40-hour weeks (was Re: FWD: Lack...)

[Cassandra Greer]

>From a rather limited German view of things:

At the start-up I worked for, everyone necessary to the project put in whatever time it took, esp. with a deadline looming regardless of pay - no overtime here. But this was generally a very badly managed company full of boys trying to live out the dream of proving the old economy wrong. They had a great idea but killed it (and the company) for lack of discipline.

That being said I did a contract in online services for a large dinosaur car maker based in Munich where the employees worked 38 hr week, strictly no overtime allowed unless it was compensated with time off within 3 months or so (to the chagrin of the employees). The project I was involved in was supposed to only last 3 months but in the end it lasted 8 months because on any given day one third of any of the people required to get anything done were off. And they would sometimes have to take off time without warning. The project leader _twice_ had to take off a whole month during this because of the overtime he had accumulated. This is so far has been my least favorite project.

This time problem was pretty common in all the departments I knew of. I blame it on the unrealistic expectations of upper management on the rest of the company to reach certain goals without providing the resources to get them done on time (just one example being to allow paid (or heck, even unpaid) overtime during a hiring freeze (during which the company was raking in gazillions in profits by the off-topic way). In the end I think it costs them more money in the way of contractors. I got paid (quite handsomely) for 8 months instead of three just because of the lack of coordination in the department when it came to overtime and time off. The agency that placed me got even more. The company could have hired several employees for a whole year on what I cost but then there are the employment laws in Germany - another can of worms for a different list.

Cass :)

-- 
Cassandra Greer
Technical Translation and Documentation
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