@treasureuptheword I could just as easily say that’s unlikely.
College Son Calls It Life Hacking
- Thread starter megkh22
- Start date
treasureuptheword
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@treasureuptheword An answer I can respect.
beauty4ashes13
New member
@megkh22 It likely has to do with rounding rules on the time clock, and it keeps the business from getting fined for shorting people’s pay.
For clock in, 1:29 is probably rounded back to 1:00, and 2:31 rounded forward to 3:00. It’s a pretty generous rounding rule, maybe they haven’t noticed it because a) they don’t really care and b) no one has abused it to date.
Is it ethical for him to do this? No. Character is who you are when no one is looking. Are they likely to crack down on it? Only if it leads to a significant increase in their cost without seeing the benefit of that labor. I doubt anyone will raise this unless he starts telling everyone to do this and the call center doesn’t actually have coverage. If he keeps it to himself he may skate through.
When I did payroll, my rounding rules were based on 15 minute increments; I know other businesses that have their time clocks rounded based on 5 minute increments. It depends on how sophisticated your payroll system is and how much math you have to do. Mine was paper-based so I hated having to do the math manually.
For clock in, 1:29 is probably rounded back to 1:00, and 2:31 rounded forward to 3:00. It’s a pretty generous rounding rule, maybe they haven’t noticed it because a) they don’t really care and b) no one has abused it to date.
Is it ethical for him to do this? No. Character is who you are when no one is looking. Are they likely to crack down on it? Only if it leads to a significant increase in their cost without seeing the benefit of that labor. I doubt anyone will raise this unless he starts telling everyone to do this and the call center doesn’t actually have coverage. If he keeps it to himself he may skate through.
When I did payroll, my rounding rules were based on 15 minute increments; I know other businesses that have their time clocks rounded based on 5 minute increments. It depends on how sophisticated your payroll system is and how much math you have to do. Mine was paper-based so I hated having to do the math manually.
@beauty4ashes13 Yeah my first job rounded to the nearest 15 minutes. This one seems like it rounds to the nearest hour. My current job rounds to the nearest minute.
@beauty4ashes13 God, y'all did paper payroll with 5 minute increments?!? Ffs, make it 6 and divide the hour by 10.
beauty4ashes13
New member
@juan08861 No, no... my paper payroll was 15 minutes. The 5 minute ones were timeclocks and auto-calculated.
@megkh22 Surprising that he is paid the same amount for 61 minutes as he is for 119 minutes of work. Accounting will find it if it is abused enough to land on a manager's monthly budget. If your son can swing a few 80-90 minute shifts, that would soften the scrutiny on him if and when the timecards ARE audited.
onlybyhisgraceandlove
New member
@megkh22 I’ve been accidentally overpaid before. While it wasn’t my error and a little different than the above described, it would not surprise me if they expect repayment when they audit. Your son has obviously figured out the loop hole and the continued pattern of doing it is going to flag itself as something he knew about, so he won’t have cover of benefit of the doubt. “Gen Z life hacking” sounds like a new way to package “I’m a dumb and overconfident kid”. He’s in the fuck around stage, find out is likely coming.
angelmtz1992
New member
@onlybyhisgraceandlove How could they prove this was intentional, though? If the kid hadn't noticed they were getting paid 2 hours for 61 minutes, but kept working 61 minute shifts regardless, it'd still benefit them just the same without the same ethical dilemma. Lots of people never even look at their paycheck, if the school turned around and said "you owe us money back" and the kid could honestly say "I have no idea what you're talking about" then all of reddit would be on the kids side. The main problem is the kid said something about the exploit lol.
Maybe the school shouldn't have such a dogshit time clock system, and should instead update their systems so they're no more than half the age of their current student population? The damn thing sounds ANCIENT
Maybe the school shouldn't have such a dogshit time clock system, and should instead update their systems so they're no more than half the age of their current student population? The damn thing sounds ANCIENT
hillsong2014
New member
@angelmtz1992 Once they see that he clocks in and out at those specific times every time he has an hour shift, they will conclude it was intentional.
tinytaytay
New member
@megkh22 It’s unethical if the exploitation is intentional.
I’m no legal or payroll or company expert, but I think once this unravels the biggest thing the company will try to figure out is if your son intended to game the system. Many people accidentally game the system, but a few intentionally game the system and that’s beginning line of exploitation/fraud
I’m no legal or payroll or company expert, but I think once this unravels the biggest thing the company will try to figure out is if your son intended to game the system. Many people accidentally game the system, but a few intentionally game the system and that’s beginning line of exploitation/fraud
christmasismyfavorite
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jesusandusin2023
New member
@megkh22
You obviously haven't worked with very many payroll softwares then, most of them are hot garbage. And worse, many of the settings aren't easily available, and thus, many people can't even see them.
