Reasons for working overtime

[75sv1]

By Law, companies are required to pay employees 1.5 times their regular wage for hours worked over 40 (non-exempt employees).

It's not a bonus. Someone is playing monkey-business with terms and/or being lazy.

One could see Overtime as a sign something is wrong as much as it might be just part of the environment, depending on the Company, environment, product/service, and Customers.

Not necessarily. State laws can be different. Mainly, small business laws. In OK, I did not get 1.5 OT pay. There were less than 5 'full time' employees. Also, Union contracts can add or negate OT rules.

 

[michiganbuck]

A lot of places where I did contract maintenance ,they would give a couple of employees overtime to keep an eye on/help me......I know for sure these guys would sleep somewhere out of sight for a couple of hours during the day when they should have been working.

But with those guys on the clock to watch you, then you would not likely take any sleep time on the clock.

 

[Ox]

The big places with union labor I’ve been it’s often cheaper to run some overtime on an entry level position than it is to pay extra benefits to a new person. Plus if you’re running 24/5 then going to 24/6 occasionally is way cheaper than another or faster assembly line at millions each.

One place I was at was entirely salaried exempt employees, but they offered overtime at straight pay anyways. Result was that if people were motivated projects got done sooner, at no additional cost, and everyone was happy. Sort of like banking hours and then turning them in when times are lean.

On the customer side, some senior guy decided a project needed to move from 6 weeks out to next Tuesday due to an unexpected opportunity. Problem was that the parts weren’t even due from the machine shop for 2 weeks, they were booked, their guys need a break, and it was a holiday weekend. We agreed to +50% the price. The shop manager walked out on the floor and offered half of that to anyone who wanted to work 6 hours extra (basically double their usual rate). He had more volunteers than needed, we had our parts, and the shop had some extra profit.

The shop did not necessarily make out much, if at all in this episode, unless it was already turning away other work.
It sounds like the $10 that they would have made over the next 2 weeks, may have turned into $3 this weekend.


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

 

[jccaclimber]

The shop did not necessarily make out much, if at all in this episode, unless it was already turning away other work.
It sounds like the $10 that they would have made over the next 2 weeks, may have turned into $3 this weekend.


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

I forget how many employees he needed to volunteer. It worked out to about $1k spread through their pockets and the same to the shop. Not huge, but it meant that they could keep a consistent customer happy without making someone lose. Also was 10 years ago, so it was more than a tank of gas in the truck.

 

[Newman109]

Many years ago when I was in my 20's I worked for North American Aviation's Rocketdyne Division at their Propulsion Field laboratory at Santa Susana Califonia. I was there for something like four and a half years. We were doing production testing of Thor and Jupiter liquid propelled rocket engines.
The standard work week was 54 hours. That was 9 hours per day for Monday through Saturday. We were paid time and a half for the extra hour during the weekdays and for the 9 hours on Saturday. I didn't like it much and the pay was a joke - $1.35 per hour. LOL.
Once they burned up the test stand when the engine exploded and we were put on 7 days a week,12 hours per day with time and a half and double time. I did that for six weeks and when i asked for a day off to get some personal things done, they immediately laid me off and told me that I wasn't a "team player".

That's my overtime story.

 

[jackal]

From 2000-2003, I worked for a company that had you work (5) 10 hour days a week as standard.
Then there were 4 groups and each group worked 1 Saturday a month.
It wasn't bad.

When I started they were booming, then everything fell off after about 6 months.
They kept on paying overtime.
When I got my first vacation checks ( after a year) they were both for 55 hours?

It wasn't a bad company, just had poor management.
I probably worked on personal tooling for 25 hours a week the last 18 months I was there.
I made boring bars, V blocks, tool holders, height gages, etc.
I didn't know what to think.
As long as you stayed busy, the foreman wouldn't try to find something for you to do.
Some of the guys would sit around reading the paper, and they didn't want the owner to come in and see that.
I even sharpened all the big drills, etc.
They started buying CNC equipment, and the manager fought all the way.
Eventually the company had a lot of people leave, and only had the ones that couldn't go anywhere else.
It could have been a great shop with the right management and attitude.

