Megacorps refusing to pay people while they wait for Windows Vista to boot

[DS1]

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2008/11/does-your-boss-have.html

Lawyers are noting a new type of lawsuit, in which employees are suing over time spent booting their computers. ... During the past year, several companies, including AT&T Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Cigna Corp., have been hit with lawsuits in which employees claimed that they were not paid for the 15- to 30-minute task of booting their computers at the start of each day and logging out at the end. Add those minutes up over a week, and hourly employees are losing some serious pay, argues plaintiffs' lawyer Mark Thierman, a Las Vegas solo practitioner who has filed a handful of computer-booting lawsuits in recent years. ...

Management-side attorney Richard Rosenblatt, a partner in the Princeton, N.J., office of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius who is defending a half-dozen employers in computer-booting lawsuits, ... believes that, in most cases, computer booting does not warrant being called work. Having spent time in call centers observing work behaviors, he said most employees boot the computer, then engage in nonwork activities. "They go have a smoke, talk to friends, get coffee — they're not working, and all they've done at that point is press a button to power up their computer, or enter in a key word," Rosenblatt said.


Mine is power to login screen in 18 seconds :shrug:

[Cronus Protagonist]

1. Mine's under 20 seconds too

Vista Ultimate. Best OS in the world today.

[nini]

3. are you hooked up to to a big network?

.

[Cronus Protagonist]

9. Yeah, it's called the Internet

Largest network in the world.

[nini]

12. really?? I've never heard of it

:eyes:




I'm talking about mapped network drives to servers at work. Initializing all that adds to the bootup time which could make it take a minute of two on Vista. The point being someone at home would have a faster bootup than someone at work with all the crap on work system. Which I'm sure you know.. oh fuck.. never mind.

[Recursion]

13. Bwah

:spray:

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

16. Different thing altogether.

If they are waiting for authentication on an overloaded or poorly-configured Windows Active Directory or LDAP server, they are being penalized for someone else's screwups or cheapness.

This is plainly outrageous.

[nini]

20. thank you... that's what I meant

it can make a huge difference and can slow your system down to a crawl if the IT group doesn't have it configured efficiently.

[Donnachaidh]

2. And people still think employees MATTER to corporations?

This sort of lawsuit should have people hitting the STREETS and protesting in front of every corporation doing this.

Do you think the CEO is willing to not be paid while he waits for his morning coffee? I'm sure that takes at least a half hour.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

17. You know...

Recently, at an Indian company, the employees hauled the CEO into the street and stomped him into a damp pink froth.

The idea does have a certain magical quality to it, when you think about it.

[JHB]

39. Link to that story

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4810644.ece

September 23, 2008
CEO murdered by mob of sacked Indian workers

Corporate India is in shock after a mob of workers bludgeoned to death the chief executive who sacked them from a factory in a suburb of Delhi.

Lalit Kishore Choudhary, 47, the head of the Indian operations of Graziano Transmissioni, a manufacturer of car parts that has its headquarters in Italy, died of severe head wounds on Monday after being attacked by scores of laid-off employees, police said. The incident, in Greater Noida, followed a long-running dispute between the factory’s management and workers demanding better pay and permanent contracts.

It is understood that Mr Choudhary, who was married with one son, had called a meeting with more than a hundred former employees who had been dismissed after an earlier outbreak of violence at the plant. He wanted to discuss a possible reinstatement deal.

A police spokesman said: “Only a few people were called inside. About 150 people were waiting outside when they heard someone from inside shout for help. They rushed in and the two sides clashed. The company staff were heavily outnumbered.”
(rest at link)

[mrreowwr_kittty]

4. If you have to be at the work site to do something, you get paid.

I am so sick and tired of companies nickel and diming already underpaid employees.

[Greyhound]

21. So true, but I doubt you'll find much support.

The first reply from the microserf shows how disingenuous they can be.

I especially love the reference to call centers, truly the modern day version of indentured servitude.

[uncle ray]

44. i agree.

i work at a business that is in manufacturing(yes there is still some in this country!). i worked for the parent company for years, we were paid honestly from the time we clocked in to the time we clock out. it's shift work, so you were expected to be there 10 minutes early or so to "tie in" with the previous shift, so an employee would generally get an hour or so of overtime per week. our facility was handed over to a sister company, the management with this company does not pay you but for your 8 hour shift, they get ten minutes free every day per employee. multiply that by a hundred employees and even a "small" business can "save" hundreds of thousands a year by stealing a few minutes of labor. what they fail to realize is that employees are sure to slack off more to offset that, or in other cases, not come in early and not know what to do, or know what info was to be passed on from the previous shift, costing the company in productivity, so the company really loses out in the end. no doubt in my mind, their greed costs them in the end. i'm seeing it happen first hand, we "had" a shop of good workers who were happy to help the company profit. employee morale has been destroyed due to the new managements policys.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

52. Former manufacturing shift worker here as well

I worked in a cleanroom where you had to be fully gowned in a Goretex suit. Even if you were really skilled at gowning out, it took a good 10 minutes, minimum. We were also expected to be on the floor 15 minutes prior to shift start for pass down. Luckily, it was a good company and we got paid for it. There would have been a muntiny if they stopped it! You are so right about the slacking off too. The more oppressive the boss is, the more the workers slack off when they can get away with it. The best managers/owners are the ones who make you WANT to do a good job.

