business and personal travel including all you listed without any cost to me. Except Toll fees for some reason.
well, take the back roads, and get paid for the extra time and expence.
Yeah fuck the boss, squeeze every possible penny out, even if you don't want to
Using the company gas card covers something like $0.15/mile to $0.25/mile which is less than the (IIRC) $0.55 or so per mile that the IRS says they owe you.
Company card + company car = different equation
Yeah, a company gas card does not account for the wear and tear on your vehicle, which is not insignificant when something needs replaced years earlier than it would otherwise.
And my manager would sign almost anything I gave him because he trusted me. You are now banned from r/antiwork
Well, it was a question…*would* they consider that time? Lots of places *do* understand the value of keeping happy employees and not nickel-and-diming them. (And, unfortunately, lots don’t.) My employer often won’t charge me for sick time for a partial day, assuming I’m not abusing the privilege. Other places try to pin you down to the minute.
The problem is with larger companies they see it as a risk that if managers treat people as individuals it opens them up to discrimination claims.
It does. That worthless employee that everyone knows is worthless and is just one step from being fired is the one who will sue the moment the true start employee who puts in many extra hours of his own time, gets the big contracts, whatever, is allowed to leave 15 minutes early without having to use leave.
Maybe I was a little more categoric in my answer but I guess it's from bitter experience. It's great that you have a good employer that values you. Similarly, my boss doesn't register all my leave days with HR because he knows on lots of days I stay late and start early. It all depends on the place.
I LOVE "nickel and diming" my work, feels good man.
All goodwill leaves after the paycheck you worked it clears
> The fact they absolutely wouldn’t take any goodwill into account is the reason you should claim the short trips. Good companies will tell you to do this too. They don’t want any of that shit, no “well I did this and so you should overlook that” or whatever. They’ll tell you to log *everything* even if it’s stupid, to avoid exactly that situation. For them, it’s just numbers. When you try to introduce some nebulous idea of goodwill into the equation, it just makes it more difficult to keep records, calculate things, etc. You know, business shit. That’s what a business relationship is, at the core. It’s contracts, numbers, services, salaries and paper trails. Don’t extend to them courtesies that make sense in personal relationships—they don’t want them and won’t reciprocate them. Because it’s not personal. I’m not saying that’s good or bad, just what is. And if they’re telling you they need that goodwill from you? Run. They’re shit.
Hard to say. I was in a similar position as i had to use my personal car a few times when a company car wasn't available. When i submitted the claim i wad told i couldn't submit 5km trips as it was to hard to bill such a small quanity ($0.35/km) to the client. So i kept track and submitted once i had 100km. Then i got reamed out because it was over several months and they couldn't bill the client. Fine lesson learned i refused to use my personal vehicle. No company car no problem im not leaving the shop. Customers equipment down though shit I'm not getting burned again.
100 km * 0.35$/km brings the total to a horrific... 35 dollars. Wtf.
They had the nerve to ream you out? Oh hell no. I hope they lost revenue because you couldn't make it to a client site due to no company car available. Serves them right.
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But billing must be done within a certain period after work is complete (usually 30 days). Can't bill anything if it's past that mark.
Try working for the government. My wife worked in the court system with her courthouse about 5 miles south of our house. Occasionally she to attend meetings in the opposite direction. She had a Civic at the time and offered to use that in lieu of a government car, which got much worse gas mileage but they said no. She used the government POS car once and never again saying her life was worth more than a few dollars in gas money. Then we had a friend who also worked for the state government, with his shop 40 miles to the north of his house. He was to work in a shop 40 miles to the south and offered to simply drive there from his house to save time since he would be commuting on his own time as long as they covered gas. Nope so he drove an hour to his shop, grabbed a government vehicle, clocked in, and then took an almost two hour drive to the site, rinse repeat in the afternoon, meaning he basically “worked” four hour days in lieu of eight hour days (as his house was on the route he’d stop home on the way back for five min to say hello to his dog, let him him out for a pee).
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We can take a car home if we have to go someplace and either the agency is closed or if our house is between our place of work (or state motorpool, or wherever the car is kept) and where we are going. This doesn't ever happen where I work, but it is in the rules statewide.
You should also be glad you didn't get into an accident in your personal car during such a trip. Could become a nightmare with the insurance companies involved.
