Checking a payslip using addition and multiplication

Speaker 1: Ah, Harry! Just the man. You alright?

Speaker 2: Good, thank you.

Speaker 1: Harry, I've just been reviewing your timesheet for last week, and I've noticed you've done a few odd days with some unusual hours.

Is there any chance you can have a look at the timesheet for me check against your payslip and make sure they work out the same.

Speaker 2: OK, thank you.

Speaker 1: Brilliant, thank you Harry. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2: (TO AUDIENCE) OK, so I have my timesheet here and I have my payslip over here.

I'm just going to check the hours against them to make sure they all add up correctly.

Speaker: OK, so I'm going to use my timesheet to work out how many hours I've done this week and make sure it adds up.

And I'm going to use my graph paper to help me out.

So on Monday it was 6 and a half hours. Tuesday was 7 and a half hours.

Wednesday was 8 hours. Thursday was 8 hours again.

So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Friday was 6 and a half hours.

And Saturday, which was my extra working day, was 3 and a half hours.

And that's my graph. So for every day of the week I don't get paid for half an hour's lunch, so I'll need to go through and take off half an hour of each day.

OK so the first thing I'm going to do is add up the hours of work that I've done and then add up the minutes.

So on Monday I worked 6 hours. Tuesday was 7 hours.

Wednesday was 7 hours plus 7 for Thursday plus 6 for Friday plus 3 for Saturday gives me 36 hours.

And for the minutes, I've got two 30 minutes there.

Two 30s is 60. So, 60 minutes in an hour so that's another hour added on, which makes 37 hours of paid work.

Speaker 1: (TO AUDIENCE) I know I've worked 37 hours in the week, and I also know that I get paid £3.30 an hour.

So I do the amount of hours I've worked, which is 37 times by £3.30.

That comes to £122.10 for the week.

Now my payslip is actually showing £132, instead of £122.10.

So that must mean I've been paid for my break time for each day of the week, which I shouldn't have.

So I can work this out by adding back on the 3 hours that I took off for my lunch breaks, which brings my total hours of work to 40.

So I can do 40 hours times by £3.30, which gives me £132 and that shows what I've been paid on my payslip.

Speaker 2: (TO OTHER PEOPLE) So how are you getting on then, Harry?

Speaker 1: Yeah, good. I've checked against my hours and it's come up different on my payslip here. So I think I've been overpaid.

Speaker 2: So what do you think's gone wrong then, Harry?

Speaker 1: I think I've been paid for my lunch breaks.

Speaker 2: Thank you very much for being so honest then.

Just as a little tip for the future, Harry, what you can actually do is convert your hours and minutes into decimals, it just makes it easier to multiply and add up.

So what you do is, for instance, 15 minutes would be 0.25, or 30 minutes would be 0.5.

So just as a little test for that one, if you'd like to read out your hours for each day and then I'll convert it into a decimal.

Speaker 1: So Monday was 6 hours and 30 minutes.

Speaker 2: OK, so that will be 6.5.

Speaker 1: Tuesday was 7 hours and 30 minutes.

Speaker 2: That will be 7.5.

Speaker 1: Wednesday and Thursday was 8 hours.

Speaker 2: OK, so they're both 8.

Speaker 1: Friday was 6 hours and 30 minutes.

Speaker 2: OK, so that will be 6.5.

Speaker 1: And Saturday was 3 hours and 30 minutes.

Speaker 2: OK, so that will be 3.5.

And this should add up to the same number that you have - 40. So 40 hours.

So by doing that decimal place test, you're actually checking yourself with what you've done there with the hours and minutes, OK.

Speaker 1: Yeah. That's brilliant.

Speaker 2: Well done, Harry.