Fired from job of two months...

Not because of technicality but because of personal missing element. What to do now? Living with in laws, married with 5 month old daughter.

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thomas_

I agree. However, consulting with a lawyer on what's going on to become aware of what my rights are and suing my employer for violation of those rights are two different things. If I consult with a lawyer and I learn that they are in fact right about the situation, then a lot of bitterness about my perceived injustice goes away.

However, if I learn that I am in the right and that I do have a case against my employer, that still doesn't mean I have to sue them. I probably wouldn't sue them for all of the reasons you mentioned. However, consulting with a lawyer and making sure I have a solid legal ground can help if I wanted to approach my employer and start a discussion about getting the proper compensation I'm entitled to as provided by the law and case law. Consulting with a lawyer can also assist in avoiding future employment situations where my rights may be violated.

Just because someone dinged my reputation for "strawman agreements"(I'm not even sure if there is even such a thing or if they meant to type "strawman arguments"...

Reference[pdf]: https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/fs17d_professional.pdf

“Work requiring advanced knowledge” means work which is predominantly intellectual in character, and whichincludes work requiring the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment. Professional work is thereforedistinguished from work involving routine mental, manual, mechanical or physical work. A professionalemployee generally uses the advanced knowledge to analyze, interpret or make deductions from varying facts orcircumstances. Advanced knowledge cannot be attained at the high school level.

What's considered to be routine mental work? If someone has only graduated high school, but has attained a CCIE is that knowledge considered "advanced knowledge"? If someone passes the CCIE while they are in high school(however improbable that may be), is that considered advanced knowledge?

Iristheangel wrote: »

An employee with total annual compensation of at least $100,000 is deemed exempt under section 13(a)(1) of the Act if the employee customarily and regularly performs any one or more of the exempt duties or responsibilities of an executive, administrative or professional employee identified in subparts B, C or D of this part

There have been updated rules that go into effect December 1st, 2016, one of which covers the highly compensated employee:

https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/final2016/overtime-factsheet.htm

[h=3]* Key Provisions of the Final Rule *[/h]The Final Rule focuses primarily on updating the salary and compensation levels needed for EAP workers to be exempt. Specifically, the Final Rule:
Sets the standard salary level at the 40th percentile of earnings of full-time salaried workers in the lowest-wage Census Region, currently the South, which is $913 per week or $47,476 annually for a full-year worker;

Sets the total annual compensation requirement for highly compensated employees (HCE) subject to a minimal duties test to the annual equivalent of the 90th percentile of full-time salaried workers nationally, which is $134,004; and

Establishes a mechanism for automatically updating the salary and compensation levels every three years to maintain the levels at the above percentiles and to ensure that they continue to provide useful and effective tests for exemption.

Additionally, the Final Rule amends the salary basis test to allow employers to use nondiscretionary bonuses and incentive payments (including commissions) to satisfy up to 10 percent of the new standard salary level. The Final Rule makes no changes to the duties tests.

According to Final Rule 2, you could make more than $100,000 and less than $134,004 and not be considered a highly compensated employee.

Another interesting quote from the page:

The effect of the 2004 Final Rule’s pairing of a standard duties test based on the short duties test (for higher paid employees) with a salary test based on the long test (for lower paid employees) was to exempt from overtime many lower paid workers who performed few EAP duties and whose work was otherwise indistinguishable from their overtime-eligible colleagues. This has resulted in the inappropriate classification of employees as EAP exempt who pass the standard duties test but would have failed the long duties test.

thomas_

@iBrokeIT: That is actually the one I was referring to in my first post. It doesn't matter if you are getting paid more than the minimum amount that they set if your duties do not consist of what was listed as duties of exempt computer employees.

What?! You May Have to Pay Your IT Employees Overtime?! - The EmpLAWyerologist Firm

Iristheangel

thomas_ wrote: »

Just because someone dinged my reputation for "strawman agreements"(I'm not even sure if there is even such a thing or if they meant to type "strawman arguments"...

