Is it normal to always work overtime at low skilled job

[ASDnocareer]

I work full time which is supposed to be from 9 - 5pm, however I regularly work past this because of the workload.

Usually I work 8.45 - 6.30 on average, sometimes around 8pm, and few times as late as 10.30pm. Is this normal for an entry level role?

It’s an entry level operations role in financial services paying less than 35k in a big city. I rarely ever find external jobs I could apply for where my experience counts. I hit my targets but no internal vacancies in 3 years, and no external prospects due to my experience being seen as worthless low skilled.

I feel so stressed and mentally chained to my desk. Feels bit like I’m grieving the normal adult life I was supposed to have where I once thought working had some purpose or future prospects to strive towards. I have very low quality of life, an increasing workload but nothing to show for it.

My manager is very unsympathetic and unapproachable. She is senior but gets to finish around 5 as she does more scheduling and assigning resource rather than actual executing of xyz tasks.

I always dread work the next day, and I don’t have much time/energy to do anything after other than eat dinner, scroll on my phone and go to bed. The only time I feel life is okay is when I’ve gone for drinks with friends as it temporarily shuts off the work stress.

Is this normal for office jobs these days? I think I’d at least be more accepting of it if I had better prospects to change roles at some point or the potential to earn more. I’m instead trapped in this bad role without a way out, I volunteered for projects, joined multiple network groups with my employer, got a work mentor. I don’t see a future for myself, I’m not suicidal but I don’t see the point of life if it takes so much just to survive?
Time is passing me by so quickly, nothing to show for it.

From my experience I would say there are two types of people at work:

1. Those who have boundaries and they stick to them e.g. having a full lunch hour, clocking off on time etc.
2. Those that give and give and don't set boundaries for themselves.

Neither are wrong. It's just different strokes for different folks. I'm type 2 but I respect type 1s and type 2s equally as long as both are doing the job that needs doing (99% of the time both are).

If you're unhappy with the set up, it's not too late to become a type 1. Start small and set 1 boundary at a time e.g. don't long on early first, then take most of lunch hour, then all if lunch hour, then start logging off earlier and earlier until you log off on time.

No it’s not normal. I wouldn’t be expecting to do unpaid overtime in any job, whether entry level or director level.

Are you actually low skilled/entry level? You say you can’t find external jobs where your experience counts - have you been looking for a sideways move or for progression? Sideways could be a better way to go if your manager is a real pain.

If you stay where you are, you’re going to have to work on your boundaries. Do you have children/commitments outside work? What would your manager say if you had to leave on the dot for a childcare pick up or something else equally vital? You have to start valuing yourself as much as you would value anyone else you were committed to.

PP is right in there being two different types of people and yes, in a way neither are wrong, but IME type 2 ends up burned out and anxious (and is anxious to begin with - that’s the reason they tend not to set firm boundaries). Type 1 tends to thrive and can play the game comfortably til retirement.

do you get paid overtime for those extra hours?

Btw another way to tackle this might be to go through the pain of timing everything you do and presenting that back to your manager as a case to push back on workload. Suggest she hires more people or redistributes work, but leave it as her problem to solve, not yours.

@Hoodlumboodlum Thanks, I would like to become a type 1 but truthfully I’m just scared it will only make things even worse at my job. The team lead and other senior already dislike me and have created a toxic environment. If I even ask for help (not spoodfeeding!) using the softest/politest language I can think of they will find a way to become defensive, give vague unhelpful responses, tell me to reach out to someone else or even just ignore my messages.
I genuinely feel scared to ask for help without trying a 100 things first because I feel so intimidated by them. It’s almost like they are gleefully waiting for me to make a mistake, as they will then have a justified reason to dislike me and prove they’re far more competent. If I didn’t do as many hours as I did now, I would be directly blamed “The deadline was xyz why didn’t you meet it? You were given xyz time to do this and it must be finished otherwise (secondary consequence / impact on other team).”
We can’t push back on deadlines in my team, or at least I have zero power to do so

When I called in sick recently due to bad infection (confirmed by NHS hospital results) the manager still checked whether I’d completed xyz task before telling me to rest.

Team lead /managers are more senior than me, have been at company for very long time, and have much bigger voice/authority on everything.

I will never be believed if I tell anyone how they often make me tearful and hate my job.
Today one messaged me to flag I had forgot to include an attachment for audit purposes on a previous task few months ago. It was a genuine mistake and I obviously never intended to do it, but it’s likely due to the stress and workload.

I don’t have any breathing / buffer time anyway so can’t imagine how things would get far worse if I reduced my overtime

@Loveduppenguin No however we are allowed to take one or two half days a month as long as it doesn’t clash with our schedule.

However even when I factor in these half days think I’m still working over contracted 9-5 if that makes sense

Well in that case I wouldn’t be doing it. I would up and leave at your finish time. And pick back up the next morning. If anything is said, you are doing nothing wrong. Half an hour here and there is grand yes…but every day! Not a chance.

No not normal. I only work overtime if its paid.
Working late and doing more than your contracted hours seems quite normal.in big, well paid jobs
Your manager seems really unpleasant too.
I'd look for a new job

The problem with doing what you’re doing is that is masks a resource deficit. Sometimes you need things to go to shit for people to take that seriously. I would be looking for a new job in your position.

