These things cut both ways. There is abuse on both sides and sometimes it is hard to say whether the employees or the employer is the worst. Our company had some funky rules regarding who were issued cell phones and who weren't. As part of the R&D group, I didn't qualify and I refused to have a personal one to provide a solution for business use. I was finally issued one during a crisis which lasted from May to October and I was required to travel 1500 miles per weekend (working 7 days per week, no time off) as well as perform exacting, physically demanding work in a building in which the air temperature was over 100F due to poor ventilation and a low roof.
I used to have a company credit card for incidental expenses, which was not used too often, but which has to be reconciled according to an exacting schedule which simply doesn't work if you are travelling and don't have access to the network. (Executives have PA's that do it for them, so they are always in compliance). Since I didn't use it often, and whenever I did I was typically out of the office, resulting in late fees and nastygrams from VP's PA's because you are making the division look bad on this "metric", I canceled my card. When the crisis job was in progress that went all summer, I paid for it all with my own credit card. Which included several thousand $ of fuel for the vehicle (diesel was close to $5/gal). When the job was done, and I had made up with my wife, I spent over a week (full time) putting together the expense report. I had to painstakingly copy every receipt, do an excel spreadsheet since we have to split every hotel bill into accommodation, meals and communication - by day !. Enter the whole mess into SAP (over 300 transactions), check everything again, since mistakes on expense reports get you fired. Perverse as it may seem, the fact that I covered the entire $7000 with my own credit card probably meant that my boss was probably more lenient when checking it. Employers can't "reasonably" expect employees to work like this, or punish them for missing administrative deadlines while working 7 days per week. And I failed to mention my performance review for the year - below average.... Due (in part) to me busting my ***, keeping the promises made by the executives, the company picked up close to $1billion in new business.
Having been "salaried" since about 1998, that was the last year I ever got paid for overtime. Its pretty well known that there are about 1900 hours in a year (single shift). Once holidays and vacation is taken into account, that number drops to less than 1800. In most years that I have worked since 98, I have typically worked over 400 hours of unpaid overtime per year. Legally, I don't have to. But employers show during every layoff, promotion, performance review, interview how "dispensable" you are if you don't provide these "free" services. The bigger the company, the more they seem to be run like dictatorships.
Even if you are a proven problem solver, the directors may not listen when you tell them that their plan is going to fail. Some of them may try every trick in the book to get you fired because you dare to challenge them. You may be forced to take "mandatory counseling" for weeks with a psychiatrist after exposing dubious purchasing/supplier agreements which appear to be costing the company millions every year in profit. Superiors will tell you to "leave it be", "its out of your authority", "there is information being considered that you are not privy to" etc etc. However, once the ship has sailed, the deals struck and the train has gone off the rails and the red ink is coming in every week (once they can no longer hide it), then all those who wanted to fire you will remember, and at a moments notice you will find yourself with suitcase packed on the way to some god forsaken place where it is expected of you to work 18 hours/day, 7 days a week until the red ink changes to black. All for no overtime pay, no bonus, and you better be back at work the day after...
While I may be a little cynical, I have been through these situations now a sufficient number of times to know not to expect any improvement. Since early 2009 the company has with very few exceptions hired only contract employees, to the point that 80% of some of our product development teams (which develop the intellectual property) now consist of contractors who a) do get paid for overtime, unlike salaried staff, b)will leave at the drop of a hat if another employer offers them $3 more per hour or a shorter commute, or a salaried position.
As soon as I find a way to sell my home here in MI, even for a small loss, I will be turning my back on everything automotive.