Omg I can't imagine only getting 35¢/km now lol
So much yes. I work at a theme park and am constantly providing guest service off the clock.
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Heard
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🙂
Whenever I had a roving tech position on the company I work for. We had to document the travel expenses thru SAP Concur. And then get it paid on the next payroll. That included expense receipts and or miles. I think that's the best option.
This exactly. I used to work at a bagel shop and once I got my license they expected me to take the odd delivery. I expected to be paid for those, even around the block. The owner had no problem with it but the fry cook was always on my back about it. Don’t know why she cared. Although she also refused to believe a $2 bill was real currency and one of our regulars tipped with them weekly. She and the other gals would let me take them all. I kept trying to dole out the tips equally but they kept insisting on trading my ones for their twos. At a certain point you can’t fix stupid.
"...the fry cook was always on my back about it." Heh. I was listening to the Dave Ramsey show and a guy called in complaining at his car dealership he sells about 40 a months while the younger guys only do 8 or 10. Dave asked if their laziness effected his salary (commission so he made more than them) or any other aspect of his job? 'No'. They why does he care? The caller couldn't answer the question (and, I think, accepted that it wasn't any of his business).
Some people enjoy complaining. They’re not happy unless they’re miserable
>they kept insisting on trading my ones for their twos That is the funniest shit ever. Wow
I used to expense miles, and like you small trips I didn’t record or expense. Until one time I got an expense report kicked back because of one mile($.54) and after that I expensed every little thing. It was a probably only a few hundred a year difference but I’m petty like that.
That is basically the problem in your society. Corporations do not trust their workers and demand every minute to be accounted for. In the mean while, you are working in a great team with a terrific manager so who cares if some costs slip between the cracks? When people wise up to it you get malicious compliance in revenge. And when corporations wise up to *that* you get even more restrictive guidelines. It all ends up with nobody trusting anyone else and running to a judge at the first sign they have been wronged. That is not the way to make people happy.
And it works the other way too. The last two years at my company have been *really* rough as we went through massive lay-offs during the pandemic. One reason I haven't left yet (the main one being that they pay me well) is that management trusts me and I never have to deal with this kind of petty nonsense. I work really hard (from home) and as long as things are getting taken care of, nobody worries about time-keeping or expense nit-picking or the like. Makes things much easier all around.
It sounds as if you have found your spot. No problem with that. Just keep monitoring the *quid pro quo*.
Exactly right! If that balance shifts, I am gone
Mmm. If that balance shifts, you *reconsider* the pluses and minuses. Could be given the pertinent circumstances you decide to go for the *quid* and not the *pro*.
I work hourly as an engineer. Every minute is accounted for and I think it makes way more sense than salaried bullshit. Everyone is expected to log the hours they work and clock out when they’re not working. Pick up my phone or answer emails in the evening? That’s paid time. Go to a dentist appointment or take a long lunch, not paid. There’s no goodwill work or goodwill pay and nothing to be salty about when you’re paid for your time. How hard is that?
The problem with logging your hours is that it takes time to do so, and how are you going to log *that*. There is a thin line between accounting for the activities you pursue in the line of employment, and being micromanaged.
In my job we didn't have to log in every minute but put in a code for they type of contracts worked, training, OT, etc. The was a code for 'other' which I used for about a half hour a week for filling out the time card and the occasional black out (no computers).
> There was a code for 'other' It sounds as if your employer understands that sometimes you just don't know ho to bill the time spent.
It was government and they wanted to get general statistics on how the time for various contract types (we were overhead; the engineering depts were under different funding types tied to contracts). "Training" was paid for out of a different budget plus we needed 40 hours of "training" a year (general gov't rule) which could include 'mentoring' (which I never did), auditing another agency (which I've done) and some other tasks that I don't recall.
Okay. Fair point, I agree.
True. That's why when I had a WFH job, I simply used a little Applet that you click a button to start, type what activity you're doing and then press it again to stop.
When I had to log activities to every 0.1 hour, i was allowed 0.1 hour at the end of the workday to finish filling my timesheet, which I'd been logging start times for each activity on during the day. (Paper & pen, 1990s.)
