Know that you are not alone in this. I personally don't care (but I do use it as license to leave a little early on Fridays), but one of my colleagues is so vocally against lunchtime meetings to the point that they don't come to some of them.

jari001,

I am close to this. I've been coming up with various excuses that I fantasize about using.

"I'm sorry, I have to meet with my forensic accountant to find out where my ex hid $1 million."
"I'm sorry. I have to meet my broker to strategize how to reinvest my Bitcoin millions."
"I'm sorry. I have a meeting with my Oscar Party planning committee."
"I'm sorry. I have an appointment in a Chinatown alley to get my Adderal."
"I'm sorry. I have an emergency blowout at the Aveda Salon."
"I'm sorry. I'm having lunch with my ex boss."

If you are offended by the things I say, imagine the stuff I hold back.

Charge the time.

I know several folks who block off their calendars with private appointments during lunchtime as well as before/after "normal" office hours. None do particularly well for themselves

Personally I do whatever's asked of me until I feel taken advantage of, then I find another employer. I have months where I travel and/or work 60/week then others where its closer to 30. Not that I've ever kept "normal" hours but I've never heard of a lunch hour outside of the government, 30 minutes being the norm.

Cass....I just hate all company meetings! (Lunchtime or otherwise!)

I'm with Jed. Book it. Well actually I just wouldn't turn up. My time off is mine, not theirs.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

engineer will work for food

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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Stop counting "working lunch" as "break time". Take a long, lingering lunch break after each said meeting.

Yeah, I think the mistake being made here is not taking an actual lunch, despite what the noontime meeting is called. So the client wants to meet at noon, and they bring sandwiches/cookies... fine, have the meeting, and nothing says you have to eat what's provided. But take an hour out of your day AFTER the meeting (or before, if you prefer, like me) to sit back and enjoy your own meal.

Quote (CWB1)

I know several folks who block off their calendars with private appointments during lunchtime as well as before/after "normal" office hours. None do particularly well for themselves

Personally I do whatever's asked of me until I feel taken advantage of, then I find another employer.

I block off those hours... mainly after the realization is made I am being taken advantage of. Some people just push and push until they hit your limit, but they can't seem to understand the concept of reasonable limits until you specify them. If your solution to an inability to place limits is finding another employer, perhaps it's not any better than those who place the limits right from the get-go...

Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

I'm a salaried employee. When I'm on the company premises, I'm working. I take breaks in the quantity and of the quality that I choose. I'm always net positive on the number of hours I work relative to the number expected of me on a yearly basis. That includes time taken for medical appointments and other non-work related professional obligations.

When a lunchtime meeting is suggested, and lunch is provided, I'm grateful for the "free lunch", remembering of course that there is no such thing as a "free lunch".

Any lunchtime meeting held without lunch being provided is not something I'm going to attend personally nor to expect anyone else to attend.

When I call a lunchtime meeting, I have a reasonable expectation that the the time hasn't already been booked for other meetings which can then be used as a dodge by some people who actually need to attend.

Lunchtime meetings are reserved for training or other items of MUTUAL benefit. If it's ordinary company business, the meeting is held during core working hours. We used to hold scheduling meeting over lunch and provide lunch, but some staff didn't like it so we stopped doing that.

Most of these lunchtime meetings are in-house planning or management meetings. I don’t mind the OCCASIONAL lunch meeting, but they have stacked on so many that I have one every single day of the week. There are something’s I would like to go to that only occur at lunch hour, like a regular Al Anon meeting. There is one 1/2 block from the office in a cathedral and going once a week on my own time should not be a big deal, but it is. A $13 dollar sandwich is no compensation.

If you are offended by the things I say, imagine the stuff I hold back.

At an absolute minimum, you should mount a silent protest by getting yourself a pair of the socks that say "This meeting is BULLS$%T". Lunchtime meetings are ok, once in a while, perhaps once a month at most, as long as they are productive. Anything more than that can be accomplished during work hours.

Whoa, whoa, sandwiches cost $13?

I'm in the wrong business......

----
The name is a long story -- just call me Lo.

