waider: (Default)
waider ([personal profile] waider) wrote2002-04-03 07:43 pm
Entry tags:

Timewasting

Today's office adventure involved getting the SAN guy to hang around long enough that myself and the DBA didn't have to go to the weekly meeting. This is because the weekly meeting features the Boss justifying the weekly meeting and other process-driven things by telling us each week that they're not there to impede progress. This statement is about as true as his weekly statement that it will be a short meeting, and contributes to the fallacy of the latter.

The meeting apparently featured said Boss having a minor fit over the fact that I wasn't at the meeting (can't be helped, I have to watch this disk spinning) followed by our most recent hire having a minor fit over the fact that we are expected to provide on-call support, i.e. carry a pager, without being paid for such. The 'we' in this statement is somewhat variable according to schedule, but basically the company is currently enjoying free 24x7 cover on the production system. I'm used to doing this, so I just shrug and do it; besides, we've already to-and-fro'd the argument with Boss and he's said that the company line is that we're already paid over the odds for our position thus yadda yadda yadda no more money for you m'lad.

Enter disgruntled new hire.

At the end of his fit, above, the Boss said, okay, take it up with HR.

So he did.

Turns out HR know nothing about this policy of unpaid on-call work.

This could be rather interesting, since technically it's forced overtime, and rather illegal; however our HR department haven't been great at other stuff in their bailiwick, so I'm not holding my breath for some stunning outcome.