If you cannot complete the work in your normal working day that is a failure of management, not you. It means they have miscalculated the amount of time it will take, or not given you sufficient training/resources etc to do it.

Its not normal and they're taking the piss, so they can fuck off. I'd be sorting out an exit plan, it might mean moving sideways, looking at related jobs with similar skills, maybe some re-training. You need to take care of you and this is no way to live.

@Hurumphh I’m quite surprised I thought this was maybe just normal these day, I don’t think there’s anyone I can raise my concerns with at work because don’t management always get final say? HR will always side with them over an entry level staff member.

I believe I am low skilled as I have never really found any jobs where my experience would help to get the job, and I’m looking in a huge city with lots of financial services companies. I am very open to sideways as long as it’s not big pay cut but still can’t seem to find jobs that would see any worth in my current experience. Feels few years wasted experience at this job but I guess at the very least just being in full time employment whilst jobhunting is better than being unemployed.

I have no children, no pets / commitments outside work. Having children would seem impossible anyway (extremely expensive but also not enough time on average evening for myself let alone kids).
Noone in team has young children so don’t know how management would be in terms of flexibility

When they say 'why didn't you meet this deadline?' reply saying that you have only met said deadline in the past by doing X number of unpaid hours overtime. And you are no longer prepared to do that.

They can't sack you for leaving at five. But definitely look for another job.

When projects are tasked to you and you cannot meet the deadline during your contracted working hours you need to email back and state that “this project will require me to spend x time on it which is outside of the deadline. Could we please look at either extending the deadline or teaming up with another team member”

if they respond to you with “well it needs to be completed by/ you’ve managed it before”

you repeat that “I understand that the deadline is x but without additional support this cannot be met” “previously I have worked many unpaid hours of over time- typically working from 8:45 to 6:30pm”

they may well do The whole “why can’t you just work the extra time then?” To which you respond that “you now have other commitments outside of work time”.

if it makes you feel better and helps you enforce the boundary join a class- this massively helped me because I HAD to leave by x time to get there and if they ever spring it on you, you have the reason right there without having to lie

HR exists to protect the company, not the managers. Common misperception but what that means is they always want to protect themselves from being taken to a tribunal because of a manager’s behaviour.
At least schedule a meeting with your HR rep and explain the situation. Their response will soon tell you whether the problem is the company or the manager.
But I would agree with others that this isn’t normal. I also sense other anxiety with you - it’s fine for people to email you to tell you you’ve missed off an attachment. And then you say ‘thanks for spotting! I’ll send it now’. No biggie.

P..s. Have you actually applied for other jobs or just told yourself you don’t have any worth? If the latter, get applying. You need to rewrite your narrative!

This. You doing extra gets entrenched, the extra work you do gets to be expected and not appreciated. No one thanks you or even really notices, it's just their normal.

I've left a job for this reason and don't regret doing so. One of the healthiest things I've ever done for myself. I think it can be addressed by less drastic measures which I perhaps didn't have the social skills to navigate at the time, but I did what I could and it worked. There are jobs out there with more prospects and a 5pm finish.

@ASDnocareer it was a theoretical question about children/caring commitments. My point is that if you had other vulnerable people/dependents relying on you, you’d have no choice but to develop your boundaries and your skill at keeping to them. You are no less valuable than a dependent, so you can develop your boundaries just for you. Sometimes it’s easier to think about it in terms of what you’d be comfortable upholding for another person, as we’re used to being kinder to others than we care to ourselves.

On transferable skills, are you properly valuing any soft skills you’ve gained and could offer in another job? Think broader than the specific processes/systems/topics you touch. Think about things like administration, stakeholder management, organisation, logical thinking, project management (even if not formal, then mini projects/jobs), report writing, technology skills like Word, Excel…. I’m sure if you google or ask chatGPT you can get a list of workplace skills for inspiration writing your CV and covering letters.

Also are you female? Because males will typically apply for a job if they only tick some of the skills/experience asked for in a job ad, compared to women who typically feel they have to tick every box before hitting apply. Most of us are just winging it!

Thank you all I will take time to reply properly to your helpful replies but my head is so overwhelmed right now, todays workload has brought me to tears yet again because even working until 9.30pm it’s not finished!! I don’t even know when I will be finished. It’s partly because I feel I have a training/knowledge gap on things that will help me perform my task most efficiently. Another junior team member tried to flag that the task is challenging and if we could request for demos on how to do xyz but a manager has already defensively said “well none of us were given training sessions, and we’re all new to this xyz task”, also in another meeting more pressure added “you’ve already been given a week this really needs to be finished by COB tomorrow” - I was too scared to say anything back because where do I even start with how overworked/stressed I sm.

I’m not even confident in my attempt of doing the task, it takes me so long doing the mental gymnastics of even understanding the task.

I stayed working all evening and closed laptop at half 9 because my eyes hurt.

