I retired after being an engineer for 50 years. We had to record our time in order to have an accurate basis for estimation when bidding on a new contract. So yes, all of that time was recorded and billed. Now, since I was salaried, that wasn't reflected in a larger check, but it was all recognized (year-end performance review, promotions, bonuses, etc.). On east coast calls, while driving to work, midnight calls with the UK, and weekend calls down to OZ - were all fair game. I actually had a corporate/customer auditor - audit my time records and found that I had taken a standard corporate training and test, but did not record the time. The auditor was gleeful that they had actually found something, and in their blood sport mindset, they were going to have a "hanging party". My VP started to rake me over the coals, but I asked - who designed and wrote the test? (me), how long did it take me to take the "test", 3 minutes? When did I take the test (check the computer records) - while I was on a contract call (phone records and video conference records) - systems had to be online, even though it was a mechanical engineering meeting, needed to be monitoring but not actively engaged, since I trusted my mechanical lead engineer. What is our smallest billing period (10 minutes), so according to our corporate time recording policies (which are extensive - and monitored by a federal judge over the last 30 years, because the company was caught cooking the books waaaay back when) - policy stated I charge the time to the call and not the 3 minutes to the test - since I was engaged in both activities. I fucking nailed that one in front of the GM, VP, HR VP, Legal VP, auditor, and the federal court referee - who were all out to find something - anything to hang on anyone. They actually used this incident to end the 30 years' worth of court-appointed monitoring - as it had turned up nothing but compliance.