Shaving Quarter Hours

     How many times do you swipe in before your scheduled start time?  Unless something went awry in preparing for your shift, every time.  We are asked to clock in up to seven minutes prior to the start of our shift.  That is always rounded up to the next hour.  When we clock out, it is rounded to the nearest quarter hour. 

     All of us have had the experience of being lined up for the early push, been pushed out at just after the half hour, but not given credit for the 8.0 hours that the time clock displays.  Your time gets manually overridden to 7.5 hours instead of the full 8.0 hours that the computer displayed.  When you went to sign out, the Dealer Pencil, who is only doing their job, is required to write your day's hours at 7.5.  You are shorted the half hour that the clock told you that you earned.

     Over the course of one week, by clocking in five minutes before your shift, you actually have actually been on the clock for a total of 25 extra minutes and not gotten one cent for it.  Over the course of a 52 week year,  25minutes times 52 weeks = more than 21 hours of your free labor (one half of one week of work for nothing).  Look at that number in terms of hundreds of dealers, and you start to get an idea of the way that Harrah's looks at the smallest amounts over the entire work force to save money. 

     Unless you swipe in at exactly your start time - please don't do that to your coworkers - you will be not be paid for one single minute before the hour that you do so.  If you clock out at seven minutes after your shift, you do not get any overtime even if the time clock says that you do.  Your hours are rounded down.  Overtime does not start until 11 minutes after the hour, so you lose that time after the hour that you worked.  This leaves you with three choices.

1. Swipe in before your start time without getting paid for one minute.  You don't get paid for the extra time, but you're being nice to the person whom you're pushing out.  Please be considerate.
2. Swipe in exactly on the hour without regard for the person whose day is done.
3. Swipe in one minute late and risk getting 1/2 point for doing so.

We very frequently see our hours adjusted downward. 

How many times have you ever seen you hours adjusted upward?

What's next?  Will they take away the early push?  Ask a 10-hour person about this.