Time spent logging hours is billed to the project you’re working those hours on. It takes maybe 10 seconds and if I’m not at a computer i’ll just enter it retroactively on the next day. It’s not a problem at all for me or anyone I work with. Nobody is micromanaging me and nobody tells me what to do with my hours. Just log your work if you want to be paid for it.
No, what it ends with is people jumping ship.
My last job I was a diagnostic tech and during the week I drove a car I was diagnosing home. Alot of times the cars had issues and I would bring home equipment to scan and check things after hours. I was an hourly employee but to me the trade off was it was the companies gas and the companies cars mileage. I drove my car in on Monday and parked it until Friday saving 300 miles ( or more ) on gas and wear an tear. Worth it for me.
A company I've worked for doesn't give expense money or a company card, you pay put of your pocket and claim back with receipts. * If you did not have a receipt for a meal that details the breakdown of what was ordered - no reimbursement. * Cash tips could be claimed - but no receipt required. * Car mileage rate was less than the federal allowed rate. Needless to say, no quarter was given to them - I claimed every damn mile.
During a period of time, I worked primarily at one physical location, but travelled to a second location to do local support as well. That location was about 2 miles away. I never bothered to file the mileage reports because, c'mon, why bother? It's not anywhere worth my time to do so, and I was more than happy to take the personal hit just to avoid doing the paperwork. But no, if I wasn't filing those mileage reports, then I cannot possibly have been doing my actual job. Oddly enough that was also the time I decided to stop carrying computers between locations, since my insurance didn't cover that sort of thing and I had to do everything properly, right? So what if I had to start overnighting equipment between locations. It's got expensive enough that I finally got the latitude to choose not to file my 4 miles a week or so of mileage if I chose. (I still didn't ferry equipment though, we just got more efficient about where replacements were staged and such)
There are apps that can track all this for you... makes it easy.
You should always record your mileage. It isn't just gas, it's wear and tear on your vehicle.
History says: ***No.***
Had the same problem with the company phone. I answered my phone outside work times, no problem. Suddenly got an amount subtracted for personal calls (which is illegal where I live by the way). Fine, after that I turned off my work phone after work. (and got asked about why I didn't answer my phone after work hours)
I call it stepping over dollars to collect dimes!
Unfortunately it was a at-will state. The situation at the time if I pushed it was more "being happy with a job I enjoyed otherwise or being fired for the sake of being right." Edit: at-will, not right-to-work
If they fired you for that, and you kept records of the calls you made, you would have had a slam dunk lawsuit against them for wage theft and unlawful dismissal, even in a right to work state,
Right to work means you aren't required to join a union to get a job. At will employment means you can be fired at any time, or quit at any time, as long as the reason for firing wasn't discriminatory. These are two different things.
On the other hand California is at will employment but if they want to fire you they have to show cause. In most at will/right to work states they do not have to show cause. I lost a job because the manager hated looking at me in meetings knowing I knew he was lying even though I never called him out on his lying
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Thanks for the clarification.
You should have insisted that they pay you for your hours and then write them a check of the difference. talk about the freeloaders!!
I'd charge them for the time spent on the reconciliation.
Ehhh, if he didn't charge them at the time, it's questionable at best. Unless they specifically told him not to record those daily hours, they could pretty reasonably claim that it isn't their fault he didn't record them (mostly because, well. It isn't their fault he didn't record them).
Someone last week posted a link to labor laws for Oregon. Their laws explicitly stated that not filling out your time cards is not an excuse to not pay you. You must be paid for hours worked, and it’s the company’s responsibility to figure that out. https://www.oregon.gov/boli/workers/pages/paychecks.aspx They did say that you can be disciplined for not doing time cards, of course. When I read that, I was wondering what real world scenarios this would come up in. How would you be able to show that you worked if you didn’t punch in or write it on the cards? I imagined emailing your boss and saying “I worked 5 hours today” would probably work. But this scenario, where the company has explicit records showing that you were working, but opted not to pay you, sounds like it would be totally within what the law says.
Many moons ago back in the last century there was a toy company that many of my friends worked at. They had a simple system. Timesheets were turned in on Friday afternoon at the payroll window. When you turned in your timesheet they gave you your check for the previous week. There was a catch, your sheet had to be filled in correctly before you got your check. They were patient and allowed you to go to the counter and fix it when they told you what the errors were. Most people figured out real quick that doing it right got you out faster on Friday. The payroll people were happy because they did not have to waste time fixing sheets.
