select count(hours_billable) from day where status between idle and working;

October 13, 2005 4:59 AM

Ethics in billing IT hours: I'm not 'working' but I'm not 'not-working'. How can I bill for my time? This is a lot more than just being on-call.

As an DBA, part of my job requires me to monitor long-running (up to 15 hour) data-conversion processes and identify performance problems and errors. I often do this from home. I'm to quickly spot errors or performance problems. Sometimes this is just high-tech 'babysitting' where I can do other things but still need to glance at an ssh window every couple of minutes. During crucial times, I literally have to watch things run because we have no room for error. I'm supposed to have a feel for how long things take to run and can usually tell when something is taking too long.

Sometimes its a matter of just checking in every 30 minutes or so, which is no big deal if I'm not doing anything. Sometimes I have to dig in, troubleshoot problems and respond to issues.

During crucial times I'm expected to remain home or awake through the night to ensure that the jobs finish without incident. The jobs are intricate and often have dependencies. If something breaks, I usually have to abort the remaining processes, fix the issue, and resume the job.

I'm not interested in hearing about solutions such as control-M or cron. We have many data validation scripts in place. I have automation in place to page me at certain milestones and notify me of errors. We are preparing for a massive one-off data conversion and then when that's final, this issue will be moot. In the interim, I'm putting in some crazy hours. This is not necessairly heads-down work - sometimes I can have a DVD or a game running while I monitor the conversion. If I didn't need to be monitoring the job, I would not be watching said DVD or playing said game. I'd be sleeping or out of the house.

The bottom line is people expect these jobs to finish so they can do their work. We are in the process of bringing up a major mission-critical application. People rely on fresh data to test scenarios. If these jobs do not run, at least two-dozen testers and developers are getting paid to twiddle their thumbs.

So here's my question: How do I bill for this time without overcharging the client and short-changing myself?

Now here's a twist: Lets say that one of the developers on this conversion process makes a mistake which is not realized until after the conversion completes or is well under-way. I'll have to kick things back to the devloper and we've just 'lost time' - should I feel guilty about billing those hours since no progress was made?

posted by anonymous to work & money (18 comments total)

You are working for those hours. The value of your work is not in how much actual "heavy lifting" you do, but in how much time your constant vigilance saves.
posted by lazy-ville at 5:22 AM on October 13, 2005

Lazy-ville's right. Those are standard, acceptable, billable hours. You're working.
posted by Jairus at 5:25 AM on October 13, 2005

The point isn't so much what you're doing while you are "at work" but that you can't be doing something else (like going on vacation or working somewhere else). They are making requirements of your time, so you should bill for it.
posted by doctor_negative at 5:56 AM on October 13, 2005

You're on the clock, period.
posted by enrevanche at 5:58 AM on October 13, 2005

I agree, you may just be waiting for something to break but you are working. Unless they are paying you a fixed rate to be awake and watching the systems (as one company I contracted for did - 100UKP per night) you should be billing you usual hourly rate (or possibly more if you can, anti-social hours etc)
posted by hardcode at 6:07 AM on October 13, 2005

I don't think it's quite as clear cut as the previous posters suggest.

Assuming you have other responsibilities for the customer that you can get done in between 30 minute checks of the SSH window, you should be working on those other responsibilities, and then there should be no question about whether you can bill or not. However: if you have other customer responsibilities, but choose to work on something else in the "down time" or watch a DVD, then I don't think you can bill for the entire time unless your customer signs off on it. At least, if you were working for me, I'd have a problem with paying you to watch DVDs while you have other things to work on. If you have no other responsibilities, but the customer insists that you babysit anyway, then you should feel free to bill for the entire time no matter what else you are doing.

All of this becomes moot if you or whoever the project manager is discusses your question with the customer. Customers appreciate communication and transparency in billing.
posted by blue mustard at 6:10 AM on October 13, 2005

When I was doing IT work, I would bill a project rate rather than an hourly rate for such work. Given your situation, I do agree, however, that you should be paid for all that time--not just the minutes you're actually fixing a problem--and I also agree that you need to make sure that you're doing any other work for the same client that can be done at the same time so that you can feel good about submitting your invoice or time sheet. If you you're stretching the work out by doing it serially instead of in parallel, then you are not being fair to your client.
posted by Mo Nickels at 6:32 AM on October 13, 2005

Are bus drivers off the clock during the time they are waiting at stoplights or in traffic and not actually driving?

Are grocery store checkout people off the clock when no one is in line and they are not actually checking?

Are lawyers off the clock when they are waiting for the judge to appear and not actually lawyering?

You get my drift. Almost every job incorporates some amount of down time and waiting around in which you could be doing something else. Yours is no different.
posted by googly at 6:36 AM on October 13, 2005

You are working.

If the process fails, because you were not watching, are you responsible?

Indeed, you say it yourself. "During crucial times I'm expected to remain home or awake through the night to ensure that the jobs finish without incident."

