hmm, maybe your boss should offer a shorter work week before and/or after the spring rush. 35 hour work weeks until the balance of your overtime is worked off.

Hi Archidork, this is a major problem especially for hourly wage workers, and people with out master degrees. My last office in Chicago paid us hourly up to 40 hrs a week, no overtime. However, as we got busy and more stressed we talked to our bosses and changed the policy. The partners were actually very open minded about it, which may or may not be the case in your firm. The office decided that after 40 hours we would continue to get paid regular hourly wages, no time an a half for overtime. But at least we were off the “salary” bit. You also may want to remind your employer, possibly through some loud mouth in the office, that it is required by law to pay you for time worked unless on salary, which most places won't tell you.

damn ,that is so fucked up. not to make yall sad but...

>in my first office i was paid regular wages for first 10 hours a day, time and a half after 12 hours, and double beyond that.

>time and a half on weekends, double on holidays, and time and a half for work on site.

>And i had a decent bonus twice a year equal to a couple of months wages.

AND THIS WAS IN JAPAN, where i worked regularly 100 hours a week minimum, non-stop, year round. The boss didn't bat an eye, and i was paid about double my base wage every week (which is how i could afford to pay for grad school without a loan). this was, btw, a 15 person show...

i guess i was spoiled, but i refuse to work for free for anyone and would never ask anyone to do so for me either. my old office is about 80 years old and isn't due to close anytime soon, even with the turndown from the bubble the past 10 years or so...so all of the above and cetera from other threads is total rubbish. there is no legitimate reason for anoffiec to not pay you what you are worth.

; by Paul W. Barada

Exempt and non-exempt: You've likely seen these terms when filling out applications, noticed them in job postings and heard them used in conversation. But if you're like most people, the difference between the two categories is fuzzy at best. Do you even know what exempt workers are exempt from?

Let's start at the beginning. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires that employers classify jobs as either exempt or non-exempt. Non-exempt employees are covered by FLSA rules and regulations, and exempt employees are not.

Different Compensation Structures Exempt positions are excluded from minimum wage, overtime regulations, and other rights and protections afforded non-exempt workers. Employers must pay a salary rather than an hourly wage for a position for it to be exempt. Typically, only executive, supervisory, professional or outside sales positions are exempt positions.

Non-exempt employees, as the term implies, are not exempt from FLSA requirements. Employees who fall within this category must be paid at least the federal minimum wage for each hour worked and given overtime pay of not less than one and a half times their hourly rate for any hours worked beyond 40 each week.

Tax Liability Differences Aside from the various tax brackets into which we all fall, based on our level of income, there is no difference in how exempt and non-exempt employees are taxed. For both categories of workers, all pay is “earned income” and therefore taxable to the wage earner based upon tax bracket. Income is income; it doesn't matter if it's earned by the hour or as an annual salary.

Overtime Implications Exempt employees are generally expected to devote the number of hours necessary to complete their respective tasks, regardless of whether that requires 35 hours per week or 55 hours per week. Their compensation doesn't change based on actual hours expended. Exempt employees aren't paid extra for putting in more than 40 hours per week; they're paid for getting the job done. On the other hand, non-exempt employees must be paid overtime if they work more than 40 hours per workweek, so it often behooves employers to keep non-exempt employees' hours down.

Workers' Rights and Benefits Implications? Generally speaking, non-exempt employees receive more protection under federal law than exempt employees. However, most employers treat their exempt and non-exempt employees in a similar manner. The primary pieces of federal legislation that apply to the workplace are the right to a safe and healthful work environment, the right to equal employment opportunities, and the rights provided under the Family and Medical Leave Act as well as federal child labor laws. These laws apply to exempt and non-exempt workers alike.

Unemployment Implications Although unemployment benefits vary from state to state, generally both exempt and non-exempt employees can collect unemployment benefits. But to be sure just what benefits include, you should check with your state's Department of Labor.