Quote (Canuck65)

you should mount a silent protest by getting yourself a pair of the socks that say "This meeting is BULLS$%T"

...and put your feet up on the table during the meeting

though, really, not everyone can make every meeting. If you have a weekly meeting I'd say, "I can't do Tuesdays," and then go to three out of four al-anon meetings. I also support the idea of billing the time and taking your lunch or phone calls afterward.

The time should be recorded accurately, in my opinion, because any good company would want a real accounting of how much time it takes to manage their operations. Of course, nobody would try to hide management hours to make the profitability look better.

Lunches are delivered from Specialties. Usually it’s a half sandwich, cup of soup and a cookie or a whole sandwich, piece of fruit and a cookie. It’s $13/each. I’ve seen the ticket.

If you are offended by the things I say, imagine the stuff I hold back.

Luckily lunch meetings are rare around here. There are invites probably twice a month or so for such meetings but they certainly aren't mandatory.

When lunch is interrupted, I typically extended my lunch for the length of the interruption. I also put my phone on DND (or at least that's what I tell people who ask why I didn't pick up) during lunch. Most everything can wait until I'm done with whatever I am doing at the time.

If they decide to change things and pay me for that time, I'll gladly skip lunch, or work through it. This isn't a hobby though, so I don't do it for free.

Andrew H.
www.mototribology.com

Quote:

If your solution to an inability to place limits is finding another employer, perhaps it's not any better than those who place the limits right from the get-go...

Common sense applies to limits like everything else. When you accept a salary you're exempt from having set hours by definition, you're paid to get the job done. If that means you need to eat early, late, or suck down some crappy catering a couple times every week to attend a necessary meeting then do it or go somewhere else. OTOH, if a distant colleague invites you to be the extra set of optional eyes on a DFMEA review for a project you're not working on then by all means, decline and enjoy lunch.

A lazy, entitled attitude might fly at smaller companies but doesn't do well in corporate industry where the bottom line is the most important and engineering support often makes/breaks million+ dollar deals. I've been in roles that regularly involved hand carrying prototype parts to third world countries to get a customer back up and running on only a few hours notice, and have been rewarded handsomely for the effort through both bonuses and promotions. JME but having been a hard working employee leaving on good terms, employers want me back badly enough that I retain open offers. The folks that play games as mentioned above tend to get put at the top of the list for layoffs and blacklisted, so yes, its FAR better to be considered a "good" employee.

Lunchtime is a legitimate personal rest period or break that ultimately helps you contribute a higher quality of work. That food is involved should be irrelevant. It's being taken advantage of if it's too often, if it's on your dime.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

hand these out at the end:

Yep, got to admit that I'm not really happy with meetings that could have been e-mails- meetings where we are being told something that has already been decided, under the guise of being consulted about something as if there was any likelihood of another outcome. That's not only wasteful, it's dishonest, or at least assumes that the audience are numbskulls.

Life is too short for that; it happens at all levels and across normal life. We had a nursery down the hill from us close down, and there was a proposal to build houses, and the town had meetings to gather concerns, etc., but it was all for show because the town had already decided to let the project move forward.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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IRStuff: the problem here in Toronto isn't the local council or planning department- they always say no to things that don't fit their official plan. Unfortunately, the province has given the developers a convenient out, in the form of the right to appeal to an appointed "municipal board" which decides for or against developments solely on the basis of provincial planning policy which says "development next to transit is always good". The public consultation meetings are held of course, but they're pointless. The system allows all the politicians at the local and provincial level to say, "It wasn't me- I was against it!" and yet allows them benefit from all the new tax revenue once the developments are built. They don't spend a cent on new infrastructure to support all those new residents, so the new tax revenue is gravy... What has resulted is a 10-fold increase in population density in my neighbourhood, even worse south of me, and a subway so packed that the Japanese guys with the white gloves to shove people into the trains cannot be far behind. The other day I took the subway home during rush hour and there was no need to hold onto anything- you couldn't fall down if you tried.

casseopeia -

My colleague doesn't seem to be suffering from not attending these meetings, so maybe you'll be OK as well. To paraphrase Amos Tversky, "Don't worry about the excuse, just get up and start leaving and your mind will have an excuse ready by the time you reach the door knob".

