Working late. Is it the norm now ? How sad.

[Oblomov]

I posted on two threads yesterday about dh's who work later than their contracted hours.
Barney2 's dh works "(7am) and not home until late (gone 7pm" - so thats a 12 hr day then. And he always says yes to another extra job, if asked. Fillyfonk said "the company won't go into liquidation", if he says no. I agree with Fillyfonk.
Rabsters dh works "9 - 5.30, yet he seems to work 8.30 - 6 most days" so thats an extra hour every day.7 hours a week. A DAY A WEEK. That he does. FOR NOTHING.
Cod said "stop naggin". McDreamy,heifer, HonoriaGlossop, all basically / pretty much said that it was the norm thesedays.
And everyone is saying, this is the norm. REALLY ?
What I am asking, is not what time your dh gets home. Because everyone's is different, they work different hours, have diffrerent length commutes.
I am asking why people think it is o.k. to regularly do more than your contracted hours. I.e do an extra DAY for free, every week.
Last week, there was a post about a lady who had been made redundant, after giving so much. Aloha posted that "But I say never, ever consider yourself as working for anyone else, whether you work full time or part time, always put yourself and your own interests above those of your company. Because you can bet that the company will NEVER put your interests above their financial ones." I agree with her.
No company gives a sh*t about any employee. So if Aloha's argument is right ( and I beleive it is), why give ONE day PER WEEK, extra, for nothing.
If you think that this is the norm these days, for people to do extra hours, I think it is VERY SAD.
My dh has a new job as an Operations Manager. He doesn't take a full lunch. He regularly gives extra 1/2, 3/4 , 1 and 1/2 hrs extra. His men get paid overtime. But he doesn't. He says it is expected. I think, he thinks, that I am naieve. I am not naieve, I know people do it. I just think, that the work / life balance has become totally out-of-proportion. And I think its WRONG.
Maybe its just me, then ?

Elf that's discrimination.

(Though I have to say, that the other members of my team were bloody fantastic, it was more a case of those in the know not pulling their fingers out!)

Sorry Maisemor, but at least I was close... I dunno, your first message addressed to me seemed to be a misunderstanding, assuming my post was about my present situation.

Easy to say people should do something about it, though, I could only afford to go freelance (which was a HUGE risk) because I had redundancy pay. And I don't have a pension or sick pay etc. etc. so long term we are buggered, really, I'll have to go back to a Proper Job one day and put half my meagre earnings (won't be able to go back at my previous level) into AVCs or something if I want to be able to afford food in my old age.

I know WWW.
We get a mark of 1-4 based on overall performance and objectives set etc. The previous year I'd got a 4 and a damn good rise. Then I got a 2 after being on mat leave, and got a paulty rise. Luckily that seems to have changed, so I'm hoping when I go back after having baby no 2 (not yet pg, but in future) then I'll get marked on the months I did contribute!

I work more than my contracted hours because I really enjoy my job. It is no great hardship and I don?t think it?s sad at all.

I'd say it's the norm where I worked in London (banks). My boss was regularly at work till 10pm. He lived on the other side of London and has a wife and two young kids.

They are in Zurich now, I hope their work / life balance is better there.

I was expected to work long hours too, even after I went back to work after having DS1. I regularly left after 7pm, I know that's not particularly late for a lot of people, but it caused me to drop down from full-time to 3 days a week, then when I got pregnant with DS2 I stopped completely, fairly early into the pregnancy.

I left because I felt I wasn't giving anything the attention it deserved - my job, my DH, my child, my house, and my unborn child.

I am a SAHM now, and am thinking about going back to work, but definitely not to the company, job, or "career" I had before.

Oh and I was a contractor, so at least I WAS getting paid for the hours I worked (equally though, if I didn't work, I simply didn't get paid)

Elf, they can't mark you down because you're away on mat leave: our HR dept have given VERY clear instructions to all of us on this - you cannot discriminate because someone' son mat leave. Can you challenge it? I would (in my case my rating affects my bonus so I am v keen to get a good one)

It's not a new thing and it's not just a LOndon thing.

I'm in the Midlands and worked in banking for 20 years. When I first started I was gobsmacked at the extra unpaid hours worked by middle management. Us underlings got paid for our extra hours (there were alot) and senior management didn't do any.

I am in IT and in a lot of companies long hours is still the norm. DH and I are lucky in that our companies don't expect it - I also have flexible working, which I get the impression doesn't happen that much in IT! I was offered a job last year which I turned down cos it was obvious they would expect lots of extra hours. I didn't mind when I was younger but I'd rather not do it now! Of course I am in a position where I can still choose...

