Real-Life Decision Making
Because power line technicians are essential employees, they must be available
for overtime work. Although overtime work is an excellent way to make money,
it can be tiring. It can also cut into precious social and family time.
You have been working as a power line technician for 10 years. You've
clocked more overtime than any of your co-workers, and your company appreciates
your contribution. However, the overtime hours are really cutting into the
time that you can spend with your family.
You often put in overtime on Saturdays, working a full eight hours. Your
oldest daughter has just started playing softball, and her games are on Saturday
afternoons. With your overtime schedule, you would miss more than half of
her games.
You know how important it is to her that you are there to support her when
she plays. But your company depends on your overtime hours to keep up the
essential service it provides.
"Overtime could be a 10-hour day," says power line technician Wendy Kennedy.
"You have some choice about when to do it, but in a state of emergency you're
an essential employee and you must work."
You have been thinking a lot about the Saturday situation. You want to
be a reliable employee and the extra income you earn working overtime really
helps to support your family. But you are a parent first and you know how
important it is to your daughter that you are there to watch her softball
games. It seems that you need to do both.
You could work overtime hours on a different day, but that would mean working
very long hours all through the week. You would be free to watch your daughter's
games on Saturdays, but you would be exhausted all week.
There are other people you work with who have families; you figure they
must face similar problems. If you could get some other people on your side,
you could push for a union vote to work earlier hours on Saturdays. Then
you would be finished in time to watch your daughter's games, or at least
most of them, during the afternoon.
But in order to pursue this option, you would need to talk to your co-workers
and convince them that going to work at 5:30 a.m. on Saturday is a good idea.
If you started that early, you could finish at 2 p.m. and get to the softball
game. It would take some organization to get your co-workers to agree and
push for a vote to change the workday.
What do you do?