DARN! I accepted a job that offered no pay and worked for free.

I thought that I had experienced it all in 13 years of subbing, but I was wrong.

I would never have guessed that someday I would be offered a job that pays nothing. Yet, this is what happened on Tuesday, and I was a sucker to accept it.

The subfinder called me early Tuesday morning to offer me a job that went from 8:00 to 11.55.
I was not sure whether this was considered a full day, but I took it thinking that it was, and later confirmed I was right.
Fifteen minutes later , I was again called by the same district. This time, I was offered a job at the same school with a different job number that went from 12:00 to 2.45.

This offer led me to believe that maybe the morning assignment was only a half a day after all, so I accepted this job as well.
At the end of the day, I called our substitute techinician to see if I was going to get credit for an extra half a day.
She said this situation had never come up before, so she would check it out and get back to me.

Well, it will probably surprise no one that she informed me I only get credit for one day's pay. She told me that I should not have accepted the second assignment.
Although I did not technically get cheated, I ended up working almost three extra hours for no additional pay.

Why is that darn subfinder offering me this second job if it payed nothing?
This is just further evidence that districts care nothing about us, and would rather breach moral principles than fork out a few more good faith dollars.
I am not even convinced that what they did is legal since the job had a seperate I. D. number.

My job is too valuable to make waves. If I complain, I will merely be punished with no work.
However, I find that this is strong evidence of how little subs are respected by some districts.

 

That's ridiculous. I would always do 2 half days in one day.
What a stupid system.
How can they not over ride whatever system they have to pay you for your time?

 

Ironically, I am a victim of their generous system.

It is quite fortunate to work for only 3.5 hours and get credit for a full day. But since this WAS already considered a full day, the subfinder should have blocked me from being offered the second job.

I do them an unintentional favor, and get nothing for it.
I feel they have a moral obligation to tack on an extra half day of pay. But ,of course, they couldn't care less about doing was is morally correct.

 

Oh so you didn't get paid for a half day?

What is the problem then?

 

You worked an 7 hour day and got paid for a 7 hour day. I fail to see why they owe you more money. Sure it sucks knowing you could have gotten the same money for less but its not like you worked for 12 hours and got paid for 8. Been there. Done that.

 

When you accept a job that pays the maximum for the day, the subfinder should lock you out.
I should not have been offered the second job on the same day if I was already earning the maximum daily rate.
Why should the system offer me a job that does not pay anything?

I only accepted the second job because I felt that this morning job must actually be only for a half a day if I was not locked out for the day.

It makes no sense to be offered a job with no pay.

In short, I feel the subfinder tricked me. It is the "glitch" in the system that irks me more than the wages I am not getting.

Under the unusual circumstances, I feel I should have been given a good faith extra half day, while they fix this "bug" in the system.



I am baffled why anyone would ask " Where is the problem then?"

Would this be perfectly OK with everyone else?

 

Hmm. Well, while I totally respect you and the position of substitute, I have to agree with the school on this one. While I will grant that the system should have locked you out, your suspicion about a full day job was right, and you then made the decision to take the other position. Essentially, what you're saying is you want pay for a full day and a half, right? Er, can't agree with that. It's truly a bummer that you could have gotten a day's pay while only working from 8 to 11:55, but ended up having to work from 8 to 2:45...but you aren't getting cheated out of any pay, imo.

Sorry! Chalk it up to another notch of experience on your belt. You know the ol' saying...Fool me once, shame on you...fool me twice, shame on me! Won't happen with you again!

 

I fail to see the big problem either. Paying you a full day's pay for a half day's work is cool! But paying you a full day's pay for a full day's work... well that is fair and expected. It all worked out in the end! Hopefully the confusion won't happen again!

 

Woah, I've never heard of such a thing for a sub to get paid a FULL day's pay for doing a half a day's work. Too bad you didn't just cancel the job that's for the last half of the day...since you now know that it won't pay any more? But I know, you didn't want to appear like you didn't want to do it.

If I were you & your district was like my district where you can cancel via the internet or by phone, I would have done it in a heartbeat, especially since those two ways don't involve talking to a live person in which you wouldn't have had to feel guilty.