To directly answer your question, a 15 minute rounding rule is more typical, but 30 minutes is certainly an option. This allows employers to only deal with half hour increments which is nicer for mathematical operations.
What likely happened is that some realllllly old payroll processes dating back a long while just got carried forward with each software implementation.
You obviously haven't worked with very many payroll softwares then, most of them are hot garbage. And worse, many of the settings aren't easily available, and thus, many people can't even see them.
To directly answer your question, a 15 minute rounding rule is more typical, but 30 minutes is certainly an option. This allows employers to only deal with half hour increments which is nicer for mathematical operations.
What likely happened is that some realllllly old payroll processes dating back a long while just got carried forward with each software implementation.
@megkh22 I used to configure this type of software. This is called “rounding rule” configuration. How that is configured in their system determines how employees are paid for time worked.
Many places had either “pay by the minute” where you would get paid EXACTLY for the time worked (1/60th of your pay rate for each minute). This was considered a common best practice.
The next most common was every 15 minutes, but if you punched at 12:07 it wouldn’t pay out for that quarter but if you punched at 12:08 it would give you the quarter hour payment. “You win some you lose some, but on the whole it evens out” was the logic here, particularly from a legal perspective.
Many companies have their own legal interpretations of state and local laws that may cause them to request a particular kind of configuration, but in this situation this sounds like bad config entirely that could lead to significant expense for the employer. I’ve never seen it before.
It sounds like the configuration here rounds out a whole hour if you work any portion of an hour. This is most certainly NOT best practice for their configuration as your son figured out they’re probably losing a lot here.
Idk if id call this illegal but it’s certainly gaming the system. If caught and found out he’s doing it intentionally they would likely be within their rights to to fire him for what is called “time theft” which is accepting pay from an employer for hours not actually worked. If he’s in an at-will state they wouldn’t even need a good reason to do this, they just could. Unsure if that’s overwritten by university policy.
If he wants to not appear as obvious he should try and vary times (+/- a few mins here and there) he punches in and out so it isn’t “he punches in at 59 every day and out at 01 every day” if they run an audit. He should also put together a decent excuse of “I was working with a student and trying to wrap up a question, accidentally worked slightly over” kind of thing.
Many places had either “pay by the minute” where you would get paid EXACTLY for the time worked (1/60th of your pay rate for each minute). This was considered a common best practice.
The next most common was every 15 minutes, but if you punched at 12:07 it wouldn’t pay out for that quarter but if you punched at 12:08 it would give you the quarter hour payment. “You win some you lose some, but on the whole it evens out” was the logic here, particularly from a legal perspective.
Many companies have their own legal interpretations of state and local laws that may cause them to request a particular kind of configuration, but in this situation this sounds like bad config entirely that could lead to significant expense for the employer. I’ve never seen it before.
It sounds like the configuration here rounds out a whole hour if you work any portion of an hour. This is most certainly NOT best practice for their configuration as your son figured out they’re probably losing a lot here.
Idk if id call this illegal but it’s certainly gaming the system. If caught and found out he’s doing it intentionally they would likely be within their rights to to fire him for what is called “time theft” which is accepting pay from an employer for hours not actually worked. If he’s in an at-will state they wouldn’t even need a good reason to do this, they just could. Unsure if that’s overwritten by university policy.
If he wants to not appear as obvious he should try and vary times (+/- a few mins here and there) he punches in and out so it isn’t “he punches in at 59 every day and out at 01 every day” if they run an audit. He should also put together a decent excuse of “I was working with a student and trying to wrap up a question, accidentally worked slightly over” kind of thing.
timothygrae
New member
@letsoara
I used to work somewhere that did the 15 minute increment, it was changed in the end because people caught on that you could just clock in 7 minutes early and out 1 minute late and consistently get 15 minutes over leading to either 1.25 hours of over time or being sent home an hour early on your last day of the week.
I used to work somewhere that did the 15 minute increment, it was changed in the end because people caught on that you could just clock in 7 minutes early and out 1 minute late and consistently get 15 minutes over leading to either 1.25 hours of over time or being sent home an hour early on your last day of the week.
@timothygrae I would always try to show up to work 8 minutes early and wait until 8 minutes after the hour (or half hour) to clock out. It would round your start time and end time so I could get 7:45-5:15 if I worked from 7:52-5:08. As a 16 year old making $5.25 an hour I think I was just proud that I was gaming the system since the $2 daily free money didn't actually make a difference.
nastradamus
New member
@timothygrae Add clocking in/out for lunch it gets worse.
louisianianka
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johanna1991
New member
@megkh22 One of life's greatest hacks is honesty and integrity. Doing right even when nobody is watching. I'd rather my son do the right thing instead of trying to get ahead by doing wrong. It's great your boy has a job that's so flexible and they let him work around his schedule instead of theirs. They didnt have to do that. He repays it back by ripping them off?