So Which Is Better? That depends on you. Some workers would rather be employed in non-exempt positions to ensure they're paid for every hour they work. Others prefer the latitude that comes with salaried positions. For example, most non-exempt employees are going to be held to a more stringent standard regarding things like casual time. Exempt employees can ordinarily spend a reasonable amount of time around the water cooler without incurring the boss's wrath; non-exempt employees' time tends be more closely monitored, and designated breaks are only allowed at certain times during the workday.

Generally, exempt employees are paid more than non-exempt employees, because they are expected to complete tasks regardless of the hours required to do them. If staying late or coming in early is required to do the job, exempt employees are frequently expected to do just that. Non-exempt employees typically only work the prescribed number of hours.

This article is intended to be a primer on this issue, but HR laws and regulations can be enormously complex. For more information, visit the Department of Labor's Web page that addresses these issues.

my office just implemented a minimum 50-hour work week until may.
we do not get paid for more than 40 hours a week.
in the past they have given bonuses, depending on how much time you put in and how profitable the project is.
apparently there will be other "rewards" that have yet to be announced. (i'm guessing this is beer.)

i also would like to comment on the 100 hours week. in my experience in the working world, it's rather difficult to get to one hundred hours of BILLABLE time. that's working and billing roughly 14.5 hours a day for seven days. that doesn't include travel to and from work, and lunch/ dinner breaks. also, in my experience, the efficiency after about 70 hours goes down dramatically and further still if the duration of extended hours is longer than two weeks.

whether one "can" work 100 / week or not, i think you have to question whether one should ever do that -- even for short periods of time ... devil dog's right ... for the typical person (in Japan or elsewhere) effectiveness must go to hell and the error rate must be astronomical

we work hard here at our firm, but we would never ask any of our people to work that way

We deal with the spring rush by me asking my husband to deal with the majority of our two-year-old's bathtime/bedtime activities for the next several weeks so I can work from 8-12 every night.

Jeepers.

stephanie, that's absolutely ridiculous. So you are being "asked" to work without pay? Why? Would the office ever pay you when you haven't worked? Why would you do that in return for them?

I honestly can't believe that people are willing to put up with that kind of absolute disrespect.

Spring rush? Sure they are getting geared up for moving dirt in the states that still are under a freeze but I've been busting my ass all winter on jobs in FL, GA, TX. We are always busy since we have work all over the country, and world.

The last time I interviewed for a job I requested that I never be paid less than 1/3 of my billable rate for each and every hour that I billed. We agreed on an hourly rate that was 1/3 of billed rate and 1.5 that rate after 40 hours. My OT pay is about 1/2 as much as my standard pay. There are employers that pay what you are worth. There are the others - I've worked for both.

I'm with 'A' -- what spring rush is that? I've not seen construction stop in winter in the Midwest in the ten years I've been working -- frost or no frost.

Jump -- I hope it was sarcasm, otherwise how is it that you are sad for the rest of us? Who among us could possibly deserve more pity than you and your regular 100-hour work weeks in Japan? I'm sorry, but that sounds absolutely dismal. Are we allowed to ask why you would pursue such a life?

- at some experience levels, architectural work is a respected hourly proposition - you work an hour, you get paid for an hour; at other experience levels, people don't work on an hourly basis, but as a respected, salaried member of a firm of "professionals"

over the course of my career -- which has spanned several "feast and famine" cycles -- there have been many times when there wasn't quite enough work to keep everybody busy -- during those "famine" periods, most of the firms where i worked kept us on and kept paying our salaries, even though our utilization rates were terrible -- i know for a fact that the principals of those firms often went without pay, or worked at reduced pay, in order to keep their experienced teams together

during the "feast" periods, there also have been times when we were very busy and a) couldn't find people we wanted to bring on, or b) didn't want to add permanent staff because we knew the expanded workload might be temporary -- rather than staff up and then lay people off later, it was decided that we ALL would work an expanded work week in order to support our clients -- we still were paid our salaries and, because we had learned to trust our employers, we knew they would take care of us when all the dust settled -- they always did

i find it very painful -- and a little embarassing -- to see comments like those you posted -- i often wonder where such a "factory floor" mentality comes from within the architectural community, because in my professional experience, i've never experienced, nor ever felt the need to adopt, a "we vs. they" perspective vis-a-vis my employer

Well stated, Blue Goose. No one should be taken advantage of, but there are lots of times when hours worked not equalling hours paid makes sense.