 

Had i known it was a full day's pay, there is no way I would have taken the second job. However, since it seems highly unlikely that a subfinder would offer a job with no pay, and since I was not locked out, common sense told me it was only a half day. Hence, I accepted the second job.
I find it odd that no one else finds it strange that I was offered this second job.
It was too early in the morning to ask anyone.

Based on the responses I have received, I have to conclude that no one has a problem with the subfinder offering a job for no pay.

I find this rather odd.

 

I don't think it's the perspective that you got a job with no pay, it's that you worked a full day and got paid a full day. Yes, you didn't need to work that afternoon shift to have gotten the full pay, but it would be even more odd in my mind to have gotten paid a day and a half for a regular length day. As far as the system, I guess it just saw you were available as of noon and went with that. It's probably programed by availability, not how much pay you're getting. It didn't lock you out because you were still available.

In the future I guess it's just best to know for each school you sub at what the cut off for a full day's pay is, and if you ever get a partial day assignment, see if that'll count as a full day or not. If it's a full day, don't accept another assignment. Now you know how the subfinder system is set up. My guess is it's done that way so that if another school had an assignment let's say from 1:00 to 3:30 that day, you could have gotten that call and possibly been paid a half day from that school. Just guessing, I obviously don't know for sure. But it sure seems to be set up based on if you're working somewhere already or not.

 

It didn't offer a job for no pay. If someone who wasn't already being paid for those hours would have taken the job, they would have gotten paid. You were already being paid to work a full day, which is what you worked. They can't pay you for working two jobs at the same time!

I act as a sub on a regular basis when I cover classes for my coworkers on my free periods. I don't get extra pay because it is during my contract hours. I am already being paid to be there and work. It's the same thing with your situation.

 

I know when I subbed, we used the subfinder system. They gave me a book with the cutoff times for half days and full days for each school in the district.
The system would still call me to work at another school at 12 if I was still scheduled to be at one on the other side of town until 12. It is a computer/phone system- it doesn't necessarily know these things.
I think you are lucky that you could work for only the morning and get a full days pay. Now you know for next time. But check to see if you have anything from the district outlining cutoff times so you know which jobs to accept for yourself.

 

I think it is strange, but as Ms.I pointed out, you're not dealing with a live person. It's a system. It saw you available during certain hours, and the job it was sent to look for was for different hours. Perhaps it doesn't care (i.e. isn't programmed) to look for pay as a "lockout" criteria.

That's what the live person-you-is supposed to do.

Do you think that if you hadn't worked the morning job, and only worked the second job, it would have been for no pay? If so, that IS odd. If not, well...

 

oldstudent, if I were you, I'd ask the employee in charge of subcalling how/why this happened & find out how to possibly avoid this happening in the future. Or was it just a rare fluke?

After all, unless we purposely want to do volunteer work for some organization, I don't think any of us want to work w/o pay!

 

The subfinder only looks at hours available and since on paper you were available for those hours, it called you again. If someone else had signed up for the afternoon job then they would have gotten paid for it (half day or full day I don't know) just like you were paid for the morning job. Since you only worked one day, then you should only get paid for one day.

 

I think that it's unfortunate that you didn't need to work those extra hours in order to earn a full day's pay, but I don't think that it is something to get all bent out of shape over. No one cheated you out of any money--you worked the number of hours for which you were paid.

 

