Things that I find mildly irritating v.2

[KevShmev]

I am with you guys.  I am technically 8-5 as a salaried worker, but sometimes have to deal with work in the evenings or the weekend.  It's just part of the game. 

[lordxizor]

That is the life of a salaried employee.  I work at least 47 hours and contacted over my 2 days off.

My point is that it doesn't have to be. I've been salaried for 12 years and I've never consitently put in more than 40 hours. Maybe I've just gotten lucky.

The dumb thing about this job is that he said "The production folks work hard and put in 12 hour days. So we work hard and work 9-10 hours." Yeah, but they're getting paid for all 12 hours and are only working 4 days a week!

Anyway... not the job for me. As I interview more and more, I'm feeling like maybe staying put is best for me even though I really want to leave.

[Stadler]

Maybe I've just been lucky that in 7 jobs since college I've never worked anywhere that extra hours were expected daily/weekly. Only once in a while when a deadline was coming up. Maybe my expectations are off, but if I get paid $100k at a job where I work 40 hours a week, I'd expect to get paid at least $125k for the equivalent job where I was expected to put in 50 hours a week. I'm going to stand by my assertion that if everyone is willing to volunteer extra hours to their company without getting paid more, they are letting their company get away with not hiring more people. Now, I'll give this company credit that they were up front about expectations in the first interview, so that was nice of them. I'm just not wired to want to put in extra hours apart from the occasional busy week. I haven't had to so far and have no desire to at all.

Again, respectfully, it's a point of view, a way of looking at things.  I do not now and haven't for 20 years thought, at 5:01 pm, that I am "volunteering extra hours".  I don't think in hours.  I have assignments.  I have to review this document. I have to settle that dispute.  Honestly, if I'm working 50 hour weeks, I'm not sure I want another person to come on for that.  Cost to the company is anywhere from 1.7 to 3.0 times salary, so it's not in my best interest to be wanting more people on, within reason. 

[lordxizor]

Maybe I've just been lucky that in 7 jobs since college I've never worked anywhere that extra hours were expected daily/weekly. Only once in a while when a deadline was coming up. Maybe my expectations are off, but if I get paid $100k at a job where I work 40 hours a week, I'd expect to get paid at least $125k for the equivalent job where I was expected to put in 50 hours a week. I'm going to stand by my assertion that if everyone is willing to volunteer extra hours to their company without getting paid more, they are letting their company get away with not hiring more people. Now, I'll give this company credit that they were up front about expectations in the first interview, so that was nice of them. I'm just not wired to want to put in extra hours apart from the occasional busy week. I haven't had to so far and have no desire to at all.

Again, respectfully, it's a point of view, a way of looking at things.  I do not now and haven't for 20 years thought, at 5:01 pm, that I am "volunteering extra hours".  I don't think in hours.  I have assignments.  I have to review this document. I have to settle that dispute.  Honestly, if I'm working 50 hour weeks, I'm not sure I want another person to come on for that.  Cost to the company is anywhere from 1.7 to 3.0 times salary, so it's not in my best interest to be wanting more people on, within reason. 

I guess the reason that I think in hours is because if I have a slow week, I am still expected to be at work for 40 hours even if I only have 30 hours of work to do. If I were truely being paid to get a project or task done rather than by the hour, I'd be able to leave when it was done regardless of the number of hours put in.

[pg1067]

Interviewed for a job this morning. They causally threw out "We all work 9-10 hour days." These are salary positions mind you so they're not getting paid extra for those hours. Frankly I think that should not be legal. You should get paid extra for putting in more than 40 hours a week. My opinion is that people being willing to consistently working extra hours are just letting the company get away without having to hire additional people. Sorry, I'm not taking a 10% raise to put in 25% more hours. Good luck to you finding someone who wants to work that much while you're only paying the average rate instead of significantly more. There must be people willing to do it though.