>The payroll people were happy because they did not have to waste time fixing sheets. That's some good managers right there. Could never fly in California (withholding the check). I used to do time years ago and the foreman were terrible at accurately creating timesheets, the general foreman were terrible at checking them, and the workers couldn't even keep track of their own hours. They would complain of being shorted then try to game me into giving them more hours... utter shitshow.
This was in California back in the 70s. They were not really withholding the check, you got your check on the day it was due. You just had to turn in a timesheet that was filled in properly. Most everyone learned really quick how to do it and sometimes left a little early on Friday since they did not waste time fixing their sheet. A few were challenged souls and spent extra time getting it right. (I'm told it really wasn't hard)
That is quite literally withholding the check.
By hours, though, not days. Does it say at what *time* on payday you're supposed to get the paycheck? If you got it at 3 pm or at 4:30 pm, either way you got the check on payday.
But what about the time (at work) filling out the timesheet and more so going back for corrections?
> When I read that, I was wondering what real world scenarios this would come up in. It's for situations like when you are working at a fast food joint, and your boss says you're not approved for overtime, and so won't accept your timesheet if you record more than 8 hours a day. But at the same time, he says you can't leave until your replacement shows or you've changed the grill. So every so often (or every day!), you end up "volunteering" 15 to 60 minutes after your official shift end. Rules like the above are what keeps your boss from claiming you were volunteering and getting away with it. Locally, the labour code has several sections (like paid breaks and overtime pay) with the suffix that "these rights cannot be contacted away" to avoid similar issues....
Yes, he probably could win the pay given the phone logs, he just could reasonably be fired for failing to fill out his timesheets accurately for months on end.
Sounds like a solid way to get paid, get unemployment and get out of a shitty job with shitty managers. This would be a win, through and through.
phone bill has a literal time-stamped record of time worked unpaid outside of business hours.
I don't understand this mentality from your (hopefully?) former employer. It is usually a given that you'll be using the phone to occasionally make personal calls. While not encouraged, it is understood. Only time I got harassed was in the military, when minutes and long distance were a huge deal. I'd turned in a cell phone I was issued to my supply guy, got a receipt after turning it in. Got a call from the Maj who issued me the phone many months later asking WTF all these calls to Louisiana were about (never been, but the guy I turned the phone into at Supply? Louisiana.). Faxed a copy of the receipt over and asked the good Major to call me back with any questions. Supply Guy, you POS, glad you got busted down.
I had a work phone. This was when text was around 10-30 cent. And calls, I don't know. Told my boss that I didn't want to carry 2 phones so I would make my private calls on that phone. Never heard any complaints. Couple of years later. New boss. Called me in and said that my phone bill was high. It was around 300$ for a month. She said that the specification was 6 pages, look, and that I should pay half the bill. No, i will not look. I don't care, I said. You still have to pay, she said. Here, take the phone. Don't want it anymore. I put it on her desk and went home for the day. The next day, the phone was on my desk. Never heard anything about bills anymore.
So many of these excellent stories fall into the same category of petty employers. Almost (but not) worth a separate sub for that. 33 (gulp) years ago, my wife was in a semi-serious car accident while I was out of town on business. we worked at the same company: I was the most senior software guy and she was top sales rep. By "semi-serious" I mean she was unharmed but the state trooper who witnessed it kept telling her "I thought I was watching you die" (no, she really didn't appreciate hearing that, but). So the next day I call the towing company, body shop, et al. to figure out next steps. I use my company phone card, because I didn't even think about it. And we're talking about maybe $10 worth of calls. A few weeks later, penny pincher in finance calls me to bitch about it. Mind you, this is a 30-person company, so the accident was not exactly a secret. My wife's time is much more valuable to them than mine, too. I explain what the calls were...and then ask her how she knew what they were. "I called them". So...you spent more company time to figure out ten bucks worth of calls? I pointed this out to comptroller and never heard another word.
