Is money such a driving force? 5

[Twinmoon]

I work at a small helpdesk at a university and while I attend my regular shifts, I often clocked-in and I did extra work just to keep things running smoothly. When co-workers heard of this they voice strong opinions that I shoudn't do this and I should clock in if I must work. I've even been scolded by a manager not to do this. Nearly all of the reasons have been money based. I have made it clear that I was not working for money so I don't understand why they are still so resistant. The best reason I've heard(not from anyone at work) was that it would be hard to do evaluations. I have since stopped because of all the flak I got but it is disturbing to me.

Am I truely out of line for working for the sake of work, not money? Is money the only thing people care about when making the world go round?

 

[KenCunningham]

Have to say that I can see both angles here. I too have been 'guilty' (if that's the correct word) of doing stuff out-of-hours to keep things running as I would like them to, and often to save myself work in the short-term putting things right in 'work-time' when I could be doing more productive things (like posting answers on Tek-Tips ;-) ).

On the other hand, your colleagues perhaps have a point in saying that such out-of-hours preventative maintenance might be masking an operational problem which needs to be addressed in a more formal manner so that such fire-fighting isn't necessary. If this (the solution) costs money, the organisation you are doing it for might be quite happy for you to do your bit on an ad-hoc basis, but it's not really a satisfactory way of ensuring stability. What, for example, would happen when you're on holiday?

I would say that as long as you don't get chided for NOT doing the out-of-hours work, then leave it tpo management to 'manage' the situation and don't worry. If you DO get flak for not doing it, then you have a problem. Good luck.

 

[SQLSister]

Twinmoon, plenty of us like to do the best job possible and that motivates us more than the money paid. However, there are several things you need to be aware of.

First, if you are paid hourly and you work overtime you must by law be paid. Even if the overtime was not approved by your supervisor in advance. Supervisors don't like to pay out money they haven't budgeted for. Doing this repeatedly can get you fired becasue they can't afford you. Disgruntled employees who have been doing overtime without being paid have been known to sue after leaving the company. This results in large expenses including leagal fees and paying out a lump sum. Get burned on this one time and the company is much more careful in the future to make sure it doesn't happen again. Since it is the manager's jon to manage the budget, of course he or she is going to be concerned about this.

Second, giving the extra effort when your co-workers do not makes them look bad. That's the real reason why they don't want you to do it whether they admit it or not.

It may also be that this organization's culture is not the best one for you to work in. There are lots of places that love people to work as many ours as they can get out of them. Usually they make these people exempt (ie they aren;t paid overtime at all). I've had jobs where an 80 hour week was the norm. Then there are some places where there is a happy medium but everybody kicks in whatever is needed to get the job done. Personally I prefer to work in that kind of culture.

 

[Twinmoon]

A correction to one of my statements, I wanted to say that regular shifts, I often didn't clocked-in ... I said ...regular shifts, I often clocked-in... Sorry for the error.

KenCunningham, I think I partially understand what you mean. It makes sense in my head when I say it but I beleive I am gaining an understanding of what you mean when you ask what happens if I go on a holoiday. I wasn't relying on a team member to help do the fire-fighting and I nearly expereinced a break down.(This was about a week or two ago) I have tried shifting most of the fire-fighting responsabilties to my team member.(who really wasn't doing anything)

Perhaps this is too earily to to tell but things seem to be better. I still have to keep an eye on everything, but the time I spend on fire-fighting, save for emergencies, is mostly spent on training my team member. While they are not technicly-adept, confidant or driven; they did volunteer to work during spring break to put a few fires out.(Spring break out our University is 1 week off, and management said working it was optional unless there was a known project that needed to be worked on.)

I think upper management did handle the situatonal error. I think the let me burn out so I would 'shirk'/share some of the responabilty to my team member. Clever them.


SQLSister, your reasons do make sense to me. I don't think the second reason applies well in this case because there is 1-2 people with the same responsabiles at any one time. I'm guessing there are about 10 people I work with regularly at any one time.