Respectfully, and for conversational purposes only, I'd like to hear more.  I'm salary, and have been since... let's not dig too deeply, shall we, but let's say "decades".   I am not hired to give 40 hours, even if certain HR benefits are tied to that arbitrary "2080" metric. I'm hired to provide legal services and risk management consulting to my organization.  Some weeks that takes 35 hours, others that takes 55 hours.  The "55 hour weeks" outnumber the "35 hour weeks" by a wide margin, but not totally.   I need to be available when my clients need me.  If that client is here in NYC area, that's great (9 to 5, babay!).  If that client is in Missouri, well, my day is now 9 to 6.  If that client is in San Francisco, it could be 9 to 8.   My company is headquartered in France; oops, 9 isn't going to work, is it?   My day is also not crushing from start to finish (as 20749 posts will attest). 

Look, I don't want to be the guy that four other people in the organization are saying "where the hell is Stadler? What the hell are we paying him for if we can't get him when we need him?"   I can leave at any time if I don't like it. It's their company and I'm privileged to be able to receive a salary, and work out of the house, and bugger off to a dental appointment if need be.  If the trade off is I don't get to drop everything and bolt at 5, well, life is full of compromises.

I think your position and mine are fairly similar, but the larger point is that "salaried" often (although not always) goes along with being "exempt," and "exempt" generally encompasses "professional" jobs where (among other things) you have to accept that you'll sometimes work >8 hours a day and >40 hours a week.  On the other hand, you get a lot of perks that go the other way.  For example, when my son played youth baseball, if I didn't have something that required me to be in the office, I could leave and attend his practices, which typically started around 3:30ish.  Similarly, I can show up at 7:30 if I want or at 9:30.  I don't have someone standing over me making sure I'm at my desk for at least 8 hours.  I have a great deal of freedom that, for me, more than makes up for the fact that I'm sometimes responding to email after 10pm or on weekends or while I'm on vacation.

[lordxizor]

You are correct that the flexibility to leave for appointments or family stuff is great in a salaried position. Not having to punch in or out on a time clock is worth something.

[Stadler]

That is the life of a salaried employee.  I work at least 47 hours and contacted over my 2 days off.

My point is that it doesn't have to be. I've been salaried for 12 years and I've never consitently put in more than 40 hours. Maybe I've just gotten lucky.

The dumb thing about this job is that he said "The production folks work hard and put in 12 hour days. So we work hard and work 9-10 hours." Yeah, but they're getting paid for all 12 hours and are only working 4 days a week!

Anyway... not the job for me. As I interview more and more, I'm feeling like maybe staying put is best for me even though I really want to leave.

Again respectfully (do I have to keep writing that? ), it's apples and oranges.  The benefits between salaried and production are not likely the same.  If the production line goes down, or they only get 7, 8, or 9 hours in, do they get paid for the 12?   What about you?  Light Friday, what's your pay like?   I don't know if you're bonus eligible, but in the organizations I've been in that are, it does not apply to hourly in the same manner or to the same extent.  I don't know if it's even or not, who knows.  But I know for me, I've come to grips with the fact that I'm WAY far ahead all in, even if I am down in my basement at 8:00pm talking with California.   

It's a mindset, to be sure, but my father-in-law - 50+ years working as an electrician - feels the same way.  "Salary is for suckers" he says; well, he said, until he WAS salary and found out that it wasn't so bad.  But he still sort of has that "hourly" mindset at times and we have to remind him that the perqs that come with it make it worth while for some.   

EDIT:  Let me be clear, here, though:  nothing that I've written is to imply that you can't or shouldn't make the life-balance works for you.  If your life/mindset/whatever works on a roughly 40-hour week, then you have to make that decision, and no one can make it for you.  My lifestyle works with this, because I've been doing it so long.  All I'm doing is pointing out that it's a way of looking at things (and that the grass isn't always greener). 

[lordxizor]

Again respectfully (do I have to keep writing that? ),

No, you don't.

