OT (2nd try): do you get paid for your travel time?

I recently traveled to another company to try to debug the company's hardware that they were building for us. The hardware consists of a CPU and a large CPLD, etc. I wrote all of the firmware code and much of the test code, and had identified hardware failures on earlier boards. Anyway, I didn't have to pay a thing for the airline flights, hotel, or rental car. However, when I asked if I was getting paid for my time spent traveling (~ 12 hours in airports/airplanes). I was told that was not normally done. BTW I eventually did get my company to pay for my travel time, so I am content. But, is paying for travel time standard practice or not?

-Dave P

Reply to
Dave Pollum
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I normally pay everything on my own card and file an expense report to get a refund. Salary is the same in the cube or on a plane.

-- Mike Treseler

Reply to
Mike Treseler

Dave,

If you are expected to travel as part of your job (field service engineer, marketing job, vice president..) then no, you get no pay for the time you spent traveling. You do get paid a salary, which is usually expected to amount to working a 40 hour week.

If you are a consultant, then you set your own rules. Up to you if you charge or not. Makes sense to charge, as you are not going to be able to do work for anyone else while flying to Tokyo!

If you are a lawyer, you typically get paid for travel time.

If your job normally doesn't require travel, then perhaps you can negotiate with your boss, although I don't hear about anyone ever getting paid for travel time. You might get "comp" time which is the ability to take some time off without using up any vacation days.

Aust> I recently traveled to another company to try to debug the company's

Reply to
Austin Lesea

For some of us who are salaried, exempt, it's common to travel on a workday and get paid for the workday. As salaried, exempt, there is no overtime but if you feel strongly about it, often a little "comp time" can make up for it. If travel is on a Saturday, it's still part of the salaried, exempt workweek. I try not to travel on the weekends.

Reply to
John_H

What does your contract say? Doesn't matter much what other people get paid, what matters is what you (or your company) agreed to.

Reply to
Ray Andraka

My standard contract has travel time written into it, and if a company contracts with their standard contract I put the travel time clause in. When I was a salaried employee I just took the travel as being part of the job (but they never asked me to travel on weekends).

--
Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
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Reply to
Tim Wescott

Personally, I would be annoyed if I hired you and you held me up for 12 hours travel time. (a) no regular employees get paid for the hour a day they spend in traffic jams (b) I have no way of knowing how long it really took you to travel and (c) I'm probably already dropping a boat load of money on you. I would suggest you bump your rate or pad you work hour report until you feel compensated rather than ask me to pay you a bunch of money for sitting on an airplane watching a DVD.

Don't forget that regular employees already resent contractors to start with (for several reasons) so I would keep my head down if I wanted to be hired again the next time.

-Clark

Reply to
Anonymous

I disagree completely. It would be naive of a hiring manager to expect a contractor's travel time to be a freebie. And it would be stupid and dishonest for a contractor to recoup unbilled travel time by padding rate or hours billed. Like any contract, everything should be out in the open and agreed upon up front in writing.

Rob

Reply to
RobJ

Mike; I agree that "Salary is the same in the cube or on a plane." However, I am no longer a salaried employee. In this case, the other company was paying my employer _per hour_ for my time, so I felt justified in asking to be paid while traveling vs. getting paid zero.

-Dave P

Reply to
Dave Pollum

In article , RobJ writes

I agree and think that Austin's summary is a good one, as a contractor I have always charged for any time during which I am not able to do 'my own thing', that means all time spent physically travelling or waiting in airports but not time when I am chilling in a hotel outside normal working hours. If I was required to spend time in a hotel awaiting the client's pleasure while they get their act together I would charge for time during normal working hours. If they don't agree to that then the journey is not undertaken but it is important to agree the rules up front.

--
fred
Plusnet - I hope you like vanilla
Reply to
fred

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