Do you work overtime?
Do you work overtime?
(OP)
So I have heard horror stories about some engineering jobs where you work 60+ hour weeks without overtime pay. I work 40 hours a week. No overtime at all. If I do get overtime it's paid for. If I were asked to do overtime, I would and I have in the past, but typically it isn't required of me .... at all. It's pretty nice. From stories I've heard from other engineers I would think that my situation is pretty rare.
So, basically I was just wondering how many of us engineers do work overtime, how much overtime they work, and if it's paid or unpaid.
If you have a second, everyone please post about your overtime requirements and habits at your job.
Thanks.





RE: Do you work overtime?
www.engineerboards.com
RE: Do you work overtime?
However my employer allows me very flexible hours, and if I work a weekend it is not unusual for me to take a day off the next week to make up for it, if I spend a couple hours on the phone with a customer one evening, I sleep in and go to work late the next morning. I also work out of my home quite often, and I work a 980 schedule so I get every other Friday off. No one ever expects me to spend X number of hours at my desk in the office, I pretty come and go as necessary and as I please. So overall I can't complain.
-The future's so bright I gotta wear shades!
RE: Do you work overtime?
RE: Do you work overtime?
Usually 45-50 hour weeks except during plant startups where it can be up to 80-98 hour weeks (1-3 times a year for 3 weeks). Often travel on weekends.
But, often given days off during the week without having to take vacation. It's a decent trade-off.
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This is normally the space where people post something insightful.
RE: Do you work overtime?
Present position is notionally 0830 - 1700 Monday - Friday, but weekend working, early starts, late finishes, the occasional nightshift are all there too. We get no overtime pay, but have historically had a fairly fast and loose attitude to off-the-books lieu days and so on. It is part of the job, although sometimes it feels like we are doing the work of twice our number. That starts to cause distinctly mutinous feelings among the engineering staff from about halfway through our long turbine outage season.
I periodically toy with the idea of joining the
industrial prostitutescontractors----------------------------------
I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy it...
RE: Do you work overtime?
In our company we have not had a raise in years. However, the working conditions are excellent, the work is interesting, it is a short commute, and we don't have to work overtime. At my age now, the time is more valuable.
RE: Do you work overtime?
The next job was straight salary, regardless of hours worked. During one stretch, I was "donating" 20 to 30 hours a week to the company, hoping, I suppose, to get noticed.
I am at another place now. Workload comes and goes. I am in the middle of a crunch that is requiring 50+ hours a week, but anything over 40 hours is paid at straight time. Extra time is neither encouraged nor discouraged, so long as the job gets done. It's actually a pretty sweet deal.
RE: Do you work overtime?
My new current job, maybe working OT in the future.
Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)
RE: Do you work overtime?
In the present company, management decided that they'd paid overtime for a long time and it was time for a change, so they stopped paying it. Makes sense to me
corus
RE: Do you work overtime?
RE: Do you work overtime?
RE: Do you work overtime?
Most of the time unpaid except for the last year or so at my last place when they knew I was leaving and we had loads to do, no one to do it. Some of it was paid by a bonus some of it by time and half.
Also some flexibility in work hours most of the time, how much varied based on who my manager was etc.
RE: Do you work overtime?
Next job, I was shocked when they said I was being hired at the top job grade that allowed time and a half over 40/wk. Then, the company announced carte blanc OT of 10/wk without approval and the approval for additional OT came with simple justification. That went on for over a year. Then cost cuts, lost OT, lay-offs, more cost cuts, then big bonuses for management for their clever fiscal prowess.
Current job does not pay OT but allows comp. time freely. I'm told the 40/wk I work is unique to my department so I think I'll stay put.
Frankly, I'd expect 45-55/wk to be the norm and don't mind working it if required to do the job. But to just provide a presence in case needed? Don't much like that.
RE: Do you work overtime?
RE: Do you work overtime?
If you feel that you are being taken advantage of, I suggest that you read up on the employment laws. If necessary, question your HR department, and have them explain how they feel that they are exempt from paying time and a half. It is important to document all of the hours you have worked over 40/wk.
I worked for one small jet manufacturer for three years as a contractor getting overtime pay. They then gave me a choice of becoming temporary/direct (without OT) or leaving. As I wasn't yet ready to leave town, I accepted the position, but I sure didn't put more than 40 hours into any one week. They let me go a year later.
RE: Do you work overtime?
These days I'd be burned at the stake if I even suggested weekend working, so it's no great issue that I've been recently been re-banded (this month) into a band that cannot claim ANY overtime (no additional perks mind you).
Just wait 'till I'm asked to work outside normal hours.
Methinks Rome may just have to burn - not my problem!