I get it. It's a different mindset I guess. I just have the hourly mindset, mostly because that's how the companies I've worked for have treated the salary people. There is a small amount of freedom, but I've generally been expected to work the same hours and put in a minimum of 40 hours a week.

[chknptpie]

Oh hell no. I'm salaried and I work 40. If you want me to do extra hours or off hours, then I'm leaving early on Friday.

[Stadler]

Maybe I've just been lucky that in 7 jobs since college I've never worked anywhere that extra hours were expected daily/weekly. Only once in a while when a deadline was coming up. Maybe my expectations are off, but if I get paid $100k at a job where I work 40 hours a week, I'd expect to get paid at least $125k for the equivalent job where I was expected to put in 50 hours a week. I'm going to stand by my assertion that if everyone is willing to volunteer extra hours to their company without getting paid more, they are letting their company get away with not hiring more people. Now, I'll give this company credit that they were up front about expectations in the first interview, so that was nice of them. I'm just not wired to want to put in extra hours apart from the occasional busy week. I haven't had to so far and have no desire to at all.

Again, respectfully, it's a point of view, a way of looking at things.  I do not now and haven't for 20 years thought, at 5:01 pm, that I am "volunteering extra hours".  I don't think in hours.  I have assignments.  I have to review this document. I have to settle that dispute.  Honestly, if I'm working 50 hour weeks, I'm not sure I want another person to come on for that.  Cost to the company is anywhere from 1.7 to 3.0 times salary, so it's not in my best interest to be wanting more people on, within reason. 

I guess the reason that I think in hours is because if I have a slow week, I am still expected to be at work for 40 hours even if I only have 30 hours of work to do. If I were truely being paid to get a project or task done rather than by the hour, I'd be able to leave when it was done regardless of the number of hours put in.

Fair enough; that happened to my wife two jobs ago.  That to me is a problem in the employers mindset, or an insecure supervisor.   If the organization is thinking in an "hourly" mindset, you kind of have to.  But - and I know I'm repeating myself now - there are other companies that look at it differently.

To pg1967, I still tell the story of when we got a shipment of parts in from... I don't know where, and the pallet was infested with bugs.  I was Environmental Health and Safety Counsel for a division of GE at the time, but I was also on vacation at Disney.  Well, they have speakers with that music EVERYWHERE, and I had to get on a call.  So I climbed into the brush behind one of the speakers to try to get some relative quiet.  I spent most of a call with a Disney employee standing there looking at me to make sure I wasn't smoking the marijuana or hopping the fence, while I mouthed "just a minute!" at him for about 20 minutes.    

[cramx3]

Well the good thing is, you were told upfront they expect more hours and you have the option of not taking that job. 

For my job, I am hourly and it works out nice for me getting OT.  However, there is always talks about making me salary as the finance folks struggle to budget when my coworkers and I put an addition large amount of strain over our basic salaries.  It's all justified work and pay but it almost every year becomes a discussion amongst the higher ups.  They always shoot it down because they realize that we travel so much (well used to) and work so many hours that it could turn into a legal issue forcing us to work so much.  I think it goes back to the "exempt" thing.  I am non exempt.  I am always so confused about what that means.  I get the feeling it means they could work me to death 

[lordxizor]

Well the good thing is, you were told upfront they expect more hours and you have the option of not taking that job. 

Yeah, I was going to ask, but he brought it up on his own. I told the recruiter that I was interested but was only willing to put in 8-8.5 hours a day. He said he'd mention it to them when they called him, neither of us thought they'd say "OK, that's fine" and they didn't. So that job is a no go. But that's OK.

[TAC]

That is the life of a salaried employee.  I work at least 47 hours and contacted over my 2 days off.

My point is that it doesn't have to be. I've been salaried for 12 years and I've never consitently put in more than 40 hours. Maybe I've just gotten lucky.

Yeah, I don't know what you do bro, but I think you've gotten lucky.

[King Postwhore]

Very lucky. 

