Employees sue for unpaid Windows Vista overtime

[tezer]

A series of lawsuits have been brought against major US companies by staff claiming unpaid overtime based on the time it takes Windows Vista to start up and shut down.

The whole story at www.theregister.co.uk (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/20/windows_vista_overtime/)

[Thelasko]

Leave the machine on and write a script to log you in at the same time every day.

[tezer]

Or hire a man that comes before your day begins and switches on your Vista ;)

[aysiu]

This is a legitimate beef:
These systems are not activated until the user logs in, which is taking up to 15 minutes after the machine running Windows Vista has been turned on thanks to the long boot cycle. This means staff are in the office or shop but not officially working until they've logged in

This isn't:
And when it comes to shutting down, people are logging off but hanging about without pay as the PC goes through the equally long shut-down cycle. Why do you have to hang about until it finishes the shut-down cycle. Start the shut-down process and leave. You don't have to hang out for that.

[kerry_s]

Why do you have to hang about until it finishes the shut-down cycle. Start the shut-down process and leave. You don't have to hang out for that.

to make sure it actually turns off, it could hang, blue screen, reboot, etc... :lolflag:

[mentallaxative]

Why do you have to hang about until it finishes the shut-down cycle. Start the shut-down process and leave. You don't have to hang out for that.

I don't know about that particular work environment, but I guess they just want to make sure it's turned off properly and doesn't freeze or anything like that. At uni, I feel a little anxious if I have to leave before I can see that I logged off my account properly, because it might not finish properly and someone else can use it.

[Nano Geek]

This is a legitimate beef:Somehow I think that it will be hard convincing the court that 15 min. of "overtime" is justification to sue.

[Redache]

It's not attached to Windows Vista alone either though. Any Operating System can take a long time to boot up on a poorly configured network, Vista's being used just as something to have a go at as it's the number one thing to moan about now.

It is a valid thing to complain about though. If companies can't configure their networks properly, why should people show up early just to start their machines and not get paid for their time. As soon as you enter the office you should be on the clock as you've started work just by being there.

[aysiu]

Somehow I think that it will be hard convincing the court that 15 min. of "overtime" is justification to sue.
It's not 15 minutes.

It's a collection of a bunch of 15-minute blocks.

If you get paid by the hour, it doesn't make sense for them to have you show up 15 minutes earlier than your shift and not get paid for that 15 minutes.

I don't mind showing up 15 minutes early to work, as I get paid an annual salary.

But imagine if you work 250 days out of the year at that job. That's 62.5 hours you're spending a year waiting for Windows to boot up, and that's 62.5 hours you're not getting paid for. If you work, say, $8.50/hour, that adds up to $500 a year you're losing as an employee waiting for Windows to boot up. If you have 50 employees who are affected by this problem, that's $25,000.

So, yes, one employee waiting for 15 minutes one time is not worth suing over. But many employees waiting 15 minutes every day to have the clock start on an hourly job is a big deal.

There are several reasonable solutions to this after the lawsuit: Keep the machines on all the time. Don't shut them down. Time exactly how long it takes to boot up the machine and log in, and then automatically add that to the time logged by the program, as clearly the person had to be there to wait for the boot-up. Have one employee who isn't paid by the hour show up 15 minutes early and boot up all the machines so everyone else can show up on time instead of early. Stop using that stupid program and find a better way to track the hours people work. I don't think the problem is Vista's, though. I think the problem is the organization(s) using this time-tracking program. Any computer takes some time to boot up, after all.

[Sealbhach]

Somehow I think that it will be hard convincing the court that 15 min. of "overtime" is justification to sue.

It is. Especially when you have paid top dollar for an operating system. Especially when the makers have already made an OS that will not take as long .e.g. XP.

It was wrong to release Vista to the market and charge people money for it.


.

[Redache]

It was wrong to release Vista to the market and charge people money for it.

It's not just Vista though. It's to do with poor network configuration and badly written software. They should sort out their IT departments instead of saying "Blame Vista". I am not a supported of Microsoft at all but I think blaming Vista for problems that aren't related to it isn't fair. Ubuntu could be slow on a poorly configured network with 300 people logging on at the same time.

[Sealbhach]

It's not just Vista though. It's to do with poor network configuration and badly written software. They should sort out their IT departments instead of saying "Blame Vista". I am not a supported of Microsoft at all but I think blaming Vista for problems that aren't related to it isn't fair. Ubuntu could be slow on a poorly configured network with 300 people logging on at the same time.

It's not just a network thing though.

I had Vista on my home laptop and the bloody thing took up to 20 minutes to start up sometimes. I had to sit there like a dummy and look at "Please wait - configuring updates".




.

[aysiu]

I don't think the problem is Vista's, though. I think the problem is the organization(s) using this time-tracking program. Any computer takes some time to boot up, after all. Actually, I still believe the organization(s) involved need to own up to the problem, but still... why is Vista taking 15 minutes to boot. I've gotten some pretty slow boot times out of Ubuntu, but 15 minutes?! That's crazy. The most I've seen for a boot time in the last ten years for any operating system is 3 minutes.

[Redache]

Actually, I still believe the organization(s) involved need to own up to the problem, but still... why is Vista taking 15 minutes to boot. I've gotten some pretty slow boot times out of Ubuntu, but 15 minutes?! That's crazy. The most I've seen for a boot time in the last ten years for any operating system is 3 minutes.

It's a matter of scale really. If you imagine a poorly configured network serving say 400 Users who all start at 9:00 in the Morning. 400 users logging on to a single, poorly configured domain would end up taking an absolute age to boot up. They could go the easy route and just buy new software that doesn't freak out at this point though.

It can also be that the Software is incompatible with their Network configuration. It's hard to say what could cause 15 minute boot times, I think they'll have to start looking at the IT Staff :).

[Bruce M.]

I agree about with waiting for the shut down process, it might have a problem and not shut down properly. The company could come back on you if something happens after that.

So it's not just 15 minutes a day, it's a half an hour a day equalling two and a half hours per week. What would happen if a computer has a crash and IT takes two hours to fix it? Do you get paid?
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Put a time clock by the door, you come in you punch in, and punch out before leaving.
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Just a thought.
Bruce

[smoker]

it sounds like it is the actual application that records the employees time-keeping that is at fault here, i would imagine there would be some way to set it up to make allowances for such a thing as boot up and shut down times. sometimes though it is the employer that is at fault, maybe they expect their employees to come in early and leave late unpaid!

saying that, the employees should maybe get a bonus for having to use vista in the first place :-)