Salaried positions are different from hourly, right? Invite your friends over, pour a couple drinks, have a seat together in the living room for a general, but more serious discussion about stuff in general.

[Neo]

Today, it occurs to me that at my current job, even if the project I've been tasked with is super easy to actually create, the real issue at hand is the management.

In the future, I may find out that this is just how it is in the real world, and that I've been in an isolated and unrealistic work environment this whole time...but when I work hard to finish the stuff I've been assigned, I have 0 expectation that I will have to wait around and do nothing while another portion of the development team (that codes in a different language) finishes coding a different portion of the project.

My department is broken into 3 groups, each group having a lead, and each lead reporting to the boss. The boss says "we're all one development team." I fundamentally disagree with that. We are all one development department...we have 3 teams. I don't expect the Java developers to come over and help me with my php code - and I don't expect to go over and tell a Java developer how to write their code. The constructs are completely different.

Therefore, when I work to finish my portion of the project, what purpose does it serve to site around as nothing other than moral support while someone from another group works on their code. Additionally, what purpose does it serve to sit around at work, and do all of this moral support, when there is nothing for me to actually do at the office - or nothing that I couldn't also get done at home?

I thought the purpose of being salaried was that someone is paying you for your skills to solve a problem - not for sitting at your desk a number of hours, doing nothing when your work is done.

Granted, I know few salaried employees who actually ever conclude that their work is done, and I don't understand how that can be the case. Do they just not want to go home? Do they legitimately have that much work to do? Are they just terrible at their job? Or do they not question the status-quo when it comes to business hours vs actual work?

To me, if I'm done, I'm done. If I can't get it done in 40-45 hours of the week, then I am either not doing it right, or the deadline is unrealistic. I cannot work from 8:30am to 9, 10, 11pm and then come back the next day to do it all over again. I don't even give personal projects more than 45 hours during the week. So, I sure as hell don't give any company more than 45 hours during the week, especially companies that I didn't create.

In my view, a salaried employee is someone who is tasked with getting a job done by a deadline. If the deadlines aren't met, that employee faces consequences. If that employee faces consequences, the whole department shouldn't be requested to pull the extra hours that the one employee is having to pull while that one employee works. They also shouldn't have to sit around at the office after hours...the option of being allowed to go home to continue working while spending time with the family (even if limited) is the whole point of not punching the clock...the same as the option of coming in on Saturday if the office is a better work environment.

It should be up to the employee where they choose to do their after-hours work, and not a requirement for the whole department to share in those after-hours efforts.

/rant

[Neo]

A month later, my problems were solved as I sat down at the desk of a company participating in ROWE - results only work environment.

In this particular setup

• there are no set vacation days - you just notify when you need to take off.
• there are no business hours - you just do the work at the times that work best for you and your team
• there is no required location - you can do the work anywhere, as long as it gets done and works for your team

So, I finally find myself in a position that is salaried, doing work where I have to bill a client for the hours worked, but without the need to simply sit at my desk and wait until 5:00 when there is nothing to do "so that it doesn't raise eyebrows if I leave early" as was the reason given at past jobs.

Simply knowing that if I bust my ass to get my objectives done for the day by 5:00, I can actually get up and go home, instead of having to worry about needing to stay after because someone else can't do their job in the time allotted.