they performed most of their work at their desks; they generally described their duties as office-based, rather than manual. Additionally, the field walk-downs—performed as part of the planners’ preparation of work repair packages—are “directly and closely related to the [planners’] work requiring the exercise of discretion and independent judgment,” supporting exemption from the FLSA. 29 C.F.R. § 541.203(b). The planners further argue that because certain planners worked without overtime pay removing ice at the Cook plant for a month or two in 1998, the planners cannot be considered nonmanual workers. Exempt employees’ status under the FLSA does not change merely because they perform some nonexempt work. See, e.g., Counts v. South Carolina Elec. & Gas Co., 317 F.3d 453 (4th Cir.2003) (<HOLDING>). The ice removal project does not concern the
holding that a note delivered by an employees mother which stated that the employee was having a lot of pain in her side and would not be able to work that day and the mothers statement that the employee was sick were insufficient as a matter of law to inform the employer that the employees request to take time off was for a serious health condition within the meaning of the fmla holding that because the language and structure of the flsa call for a holistic approach to determining employees primary duties the court need not engage in a day by day scrutiny of the tasks of administrative employees holding that even though some of employees duties appeared to satisfy the directly related element the element was not satisfied where those duties were not part of his primary duty holding that a company exercising substantial control of the terms and conditions of the work of the employees is an employer under the flsa holding that employees may not contract away their flsa rights