[tridim]

5. No computer takes 30 minutes to boot.

I call bullshit, on both sides.

[nini]

14. agreed

they're being assholes

[Recursion]

15. That includes bootup and shutdown

And, yes, an under-resourced computer pulling a huge roaming profile off an overloaded, poorly-maintained network can take 15 minutes from pushing the power button to having an application running and responding.

[Crabby Appleton]

49. Indeed, I work in IT at a large multi-national manufacturer

The older PC's (5 years old) in my facility indeed take 15 minutes or longer to boot and be usable, there are various scripts in addition to the login script that check and apply Windows Policies, virus signature updates, etc. These are W2K PCs, they don't meet the specs to run Vista, mostly low memory. Our budget is very tight as it is for most manufacturers; no new PCs or upgrades this year at my facility. We have a fast network, but at 8:00 EST a few hundred people are logging in locally, and 15K attaching to the corporate email system on remote servers. We have about 60K employees with manufacturing facilities in about 30 countries.

[Recursion]

51. And if they're running a real-time virus scanner, they're nearly unusable

A whole lot of IT departments are pushing AV suites that their hardware just can't handle.

[LeftHander]

28. You are wrong...

YOu have never restarted a HP HP/UX machine with dozens of mount points, NSF mounts

Or you have never logged into a SUN workstation that NSF mounts, runs login scripts and fires up applcations.

Or a windows box that is tightly managed, has multiple layers of login scripts, drive mappings and to auto load far flung enterprise applications (like a customer service app)

Manytimes I start my box at work it takes up to ten minutes before the hard disk stops grinding and the system becomes useable....

[tridim]

29. If that is the case, just have your computer boot itself before you arrive.

Since the early 90's I've never had a windows machine that took longer than a minute to boot, and that includes corporate systems.

This thread is about Vista, not Sun and HP.

[ipfilter]

6. I have to log on with a smartcard

and it can take up to 10 minutes from a cold boot to get logged in. Depending on the location of Domain Controllers and any PKI infrastructure it can take quite some time.

[Iggo]

7. Not sure how long mine takes...

...but I'd guess it's less than a minute.

[Sanctified]

8. Maybe people should get there a little early and push the power buttons.

When I worked for a large telecommunications company I would get in 15-30 minutes hit the power button, go smoke, grab a coffee and shoot the shit. I was ready to work right at 8:00 AM, like most of the people who worked with me.

[Book Lover]

40. maybe people should not give away their labor, a priced commodity (nm)

[nini]

10. It's probably because of all the tracking software they have installed

If they'd go to this extent to nail their employees - they're most likely monitoring every move they do when at the computer.

Sounds like their network setup sucks if it takes that long for everything to initialize etc.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Lemme see

OS 10 takes 30 seconds

Xandros takes 30 seconds

Vista Ultimate can take upwards of 20 minutes

Yes, I can see it

BEST OS MY ASS

And no, none of these machines is NOT on any network

[Sanctified]

18. My Vista Ultimate boots faster than my SuSE 11 or OSX.

My Vista machine takes 33 seconds to boot, my SUSE 11 machine takes 47 seconds and my OSX Mac takes like 2 minutes, it's an older PowerPC. Part of the boot times is the hardware though, the Linux machine is a file and print server so it's not bleeding edge while the Mac is an older Macbook and the Windows machine is a workstation used for Games.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. Want to compare bleeding edge stats?

The Vista Machine is a Gaming screamer, it takes 20 minutes to boot

I have timed it

More than once...

these days if I have to do any IT that requires rebooting, I go get a cup of coffee while it does that.

My macbook is a year old, mid range, boots in 30 seconds

My EEEPC is ALL BUT bleeding edge, boots in 30 seconds flat, forty in advanced setting

[DS1]

22. if a gaming screamer at home takes 20 minutes to boot

problem exists between keyboard and chair

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. Or the OS

I have talked about this with way too many folks, some who have DOWNGRADED to XP

[Sanctified]

26. My Stats are

OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit
Processor: Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6400+ 3.21 GHz
RAM: 4.00 GB
Hard Drive: WD Raptor 10,000 RPM

I could probably shred another 3 seconds off my boot if I was not so lazy and disabled PXE boot in the BIOS.

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. This one has ultimate 64 bit

Intel 2.2 quad... yes two quads

8 megs of RAM, four on board four ready boost

I TB drive, 10,000 RPB

Nvidia 8800 Vid Card

And so it goes

My lowly EEEPC boots faster.

(Yes I fear one reason for the slow boot is the size of the drive by the by)

[DS1]

30. I think those 8 megs of RAM are your problem

And I'm guessing that's Revolutions Per Bunny?

