Aibu to not do overtime?

[BertieBott]

I started a new job.

• low salary, working 9-6pm - admin.

Because the salary is low and the workload is too high every other member of the 10 person team comes in at 7 or 8 and leaves even at 8. They take 20 minute lunches and come in on Saturday and Sunday.

They get paid for it.

I work my stated hours only. I work hard but my allotted cases are never finished. I’ve told my manager and there is no real answer.

Aibu to just work my stated hours?

Also, I take my full hour at lunch and we get two 15 min breaks which I also always take.

I’m always punctual and don’t go over.

Just to be clear, would you be able to claim the overtime? I'm not saying you should do it provided you're paid, I'm just asking if your deal is the same as your co-workers'.

Of course that's ok.

Please don't start another thread in a few months or years complaining you're in a low-pay admin role.

You not being ureasonable, but you're unlikely to pass your probation tbh.

Pp yes I would be paid.

Where I work you probably wouldn’t pass probation with that attitude, especially if you never finished a task. Personally I’d take 30 minutes for lunch, have a cup of tea whilst I was working instead of a formal break, claim overtime for those hours and aim to actually finish a case once in a while. But whilst I work in admin it’s very well paid so there’s an expectation that you do more than just the bare minimum. That said, 12 hour days and weekends in a low paying role is ridiculous and they need to hire more staff. There’s just a middle ground between slaving away like your colleagues and never giving a minute extra.

Wait - aren't you the one who thought it was acceptable to have a buffet for your 'team' in a big open plan office and decided a PA email to lots of people including those who joined in was the way forwards. @MileAndTwo is bang on.

I'd be looking for a new low-pay job.

I don't do any overtime my colleagues do. It's never bothered my employer and I passed probation. So from personal experience I'd say it should be fine.

However from also knowing other friends and family in similar situations, it's frowned upon them to not offer to do the overtime, and one didn't pass probation but they used one episode of lateness to warrant it.

So if just be mindful of your performance and timekeeping, i.e don't give them a reason to not pass you.

Were you told that you'd probably need to do paid overtime when you took the job?

Perhaps they're stingy on the staffing front and could do with another body. But if your colleagues all rely on overtime to make up their pay, there may be a culture of avoiding recruitment with the tacit approval of the incumbent workforce. That's how it works at my office. No-one really wants recruitment because if workflow drops, we all get our hours cut.

Why the hell would the op not pass her probation??
Because she sticks to her contracted hours? If her work is unfinished it's clearly because there is a resource/workload unbalance, from what she says.

Who is doing your work for you then? If you never finish it.

Why the hell would the op not pass her probation??

Not finishing work and not fitting in with the ethos of the company.

You don't have to work the overtime unless it's contracted.

Unless they manage to make an issue out of your unfinished tasks (which I suppose they could), then you probably will pass your probation but in this scenario unfortunately you'd have no chance of career progression above your colleagues as they are showing more dedication by working the overtime. Any manager is going to pick the person willing to put the hours in over the one who clocks off at 6pm with unfinished tasks, if a promotion was ever on the cards.

I don't think you are unreasonable to not do overtime and the hour for lunch is fair enough

However I would have issue with taking the two fifteen minute breaks if you are doing it to the minute and work is left undone or other team members are having to do it

However I will admit I've never known of admin roles in my industry that are given 15 minute breaks so I could just be in a very different industry

The managers should not be allowing constant weekend working anyway and need to look at staffing

It basically comes down to ...are you clock watching because you feel entitled to these breaks and taking them regardless of whether you particularly need to ,it isn't ok to not pass a probation because someone takes entitled breaks (and I've never known Hr let a manager get away with doing that) but if you are being obstructive and insisting on taking the breaks at times that affect productivity it would be a concern that you weren't allowing for the needs of the business

How strict are you about This?so for example do you take the breaks every day religiously or would you give them up say once a week if there is a deadline and you still have your lunch hour?

If everyone is regularly doing overtime the.pn the company is not employing enough staff. If she’s not competed her tasks then, as long as she’s working hard, there have been too many tasks allotted to her.

Why should OP and her poorly-paid colleagues work more than their contracted hours because the company has failed to plan its staff needs sufficiently? If there’s an expectation of doing more hours then that should be made clear in the contract. It’s not in the contract because that would mean giving staff enough holiday to cover the extra hours they’re expected to work, which would mean the company would not make as much money.

And like fuck would I want to work for a company that thinks that regularly being forced to work above my contracted hours shows ‘dedication’.

And yes, FWIW I work in a professional role where I don’t ever have to work more than my contracted hours. I’m highly-respected and get regular outstanding apparaisals etc.

Workplace culture is weird in this country. The last job I had (don't work now due to dc SEND) there was no contract at the time, because it was a newish business, but a draft was drawn up containing a clause about overtime: Anyone working over their shift end time in order to complete their tasks would only be paid up to the shift end and not more. The company was very keen on adding more and more tasks to a role and then criticising our 'poor time management' when we were staying anything up to 2hrs after our shift had ended, unpaid, just to keep up with our regular tasks!

The company is a bit daft. It would be far cheaper to employ sufficient staff to do the work at basic rate of pay than to expect staff to do overtime (which I assume is at a higher rate of pay).

Well, it seems to me the company has the wrong ethos! I really wish people would stop buying into this crap about "showing dedication", people have lives to live, as long as you are complying with your contractual obligations and doing your best when on task that should be enough, I think we all have to stop supporting this unhealthy, unsustainable and frankly socially and individually damaging practices of overwork.

By all means, help out in an emergency and be a team player, but not this structural understaffing that requires continuous overtime!

Research shows that productivity declines over a certain number of hours anyway! In fact, companies experimenting with shorter working weeks or shorter shifts often experience increased productivity and a boost in morale and health outcomes.

It is just a job. What's the point if you are always at work.

I would be getting myself a new job frankly.

My very first job out of uni was somewhere that had this ethos of working extra to show dedication. I got told in a performance review I was marked down because I didn't do overtime. I was already working a 40 hour week at this point. I handed my notice in shortly after.

I'm not saying the company are right, but that's how many companies operate.

I will always remember a comment from an employment lawyer

Companies will do what they like, Employment Law can only pick up the pieces afterwards.

Generally the bigger the company the better they are as they have more to lose reputation wise but they're not brilliant.

I still think that, however wrong it may be, the OP would not pass probation. Or pass and be bitched about constantly I guess.

In my industry people in the admin roles are keen for paid overtime especially at weekends as they get time and a half. We get staff asking if there are additional tasks/projects/IT testing to do especially in the months before the summer break or Christmas, but people who don't do additional overtime aren't viewed negatively. Their wages aren't that bad given qualifications and experience are not needed and they all get full training plus a paid for VQ in the first twelve months (18-24k) . It's also often a stepping stone into practitioner roles too. So I don't agree that the employer is a CF they are paying the overtime, it's not just expected extra work with no payment.

If that is your choice and you are consistent, and do not slag off others for theirs, nothing wrong in my view.