Meetings are quite often all about perception and like anything else in life, quite often you need others' "buy-in" to get anything done. I've never viewed being one of many optional sets of eyes reviewing a colleague's work in design reviews, DFMEAs, etc as wasteful but a matter of good ethics and process. I'll skip those occasionally when I know others at my level who are competent are attending and I have a conflict, but otherwise try to attend. The first few years of my career however I did sit in quite a few of those where they might as well have been emails bc the meeting host was hostile toward others' review or the audience simply didnt want to provide input. I've also sat in meetings where management was explaining new policies that I thought should've been simply emails, but after becoming a manager I saw the difference in employee acceptance and compliance meetings vs emails provide. Email about a simple change to an engineering process and often you'll spend the next month or more with many upset, many confused, and many others simply ignoring the process. Have a meeting to discuss it where everyone can hear you explain the logic behind the change and the common Q&A/FAQ and there's far fewer issues, people just get it done.

Maybe a transparently lame excuse will send the message that they are wasting your time. "I have to go prune the driveway."

I almost never hold meetings for my staff. But since I seem to compulsively repeat myself all day long, to the point of annoying myself and my staff, I guess group meetings are just not necessary. I do take them out to lunch fairly often but skew the conversations off of work and onto other, more interesting stuff.

And if you have special dietary requirements, you often can't even eat what's served and have to bring your own food anyways.

yeah, they suck.

I quite frequently need to meet with people who are already booked from 9:00-12:00 and 1:00-4:00, or whatever.

Lunch meetings are a fact of life. I don't see the need to get in a tiff about it.

jgKRI, how about after 4:00? How about before 9:00? If you had a 7:00 PM meeting, would you get in a tiff about that? Or midnight?
Lunch is your time to relax and unwind. I'm (and probably you) not getting paid for it. To me it's a way to have people work an extra hour for free.

I typically work from 6:00 or so until 3:30-4:00. Much of the rest of the office starts between 8:00 and 9:00.

I do this because a) I have a lot of non-work stuff going on and thus afternoons are highly valuable to me and b) this typically gives me between 2 and 3 hours per day in the office alone, where I can burn away undisturbed by questions and meetings.

Meetings after 4:00 are rare for me because by then I'm out the door, and everyone is aware of that. But if someone schedules a meeting at 7:00 PM and I actually need to be there, I'll either call in or I'll be there. Meetings at midnight? I deal with and oversee personnel in Japan and China.. I have meetings in the late and wee hours frequently- multiple times per month. I charge the time.

I don't know where every poster in this thread is at in their career; if you're high up or in the twilight, you can certainly afford to dictate a lot of things. I am moving up but wouldn't say I'm 'high up' and I'm definitely in the dawn. I can dictate little.

Flexibility is the cost of doing business, and in my opinion its the price we (as in engineers as a whole) pay for the lucrative salaries and interesting work our trade affords us.

JedClampett, you bring up an interesting point. We used to have early meetings (7:30 am) which were no problem. I routinely get into the office around 6:30-7:00 am) The lunch time came about to accommodate someone else who can't get to the office before 9:30 am.

Like I said, occasionally it is OK. Four times a week is too much no matter how you slice it.

If you are offended by the things I say, imagine the stuff I hold back.

I learned early in my current job that the people who arrive at work at 7:00 a.m. like to hold meetings at 7:30 a.m. I arrive at 8:00 a.m. and after being invited to these early meetings I decided to block off my calendar every single day of the year so that the person organizing the meeting realizes that I am not available before 8:00 a.m. It worked.

I just got notified that my previous 11:00 am meeting, which often strayed into the noon hour is moved to 'lunch.' I really don't know why others do not complain about it. So I checked to see if I was wrong about Labor Law. Turns out I'm not wrong. Here is a snippet straight from the book;

"Employees are owed premium pay when they miss a meal break or a rest break in one day. Labor Code section 226.7 provides that if an employer fails to provide a meal, rest or recovery period, the employer must pay the employee one additional hour of pay at the employee’s regular rate of compensation, for each work day that the meal or rest break is not provide"

"Further, one hour of pay is a wage, not a penalty. Wages are benefits that an employee is entitled to as part of compensation…
The hour of additional pay is not only an incentive for employers to comply with the law but, foremost, a premium wage that compensates employees – not a penalty."

