OT: Anyone "bought" from Phones4U?

If that is your contract, fair enough, it isn't mine, it isn't the development managers, it isn't the directors either and it isn't the ordinary developers, marketers or designers.

We have 9-5.30 office hours, 10-4.30 core hours, 7am-7pm flexi hours but in reality can earn flexi from midnight to midnight. The 7-7 rule was put in place because we all have keys and would be leaving when the estate is empty (personal safety thing but changed since it started as it isn't a bad area).

If you are asked to do weekend, you get overtime, if you are called out to one of the data centres you would get overtime. But the company doesn't do callouts unless critical and you opt into being on the callout team. It isn't out of hours support because we have the outsourced team for that. I'm not on the callout team because it isn't practical me being 40 minutes away (make that over an hour if I need to get out of bed and most of the team live 15 minutes away).

Tin. Pot. Operation.

As a minimum, I'd expect anyone with 'manager' in their title, and certainly the directors, to be salaried.

Oh this was 10 year ago in London, when I was a young eager developer and if I didn't do it someone else would.

That was a bit of an odd one, but all nighters did occasionally happen. On this occasion, I had to be in early to make sure a press release was made available during a set period, not before time a, but dead on time b, for a very big client. But during the day another client called the project manager and said their end of year accounts had to be on their website by 8AM the next morning, and they had just been finalised by the accountants and approved by the board. Thing is, they were in word, the md of the company wanted the webpages to look exactley like word, the right ammount of alignment, cell spacing and styling that a word doc template would produce, in the days before style sheets. It was one of my clients, so the boss asked if I would "stay back a couple of hours until it was done" as the rest of the office (and I was supposed to be with them) was going out to welcome a new staff member by getting pissed.

It didn't happen to me. If the designers or programmers were close to deadlines they all did it. But 10 years younger we all work differently.

Big companies work flexi too - proper ones with decent HR.

People will be salaried, and their job will be for X hours a week.

I haven't had an 'X' hours per week contract for 12 years.

I am salaried. We have company hours, we have individual annual salaries. If the company asks you to work outside of office hours, they work out what your hourly would be, then pay you time and half during the week and double bubble at weekends. If you choose to work outside office hours you get flexi time to take back later.

I have to do X hours a month, and I have to be there between 10am and

As long as I'm not more than 10 short at the end of the month, that is cool, as long as I'm not more than 10 hours up at the end of the month it doesn't get capped. That does mean I can arrive at 7AM, leave at 4pm, still accumulate flexi and take an additional day off, and still have extra saved should I need it at the end of the month. Even the MD gets capped because he builds up too much flexi and forgets to take it.

No, you're not 'salaried', or they wouldn't be docking your pay for having the audacity to take time back after working a 20-odd hour day, having not had any sleep.

It seems to me that they want it all ways - to call you 'salaried', so they can make you work all hours the office is open, but not give you the benefits of a 'salaried' position.

That a different company a good few years ago. Lots of companies that have salaried staff also have policy of not having a sick pay scheme, or deducting the equivalent to a days pay for a days absence outside of contracted holidays.

Doesn't mean other big companies don't have them. There are other sectors besides retail..

I just find it hard to believe that any company with real managers (rather than those who just have 'manager' in their title) would have contracted hours - and the concept of directors having contracted hours is laughable.

Anyway, if it happens, then so be it - but JackH is right - just because you have hours written on your contract, it doesn't mean you have to clock watch all the time.

Some do, even at big places.

There are companies which realise that making staff work over long hours can be bad - and this includes the top bods. The long hours culture is acknowledged as being a problem, so there are people who work to try and avoid it.

Plenty of people have to clock watch - trains, children, etc. It's not the timekeeping which is the difference, it's the attitude - taking on work and doing it well is what shows. You could get two people who arrive and leave at exactly the same time, yet one could be seen as a clock-watcher and the other as a dynamic get-things-done type, because it's the way they work rather than when they do it which is important.

Macho hours culture has the same place as company car pissing contests and other such petty office games - plenty of people do it, but it doesn't mean it's the only way or even a good thing.

We're not talking about clock watching due to trains or outside committments, we're talking about clock watching beacuse it's in the contract.

It's not about a long hours pissing contest, it's about flexible working, which is why I'm much happier to have 'hours required to do the job' as my hours, rather than some figure plucked out of thin air.

Without the figure set down by the company and enforced, there's a very big danger of it becoming a long hours pissing contest internally, as working the extra time is seen to be the only way to get on.

Flexitime as Carl seems to have is common and very sensible. Working to that set of hours as he does is fine. Within those constraints there's still plenty of opportunity to put in extra to show you're worth more, and that's what people ought to be considering, not just the time.

Basically we're not really in a position to see what's going on - we don't know how good his company is (could actually be quite a decent place to work, could be a collection of losers going nowhere), we don't know how good Carl is at his job (*), we don't know how keen he appears at work, how much extra he's got to offer, etc.

Which means we also can't advise very sensibly either. The "go and get a suit and work for somebody big" answer I've seen on this NG isn't necessarily right. Some people thrive with that, others don't.

(* Sorry Carl - there's no way we can tell whether you're a hero or a waster at work, especially since we know that people can be very bad at rating themselves. I'm hoping it's the former, as I imagine does everybody else, but realistically only those who've worked with you actually know the answer).

The above reads to me like he sorts out the IT in three offices, rather than manages three people.

I'm not attacking Carl.

I'm trying to give him a kick up the arse to go get a job somewhere where they might pay him a proper wage for what he does and with some half decent prospects into the bargain as well.

I've given him a few pointers on what has turned around what was the crock of s*it that was my 'professional' life at least, not so long ago.

It's just my opinion drawn from seemingly having been in a similar position as him in the past, and what I worked out I had to do to lift myself away from all that, and it's worth exactly what he's paid for it.

-- JackH

The above reads to me like he sorts out the IT in three offices, rather than manages three people.

I'm not attacking Carl.

I'm trying to give him a kick up the arse to go get a job somewhere where they might pay him a proper wage for what he does and with some half decent prospects into the bargain as well.

That's nice then :-) But as I said in my other post, he has more important things on at the moment than job hunting, I imagine just having a secure job is more than enough right now.

On a personal note Carl - how is Alison? Feel free to answer on MSN or the reply address is valid if you don't wanna broadcast it :-)

She has had the all clear now, but still needs to go back for yearly checkups because apparently the thyroid can regenerate despite total removal and radiation treatment.

She also has to go for 6monthly blood testing/physical to make sure her thyroid replacement drug dose is the right size.

I don't though. I work flexi, so I can and do arrive arround 8am, because the roads and the office is quieter. I get stuff done that needs doing, so when everyone else arrives I can get on with the day to day stuff that gets requested.

Then I have the option of leaving at 4.30 after doing the contracted hours, or if something needs doing, working over and making some flexi. This month I had an extra day off from accumulated flexi, and I'm still carrying over nearly 3 hours into next month already. I just don't do the silly hours anymore. Surviving on 4 hours sleep is something I could do 10 years ago. I'm getting too old and jaded for that. Today I will be there for 8.30, still plenty of time to get upto date.

That is a fair comment.