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Sean University: Overtime You'll Learn

by Sean Adams

Time is money. That’s why people sell clocks and not just give them away. But today’s lesson isn’t about buying clocks; it’s about buying the stuff that clocks tell you about, hours.

The standard workday is 8 hours long. Of course, this varies from workplace to workplace. Here at the Sean Adams University of Business Management Development Leadership, for example, the workday is usually around 27 hours long (but that number is a little misleading, since we use a calendar where a week consists of only two days: Muesday and Thwaterday). Still, 8 hours is how employees generally expect to work each day.

What happens, then, when the day ends but there’s more work to do? You can’t just leave it there, so you’ll have to ask your employees to stay late, which means more time, which means more money. This is called overtime pay.

But hold on! Don’t go throwing money at employees willy-nilly! It’s not as simple as “Here’s some money, now work more.” Overtime pay is a complicated thing. That’s why we’ve compiled this list of commonly asked overtime pay questions and answers:

Do you pay the same amount per hour for overtime pay as you do for regular pay?

No. Overtime pay should be higher than normal pay. Not too much higher, just a little bit. Like, if a full day’s pay were a candy bar, you wouldn’t have give someone an additional candy bar for each hour extra they stayed in the office. You would give them a candy bar for the day and then a wink per overtime hour. Or a wink token, so they could retrieve their wink later if they wanted to. (It’s their wink. You gave it to them. They can do what they want with it.)

Does everyone have to pay overtime pay?

No! There are several ways to get around paying overtime. The most common one is to hire people to salaried positions. This means you don’t pay hourly; instead you give employees a set amount of money for the year in small installments every two weeks. Though only a letter off, “salaried positions” are way different than “caloried positions” which are jobs where most of the work is eating.

That sounds complicated. Are there any other ways to avoid paying overtime?

Sure thing! First, find an office with no windows. Second, institute a dress code that doesn’t allow watches. Then, hang some broken clocks around the office with post-it notes on them that say, “out of order: clock repair guy notified.” Until the clock repair guy comes, your employees will have to wait for you to tell them they can leave, so you can make the day as long as you need. (Hint: the clock guy isn’t coming.)

I ordered my eggs overtime once, but they came out really rubbery and overcooked. How do I avoid that in the future?

You can’t cook eggs overtime. The thing thing you're thinking of with eggs is called “over easy.”

So? How do I avoid them being rubbery?

This is a business lesson. We’re not going to talk about eggs here.

When can I expect a lesson about eggs?

Never.

Ugh. Lame. I’m out.

*Sigh* I hate when it ends like this.

Well, that’s pretty much overtime in a nutshell, but if you have any questions that fall out of the nutshell, feel free to post them in the comments!