Y’all did this to yourselves: The Home Depot changes pay policy to pay hourly associates down to the minute instead of rounding to nearest quarter hour
When I was an hourly associate for THD, I learned pretty quickly about the quarter hour rounding mechanism of the time clock. I typically liked to work 8-4-ish in order to help negate Atlanta’s shitty traffic for this was still during the age of commuting a long, long time ago. I learned pretty quickly that I had until 8:07 to punch in and still “be on time,” and that I could begin my walk out the building at 3:50, and make sure to punch out at 3:53, and I would be credited for having been there until 4.
I wasn’t really ever a massive nickel-and-dimer while I was hourly, but I’d be lying if I didn’t let the notion of “giving away” some work influence some of the things I did in the office in order to make sure that I would be on the more favorable side of the rounding than on the negative. Seldom did I let myself get rounded down, and occasionally oopsie, I’ve got a quarter hour of OT now, my bad, but I can justify it lol.
But the point is, just about everyone knew about the way the clock worked, and you’d never see more people be obvious about it than at like 3:50 or 4:50 pm where people are milling around, walking a lap around Main Street, waiting out those three minutes from where seven minutes turns into eight minutes, and it would be the right time to punch out and get credited for 15 minutes.
And of course The Home Depot knew about it too, but in spite of my shitty last boss, I still hold the company in high regard, and they knew all their hourlies were doing what they were doing, but as long as the work got done, on time, fucking let them.
Now I’m sure the initiative for the dissent of this probably started at the store level, because individual store managers are more likely to be tryhards on power trips who want to flex their position onto their subordinates, and I could totally see a blowhard store manager get on the case of associates who are threatening to encroach on a bonus quarter, and demanding they punch out before they get credited for it. And those who get chewed out will then be salty and full of piss, and bitch and moan about labor theft, and here we are, where the company as an entire whole fucking corporation has to change their policies.
The thing is, I would wager money that there are going to be waaaayyyy more associates unhappy with this development than those who are happy with it. Store managers will still get on the case of associates to make sure they punch out at the top of the hour, and every associate who relied on those 7-minute windows to beat traffic, school bus routes, or just be able to get out of work at optimal times, will now be forced to wait. People punching in will be dealing with more anxiety and stress when there’s a traffic jam or a bad red light that takes too long, and nobody wins when there’s excessive nickel-and-diming going on.
But as I stated above, y’all did this to yourselves. Companies like THD don’t make changes for one store, it’s all or nothing, and because of the dissent of a few, vastly way more will suffer the consequences.
