CSotD: Unmuzzling the Ox
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Rob Rogers comments on the new overtime directive. I don't agree with his take, but the cartoon makes for good discussion.
Specifically, he's using the Will Rogers approach, which assumes that members of Congress are only working when they are at their desks debating and voting on things. The endless staff meetings to hammer out the things they will debate and vote upon, the trips to visit constituents, the fact-finding tours of industrial projects, none of those are "work."
Being in Congress, then, is like teaching, where only time in the classroom is "work" and all the staying up late to correct papers, write lesson plans and otherwise plan your teaching is not.
I don't know what all those hours are, but they are not "work," though, in both cases, they are absolutely required if you want to be even marginally competent during the hours that are work.
Still, sympathetic or not, it's an issue that occurred to me.
When the announcement came down, my reaction was that I'm glad I'm semi-retired, because, as a reporter and later as an editor, I was never comfortable with being paid by the hour.
Funny story: At one paper, we hired a local poet based on her writing ability despite her not having a degree in journalism. Editing the flowers out of her prose proved a bit daunting when she was on a hard-news story, but she was an eloquent feature-writer and good addition to the newsroom.
Early on, however, an editor asked her to review a book, and, while the review was quite well done, her next timecard made heads explode because, having been assigned to read the thing, she tracked the time it took, and, since she was still required to put in her normal hours during the week, the total came up way over 40.
It was a fun moment, because, while none of us would have thought to put in for the overtime, we clearly saw that she had them over a barrel.
They very, very, very grudgingly paid her, but explained to her that, in future, such work was to be uncompensated.
I leave it to you to imagine the career prospects of a reporter who turns down assignments because they would take too long.
Frazz brings up the topic of job satisfaction. I've said to kids, you may not be able to get paid to go fishing, but you could run a tackle shop or you could make how-to videos about flyfishing.
The idea that I could be paid to poke my nose into interesting places and all I had to do was write it up was delightful, and I never bothered to track my hours or put in for overtime.
I didn't ignore the time factor entirely: If my day started at a 7:30 Chamber meeting, I didn't work all the way to 5 pm.
And, since you can't down tools by the clock if the story needs to be in the next day's paper, I didn't track lunch breaks or mark down the precise moment I left the building.
Nor did I clock in if I were walking the dog and pondering how to handle a story, or when the sirens went off on a weekend and I grabbed my camera and notepad and bolted out of my house on my time to cover their fire.
It got worse when I became editor of a small paper: I went a year without two consecutive days off, and popped into the office for an hour or two even on the days I wasn't "working."
It wasn't because I couldn't do the job without putting in those hours. I just wouldn't have felt good about the resulting quality level.
My time, my choice.
Look: If the job is something I can take up when I arrive and put down when I leave — if it involves a spatula, or a jackhammer, or tightening bolts on an assembly line — I want to be paid by the hour.
Otherwise, let's talk.
Here's a detail to be considered:
3. Q. What determines if an employee falls within one of the white collar exemptions?
To qualify for exemption, a white collar employee generally must:
be salaried, meaning that they are paid a predetermined and fixed salary that is not subject to reduction because of variations in the quality or quantity of work performed (the "salary basis test");
be paid more than a specified weekly salary level, which is $913 per week (the equivalent of $47,476 annually for a full-year worker) under this Final Rule (the "salary level test"); and
primarily perform executive, administrative, or professional duties, as defined in the Department's regulations (the "duties test").
Certain employees are not subject to either the salary basis or salary level tests (for example, doctors, teachers, and lawyers). The Department's regulations also provide an exemption for certain highly compensated employees ("HCE") who earn above a higher total annual compensation level ($134,004 under this Final Rule) and satisfy a minimal duties test.
As a small-town reporter, I sure never made that much. Journalism has been cited as the lowest paying career that requires a college degree, and, when I've told kids the job is so much fun that we'd do it for free, I was only somewhat kidding. Being a reporter is a blast.
As editor of a tiny weekly, however, I was close to the exemption and, given a decade of economic change since then, would likely hit it.
Which gets into the related issue of unfair compensation, a subject of much mewling and bawling and whining. Here's the quick explanation of how that works:
At my first editing gig, the publisher named a figure and I accepted it.
At the next, I named a figure and the publisher accepted it.
At a third, I named a figure, the publisher said "No can do," and we shook hands and parted on good terms.
It didn't seem that complex.
Perhaps I should go back and sue them all.
Now here's your moment of zen:
("Cockie" is Aussie slang for a farmer whose ill-run place grows naught but cockatoos)
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