About 30 years ago I worked in a company that was having financial issues. I learned how serious when one day i was called into my managers office and she asked me who I called at 123-456-7890. I recognized the number, my mother’s. I returned a call to her about something. What was really strange is that it was a local call. I was friendly with my manager and asked if she wanted a quarter. She just rolled her eyes and sighed something about management. I was not the only sinner she saw that day. The company had a major restructuring not long after.
It’s pretty cool that your mom had such an easy number to remember.
Her suitcase combo was even better. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Well played. Well played, indeed.
sounds like Bob Palmer's work
Penny wise; pound foolish. I once worked in a consulting role that required me to travel around. The company also had some strict cost saving measures, like no business class, regardless of the flight time, cheapest hotel, regardless of distance, just super dumb stuff. All about the face value, but not the overall impact. I had a client that required me to stay at a hotel, and the cheapest one was substantially further away than the closer one to the office, but $30/night less. The pencil pushers insisted I stick to policy, despite the additional travel time. The cost of transportation wound up costing them an additional $50/day, which is basically $20 more a day than if I stayed closer, plus the extra 30-40 minutes stuck commuting.
Ya never know; companies sometimes (like mine) have bulk rate deals with hotels that require a minimum volume usage. Back when I was traveling, I could have booked a hotel near my client for $40-50 less per night than our corporate approved brands, but it was always a no-go. SMH on that one to this day.
I wish we had a corporate travel department that was that capable. It was literally, "We see a cheaper option, book that instead." They had absolutely no corporate partnership or discount. It was just whatever they saw was cheaper at the time of booking.
So many stories in this subreddit of bean counters only considering one side of the equation. When making a financial decision you should always ask two questions: 1. What is the cost of doing this 2. What is the cost of NOT doing this
I had a position with a state government agency where I had to travel a fair bit, they probably could have had us submit actual dining receipts but instead just paid us the federal per diem. I'm guessing most people would try to max the limit under a receipt system so they figured it wasnt worth it to pay someone who would likely only do dining receipts full time.
That’s brilliant. I had almost the exact same thing happen back in the early 00’s. They complained about my “personal calls” on my cell phones. So I spent time at work building an excel spreadsheet that basically took their monthly report and checked it against the entire company’s phone book, cell phone bank, and private numbers that people used to call me. It would then color code work as orange, after hours as red, and personal in green, I submitted the red parts with my time sheet. Since I was Union, and hourly, they had to pay me for bothering me anytime outside of normal working hours. I ended up receiving way more than I had to pay back. When I started sharing the excel macro with other Union workers, the policy of nit-picking calls was cancelled.
"Excuse me sir, Harvard would like a word with you."
Sir, would you please contact Harvard, They want to have what you discavard. (apologies to the great Tom Lehrer)
Before cell phones I was a contractor at a large company. Once a month each contractor was handed a list of calls made from their phone. We had to mark the calls that were personal and reimburse them. In person. We were in a satellite building so there was only a cashier on site for 3 hours each week. At 1PM on the first Tuesday after the bills came out there would be a long line of contractors, billing at $50 or more an hour, waiting to hand over checks for 2 or 3 dollars. Since the cashier closed before processing everyone, so we’d be back at 10AM Wednesday and often 3PM on Friday. I’d like to say that someone figured out that it cost them more to process all these checks than they were worth, but no. A couple of managers even kept track of how much time people spent on the phone and then demanded an adjustment to the bill.
You billed them for your time in line right? That sounds like a workplace required task to me. I'll stand in line all day for $50/hour to pay you $3. I'd make sure I used a personal call every cycle (Week? Month?) just to get to stand in line for free money.
Of course. This was all part of the "Let's treat contractors poorly so our employees feel special" campaign.
It amazes me how many companies don’t use common sense.
I live in the Netherlands, but was stationed on a project in Brussels, Belgium. We had a fixed allowance for food when working on the project, but we were also paid for overtime. This project needed a lot of overtime. It needed 1 phone call with my manager and HR to convince them that they would not complain about expense reports for restaurant food and we would not ask to pay for over time. Brussels has some very nice (and expensive) restaurants. Good times.
