to expect DH to come home from work, or at least get paid overtime?

[Jojoba1986]

It's a particularly bad example today but he's had to go 3.5 hours away for an all day thing which meant leaving the house at 6 & originally he should have been home by 7 'at the latest' but 'unfortunately things got a bit delayed this morning' & so he's basically not going to be home until 10!
I know these things happen occasionally but this is just an extreme example of a relatively normal day! He often tells me he'll be home by 6 so we can all have dinner together but then doesn't even leave the office until then which means he's home about 7. If he's got a lot of work then he'll stay until it's sorted, although he's beginning to get a little better at knowing when enough is enough after I got really annoyed at him on several occasions & told him that I had no intention of DS growing up not knowing if Daddy would be home in time to say goodnight! (Too harsh, I know!) We already put DS to bed later than other 1yos so he actually gets time with him in the evenings but is allowed to sleep late most mornings.
I don't know how much of it is him being too diligent & wanting to get everything right & how much of it is a lack of employee power to get the work done. He says that as a civil engineer it's expected that he'll work a little overtime but it's already in his contract to work half an hour longer than his previous job essentially as unpaid overtime! It just seems really wrong of his company to expect him to work long hours for free & not see his young child at all on days like today!

So who is being unreasonable? Me or them?! Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

(I am aware that lots of people regularly work really long hours or away from home but that's not the lifestyle either of us want & when we got married I was under the impression that he had a relatively 9-5 type job & regular overtime wouldn't be an issue unless he worked his way up to a managerial role.)

I know it can be annoying, as DH used to work silly hours like that, but he was made redundant in May and is desperate for a job- so at the moment, I wouldnt mind having your problem!!

Unfortunately many companies are either truely not been able to afford to pay overtime or using current climate as an excuse.

DH's company stopped paying overtime which meant a massive paycut, like 25%. He still does the hours, maybe not quite as many, but a lot.

The jobs dh has had have always featured him leaving 'late'. He is rarely paid over time. He also routinely leaves the house at the crack of dawn to travel for work. That's the nature of his job and he is relatively well paid for it.

If that's not a scenario you can cope with then you and your dh need to make other career plans.

In the mean time - DO NOT hold him ransom over family dinners. Either feed ds and you eat later when he gets in or save him something. Don't blackmail him over seeing his son awake either. I'm sure he's a loving parent and will feel crap about this. A lot of jobs require a lot. That's how it is.

TBH, I don't think working overtime should = paid overtime. Depending on your career, what you are paid and what your ambitions are it has its place. Its expected in a lot of places and if he didn't do it and there perhaps is the threat of redundancy in the background then maybe he feels the need to pull his weight and prove his worth.

Oh the other hand a balance between work and home is essential and if its getting you down perhaps he hasn't got it right. But thats a separate issue from overtime as far as I'm concerned.

So I think YABU to say he should get paid overtime as thats not how the world works.

But I think perhaps YABNU to suggest he needs a bit of a slap to get a better balance between work and home.

He is a professional, he earns a salary and in no way would he get overtime paid.

It is part of the job to work outside your core hours at this level, mangerial or not.

I am sorry though as you said this is not what you expected, but there isn't really a 9-5 job anymore, unless you do a more basic job. I can understand you being upset but tbh I think the later bedtime for the time being is probabky the way to go.

Dh's work hours are 9 till 5:30 but it's more like 8 till 6 so he is put the house 7 till 7 every weekday with no extra pay he get the odd day in lieu but that's about it.

He couldn't find another job in his field that would be differents so there's not much he can do, he doesn't enjoy the hours but didn't enjoy being on the dole for a year when his last employer went bust either

Yes it's shit he hardly sees the kids in the week and i would love to gave more time eith him but such is life.

Argh ignore all the errors I have wet fingernails and am typing with my pinkie finger

Lots of jobs, generally those with a salary rather than an hourly wage, just don't have a concept of "overtime".

Frankly, anything reasonably well paid, professional and 'salaried' rather than hourly paid is likely to include a lot of unpaid overtime. The higher equivalent 'hourly rate' is in part because of this.

He's pretty much right when he says, in a profession such as civil engineering, and especially in the current economic climate, his overtime is expected.

If that's not working for your family, a change of job may be needed, but there aren't many jobs where 'more money' doesn't equal 'more responsibility' and therefore 'more time', at least until you get right to the top of the tree.

When I was working (Banking in London) we didn't get paid overtime. We had to work from around 8 in the morning to normally 6 - 7 at night. It was expected, if you left at 5pm it was frowned upon. The day was offically 9 - 5.

The management said we were paid for the job not for the hours we worked, I used to get jealous of the temps who could claim for all the extra hours that they worked.

