The fact that I am exempt and would never get overtime does make me a lot more cavalier about these things. Added to the part where we can't roll over any leave time at all, and I really DGAF. I spent a significant amount of time working on my day off? I'm not charging it as a day off!

So, speaking of work, I'm doing a great job of talking myself out of applying for anything. But it's hard! Everything is awkward when you don't even have a cube at work, so I'm trying to only apply for things I really want. And most of the jobs in my field around here are at hospitals and universities, and I don't think I want that. I mean, I'm worked at two medium-large places now, and the bureaucracy is more than I want to deal with, so do I actually want to get into an actual bureaucracy?? But then on the flip side, small places don't pay enough, even if they are looking for someone like me (which mostly they aren't.) It is a dilemma!

You are right, suzi, that is very wrong!!

Jesse, if you'd like to talk about university bureaucracies, I am sure my sister would be happy to talk to you. She works in Cambridge but has applied for and interviewed at other places, and seems to have a good handle on administrative cultures overall.

Yeah, you know, that's a good idea. I think the different schools are pretty different, but I could start getting a big-picture idea.

Relatedly, I just heard from my neighbor that the students are back and "they ruin everything!" He works at Harvard.

I'm non-exempt. I will check out askamanager.

Yeah, Suzi, that does not sound legit. For one thing, OT is only calculated on a bi-weekly basis for specific professions suck as nurses. (And if in some way they have found a legit avenue to do this, they're still screwing you in a way that is not the norm.$

Yeah, I understand occasionally working while on vacation but I don't get this. Why not say you won't be available, set up your OOO message, and just not look at your work email?

Because when I go without checking in to work for a few days, I come back to a mountain of work, much of it left undone by the person who was supposed to be taking care of it, and/or I come back to a mess of errors and upset authors. I always feel like disappearing is not worth the mess I come back to.

"But . . . you're getting overtime," says the puzzled supervisor when you complain about staying late and having to work through lunch for two weeks straight, and your name gets put down on the list of Suspected of Not Being a Team Player.

My current manager is baffled by me preferring more personal time to extra money. He doesn't understand why anyone would not want to grab every dollar they can get. Like, sure, I like money, but I make enough; I don't need to be working every moment I'm awake.

I wish I could, but it's not done in this industry. I have a lot of scheduling flexibility, so I can go to the gym in the middle of the day, or spend a few days visiting a friend, as long as the work is getting done. I was sick for most of the two weeks prior to Labor Day, and I basically handled what was important in between sleeping 12 hours a day, and I didn't take sick days. Where they go apeshit is in these situations.

I echo this. I greatly enjoy working from home and having flexibility in my schedule, but I get work coming in 24/7 and if I don't stay on top of it constantly, it quickly builds up to more than I can do in 8 hours.

I am going to be changing my own behavior though, about putting the work phone on DND after working hours and on weekends. I need to be better about not checking it after I'm done for the day.

I keep saying I'm going to do this, but I'm really bad at it; when I get anxious about work I want to take care of things immediately.

Working on vacation days while still getting those hours counted against your overall vacation time is wage theft.

Yep. But it's standard where I work. We all do it, some more than others, but I don't know anyone who doesn't work an hour or so every day they can get an internet connection.

It is difficult to use it because if I work any overtime in the pay period, I can't take PTO unless it is needed to get me to 40. So, say I worked 4 hours of OT and want to take a day off. I can only take 4 hours against my PTO balance.

I have put in 14.5 hours of OT so far but I won't get paid for 8 of that due to the holiday.

Wait, what? I have never heard of this before. Working overtime before a vacation is standard! That makes it impossible. And not getting paid for OT because of a holiday, wtf? Isn't the holiday counted as part of your normal 40-hour work week?

Maybe I just don't know how OT pay works anymore? I've been salaried since 1997 and have not been paid for OT since then. Although I've worked plenty of it.

I would be more sanguine about working more than I'm scheduled if there wasn't this underlying philosophy that bitching about it is Not Allowed.

My department also has a Cult of Positivity attitude. If one complains, one is Being Negative and one should be grateful one has this wonderful job opportunity!

I saw two Jill Stein for President bumper stickers this morning. In Kansas. Okay, Lawrence, KS so not actually that strange.

Mississippi is a swing state! Texas is trending blue! Up is down and the sky is green! As was the case with the last two elections, this one would be fascinating and fun if I weren't so scared.

I was sort of pondering something this morning. I'm an atheist...

I'm a pantheist, and that's so hard to explain to most people that I usually just go with atheist unless someone questions me further. Most Christians that I tell I don't believe in G*d are either incredulous, or angry. The incredulous ones end up insisting that I really DO believe in G*d, I just don't want to go to

church, and the angry ones take my lack of belief as a personal affront.

My mom explained G*d to me once as, we can't see the wind but we know it's there because we can see what it does. If they've never questioned the existence of G*d and none of their friends/family/neighbors have either, to them it's like someone questioning the existence of the wind.

Pascal's Wager has never made any sense to me either. One can act out the practices of a religion without really believing, but "Protect yourself from the Inquisition" is not the same as "Eh, might as well believe."

I'm drifting here. Back to the original pondering. Is it possible to be an atheist without coming across as arrogant or offensive?

Not if the person you're talking to is hearing "you think I'm stupid" or "you hate G*d!" No matter how polite and respectful you try to be, you still can't control what someone else thinks about what you said.

My department also has a Cult of Positivity attitude. If one complains, one is Being Negative and one should be grateful one has this wonderful job opportunity!

My first job out of college, which was a new position created for the growing need at the organization, after 1 year I asked for a raise because I took on a HUGE amount of responsibility that had been contracted out prior to them hiring me (which wasn't in the job description when they hired me -- this was a big new undertaking about 4 months in to my job). I had a spreadsheet with how much money the organization was saving by doing the thing in-house vs contracted out (and I wasn't asking for a raise commensurate to the total amount we paid the contractor, FTR).

My boss told me, in nicer terms, that I was a recent college graduate and just lucky to even have a job. I was too young and inexperienced to tell him that I was saving him over $10K a year.

But, to be totally fair to him, even though he was a shithead about a lot of other things (including firing me because of office politics), about a month later I got a 12% raise, so I guess he saw the light.

Isn't the holiday counted as part of your normal 40-hour work week?

Apparently not. The official OT policy is that if you have worked more than 80 hours of client billable work in a pay period, then you get paid OT. When there is a holiday, that 80 hour threshold still applies even though it can only be reached if you WORK OT. And, unlike PTO, you can't bank your holiday, you just lose 8 hours.

I have sent a question to Ask A Manager. I searched to see if a similar question had been answered, but didn't find anything.