How do you calculate your overtime hours if their unpaid

[touch7]

Hopefully I am asking the right audience. At the company I work for overtime is not paid but you can get the time back by taking time off. So if you had to work on a Saturday you could take a Monday off. The problem here is that I read this site http://www.labour.gov.za/DOL/legislation/acts/basic-guides/basic-guide-to-overtime and it says overtime is 1.5 times the normal rate.

So if you work on a Wednesday (say it was a public holiday) and then come in on a Saturday because it's crunch time the client wants their project. When you take the time back, do you take 2 days or 3 days off?

You should be taking 3 days off from my understanding. (Assume that you have already worked more than the 10 hours overtime as required by law).

 

[skeptic_SA]

View attachment 404146

 

[Kosmik]

Public holidays are redeemed at 2x
Saturday can be 1x or 1.5x depending if it's considered normal operating hours.

Whether in time or money is another question.

 

[Ho3n3r]

Hopefully I am asking the right audience. At the company I work for overtime is not paid but you can get the time back by taking time off. So if you had to work on a Saturday you could take a Monday off. The problem here is that I read this site http://www.labour.gov.za/DOL/legislation/acts/basic-guides/basic-guide-to-overtime and it says overtime is 1.5 times the normal rate.

So if you work on a Wednesday (say it was a public holiday) and then come in on a Saturday because it's crunch time the client wants their project. When you take the time back, do you take 2 days or 3 days off?

You should be taking 3 days off from my understanding. (Assume that you have already worked more than the 10 hours overtime as required by law).

If you don't want them to find an obscure reason to let you go, take 1.0 and don't push 1.5.

 

[IndigoIdentity]

This is pretty normal but not very nice. You're would generally keep track of the overtime spent yourself then request time off that matches this in terms of hours 1:1. Most companies will request that you provide them with a written record of overtime hours that were worked when requesting the time off. You would generally have to clear any over time hours that you will / want to work with a manager and also the hours that you request off would need to be cleared by HR or a manager.

By the way, was asking about where you got the experience in your other post because I was going to say, do not sell yourself short. Forget the trolls, you have some valid experience and people would pay you for that so finding another job should not be too difficult.

The thing is right, if I was interviewing you and I had to sit and listen to you focus on how you have x months of work experience and that it was not in a great environment well it would not give me a very good impression in relation to the experience that you have got.

I would much rather like to hear less about your work experience and more about the technicalities that you faced while trying to build a social networking website, the difficulties that you had and how you found ways to overcome them. How you had the self motivation to work on this project for an extended period of time, how it's given you a greater development ability and how it's made you understand that this is something that you would like to do as a career...

That in my opinion, is a million times more interesting and informative then focusing on how bad the experience was with your current place of work.

 

[_kabal_]

The section of the Act that regulate working hours does not apply to:
workers who earn in excess of an amount stated in terms of section 6 (3) of the Act

I cannot specifically find section 6 (3), due to not looking that hard, but found reference to

n terms of a ministerial determination as permitted by section 6(3) of this Act: employees earning in excess of R 149 763-00 per annum are excluded from section 6 to 17 and 18(3). In terms of the determination, earnings mean gross pay before deductions for income tax, pension, medical and similar payments.

and

Section 6 of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act makes provision for the Minister of Labour to publish a determination on the advice of the Commission that will exclude employees earning above a certain amount per year from sections of chapter 2 of the Act. Chapter 2 primarily deals with the regulation of working hours of employees. The current threshold is R205 433.30 per year.

 

[touch7]

Public holidays are redeemed at 2x
Saturday can be 1x or 1.5x depending if it's considered normal operating hours.

Whether in time or money is another question.

The catch is that many don't pay overtime so they give you the time back. But they seem to want to give it back 1:1 which rather seems like companies are breaking the law.

 

[touch7]

If you don't want them to find an obscure reason to let you go, take 1.0 and don't push 1.5.

Man... This developer life sucks. I like what I do but to just let them cheat us like this :erm:

 

[touch7]

This is pretty normal but not very nice. You're would generally keep track of the overtime spent yourself then request time off that matches this in terms of hours 1:1. Most companies will request that you provide them with a written record of overtime hours that were worked when requesting the time off. You would generally have to clear any over time hours that you will / want to work with a manager and also the hours that you request off would need to be cleared by HR or a manager.