[Podaar]

That is the life of a salaried employee.  I work at least 47 hours and contacted over my 2 days off.

My point is that it doesn't have to be. I've been salaried for 12 years and I've never consitently put in more than 40 hours. Maybe I've just gotten lucky.

Yeah, I don't know what you do bro, but I think you've gotten lucky.

He may be lucky, but his situation is the norm, not unusual.

I've been on a salary for 40 years and hardly ever have worked a complete 40 hour week. Hell these days, my work week is closer to 30 hours. Sure, I get the occasional email, or message from the service that needs to be answered on weekends, but that's about it. Very rarely have I had to put in time on weekends, but when it does occur, I'm very happy to do it. The majority of salaried people I know could tell you the same story.

It's only bad companies or abusive employers that put people on salary and then consistently demand extra work. This is why the tale of Scrooge is a cautionary tale.

[JayOctavarium]

Girlfriend is a germaphobe, and has severe anxiety issues, made extremely worse with what's going on in the world. She wants us both wearing essentially house shoes while walking in the house. No Prob. I hate slippers (and we are now in a heatwave... I don't wanna wear warm fuzzy slippers when it's 95F , so she decided as an early birthday gift, to order me (and her) some sandals from Crocs. Crocs get a lot of shit, but their flip flops are comfy as hell. I highly recommend.

So last night she goes to order them off the website. Gets an error notice. They authorize the charge on her card, and then cancel it a few minutes later. Tried it 2 more times, different cards, and nothing. Just an error message saying call customer service and give them this code.

So she calls. Speaks with someone, who when we tried to give her the code, said "I cant do anything with that error code so don't bother. Just try again on a different device or different browser". Totally being a bitch.

Okay, so today she tries again, on her computer. Same issue. 3 more times, different discount codes (and no codes at all... but 15-40 percent off is awesome and was worth a try.)  Still no dice. I try on my device, on a new account, on my laptop, with my card. No Dice. Called Cust Service, but they closed early apparently....


It's like... come on... We are trying to give you guys money. Which you should really appreciate, since you're giving thousands of pairs away to healthcare workers. Thought it would be nice to support a company that are doing a lot for people right now, but instead we just get shitty cust service and left in the dark.

Probably just going to order some cheapos on Amazon.


(I did tweet at them, giving the error code. Honestly if it's a situation where they are just overloaded, just say something... )

[ReaperKK]

I am with you guys.  I am technically 8-5 as a salaried worker, but sometimes have to deal with work in the evenings or the weekend.  It's just part of the game. 

Yup same here. It ebbs and flows though, over summer I'm usually putting in more work and also doing some work on the weekends. During fall and winter I'm working more like 9-4 and taking it easy while at work.

[The Walrus]

I find hangovers irritating.

[Adami]

I find hangovers irritating.

I mean, the first one was pretty good for the time, but the 2nd and 3rd were definitely irritating.

[Harmony]

I have had one (mild) hangover since the covid.  It was enough to cause the whole next day to be a running conversation in my head.

"OMG this headache could be covid."  *check temp*  "Ok, it's just a hangover."  *check temp* "But what about those body aches?  That could be covid." *check temp*  "Ok, I think it's just a hangover."

I'm avoiding hangovers now like the plague.   

[The Walrus]

I find hangovers irritating.

I mean, the first one was pretty good for the time, but the 2nd and 3rd were definitely irritating.

You know, the first one never was that good to me. There are elements of intentional randomness that are just silly, like the piano and tiger stuff. Rabble rabble rabble... I'm going back to bed

[Spiritus]

I find hangovers irritating.

I will find tomorrow morning very irritating as well. But I am loving right now

[jingle.boy]

It's been years since I had a really bad hangover... I just simply can't/won't drink so much that I'm gonna be hungover.  4-5 drinks, and I'm tappin out.  Every hangover I had over the last 10 years can be summed up as follows:

[cramx3]

I've got a hangover....

