computer use at work, and how many hours do people really work?

[TinHead]

I'm in customer service. Of my 40 hour week, close to 30 is spent online. A lot of studying gets done at work.

Getting paid to get good grades

[ShotoJuku]

I'm in customer service. Of my 40 hour week, close to 30 is spent online. A lot of studying gets done at work.

Getting paid to get good grades

Some may call that innovative....some might call that theft....unless you are authorized to spend 75% of your time at work engaged in studying; are you?

[Prloko]

Some may call that innovative....some might call that theft....unless you are authorized to spend 75% of your time at work engaged in studying; are you?

It all depends. Some jobs, you really getting paid for your "time". Think of some emergency management type workers who get paid to sit and wait for something to happen, like firefighters. In the AF, we had a team that were in charge of responding to crashes. How many times a year does an aircraft crash on an Air Base? They still needed to be available. They have ancillary duties, but that only takes so much time. The rest is spent on other tasks or personal things.

You owe your employers an honest effort and nothing more.

Speaking of theft, there's an active class action lawsuit against Apple from their store employees. Apple requires the employees' bags to be checked before they leave to prevent theft. It's a reasonable request. But some employees claim that they wait sometimes 10 minutes or more for a manager to come over and check -OFF the clock. An estimate for one employee was approximately $1500 in lost wages from time waiting. Forget the legal arguments and the law regarding this. Morally, an employee employee owes an effort while "on the clock", does the employer owe the employee for their personal time?

[Lindagerr]

In my humble opinion the workers at Apple and others who slack off when the boss is not looking are hurting not just the employer but also themselves. Since my husband is a salary worker and most of our friends are also in that boat I have a different opinion on what you owe your employer. If you want to get somewhere in life and you want a career and not just a job than you need to stop looking at the clock and do what is required to get you ahead in your job. Of course having an employer who appreciates the effort is important, but you never know what the employer will appreciate until you make the effort.

[Prloko]

In my humble opinion the workers at Apple and others who slack off when the boss is not looking are hurting not just the employer but also themselves. Since my husband is a salary worker and most of our friends are also in that boat I have a different opinion on what you owe your employer. If you want to get somewhere in life and you want a career and not just a job than you need to stop looking at the clock and do what is required to get you ahead in your job. Of course having an employer who appreciates the effort is important, but you never know what the employer will appreciate until you make the effort.

You actually agree with my statement, not disagree. You are stating if you want more, you need to give more. I agree. I was rapidly promoted throughout my career for going above and beyond. But for hourly employees who are required to clock in and clock out, the employer feels they only owe them the clock time, why would an employee be obliged to give more? Or even salaried employees, if all they want in life is to pay the bills and go home to their families, then why do they owe MORE than an honest effort (honest effort being doing exactly what their employer hired them to do and nothing more). I see nothing wrong with that. I've had both types of employees work under me, and I appreciate the work from both, but the one that goes above and beyond gets more reward. But that doesn't make the other one bad. If they get the work done and want to take a coffee break, go for it. If you are three weeks behind on your projects, then yeah, you better put that doughnut down and get busy.

As far as Apple, I've been in their stores quite a few times and I've seen very intelligent, and engaged employees, who have to provide service to hordes of customers in packed stores. I haven't seen any slackers. Have you seen otherwise?

[sanantone]

I don't know how I feel about this. It really does depend on the job. In some jobs, there really is nothing to do. I worked as a telemarketer as a teenager. Sometimes, the calls would come in several minutes apart. On really slow days, we could wait 15 minutes or more for a call. We were losing available numbers as more and more people added themselves to the Do Not Call List. Our manager did not want us reading magazines or books. The computers worked on MS-DOS. LOL. All we could do was stare at the computer screen and twiddle our thumbs. What a mind-numbing job.

Then, you have emergency dispatchers and call-takers. During the graveyard shift, it's often slow. What are they supposed to do when calls aren't coming in?

[Lindagerr]

@Prloko I was not trying to disagree with you I was just stating my thoughts on the subject. I did not mean to infer that all Apple employees were slacking off I was referring to the ones that were complaining about waiting 10 minutes to get checked out.

I may be old fashion in my thoughts about work ethics, I have worked at all kinds of jobs from a cashier at "John's Bargain Store" which some of the old timers may remember to Owner of my own company. I always felt that as long as I was being paid I should try to find something to do even if it meant cleaning the bathroom.

[Prloko]

@Prloko I was not trying to disagree with you I was just stating my thoughts on the subject. I did not mean to infer that all Apple employees were slacking off I was referring to the ones that were complaining about waiting 10 minutes to get checked out.

I may be old fashion in my thoughts about work ethics, I have worked at all kinds of jobs from a cashier at "John's Bargain Store" which some of the old timers may remember to Owner of my own company. I always felt that as long as I was being paid I should try to find something to do even if it meant cleaning the bathroom.

no fight, I'm not offended I always enjoy your posts. And again, I agree with you, you owe your employer an honest days work.