My husband is a manager for a finance company. He works outrages hours and because he is a salaried employee he does not recieve extra pay for extra hours. Don't misunderstand me his pay is good but sometimes the hours are overwhelming. When I had our last baby he asked for time off and his boss asked him if he was having the baby.
Yes, it is frustrating to have a spouse who works crazy hours but if he is in management it comes with the territory. What I would suggest is to make the most of vacations and days off. I know this suck but unless you can afford for him to take a job that pays less, it is probably the best to make the most of it.

I have friends whose DHs work ridiculous hours but they seem content to have the lifestyle instead, even if it means an absence of a loved one from their and their DCs lives... I think it's sad, perhaps they think it's sad I don't have a similar material wealth. One friend's DH voluntarily worked overtime for his company for 10+ years, in exchange for good money. Still got made redundant when it suited the company despite years of stupid "loyalty".

cristina - I know I don't know your friends so apologies but it might not be for material wealth that he does the job. It may be for a whole host of reasons they choose for him to do that job and as a result they have money and then choose to enjoy it. It may be of course they just do it for the money in which case that is sad (unless there is no other option).

Wheelybug - I don't know which came first, the long hours or the money. I think, however, that most jobs can be downsized to the contractual hours if not less. I did my job FT until I needed to go to 10 hours a week - seems to work OK. A friend who regularly worked till 10 pm (no children) in an important position is now taking two months off to go on honeymoon. The job will somehow survive without him. You could argue that it's because he worked till 10 pm he couldn't be refused but someone else was (different company) and so on. Another friend's DH voluntarily went to work 2 hours earlier for 10 years, even after they had a baby...

Most jobs probably CAN be downsized but to what end - I can only speak from my own experience of the area I worked in and the area my DH works in (the same sort of field). Whilst I could have gone part time in my job or indeed worked my contractual 35 hours I know that I would never have got promoted or been given the better/more interesting work. I know this because I have friends who have gone back after having children and this is what has happened.

If the pay is reasonable, though, why does it matter that the job doesn't get ever more interesting and the level of seniority ever higher? I suppose it depends on personality, too, it doesn't matter to me.

Thats right Cristina - I think it does all depend on personality.

I know that DH enjoys his job even when he is coming in during the early hours for weeks on end (I think he particularly likes his job at this point as this is when it is getting more challenging) and wouldn't be happy in a job without challenge or progression. I guess I understand that as I wouldn't have been happy doing my job but being sidelined even though I would have earned a good salary.

However, he isn't happy about not seeing dd that much but the compromise is making the best of the time they do have which he ensures he does. I do have a friend whose husband does a similar job but then comes home and won't play with the children and won't do bath/ dinner etc. Now that would pee me off.

Horse for courses I guess.

I don't think there is anything new about long hours. I don't remember my father being home before 8pm pretty much ever. But I do think there are some choices about it. Long hours are not particularly productive. Research shows this, and indeed if you have ever worked really long hours for a while, you will I am sure recognise the complete flat period that happens afterwards, when you may be at your desk, but what you are doing is slow and poor quality. So in the long run I think it's pretty fruitless. If you can show that you are productive and get the job done then you shouldn't have a problem working a resonable length day. Now of course many jobs have a culture of sticking around, but I think that what happens is that for much of the day no-one is actually doing very much (probably because they are knackered). I work late nights twice a week, and find it very useful because the office is quiet and my most productive time seems to kick in at about four in the afternoon (I am soo not a morning person). I also work a day from home, and start late another day, so I get to make some contact with my children's school. I can do this because my work (NHS) does a lot of flexible working, but also because I am seen as someone who gets things done, and people know that if I need to put in the effort I will. I know I am lucky in this! I think an awful lot depends on the culture of senior management though. If you have the bad luck to work for someone who doesn't do sleep, and thinks evening and weekend meetings are fun then you really need to try hard to find another job (especially as they will probably be generally tetchy from not getting the sleep that they think they don't need, but really do!). But then of course some people just really enjoy working!

I'm a male, sole breadwinner. I like my job, and find it interesting but increasingly the hours get me down. This year is probably the first year in five that I've been able to take all my annual leave - and now only because I've had enough and am leaving.

I'm working normally 10 hours over my notional workload, before a reasonable commute each way (add another 10-15 hours). Even without presenteeism in my workplace, I regularly have weeks where I leave home before ds gets up and arrive home after he's asleep.

