Re: Wants to have her cake & eat it?
Those of us on monthly salaries are paid to do a job, our contracts rarely include overtime (but may allow for bonuses or extra time off). There's nothing USAian about that (I'm not from the US). This person seems to have a monthly salary but wants overtime as if she were an hourly worker.
The problem is this idea has become culturally acceptable, and people defend it.
I'm a salaried developer, so no overtime, however project cost estimations include my time with a per hour cost, so it's obviously a metric that exists and is how the company budgets my time. Therefore unless I mess up I work the hours I'm contracted to; as they're the hours I'm paid for. My company doesn't 'care' about me, I'm a resource used to produce a thing. I'm not doing my company a favour by turning up to work, I do it because they pay me.
The reality is, sometimes things take longer than estimated, which incurs extra costs, some of which are peoples time. Otherwise you're just making accountants look good.
Why is there this assumption the extra effort we put into being skilled makes us value our time less? If we carry on perpetuating this idea that we should just work extra for free people will keep taking advantage of it. In 10 years time your company won't care, if you've moved on you may not even remember, but your partner or children will remember that time you weren't around because you were working late, or that school play you missed because... work.
Your employer isn't a person, it's not you're friend, it's a business that remunerates you for your skill and time. We all seem to value the first, lets value the latter a bit more too.
In my experience people with monthly salaries earn more, per hour, than hourly waged staff, and part of that is because we are sometimes called upon to do additional work.
Which you should be paid for. You're paid more because you're higher skilled; not because you're willing to work for free. (Or you shouldn't be).
Frankly, I'm sick of this idea in IT we should just be happy to be taken the piss out of because it's somehow 'professional'.