Am i using too much of my allotted overtime?

Hello everyone. I work through an agency as a mechanical engineer for a US automotive company. At the moment, things are very slow in my position and i find i have more free time than i use to. My boss allows me 12 hours of overtime (OT) per week but i feel i dont need that much; i feel i only need 6 hours. Lately i have been hanging around for the OT (averaging roughly 10 hours / week) but not doing much. Not because i am lazy, but because i am in a very unique (almost Limbo-like) position right now. It’s a bit of a lengthy explanation as to why, so i will spare you, but basically the next 3 months of work will be a struggle to communicate with the broad team i am with, and the level of responsibility i am to own will dwindle. I feel my boss senses i have more free time than usual. Is it wrong to stick around for just the OT? - i have worked for the company for 3 yrs and they have not hired me directly (still work through an agency) - no raise or increase in pay in 3 dedicated yrs of work - My boss sent me an email asking how many hours OT i wanted for February. I said 8 instead of the usual 6, he gave me 12 stating that its important to not go over 12. - i consistently have a sense of not showing enough work flow to my boss

Answers

StephenWeinstein

Yes. You are allowed only to use however much is needed to finish your work. You are not allowed to hang around more time just to get more OT pay.

Judy

yes, use only what you need.

STEVEN F

ANY time you are hanging around not actually working for no reason other than getting paid overtime is too much.

The Lord Humungus.

Yeah, that is why you don't have a full time job. You keep trying to play angles and think that you've outsmarted the people who know exactly how lazy you are.

ibu guru

There are a number of strange things about this, and you have omitted significant info. Are you a foreign worker on an H1-b visa working through a body shop? That would explain why there are no raises (contract employment), and why you have not been hired directly by the end-user employer & are still with the body shop. You are working illegally. Only end-user employers can legally obtain employment visas such as H1-b. Body shops are a scam. IF you were a US citizen, an employer who keeps a temp for more than 1000 hours (approximately 6 months), must take on that employee as a permanent hire, not a temp. From the sound of things you state, something is not kosher here at all. If you are a foreign worker on visa, you need to quit & return home to your own country as you are participating in a fraud that can get you permanently barred from US . What's really going on here?

Anonymous: Update

Update: If you’re thinking “why cant you just put you’re head to it and get busy!”, then you would need more detail from me to understand my situation and the environment i am in. I am dealing with a bunch of very possesive, stressed, millennial engineers that have been away from their families for months now. I work on the Launch team technically, but I don’t own any of the parts or concerns (yet), until they leave back to HQ and the new car is mine to manage. So communication and actual engineering work for me is proving difficult, and that’s that. Update: Ibu guru, you are way off. Humungus, You’re more off than ibu guru. This is a full time job with a high-paying salary. I have 2 masters degrees and have worked diligently and professionally for the company now for just about 3 years. This is about a temporary stage in my position where i have little ownership of parts and issues.

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