Hello:

We do computer consulting and programming for a variety of clients; 175 people in the company. I am an exempt employee (I'm management, and supervise 6+ people). My employers are requiring 50 hours per week minimum. I have occasionally worked 100+ hours in a week.

I am also being required to put 4+ hours per day into billable work for a client as an individual contributor - I am writing computer code.

We all know that high tech industries have 'crunch time' when we have to put out a lot of hours, or when a server crashes. I don't mind this, it's part of the job. But even when things are slow I am being mandated to put in 50+ hours minimum. And of course things are never slow.

How legal is this?

The pay, is very nice but 10+ hours a day is destroying my marriage.

Clearly, the owners of the company love this because they can avoid hiring IT workers and an additional programmer who would have bench time, so our profitibility is much higher than our other competitors.

A large percentage of the company are H1B's so they don't complain.

Is this all legal? I think I heard that vacation time is based on time actually worked as opposed to the 1.2 days per month we get currently. Is that true?

Thanks,

Vacation is not based on hours actually worked unless the company chooses to do so.

If you are billing more than half your time, you may not be exempt (and thus eligible for overtime pay).

Otherwise, you have no recourse as to the number of hours you are expected to work.

Ok, thanks

Interesting about the vacation time, I had heard from 2 different people (a CFO and a VP) that California law said that vacation time was based on actual time worked vice a straight 80 hrs per month.

Is the 1/2 time 'ever' or 'normally'?

Over the course of the year it's been a little less than half time. However, some of the 100+ hr weeks it's been all billable. I am, however, billed at a higher rate than 2 other contributors inthe project. During the first 2 years in the company, I was 100% billable and working 12+ hrs a day, but it was a fixed price bid.

Our project managers are all billable too, although I would think they would be exempt as well.

Mind you, the obvious answer is leave if I'm unhappy with the hours, but this seems so typical in the industry that it's not often any better anywhere else, and at least I have a short commute (30 mins) :)

California law regulates a lot regarding vacation, but not the method; that's up to the employer.

The CFO and the VP are wrong.

What California actually requires is daily accrual, not hourly, but the DLSE uses calendar days, not work days, so the number of hours worked isn't a factor.

How long ago were you doing the 100% percent billable work? How much is your salary?

Sorry for the late response, I missed the forum email.

Ok, got it on the accrual.

If you mean 40 hrs a week as 100% billable that's been sporadic. Some of the times I was billable during a week I had 100hr weeks, so it was 40+ hours of billable work but less than 50%.

I can probably find some months where I was more than 50% billable of total time, but it's sporadic.

Salary is 195K gross.

Management requires 50hrs a week minimum, 54 weeks a year (minus vacation) so that we stay at 100% utilization to keep profits high.

This is the dirty little secret in the IT and Software industry and it's tiring. Unfortunatly, I'm the sole breadwinner so it's not like I can quit. Ironic when you consider the fact that my spouse naturally complains about my hours.

Sounds like the only thing to do is move on ...

Okay, if that isn't a typo, practically speaking, even if you are clearly doing non-exempt work, with a salary of $195,000, a jury just won't give you overtime.

It's a high paying sweat shop, but a sweat shop is still a sweat shop.

Considering I'm about to divorce my wife :mad: money isn't everything ... the working hours are a major part of the issue.

But I hear you. Thanks for checking.

Most of my DBA's are now working at 180% utilization and they DO get overtime, starting from a base of 130K-150K. The last time we fell to 90% utlization management forced me to fire one of them, bringing us back up to 140%. We keep them well into overtime so that we never fall below 100% utlization. Clients pay for all of their overtime (100% billable).