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I would go to HR and have it put on file that your being asked to come in on weekend and your not able. They may use it against you later just cover your tracks you'll have it in writing just saying. I had something minor years ago that I already had on file and it can't be used against you as you had brought it up ok
Best of luck to you. Stand up for yourself or you will never see your kids ok
Wow Rob, it's pretty sad when things get so bad you're hoping for a RIF and be on the list, I am hoping for the same thing.
Corporate America plain out stinks anymore, very few companies left that are old school decent to their employees
To the OP, if this person gave out confidential medical information to other employees I would go find an employment attorney and contemplate suing. Just the threat of a lawsuit should make you untouchable, but see the attorney first.
I've recently been told that I must respond to voice calls and emails withing 15 minutes after hours and on weekends. When I refused, saying that I already work 60-80hrs week and need time with my family. I did offer to help if/when I was available but could not promise such a response time. I was then told that since im one of the top paid people in the company that things are going to have to change and I will have to take on more responsibility. I told them I would only accept that if they were to also enforce the same daily job requirements as well as the after hours on every other employee in my department. Since I have been stripped of all title when new management came in, I am a worker bee just like everyone else. And, if they will not hold the others just as accountable, then I will file for discrimination and harassment.
When they told me that my refusal will be put on my record and be taken into account next year at review time, I reminded them that I was one of the employees that agreed to taking a 15% pay cut 5 years ago and the agreement we signed stated that once certain goals were reached within the company, I would be given my 15% back, with guaranteed 5% increases paid retroactively over 2 years. (We all took a hit in salary to finance the purchase of much needed infrastructure to keep the company going - it was only ever meant to be a loan of sorts).
When they had nothing left, the new manager threatened my employment I kindly asked her to please fire me (in the nicest manner I could muster) so i can collect on the 65 days of vacation I've accrued (because they have not allowed me to take time off - I'm supposedly too valuable to be allowed off), the 15% I had given up x5 (5 years of back pay owed - Its in the contract), and the 6 months severance pay I've earned because I've been with the company over 15 years. Were talking almost $100k in one shot.
So, now that I fought back, I get to work from home on Mondays, I get a 1/2 day on Fridays, every Friday, there is no requirement for me to respond in 15 min after hours, and the new Manager has been severely scolded by the owners.
I'm still hoping they find something to fire me over (other than gross misconduct) I could REALLY use a vacation!!!!
All too typical today. Imagine - you want to get canned from your job just to get some much-needed time off. Our whole "don't take vacation even though you've earned it" corporate culture is another sick component of work-life today. My brother gets ulcers all the time from it. I don't know what kind of animals we have running businesses today. But our pols think they all deserve more tax breaks to create these wonderful jobs.
All too typical today. Imagine - you want to get canned from your job just to get some much-needed time off. Our whole "don't take vacation even though you've earned it" corporate culture is another sick component of work-life today. My brother gets ulcers all the time from it. I don't know what kind of animals we have running businesses today. But our pols think they all deserve more tax breaks to create these wonderful jobs.
Agree, pretty dam sad I have people coming in sick with the dam flu because they do not want an occurence, we do not get sick time and they will not allow you to use a vacation day for a call out sick. You need a good 3 days at home on your azz doing nothing to combat the flu, many of these workers can not afford to take 3 days or more with no pay so they come in here like Typhoid Mary infecting everyone...
My thought is they are going to sooner or later pay the vacation so what's the point...
Agree, pretty dam sad I have people coming in sick with the dam flu because they do not want an occurence, we do not get sick time and they will not allow you to use a vacation day for a call out sick. You need a good 3 days at home on your azz doing nothing to combat the flu, many of these workers can not afford to take 3 days or more with no pay so they come in here like Typhoid Mary infecting everyone...
My thought is they are going to sooner or later pay the vacation so what's the point...
That's just stupid policy and will harm the non-sick people. Many people who set such policies are idiots.
An employer must meet the following standards in order to consider an employee "exempt" for things like overtime pay:
1. Salary test - The employee must make more then a minimum salary. The current number is $455 a week or more. This would equal an annual salary of $23,660 for a full time employee. The pay number may be multiplied by a factor for part-time employees. For instance, a part-time employee working 20 hours a week could earn a salary commenserate with a $47,000 a year FTE salary and still be non-exmept.
2. Must be paid on a salary basis - The employee earns a set amount paid at an interval and this number does not deviate unless by certain outlined exemptions. Example, a salaried employee receives the same pay if they work a 30 hour week or a 50 hour week.
3. The position must pass a "duties" test - There are six duties tests; Executive, Administrative, Professional, Outside Sales, Computer and Highly Compensated. Each of these has a different standard that must be passed in order to classify the employee as exempt:
It is very easy for an employer to meet these tests as almost any office job can be classed under "Administrative" and "Executive" is very loosely defined as anyone that runs an identified department/subgroup on an org chart and has at least two full-time employees that they have hiring/firing authority/input over.
An exempt employee is not owed any compensation for working above 40 hours whether that it be financial or additional time-off. An employer is also not legally liable for demanding additional work from an employee that would result in them working above 40 hours a week. So, I seriously doubt given what the OP has said about their job that they would fall into the non-exempt bucket and therefore have a legal recourse.
