I'm sure I've seen some /. article asking this question, but I'm too lazy to find a link, and my readership is small but sufficiently geeky that I'm sure someone will track it down and post it. Here's my take on it, fresh from IRC:
Note: Read the comments I'm wrong about what “exempt” means.
<> yeah, but at least you get paid to waste your time..
* gr is salaried.
<> So, uh, not really. :^>
<> (salaried means tax exempt, means no overtime in PA… at least, not legally)
<> tax exempt?
<> The employer is exempted from paying certain taxes they have to cover for hourly employees (and gets bonuses from the state).
<> Not bonuses… the state soaks up the loss in tax revenue.
<> as far as overtime, that should be a federal issue, not a state one.
<> Because the idea is that a salaried job is more secure than an hourly one, and so the state wants to encourage those.
<> I mean, you're not hourly, but there should be a limit to the number of hours you are expected to work.
<> expected=forced..
<> There SHOULD be, but there really isn't any legislation in place about that.
<> And, in any case, employment laws are precisely not the fed. gov't's affair.
<> uhm yeah I would think there is, there is some sort of 1936 or so job law.. my mom used to reference it all the time
<> that's state business they're supposed to stay the fuck out of, since it doesn't affect interstate commerce
* would probably want that law overturned.
* *is* a (Civil) Libertarian.
<> I don't like not getting paid, but I think it should be controlled (and changed) at the state level.
<> Anyway, my salary affords my living comfortably, single, paying rent.
<> So I'm not really in a place of justified complaint.
<> right, I would just suggest looking into it, if you were seriously being forced into major major overtime hours
<> Dude, we're a 24/7 business and I'm one of two Unix sysadmins.
<> I'm on call every other week, “holidays” included.
<> Of COURSE I'm working major major overtime hours.
<> are you dissatisfied with that?
<> I'm not totally thrilled, but I'm not angry really.
<> Certainly not angry enough to antagonize my employer.
<> My attitude about this job is that it lets me (in fact, REQUIRES me) to play with shiny toys I don't have any hope of affording on my own.
<> Just as soon as the flow of new shiny toys stops or I get sick of playing, I'm outee.
<> Till then, I'm jes' fine. :^>
<> I hear what you're saying, but I've got better things to do in my free time than that research, at least for now.
<> This is, btw, what unions exist for.
<> unions? blech
<> I've been a member of a union before (AFTRA/SAG), and they handled this kind of thing wonderfully.
<> At some point, there WILL be an IT workers union.
<> But not until society recognizes that, when it comes down to it and the world really is fully networked (sooner than most people think), I'm effectively a Master Plumber.
<> maybe we should start that union.
<> A whole lot of IT workers would have to be really mistreated regularly for that to happen, much less to be necessary.
<> Not so very many are.
<> I'm certainly not. I get respect from people twice and beyond my age because of the things I know and consider to be trivial.
* notes that he will have to go through irclog for the stuff he's just written and turn it at least into a blog post.
<> There are probably some misguided Libertarians who'd say that labor unions are bad.
* will have to wait for a faster connection to scroll back and read
<> But those same Libertarians are idealistic about corporate behavior, something that no sane person with their head above the sand possibly could be.
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