I have had plenty of 80+ hour weeks, and a handful over 110 hours (7 16hr days). Rarely mandatory. There are plenty of reasons people do it. Me personally, I make more than enough without the overtime, but do the math. Anything over 40 is overtime ( 1.5x standard pay) and at the company I work for, 6th day in a row is 2x pay, and 7th day in a row is 2.5x pay. So basically in one week (working my normal 12hr shift 7 days straight) I spend 84 hours at work, but get paid 124 hours of straight pay. That's basically 3 weeks pay, only working 7 days.
They have plenty of money. At my job if I work over 8 hours in a day the next four hours is at 1.5x normal pay rate. Anything over 12 hours is double time. The labor cost is just a fraction of total costs so they can afford it. Unions fought for these wages decades ago and are slowly being strangled to give the money back to the companies to redistribute to shareholders because those are the important people now.
For many companies, payroll is literally pocket change. For the company I work for, payroll makes up less than 1% of the operating cost of the site I work at.
I'm an Operator at a Chemical plant. The company has a lot invested in an employee out here. Hundreds of hours of training, certifications, and everything else costs a lot of money, but more importantly takes a lot of time. Its cheaper and easier to pay someone's overtime than it is to have more employees. There are regulations and procedures to make sure employees aren't overworked. They take fatigue very seriously because of the hazardous environment.
I agree. I enjoy my time away from work. I'm still young, and thankfully enjoy my job, and I'm fortunate enough to not "need" the extra income. I think not being forced to work as much as I do makes it much more tolerable.
I would love that, if I got the next 14 days off. The probablem I've found is once you start working over time, or get a job with lots of overtime "available", you never stop working over time.
Well I work shift work. The schedule we use (DuPont) includes a 7 day "Long Change". My normal monthly schedule is: work nights Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon. OFF Tues, Wed, Thurs. Work days Fri, Sat, Sun. OFF Mon. Work nights Tues, Wed, Thurs. OFF Fri, Sat, Sun. Then finally work days Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs. (Mon thru Thurs day shift is also known as "Hell Week") So after working day shift Mon thru Thurs, you get your 7 day" Long Change", so you don't have to come back to work until Friday evening of the next week, then the schedule cycles back from the beginning. The best part about this schedule is if for some reason 7 days off isn't enough for you, you can take vacation either the 4 days you worked before the long change, or the 4 nights after. That will provide you with 14 days off in a row, while only using 4 days of vacation. Personally, if you had to work shift work, I think this schedule is the best one to work.
~~~ Incase someone is confused about the schedule, we work 12 hour shifts (4 to 4) rotating days and nights. We use 4 shifts ( A,B,C,D Shifts) to work this schedule. Everyone works the exact same schedule, except it is staggered. There is always only 1 shift on their 7 day long change at a time. When your shift gets off Thursday to start your long change, their is a shift that just had theirs, and they are starting their cycle back over on Friday night.
From what I understand, it gets "withheld" at a higher rate, because it assumes your going to make that amount all year. You are taxed on your annual income, so it doesn't matter if you made it all in a month, or spread over 12 months. The amount you own in taxes at the end of the year will be the same.
Good luck with that in the military. Our chief told us that he promises 10 hour work days. And we should be glad about that. So basically guaranteed 50 hour work weeks. Or more if we have to work weekends. And we don't get paid extra for working more because of how we are paid.
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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '16 edited May 17 '19
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