The big problem for me (and others I suspect) is that working with a high workload makes you bad at your job. Most of the time I think it's not home vs career; it's more like work vs home vs career. For a lot of jobs (even at low levels), you'll only progress by getting noticed and you can't do that if you're spending all hours doing a bunch of tasks that get someone else noticed. And when you do get noticed, it's only by those who can't do anything to change things. (Neither my line manager nor my head of department, nor his boss can do anything to materially change the circumstances of my job.)

Once you get past a certain workload/stress, you start trying to find ways to cope with it and stop thinking about doing stuff that helps either the "work" or the "life" in work-life balance.

I'm fortunate that I've been able to leave and move from one workplace to another - and then only because one of the people that did notice and moved when he'd had enough. Lots of other people don't have that luxury and the worse you've got the problem of just doing work, the harder it is to leave because then you've got fewer things to point to as evidence of "your" work.

So yeah, you may be being unreasonable. We'd all like to change the world but tilting at that particular windmill doesn't pay the bills. It sucks but most people never get noticed (let alone acknowledged) for a fraction of what they can do, and it's very difficult to change things when you're just trying to make ends meet.

Well my organisation just deleted my boss's job to get rid of them, so I'm now doing most of their work as well as mine. And it's reactive work with really tight deadlines that have to be met. There's no chance of getting someone else in because "that would be admitting that they shouldn't have made my boss redundant" . So I'm a full time WOHM, which I don't like, and I'm doing many extra unpaid hours every week. Because if I don't, the work will just pile up making a bad situation worse.

Well, to tell the truth, I'm on flexitime so in theory I can "flex" off with my extra hours. But, oh, spot the deliberate mistake. If I'm not there, the work doesn't get done and our targets get missed. I can barely take any leave, and god forbid I'm ever off sick.

But the trouble is, the longer we accept this as a necessary part of working life, the less chance it will ever ever change.

my dh works in retail, has an ok wage (salary) but boy do they not work him. Works mostly four 9-8's a week, every sat & every other sun. All these extra hours are not paid. The company prefer managers not to take holday during school holidays as this is normally their busiest times. Hardly spend any time together as a family, gets us all down at times.

I haven't read this whole thread so I don't know what has gone before so sorry if I repeat anything other people have said.
I think that with many jobs (especially management) it isn't about how many hours you are paid to work.
My DH isn't paid for his hourly input. He is paid to do a particular job. The job needs doing. He gets paid very well to do it.
He works long hours but he doesn't have a big commute (bonus of living in Melbourne), leaves the house at 7.15am every morning - at his desk by 7.30. He is usually home by 6.15pm (leaving the office at 5.45pm). He prefers to be in work early and at home at a reasonable time.
If he needs to work late he needs to work late. The job needs to be done. What kind of a manager would he be if he said, "Nah, sorry, done my 8 hours, gotta go."
We have found that the work ethic in Australia and New Zealand is very different to the UK. DH puts the time in and works hard but if he needs time he gets it. He never takes 'sickies' unless he is sick. As a result of his work ethic his bosses are understanding and lenient when he takes time off for school assemblies, events etc.
The only time I get pissed off with late nights is if he doesn't let me know he is staying late ... and I am waiting not knowing whether he is eating with us or not. That gets my goat ... but he is pretty good at letting me know.

So my point is: Some jobs are JOBS rather than by the HOUR ... iyswim?

Also, no one in DH's office has a 'lunch hour' ... DH certainly doesn't. If he happens to be out seeing clients at lunch time he will grab something and eat it in the car ... mostly he takes lunch to work and eats it while he is working ...

Reading down some of the posts I think commuting in London is the worst problem.
It takes DH 15 minutes to get to work in the morning and 30 minutes to get home. If we were in the UK we would never see him. He works 10 hour days but only has a total of 45 minutes a day journey to and from work. In the UK that would be at least 2 hours a day ...
I know which I prefer.

I think in certain professions it is the norm and you do know what you have signed up to. If you work in a job where things need to be done before you get home then you are going to work longer hours than necessary.

Teaching is another job like that although to be honest I don't think the pay is that bad and we get the holidays to recover.

Although I have to admit I don't understand why people put in extra hours just to make someone else rich, my mum for example works for a company and often does over and above what is asked and I wonder why she does it.

I can also see WWW point that by doing more than we should we allow ourselves to be exploited. I wish sometimes I worked to rule as I think goverments often exploit public sector workers as they know that many of us do the job not for the money but becuase we care.

As a teacher at present I work "part time" and earn £15K a year for about 50 hours a week so earn about £5 an hour! Although in the run up to ofsted I was on about £3 an hour.

Next year when I go full time I anticipate I will be on about £10 an hour. A lot of people work for a lot less.