"An employer cannot employ someone for a work period of more than 5 hours without providing an unpaid, off-duty meal period of at least 30 minutes."

I'm not planning to make waves at the moment. I just do not understand why engineers sitting around discussing contractual issues and liability exposure for an hour don't see the irony. SMDH

If you are offended by the things I say, imagine the stuff I hold back.

Almost everything there, I think, applies to at most, salaried non-exempt, and hourly employees.

Salaried employees, like myself, are "exempt" from such laws, which means they can abuse us to their hearts' content, assuming they have hearts...

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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IRStuff. I reviewed the exempt and non-exempt definitions according to our brand new shiny Labor Law Manual and California employees have to meet "all" requirements. I know they would like to consider anyone who is salaries to be exempt, however in my own case, I do not have the power to hire and fire.

If you are offended by the things I say, imagine the stuff I hold back.

Yeah, everything I've ever read has said that stuff doesn't apply to non-exempt employees... haven't been one of those for well over 20 years. CA could very well be different (aren't they always?), but I would have strong doubts about it until I read it in black and white myself.

But if I find myself in a position where my lunch's are continually co-opted for purposes other than feeding my face, I'll find other ways to do so on "company time", and I won't be working while munching on my sandwich.

Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

If lunchtime is sacred, what do you do to accommodate the regular "after-hours" international meetings, weeks of travel, or other efforts outside the standard 8.5 hour day?

Agreed with the above, salaried employees are exempt from hourly labor laws in all but a few cases. Having started my career on hourly wages in the trades I appreciate being allowed to negotiate my salary as commensurate based upon effort output. I want to be paid a top tier salary so I put out top tier results which require top tier effort. In most organizations as you move up in position the expectation is that you also move up in hours committed.

Well, CWB1, if I have a 5:30 AM meeting, I come in at 5:25 AM and shift my working time to match. I still don't get out until 4:00 PM. And I don't think lunch is sacred, but I'd like it to be considered that it is my time, not the company's.
Sure, there's early meetings, international meetings, late meetings, travel, unpaid training, pretty soon, you're there 12 hours a day and you're nodding off during the meetings. I'm sure you have a limit. If you don't, your body does.

CWB1 is wrong about salaried workers being exempt. Most are not, but are led to believe they are. The IRS has very strict definitions as to who is exempt. Most salaried employees are not.

Honesty may be the best policy, but insanity is a better defense.
http://www.EsoxRepublic.com-SolidWorks API VB programming help

Direct from the horses mouth:
https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/fs17a_overview.pd...

(I believe this fits most here)

Quote:

Professional Exemption
To qualify for the learned professional employee exemption, all of the following tests must be met:
•The employee must be compensated on a salary or fee basis (as defined in the regulations) at a rate notless than $455 per week;
•The employee’s primary duty must be the performance of work requiring advanced knowledge, defined as work which is predominantly intellectual in character and which includes work requiring the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment;
•The advanced knowledge must be in a field of science or learning; and
•The advanced knowledge must be customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction.

(and just to cover all bases)

Quote:

Highly Compensated Employees
Highly compensated employees performing office or non-manual work and paid total annual compensation of $100,000 or more (which must include at least $455 per week paid on a salary or fee basis) are exempt from the FLSA if they customarily and regularly perform at least one of the duties of an exempt executive, administrative or professional employee identified in the standard tests for exemption.

Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

At a previous place of employment, when new management came in they scheduled some meetings on Saturdays. Granted that this was a power plant which is a 24/7 operation, but the gist of it was to "set the tone" about who was in charge and what was required of the employees.

I weep for any employee whose employer feels the need to "set the tone" in such a manner...

Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

Glad to know I'm not the only one who feels this way. The worst part is the food. Like you said: it's always something nasty like pizza (which I cannot eat). The other thing is: I drink a ton of fluids when I eat. Getting up every 5 seconds for a re-fill is a pain.

At several places I've worked they have lunch time meetings called "lunch and learn". It's where a company person will give a presentation on something [he/she doesn't know anything about] and they will claim it's good for a pdh hour. Guess what? Not in most states I am registered in.

It's very inconsiderate to disrupt someone's lunch hour like that.

I’m two for two already this week. I don’t remember ever having this many lunch time meetings.

If you are offended by the things I say, imagine the stuff I hold back.

A quote from Canadian businessman Kevin O'Leary:

Quote:

If you aren't here to work on Saturday, don't bother coming in on Sunday.

Bear in mind that there is a culture conflict here. There are often people at the executive level of any company that are expected to be there, or on call, 24/7/365 for the company, especially the owners of the company. They value their work ethic, and many entrepreneurs get ahead by acting this way. Confronting them with the value you place on having a lunch hour may not go over well. My manager doesn't get a lot of quiet lunchtime hours. We collaborate with other engineering groups and support production workers in several time zones. They phone us when they need us.

I am not saying you should put up with these pointless meetings. I just want you to be cautious when you do bring it up, and be prepared to overcome a lack of understanding by using reason, not just the letter of the law.

STF

SparWeb, very true. Your post reminds of the quip "and that is why they make the big bucks". Sadly, some US companies have adopted the shame culture that once was, and maybe still is, prevalent in Japan, in which one doesn't dare be the first person to leave the office, lest ye suffer the disdain and scorn of the other drones.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

First to leave the office.
First to take a piece of cake.
First to open that box of donuts.
First in line at the potluck.

I have no shame. I'm a leader, a trendsetter, an example for others to follow.
I take my responsibilities very seriously.

Besides, someone has to do it.

--Scott
www.aerornd.com

Good on ya, Scott! I try to do the same! Well, except at potlucks, we let the old folks go first, and I'm not ready to be included in that category just yet.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

JME in those types of offices but folks typically don't notice or care when others' leave, only when they arrive. Late afternoon traditionally holds few important meetings, so many of us doing early mornings to mid-afternoon then take a break at home before the international meetings start mid-evening.

I've been in the offices where quantity of time was paramount, quality was secondary (or often not even considered). "You're a Senior Engineer, so you should be working 50 hours a week". No, I'm a Senior Engineer because I have gained numerous years of experience that is useful to you... you pay me more than a Junior Engineer because of that experience, not because I will work more (work smarter, not harder, right?).

Ironically, they'll pull the same crap with the Juniors... "You don't have family commitments, so you can work extra hours.". Either way you slice it, they're merely trying to get MORE out of you for a price previously agreed upon. It's sketchy, and dare I say, immoral.

Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

Quote:

It's sketchy, and dare I say, immoral.

Hey, let's not gang up on the entrepreneurs and managers, here. Have some spine and say "No" if you want to stick to the regular work-week; explain your reasons. There are lots of people who will jump for the chance to take home overtime pay. They have their reasons. Turning it into a moral position just makes people take sides.

STF

Quote (SparWeb)

There are lots of people who will jump for the chance to take home overtime pay.

But that makes the (often) faulty assumption that extra pay is involved. For exempt employess, 50 hours pays as much as 40. I often jump at the chance for extra take-home... but the position has to allow for it. Not many do.

Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

Quote:

But that makes the (often) faulty assumption that extra pay is involved.

Also depends on how you define "extra pay." My current employer pays OT beyond 40 but makes it well known that there is no special treatment otherwise of those employees working OT. My previous two employers didn't pay OT however they both based your annual bonus upon your annual review, hours worked, and value to the company. Some folks were perfectly content with their salary alone and being a lower level individual contributor. Personally I found the $20k bonuses as an individual contributor, choice of projects/roles, and rapid promotion up into management for yet larger bonuses well worth an extra 10-20/week.

Quote:

Also depends on how you define "extra pay."

