Working Saturdays

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Generally Saturday work is at the request of a GC or owner and translates into more dollars in our pocket. Actually I'll be working today doing a boiler hookup. That will be later this afternoon when the plumber has the old one out and the new one in.
 
My feeling is this, if an employee is not willing to work Saturdays (or any other time) for the company when it needs to be done so be it. However that employee should not expect to advance beyond the workers that do give 100%.

Also they should be aware that if slow downs come they will likely be the first to be let go.

I look at the company and the employee as being in a relationship and if only one party of the relationship is willing to 'put out' the relationship is doomed.

I work all sorts of odd hours, Sundays, Saturdays, nights, over nights away from home etc. At the same time my employers have been good about giving me time off when I need it. Or I might get the next day after an overnight as a paid day off.

It should be a two way street, don't work extra hours if you don't want but if you choose that don't expect extras coming your way either.

JMHO, Bob
 
iwire said:
My feeling is this, if an employee is not willing to work Saturdays (or any other time) for the company when it needs to be done so be it. However that employee should not expect to advance beyond the workers that do give 100%.

Also they should be aware that if slow downs come they will likely be the first to be let go.

I look at the company and the employee as being in a relationship and if only one party of the relationship is willing to 'put out' the relationship is doomed.

I work all sorts of odd hours, Sundays, Saturdays, nights, over nights away from home etc. At the same time my employers have been good about giving me time off when I need it. Or I might get the next day after an overnight as a paid day off.

It should be a two way street, don't work extra hours if you don't want but if you choose that don't expect extras coming your way either.

JMHO, Bob
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I'm with Bob on this... Conversely, If I wanna go on a three day fishing trip, I've never had a problem getting that time.
 
I've got 6 employees (3 JWs + 3 APP) plus me and my wife who handles the office. None of my men want to work on Saturdays even though they all said they would when they hired on.

I work Saturdays doing the time sheets/billing in the morning when it's quiet. In the afternoon I do bids and service calls. I did raise my weekend service call (1st hour) to $165. That has slowed down the demand quite a bit.

One thing that I wish I could do is to offer "comp time" where the guys could trade overtime work for taking an equal amount of regular time off. In CA only government agentcies can work that way:mad: .

Sundays we do emergency work only, and I define "emergency" as having visible flames.
 
iwire said:
My feeling is this, if an employee is not willing to work Saturdays (or any other time) for the company when it needs to be done so be it. However that employee should not expect to advance beyond the workers that do give 100%.

Also they should be aware that if slow downs come they will likely be the first to be let go.
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Your logic defines "100%" as "available anytime" (Saturdays, and any other time) and nothing less. Time was, available 40 hours M-F roughly 8-4 OR 7-3 was 100% and anything beyond that was 150%. But before that time, employers set ALL the rules without regard for anything other than themselves, and thus began the union movement. "If you don't come in on Sunday, don't bother coming in on Monday." It is clearly unfortunate that we are (as a country) reverting back to the day when the employer called all the shots at the expense of the entire purpose of why we head off for work everyday in the first place: our families and our lives.

I look at the company and the employee as being in a relationship and if only one party of the relationship is willing to 'put out' the relationship is doomed.
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I don't see the relationship you're describing as being based on anything other than "it's our way or the highway." And throw in a little hint of "the less you prioritize your life, the more we'll prioritize you."

I work all sorts of odd hours, Sundays, Saturdays, nights, over nights away from home etc. At the same time my employers have been good about giving me time off when I need it. Or I might get the next day after an overnight as a paid day off.

It should be a two way street, don't work extra hours if you don't want but if you choose that don't expect extras coming your way either.

JMHO, Bob
Click to expand...
 
bkludecke said:
I've got 6 employees (3 JWs + 3 APP) plus me and my wife who handles the office. None of my men want to work on Saturdays even though they all said they would when they hired on.

I work Saturdays doing the time sheets/billing in the morning when it's quiet. In the afternoon I do bids and service calls. I did raise my weekend service call (1st hour) to $165. That has slowed down the demand quite a bit.

One thing that I wish I could do is to offer "comp time" where the guys could trade overtime work for taking an equal amount of regular time off. In CA only government agentcies can work that way:mad: .

Sundays we do emergency work only, and I define "emergency" as having visible flames.
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If comp time were to become a standard in the private sector, here's how it would affect the tradesman:

"XYZ ELECTRIC INC. - We do service calls nights, weekends, holidays NO EXTRA CHARGE!" And Joe Journeyman can't pickup Joe JR. from school or dropoff Jane at Soccer practice or schedule a dental checkup next week, or sit down with the family @ diner because the boss decided to work an extra 8 hours on Friday night and give everyone Monday off.
 
LawnGuyLandSparky said:
Your logic defines "100%" as "available anytime" (Saturdays, and any other time) and nothing less. Time was, available 40 hours M-F roughly 8-4 OR 7-3 was 100% and anything beyond that was 150%. But before that time, employers set ALL the rules without regard for anything other than themselves, and thus began the union movement. "If you don't come in on Sunday, don't bother coming in on Monday." It is clearly unfortunate that we are (as a country) reverting back to the day when the employer called all the shots at the expense of the entire purpose of why we head off for work everyday in the first place: our families and our lives.
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so, when I tell my customers (many who operate 24/7 and lose thousands of dollars an hour if they are down, "sorry, I know it's Friday night, but I can't have anyone there until 7:30 monday morning" and they say "no problem, we'll call someone else"

do you want to tell my employee(s) that they are being let go because we lost another customer?

