A woman in a Chicago workplace caused quite a stir recently when she submitted her time sheet. She had worked 800 hours of overtime in 17 weeks, meaning she had been on the job about 12 or 13 hours a day, seven days a week, January through April. Because the woman, Carla Bird, is an assistant at Oprah Winfrey?s production company, Harpo Studios, and because some seemingly jealous co-workers spread the word to the news media, her $32,000 payout was the talk of those who pay attention to workload for a living. The work/life experts were predictably appalled that Ms. Bird had logged so many hours. And the labor lawyers? They were impressed ? that she had actually collected her overtime pay.
See "O.T. Isn?t as Simple as Telling Time", Lisa Belkin, The New York Times, September 19, 2007