Boss on Vacation...

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stickboy1375 said:
If your a full time employee, is it a law to receive 40 hours minimum every week?
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In most southern states you can only file for unemployment if your hours are cut to where you are making less than unemployment benefits. I don't know right off what top benifets are but if it's say $400 a week and your hours are cut to where you only make $350 that week then you would be able to file for the difference.

There is another catch. You can't make more than the benefits and still file, from any income earned from working. If you do a side job or have a part time job this is counted as income ( you are employed even if it's self employment) and to not count this is fraud. :D

Also, if you do a side job the week that you are off work and think that having them pay you two weeks later will make it all legal then you are wrong. You have to sign a statement saying that you have not worked that week, when you get paid is not important.
 
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emahler said:
Must have missed that part in the constitution....can you tell me where that rule is?
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The constitution doesn't mention anything about profiting off the labor of another either does it?

When dealing with business we go beyond the scope of the constitution.

As has been mentioned an employer and employee enter an agreement. How an employer handles his end depends on what kind of business he would like to run. The business owner makes most of the rules so there are laws to help protect the employee.

If you believe that we live in a democracy then you must believe that the people voted the lawmakers into place to pass laws to protect themselves as employees because employees are in the majority over employers.

Point is that employees deserve a paid vacation for dedicated service. If Mr. Bossman takes one week vacation a year he should pay his employees to also take a vacation as a thank you for the money they make for you. Large shop or small shop, it should be in your budget.
 
jaylectricity said:
The constitution doesn't mention anything about profiting off the labor of another either does it?

When dealing with business we go beyond the scope of the constitution.

As has been mentioned an employer and employee enter an agreement. How an employer handles his end depends on what kind of business he would like to run. The business owner makes most of the rules so there are laws to help protect the employee.

If you believe that we live in a democracy then you must believe that the people voted the lawmakers into place to pass laws to protect themselves as employees because employees are in the majority over employers.

Point is that employees deserve a paid vacation for dedicated service. If Mr. Bossman takes one week vacation a year he should pay his employees to also take a vacation as a thank you for the money they make for you. Large shop or small shop, it should be in your budget.
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1st off, we don't live in a democracy, we live in a Representative Republic.

2nd, what an employee deserves is different than what he has a right too.

3rd, the street runs both ways. An employee deserves what he earns.

4th, a good employee deserves a good employer, but there is no law that requires the employer to be good. So the employee has the right to find one. That's it.
 
LOL What we have here is different philosophies in business. Yet we have an employee who admittedly steals business that his boss could have for him to do...... then if he is doing side jobs (stolen work) there probably is no permit's and who to say it is up to code except the HO and side work contractor who has no insurance or permits..... I see more here than business issues over 40hr work week. If your employees have to scab jobs on the side than you as an employer need to ask yourself what am I doing wrong... I find someone who wants me to do work for them I encourage the call the boss and specifically ask for me. I can tell you it works both ways in an employee / employer relationship.... If you want a better relationship with the boss than show him you are wanting the best for both of you and work together in a team effort..... We got a school bid couple of years ago it was 100 miles from home the boss got us cabins at a resort for the summer while we did this job can you sweat.... now it works both ways we were away from home and got to bring our boats and enjoy our after work hours and on our days off we got to take turns with our families at the resort. what our employer got was happy motivated employees so it is two way street.... we have customer's who ask for us by name repeatedly... that is how you make a business work happy customers, happy employees and happy boss everyone wins... how you do it is totally your decision and how you act as an employees is also your decision as an employee.
 
cschmid said:
Yet we have an employee who admittedly steals business that his boss could have for him to do...... then if he is doing side jobs (stolen work) there probably is no permit's and who to say it is up to code except the HO and side work contractor who has no insurance or permits.....
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1) Side work is not 'stolen' it was not the bosses work to begin with. (Unless it was the bosses customer already...then I agree it's shady)

2) Not all people who do side jobs do so without insurance and permits.

I have two friends at work who both carry liability insurance and pull permits for the side work they do. The fact they have a low overhead is just life.
 
I guess my first question is what did the Boss leave you with responibility for / of... Gezz there's all sorts of situations /questions that could be raised.

What is he expecting of you as his employee, I'm sure alot due to your working relationship, or nothing other than work.

I've never worked with a small concern, I can only image its a multi-hatted affair daily...
 
Where did the sidework part of this come into play? The only reason I started this thread was to hear opinions on how smaller companies deal with vacation time, not sure where everyone is trying to go with this... but this thread might as well be closed...

and if you really want my opinion on my boss taking a vacation, here it is in a nutshell, I make it alot easier for him to just pick up and go, vs if he were by himself, I take care of the phones, pager, paperwork, Ordering material, making the morning phone calls, job schelduling and keeping everyone happy, so when he comes back its like he never left, other then some follow up phone calls, but his monday morning will be relaxing... so do I think he owes me something more than my 40 hrs for the week I don't know.... how nice was his vacation?
 
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Stick, I have a small shop as well. I took a vaca this year and set up smaller jobs with no hassles for the week. My guys get a week paid after a year. If it is such an issue bring it up. Easy as that, as an employer I can say that I am not a mind reader.... I would expect that a nice Christ bonus comes your way? Maybe just maybe you get more than the next guy?

It can be hard to fully understand what a week off(boss) really means to your situation, if it is just the two of you then I am sure it is alot of work for you.

Good luck, I wouldn't wait too long on this issue as from personal experience the resentment doesn't go away easily.

Tom:smile:
 
Showing up late in this one... And back on the OP...

