![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Pay for Play
Jan. 13th, 2004 11:43 pm2004 brought a new job title for me, Team Lead. Really, the semantics change nothing. I'm doing the same job functions I did as a Supervisor. I'm fine with the name change. The pays the same...wait, oh, that's the difference.
It's not a bad difference. Technically, it's a demotion since I have gone from a salaried position to an hourly one. My base pay, as long as I work 37.5 hours a week is the same, but I'm officially eligible for overtime. I tend to put in more than those minimum hours, so I was kind of excited about getting a little more in my paycheck, though I knew that it was unlikely I'd be able to take too much advantage of it. Last week I logged in 40.5 hours.
As expected, today came the email from upper management, from those in the satellite office in Denver, of all places, the group who's merger actually created the demotion. It stated that we were to get our work, sampling, evaluation, customer service and any of the many management projects all done within the 37.5 hour period. i haven't been able to do that in a while. It would have been much more helpful if they had actually asked the Supervisors for how much overtime we actually put in in a week (40.5 is actually a little low for me, but I didn't want to push it).
Then we were also told, if we'd like to earn overtime, we'd need to process regular mail, like our reps. Look, it's not in my job description. I haven't processed in four years, or taught anything in three, and we've changed systems. I have a working knowledge, but I don't think I'm actually a good candidate for processing these days. Perhaps I have a bad attitude, as I sort of think that's beneath me right now.
Screaming Amy and are kind of in a lightly motivated race to see which one of us will leave first. We both admitted that we would be happy if they offered us severance right now. There's really no place to go within the division, nor do we have any motivation to do more than what's required. Amy's done a better job at adapting her schedule to the new rules, talking off on time. I'm still working late, especially since I have a large addition to our online web product how-to due before I leave for Tucson. It's a document that I've already written 15 pages on in the last three business days, and still have about 5 more to go tomorrow. There will be extra hours this week.
Of course, they could gently nudge the Team leads to work extra hours without counting it. That would certainly help. I did that when I was a retail manager, trying to get things done, but guess what? WalMart is going to court for just that practice. You can't bully people to work through breaks, lunch, or after regular ours off the clock. One of those Federal rules, you know? I'm starting to feel that that's the type of pressure I'm under, though.
The big question? Why make the change when you know you could spend more money? Of course the idea was to take out a level of management, not through layoffs, but making them disappear from the books as they suddenly just turned into regular employees. I have no idea how that will change the company, better or worse. Still, it continues a trend of the company de-valuing their employees.
It's not a bad difference. Technically, it's a demotion since I have gone from a salaried position to an hourly one. My base pay, as long as I work 37.5 hours a week is the same, but I'm officially eligible for overtime. I tend to put in more than those minimum hours, so I was kind of excited about getting a little more in my paycheck, though I knew that it was unlikely I'd be able to take too much advantage of it. Last week I logged in 40.5 hours.
As expected, today came the email from upper management, from those in the satellite office in Denver, of all places, the group who's merger actually created the demotion. It stated that we were to get our work, sampling, evaluation, customer service and any of the many management projects all done within the 37.5 hour period. i haven't been able to do that in a while. It would have been much more helpful if they had actually asked the Supervisors for how much overtime we actually put in in a week (40.5 is actually a little low for me, but I didn't want to push it).
Then we were also told, if we'd like to earn overtime, we'd need to process regular mail, like our reps. Look, it's not in my job description. I haven't processed in four years, or taught anything in three, and we've changed systems. I have a working knowledge, but I don't think I'm actually a good candidate for processing these days. Perhaps I have a bad attitude, as I sort of think that's beneath me right now.
Screaming Amy and are kind of in a lightly motivated race to see which one of us will leave first. We both admitted that we would be happy if they offered us severance right now. There's really no place to go within the division, nor do we have any motivation to do more than what's required. Amy's done a better job at adapting her schedule to the new rules, talking off on time. I'm still working late, especially since I have a large addition to our online web product how-to due before I leave for Tucson. It's a document that I've already written 15 pages on in the last three business days, and still have about 5 more to go tomorrow. There will be extra hours this week.
Of course, they could gently nudge the Team leads to work extra hours without counting it. That would certainly help. I did that when I was a retail manager, trying to get things done, but guess what? WalMart is going to court for just that practice. You can't bully people to work through breaks, lunch, or after regular ours off the clock. One of those Federal rules, you know? I'm starting to feel that that's the type of pressure I'm under, though.
The big question? Why make the change when you know you could spend more money? Of course the idea was to take out a level of management, not through layoffs, but making them disappear from the books as they suddenly just turned into regular employees. I have no idea how that will change the company, better or worse. Still, it continues a trend of the company de-valuing their employees.