You make $100k/yr with an expected 40 hrs/wk. They ask you to work an extra hour, and will pay you some money over and above your $100k/yr for that extra hour. There's no trickery involved in my wording... extra pay is extra pay.

Quote:

Personally I found the $20k bonuses as an individual contributor, choice of projects/roles, and rapid promotion up into management for yet larger bonuses well worth an extra 10-20/week.

So you're willing to work 25-50% more hours per week for, what... 20% extra pay (assuming $100k/yr salary)? Sounds like a good deal for the company. If you're making $200k/yr, that deal gets even better for them.

No, at a bare minimum, they should pay you the same wage as if you were hourly. At $200k/yr, that's $96/hr. Working those numbers through, your year-end bonus should be $50-100k for working an extra 10-20 hours/wk. You just accepted a $20k bonus for something the company would be paying another equivalent employee $100k for. Yep, that's a sweet deal for the company, alright... but you get to be manager next year.

Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

Quote:

So you're willing to work 25-50% more hours per week for, what... 20% extra pay (assuming $100k/yr salary)? Sounds like a good deal for the company. If you're making $200k/yr, that deal gets even better for them.

Sure am, that extra $20k annually goes a long way toward early retirement for those of us without pensions. It also allows me to move up in the organization to exponentially higher income levels. At best both of those equal additional years of my life spent not working while providing a better life for my family, which are the end goals. At worst those give me a cushion in case of future employment or financial issues. The logical counterclaim then becomes that I'm "missing out," yet I find my life more structured out of necessity, more efficient, and I actually miss out on less bc of it.

Personally I could care less about a drop in an imaginary hourly rate, the "lower" rate is still more than I made starting out in the military and a nice chunk of change with real benefit.

This happens to me so much at my current job, generally I just warm up my lunch and take it in with me and eat while the meeting goes on. Generally they are "Dilbert" type meetings so doesnt really matter if I pay attention haha

Your year end bonus should be based on actual performance, not extra hours worked. Some can make that extra $20K without working 25 percent more hours.

CWB1,
Salaried mean fixed pay rate, no overtime, no bonus plan, period. That is the reality for nearly all of us.
I have never worked less than 45 hour weeks, and 50-55 is far more typical.
Travel on Sundays to make that Mon morning meeting roughly once a month.
I like my job, I am given quite a bit of flexibility, and I usually don't mind.
What I mind is managers who think that by micro-managing peoples time, especially outside of normal working hours that it somehow shows that hey are 'better managers' or 'getting more out of their people'.
When in reality the only result is lower productivity and higher turnover.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, Plymouth Tube

EdStainless, you bring up an interesting point. The company where I work has had a terrible turnover since I started last year in July. Just this week three key people left or announced they were leaving. I can't say the frequent impositions on personal time is the cause, but it might be a small factor. For me it's not enough to quit over it. As I get projects of my own, I can have a little more control over my time.

If you are offended by the things I say, imagine the stuff I hold back.

Quote (Salaried mean fixed pay rate, no overtime, no bonus plan, period. That is the reality for nearly all of us.)

I don't think so.
I've worked two places and neither paid that way. You were still salaried (I think it has to do with some shady interpretation of labor law), but you billed hours to projects and filled out timesheets. Your hours were then billed to the clients. And you get paid for them (or comp time).
So there's an incentive to the company to have you bill hours even if they're above 40 hours a week. As a matter of fact, those hours are more profitable because the rent and fixed cpsts are already covered. And the way to guarantee that is going to happen is to pay you for all your hours. Basically my company is selling my time. Now if I worked for a company that sold kilowatts, automobiles, or widgets, it might be different.

I have always worked in manufacturing and that is how it is.
I am to the point now that I have an extreme amount of flexibility.
I work out of a home office, plan all of my own travel (about 60% of my time is on the road), and generally keep up technologies that no one else in our company even knows about. This makes up for the hours and other BS.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, Plymouth Tube

Quote ( )

Salaried mean fixed pay rate, no overtime, no bonus plan, period. That is the reality for nearly all of us.
I have never worked less than 45 hour weeks, and 50-55 is far more typical.