It's rare that I get a bad hangover these days.  But when it happens, ugh yea I feel ya. A year or so ago we all visited my friend in Albany and got really way too drunk for a bunch of dudes in our mid 30s.  Went to a bar, I got kicked out for laying on the couch... twice.  It was just a disaster overall and the next day NONE of us could get up until 5pm.  We were supposed to all go out again that night and leave Sunday.  Instead we got dinner and all went home  definitely a moment of "we are too old for this shit"

[Chino]

Fitting topic! I just came to bitch about hangovers.

I had 9 beers on Saturday night and a glass a whiskey. That's the most alcohol I've consumed in a very long time. Holy fucking hell. I STILL feel lethargic from it. I was basically incapacitated all day yesterday. Long gone are the days when I'd be up til 4 and into work at 7. I have no clue how I used to manage that.

[Podaar]

It's been years since I had a really bad hangover... I just simply can't/won't drink so much that I'm gonna be hungover.  4-5 drinks, and I'm tappin out.

The bolded is me. I'm only good for 1-2 drinks these days, then it's on to water. For whatever reason, I've become a cheep date since I went on the keto diet.


-------------------------

Currently, I'm mildly irritated by sprinkler irrigation. The near constant ongoing revamping of the system (due to changing/expanding garden and diminishing lawn areas) is kicking my ass. I'll probably have the front yard perfected as of this week, but next week I'll have 30 feet of trenching to do to move two Rainbirds.

[King Postwhore]

When you can't even get 2 months without someone damaging your new truck.  Scratched the paint that buffing it out will probably not work.


I also can't believe she did not dent the body.  Of course she had no insurance info.  I got her name and Cell# and took a picture of her license plate.  At least she waited for me to get to my truck.


Why do people who can;t drive big rigs try to fit into a tight parking space?

[The Walrus]

Man, it was worse than a hangover for me. My friend came over Friday night and I hadn't eaten much all day, yet I ended up doing 6 shots of vodka with him on an empty stomach. Couple beers before then, too. Might have hit the bong a couple two three times  Woke up Saturday with an absolute burning in my stomach, worst heartburn/acid reflux I've ever had in my life. Spent all Sunday laying in bed trying not to move, threw up all day, finally feeling better this morning.

Texted my buddy; "boy, you are the god damn devil, I am never drinking again." 

Joe, sorry to hear that, dude. We see that soooo often at the shop, and so many times nobody even leaves their info. At least you got hers.

[gmillerdrake]

Bummer to hear Joe   




And the ol' "I'm never drinking again" 

[cramx3]

Ugh that's so frustrating Joe

As for the hangovers, I think it's also dependent on what you drink/eat.  Vodka almost never gives me a hangover for example, but whiskey most certainly will.  Same with IPAs if I have enough.  At the end of the day, the ole trick of drinking water in between drinks always works too.

[TAC]

I also can't believe she did not dent the body.  Of course she had no insurance info.  I got her name and Cell# and took a picture of her license plate.  At least she waited for me to get to my truck.

Your insurance company can get her info from her plate.

[King Postwhore]

I also can't believe she did not dent the body.  Of course she had no insurance info.  I got her name and Cell# and took a picture of her license plate.  At least she waited for me to get to my truck.

Your insurance company can get her info from her plate.

Yeah, that's why I took the pic.

[The Walrus]

How do grown men not know what insurance company they have for their car insurance? Every week I talk to at least a couple men who don't know this info because their wives take care of all that. You don't even know the name? 

[Cool Chris]

That probably isn't gender-specific. I handle all the 'business'-related stuff in our marriage and my wife trusts me with everything. I am sure she knows who handles our car insurance only because she had the same company before we met. But I am sure there are other 'obvious' things she couldn't tell you.

[cramx3]

People are oblivious to lots of things, that doesn't really surprise me for someone to not know their car insurance company off hand especially in couple scenarios, but for a single guy/gal I would find it a bit more surprising since it's not like anyone is handling your business for you.