Computer Programmer Overtime: All in a Day's Pay

Farifax, VA"A normal work week for us programmers was around 60 to 70 hours," says Dan Graves. "This company gave us all supervisor titles so they wouldn't have to pay overtime - but the only supervising we did was on ourselves."

"I worked many overtime hours and never got paid - I was a worker, not a supervisor," says Graves. "These companies try to give you a title that is not your actual job. They do this so overtime wouldn't apply to your classification; if you are in management, you are considered exempt. In my job description, I was hired as a computer engineer. Four of us maintained a data center for University Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio and we were all regular line workers.

My normal week was at least six days a week - I am not exaggerating and I have my time sheets as evidence. We were on call all the time; it just got outrageous because you could never put in enough hours but we never got anything from them either, not even a thank you. We were just paid the salary of a five-day week. When I asked my supervisor about paying overtime he just said 'We need you to do more right now because we are short of people'. But that was the same excuse over and over again.

I told him that they couldn't drive us into the ground. I don't mind working but I want to get paid when I do. As for overtime, we weren't authorized because we were all supervisors - supervising ourselves - what a joke!

And as far as I know, this company is still getting away with it. I was glad to get out of there -- I found another job in another city. My co-workers complained too but they didn't have the guts to get up and walk out - everybody was frustrated by these hours.

But wait, it gets worse! After we worked an 8 or 10 hour day, we would have to do maintenance work at home. It would be rotated amongst the four of us - every four weeks I would have to do this 'at home' shift. That would take another 4-6 hours every evening and you had to furnish your own equipment to do the "9pm work" as my employer called it. We never got reimbursed for the many thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment either. They try to get us much as they can for the least amount of money. They don't give a damn about you as a person.

I worked for this company for about 18 months. My salary was $80,000 and should have been based on a 40-hour work week, but in reality it was really $30,000 because anything over 40 has to be time and a half. I haven't calculated exactly what they owe, but I do know that it's a whole bunch.... I want to bill them for overtime but I'm not sure how to do this so that's when I decided to take legal action."