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| Early Thirsty! |
Remember the obnoxious Lead Tutor that I wrote about earlier this summer? Well, we have a new Lead Tutor now, so I've decided to work in the tutoring center.
Unfortunately, there are a few trade-offs. I will share one of them, and then ask for your input.
They want me to work 4 hours on Tuesdays. However, I am not allowed to clock-in until students actually show up. If students leave early and the center is empty, then I must clock out. But regardless, I must stay the entire time even if I am clocked-out.
If they are going to clock me out, then maybe I'll just go home.
Q: What are your thoughts on this?
Honestly, it sounds like a good gig. You eat a few bon-bons, you catch up on People Magazine, you lock the door, and in the end you don't get paycheck for negative money.
ReplyDeletethat's ridiculous
My thoughts? Fuck. Them. You have to show up but you can't "clock in" until students do? WTF? You have to "clock out" when the last student leaves? How do you know it's the last student? Do you have to clock in and out if the last student leaves during your watch and then another comes in fifteen minutes later?
ReplyDeleteYou work for miserly assholes, and if you put up with that bullshit it will just encourage them to keep doling it out. They need to pay you for all four hours.
Here's my off-the-cuff suggestion: you tell them you will be in in your office / hovel / ditch by the road with your cell phone. When students come up, they can call you and have you come clock in. When the students leave, you clock out and go back.
ReplyDelete"Oh," they'll say, "that's no good. That means we would have to hire someone to do nothing but sit there waiting for students." And then you stare at them until they get the point. Well, at least in an ideal world.
Good luck!
I am not sure... but I think this might be illegal. A violation of wage and hour laws...
ReplyDeleteI agree with New England Natalie. If you are an hourly employee and required to be at work, I think the employer has to compensate you for being there regardless of whether any customers, er, students show up. You're not being paid on commission by the number of students you tutor, after all.
ReplyDeleteCheck in your HR department. There should be a poster somewhere at your college that spells out your rights as an employee. This seems to fall under the whole "engaged to wait" concept. Here's a link to the DOL that explains it:
http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs22.pdf
I'm with New England Natalie, too. This can't be legal.
ReplyDeleteDitto what the others said. If they're paying you by the hour, then they're paying for the hours that you are slated to avail yourself. Someone needs a refresher on basic labor codes. I don't think you'd have a hard time pointing that out. Fuck it, don't point out anything, just clock in for four hours, and clock out at the end.
ReplyDelete....But it's certainly asinine.
ReplyDeleteI pay my babysitter for the time my kids are asleep, and for time I spend chatting with her before I leave. That's because I'm paying her for the time she has had to take out of her day, and all the other things she might have been doing, in order to come and sit in my house with the kids.
ReplyDeleteI agree: has to be illegal, and even if you live in a state with hideous labour laws (if you do, please tell me which state so I can add it to my growing list of places I will never visit or buy anything from), it is immoral. Do not accept these terms.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
ReplyDeleteDamn. Clock in and clock out 4 hours later. You're not "on call," and if you are, you should get a pager and freedom to roam.
ReplyDeleteI agree, this can't be legal.
It also makes no sense: supposing that students leave at 3 pm and you clock out but have to stay. If a student comes at 3:30, do you clock back in?
At the college I teach at the tutoring center requires students to only get paid for times they actually have a student to tutor. For example, if your scheduled for four one-hour slots and only two of those slots had students, you only got paid for the two hours. I think that is ridiculous. But at the very least if there are no students scheduled, the tutor can leave the center.
ReplyDeleteSo Cynical Optimist clues us in to the fact that this shizzit is going on elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteIf the tutoring center goes for spells when it's not operational because students (who totally need it, and we know they are numerous) aren't showing up, they ought to shut it down. OR all those kids whose GPAs are hurting should be forced to check in and attend. You know, in the interest of retention.
Either way...pay the fucking tutors.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty common for tutoring centers to get to pay tutors for times when they are just sitting on their butts doing nothing. It's also common practice to have tutors visit classrooms, design posters, and go out and help drum up business during this time (or take care of other day to day tasks in the center) so that those empty slots will get filled.
ReplyDeleteI was replying to Great Lakes Greta, but Dr. Cranky beat me to the punch.
ReplyDeleteJesus Herbert. What a clusterfuck. Do. Not. Accept. This. Bullshit.
ReplyDeleteI wish I could be angry--for I should be. But this is sad. Most likely your school promises excellent tutoring services on its web page--especially in the admissions/recruiting pages--while the money guys are looking to save a coin or two. I just realized why this makes me sad: it reminds me of where I teach. I hope no one yet here reads CM--doing this would seem like an idea to try here. Actually here's a scary thought: some VP reads CM for money-saving ideas: look for the complaints and do what the CM crowd is whining about. Now, I'm really sad.
ReplyDelete@EMH: Give us the GPS coordinates for this so-called tutoring center so that Strel can fucking bomb the shit out of it with one of his surplus Soviet ICBMs in the middle of the night.
ReplyDeleteTotal bullshit. I had a tutoring gig for athletes in grad school. They were required to go to study hall. The tutors were in small rooms down the hall. We tutors all got real good at playing card games. And got paid for every minute.
ReplyDeleteJust tell the students that if they come in during your time there, then you will due their homework for free to them ;). Then do the work really, really slowly. You should have a line out the door by the time 4PM rolls around.
ReplyDeleteMy experience as a writing center tutor was similar to those described above: if we were staffing walk-in hours, we were paid for he same for waiting (and perhaps doing some secretarial/administrative, handout creation, or professional development-type activities) as for actually tutoring. I've also worked in systems where all appointments were scheduled, and we were called in for particular appointments (usually involving a regular schedule plus the possibility of being offered additional work when things got busy). In that case, we were paid for the full scheduled time even if the student was a no-show (we might have had the option of doing the alternative work, in which case we were paid, *or* leaving after a defined period of time, in which case we weren't; I don't remember for sure).
ReplyDeleteI, too, think that what EMH describes is probably illegal. I'd make discreet inquiries with the an appropriate enforcement officer and/or an ombudsperson (who will usually investigate while preserving confidentiality) within the university, and, if that doesn't work and it's a state school (and maybe even if it isn't), talk to a state-level elected representative (or, more likely, a member of his/her staff) and/or the appropriate state-level enforcement office about the problem. This is probably a case where walking into offices (or making appointments) and talking to people, rather than writing letters or emails, might be the best way to call attention to the problem without being too closely associated with the problem through a paper trail.
EMH, I can't add anything better than what everyone has said. But geez, you've sure gotten more than your share of Misery over the last few months. If we were competing along the lines of "Queen for a Day" -- whoever has the most horrendous tale of woe wins -- you might just win. I'm so sorry.
ReplyDelete