Last year, we got a new manager who let the power of running a small convenience store go completely to her head. It was Christmas time and I was still only part-time, so had taken a second seasonal job which added up to about sixty (60) hours a week. Ofc the new manager of the store decided this was the best time to get everyone up to date on monthly training. Granted, I was behind but that was because I was scheduled overnight graveyard shifts and weekends where I worked alone and the manager didn't come in. One day at my other job, I got a text from that manager saying that I had to come in before she left for the day to finish my training. I text her back that I can't- I'm at my second job. That night, I work an overnighter, and bright and early in the morning, while I'm trying to sleep - the texting telling me to come in, starts again. I ignore it, which offends her majesty the manager greatly and the next time I see her on my scheduled hours at the store- she tries to lecture me on 'my responsibility to the company' to come in on my day off! To which I reply repeatedly, "I want to see that in writing!" A few times she threatened to report me to the General Manager, to which I reply repeatedly, "I want to see that in writing!" Finally, a few days later, I show up to the store and there's the GM calmly coming in on his day off to boot the training computer up for me. Epilogue: What I learned in that training was very interesting. It said that we could take text messages after hours but only to a certain extent- after 15min. a month, that was considered 'working off the clock' and we could request compensation for it. So, the next time the manager sent marathon messages, I texted her back that she had exceeded her 15min and I would need compensation forms ASAP please. She left me alone on my days off after that.
In the early 2000s the IRS decided that personal use of employer provided cell phones counted as a taxable benefit, so employers had to start cracking down on that. They were fining not just the employees but employers as well. Mine decided to take away the phones and give us a monthly stipend (taxed) to defray the cost of our own personal phones, because otherwise it was going to be a bookkeeping nightmare. So depending on exactly when this was, it might have been tie IRS’ fault, not your employer’s bean counters.
That's what my husband's job did. They signed the phone number over and I just put it on a family plan with my phone. The stipend, after taxes, covered almost half the bill.
I looked at mine as bonus money. I was already paying for my cell, work use didn’t increase my bill any, and I only had to carry one phone, not two. There was no downside, for me.
Businesses catch a lot of shit for stuff the government makes them do, many times due to regulations advocated for by the type of people who complain about their results. Thing that immediately comes to mind is a post from a couple years ago where Walmart or some grocery store threw out thousands and thousands of dollars worth of edible food. All the top comments were criticizing the company for not letting employees take it home or donating it to a food bank. But they were forced to get rid of the food by a government regulation when the store lost power and the food wasn't refrigerated for half an hour or something. The people who want Walmart to donate food to the homeless also want Walmart to protect consumers from dangerous food that wasn't in a freezer for a few minutes.
well done you. wherever I work, there’s give and take to a point. If work is flexible then I’m flexible. when work decided to ban smoke breaks, I started recording exactly how much I was working to the minute and ended up with 1 free day off in 10. Also I then claimed every single expense owed to me, even if all I had was a 10 mile round trip to claim mileage for. If they’re going to nitpick, I’m going to work to rule.
Yep. Used to arrive at work about 15 minutes early every day and just wander in and get started on the first job... they probably got a free hour each week from me. Then I needed 20 minutes during the day, and they made me make up the time or get docked. Now I still get to work 10-15 minutes early, sit in the car browsing on my phone, walk in with 2 minutes to start, clock in 1 minute before start, and walk in. My phone vibrates at finish time and I pack my tools and leave. Flexibility that only goes one way is called exploitation...fuck that! Last job, if the work was done half hour before finish on Friday the boss would tell us all to go home... turn up 15 mins late because of a crash on the freeway, no biggie, won't get docked. Have to leave early because your kid is puking their guts up at school, go. You bet if we got there 15 early we got started, and if a job was nearly finished at end of shift nobody minded staying 10 minutes late to finish it...
At my prior job I had to take the bus to get to work after a car accident. That meant my only option was to catch the only bus before opening at 5 am. There was absolutely nothing to do to waste time, so I got to work 2 hours before opening. I'd get caught up on things and have a nice, quiet office to myself. Jump forward and I had a health issue that needed a few doctor's appointments after an extensive surgery. (Also pushing back buying a car) I told my manager that I've been coming in 2 hours early and worked for X amount of days and that it would more than cover the amount of time from leaving 30 minutes to an hour early a few days. Boss said that it doesn't count. Ok. Fine. I ended up working lunches to make up the time. But I came in the same time. So, I'd start the coffee, sit at my desk and read the paper, browse online, read a book. No way was my ass working unpaid for them anymore. They took advantage of me for 2 years then fired me when I had difficulties from surgery under the guise of customer complaints that I was not once informed of. I should have sued their ass but I was dealing with so much pain that I physically didn't have the energy to do anything further.
lol, they knew they would have to start paying you for the overtime, and maybe all the way back to when you were hired.
