Assume that I am paid an hourly wage ($10, just for ease of figuring). I miss one day of work, limiting me to 32 hours one week instead of the usual 40. Assuming time and a half in overtime, how many hours would I have to work the next week to make up for the 8 hours missed the week before?
40 + 8/1.5 = 45.3333
If you missed one day of work, you lost $10 an hour for 8 hours, or $80.
To make it up next week, you’ll have to work x hours making $15 an hour, so that you earn the lost $80:
15x = 80, so x = 5 hours, 20 minutes (exactly two thirds of the time you originally missed).
I agree that 45.333 hours is the correct answer. But let’s get realistic: will an employer allow it under normal conditions?
Let’s say Bob & Joe are co-workers, and both make $10/hour + 1.5X OT. Joe worked two 40-hour weeks and earned $800. During the same time period, Bob worked 32 hours the first week and 45.333 hours the second week. Bob worked less hours for the same amount of money, bringing his effective pay to $10.34/hr. Using this same strategy, Bob takes an entire week off without pay, then works 66.667 hours the next week. Bob’s making out like a bandit; his effective rate is now $12/hr.!
yep, Crafter_Man, that’s the way it works.
In our plant, folks will often pull a Saturday (1.5x) and a Sunday (2x) and take the rest of the week off, or take a 4-day weekend the following work week. If one goes over 8 hrs on Sunday, he’s bumped up to the coveted TRIPLE TIME, and can sip coffee and hum a happy tune as the nickels and dimes clatter away in his mental soundtrack. It’s a supply-and-demand/seniority gig. If you want the work, it’s there. If you’re top dog, you get the shift.
There was something like this on “ER”: Carol was trying to save the nursing department from laying off a nurse. She saw that her nurses were working 3 12-hour shifts a week, but got paid time-and-a-half for hours over 8 worked in any 24-hour period.
So they were getting 3*(8+4*1.5) = 42 hours worth of pay for only 36 hours of work. Carol then suggested they work 5 8-hour shifts. The department would save 5% on wages, which would save her from eliminating a position.
Greedy nurses didn’t like that idea. 