By the way, was asking about where you got the experience in your other post because I was going to say, do not sell yourself short. Forget the trolls, you have some valid experience and people would pay you for that so finding another job should not be too difficult.

The thing is right, if I was interviewing you and I had to sit and listen to you focus on how you have x months of work experience and that it was not in a great environment well it would not give me a very good impression in relation to the experience that you have got.

I would much rather like to hear less about your work experience and more about the technicalities that you faced while trying to build a social networking website, the difficulties that you had and how you found ways to overcome them. How you had the self motivation to work on this project for an extended period of time, how it's given you a greater development ability and how it's made you understand that this is something that you would like to do as a career...

That in my opinion, is a million times more interesting and informative then focusing on how bad the experience was with your current place of work.

Thanks, you give the kind of advise I am looking for. One thing I need to focus on is selling myself better.

I also need a better way to find to places I can apply to. At the moment I started using google advanced search, then searching for "careers" in the URL and visiting the site to see if there is anything and if it's a company I'd like to work for. So far it bypasses many recruiter websites but I've only started doing this recently. The problem with recruiters is that "commercial experience" is everything and so some people are just gaining experience and not trying to become better developers in anyway. I don't have the commercial experience but have the technical experience and after working for a few months I can pretty much see where I am along the "commercial experience" chain. And some recruiters ask for CTC and say that the company is would only be willing to pay CTC * 1.2.

The only way forward is to avoid most recruiters and hopefully get to an interview where someone would appreciate technical experience as it's the "hours" put in after hours.

I also feel like the recruiters want to see many apps rather than the progress I have made over time and I can't blame them as this can only be understood by another developer. Only another developer can see what motivates me, how much progress I've made, how I think, how "updated" I am with what's happening around the world of web development.

Thanks again for the advice as I was selling myself short.

As a side note, earlier this month I uploaded a repository on github and made it public so that they could check it because I didn't have the experience they wanted. I uploaded the code and by chance one of my commits had my amazon keys. Last week I just sorted it out but I had incurred "R500 000" in one day. No more! I haven't stored keys and passwords in git since January but this repository was from before that. Though not necessary, lesson learned.

 

[touch7]

@_kabal_ I read some other similar source that says if you earn more than the threshold you can negotiate and they can't force you to work over time as it's against the constitution. I guess it's a good idea for me to ask about it in future interviews. I haven't had to work much overtime but it's something I think about.

Here is a source I just google and reread: http://hrtorque.co.za/basic-conditions-of-employment-the-earnings-threshold/

 

[DA-LION-619]

Is overtime in dev a real thing? Serious question.

 

[IndigoIdentity]

The only way forward is to avoid most recruiters

You have to understand that there are indeed bad ones but also good ones too. You get into contact with the right one and might just get a very nice offer in return. It's happened for a few of my friends that way so I am just saying, don't write them off completely.

Either way it's hard yes but I mean... You have to just work through it, gain experience and find ways to get ahead. I know that many places will prefer a candidate that has an online portfolio so if you were to simply build your self a website, put it online and have some information in there and whatever else you can think of that interesting or creative... They really do take notice of these things and it will increase your chances of getting into a place that generally requires a bit more experience, one that can afford to take people on who are prepared to learn and make the most out of the opportunity.

I uploaded the code and by chance one of my commits had my amazon keys

Ouch, fatality... Lesson learned indeed

 

[_kabal_]

how many hours count before it becomes overtime? Are you going to "claim" for 4 hours of apparent overtime in a month? I wouldn't want to hire that person

Are you expected to work overtime? No
Will you work overtime? Yes
Is excessive uncompensated overtime acceptable? No


Normally in a current day software dev team you will commit to work. If you have to work extra hours to complete work you committed to, is that overtime?

 

[flippakitten]

Have you asked them how many day's you can take off and what the rate is?
Sunday and Public holiday is 2x

Another thing, if you work more than a certain number of hours in a day, they need to feed you.

