You always hear the phase “9 to 5” and also the song with the same name. Assuming you include 1 hour worth of breaks (30 minute lunch and two 15 minute breaks), you’re only working for 7 hours a day which comes up to 35 hours a week.

Now it feels like you have to work 8 hours a day (for a total of 40 hours of actual work), plus your other time off meaning you’re really there for 9 hours each day (for a total of 45 hours). Am i looking at that wrong, or did expected times change, and if so, when?

  • gdog05@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    In the US, you’re lucky if you get paid for the hours you work. And many don’t get all of their hours paid.

    • Kaboom@reddthat.com
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      14 days ago

      In the US, it’s Salary, not Hourly. It’s not “getting paid for the time”, you get paid for doing the job you agreed to do.

      • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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        14 days ago

        Most salaried workers are written up if they fail to work 8+ hours. Salaried is now just a method to deny people overtime - fancied salaried workers may still operate in the intended way but even most developers I know have to obey some sort of time tracking method.

      • totallynotaspy@fedia.io
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        14 days ago

        That’s just salaried folks though. The vast majority of american workers are hourly or contractors. Per the Dept of Labor’s own site:

        The Wage and Hour Division is dedicated to protecting and enhancing the welfare of the nation’s workforce with a focus on low-wage, underserved workers. In fiscal year 2023, we successfully recovered over $274 million in back wages and damages for more than 163,000 workers nationwide.

        Wage theft is when employers don’t properly pay their employees and is a HUGE problem because it isn’t always out of malevolence, it can be as simple as the time clock not properly computing overtime, etc.

        If you don’t think that $274 million is large amount, think about how the vast majority of these things never get reported to the authorities; that number should be higher.

        Source for quote: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/data