to think that the world would be a much nicer place if no one worked overtime, through lunch breaks or took work home with them?

[AKMD]

I was in a meeting yesterday and found myself in a 'who-has-it-the-hardest' match with a colleague in another department talking about how we work all hours, take work home, stay late, come in on annual leave, never have a lunch break blah blah blah. Very sad, I know AIBU to think that if everyone stopped doing things like this then we could practically solve the no-jobs issue overnight and all be a lot healthier, happier and generally better than we are now?

Why enter into a contract which doesn't have a clear definition on the amount of work that you should provide to your employer for the set salary that they are paying you? It seems odd that that is standard practice for intelligent professionals.

I'm not saying that job satisfaction isn't important or that 'going the extra mile' from time to time is necessarily a bad thing I'm arguing that people should be rewarded fairly and adequately for the work that they do and that the culture we have built up where employers have an expectation that it is normal for employees to provide them with free labour on a continual basis is fundamentally flawed.

I would say that those lucky enough to be adequately rewarded for their extra time with continuing job satisfaction are more likely to be in the minority than the majority. There is only so long that you can give without receiving before being worn down.

I do understand that some people like their jobs but still don't see that as a reason for providing labour for free for someone elses profit. If you want to work extra for free why no provide pro-bono services to a charity?

My job involves lots of extra hours/days/weekends, lunch is a luxury etc and we don't receive overtime, but my normal pay reflects that. Its just what is expected of our grade and the company pays enough to compensate.

Yes AKMD...we have millions of people working overtime; some others with 2 or 3 jobs..and up to 5 million unemployed. we can do better than that

I have never once said that I think everyone should finish work at 5pm or that it is possible for everyone to do this, although I am thinking more of office workers in my general argument as that is how the conversation started.

My argument is very simple if you are working you should be paid for that work, and that the expectation that an employee should continually work for extra hours without being paid for them week after week is fundamentally wrong. To my mind it doesn't matter how many hours someone actually works as long as they are paid for them!

I'm actually finding it quite odd how angry people seem to be getting at the suggestion of receiving appropriate extra reward for the hours that they work.

If I had a hammer, I would hammer in the morning.

Thats what extra strong chewing gum does to me.

GiddyPickle it's not only not right but it's also quite short sighted from a business point of view as companies essentially end up excluding talented and experienced people from the workplace.

Are there really that many jobs that require one person to do a 70 hour work week and is that person really taking on absolutely no tasks that can be delegated to others? The key problem of course is that for the majority of businesses labour is the biggest cost, therefore any business wishing to be financially efficient will look to squeeze as much out of a person as they are willing to give. Sure some businesses reward those people with above average wages but they will still be paying less than if they actually employed an adequate amount of staff.

Not really sure what can be done about such things, the best I can come up with is having arguments with people who think it's perfectly acceptable for employers to have these expectations of them on internet forums.

Very good point cat64