I agree with you- it's weird that this happened. It seems as though you should at least be offered an apology- and this needs to be info available to other subs to keep it from happening in your district.
~~~ sharnon007

 

The district I used to sub for paid you per period...so if you worked extra periods, you got extra pay...BUT, it works the other way too...if you worked fewer than a full day, you never got full day pay...sorry, but I think this is sour grapes...you really would have gotten paid "for nothing" and I doubt you would've said anything about that...so since you worked a full day and got a full day's pay, I don't think you should expect more...

I guess my question is if you already knew you were getting a full day's pay, why would you accept an additional job on that day? If you really stop and think about it, I can't imagine that you think it's fair for the school to pay you 1.5 days for a full day's pay...right?

 

The way I see it is you worked 2 half days. You earned a full days pay aka two half days pay. That is the way we subs get paid. What I don't understand is why the first job was going to pay you a full days pay when you didn't work a full day. I could have understood you if you worked both jobs but only got one half days pay. I also, don't understand why anyone else on this thread agrees with you. You worked a full day and got paid for a full day end of story. Sounds to me like what you wanted was a day and halfs pay for working one day. Now whos cheating who out of money?

 

Had I rejected the second job, then someone else would have accepted it, AND GOTTEN PAID!
This is what SHOULD have happened. I admit I made the wrong choice, and as a result, the district now gets to hold on to an extra $57 dollars.

My morning job surpassed the minimum 3.5 hours needed for a full day. The afternoon job was under 3.5 hours, and hence was paid only half a day. These were two seperate jobs with two seperate confirmation numbers, and therefore, in my opinion should have both been paid, regardless of whether me, or another sub had the late job.

To summarize, I would have received a full day's pay, and another sub would have received a half a day's pay if not for my acceptance of the second job.

The district let themselves off the hook, since I had both jobs.
Our substitute coordinator told me she cancelled the afternoon job, but this was after I worked it.

I realize no one thinks I am entiltled to the extra half day, but since the district did not have to pay a second sub, they hold onto this money by default.

I might not deserve the extra money, but neither does the district.

 

Not really. On days I sub at a high school, it's either 7:30 to 3:00 or 7:35-3:00 though there usually is a prep period.
Yeah, you should not have taken the second assignment.

I worked at the same school on the same day for teo different job number recently. Half a day assignment turned into full day when I got there (another class was added for the afternoon) but the first half came from a different fund and so different job number.

Subs are paid on daily rate and so, you got paid for daily rate, as far as they're concerned

 

Oh, the system pays. If the first job had been an hour shorter (and you earn for half a day), you'd have earned for a full day for taking a second job.

It's not a glitch; the subfinder shoftware is set up for maximum benefit for the system.

It's not a bug.

[quote
I am baffled why anyone would ask " Where is the problem then?"

Would this be perfectly OK with everyone else?[/QUOTE]

 

It's - the first job - not half a day's work; it's more than half a day since it's 4 hr and 55 mins.

Good suggestion. When the subfinder calls, one can't know that it's for the same day. So, once answered the call, and find out that it's for the same day, I see three options:
(1) Take it and later cancel it online
(2) Decline
(3) Confuse the subfinder and end the call, i.e. make no acceptance or declining but then it might keep calling if it can't find anyone.

I remember a job in a district that calls manually. I had to go to once site in the mornign and afternoon in the afternoon. They're not clsoe. May be I should have been paid for the gas to make that trip

 

If you understood that your job pay is based on daily rate, you'd know know that as long as the total hours for the day is within the pay for the day's *full day* hours, you will not get paid for overtime.

 

[quote
I find it odd that no one else finds it strange that I was offered this second job.[/quote]

I see that the subfinder system as smart system. In fact, in our district, it's called Smartfind System.

Your conclusion is wrong The only person who thinks you didn't get paid is you.

 

This prompted me to wonder the following situation:

Say, Tom gets a call for a partial day (from 8:00 am to 11:45am),earning for a full day and took the assignment. Then, he made a dentaila ppoint at 1:00 PM on that day. Then that same school found out that they need a sub for a different class in the afternoon, say form 12:20 to 1:52 and wants to see whether they can use Tom for that period so that they don't have to pay extra getting another sub. IS Tom suppsoed to be aviale for that period since he's getting paid for a full day by that school?

 

Anything over half day is paid as a full day. In one of the districts I sub, half a day is 3 1/2 hour but in another district, it's 4 hours.

 

Is the following possible?

The subfinder calls you first and checked whether you're still available for the rest of the day (day as in full day scedule) so that the district could hold onto that $57.

You should have mentioned this peice of information in your first post. If the district did that, i.e. cancelled that second job, then they're covering up for the loophole in their subfinder system. So, you had two jobs that day and you should have been paid for both SEPARATELY.