MYRIAM,
Blue Goose really did explain my case pretty well. although i have only been with this company for a year, i know we are just coming out of a "famine" there is a lot of work in the office, that just needs to get out the door so that we can start working on new projects awaiting our attention. it's not like i "agreed" to work "for free" i do get paid. and it isn't the case that the office is full of interns slaving away while project managers and partners are at happy hour.
we're pretty much ALL HERE at 7/7:30 AM and stay until 5:30/7 PM.
yeah, it's a long day, and it sort of sucks not really knowing how much you are being compensated with the particular way of giving out bonuses goes here. but, by no means do i feel that i am being taken advantage of. i know that the PM's appreciate the extra time we are putting in right now, and they wouldn't be asking it of us if it weren't for the best of the company as a whole.
besides, friday we are scheduled to leave at 4 to drink beer (on the company tab) after deadline #1 is met. and two weeks after that they are taking us up the mountain to play in the snow after a half day of work (as reward for deadlines #2 and #3 for me).
maybe it's a work hard/play hard mentality.
at least it's not 100 hours.
and at least we don't have to be in on the weekends.

I guess I better state my situation. About this time last year (and I've heard the past several years before that) we had an all office meeting (30-40 people) and were told that everyone will be required to put in a minimum of 50 hours a week for the next couple of months. Deadlines were asked about, but none were given... so the 'light at the end of the sewer' was nowhere in sight. Almost 4 months later, the hours went back to 'normal', with a 'thanks, and we always appreciate any extra time you can give.'

As this meeting will most certainly happen in the next couple of weeks, I was interested in knowing if everyone deals with a fairly disorganized office (I've read about plenty others that are far worse) or if some offices actually have their shit together.

The comment about the 'factory floor' is acutally very accurate. One of the main business managers comes from a very long history of assembly line management and has never figured out that the current staff consider themselves to be professionals and would like to be treated as such. The only problem is that nobody stands up or asks any questions... probably because management takes these types of things as personal attacks.

I've put in my fair share of extra hours (unpaid, salary) without complaint (always less than 100 hours a week), but I starting to not feel like I'm contributing to the greater good of the company anymore because I'm not seeing anything come back my way in terms of financial compensation or perhaps more importantly, more IDP experience that I've been hounding them on for quite awhile.

I think I already know the answer to this situation, but because I'm still young and inexperienced, I wanted to see what other people deal with.

Thanks.

archidork, i've told this story before, and i'll tell it again for you because you are new here. i think it is reason to ask questions and speak you mind in a non-confrontational way and one that is about acheiving solutions and betterment for the office. although the situation is not the same i hope you find it helpful.

i once worked for a well-known architect. i was a year out of school. pay was fine. hours were excessive at times but within reason. after about six month into my job heated up. everyone was putting excessive hours in. late nights. weekends. this continued for quite a while. the boss noticed the toll it was taking on the office. he held an office meeting, and he said that he was making it his goal to cut down on the overtime and to end all weekend time. nice words, but unfortunately the rough hours continued. specifically for the project i and others were working on. once we submitted our dd package, our boss had the project manager tell us we could have two whole days off.

i was pretty upset given his words to us and that we had worked long days for three months, 6-7 days a week, 10-12 hours a day. two days off did not seem fair for all of the time the team put in. i went in to talk with my boss to express my concerns. he asked what would i do if i were in his position and stated that he could not possibly give us all of our hours back that we worked over 40/week. i could understand that. i reminded him that he was going to stop the weekend hours, and i asked that he give those back to us. he felt that was fair but that we could not have them all off at once nor could we all take off at once. he allowed us to take one day off a week until our weekend time was given back to us.

i'm not saying things will work out in the same way for you, but if people are not willing to rationally discuss things, even the most difficult of things, face to face with their colleagues and bosses then we can not expect progress or resolution. i'm not saying you are not willing to do this, but so many people are not. best of luck

i always put in more hours-worth than whatever are the actual hours. i'd be a completely different person if "working" for over 60 or 70 hr/wk.

