Two dates in North Dakota.
3/07/2009 Casa Del Kotex - Indianapolis, IN w/Cough
3/09/2009 Subterranean - Chicago, IL w/Battlefields, Irepress
3/10/2009 Borg Ward - Milwaukee, WI w/Battlefields, Irepress
3/12/2009 The Aquarium - Fargo, ND w/Battlefields, Irepress
3/13/2009 The Red Barn - Williston, ND w/Irepress
Who books this stuff?!?
The subject of Technical Writers as hourly employees v. salary employees reared its ugly head on Techwr-l. Beelia brought it up when she posted:
You all may remember that a tech writer sued Sun Micro, contending that she had not been paid for all hours worked.
Now it appears this has gone to class action:
http://schubertlawfirm.com/practice-areas/technical-writers.html
There has been some discussion on this topic before, but now that writers are being solicited to join the class action suit, I think it would be a good idea to re-open the question.
I personally do not want to be an hourly employee, and I think this is step backwards for our profession.
What do you all think?
Bee
Suzette Leeming replied in part:
On the one hand, I prefer to be deemed a professional and paid salary for a set number of hours. If a few extra hours are needed occasionally to satisfy a deadline, that's part of the job.
On the other hand, I am seeing more and more companies take advantage of their staff (not just techwriters) and expecting them to work ridiculous hours, without extra pay. Sometimes this is because of reduced staffing trying to maintain the same amount of output, but sometimes it's because a company is reluctant to increase their staffing levels even though the
workload has increased. And, why should they, if they can get an existing staff member, as a salaried employee, to work 50%+ more hours for no additional pay.
To which Milan Davidovic <http://altmilan.blogspot.com/> quipped, "That wouldn't be possible unless we agreed to it."
And that seems true. Yes, I have over 1000 hours of work sitting on my desk. Yes, it's even scheduled out through the first week of September. And yes, I have a new name for my list, courtesy of Sue Heim, a member of the HATT list. She saw an edited copy with nothing but project numbers and the assigned week and called it a "List of Things to Do Before You Die" list.
Despite my work amounting to a "Bucket List," I am convinced I can complete the majority of my work by June 1st if I dedicate myself to doing so. This means that when I am not working @ work, I should be working @ home and attempting to clear items from my list. Whether I actually fulfill this ideal and am able to complete the majority of items by June 1st seems a worthy goal. However, reality is that my evenings are tied up with other priorities and, frankly, I don't know if I would be able to keep up with the demands of this type of schedule post June 1. I think it is one thing to expend a lot of effort to get caught up - it is another thing to keep that amount of effort continuous in an effort to NOT get that far behind again.
But, frankly, the whole reason why I am in the situation I am in is that I am doing two full-time positions. We need to hire someone, we won't, so I will continue to have two jobs for the immediate (thinking through 12/31/09) future.
Finally, as I assemble this post while the kids are getting ready for school:
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Starr
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2009 6:00 PM
To: 'techwr-l List'
Subject: Re: Converting space-aligned text
Microsoft Word
Do a search for
I never knew that was possible! I will have to remember that for the future...
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