I'd say that long before you even think of taking a vacation, that you should think of delegating some authority to at least one of your guys to keep show on the road. Be it phones, pagers, office access, really the whole nine yards technically. And then delegate some of the authorities of that person down to the next guy, and the next etc. Not that they need to perform these tasks full time, but should know and be aware of what and how to get some things done in your absence. Say you have a family emergency and need to take care of those issues - yet need to take care of contractual compliance at the same time. Or worse...

Several years ago I was working for a company, and the Owner went on vacation on the other side of the planet for a month... The Super of the company was taking care of things... For the most part he took care of everything anyway - the Owner was a self-professed "bean counter" - the Super ran the whole company - all the time!
So there we are, Owner on vacation in the Mediterranean, and the Super takes his own life... two days into it. 15 guys have enough work for a few days, the broader schedule is in a locked office, with an answering machine that was getting all of the calls and no one knows how contact the owner...
A bunch of us stepped in and took care of our clients, scheduled ourselves, T&M'ed a bunch of small work, got the building to let us in the office, got the PT accountant handle our pay until the Owner checked in almost 2 weeks later and got the bad news and flew back - even then a lot of the day to day things were a mystery to him as well. Other than the death, I think we handled things rather well, but things easily could have gone sour really fast - to the point where valuable business would have been lost, people not paid, work not done and a company / livelihoods of not just the owner, but every worker in jeopardy.

In the Military, every job has an SOP binder with all the tasks listed and an outline on how to do every one. So a Private can become a Sergent in case of emergency. Not that in our cases it would need to be that drastic, but if you go on vacation some delegation of authority is not a bad idea - especially if you have the equivalent of your life savings swinging in the wind if you say get eaten by a shark in the Bahamas and your family then needs to know how to deal with your business.

Just my 2 cents.
 
You are right Bob..... them were pretty harsh words. I shall apologize for that because it is the right thing to do. I know in MN if you use your license for employment you can not contract any sort of electrical work. no permits can be pulled and you would be uninsured. I went and assumed other states are the same and they are not... bit in the butt by assume again... I did not mean to offend stickboy1375 either sorry...
 
kbsparky said:
He is eligible to file a claim for that one day. It's so bad here, that if you merely reduce his available hours for work he is able to file a claim for partial benefits based on the work history, and the number of available hours today.

And I am referring to a small shop, with one or two employees here. This is the focus of my comments.

How about this for a horror story?

I hired one guy to help me out on a weekend, he only worked for me one day. He had a regular job at a local factory, and wanted some extra ca$h.
It's nasty out there.... :mad:
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Unemployment in MD is not a lot of money as it is in some states like PA. If you give a guy a day off in most cases it will not bring his weekly pay down to unemployment levels. The last I remember unemployment was like $245 a week. Any amount you made for that week would be deducted from the $245. So if a man made a decent wage and worked 3 days that week, he wouldn't be able to collect an unemployment check. He would be eligable to waist his time filing a worthless claim. You are allowed to pay incedental labor charges up to $600. without filing paperwork on a temp. employee. When we get busy and a guy brings in his nonworking friend or whatever to help a day or 2, he gets a check without taxes taken out and no paperwork filed. It is legal and filed as such with my tax returns.
 
The boss leaves us in charge when he is gone. We are a 4 man outfit with our own specialties. I am the elctrician, there's the motor man, and the salesman and the boss genius. He has had success in finding the right people that can carry on without his supervision which frees him up to enjoy his time instead of having to worry about everything and the employees getting to enjoy their free time. Sometimes we shut down and everybody takes off, but usually we schedule our vacations around each other.
 
To answer the OP: When I go on vacation I schedule and lay out jobs for everyone. I keep my cell phone on, which is how most all of my customers reach me. Some years it goes smoothly, other years not so much. This year went well despite my most trusted guy missing 3 days with a staph infection.

In your situation Stick, if you find yourself wanting or expecting more, then you probably are not happy with your present situation. I always do the best I can for my guys and expect that in return. While I don't put any added responsibility on them when I'm away, if I did, I expect that they shoulder it without extra compensation.

On the flip side, if you really dropped the ball on something (not that you did) would you offer to give your paycheck back?
 
bradleyelectric said:
....You are allowed to pay incedental labor charges up to $600. without filing paperwork on a temp. employee. When we get busy and a guy brings in his nonworking friend or whatever to help a day or 2, he gets a check without taxes taken out and no paperwork filed. It is legal and filed as such with my tax returns.
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Uh, (AHEM) Not quite. While the IRS may not have a cow with paying temp help under the table, just try to get thru an audit from the unemployment folks with that. We got nabbed on just that, and after that we had to declare even one day employees.
 
When I was doing flooring there were 7 crews (14 people). My boss and I were one of the crews. When he would take time off I would fill in for him. My job was doing most of the paper work, biding all of the jobs, planning out the work week, making sure there were materials, making sure everyone had the right tools on there trucks, stopping by the jobs to check on there work, and dealing with the home owners.

When he would be out of town the only difference would be I didn?t have him calling me wanting to know about what jobs we were doing the next week and what I was doing.

The only thing that got us when he would go out of town for a week he would cut us a 40 hour check for the week he was gone and the over time for the week would be on the next check. If you felt that the 40 hour check would not make it till the next check he would give a pay advance.

We would get more done when he was out of town. Between my boss and me we were lucky to do one day of hard work. It was all about keeping the other crews hard at work and getting there next job lined up.

As far as the benefits we got 1 week the first year then 2 weeks after your first year. 401k, he paid for Aflac, and would pay 3/4 of your health insurance 1/2 if you were on a family plan. If the jobs came in under budget we would get bonuses; but that was up to me on how I sold the job.
 
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