Am I being a sucker? (employee, work, company, pay)
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I work for a company that have a system like this: each employee is assigned an x amount of hours for different projects. In my case, I was assigned 2000 hours for project A. After my 2000 hours are up, I will either get more hours for another project or get laid off. I am almost at the end of my current project (2 more months), and I was told by my supervisor that I may get assigned to another one after my hours are up.
Let's call this project B. He wants me to get started on B now. However, since I am only billed under project A, I will not be paid if I am to work in project B. I will have to do this on my own time. Work the regular 8 hours on A and another 2 or 3 hours of my own time on B. He said it's a good chance to gain some experience and ask if I am up to it. Thing is, I am afraid they might laid me off after my current project is over if I refuse. I am thinking of just sucking it up in hopes that my boss will see me as hardworking and willing to learn, or am I just being a sucker?
BTW, I am an hourly, non-exempt worker.
They are using you (or trying to). Tell him that it sounds illegal to work on a project and not get paid for it, so to protect yourself in case you are audited by the IRS you need a statement of intent from them stating that you will move on to project B when project A is done.
I would probably avoid the illegal thing when talking to the boss. IMO that is sort of like saying that you will need a raise on order to stay with a company...sort of sets the tone wrong for the conversation. I think you should say something about it requiring a lot of time away from the one project, or asking them how you should clock in and out for the project...things like that.
Yes, it is illegal, but there are a LOT of ways to approach something before you go to that approach...
To be fair, since the scope of work of project B is quite different from that of A, he wants me to start early and get acquainted to the type of work that I will be doing. But I am not so sure about working overtime without pay.
OT without pay is a problem. I would say that you need to approach him. I personally would ask "How do you want me to code my hours so they are not billed to the wrong project" or something like that. It was probably an idea he thought of that seemed like it could benefit everyone and he didn;t think it through. Or, if he does say he is ok with you working for free, then I would take issue with it.
I guess, to me at least, there was nothing in the post to indicate that the working without pay thing had fully occurred to the boss. Until you know for sure that was the intent, I would be reluctant to approach him and accuse him of wanting you to work for free...
OT without pay is a problem. I would say that you need to approach him. I personally would ask "How do you want me to code my hours so they are not billed to the wrong project" or something like that. It was probably an idea he thought of that seemed like it could benefit everyone and he didn;t think it through. Or, if he does say he is ok with you working for free, then I would take issue with it.
I guess, to me at least, there was nothing in the post to indicate that the working without pay thing had fully occurred to the boss. Until you know for sure that was the intent, I would be reluctant to approach him and accuse him of wanting you to work for free...
He wants me to work the regular 8 hours on project A and spend my own personal time on B. To me that sounds like working overtime without pay.
Since you are an hourly, non-exempt worker, you need to get paid for the work that you do. If they won't agree to this, it might be best for you to look around.
He was making it sound like it was for my own good. Since I might be working on similar projects in the future that I needed the experience. He actually suggested I should use my one hour lunch break to work on project B and just eat lunch while working.
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