Your first reason is sound and perhaps that was managament was thinking. I'm not sure becuase the manager that spoke to me never gave me a clear answer. I am also unsure if your response was based on my error in the first post. If so, please feel free to post a revised response.

As for the culture I think this a good place for me to be now. It's a good starting spot for the business world IT, everyone expects duties covered but not much more beyond that because we are all students ourselfs. But I'll try to keep that in mind when I move on.

I love the name BTW.


Thank you both for your opinions and thoughts. I find found them interesting and helpful in understanding the situation from more of a thrid person perspective.

 

[rosieb]

Twinmoon

Clearly, you want to do your job well and support your users to the best of your ability. All kudos to you.

As a support manager, I would have harsh words for you, for not logging your time.

How can I assess the support needed if it isn't logged? Yes, you want to help. But if there is a real resource problem, I can't measure it, so I can't address it. How do I value your input as opposed to that of your colleagues? You're keen, but I don't know about it.

I really don't want to discourage you, but I don't want my valuable staff having breakdowns and, as a manager, I need to be able to measure the requirements as well as which staff members are doing what.

Stay keen, work hard but follow the rules. If your manager is any good, you'll be appreciated.

Rosie

 

[Golom]

Any responsible company really doesn't want people working for free (although sometimes it may seem like they do.) If you're on the management side of things then you want to understand the true costs of performing the services that your group provides. You really can't do that if people are being "nice guys" and doing work that you don't know about. The other risk you take is that your extra unbilled hours become the norm and if you stop doing them or start clocking in then you're probably going to get questions like "Why are you not getting your job done?" or "How come all of a sudden you are working all this overtime but don't seem to be accomplishing any more than you were?"

Is money a motivator ?

No ... but lack of it is a strong demotivator. People don't generally do a better job or work harder when they receive a raise but they will certainly decide "Why the h*** bother?" if they were expecting more money and didn't get it.

 

[rosieb]

Golom
Well put! And dead right.

Rosie

 

[Twinmoon]

RosieB and Golom,

You have both made arguments and I can understand and accept. Now if only my manager had made those when he scolded me. Thank you both.

Thank you all, I feel much better about this situation now that I can accept a reason why I should not have worked 'free' overtime.

I also beleive this explanation will also help me when I become a manager myself. Well, I have delusions that I will become one.

 

[Svits]

Hi Twinmoon,

Although my colleagues have given superb answers to your query, let me add my 2¢. (See it is all about the money) Hopefully, I will cover some new ground.

When you work the unpaid time, you can really hurt not only yourself, but also your co-workers and the company.

Hurting yourself:

First of all, it is a job. You are hurting yourself by leaving money on the table. I know money is not your number one motivating factor, but it is a factor in our world. Right now you are young and single (assumptions) and money is not all that important. You have enough to survive, have some fun, etc. I am married with 2 kids. The equation changes when you have other people to worry about, as I am sure it will eventually change for you. (I know you don’t want to think about it now; I know I didn’t.) Take the overtime pay and put it in the bank, IRA, mutual fund, etc. Nothing will change now, but you’ll thank yourself later.

Also, you are setting yourself up for a psychological fall. You are not getting paid for all of that overtime, but in your mind, you are accumulating something, call it goodwill, karma, kwon, whatever. Your basic human sense of fair play will tell you that this company now owes you something. Believe me, the company will not see it that way, or will have amnesia (or the boss that you did all that extra work for is reassigned and you get a boss who doesn’t know you from Adam.) You will be called into the office to be chewed out about taking an extra 5 minutes for lunch, you won’t be allowed to leave early one day, you have to come in on the Saturday of your niece’s birthday party, etc. You will feel wronged by the company, and usually only bad things happen from then on. Let them pay you to even out the score; it is pretty hard to track karma owed.