 

[jccaclimber]

One situation I would consider abusive. A "standard" day was 10 hours, 5 days per week, so OT was part of the norm. Some of the guys realized that vacation was basically always approved, and a lot of them had been there long enough to have a lot of it. They started calling in last minute vacation Friday during a week when they knew things were really busy. Of course they would offer to sacrifice their Sunday (never Saturday) to come in and save the project, on double time Sunday pay+overtime of course. After a couple years of this management finally started prohibiting overtime for anyone who had taken a vacation day during the preceding week. Oddly the number of last minute vacation requests went down too.

 

[Pathogen]

What I am not reading is the USA wide scam employees do to generate overtime. The employer usually skimps on pay, benefits, or both.

The silent elephant (hot dog) in the room knows the way to work the system is to drag through the 40 hours to get your rest. If you don't get caught break stuff. Pass on by obvious problems and let stuff crash.

Then at the end of 40 hours, management is frantic and offers overtime, generally lots of it.

Then the hot dogs who caused the problems in the first place rack up vicious overtime.

Management does not recognize the foul acts against the company (and the productive workers) leaving the "hot dogs" to prosper.

Thus ends the manufacturing base, followed by warehouse, and transportation among others with all those nice jobs gone overseas.

 

[Turretturn]

I once worked at a place where people would regularly do over 100hrs overtime a month. It was very much part of that workplace culture.

They used to pass a timesheet around at the end of the month with everyone's clocking's on, and how many overtime hours they had. It was like a competition between some of them to see who could top the list.

When they interviewed new machinists the usual line from the manager was 'I can't match your current pay but I can offer you more hours'.

Not sure what was in it for the company. I heard it saved on national insurance contributions (UK) and I guess they could drop the overtime when times were quiet instead of laying people off, although it was booming for the full 18months I was there. Also probably better having 1 good machinist working 80 hours than splitting the hours between a good/poor machinist.

 

[Ox]

I once worked at a place where people would regularly do over 100hrs overtime a month. It was very much part of that workplace culture.

They used to pass a timesheet around at the end of the month with everyone's clocking's on, and how many overtime hours they had. It was like a competition between some of them to see who could top the list.

When they interviewed new machinists the usual line from the manager was 'I can't match your current pay but I can offer you more hours'.

Not sure what was in it for the company. I heard it saved on national insurance contributions (UK) and I guess they could drop the overtime when times were quiet instead of laying people off, although it was booming for the full 18months I was there. Also probably better having 1 good machinist working 80 hours than splitting the hours between a good/poor machinist.

.

11 hours in a tin can?
God, there's GOT to be another way!


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

 

[Turretturn]

.

11 hours in a tin can?
God, there's GOT to be another way!


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

You could do up to 14 hours a day Mon-Fri, 10 hours Saturday and 6 hours Sunday.

There were a few Polish migrants that did as many hours as they could, so they could go back to Poland after a few years and live well. But the guy that topped the list nearly every month was British, he worked deep hole borers on Inconel and was on his phone most of the time.

 

[jccaclimber]

You could do up to 14 hours a day Mon-Fri, 10 hours Saturday and 6 hours Sunday.

There were a few Polish migrants that did as many hours as they could, so they could go back to Poland after a few years and live well. But the guy that topped the list nearly every month was British, he worked deep hole borers on Inconel and was on his phone most of the time.

It’s a lot easier working a lot of hours when there isn’t actually much working going on. I still remember a guy early in my career who had done some time on night shift in a UAW plant. Apparently most would work day shift at one place, then sleep 6 hours of the night shift working at another. The union kept quotas so low you could do a full days work in about 2 hours and management only showed up at the ends of the shift.

Best hourly pay I made for a number of years was actually a student job during college. I had a job manning the front desk and forwarding phone calls in a building nearly nobody called or visited. This meant that I spent 55 minutes out of every hour on my computer doing a second job at the same time.