What this all basically boils down to is managing the work load and relationship. Being exempt does provide a measure of protection to the employee in that an employer must carefully build any termination case against the employee or risk opening themselves to a wrongful termination suit. Swamping an employee with an unreasonable level of work and then firing them for not completing it can be deemed as being "wrongful termination".
I have worked in a hostile environment like the one the OP describes, except my hostile party was my boss, the departments VP. So, here's my advice on how to handle this and it's some generally good advice to follow anyway:
1. CYA aka cover your "butt". Take the time to document anything and everything you do, including the amount of time spent on each task. If you spend 2 hours a day responding to email, document it in a log. Attend a meeting for an hour, document it in a log. When you get a request to complete a project, detail back to the requester what you deem to be the scope and needs of the project and include a time estimate for the completion in both hours invested and date to be expected. CC anyone involved in the project and your immediate supervisor or department head. If someone requests a change or the final product ends up not being what they "wanted", trot back out the email and then update it with the new request and an updated estimate for completion.
If someone tries to hit you with additional work while you are already swamped provide the estimated time of completion including a date in the future where it is reasonable for you to have it completed. Explain that you are invested in XYZ project and that is the reason for the delay, again CC all the appropriate people. If that person complains they need it sooner, let your manager/department head make the decision over which project should receive priority.
If the manager/department head questions why you can't get both done in the needed timeframe, trot out your log showing them where your time is going and offer a reasonable solution on how you could get it done by modifying other parts of your current workload in order to accomodate the project.
2. When dealing with a hostile personality, keep it entirely professional. Simply by using the methods in number one above, you can go a long way to silencing a hostile person as it is hard to attack someone who is highly organized and covered all of their professional bases. Familiarize yourself with the companies HR policies and keep a copy handy. If an interaction begins to turn sour, tell them that you need to ask a third party such as your boss to be present for the conversation. If it is an ongoing issue with a single person, ask to have a meeting with your boss and HR to discuss the problem. In fact, don't just say "X" is causing you problems. Approach the conversation like this, "X and I have to frequently work together and we have an obvious personality conflict. Can you give me some advice on how best to deal with "X" as I don't want our apparent conflict to cause issues with productivity?" This will at the very least document the issue and then you can punt it to HR to tell you how to handle it. Don't be surprised if you and the hostile person both end up in HR having a discussion about how to better work together, especially if you are both valued employees. You may be surprised that this can actually fix the problem. If the root of the problem ends up being departmental in that department "A" is being unreasonable to department "B" then it becomes your bosses problem to solve.
3. Finally, many people who find themselves overworked and going well above and beyond don't realize that it is often a situation they created themselves. Look around you. Is everyone working these kinds of hours or just you? If you are a manager, are you properly delegating tasks to your employees or are you doing the lion's share yourself? If everyone is working these crazy hours, why is it? Are there systemic reasons that are forcing everyone to work like that? If so, maybe talk to a few people in a similar position and try to come up with solutions on how to handle it and then present that to management or if you have the latitude implement it amongst yourselves. Are you the only one working the crazy hours? If so, you, like many people, are probably being too compliant and helpful with requests. Using the steps in number one you can more easily control your allocated time and what you are working on. One easy way is to always double the expected amount of time you think a project will take. Most people in a company have no idea how long it takes to complete certain tasks. If you can do something in 8 hours, would people really question it if you said it would take 12 or 16? Probably not and you are buying yourself some breathing room and streamlining your work load.
thanks again, this is all very good advice. fyi, i am the boss and only answr to a person in a far off ivory tower. the conflict i mentioned is a lateral positioned personnel. i really am on an island, and almost no one has much idea on the level of work and committmnt i provide, altho msny in the ivory tower see my passion, enthusiasm and hear my rave reviews from multiple sources. still, there are other tricky parts. for instance, i run a progrm for high need teens with severe emotional n behavioral disturbance. aside from juggling programmal n personnel n financial n state regs, etc etc, i also get thrust into major crises that can completely thwart my best laid plans, for hours, days even at times (ie when youth have run, hurt selves/othrs, staff crises/call outs, etc). i mention this bc sometimes i wear many diff hats. its hard to sometimes know from hour to hour or min to nxt, what i'll be doing, even when i work offsite, bc i'm always on call. i could track my time spent and sometimes do, but that may not necessarily help, as my job requires i still tend to all tasks and deadlines. for instance, payroll deadline doesnt get extended when i'm on phone all nite coaching a staff thru a crisis. on call is exhausting and practically a p/t job-for free! and there are always needs, issues, questions. thx again for great advice.
With unions, this kind of employee abuse wouldn't even be considered by an employer. Welcome to the over-worked, underpaid & unappreciated job culture brought to you by the likes of Wal-Mart and their accomplices in Congress. It's really quite disgusting.
yeah and people say unions are bad and are so against it. This is what happens in corporate AMerica.
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I have people coming in sick with the dam flu because they do not want an occurence, we do not get sick time and they will not allow you to use a vacation day for a call out sick. You need a good 3 days at home on your azz doing nothing to combat the flu, many of these workers can not afford to take 3 days or more with no pay so they come in here like Typhoid Mary infecting everyone...