Does anyone know if it would be acceptable to make a confidential call with HR to explain this situation or will it jeopardise my job? It’s a public sector company if that makes a difference, I have a disability too which I’d never asked tor reasonable adjustments before

I called HR’s service desk line out of desperation today, but felt the lady on the line was quite blunt and unsupportive. I started to worry I have made some bad etiquette for contacting HR.

Maybe I raised it wrongly? I had said I was seeking any support the company could provide, I am diagnosed with ASD and experiencing severe burnout due to regular unpaid overtime eg yesterday working until 9.30. I also have no reasonable adjustments put in place and feel this workload is unsustainable, is there anyone I could please speak to about this to manage these challenges with workload.

Calls are confidential at least but she didn’t offer any advice or sympathy (to be fair she is only generalist HR worker) and all she said is “okay well I can raise a ticket for Employee Relations to contact you.”

I thanked her but I had a suspicion from her tone and the fact she wasn’t very engaging I did something wrong. I genuinely don’t know what the etiquette is here?

Also, I’ve double checked and she hasn’t raised a ticket either (we have a portal where anytime you speak to HR they supposed to raise ticket but nothing put on record).

What is your role? Generally entry Ops roles do have plenty of transferrable skills

Hi thanks for your posts @dancingbymyself.
I have been applying for well over a year, although at most stressful times with workload I don’t have any energy for applications. Eg been few weeks since sent last application. My main issue is it’s rare to find any jobs where my experience will count / prioritise my application being shortlisted. I still apply to any other junior/entry roles paying at least 33k to cover my living costs but not surprised I get rejected if I’ve not done that job before.

From my experience even for “entry level” jobs transferrable skills are not enough if you’ve not worked in same area, with similar systems etc. I have worked at three large financial services companies (current employer very ‘big’ company), but I find it’s not enough to land me another junior job if I’ve not done the same job as job ad. I can only guess I got hired for current role because it was such a bad team area they were willing to take anyone.

Apologies I don’t want to out myself so being vague but the only ‘skills’ I can think of from this role:

Triaging and responding to external clients (other financial institutions) basic queries over email. First point of contact for basic queries but I flag complex queries to other teams when needed.

Working cross functionally with other teams internally for projects. (Not sure if this is a skill or expected for all jobs)

Using niche company systems (don’t want to say what systems because may out me but no job advert has ever mentioned system, but I know our clients do use it).

Using Jira and Microsoft Office daily (not really sure this is a skill as every job I’ve had used it)

Getting involved in some UAT at times

Unfortunately I do think this is normal and common in entry level low skilled jobs- lots of long hours and huge workloads for little pay or progression opportunity. That isn’t to say it is healthy or okay though, it’s really not!

Underwriters, PMO managers, procurement managers, marketing, HR managers, and financial crime risk managers do exactly what you do in a nutshell. If you upskilled into Oracle or SAS or another system you could even go into technology development / project management

Controversial approach, but I've had several jobs that feel like yours does OP. Each time I solved it by quitting. Didn't even have another job to go to.

Life is not supposed to feel like this, doesn't have to feel like this and experience has taught me there's always another job. Especially when you're at the dead-end part of the job market.

Take a look at your outgoings, see where you can cut back and what your bare bones essentials budget is. Then see how much you have in savings, accrued holiday you haven't yet taken (which you'll be paid for), add in your last month's salary to be paid and consider what you have lying around at home that could be sold. Work out how long you could survive for.

Then quit right after payday and instantly cut back to your proper hours and minimal effort while you work your month's notice, giving over all your time and energy to job searching.

If they query why the work isn't done, tell them you didn't have time. Don't fall for any offers to pay you overtime, they won't. You're burned out, it's a no, sorry, you can't. If they complain, let them. Daydream whilst they rant away and let it wash over you. When they ask if you're listening, tell them no, then remind them they're keeping you from your work.

If they try to grab you at lunchtime, your lunch hour starts when they finish talking to you. Look at your watch when they're done, it's 1.30pm your off to your lunch break now, bye. When they query why you're back at 2.30pm instead of 2pm, remind them you didn't go to lunch until 1.30pm. Talking about work, especially listening to your boss's complaints about you, should take place during working hours. Don't enter until your start time, go find a cafe or bus stop to sit at if you need to kill time. If they try to grab you at 5pm, you've got to dash, sorry, you've made plans, catch you tomorrow, bye! Thrown over your shoulder as you keep walking towards the exit.

It can be mildly amusing to watch them either blow a gasket or confusedly scratch their head as they try to figure out WTH to do with you. Mostly though it's just a relief to drop the corporate bullshit speak and just be yourself for once. They already hate you, that's where being nice has got you, not being particularly nice or bending over backwards for them any more isn't really going to make it any worse. What they going to do, fire you? 🤣.

Consider anything at all job wise that you think you could do and apply, maybe start a side hustle too, and register with an employment agency or two so they're looking for work for you too, both temporary or permanent. Look at Royal Mail and retail, which will currently be recruiting for Christmas staff.

There's nothing to be gained by staying where you are. It's already toxic and affecting your mental health and life. Get yourself gone and you'll feel so much better. Not least for taking a leap of faith and realising that if you're willing to work, full stop, there's always another job and the world won't cave in just because you defied society's expectations a little bit.