IF their legal agreement with you as a sub is such that you get paid for a full day as long as the total hour is ablove the hours for half a day and doesn't exceed the full day, hours there is NOTHING you can do about the second job even if it their subfinder not a being smart system. You voluntaraily did the work since they're were already paying you for a full day that day. If there is no such legal agreement, you can insist on getting paid for the seocnd job *separately* but my guess is that they'd have a "clause" somewhere in the agreement paperwork for such senarios.

With me, it's not about deserving or not. I go by the legality. If you have mentioned that the district cancelled the second job, I'd have responded differently than my first response. BTW, did they *cancel* or did somemthing diferrent. How can a job for which you did the work be canceled? That's your experience; they can't juast cancel it like it didn't happen. Check with them again what they did. Then, based on the legality on pay, proceed.

 

After I got home, I called our substitute coordinator explaining the scenario. She was baffled by the situation, and did not know whether I was entiltled to pay for both jobs. She then checked into it.

She later left a message stating that she checked with the assistant superintendent, who told her that the district policy was to only pay subs for a full day.
She then told me she cancelled the afternoon job.

Is this illegal? I do not know.I suppose that I could investigate further. However, since subs are a dime a dozen, and the district could not care less whether I think their decision is fair, I would be on their s%#t list and would likely receive few calls, and have little chance of joining them full time.

It is my personal opinion that since these are two seperate jobs, that both should be paid, but there is no way an assistant superintendent is going to give the benefit of doubt to a sub when money is involved.

The fact that the job was cancelled, provides, in my opinion, some evidence that I should have been paid for both jobs, although I realize no one else here, except for maybe Currentsubber agrees with my point of view.

Am I "getting bent out of shape?" Maybe a little; but because subbing is among the most disrespected positions in the educational system as evidenced by the complete absense of any perks or benefits, coupled with our absurdly low wages, this is just one more molehill to add to a large mountain of disrespect for our profession.

 

Perhaps you mentioned this already, and I either missed it or forgot, but were these 2 jobs at the same school, or different schools? I mean buildings, and districts...

 

Same school, but two different classrooms and teachers.

 

So you weren't traveling to a different school, signing in at a different school, etc. Just basically being reassigned to a different classroom...

 

Yes. It was not a clear cut issue, and one that was unique.
This is why our sub coordinator did not even know the answer.
But with money involved, any "fuzzy issue will go against us.

 

We have 2 options for subs: half-day for half-day pay or full-day for full-day pay. If the sub is getting paid for the full day, they are expected to work for the whole day. If they aren't needed in the original classroom for the entire day, they are reassigned to another room. If a half-day sub's assignment ends before the original teacher returns, we cover it internally. We can't afford to pay a sub for time they don't work.

 

What if this scenario happened?

Let's say that second job was at the *same* school as the first one one he had taken but he declined the second one that cane later. What if the school decided to cancel his fmornign assignment and offered a whole day assignment to someone else.

Can they do that or would it be a violation (by the school) to cancel a job, his (OldStudent's) morning job, that was still valid, i.e. cancellation was not due to not neededd the sub anymore for the morning but only to save money? The subfinder should and would probably have a record of that morning assignment, say which teacher requested for what day at what school. Unless the school are privileged to cancel on and reassign that job (along with added portion) to someone as, the school would be in violation. I wonder what's the policy on the scenario I described.

 

I thought that the 2nd one was at another school.

Since it is same school, it's a good thing yu took the sepcnd assignment because the school would have cancelled your first assignment (if they could) and give the whole day to someone else who can do it.
Once, with the district that makes call manually, I was offered to sub at two different schools. I didn't have to rush to make the trip as I only did one class at the first school and 2 classes at the second one (or was it vice versa?)

 

What if the call for the 2nd job via subfinder was made to you *first* (before calling other subs) per request of the school? And if you didn't take it, what if the school could cancel your morning assignment and give it to someone else? The district woulkd still get to, hold tht extra $57 but you'd have made none.

I think that most school, if they're paying for a full day.
, would play it safe by offering the whole day scedule regardless whether the sub was needed for the whole day.

I am leaning more and more that if you had not taken the second one, your first job might have got cancelled.

I think the district can do that w/o any violation.

Since it's the same school, I now lean more and more toward your first job getting cancelled had you not taken the second job.

 

Well If I was offered by a teacher or secretary a half day assignment and then they needed me for a full day I would not be required to take it. If I did take it I would get a full days pay for a full days work. If I didn't take it I would get a half days pay for a half days work! End of story!

 

It seems perfectly acceptable to me. Had you left around the noon hour you would have been paid a full day despite not working a full day...which would have been great--a perk, a little Christmas present, a nice little extra. But it turned out you were needed the entire day after all, which is what you were paid for. I do get why you're frustrated, but I certainly don't think the school is in the wrong at all.