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Work schedule and billable hours becoming increasingly unclear. How to get things back on track?
A few months ago I started a new part-time job. Overall I like it. Basically I work for a managed IT company. It's just me and the owner. I work as a contractor and send him invoices. Most of the work is done from home but sometimes site visits are needed. There has been a few schedule changes and some back and forth. I would like more clarity on my billable hours and what our work schedule is. At first I was told just to reply to messages and calls whenever I was available, and invoice just for the time doing work. This sounded fair in theory but we found it impracticle. I then switched to working "stand by hours" during a certain time each day (which is expected to be busy). During these hours I'm not just sitting at my desk waiting for a message, but I am at least close to my desk and not engaging with activities that I can't quickly leave. Sometimes work spills outside of these standby hours. For example if I'm on "stand by" until noon but get a request to do something after noon, then I work more than the anticipated hours. Here is a specific example I work standby 8 to noon, and get paid 4 hours regardless of the actual work I get. At 11:50 a client asks for my help. It takes me an hour to resolve. So now should I bill 5 hours even though I may have gotten no work until 11:50? Also sometimes my boss assigns me work and gives me calls outside of these stand by hours. Some work, like rebooting a server, should be done at certain times (e.g. at night). Another topic is time spent traveling to a client site. My boss said he doesn't invoice the clients for travel time. But sometimes most of the time spent is travel. For example spending an hour to drive to the site where I spend 10 minutes swapping out a switch, it's not like I'd invoice for 10 minutes. Once the boss mentioned if I work much longer than the stand by hours, take time off accordingly the next day. I would like more hours. I really would like more clarity on billable hours and the expected work schedule. I sometimes feel the boss is unwilling or unable to give this.I guess this means I should just invoice for what I think is fair and wait for him to speak up.
A few months ago I started a new part-time job. Overall I like it. Basically I work for a managed IT company. It's just me and the owner. I work as a contractor and send him invoices. Most of the work is done from home but sometimes site visits are needed. There has been a few schedule changes and some back and forth. I would like more clarity on my billable hours and what our work schedule is. At first I was told just to reply to messages and calls whenever I was available, and invoice just for the time doing work. This sounded fair in theory but we found it impracticle. I then switched to working "stand by hours" during a certain time each day (which is expected to be busy). During these hours I'm not just sitting at my desk waiting for a message, but I am at least close to my desk and not engaging with activities that I can't quickly leave. Sometimes work spills outside of these standby hours. For example if I'm on "stand by" until noon but get a request to do something after noon, then I work more than the anticipated hours.
Here is a specific example I work standby 8 to noon, and get paid 4 hours regardless of the actual work I get. At 11:50 a client asks for my help. It takes me an hour to resolve. So now should I bill 5 hours even though I may have gotten no work until 11:50?
Also sometimes my boss assigns me work and gives me calls outside of these stand by hours. Some work, like rebooting a server, should be done at certain times (e.g. at night).
Another topic is time spent traveling to a client site. My boss said he doesn't invoice the clients for travel time. But sometimes most of the time spent is travel. For example spending an hour to drive to the site where I spend 10 minutes swapping out a switch, it's not like I'd invoice for 10 minutes.
Once the boss mentioned if I work much longer than the stand by hours, take time off accordingly the next day. I would like more hours.
I really would like more clarity on billable hours and the expected work schedule. I sometimes feel the boss is unwilling or unable to give this.I guess this means I should just invoice for what I think is fair and wait for him to speak up.
