Slacker tip #10 - Be a time clock master
Cheating the time clock is the easiest way to get paid for doing nothing. And by this I do not mean writing down different times if you keep a hand-written time sheet. I’m talking about that silly employers that round the time.
If you are a temp, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. Every temp agency that I have ever worked for (Ajilon, AccounTemps, Office Team, Kelly Services, Spherion, Snelling, ManPower….and there’s more I’ve worked with but can’t remember their names) have this nifty little sentence on your timesheet….Round your time to the nearest quarter hour using .00, .25, .50 or .75. This is so glorious. There are also places that use an actual time clock that rounds like this. I’ve encountered this on punch timeclocks and timeclocks that are on a computer.
What companies don’t realize is that you can use this to your advantage. Why, just today I left work at 2:08 p.m., and thanks to the glory of rounding I get to put 2:15 p.m. on my timesheet. When I take my lunch, I “officially” clock out at 12:54 pm and clock back in at 1:37, and with rounding that makes it 1:00 - 1:30 for my lunch. But, with a recent post you already know that I really take about 2 hours for “lunch” on any given day of “work.”
Basically, if you only apply this to your morning and afternoon clock in/out times, you will be able to get paid for seven minutes before you arrive to work and seven minutes after you leave from work per day - which is fourteen minutes per work day. That’s over one hour per work week, which is over 60 hours a year - and we likey getting paid for nothing.
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