RE: Do you work overtime?
RE: Do you work overtime?
Wes C.
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When they broke open molecules, they found they were only stuffed with atoms. But when they broke open atoms, they found them stuffed with explosions...
RE: Do you work overtime?
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Do you work overtime?
The staff tried to get a flexitime system but the senior management refused on the grounds it was not 'right' for the company. They knew people would start taking notice of the extra hours they worked so they could go home early on friday so the company would lose all that free work.
My current employer is a lot better. You work overtime, you get paid overtime albeit at your standard rate.
RE: Do you work overtime?
RE: Do you work overtime?
RE: Do you work overtime?
My second engr. job I did not get OT pay, sometimes got stuck working a few hours extra... that and some other issues led me to my current job.
Now I get paid for OT, have worked 50 to 60 hours a week once or twice, but mostly in the range of 40 to 44.
RE: Do you work overtime?
I generally put in 44 hours since I figure I waste 10% of my time doing things like Eng-Tips. I have, on occasion, worked 70+ hour weeks for a few weeks but not often.
I do travel and receive no additional compensation for the 14 hour flights to China nor the weekends and evenings that I work while I'm there.
I do have some flexibility in my schedule on the front- and back-end of the trips.
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RE: Do you work overtime?
I work on my own, typically for an hourly fee just as I did when I worked for other consulting firms. I suppose I now get paid "overtime" since I bill for whatever time I spend and the fee comes to me; however, I still don't consider it "overtime" and don't embrace the concept.
RE: Do you work overtime?
RE: Do you work overtime?
5th job- engineers slacked off all week, found that on Friday they needed emergency overtime, worked 12 hour days on the weekend and got paid for it.
Thus, my low opinion of overtime.
RE: Do you work overtime?
RE: Do you work overtime?
Regards,
RE: Do you work overtime?
You might be working too much overtime if . . .
You run out to lunch, find the restaurant closed, and it takes more than a moment to realize that it's Sunday.
You work 32 hours straight, go home to shower and sleep two hours, go back to work for 18 hours while the plant is evacuated for a hurricane, then drive through the hurricane to get to a airport that is not closed, arrive at the customers site, and find you are suffering from jet lag even though you didn't change time zones.
You realize at 3:00AM Sunday morning on a holiday weekend while at work that the unexpected fixed-deadline project your boss threw at you has been designed and built completely on unpaid overtime, and only the company will make money from it.
That you never knew about historical world-shaping events until months or years after the fact because you were working so many hours at that period that you never saw a TV or had time to read a paper.
All of the above has happened to me, and not by choices I would have made willingly. The hurricane story is true, and while at that customers site, the same hurricane passed over the area!
RE: Do you work overtime?
The last company I worked for also required that people as a minimum take 1 solid 24 hour period off every 14 days so the most you could work was 13 days straight without a day off.
I did a plant turnaround in France, day shift only, 35 hours a week, weekends off. It was really strange. In the US is would have been 16 hours a day, two overlapping shifts, 7 days a week for 6 weeks.
-The future's so bright I gotta wear shades!
RE: Do you work overtime?
Some weeks it is more, but hardly ever exceeding 50hrs. If you work overtime at my company it is a given that extra hours off are made available at a later date. Just how much later is the problem.
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Steven K. Roberts, Technomad
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RE: Do you work overtime?
RE: Do you work overtime?
Some states may have modifications to the Federal Standards in favor of the employees.
I believe companies are required to post this information, typically found in lunch rooms...
RE: Do you work overtime?
RE: Do you work overtime?
We don't have an actual policy limiting working hours for safety reasons so far as I'm aware, but I have been 'advised' to go home by the head of Engineering a couple of times after hitting the 20 hours on site threshold. I have had my car keys removed by the H&S manager and ordered to get a lift or a taxi home. My job frequently involves long hours and much of the time we are running on adrenaline. Once the task has finished the sense of deflation and tiredness sets in. If we must work those hours, then I am pleased that our management at least try to ensure our safety.
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I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy it...
RE: Do you work overtime?
RE: Do you work overtime?
corus
RE: Do you work overtime?
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Do you work overtime?
Corus - doesn't the EU legislation only look at average hours over a month? My limited understanding is that it allows a few long shifts provided you get some lieu time to bring the average back down? If you can cite any references for legislation I'd really appreciate it so I can discuss it with our management and HR.
The biggest problem I find is when I'm on call. The all-too-common outcome is I'll have worked a ten hour day, and then be called back to site on a breakdown a couple of hours later and spend all night there too. There should be a legal requirement for a minimum period of rest before being required to go back to work, similar to the regulations which limit the hours a truck driver can work before he is required to have a minimum period of rest.
