But now, your resentment festers with each bleep. At first, wearing that beeper made you feel important. But as time has gone by, you resent feeling tethered to the workplace by that beeper. And your employer refuses to unleash you. You and your employer are not alone in locking horns over the issue.
Disputes usually boil down to the slipperiness in the definition of control and use of time.
If the occasional beep beckons you only to call in to give advice, but you are otherwise free to spend your time any way you want, your employer need only pay for the time you spend answering the beeper. If your employer requires you to be on call but does not require you to stay on the company's premises, then the following two rules generally apply. On-call time that you are allowed to control and use for your own enjoyment or benefit is not counted as payable time. On-call time over which you have little or no control and which you cannot use for your own enjoyment or benefit is payable time. Jack can spend his free time any way he wants.