It's not about "I want you here on Sat!", it's about our customers operate on Saturdays and sometimes they have a problem that needs to be handled immediately.

LawnGuyLandSparky said:
I don't see the relationship you're describing as being based on anything other than "it's our way or the highway." And throw in a little hint of "the less you prioritize your life, the more we'll prioritize you."
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Bob is/was a service electrician. It's a different world than a construction electrician. You appear to be a construction electrician. That work can usually be scheduled M-F from 7-3:30...electrical service can't always be scheduled. That's the nature of an emergency. I need guys who I can count on to make the customer happy today, so we can all work next month.

BTW- this is not regarding residential.
 
LawnGuyLandSparky said:
If comp time were to become a standard in the private sector, here's how it would affect the tradesman:

"XYZ ELECTRIC INC. - We do service calls nights, weekends, holidays NO EXTRA CHARGE!" And Joe Journeyman can't pickup Joe JR. from school or dropoff Jane at Soccer practice or schedule a dental checkup next week, or sit down with the family @ diner because the boss decided to work an extra 8 hours on Friday night and give everyone Monday off.
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Not at all...
 
LawnGuyLandSparky said:
Your logic defines "100%" as "available anytime" (Saturdays, and any other time) and nothing less. Time was, available 40 hours M-F roughly 8-4 OR 7-3 was 100% and anything beyond that was 150%.
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You can not give 150%.

You can give 100% or less, not more.

So IMO workers that can not find a way to work some extra hours when needed are giving less then 100%.

entire purpose of why we head off for work everyday in the first place: our families and our lives.
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I agree, I work to live, I do not live to work.

But I expect that being a 'team player' and harder work will result in better treatment. If I don't find that to be the case I handle it myself. I have never let an employer take advantage of me.

I don't see the relationship you're describing as being based on anything other than "it's our way or the highway."
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Well sort of yes.

The company is in business to make money, if someone is not as good as another one at making that happen why should they be carried indefinitely?

Members keep in mind we will not discuss union vs non-union issues here.
 
emahler said:
and you obviously know the difference between the 2 worlds...
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Yes, if left up to me we work 6AM to 2PM Monday to Friday on a construction job. It happens to be what I am doing now. Leave at 5 AM home by 3 PM. :cool:

But off of construction jobs the hours could be any time.
Most of our customers are retailers and they get real upset when you kill the power to the cash registers during 'normal hours'.
 
I am an employee and work when ever I am asked. With that said there was about a 6 month span of time this past year where I was working every Saturday and working very long hours on a bunch of trips that took us out of state far from home. I worked the hours for the money & also because the company needed it (we were understaffed and getting really behind). I liked being a guy that the company could rely on (I always had that work ethic). My wife however did not like it one bit and this conflict caused a lot more stress in my life.:-? It has made me think hard about working extra hours and when I can/should and when I need to pay attention to my family. :confused:
 
emahler said:
so, when I tell my customers (many who operate 24/7 and lose thousands of dollars an hour if they are down, "sorry, I know it's Friday night, but I can't have anyone there until 7:30 monday morning" and they say "no problem, we'll call someone else"

do you want to tell my employee(s) that they are being let go because we lost another customer?

It's not about "I want you here on Sat!", it's about our customers operate on Saturdays and sometimes they have a problem that needs to be handled immediately.



Bob is/was a service electrician. It's a different world than a construction electrician. You appear to be a construction electrician. That work can usually be scheduled M-F from 7-3:30...electrical service can't always be scheduled. That's the nature of an emergency. I need guys who I can count on to make the customer happy today, so we can all work next month.

BTW- this is not regarding residential.
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Way back when, towns rolled up the sidewalks on Saturday night. You could not go shopping for clothes, nick nacks, 5 & 10's, on Sunday. The bakery would be open till noon. Along came the business owner who decided they'd capture more of the market share if they opened on Sunday. (and then eventually, 24 hours, and then eventually, open Thanksgiving and Christmas day such as with WalMart and Home Depot) This was not "needs driven" it was a profit motive. Do you think the world is a better place for this? I don't.

An emergency service call is what it is, I'm not really addressing that situation. As you say, Bob is more service than construction. But I have no doubt there are instances when jobs are scheduled in advance specifically for nights, weekends or even holidays because "that's what the customer wants." That's a cop out, a disarming technique called "deflection" that the contractor will use deflect the "blame" from having to answer for this unfortunate predicament, (either through necessity or not) and place the blame somewhere else. It's an old "how to deal with an irate customer" trick - you redirect the blame or the cause to someone or something that's considered untouchable or pure happenstance.

If I WANT to get root canal on Sunday at 9pm, I assure you my dentist will tell me exactly where to go, and it ain't a nice place. And part of his ability to do that is he knows the rest of the dentists will tell me exactly the same thing. And he'll continue to have that response until some lower form of dentist decides to become a 24-hour full service operation.

As a contractor or as a Journeyman or as a customer, individually nobody is singularily responsible for what I'm describing as the overall degradation of the quality of life. We all play the cards we're delt, and this unfortunately happens to be the way it is. What I'm addressing is how it got to be that way - where an employee of a contractor thinks he has to be available 24 x 7 or else he has no job. I can only surmise the next logical step in this evolution is, the "100%er" is the 1st employee who is not only always available, not only willing to travel and be holed up in a motel room without notice, but willing to work 8-10 hour days for 80 hours pay, earn no overtime, then get the next 6 days off.

And already a contractor here has chimed in that it's a shame comp time isn't legal. Which begs the question, a shame for whom?
 
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