End of the 40 hour work week

Tacoma is also going to a 37.5 hour week.

 

Something to consider, BT_E: One merely has to do the math and calculate how many hours you would have to work, beyond 40, to pay for your own flights and hotel rooms (especially with how stingy the airlines have gotten in making seats available now). Or what that freelance gig would pay you vs. the hours logged pounding the beat.

If miles, points and occasional freelancing are all the perks and benefits of donating unpaid hours, for most scribes I know who do it, it's not a great bargain. Working 50-hour weeks means working the equivalent of five weeks for every four you get paid. Most folks I know don't use the equivalent of a week's pay month in and month out on personal trips.

 

It is a little different for everyone.
We are limited to 40 hours at my shop. But what it has turned into is that hardly anybody works on Thursday since that's the day we cut hours.
Friday is the start of the pay week, but most people work only sparingly, if at all, then. What it has really turned into is about 3 and half days of work a week.
I also have a company laptop that I treat as my own, and I can do as much freelance as I want for everybody but the direct competition.

 

Unless you're on salary.

 

Perhaps. But it does mitigate the "60 hours worked/40 hours paid" refrain into a more realistic "50 hours worked/45 hours paid (with perks)"

And like any job, it's up to each individual to decide whether the hours he/she devotes is worth the compensation he/she is receiving.

 

Oh yeah. Many of us do tend to round up when we're moaning about the hours we work in a typical week.

As for that second part, I'd generally agree, although I've encountered union situations where the eager beaver donating hours gets a talking-to or dirty looks from unit brothers and sisters.

 

I get paid for 40, so I work 40. Fuck 'em. If they fire me, I'll thank them for it and move on with my life. Covering preps isn't that important in the grand scheme of, well, anything.

 

Joe, I'm on salary so technically they could make me work as many as hours as they wish but my boss wants everybody working around 40 hours. So I tend to take comp time once in a while. Even with that I probably average about 45 a week though I don't sit around and formally add it up.

 

Only time I bother to add it up, or have these types of discussions with co-workers, is when the company starts squeezing hard over something. Like fine-toothing and even kicking back expense accounts that are fair and reasonable, or issuing memos about piddly raises, no raises or reduced paychecks.

If one is prone to donating hours in the interst of doing a better job, the only time that person is likely to pause is when the company grabs for even more out of them. That's how a boss can win a battle but lose a war. If all sports journalists worked to the clock, the paycheck and the schedule only, most papers would get worse, not better.

 

My paper is 35 hours per week, no overtime allowed.

We're still considered full-time, at least our benefits are still there. No one quit over the cut, but it makes life very difficult having to watch hours more than what's happening in the community.

We're an ACM paper, but I haven't heard if others in the chain have taken similar measures or it was our publisher's decision alone.

Come to think of it, good thing no one quit since we're so short-staffed as it is. (I know, who isn't.)

 

A related note..

my wife's school system is considering a 4-day school week to save money on transportation.

Not a bad idea.

 

Are you an editor or columnist? Because from what I understand, federal wage laws classify journalists as stenographers, and because of it, are considered hourly employees. Columnists and editors can be classified as salaried employees.