Working Saturdays

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lawnguy...you sound like my father...and as I always tell him "i'll go back to running a business with a pad and pencil when everyone else gives up their computers"

the point being...the world changes, for good or bad, for better or worse...change with it, or fall behind.

now, i personally would love to confine my work week to M-F from 12n-1p and take an hour of it for lunch everyday...but well, ain't happening.

and I disagree, there is definitely some necessity to all the extended hours. Now if you were to lower costs and taxes, so that all households could survive on 1 salary, then the wife could take care of all her errands during "normal" business hours and there would be no need for night or weekend hours.
 
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"I expect every employee to work 178 hours per week."
 
Well I just got home from work to see this has turned into a bit of a debate.

I also agree with Iwire. We are both just employees. I put in alot of extra time. Not for the money(wife gets that) and not for my boss. I do it because this is what it takes to run large projects smoothly. Good jobs make me feel good.

All you employees that spend time here working to stay on top of your game, are you compensated for this time? No, you do it be choice.

Go Gators!
 
Lawnguy, Comp Time is just good for everyone. Many times I have an employee who wants to take time off to attend to personal business but he wants to make up that time with a few longer days so his paycheck won't be short. I have to pay time and a half for those over time hours and I usually have to say no because I don't have the extra money figured into the jobs. And as I said, Government allows themselves to do it so they must think it's an OK practice.

You seem to think that this is an employee vs. employer game. I think that is a really warped perspective of things.

As far as stores being open 24/7? That is market driven. WalMart wouldn't do it if the customers wouldn't support it or the workers didn't want the work.

I'm a capitalist. Let the market drive the economy. If I don't treat my employees right, I won't have employees. If I don't treat my customers right I won't have customers. If my employees don't play by my rules they can find a job that's better suited to them.
 
I'm going to moderate my own thread. Can we please keep the discussion away from politics and the socio-economic reasons why we work Saturdays.
 
peter d said:
I'm going to moderate my own thread. Can we please keep the discussion away from politics and the socio-economic reasons why we work Saturdays.
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OK, I work Saturdays because 1) I can't get everything I want to do done in five days. 2) I work Saturdays because the office is quiet and I can get the paperwork done without interruption. 3) I work Saturdays because that's what many of my customers demand/need from time to time.

But I'd really rather talk about politics and socio-economic stuff.:D :D
 
peter d said:
I'm going to moderate my own thread. Can we please keep the discussion away from politics and the socio-economic reasons why we work Saturdays.
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Peter I tried earlier to 'Moderate' this thread but could not come up with any way to do it other then closing it.

How can we talk about work on Saturdays without any of this other stuff? :confused:

I mean, I like my job but I would not be there at all if it were not for economic reasons.
 
I manage to find more than enough work that I can sehedule between Monday and Friday. Sure, there are certain customers (retailers chief among them) who won't suffer work during the daylight hours very kindly. I completely understand that, which is why I service very few of these folks. That leaves a great big population of people who otherwise use electricity that I can take care of. Even when I did run much bigger work than I'd ever do now, Saturdays were more of a rarity than a necessity. I'd rather bring on extra labor than work Saturdays when I can possibly help it. It's just two approaches to the same problems, with neither one being more correct than the other. Just a personal decision. I worked my share, and then some, of mandatory overtime in my career. After a while of that, you have more money from overtime than a show dog can jump over, and are too tired and worn out to enjoy it. Overtime wears on you (or at least it does me).
 
This is what I was doing this morning:

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Trenching in a 50-a line from the service to a new shed a customer had built. The only reason I did it this morning is because Ryan (the guy on the trencher and a good friend of mine who does rural water installations) scheduled it for today. He had another job in the same area, so he wanted to do them at the same time.
 
peter d said:
I'm just curious how many of you typically work on Saturdays, and how many are strictly Monday through Friday guys.
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As an Employee, I was asked Friday to work next weekend on another job. Seems they couldn't get enough people at 10 PM Thursday night to get a crew to go this weekend, or that super waved off this weekend.
We almost always are asked on Thursday to do weekend work. Now I'm penciled in for a the job that will not see OT till ... some time We'll see ...:roll:
 
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iwire said:
How can we talk about work on Saturdays without any of this other stuff? :confused:
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I was more curious about "how many" rather than the underlying reasons why. It seems like most who have responded to this thread do work weekends, and that has satisfied my curiosity. I didn't realize the topic had the potential to drift into the forbidden areas when I first posted it.

When I started seeing Wal mart get mentioned, I knew it was headed for trouble. ;)


iwire said:
I mean, I like my job but I would not be there at all if it were not for economic reasons.
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Of course. I don't think any of us love our jobs so much that we do it for free for all year long. ;) :D
 
I think that a willingness to work weekends (ie, a strong Puritan work ethic) is more important than whether or not you actually have work to do on the weekends. When push comes to shove, I expect that guys work at least Saturdays. I try to be respectful of their time, and not require this unless there's no other way. As a result, when Saturday work is needed, I don't want to hear any crying.
 
Bob, I don't think this is employer vs. employee. After all, my employer is the employee of the customer, and that client is the employee of it's customers, etc. It all comes full circle.
 
I agree with Bob on this 150%. Is that even possible? 100% anyway. :smile:

If you don't want to "give" what the company wants then the company should be able to show you the door no questions asked. To me it is that simple and black and white. A business owner should be able to hire, fire, or otherwise any person at any time for any reason whatsoever. Unfortunatley the sense of entitlement people seem to feel today has made more problems for business owners that just should not exist.

Companies should however be respectful of employees lives outside of work, no employers, the world does not revolve around you.

Having said that I work for myself and by myslef and that is the way I like it. It's paid the bills for 13+ years and I see no reason to change now.
 
electricmanscott said:
I agree with Bob on this 150%. Is that even possible? 100% anyway. :smile:

If you don't want to "give" what the company wants then the company should be able to show you the door no questions asked. To me it is that simple and black and white.
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I just don't see how you could legally fire someone for not working overtime...:-?
 
stickboy1375 said:
I just don't see how you could legally fire someone for not working overtime...:-?
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Not only can I legally fire someone for not working OT; I can legally fire someone because I don't like them, or because they are ugly, or because they have a tatoo, or because I feel like firing someone that day, or because I don't like the quality of their work, if fact I can fire someone for almost any reason I want or for no reason at all. Yep, "your fired Keith" , "but why boss?", "I just don't like you Keith, never really have, so clean out your truck grab your hand tools and get out of here".

I cannot fire someone because of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion (I think), etc.,....
 
For most of my life I worked whenever there was work to do. Sat, Sun, all nighters...whatever.

About 15 years ago when I started my "legitimate" EC business, my younger business partner lobbied for weekends off. Being "old school" I was afraid but is was by far, one of the best decisions ever.

If there is an emergency with a good client or a REALLY good money (cash) job we will ask the guys if they want to work. It only happens maybe 3 or 4 times a year.

5 days a week is PLENTY. Enjoy your family time and cut your grass dammit!
 
chris kennedy said:
I also agree with Iwire. We are both just employees.
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JUST employees? Without employees I would be working twice as hard earning half as much.

People that are willing to work hard for/with me are my heros.



Added:

In MY opinion, giving 100 percent is showing up on time and working 40 hours a week.

Anything extra is OVER 100 percent.
 
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