 

[touch7]

how many hours count before it becomes overtime? Are you going to "claim" for 4 hours of apparent overtime in a month? I wouldn't want to hire that person

Are you expected to work overtime? No
Will you work overtime? Yes
Is excessive uncompensated overtime acceptable? No


Normally in a current day software dev team you will commit to work. If you have to work extra hours to complete work you committed to, is that overtime?

I also want to avoid people that want me to work too much overtime. I know that every once in a while you have to go the extra mile but when it becomes a habit then I need to get compensated for it even if it's 4 hours. Nothing is worse than people that don't scope properly. Or being given something on late Friday and the client expects it by Monday noon when clearly you need to use about 3 days for such a project. That tends to be a hint for you to use your weekend on that project.

I don't mind working overtime or a whole weekend if I messed up, missed something or we experienced a set back. But if it's due to too much scope creep then I don't want to be on that team. I don't want a company to burn me out.

 

[touch7]

Have you asked them how many day's you can take off and what the rate is?
Sunday and Public holiday is 2x

That's what is unclear. Everyone keeps taking time back but no one seems to apply any formular. But I guess the following quote makes sense

If you don't want them to find an obscure reason to let you go, take 1.0 and don't push 1.5.

===

Another thing, if you work more than a certain number of hours in a day, they need to feed you.

 

[_kabal_]

I also want to avoid people that want me to work too much overtime. I know that every once in a while you have to go the extra mile but when it becomes a habit then I need to get compensated for it even if it's 4 hours. Nothing is worse than people that don't scope properly. Or being given something on late Friday and the client expects it by Monday noon when clearly you need to use about 3 days for such a project. That tends to be a hint for you to use your weekend on that project.

I don't mind working overtime or a whole weekend if I messed up, missed something or we experienced a set back. But if it's due to too much scope creep then I don't want to be on that team. I don't want a company to burn me out.

i think you should rather concentrate on being an excellent developer than worrying about something that might or might not happen.

If you don't like your job, you are allowed to look for another. Hell, If you are as good as you think you are, join our team

 

[touch7]

Hmm... I was responding this other time and never posted

Make no mistake I am not some super special genius programmer but I do put a lot of time outside of work hours into this stuff. The posts seem to be in Cape Town and I am currently in Johannesburg.

And I've actually been thinking in the last few days. I'm thinking of converting to java for work and only use the like of Ruby and all for my personal projects. Java and C# seem to have more "better offers" in the long run(not to say the the dynamically typed language offers are all bad). But for now I've been going through java stuff and seeing the similarities from what I already know. Though not surprising it is quite interesting that 2011 tutorials are mostly still spot on when you try them out while the same can't be said for Laravel and Rails.

Thanks for the link though. By the way, what frameworks do you use most of the time for PHP? Or do you do raw PHP?

 

[Drifter]

The company I contract at pulled a clever one. They reckon contractors are at management level, thus not eligible for overtime. This means I can invoice 8 hrs a day, regardless if I need to be here for 10, 12 or more.

 

[_kabal_]

Hmm... I was responding this other time and never posted

Make no mistake I am not some super special genius programmer but I do put a lot of time outside of work hours into this stuff. The posts seem to be in Cape Town and I am currently in Johannesburg.

And I've actually been thinking in the last few days. I'm thinking of converting to java for work and only use the like of Ruby and all for my personal projects. Java and C# seem to have more "better offers" in the long run(not to say the the dynamically typed language offers are all bad). But for now I've been going through java stuff and seeing the similarities from what I already know. Though not surprising it is quite interesting that 2011 tutorials are mostly still spot on when you try them out while the same can't be said for Laravel and Rails.

Thanks for the link though. By the way, what frameworks do you use most of the time for PHP? Or do you do raw PHP?

I really like Java and C#. I prefer C# the language, and Java the environment/ecosystem

I would recommend Java + Spring Framework (via Spring Boot). They have a really clean unified experience. All the concepts you learn there transfer nicely to .Net too.



We use the Silex "framework"(basically it's Views and Controllers part, and DI). Nice and simple, and doesnt dictate our structures as much as something like Symfony2 would