I think our system is odd. It doesn’t show me minutes, it shows me things like 9.0667 hours and 7.3337 hours and I have no idea how many minutes that is without a calculator. We also don’t clock out for lunch, so I can’t fix it there like I did at previous hourly jobs. There is just a straight 30 minutes subtracted for each day at the end of the week. It also adds the first week and the second week of the pay period together. I was approved for overtime the first week, so I have to go for 84.6667 hours instead of 80. We also can’t work one minute less than 40 hours either….

What a stupid system, Sophia

That’s terrible, Sophia. It’s like they took all the possible drawbacks to punching a clock and turned them up to eleven. I’m pretty sure that deducting a half hour for lunch but not having you clock out for it would not be legal here but I think that might be a state labor regulation. Seems wrong, though, legal or not.

I’ve had that decimal time thing and I did get used to it and had an idea what the numbers I saw frequently meant in minutes without having to multiply by 60 all the time, but it took a while. You could make yourself a chart

.08=5 minutes .25=15 minutes .333=20 minutes Etc

That system is really stupid. Really really stupid. Which doesn't help you. Are there other hourly people you can talk to about how they handle it?

I’m pretty sure that deducting a half hour for lunch but not having you clock out for it would not be legal here but I think that might be a state labor regulation. Seems wrong, though, legal or not.

Oddly enough, I am also a timekeeper, and I pushed back on that during my training. I think the way they get around it is that if we get interrupted during our lunch, we have to fill out an exception form AND START THE LUNCH OVER AT MINUTE ONE!!!! We also have to take our 30-minute lunch once we go back to work after a doctor's appointment. So if you punch out and leave from 11 - 2- you can't take 1.5 hours sick time and .5 lunch. You have to take 2 hours sick time, and then lunch when you are back at work!!!At least according to my timekeeper training.

But it seems so odd to me that In and Out are so restricted, but they are not tracking lunch at all?

My student workers that I supervise don't really have the same issues as I do, as they are only working 4- 15 hours per week, and their time being a little off from that does not matter to me at all. It is really only full-time workers that have the problem.

I am glad to hear I may figure the math out. A chart is a good idea.

The other hourly people I know always work their scheduled hours and sit by the clock. So if they are a few minutes late, they wait until say 8:15 and then clock in. It is harder for me because of the bus, so I am always arriving at odd hours, and I don't want to add to my commute. My boss says she doesn't want me to feel like my work hours are not flexible, nor does she want me to sit by the clock, nor does she want me to spend time doing math.

Today I tried clocking in and doing email from home for 20 minutes, so we will see if I get reprimanded for splitting my day. She did not reprimand me for accidentally going 9 minutes over last week,

My boss says she doesn't want me to feel like my work hours are not flexible, nor does she want me to sit by the clock, nor does she want me to spend time doing math.

Hard to see how that's going to work. Adhere to this system, but don't be rigid about it, but don't mess it up, but don't spend time figuring it out.

You can clock in and do email at home but not on the bus? That sick time lunch time thing makes no sense. The lurkers do not support this timekeeping system in email, Sophia's employers!

Well, we will see about the home thing. Since I can work from home flexibly, I thought I would give it a try. It seems like a better sell if I get asked about it. I think my boss is OK with whatever I do, but she can't come out and say it with the literature I was given by HR.

Huh. My work does this gym subsidy thing where you document you have visited your gym 25 times in a quarter and they give you $100 (or what you paid for the gym if it was less than $100, at least that's what they used to say) and they just announced that now these reimbursements will be in the form of an Amazon gift card, not checks or direct deposit like they have always been. Weird! And somehow makes me less motivated to do it.

reimbursements will be in the form of an Amazon gift card, not checks or direct deposit

They may be playing accounting/withholding/reporting games.

It's worthwhile to get confirmation whether the reimbursements are getting included in your W-2 income or not, because that affects both the withholding amount and whether you have to report the reimbursement separately on your tax return.

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