And as Golom pointed out, what happens if you get involved in something else like sports, significant other, etc. where you can’t or don’t want to put in that extra unpaid overtime; you will either have to work extra hard the hours you are there, or start getting bad performance reviews because “You used to be able to get it all done working X hours a week,”

Your Co-Workers:

I won’t comment on if your co-worker(s) “really wasn’t doing anything.” Just do the math. Suppose you work 40 hours a week, and put in 5 hours unpaid (untracked) OT. Your co-worker puts in just 40 hours. Now that co-worker has to work harder than you just to keep up. Of course it seems like they look bad, whether they are bad in reality or not.

Now, as KenCunningham said, what does “happen when you’re on holiday?” Now your co-workers not only have to make up your regular 40 hours, but they also have to make up the phantom 5 hours! I’d start resenting you, too.

The Company:

Now, this ground has been covered quite well. I’ll just add that in addition to masking any deficiencies that the company might have in it’s scheduling, you are also setting up your replacement to fail. They might not be as altruistic as yourself, and find that they cannot complete the work in the time that you did, and start be pressured by management, resulting in an unpleasant work environment. Much more often than not, it is a bad worker that can poison a work environment, but I have seen it where a “good” worker can do the same.

Also, I know this probably does not apply to you, but I work at a place where we bill our clients for time worked. If it isn’t tracked and logged, then we can’t bill the client, and the company loses money. They tend to look down at things like that.


Summary:

Hopefully I haven’t come across as too cynical – just experienced (and too much Dilbert!) It’s great that you like you job so much that you’d do it free. Count yourself lucky. I know I count myself lucky in that department as well. But I also count myself luckier that I get paid to do this! Money is not my main motivating factor for the work I am in – I was making more money at my last career. But, it certainly is up there when I have a family to think of.

 

[rosieb]

Twinmoon
If you want to be a good manager... most of the best lessons come from watching bad managers, and from watching really good ones.

Going back to your point, money is rarely a motivator, but lack of it can be a real de-motivator. If you're interested study up on motivation theory, it's fascinating stuff.

 

[Twinmoon]

Rosieb I'll try to watch my managers closer from now on. I've also added that subject to my wishlist so I won't forget to get it.

Svits, very interesting points. I think I understand where you are coming from on all issues, but I'm probably not as intimate with your responses as I should be.(I can't seem to phrase that better) You have neatly coalesced several arguments into a single post. I wish to give you a star but I don't wish to deminish the meaning of the star by giving out too many, so thank you again. Either I came to the right place to ask my question or my mind is easily swayed. I'm much more likely to belive the former.

Your assumptions about me were correct, young and single. As far as my team mate not helping out that was my falut. I knew, but didn't realize(if that makes sense) that it was my responabilty to train them. I just jumped right in and expected them to try and I expected them to do the same while asking questions. Only after getting to the 'deep end' did I realize they hadn't done either. I hope I have since fixed that problem.

As for appearing cynical, you didn't.

I applogize to everyone for not correctly composing the subject line. I'm very unsued to conversing with people of this level of intelligence and each post takes me many revisions.

 

[chiph]

One other reason not to work unscheduled time -- liability.

If you should get injured at the office (tripped and fell down the stairs, or something), then the company could deny your health benefits claim because you weren't supposed to be doing what you were doing.

Chip H.


If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

 

[Kjonnnn]

Legal issues... there was a case a few years back where the company forced people to work off the clock. They got sued and lost.

While you think you're helping, you "company" may be guarding itself against you at some point in the future saying you worked but were not paid. When relationships go sour, you'd be surprised what people say. A lot of companys just don't want donated undocumented time. It can come back and bite them.

Also, for your protection, should something happen to you at the job, how can you prove your presence for workers comp purposes, if you're not clocked in.

Budgeting purposes. Suppose you're doing 50 hours a week (40 clocked, 10 voluntary) worth of work. On paper it looks like it only takes 1 man 40 hours to do that job. Should you leave, the next person will be expected to do your 50 hour a week job in 40 hours. If they know it takes you more than 40 hours to maintain their system, should you leave, they can budget for temp help or an additional body.