 

[Stirling]

In my area overtime is just the way.
Not enough skilled people.
In my 20’s it was all challenging work 10/h a day and then spin drill collars for another 4 hours once the mind was tired.
14h a day 6-7 days a week go go go.
Make hay whole the sun shines.
Slowed down in my 30’s and started enjoying life, had a family and all that.
So happy I put some $ away in my 20’s.

As a manager having the fellas qork OT was near mandatory (unfortunately) due to workload.
I had to push people harder than I likes to keep on top of things. You could see the burnout very clearly but the owner would not allow for more hires. Not even a kid with a broom (which would have been a huge value vs the journeymen cleaning up after a long day)
But what do ya do. Left there to presume my garage shop dream with all that overtime money I made in my 20’s :p

 

[michiganbuck]

Overtime is an opportunity to get more money.
Some people hate overtime because it gives the guy willing to put in that time to make more money and advantage.
it is a form of freedom to decide for one's self.
Some people hate freedom because it gives some people an advantage.
Overtime can be an asset to a company so to take on more or a variable workload.

 

[standardparts]

Overtime is expensive to the company. No shit Sherlock.
In big companies it can get abused but ignored if the budget is fat and management eats the cost as a way to pacify the peasants, who if are smart, pile up the moo-lah to prepare for the eventual financial reckoning.

Anyway...overtime. All depends on what kind of business your talking so there an be a whole bunch of different scenarios where overtime can be an essential tool.

BTW----Don't forget Gov't work where in some cases your pension takes into account your last three, or highest three years gross pay.

 

[michiganbuck]

I worked at a shop where when we went up to adding Sundays at 12 hours per, the overtime would start at 48hours it was an agreement we voted on. It was a great shop with top pay and rarely an argument and nobody was forced to work the OT...
Nowadays likey against the law, the Grubberment decides for you.
Seems like the Grubbermant would even give China a manufacturing advantage if it put some under-the-table money in their pocket.

 

[Ox]

"seems like" ???


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

 

[michiganbuck]

Not long ago some educators and some government people were talking about mandating a certain number of hours per day and per week to increase the number of USA jobs.
Little concern about how that would affect our world competitiveness.
Much like Government people saying that we don't need to manufacture because we can become a service economy. Guess they did not think that outof work people cut their own grass.
People who never worked a day in their life or ran a business have all the answers.

 

[Trueturning]

Overtime is an opportunity to get more money.
Some people hate overtime because it gives the guy willing to put in that time to make more money and advantage.
it is a form of freedom to decide for one's self.
Some people hate freedom because it gives some people an advantage.
Overtime can be an asset to a company so to take on more or a variable workload.

Freedom acn be perception and perceptions do change. A lot of these long hours do effect the families of workers being that a person puts in so much time at the shop and weeks turn into months and months into years. After years and when kids leave home there can be big changes which can happen. They can be in some situations a matter of regrets.

One does well to strive for a balance. Years down the road the employer and fellow workers most likely will not even think of each other. This spends vitality and misdirects the important things for people. Not for all people true yet it is insidious and can just reap some problems. A person does well to survive through it all hopefully with some financial security. Many times that ship never comes in Because they max out in earnings.

 

[DDoug]

In my area overtime is just the way.
Not enough skilled people.
In my 20’s it was all challenging work 10/h a day and then spin drill collars for another 4 hours once the mind was tired.
14h a day 6-7 days a week go go go.
Make hay whole the sun shines.
Slowed down in my 30’s and started enjoying life, had a family and all that.
So happy I put some $ away in my 20’s.

As a manager having the fellas qork OT was near mandatory (unfortunately) due to workload.
I had to push people harder than I likes to keep on top of things. You could see the burnout very clearly but the owner would not allow for more hires. Not even a kid with a broom (which would have been a huge value vs the journeymen cleaning up after a long day)
But what do ya do. Left there to presume my garage shop dream with all that overtime money I made in my 20’s :p

I would never work for a tyrant like that.