I thought it was illegal to have interns working overtime without getting paid for it. At least, the hourly interns. I was given the advice to not take a salaried position when doing an internship because you can get taken advantage of with horrendous hours and not enough pay.

At our office we are required to work a 45 hour work week. I get paid time and a half for the last 5. Salaried employees get comp time that is factored in the semi-annual bonus, and also can be taken later as paid time off.

I cannot imagine working 100 hours a week, I would die.

Our firm is about 8 architectural staff and 3 support.

Blue Goose - I understand what you are saying about staff loyalty, etc. My problem is that if an employer is requiring staff to work unpaid overtime, that employer isn't managing their budget and staff correctly. An efficient office should be bringing in enough billables during OT hours to more than make up for the extra wages paid. At least this should be true of an established office. Of course just starting out there are several years of building a client base that would make wages a difficult part of accounting.

From my experience, medium to large sized firms that work their staff hard and don't compensate with large bonuses, comp time, or overtime pay usually have management that is taking a larger than fair share cut of the profits. Or, they are terribly mis-managed and waste the money, possibly working for free and not billing hours, what have you.

In this day and age, especially with architecture already being a low wage industry, it's completely unacceptable to have employers asking for "free" labor. This is not a salary vs. hourly discussion. This is about compensation of the industry. Everyone complains how low we are paid, but then argue in favor of working w/o pay. My jaw has hit the floor.

If you aren't getting compensated for overtime, someone else is. Any hours you work past 40 (what the overhead is set up for) is pure gravy for those at the top.
I am salaried now, but I get it back with free lunches/breakfasts, free beers, the occasional bonus day off, tours of projects, etc. And I've only been here 2 months, all of those things have happened more than a few times already! I only work about a 42 hour week, which is plenty. I think what I get now is BETTER than getting time and a half.

and Strawbeary -- of course, there are firms that will take advantage of overtime and i am not, for even a moment, condoning that practice. but, asking a salaried employee to work overtime is not tantamount to abuse, nor does it automatically "pad the pockets" of the owners

in our firm, we -- as the owners of the business -- have a longstanding understandng that we have to treat our people with respect and dignity -- we also have to take care of them, to the best of our ability. otherwise, they will leave for "greener pastures" -- all of our staff will work a certain amount of OT each year -- i don't believe anybody feels abused by our need for that to happen

now, that is not to say that every year every employee will receive a bonus that equals, or exceeds, the value of their overtime -- but, i believe that vast majority of our people understand what we are trying to do and, on balance, trust us to do what is fair -- i know we try very hard to be fair with everybody at yearend -- last year, we paid bonuses to our professional staff that were substantially higher (as a % of base salary) than what we took for ourselves

i'm not sure i agree with Strawbeary's statement: "If you aren't getting compensated for overtime, someone else is' -- this suggests a pattern of abuse that i haven't found to be common over the course of my career -- i've seen many situations where overtime may be required to fix problems on projects or prepare proposals for new projects that never materialize -- in those cases, NOBODY's getting paid for that overtime

whoa blue goose. you tend to take everything people say and make it extreme.

Offices operate on a 40 hour work week, correct? Things like overhead are calculated on this 40 hour work week. Overhead is things like proposals, there is certain amount budgeted in every kind of business (not just architecture) for things like marketing and getting new work. This is not the burden of the employees to make up this time. There ARE circumstances where extra time is needed to correct mistakes, yet this is very different than asking staff to work 50 hour weeks cause the office is busy, please and thank you and we don't want to hire anyone else and no you won't get reimbursed. These are not the circumstances that are alarming and the reason for this thread.