Sorry, if part of your job duty is ensuring this process completes, any time you spend monitoring is work.
posted by eriko at 6:37 AM on October 13, 2005

Bill for what you actually worked. And yes, it's all work. Could these processes happen without you? No. Could they hire some guy off the street to replace you? No. These are your skills. Good for you.

If someone objects, then take the question up at that point.

It's not like you're saving these billings up for new year's eve and giving your company a big surprise, is it?

If your boss has a coronary when they see what it all adds up to, then explain, like you did to us.

Chances are they have a strategy for this kind of thing anyway, like a buyout -- paying you 30% extra for the whole month instead of calculating what you're actually owed hour by hour -- or paying you in time off, which can be offset against a different budget.

Or maybe they just don't care, because of how important the whole thing is.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 6:46 AM on October 13, 2005

"How do I bill for this time without overcharging the client and short-changing myself?"

Your working, bill them full time. Make sure your getting something extra for working more than 8 hours a day.
posted by Mitheral at 7:08 AM on October 13, 2005

For what it's worth, I have a few buddies who were doing work exactly like this during college. They'd sit in an office and monitor a network during the graveyard shift. They had lots of free time, but they were paid pretty well. One of them started working for a Linux distribution with the free time and is now one of the lead developers. In other words, you're fine to bill them the full time.

On the other hand, it is probably your responsibility to tell your boss/client that these things don't need constant vigilant attention, and inquire about what other work you could be providing the company. Your other option is just to think of it as being a night watchman, who wanders around with a flashlight every 20 minutes, but for the other 18 sits around and listens to music or watches tv. Just remember that a watchman is pretty replacable.

Good luck!
posted by onalark at 7:18 AM on October 13, 2005

I've been in a very similar situation, and I have to agree with the other posters -- you're working. If you were doing the same work in an office setting, where you could listen to an iPod, read a book, or watch a DVD on your laptop -- but couldn't leave while these things were running -- would you consider yourself off the clock? No. I used to work for a hosting company in the NOC, and I had to be there for 10-12 hours per shift. Sometimes the only real requirement was that I be there to do the occasional walk-thru and be able to respond to alarms if something failed, so I was free to watch DVDs or read a book -- but there was never a question of whether or not I was on the clock.

The employer is making a demand on your time, and they should expect to pay you for that time. The fact that you're able to do that task and also do other things isn't a sign that you're not working.
posted by jzb at 7:18 AM on October 13, 2005

If you don't have other responsibilities you could be doing during the times you're watching DVDs, bill it.

(Could be doing. If this process prevents you from doing those other tasks, they don't count.)

If you could be off biking while the job was running, I'd say don't bill it. But since it requires at least some part of your full attention, and you must be there to make sure it happens, it's work.
posted by o2b at 8:16 AM on October 13, 2005

If you can't go golfing (or to dinner with your wife, or whatever) it's billable.

Depending on how seriously failure could affect the client, they might want less intense monitoring, with the risk of paying emergency overtime rates if something does go wrong.
posted by I Love Tacos at 9:36 AM on October 13, 2005

What all those who say "you're on the clock" said. None of us "work" all the time we're at work. We hang out in the kitchen. We go to the bathroom. We stroll around. We take ciggie breaks. Why, I have heard rumours that some people even post to Metafilter...

Few jobs outside of production line work need constant labour with no breaks. Most jobs - especially IT and office jobs - involve periods of intense labour interspersed with lulls and quiet time. That's the nature of the job. But so long as you're expected to be available, you're working. If they call you during one of these quiet periods, you have to deal with it, right? If something goes wrong with your smooth-running checks, you have to deal with it. That means you're on the job; you're working. Bill them in full.
posted by Decani at 10:32 AM on October 13, 2005

If I didn't need to be monitoring the job, I would not be watching said DVD or playing said game. I'd be sleeping or out of the house.

If you're doing something that you wouldn't otherwise be doing, and you're doing it because of your client's/employer's project, then you're on the clock.

Bill the hours. Negotiate a per-day or per-conversion rate, if you're uncomfortable with that.

You might also use the time to stay current, or learn another programming language, or something else relevant to your job/career. Your knowlege is valuable to your clients, and perhaps you can sleep easier at night knowing that your client is getting some value out of minutes that you'd otherwise spend idle, but on the clock.
posted by toxic at 1:32 PM on October 13, 2005

I frequently do the same type of work, and my first recommendation is to explain the process to your clients. My time is billable in 15 minute increments and even if I only work for 1 minute, theoretically I bill for 15 minutes. If I just glance at a processing job every half hour for 5 hours, I'd bill for 2.5 hours. Of course, if I had to studiously watch the job cook for 5 hours, I'd bill for 5 hours.

By explaining your process to your clients, you should be able to determine what level of service they are interested in for given jobs. If it is a full-time position, I'd be more inclined to say consider yourself a night-watchman waiting for something to happen. Assuming you are billing as a consultant, I don't think the night-watchman analogy is generally valid.
posted by McGuillicuddy at 2:15 PM on October 13, 2005