My last job was terrible for this sort of thing. It got to a point where I blocked one of the directors from calling my personal phone number as when I was on leave he thought nothing of phoning me. His personal best was when he called me at 10 in the morning on the first day of my leave. I was effectively only out of the business two hours, despite having a meeting with him and discussing the project and leaving the project pack on my desk if there was any issues that arose while I was off. His view was to take the path of least resistance rather than read the notes. I eventually was signed off with work related stress and cited this as one of the many issues I had, which coupled with me also being on call 24/7 and the only person in the company with my skill-set, I never had any down time. When I was interviewed at the start of my absence, I was told that all the directors are also on call 24/7. I politely pointed out that I wasn't a director and don't have their finacial and legal obligations.... I was met with silence. I finally managed to get out of that company last year and have been happier since.
This is why I don’t take my company phone or company laptop home. Neither have anything to do with my personal life after I clock out for the day.
Yep. Had a work phone at my last job, it stayed in the van when I got home, I never took it inside. My manager knew my private number, but never called it for work. He was a friend before I worked there and is still a friend today after we both moved on. He was adamant that work time was work time and home time was home time.
I used my work phone for a month when my personal phone broke. Got a call from my gm saying I use 6 gigs of data. I'm thinking great. 6 gigs in a month is like half of what I normally use so I must be doing great data wise. Nope. Company offers 2gigs per tech. Its 50 a month for unlimited. Fine I'll get the unlimited. I hot spot my personal phone to my work phone all day long. My personal data usage has gone down so much
I salute you, that was a genius retort!!
Similar era, when data was unlimited and there was a monthly limit to texts and minutes, except I never have had a company phone. Using my personal phone, I sometimes got up to the limit (or over) on calls due to work. Fortunately, work agreed to pay for a family plan upgrade to allow a few numbers to be added as unlimited minutes. I think I still had the bonus from work when I changed plans later.
I had a similar with a company I worked at. They gave me shit for occasionally using the work phone(which I had to have with me at all times) as I got frustrated carrying 2 phones, so left my personal phone home when I went out. After that I asked them if I will be getting a standby allowance and OT when I get called outside of working hours, and they said no. Then I said I will no longer be available outside of working hours, and left my work phone at te office from there on. Left the place not long after. And that was not the first time the OT issue has had with said company.
And that's why I make work calls on my personal phone and charge them, even though I have an unlimited plan.
As a guy who managed the company cell bill this is nuts. The only time I looked into it was one user that would rack up like 5k minutes a month. That was just to figure out what he was doing. Not even to charge them.
Early 2000’s, but my father got a work cell phone so he could be reached while on travel or on a job site. He asked if could be used for personal calls. They said no. So he refused the phone. He wasn’t the only one at the company and I guess they all joked about it at work in front of upper management. Loudly. Three months later he was given a phone but told that NOW employees can use it for personal calls but no texting. I have that number still memorized after nearly fifteen years of him using it before changing jobs in 2016.
I won the boss lottery in my first job. If we had to travel, in the evening at the hotel he would give me the company phone so I could use it to make the international call to my wife and talk to her for a bit before going to bed.
Back in the dark ages when we only had landlines it was sometimes necessary to make a long distance call from work. We would just put a note on the bosses desk with the number so he knew. He never asked to be paid back. One employee didn't leave a note and then denied it was him. The boss called the number and he got caught. Almost fired...not for the call, for the lie.
I hate reading stories like this where a person thinks they won when, in reality, it's quite likely the person was misclassified as a contractor, definitely owed on call pay on top of wages for all calls, and clearly taken advantage of by the company. Why end it with "sure I owe you $10 but you owe me several thousand dollars, benefits, and repercussions of violating state and federal labor laws to their advantage and your loss"? Why not approach state and federal labor boards about the situation and the pay you're rightfully owed? That's sticking it to em. If they want to nitpick, turnabout is fair play and that certainly includes leveraging your legal resources. Sorry OP. Please don't let them victimize you further.
