Reboot Your Computer, Don't Get Paid

By Tuan An Nguyen
published

There are pros and cons to going with an hourly wage versus salary. One of the good things about an hourly wage is that you’re eligible for overtime. But if you work in a big corporate environment and you work with computers everyday, you may be in for a pay cut.

This week, news of several new lawsuits appeared from employees of big corporate companies. The employees are suing their respective employers for cutting their pay due to computer startup and reboot times. Essentially, the time you spend starting your computer or restarting it, for any reason, is accumulated and deducted from your pay.

The employees argue that this is highly unreasonable, and that boot times are part of the working process. Reboots are even more so as they could be caused by software errors or just bad hardware.

Law firms are indicating that this new type of lawsuit is becoming more common. During a time when many companies are scaling back and tightening their belts, cost cuts are looked at from every possible angle.

Look out for washroom break lawsuits to come soon!

Read more at the National Law Journal.

Tuan An Nguyen
25 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Dekasav
    Shows the kind of dire situation we're in. Companies want to cut costs anywhere they can, and employees are too afraid to lose a few bucks that this is important.

    I side with the employees, though. If I'm not in charge of what gets put on the pc, or in charge of the hardware it's composed of, I'm not taking responsibility for necessary reboots.
    Reply
  • dechy
    ROFL, you have GOT to be kidding... only in the US of Asses

    I hate this country more and more.
    Reply
  • jhansonxi
    So when are they going to file claims against Microsoft or the power company?
    Reply
  • slomo4sho
    This is hilarious. CEOs and other top executives are getting bonuses for bankrupting the companies they are in charge of but the average employee is being told they won't get paid to work because of system failures... Does anyone else see a flaw in the system?

    Reply
  • Shadow703793
    :lol: Why don't they start by shutting down PCs at night? Many companies keep the PCs running over night. My school is guilty of it.
    Reply
  • malveaux
    These days, butterfly farts are news.

    Next?
    Reply
  • shovel
    I used to work for a Telecoms company that tried this...

    We had to power up the PC & log into the lan, then log into about 20 or more systems - it took an average of 10-20 minutes if the lan was running ok, the record was 50 mins... As we were in a call centre environmnet, our boss tried to get us to come in 30 mins before our "start time" so we'd be ready to go when our shift started. This would be unpaid time of course... then he tried to get us to log out & shut down in our own time as well (this could take another 10-15 minutes, because the systems ware crap.)

    So he wanted us (over 100 people)to spend about an extra hour at work every day unpaid... If your system did crash (often), then you had to go on your break (which you lost) while you sat there rebooting & logging back in.

    Of course, he always arrived late, went early & was never accountable for anything...

    Needless to say, this company (which I no longer work for) is going down the tubes...
    Reply
  • one-shot
    I have a similar experience in a call center environment. We were actually given six minutes at the start, and after lunch to sign in to five systems. Some systems we had to sign in to while on calls because it so long to access everything. +1 to Justice. Now, lets just see it Prevail!
    Reply
  • turbolover22
    tHIS KIND OF $#!7 tHIS KIND OF $#!7 DOESN'T SURPRISE ME AT ALL. My COMPANY THAT i WORK FOR RIGHT NOW HAS SOMEONE THAT WALKS AROUND WATCHING TO SEE HOW MUCH TIME PEOPLE SPEND ON THE INTERNET. Talk about wasted productivity. nOT TOO LONG AGO i GOT IN TROUBLE FOR ONLY HAVING 38.5 HOURS BEING PHYSICALLY INSIDE THE BUILDING., EVEN THOUGH i AM A SALARIED EMPLOYEE. i HOPE THAT NOBODY FROM MY WORK READS THIS SITE BECAUSE IF THEY SEE MY NEXT COMMENT THEY MAY ACTUALLY TRY TO IMPLEMENT IT. A couple of us were joking the other day that pretty soon we will have to scan our badges before we can go into the bathroom. Then scan them when we come back out. Any time that was spent inside would have to be made up by staying late.


    The text box isn't scrolling properly and I can't see anything that I type so I apologize for any spelling errors.DOESN'T SURPRISE ME AT ALL. mY COMPANY THAT i WORK FOR RIGHT NOW HAS SOMEONE THAT WALKS AROUND WATCHING TO SEE HOW MUCH TIME PEOPLE SPEND ON THE INTERNET. nOT TOO LONG AGO i GOT IN TROUBLE FOR ONLY HAVING 38.5 HOURS BEING PHYSICALLY INSIDE THE BUILDING., EVEN THOUGH i AM A SALARIED EMPLOYEE. i HOPE THAT NOBODY FROM MY WORK READS THIS SITE BECAUSE IF THEY SEE MY NEXT COMMENT THEY MAY ACTUALLY TRY TO IMPLEMENT IT.
    Reply
  • afrobacon
    the bad part is that they'll probably get away with it...

    my boss tried that out for a little while, some of us complained, some were too afraid to say anything about it for fear of losing their job; but the majority of us found that if were getting paid less we might as well work less. needless to say production went down more than 25%; the system didn't stay in place more than a couple weeks.
    Reply