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I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy it...
RE: Do you work overtime?
This is what the terms "excempt" and "non-excempt" refer to.
Your company can still choose to pay you additional for hours over some limit (say, 40 or 45), at either straight time or something more, but its a company decision, not one mandated by law.
In my case, after retiring from a career in the military over 10 years ago, I was employed by an engineering firm that paid for all hours worked with straight time. This company was acquired by another firm. Our OT policy remained for a year or two, and was then phased out. OT is still possible, but is the exception rather than the rule (putting in more than 40 hours remains common).
RE: Do you work overtime?
It works the other way also; you don't need a degree to have an exempt position.
When you start to refer to a job classification as a "professional position", you open another can of worms. If I have spent 40 years of my life restoring antique automobiles to concourse condition, I would rightly be considered a professional in that field. There are many walks of life which produce "professionals", and a degree has nothing to do with it.
RE: Do you work overtime?
i.e. We can work eight weeks of 40-45 hr/wk and then when a large projects comes up it can be 50-60 for six weeks, then 60-80 hr/wk for the final two, then back to 40-45 for a short period until the cycle recurs typically triannually.
Outside of the typical office hours, I have the luxury to regulate when I do overtime, either morning, night, weeknight, weekend, in office or at home. All within reason of working as a team with the architects. Bottom line, get the job done professionlly!
Another luxury I have is time & 1/2 over 40.
I am fortunate!
RE: Do you work overtime?
At least in CA I thought it was pretty much at the employers discretion except that to be exempt you must be getting paid at least twice (I think) minimum wage.
It's probably on the labor board website if anyone cares.
My guess is all the posters here are well within that pay category so it's probably up to your employer.
RE: Do you work overtime?
The vast majority of it was paid at straight time rates. But there was one stretch following a layoff and near-immediate recall where I was officially classified as non-exempt, meaning that any OT should have been paid at time-and-a-half (but wasn't). The story has a semi-happy ending, but since I'm back working for essentially the same company (contract, with straight time for OT) I should probably leave it at that.
Most of the time, the basic 9 days/80 hour schedule I'm now working still feels like I'm on OT though.
Norm
RE: Do you work overtime?
I work from 3 to 10 hours overtime per week, unpaid. Just because there is heavy work load, not enough people to ensure the work, we're late on the projects or because, like it happened to me yesterday, the company software decided to bug and screwed up my last 3 hours of work that I need to do again now...
Guess professional life goes that way...
Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France
RE: Do you work overtime?
RE: Do you work overtime?
- the late hours are nice and quiet so my efficiency is much higher;
- it allows me, or at least makes it easier, to leave early/come in late whenever I need to (dentist, garage, stuff like that).
Never during the weekend though.
RE: Do you work overtime?
Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France
RE: Do you work overtime?
Regards,
RLS
RE: Do you work overtime?
RE: Do you work overtime?
I know I spend a lot of time on meetings, procedures, and reporting unrelated to engineering functions. So, are Americans working so much to make up for the inefficient work environment companies create?
RE: Do you work overtime?
We used to employ people with admin roles (publications, post, secretarial, drivers, etc). Over the years these people have been elimated to save money. What actually happens is their work now gets done by the engineers, who then have to find extra time to be as productive as they were before.
I keep suggesting to my manager that he set up job numbers so we can find out exactly how much money has been saved by having engineers do admin work.
RE: Do you work overtime?
As an addendum to my previous post, I don't mind spending the occasional unbilled few minutes to bring some task to a more convenient stopping point rather than lose the train of thought.
Norm
RE: Do you work overtime?
My last place did have a couple of 'slush funds', If I recall one was Admin and one was IT issues or something like that.
Trouble is at various times they actually told us not to book too much to those numbers!
Kind of defeats the object of the exercise no?
RE: Do you work overtime?
The benefits to the community of engineers working long hours are numerous: divorce lawyers prosper; volunteer positions are filled by others (unemployed/underemployed peers); children learn to occupy themselves; boats stay moored, leaving the waterways safer....
RE: Do you work overtime?
I work 40 hours a week when it's slow, and 50-60 hours a week when it's busy. Right now is a little slow, but in general I'd say it's busy more than it's slow.
RE: Do you work overtime?
I just LOVE working for the government!
RE: Do you work overtime?
Hg
Eng-Tips policies: FAQ731-376
RE: Do you work overtime?
If my project and I can come to an agreement on comp time (future time off for unpaid overtime) then I'll work some but otherwise if it isn't paid I don't put in more than an hour or two every once in awhile.
My thoughts are that the company doesn't just go around handing out extra money to me for no reason so I don't feel a need to work a lot of extra hours for no reason.