That’d be “BellSouth” – not that other BS word.
The good news is that I’m apparently going to get paid an extra 4 hours a week for just being me. The bad news is that we’ve apparently started down a slope to … well … BS.
It appears that one group within our affiliate (we’ll call them “Group A”) learned that my little IT group (three whole people) has been in the habit of taking comp time occassionally because we’re on call – literally – 24×7. We also tend to work some really odd hours so that our users can continue to do their jobs (said users include “Group A”).
Here’s the way it might work. I work fairly regular hours Monday – Thursday (and am on call when I’m not working), but on Friday, I need to patch a server. This can only be done when users aren’t working, so I plan to do it at midnight Friday. This being the case, I go to work at 10:00 Friday morning, work until 3:00, then go home, then go back to work at 11:00 Friday night and work until 2:00 Saturday morning. Everybody counting? I’ve worked 8 hours.
Later Saturday morning, I check things out for a couple of hours. A user reports a problem at 3:00 in the afternoon, so I drag myself away from my bar stool, help them out (they’ve probably forgotten their password or something, but are certain that it has to do with the work I did Friday night), and go back to my bar stool – where I’m still on call.
Monday, I get a wild idea about upgrading a server, so I work from 6:00 in the morning until 4:00 in the afternoon. Tuesday. I work a normal day. Wednesday, somebody calls me at 5:00 for a conference call, which I take in my car on the way to skating.
Etc. This goes on for a month, during which time I never mow my lawn.
After noticing that my lawn is now 8 feet tall, I call my boss on a Thursday afternoon and tell her that I’m going to leave the office at 2:00 to go home and mow my lawn. She says, “Please do mine, too.”
So I leave. Do we all know how many hours I’ve put in in the last month? I don’t. I just figure it’s enough. So I’m taking half an afternoon off. I’m happy, my boss is happy, my users are happy…everybody’s ecstatic.
But Group A doesn’t like this, because when THEY work on-call, they report it and are paid for it.
I forgot to mention that Group A is comprised of HOURLY employees. I’m salaried.
Anyway, Group A’s spokesman goes to our CIO and complains that it isn’t fair that they can’t take comp time. So our CIO decides that the IT group must now be paid for being on call during the weekends.
You following this? I’m not.
Anyway, this scenario apparently makes Group A happy, but it makes 2 of the 3 people in the IT group (me being the holdout) upset that they aren’t being paid for the on call time that they have during the regular workweek (remember, we’re on call 24×7). Having learned that they can be paid for doing nothing during the weekend that they aren’t already doing, they now want to be paid for the hours they spend during the week doing nothing that they wouldn’t be doing already.
My boss brings this to the CIO, who decides that perhaps our IT group should work in shifts so that there’s always somebody AT THE OFFICE when the users are AT THE OFFICE (6:00 am to 9:00 pm).
The other two IT people (UNIX guys who back each other up) are ALL FOR THIS idea, and my boss is ready to go to the CIO and accept it…until I point out that I don’t HAVE a backup, and I don’t want to work 15 hours everyday AND be on call for the other 9 hours.
I am then called insane by one of the UNIX people, who sees an extra $500/month and loses sight of the fact that he’ll get to see his two toddlers approximately 10 minutes every day if he wants to work shifts.
I write to my boss and say, basically, “If I have to document my on call time on the weekends, I’ll do it, but I’m really not in this job for the money and I’ve told you that on MANY occassions.”
She responds, “Just keep doing what you’re doing and don’t worry about it.”
So I will. Only I think I’ll start locking the passwords of everyone in Group A. Just for fun.
Went skating after work yesterday on the Greenway. Got there pretty early (around 4:00) with the intention of absolutely wearing myself out before meeting a friend for a walk at around 7:00. After I’d gone about 2 miles – away from my car – a massive thunderstorm came through. Lots of thunder, actually, but fortunately not too much rain and no lightning. So I kept skating. The friend called at around 4:45 and said that she didn’t want to walk in the rain, so she was just going to go home after a working dinner (at 5:30).
I continued to skate until 5:30 or so – only got about 10 miles in – before the concrete got slick enough to make me quit. Didn’t have any idea what to do at that point, so I went home, fed the cats, turned on the tube, had a glass of wine, and zoned on the couch.
So much for trimming the hedges in front of my house. Maybe I’ll take an afternoon off to do it next week.