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Comment by freehunter | Hacker News Reader

Also many hourly workers don't get to pick their own hours. I know when I was stocking shelves, I only got to work the hours my manager scheduled me for. If I wanted to work more hours to make more money, I didn't have that option. I've got a friend who is a mechanic as well, and it's the same thing there. He only gets to work extra if they have extra work. If they don't have work for him, he goes home (and clocks out).

I'm salaried, and I had several weeks earlier this year where I struggled to put in more than 5-10 hours a week of actual work because business was slow. I still got paid the same amount, though, and was still "on the clock". So it looks like I have less free time than my hourly friends because I'm still at work while they're at home playing video games.

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Not only that, but a lot of employers apparently expect hourly workers to come in on short notice and cut hours from those that don't. Which leads to a different kind of job-enforced idleness that's unpaid and doesn't count as work, unlike yours.

That's another worker protection that I keep missing when I make lists.

The protection of 'on call' (in any type) equated to a type of work. Maybe not paid at full rate, but still compensated for as personal activities must be interrupt-able and other work cannot be sought.

Also the protection of a regular and predictable schedule with long lead times.

Very much this. I've family members that work for a freight train company. The schedule is brutal: get a call, have 2 hours to get to work, drive a train for 10 hours, get 10 hours off (often away from home), and then you are back on call. They are expected to be well-rested for work when they get the call. The pay is good, comparatively, but it allows no personal life and no chance of other work or hobbies on even a semi-regular basis. They are only closed for 2 holidays - christmas and new year - and it takes a toll on health.

For me salary means a minimum of 40 hours. I even have to record my time still and the tool will take no less than 40. Even if I worked 60 the week before. I do sometimes have those days where I struggle to find things to do but those become more rare as I get more experienced.

When I interview for salaried positions one of the questions I always ask is, "do I have to clock in/out?"

If the answer is yes, I politely say "thanks, but no thanks."

Salaried positions are not supposed to be 40 hours minimum. They should be measuring your output, not your hours worked. That's the entire point of not being an hourly worker.

I'm a consultant and, like most, bill by the hour. So it makes sense to track hours in that aspect but I don't know anyone who always hits or exceeds 100% of their target utilization. Which means if you don't have billable work you still need to find some BS to do until you hit 40 hours. I do go over 100% of my target utilization often, which in most exempt positions would open up some opportunity to leave a little bit early on a slow week.

I've mentioned that I'm exempt and still have to track time and most people just respond "you're not exempt, you don't know what it means".

When I read your first post I was going to respond "I'm a consultant and while I have to log 40 hours in the time tracker, I don't always bill 40 hours to clients". Much like yourself, if my clients don't have 40 hours of work for me, not much I can do about that. But next week they might have 60, so it balances out.

I've never worked a job where I didn't have to track my time, though. Four different companies, employed as full time staff, I've always had to justify where my time went each week.

Yeah. Even if you are a staff software engineer there is usually someway for the company to track what you actually are putting your time towards. Then I hear from tons of salaried workers who don't have to track time at all.

We under-occupied salary workers just play our video games at the office... /s

My wife gets jealous when she finds me playing Civilization during work hours (I work from home). But then she's upset when I'm on the phone with a client until 9pm and I miss dinner. Those hours pretty much balance out over the year, though.

> But then she's upset

To be fair, from her point of view your hours playing Civilization might not balance out her having dinner alone.

She has no problem cashing my paychecks though!

All joking aside, it is certainly a downside to the job I do, but she understands. "Upset" is kind of a hyperbolic word to use, she fully supports the work I do as it affords us a lot of freedoms we might not have otherwise. I can't say how often we've turned a business trip into a vacation just by switching the credit card on file with the hotel to my personal card, or left for vacation in the middle of the work day as long as I bring my phone and take my calls from the passenger seat. Not to mention she doesn't have to work full time, so she can pursue her own dreams and hobbies.

Not that any of that matters to you, I just didn't want anyone thinking I was being selfish or insensitive to my wife's feelings.

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