I remind you, I am salaried, and love it, given the right employer it is awesome. I offered to stay all night tonight to help build a model earlier today. I just was told that we were going to forgo the model and I didn't need to stay. I'm a little disappointed actually. But this thread isn't about me.

These ARE the circumstances that are alarming, you know what I mean.

If you are reasonable, and you don't feel right about your overtime, then you need a solution. I think archidork is trying to feel out if he/she is reasonable and discuss possible solutions to the problem.

without wanting to get caught in the crossfire between BlueGoose and Strawbeary, i think you have to ask what circumstances cause a firm to request / require scheduled overtime.

if's it's a conscious - perhaps malicious - effort to expand the production capacity of the firm by 15% to avoid the expense of hiring additional professional staff and the staff is not treated generously at bonus time, then i'd tend to lean toward Strawbeary's point of view

however, if the firm simply cannot find enough qualified staff and there are existing clients with real needs and the firm has a genuine interest in protecting their clients, then i see those circumstances differently and i'd tend to lean toward BlueGoose's point of view.

in our particular market, qualified labor is quite scarce at the moment - many firms are unable to hire enough qualified people and they're not willing to abandon long standing client relationships simply because they're understaffed - nothing is ever certain, but in our community, such firms recognize the sacrifices they are asking of their staff and they look for ways to keep it fair - but most don't pay OT rates for anybody but the most junior staff

i don't see OT for salaried people as fundamentally unjust -- you have to examine both the circumstances that lead to this OT and the compensation norms of such firms when long hours become necessary

-- if i caused offense, i apologize -- i suppose i found your statement that "Any hours you work past 40 are pure gravy for those at the top." to be somewhat naive ... it's only "gravy" if the owners don't share it with their employees ... your comments struck me as an effort to demonize the people who own design firms -- if i interpreted you wrongly, you have my apology

i've worked in a number of firms over the years -- mostly in managerial positions. i've had regular access to the books of those companies and have been struck by how consistently the bonus pool for salaried, non-partner staff equaled, or greatly exceeded, the value of overtime hours worked by their salaried employees -- my own experience suggests that firms don't typically abuse their salaried professionals -- but, maybe i've been exceptionally fortunate in my choice of employers.

there is no doubt that some firms abuse their employees. i know people who worked for zaha hadid and others o her ilk that i believed were nuts, but they seemed happy with the hours and the non pay, so i kept/keep my mouth shut.

i didn't exactly HAVE to work 100 hours a week, but if i didn't everyone would have thought i was a wuss. i do not exagerate when i say 9am to 12pm, mon. to sat., and a half day on sundays is NORMAL minimum for a lot of firms here, and when busy, then working well into the night is not uncommon. So if you think working in a Jpaanese ofiec might be fun, think again...;-)

In my office we were actually so busy and there was such a shortage of qualified people that there was nothing for it but to work the hours and the boss did the same, drafting most days as much as the rest of us, even though he had to do meetings with the mayor and cetera every other day. It is absolutely a cultural thing on top of that as men (especially) are perceived AS their jobs and little else, so work is life is work. outside hobbies are not viewed sympathetically at all and family is not really considered a priority. The duty of a man is to bring home the money to pay for school, clothes house etc, and the duty of the woman is to watch the kids. Crazy, I know, but that is Japan.

Personally I was burned out after 3 years and the last year toned things down to about 75 or 80 hours a week so i could focus on other things, and then i quit to go back to school. Now i have children I will NEVER work for a japanese office again. but when i was still in my 20's it was totally fine, and the $10,000 bonus twice a year was not anything to sneeze at. I saved enough money to finance my education without loans and had enough left over that I could really look for a job I wanted after grad school. And I got something like 6 years of seriously good experience in a 3 year period, working on a shitload of buildings, (some with my name engraved on them, which is a strange but cool feeling). so no complaints.

btw, my 2nd real job, in london, was 10 to 6 and no overtime, no weekends, and a pint of beer with the boss on the way home reglar enough to be considered a habit.

but if you are working overtime and not getting paid or otherwise remunerated you are being duped, whether it is gravy for the boss or not.

no hard feelings blue goose.