Mine still uses Hamsters to spin the drives. Old technology, but far less emotional.

[nadinbrzezinski]

31. RAM is the problem? RIGHT!!!!

And I have tried to get the parrots to run instead, but they chew on cables.

[IDemo]

32. It's 8 gigabytes, more than likely :)

[DS1]

33. You don't say

:crazy:

[IDemo]

36. Just a factor of 1,000. No big deal...

[nadinbrzezinski]

37. Yep it is we maxed internal ran and added 5 ready boost

[Lance_Boyle]

47. readyboost is not RAM, so only 4GB RAM

Readyboost uses flash memory (usually over the USB2 bus) to buffer certain designated-by-MS files so they don't need to be read off of spinning platters. DS1 is right - if you have a Vista system taking 20 minutes to boot, you're doing it wrong.

[Fearless]

23. The issue is with the company... they should make accomodations... Iditots...

[anigbrowl]

35. What accomodations? 20-30 minutes to boot my ass.

This sounds like a really really frivolous lawsuit.

[Fearless]

43. Well I was assuming that it was serious... If not screw them...

If it is real, then the company should have to pay them that time, but it shouldn't have anything to do with the company that happens to make the computers that they use.

[Lars39]

54. If it takes that long, it is up to the company to shorten the time.

The worker should still be paid for the time it takes to boot up, no matter how long or short the time is.

[anigbrowl]

55. I just don't believe their assertions

I've been working with computer since the 80s, and even the most antiquated IBM Pc Jr used to boot up faster than that. Hell, your typical network server is up and running in 5 minutes.

[n32571]

25. Maybe these companies should penalize the CIO's

for poorly configured computers, networks, Windows Active Directory, LDAPs and having chosen Micro$oft products instead of the workers that have no say in any of the previously mentioned bottleneck points. Oh, that's right, management. Can't stick it to one of your own. Never mind.

[NeedleCast]

48. Maybe these companies should fire all the users who dick up their computers

...

[DireStrike]

56. Pretty hard to "dick up" a computer to 20 minutes of boot time.

I don't think I could do it to this machine if I tried.

It's gotta be the network, the OS, or the hardware, none of which are controlled or chosen by the users.

[ieoeja]

34. This also includes time to login and get the time-entry software up and running.

These companies don't have a bunch of managers standing over the employees making certain their computers are booted up before letting them clock in somewhere. They are using a time-entry software. When they start working on a task, they click the appropriate task. The software then keeps track of the time until they click on the next task.

So they have to boot it up, sign in, and wait for all the startup jobs to run before they can start the time-entry software.

It takes my computer a couple minutes to get to the login screen. It takes about five minutes to finish running the login scripts. It takes another five minutes before all the startup jobs free up enough resources for me to fire up the time-entry software. And that can take a minute or two as well if everyone is logging into the database at the same time. Usually not, though.

There is security. There is software that checks to see what versions of everything is installed and updates if necessary. There is more security. There is software that makes certain I don't have any unlicensed software. There is more security. I couldn't tell you half the crap that runs on my PC at work. And the software we design frequently ceases to work as they are continually upgrading security that knocks us out of the water. In many instances we have taken steps backward as security has forced us to de-automate previously fully automated processes.

[ITsec]

38. There are people here where I work that do absolutely nothing all day...

except surf the net (like our receptionist does), and still get paid for 8 hours work.

Boot times my ass.

:wtf: :banghead:

[JVS]

41. Leave the computer on.

[4lbs]

42. If they truly needed to reboot their computers every day, I don't know why their sys admin didn't

set up a script that issued a RPC command to each of the systems to shutdown and reboot at 6:00am every morning.

That way, when the workers came in, their systems would be already rebooted and ready to login.

[high density]

45. Sounds like they have very old PCs or an IT department is not doing its job

If a worker can't turn on their PC and have all of their required apps running within 5 minutes, then something is not working right.

[NeedleCast]

46. As an IT person, I'd take a long look at what users have done to those computers

I get this complaint from time to time from my users. "My computer runs so sloooooow."

Well jackhole, that's because you've downloaded every possible tool bar, plug in, piece of spyware, and a million other questionable applications and your start up files load 137 processes.

Then again, any corporation that forced users to switch to Vista got what they deserved, especially if they were on the bleeding edge of the change.

[gollygee]

50. This reminds me of when I was in college

and I worked at McDonald's for a while. Closing, because they actually closed back then. We'd clean up, and then we'd have to punch out, but we weren't allowed to leave until the manager counted all the money and was also ready to leave. Which made sense for security reasons, but it was BULLSHIT that we had to sit there for an hour or so a night while she counted money without getting paid. If we had to be there, we should have beeen getting paid.

It's the same idea but with higher paid people. It's still corporations taking advantage of their workers. Corporations only own the hours they pay for. The rest of the time is not theirs.

[Pavulon]

53. Bullshit, IBM P595 (AIX)

does not take 20 minutes to boot. My laptop that has whole disk encryption, runs login scripts, takes 2 minutes or so.

Scumbag, cheat lawyer.