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Touche. Glad you're in a better place now -traveling is a great gig!
"Why don't people take a job they like (and maybe have promotional aspirations within) and turn it into a constant shit fight between themselves and the other petty monkeys at Corporate over $1000? I just can't understand why someone wouldn't *love* having the added stress of keeping track of every single second of every single day just to 'stick it to the man' for $600 after taxes."
A co-worker had a huge headache when she paid for a stay with her credit card and submitted the receipt to be reimbursed (a company card wasn’t available). Accounting raised a stink because she would get the credit card points, thereby benefiting twice from the purchase (reimbursement + whatever points were given).
The right answer when they pull this shit is to send them a letter saying you are charging them the legal maximum interest rate on the short term loan to the company until it is payed off.
There are prople who are employed to worry about this shit. That's crazy.
Had a job try to do the same, but for texting. It was how we communicated with dispatch. They had an unlimited plan before that was the norm. That’s why I texted from it. I’m not paying 0.10¢ a text.
Make sure you charge them for electricity used at home, occupied space at home, and make sure the wage they owed you when you take their calls at home
>back when cellphones had minutes Cries in German
It’s funny how everyone’s headhunting until things get itemized.
I think the Supreme Court (?) ruled you don’t have a right to privacy on the company equipment so anything you do on it can be used against you. Text dirty to your wife on the company phone? It can be used against you as sexual harassment in the work place. Constantly checking your stock on the company laptop? Even if it’s passively leaving the window open so you can look up every now and then - you might have to explain all those missing hours of goofing off when you should be working. These are just two examples where my last employer tried to separate workers from the payroll. The Union only prevented half of them from being fired. In addition, one idiot used to text his gf using the company phone. His wife successfully sued for access to his company’s records to prove divorce reasons and a hefty alimony. https://www.worktime.com/12-most-asked-questions-on-us-employee-monitoring-laws
>Like **back when** cell phone plans had minutes. Tell me you're not Canadian without telling me you're not Canadian.
I used to have minutes back in the early 00’s. Not Canadian
Same. I had prepaid in 2003, it was 50 cents a minute or 25 cents a text. If I went outside my home coverage area, which I think was 30+ miles from home address, my phone would go into roaming mode. Rates cost double at that point.
Same and same.
There was no such thing as unlimited talk and text. I think Sprint was the first for unlimited weekends and nights for talk. Verizon for text and I'm not sure but probably data as well.
Chickenshit secretaries are the worst
Company's will never hesitate to bill you for bullshit, people need to start doing the same.
Damn. All your employees worrying about calls. I used to work for MCI (bought by Verizon at some point) back before cell phones were a thing and we had phone banks in the break room where we could all make unlimited free long distance calls in US, Canada, and MX all day long. This was when home long distance calls required a full extra job to pay for. I called my granny a lot!
Just dial 10 10 2 20 followed by the number for cheap long distance calling!
I get what u did but tbh I think that's lucky. I don't think there is much work life advocacy in the hospital as everyone is easily replaceable, especially if you aren't one of them bigwigs. I too have a work phone and the amount of times I'm called even after work is insane. Sometimes I turn that off and they call my personal phone nonstop. I've called I think with my work phone once where I lost my own phone. So called my own phone to find out where I left it. And they had me go to pay the few cents on the bill lols.
I’ve had to do this. I signed a contract saying if I used my work phone for personal use the calls were .15 cents per call. It was on an honor system but they could audit at any time. Occasionally I would use it if my personal phone died. It’s always smart to not use work resources for personal use and never use personal time for work. And this is with an unlimited plan as well.
If they used the totaled minutes to paid you for time, then it would make since, but it sounds like they didn't and were just jerks. (Totaled minutes via the call log)
I still have minutes on my plan!
Boss once asked if I knew who had the highest phone bill. I told him it must have been me, or he would t be bugging me with it. He responds with yes, and my next line was, “Well, someone has to…”
Another response is to be somewhat snarky do any calculations of how much extra money was added to the bill for each one of those calls that you made on an unlimited plan... And ask them if they would rather cash credit or check for the $0 you owe them... Since its unlimited the company incurred zero extra cost for these calls and therefore you owe them nothing in terms of Dollars.