According to Final Rule 2, you could make more than $100,000 and less than $134,004 and not be considered a highly compensated employee.

The GoogleFu is strong in you :P

Wasn't me that dinged you. I'm not going to for having a civil discussion.

Doesn't matter anyways because the job I was jokingly referring to Fmitas working pays more than $134K anyways.

You can have a discussion with your employer about laws and what you feel is fair. If you want to pay for legal consultation just so you can have that discussion, it's a free country. There's also a possibility your employer won't care will tell you that you're wrong and you'll either have to make the decision to sue or move on. If you sue, there might be more repercussions whether you win or lose. Ultimately, you have to decide what is right for you. There's a possibility they will comply and never let you move up because they see you as a legal risk. I'm not one to split hairs - I'm fairly compensated and I get compensated even more when I work harder as part of my bonus system.

As far as "advanced knowledge," may of us engineers on this forum have degrees as well as advanced degrees. Maybe of us have certifications, specialized skills, making 6-figures+, work in network administration, etc. I'm not sure what part of IT you're talking about robbing you. Are you talking about a network engineer with a BS degree making 6-figures or are you talking about a desktop support guy making $30K a year? Would you include benefits in that factor of "annual compensation" as well - this is important in a legal aspect because you could be getting $90K a year but when you add all your benefits together, the compensation is actually higher than $134K. If you look at the wording to the document you linked, it talks about salary and compensation differently.

http://www.hr.wa.gov/CompClass/JobClassesSalaries/Pages/TotalCompensation.aspx

Iristheangel

Found a decent little "total compensation" calculator to give a rough estimate on the "true cost" of an employee in terms of this conversation.
https://www.calcxml.com/calculators/total-compensation

These are the values I used:

Salary - $90,000
Vacation Days - 25 (this is what I was getting when I was making $50K a year)
Paid Holidays - 7
Sick days - 10
Paid breaks in minutes in a day - 20 minutes
Worker's Compensation - 3.5%
Unemployment Insurance - 3%
Monthly medical for a family of 4 - $1250/month
Disability per month - $37.84
Dental per month - $41.00
Life insurance per month - $30
Employer compensation for 6% for 401K
EAP program - $14/month
Tuition reimbursement + Training classes - $6,000 for tuition reimbursement and $4,000 for one company-paid training class
Gym Membership - $30/month

Summary1.JPG

Summary2.JPG

techfiend

I don't understand how paid days off count as compensation unless they pay someone additional money to cover.

Is medical and dental insurance really that high in places?

Iristheangel

Because if you don't use your PTO days and you quit (unless you hit a cap and stop accruing them), you get paid on those days even though you didn't work them. They do count as compensation.

As far as insurance, yes. The number I used was the average annual premiums for health insurance in 2015 per kff.org's report. http://kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2015-section-one-cost-of-health-insurance/
I actually went lower than the average for health insurance which was $17,400 - I thought $15,000 would be conservative. As far as dental, it usually $326/year for an employee or $667/year for a family. I went a bit conservative as you can see

techfiend

I can see PTO being considered compensation in that regard. I wish I could exchange mine for compensation instead of being forced to take more than a month off or lose it.

Dental seems about right. Medical must be really inexpensive here. My plan last year was about $5000, this year around $6500 for an individual HSA counting the deductible. I pay about a third of that and count the HSA as an additional investment at this point.

Iristheangel

Depends on which insurance and the size of your family. I went with the whole "average family of 4" size. If you're paying individual insurance, you probably fit into the norm if you're paying $5000-6500

dave330i

Iristheangel wrote: »

Oh, I don't care about the politics aspect so no issue there

The job I was referring to in my original sarcastic post pays much more than $50K anyways. I don't think if you make under $50K it is fair to exempt you from overtime in my honest opinion.

I was making ~$30k my first job out of college, but was classified as exempt so no OT. Few years later I was making ~$100k base, but classified as non-exempt so 1.5 OT.