I didn't really get to see much of my DS before I dropped to PT (the longer days as I still had lots of work just not as many days to do it in), and am now very happy to be a SAHM now.

Talking to my DM, it seems like the working culture has not changed from when I was little as my D Dad also was in a bank in London and I only saw him at the weekend growing up as he left home before I got up in the morning and I was asleep when he got home.

I know exactly how you feel, but unfortunately yabu. A lot of jobs have the expectation that you work over your contracted hours on a regular basis - especially the professions. My dh is pretty much expected to work at least 8:30 - 6, despite his contracted hours being 9 - 5:30, he often works at home in the evenings and has to go away at weekends (admittedly these are usually jollies). It is just the culture of the professional workplace. I was 'only' an events organiser before I had my babies (so not really a profession and not all that well paid either) and I did much the same.

Oh dear, I think you would have got a better response if you posted in Chat saying you were unhappy with your husband's long hours, rather than complaining about not getting extra money.

I echo what other people have said, in a salaried job you basically have to work long hours. I worked 70 hours last week and felt so bad for my manager who had his pg wife on the phone every half hour asking him when he would be done when it got after 8pm giving him hassle. So please don't give your DH grief over this. He probably already feels bad about missing dinner and time with your DS, and tired with all the worm. Don't add to the stress.

Dhs work stopped paying overtime as a cost saving measure, if you dont like it (we dont), leave.

Thats their attitude and unpleasant as it is, its a job.

I do feel for you OP, I can imagine being at home and being frustrated every evening because he is late must really be upsetting.

But - it really is unlikely to change unless he takes a job with a lesser salary I think.

I think the main problem here is that he's making promises he can't keep - probably with the best of intentions because he doesn't want to upset you. If he said for sure that he won't be back until 10 and then came back at 10, I think you'd deal with it a lot better as you'd know where you were.

Yes, he needs to get a more realistic idea of when he will be back, rather than saying what he'd like to do and what you'd like to hear.

DH is salaried ( managerial) with no overtime payment so he gets the same whether he finishes at 4.30 on the dot or 8pm, yes it's annoying but it's better than relying on overtime like so many people do, they come unstuck when it drys up.
It sucks when his engineers out earn him by doing overtime though, just one reason why he's currently job hunting .

That's a good point dahlen.

He is probably trying to appease you and also trying to keep his end up at work.

Does he get any downtime? As a civil engineer I would imagine that his work is project based, so (like me) he could work all the hours for months on end, and then in a quiet period have very little stress and can do his contracted hours.

I am currently working 3-4 days a week in London, leaving at 5.40 and getting back at half 7. I get paid no extra but I know that in a few months I will have some very slack weeks where I can work from home, work 8 til 4 and generally recharge. It is hard on the family life but at a certain level it is expected (and probably contracted, lots of jobs have weasel terms saying 'expected to work additional hours as and when in accordance with workload' or something.

I agree with Dahlen - he's silly to make promises he can't keep although I've heard a number of colleagues do it on the phone to their wives/partners who are at home with the kids.

I think you should apologise for saying to him that you have no intention of letting your DS grow up not knowing if Daddy would be home at night. That's really unfair.

Could you agree one night a week where he will be home to bath ds and eat dinner with you and the rest he can work as he needs? These are tough times and putting the hours in often makes you less dispensable.

My contract states "regularly exceed 40 hours per week" so I add time on by staying late on certain nights.

We had this problem when DS1 was small. Dh was often not home until 8ish and I used to keep ds awake to see him, which made him miserable as he was an early riser and wouldn't sleep in!

Dh now has a job where he leaves the house at 7 and returns at 7, it is miles better and he sees our three dc every day and puts them to bed. I would not go back to the way things were and would recommend you talk to dh about finding a position with better hours if possible. It won't happen overnight but it is so worth it if it's possible.

I hate the way overtime is assumed in some companies, even if it is unpaid, to be essential. I used to work in a job like that, for an investment bank, and even though all my work was finished by half five as I worked bloody hard, I couldn't leave as it wasn't done to leave on time.

I have to wonder if these companies couldn't successfully bully their employees into doing unpaid overtime, how many more staff they would have to employ? How many more jobs would there be to boost the economy?

It's the way of the world. I'm a department head and am nominally contracted to work 35 hours per week over four days. In reality I'm in the office for an extra 6 - 10 hours unpaid every week (work through lunch EVERY day) and I do a few hours work from home most weeks. I'm quite lucky in that my boss knows I'm my husband's carer out of work so I'm not under quite so much pressure as some of my colleagues.

Please don't hold him to ransom or emotionally blackmail him, this is the reality of working as a professional in the UK nowadays. It doesn't give him the right to check out of family life altogether but there really is so much unspoken pressure to conform to the long hours culture, his future at work would probably be compromised if he didn't step up and do the extra unpaid work.