No more overtime...

[expendable]

What to do if I "run out of hours" on the eve of the big game between my rival schools? Of course, go home. But then I come across looking lazy to our readers...

You need to be a flawless planner from this point forward. If you have a big ball game coming up on Friday, be sure to pace yourself Monday through Thursday so that you can still do the Friday game and still have hours available to do whatever needs to be handled over the weekend.

Make sure your boss knows that you're working out these weekly plans. Then, when an all-hell-breaks-loose happens and you've already reached 40 hours by Thursday night and the state ice hockey final is on Saturday, ask your boss how he/she wants to handle it.

Boss can't possibly say skip it, so either:

-- You get paid OT
-- You get comp time/slide time
-- The paper doesn't cover the game at all
-- The M.E. assigns the features editor to cover the game. Said editor dutifully writes about three points being scored in the third quarter to clinch the win.

Readers will not assign the blame to you. Trust me.

THat one might get you blamed.

 

[Write-brained]

I've been through this at an old paper. My advice is to give them what they want: Work your hours and then go home. It'll last a week or two and then they'll give you your OT, albeit tacitly.

The truth there is no way they can stop OT altogether. This is just their way of limiting it or getting people to eat their hours out of pride.

When my old job pulled this, they had me working 60+ hours a week easily. The no OT mandate was like a vacation. My week was over in three or four days. They'd try to load something else on me as I was walking out the door and I'd just grin, shrug and tell them I was out of hours.

They give in. Trust me.

 

[KoM]

I always have found the OT situation interesting because when I was hired I was told you will have overtime and you will be paid for it. The company would rather pay fewer people overtime than give more people benefits. They said "the base pay may not seem like much, but you'll make up for it in overtime."

Overtime makes up about a third of my pay. I still get a kick thinking back - "Your pitch for me to come work here is long hours and low pay?"

For pretty much everyone in the sports and news departments here, 50-52 hours a week is the norm. This week we've got a big holiday basketball tournament going on, and I'm looking at 60+

 

[Tom Petty]

I always have found the OT situation interesting because when I was hired I was told you will have overtime and you will be paid for it. The company would rather pay fewer people overtime than give more people benefits. They said "the base pay may not seem like much, but you'll make up for it in overtime."

Overtime makes up about a third of my pay. I still get a kick thinking back - "Your pitch for me to come work here is long hours and low pay?"

For pretty much everyone in the sports and news departments here, 50-52 hours a week is the norm. This week we've got a big holiday basketball tournament going on, and I'm looking at 60+

holiday basketball tournaments are why they created capsules.

 

[mike311gd]

I always have found the OT situation interesting because when I was hired I was told you will have overtime and you will be paid for it. The company would rather pay fewer people overtime than give more people benefits. They said "the base pay may not seem like much, but you'll make up for it in overtime."

Overtime makes up about a third of my pay. I still get a kick thinking back - "Your pitch for me to come work here is long hours and low pay?"

For pretty much everyone in the sports and news departments here, 50-52 hours a week is the norm. This week we've got a big holiday basketball tournament going on, and I'm looking at 60+

I wish every paper had that mindset.

 

[tapintoamerica]

I counted five grammatical errors in that Heartland ad, which I read only once. If it's going to be cheap and heartless, can a newspaper company at least abide by the tenets of the language?

 

[pressmurphy]

I counted five grammatical errors in that Heartland ad, which I read only once. If it's going to be cheap and heartless, can a newspaper company at least abide by the tenets of the language?

Perhaps they should have outsourced the ad production to India.

Wait. Nevermind. That's another thread.

 

[deskslave]

I've never worked at a place that offered comp time, so will someone please explain it to me?

If I understand correctly, if I work 60 hours under a normal overtime situation, I get paid my regular wage for 40 hours, and time-and-a-half for the extra 20.

If I work 60 under a comp time plan, I get 40 hours of regular wage, nothing immediate for the extra 20, and then 20 hours of time off to use later. Is that right? Am I not getting screwed out of the "half" in time-and-a-half? Or do I misunderstand the system?

 

[Tom Petty]

I've never worked at a place that offered comp time, so will someone please explain it to me?

If I understand correctly, if I work 60 hours under a normal overtime situation, I get paid my regular wage for 40 hours, and time-and-a-half for the extra 20.

