Quote:
Originally Posted by synthia
I've worked for two of the biggest accounting firms, and the generous vacation time is usually compensation for unpaid overtime. So people were offered jobs with two weeks vacation and a pretty-much guaranteed month of 'comp time', because there is really no way to get through a year without putting in 160 hours extra, and usually lots more. There were rumours about a lot of them stopping paid overtime at the entry levels, since they were about the only companies who still did that for professional staff. For IT people there is actually an exemption in the law that says, essentially, that even though you would be eligible for paid overtime in other fields, in computer work, you aren't.
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I certainly wouldn't disagree with that. There is a lot of unpaid overtime that all professional staff (including IT professionals) have to stomach for their 30 - 35 days of holiday (in addition to around 10 public holidays).
I am however not convinced that the back office IT guys work anything like the overtime suffered by client facing professional staff.
I also don't believe that this situation would be any different in other industries that have the standard vacation allowance, what with the American obsesion with "face time".