I've been salaried for years. comp time disappeared circa 1994. Bonuses are not guaranteed and are not based on amount of time worked, they are based on amount of profit made and distributed to the employees. Profitable employees who work longer hours are the least likely to be laid off in the downturns, hows that for a bonus?

https://despair.com/products/effort

______________________________________________________________________________
This is normally the space where people post something insightful.

controlnovice - And your point is?

Everybody has to make up their own mind about what makes sense for them in a professional context.

That said, if you want to volunteer, please don't do it for a for-profit company! There are so many places that can make better use of your effort to make the world a better place. Donating your time for the sole benefit of a bunch of shareholders (other than you!) is just nuts.

Work should be compensated for. Sure, to make up some time for some learning you had to do on the job, or a screw-up you feel bad about and want to fix, or occasionally to help meet a deadline- a little extra is NORMAL for a salaried employee and you can't be stingy with that. |But so is taking a morning off for an appointment etc. without expecting to see it docked from your pay. If it's always one way, i.e. give but never take, you're not a salaried employee- you're a wage slave.

If consistent extra time is required, it had better be an investment with a return greater than the thought of buying goodwill from your current boss. They might be promoted away before you can reap any reward from it. All the extra effort you put in will be accepted. It may not be compensated, or acknowledged, or even NOTICED, but it will certainly be accepted! It's your responsibility to make sure that it's compensated for in some way or you shouldn't be doing it. Doesn't matter how- time in lieu that you can actually take, shares, options, a bonus- you name it, but it had better be SOMETHING of real value, or else you're not only de-valuing your own services- you're de-valuing the services of everyone else who does the same work.

I learned this lesson EARLY in my career by getting ripped off, and thank goodness I learned from it!

I always say this: I'm a for profit entity and the for profit company has much much deeper pockets than me. That being said I'm not going to work for free. My company has a policy that if they buy you lunch for a work meeting that is considered compensation and the time shouldn't be billed. I find it insulting they think they can trade a $10 sandwich for an hour of my time. When I'm put in that situation I bring my own lunch.

If I am allowed to play Devil's Advocate, some exceptions should be acceptable, like meeting with supplier who brings pizza.

Other then that, my time is my time.

"For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert"
Arthur C. Clarke Profiles of the future

Sadly, that pizza would need to be less than $5 value, otherwise we violate our ethics rules about accepting gifts

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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How about time spent stuck in an airport waiting for a delayed flight, like I'm doing right now thanks to bad weather?

I've finished the job that I set out to do. I've submitted my expense sheet. I've answered all my emails. I think I've almost reached the end of the internet!

Can't exactly bill for this time. Can't do the job that I'm expected to do tomorrow while I'm stuck here.

Quote (BrianPeterson)

Can't exactly bill for this time.

That's an issue with your billing system, then. While you may not be charging a client for direct work, you are still being "inconvenienced" by being away from your home... meals cost more, beds costs more, and you're unable to work on anything that requires your physical presence in the meantime. That time should either be billed back to the client or eaten by your employer as an unavoidable expense.

Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

Quote (I just hate all company meetings! (Lunchtime or otherwise!) )

Ron - my sentiments exactly. Coming back to the original post, we have monthly lunchtime senior manager meetings; they're torturous!Not only is it the senior managers from the department it's also senior managers from other departments with the business line.

We start with the company mandated health/safety/wellness discussion, go through business development, new wins, new projects, then it concludes with everyone saying what they're working on. Of course, nobody ever takes a cue from me - make it 10 to 15 second report. Some people just babble on and on, as if anyone knows what they're talking about.

The person that we accommodated by moving a 9 am meeting to a noon meeting is leaving the company, but no one has proposed putting the meeting back at 9 am, which is a tad early for some. I think I'm going to propose going back to the old time because I need the middle of my day to go to client mandated lunch meetings. [lipstick]

If you are offended by the things I say, imagine the stuff I hold back.

@casseopeia
Do it and don't look back! If it's so early for some that they'd fuss over it, maybe you lose this battle, but you could also find out that this meeting is completely cancelable...?