Robby Slaughter

Our local minor league baseball team has an exciting opportunity for a bright, hardworking individual. The internship offers an entry into the world of sports PR and the explicit promise of 100 hours per week.

I had to call the Indianapolis Indians to make sure that was really the case. In speaking with a representative, the posting is accurate.  Here is the relevant text as posted on the Hoosier PRSA Job Bank (original source) with some highlighting:

If we ignore the rest of the details and focus just on the highlighted text, the opportunity seems incredulous. The phrase “up to fourteen hours a day” sounds like something out of the last century. In fact, much of the history of the industrial revolution consisted of a struggle to determine reasonable working conditions. We now generally think of work as eight hours a day, five days a week, thanks to all the efforts that culminated in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

The notion of “up to 100 hour per week” may also seem unbelievable. That would be twenty hours a day in a five day week.  Throw in Saturday, and you’re working an average of sixteen hours and 40 minutes. As the next portion explains, this time includes “all home games.” In April of 2010, the Indianapolis Indians will host nine games in a row, from Friday the 16th to Saturday the 24th. All but two of these games run until 10:00PM at night.

Finally, the job posting lists the salary: $700 a month plus housing. Although prices vary, one reliable source puts a generous apartment allowance in downtown Indianapolis at $1,000. The effective rate, therefore, is $1,700 a month. At 40 hours a week, that works out to a salary of $10.63 an hour. At 100 hours a week, it’s closer to $4.25/hour. The federally-mandated minimum wage, by the way, is $7.25/hour.

That doesn’t mean the Indianapolis Indians are planning to violate the law. In fact,  there is no legal limit on the number of hours an employee can be asked to work. However, it’s not clear if overtime is due is in this case. The Department of Labor explains on their website (emphasis added):

Section 13(a)(1) of the FLSA provides an exemption from both minimum wage and overtime pay for employees employed as bona fide executive, administrative, professional and outside sales employees. Section 13(a)(1) and Section 13(a)(17) also exempt certain computer employees. To qualify for exemption, employees generally must meet certain tests regarding their job duties and be paid on a salary basis at not less than $455 per week. Job titles do not determine exempt status. In order for an exemption to apply, an employee’s specific job duties and salary must meet all the requirements of the Department’s regulations.

My estimation of $1,700 a month would work out to $425 a week, so I would say that the internship is not exempt from overtime pay laws. Therefore, according to the Department of Labor:

For covered, nonexempt employees, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires overtime pay at a rate of not less than one and one-half times an employee’s regular rate of pay after 40 hours of work in a workweek.

So how is it possible that a company can offer a job for a measly $1,700 a month and expect employees to work 14-hour days and 100-hour weeks? That would be inconceivable almost anywhere for the past hundred years. There is one reason why the Indianapolis Indians can post these details without a second thought:

It’s baseball! What could be more exciting for a fresh young intern? Everybody knows that sports fans know no limits when it comes to sleep, obsession or team loyalty. Why should employees of sports franchises be any different? Aren’t they living the dream of spending all their time with the team and getting paid at the same time?

The sobering reality is that although baseball may be exciting, it is still a business.  Employees are human beings that need balance, personal lives, and sleep. Worker productivity will suffer from 14-hour days, whether they are logged in a bank, a non-profit or a stadium. No matter how tremendous or valuable the experience, we should never expect people to work 100 hours a week.

One blog post is not going to inspire the Indianapolis Indians or the entire sports world to reassess their attitude toward internships. The essential message for the rest of us, however, is to recognize the distinction between passion for an employer and passion for doing good work. We might be able to legally ask people to spend all their waking hours at the office, but that won’t produce results or satisfaction. The only reliable way to increase productivity is to increase trust and freedom, not working hours.

This is an old topic for us at Slaughter Development. In fact, we covered the topic of employee loyalty over a year ago here on The Methodology Blog. We’d love to chat about it more. Reach out to us. Subscribe to our newsletter.  Talk to us about how you characterize work.

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