If I work 60 under a comp time plan, I get 40 hours of regular wage, nothing immediate for the extra 20, and then 20 hours of time off to use later. Is that right? Am I not getting screwed out of the "half" in time-and-a-half? Or do I misunderstand the system?

you misunderstood nothing.

 

[Chi City 81]

That's correct, and you are getting screwed out of the time-and-a-half.

 

[imjustagirl2]

But it's better than getting nothing, which is what some get. Work 60, get paid for 40.

 

[Tom Petty]

But it's better than getting nothing, which is what some get ...

which is illegal in all 50 states.

 

[imjustagirl2]

Doesnt' mean it doesn't happen.

Talked with one of our writers (I'm currently part desk, part beatwork) and he said that when he would work an extra desk shift, he claimed overtime, but he didn't for writing work because he knew when he signed up that it wasn't a 40-hour-a-week job.

If I put in every hour I worked, I'd have been fired or we would have dropped the beat long ago.

 

[deskslave]

That Heartland ad has one of my biggest red flags: Referring to people as "that" instead of "who." Not a good sign. Many bad signs there, of course.

 

[Pi]

Worked at one place that paid only half time for OT hours. Took your base pay, divided it by the total hours you worked, then gave half of that for every OT hour worked. I asked the head of HR how they could legally get away with paying me less than minimum wage for the OT, and the response was "Your 40 hours is your full time, anything after that is the 'and a half'.
So by the $10 and hour example ($400 per week), working 50 hours meant $4 for each hour of OT


Figured out quickly that 48 hours was the point of diminishing returns and started padding the mileage report.

 

[Gold]

Worked at one place that paid only half time for OT hours. Took your base pay, divided it by the total hours you worked, then gave half of that for every OT hour worked. I asked the head of HR how they could legally get away with paying me less than minimum wage for the OT, and the response was "Your 40 hours is your full time, anything after that is the 'and a half'.
So by the $10 and hour example ($400 per week), working 50 hours meant $4 for each hour of OT


Figured out quickly that 48 hours was the point of diminishing returns and started padding the mileage report.

See if the state's labor department would agree with that interpretation of the law.

 

[novelist_wannabe]

At one of my previous shops, I left with about $2,000 worth of uncompensated overtime. I figured that if I called them on it by turning them in to the department of labor, every prospective newspaper employer from that point forward would get a not-so-glowing reference. Burns me now every time I think about it. Someone did turn them in a few years after I left and it got ugly. They went to tee-totaling time cards and had to pay, from what I heard, a hefty fine.

Ah, good times.

 

[Some Guy]

I knew coming in that this gig wouldn't be the normal by-the-hour gig. I mean, how do you know what to claim?

If I'm on the ****ter at 3 a.m., thinking about the lede to a feature I need to write, does that count? If I'm on the net looking up info for a story, while also surfing this site, deadspin, and my favorite porn sites, how much of that time counts?

If I'm out of town on assignment, does the plane flight count as time worked? What about the time I'm sitting at the hotel, watching "Seinfeld?" Does that count, since, if it weren't for work, I'd be watching at home with my family? What if I go to dinner on the road with an SID or PR guy? Or a fellow reporter, and we wind up discussing things beat-related?

We once had an old crotchety high school reporter sent out of town for an assignment. He claimed 24 hours worked for every day he was gone, since, you know he wasn't at home. They never sent him out of town again.

And what's my recourse if a paper won't pay overtime?

If I get to 40 hours, but a coach gets fired, do I refuse to do the story? It might be a great "**** you" moment, but my own personal sense of pride won't allow me to do that. In fact, it would also be like a double punishment not to get to get my hands dirty on a big story.

I knew coming in the by-the-hour pay in this business was bs. If I wanted to actually get paid for the hours I worked, I would have gotten into another line of work.

I know that burns a lot of you. I know it makes me a pseudo-slave. But I don't give a ****. I love what I do. I'm not in it for the money. And if you are ... for God's sake, why did you choose sportswriting?

 

[sgaleadfoot]

two things:

No. 1, having started in the business at a heartland paper, the above news isn't surprising.

No. 2: at my current place, writers get no OT. Deskers, however, do.

 

[Gold]

Some guy: I don't think people become sportswriters for the money, but that doesn't mean you take a vow of poverty. If you spend extra time and get good stories, there may be a payoff in terms of developing skills for a better job.

The thing is, generally the owner of the paper IS in it for the money. The issue is being played for a chump - and show me a person who gets played for a chump and I'll show you somebody who isn't a good journalist.