to get narked at people's managers thinking 45 hours a week is outrageously long hours

[eggyface]

(sorry long, wanna avoid drip feed)

I work in white collar officey work. Classic making presentations, analysing data, sort of stuff. I remember when I was starting out in my industry, working 9.30 until 6.30 with hardly any lunch break was fairly usual. I wouldn't think that was a hard week for someone at the start of their career, learning the ropes. (A hard week might be be two or three nights until 10 or 11, or putting in 5 hours on Saturday).

We work for clients, so the ethos is that we need to service all the projects that come in, but on the other hand we are a big rather stuffy company which doesn't have much of a 'hungry' mentality for work. In our office a manager polices the diary of their team and if someone wants to nab a junior, their manager will often say they can't work on your thing because they're already working enough hours (i.e. 40).

When you're senior and working a longer week than that yourself, this is very annoying!

I know that it's important to protect people's rights and to create a culture where people don't work long hours for the sake of it. And yes, if I'm working long hours that's my problem and I need to organise my diary. But there's got to be some flex, hasn't there? I'd expect all the juniors to be keen to take on a new project even if it made them prioritise work over home life for a bit. I did that and I enjoyed the responsibility and opportunity to shine. AIBU to think that 45 hours is totally reasonable level of overtime to expect in a ft job (NB not paid, can take time off in lieu but in practice this might not happen as you'd be busy the next week)??

I'm not saying its right, but that's the reality of it

LaurieMarlow These 'Realities' exist because people put up with it. If everyone valued themselves more than their 'job' or their slave driving employers, then things would have to change.
Companies and corporations rule life today - They make the money while we work ourselves to death. They need to be more realistic in what they promise clients. Where would it all end if they keep piling pressure on?
People need to wake up.

Tax that's funding your public sector jobs with more civilised hours.

I wondered when this would start

Gottagetmoving, I agree.

But increasingly, the competition us coming from further afield, Latam, China.

If you think you can devalue yourself enough to match China, you're sadly mistaken. They can force people to work at the the point of a gun if necessary.

Why doesn't your company just employ more juniors?

The competition is the Company's problem.
Ok - so if the Company fails there may be no job but seriously, why would anyone want to work so many hours making themselves and their loved ones suffer for a Company that had no regard for them whatsoever?
By tolerating such conditions you are saying it's ok - and you are part of the problem. It is not fair on anyone else and certainly not fair on the next generation of employees.

There is going to always be competition from others but I don't think there are too many people in India or China with my expertise or ability. My ability is an accumulation of education and experience. My employer are outsourcing work to these countries and other onshore service centers and quite frankly the quality of their work is horrendous. I am expected to then fix it all, ie do it all again, then pretend like there isn't a problem because that's the direction senior mgmt want to go.

Well it doesn't take a genius to see their approach is not working. I am also finding my juniors have less exposure to the easy stuff which helps them hone skills needed for the more technical work.

W2bsupermum - unfortunately its a waiting game as clients or business have to get their fingers burnt as you say with substandard work (you get what you pay for) for a while before the come back either in house or then magically are able to pay a consultant to fix it, which as you say could have been done first time around.

Yabvu, no one should be expected to work for free.

Also I think 45 hours per week is "outrageously long hours"

Gnome I see. No one should ever be made to feel so devalued by their boss. What's happeend/happening to you is outrageous. It's easy for me to say I completely understand but could you consultant with a financial sector recruiter and see if you can move positions? I understand it's been a challenging time for business over the last few and a lot of companies did freeze recruitment but things have improved and recruitment freezes are been lifted.

It's one thing putting extra hours in because you love what you do me and do it because you want to and feeling how you feel -trapped, disrespected and bullied--. thank you for helping me understand your situation.

As much as people will never want to work unpaid overtime when it comes down to it most private sector businesses are there to make money, they don't consider themselves social enterprises. Therefore they will always try to work as Effeciently as possible and that means lean recruitment polices because it saves money.

With all the will in the world and even with all the best employee benefits etc. when it comes down to it revenue and shareholder value is what really matters to them. So unless their lack staffing affects the amount of money they make it's unlikely the situation will change.

So I go back to my earlier point, if you are not happy then try find a different position elsewhere.

Yabu if they are not getting enough done working practices need looking at. There isn't an exact correlation between hours worked and amount achieved.

Why not be upset that they haven't employed enough juniors for the work available?

YABU, sorry. People are contracted to X hours for a reason. If they can't Complete their work within that time frame (as a rule of thumb) then either

1. they don't have the skills / efficiency to do job properly. OR
2. the team is understaffed and managers need to find people who are WILLING to work (paid) overtime, or take on some additional staff to help with the workload

Why doesn't your company resource teams before you bid? Just an idea of who is available and how much capacity beforehand would stop this problem, plus they could get cracking the second you won the work. Seems like a big organisational error to me.

As a trainee I regularly did 55-60 he's m-f
Paid for 39, salaried, hours required to do the job
As I progressed it varied some weeks 40 some 70
I now have a more 40hour job in management but frequently do another 10 or so hours emails in own time
I am well paid and it would be highly unrealistic to expect 9-5 and responsibility ends there

Yabu.
I work in area which expects a great deal of unpaid overtime to keep the service running.
It places a great deal of stress on many individuals.
Rules about working hours are essential. Without the I winder if anyone in my wksplace would get to go home at night.

My 50 hrs/wk is part-time
BUT (and it's a huge but) I am self-employed, so normal rules done't apply to me and my colleagues (we don't actually have control over our hours but that's another subject ).

I don't think anybody who is being paid by the hour or employed for a certain amount of hours should be expected to do unpaid work - it is plain wrong. And I agree that this being part of some kind of 'culture' is just damaging rubbish and only become a culture because people put up with it.
Overtime should be paid (I know some places which offer a choice between payment or time in lieu which some people might prefer).

So, OP, yes, YABVU.

Oh and yes, i do work in the public sector.
So thanks for the luxury position. And te unpaid ovetime.
I have often abused this good fortune by drinking tea all afternoon. Sorry, I mean saving lives.

I also know a numberof people who can stretch an eight hour day into 10 by fucking about and beng inefficient. So, working late is sometimes an unfortunte requirement and sometimes just poor time management

I've worked in both the public and private sectors, across a number of different roles and organisations.

The pressure and unpaid overtime were invariably greater in the public sector. I know it's really hard and inconvenient for some people to find out that their 'private sector tough, public sector cushy' narrative might be flawed - but sometimes facts do get in the way of a comforting story.

Yy jassyradlett

If you had less people willing to do unpaid overtime then you could probably have enough work to justify hiring another person.

I have a complete Walter Mitty in my work who puts in for 80hrs overtime. I have no idea what she does in this time as I manage to get the same work finished within working hours. Perhaps a couple of hours extra a month.

Overtime, for me, is a sign of an ineffective worker.