Office life today

[Dawny65]

I've posted about my new job before but I can't find the thread now to say thank you to those who commented. Anyway, I decided to give this new job I'm in a few more weeks as I like it & the people I work with. I'm only an accounts clerk on £23k & I'm at the bottom of the chain, which is how I like it. It's very high volume & full on, which is fine. We all have our own role to play & help each other out. However, the others start anything between half an hour to hour and half earlier to keep on top of their work. All unpaid overtime! To cap it all we close down for the whole of Xmas but because it's year end the bosses want the figures sooner rather than later; so they're all logging on over the Xmas period to do some work. Again unpaid & I bet they don't get the time back. I think it's expected if you're far up the management chain earning megabucks; but why should a clerk at the bottom of the chain do this too? I haven't started doing any unpaid overtime yet & I haven't got a login from home - yet.
I work hard during my paid hours only. Long term though I could be seen as not being a team player if I do not put the extra unpaid hours in to help the others out & lessen the load; but I this is very unreasonable. We mostly end up eating our lunch at our desks & carry on working. I do not want to get sucked into this life, especially the logging on from home in what is meant to be holiday time. I'm married to my husband, not my employer!
Is this how office life is generally for most people? Maybe I was spoilt in my last company. I used to work through my lunch then but certainly never logged on from home in holiday time!

I get paid for any overtime I do from home

Nope. I log off and i go home and forget about it mostly. I do not get paid enough to take it home with me.

Dont do it if youre not getting paid for it.

If you're the most junior are you sure they are expecting it of you too? I start early (when I'm not doing nursery drop-off!), stay late sometimes and log on from home quite a lot, and so does everyone at my level, but no one expects the team administrator to do the same. She also gets TOIL, which we don't - which seems fair enough, we get paid a lot more than her.

From what I've heard it's standard for the financial sector unfortunately. I wouldn't do unpaid overtime and YANBU but yes you are going against the norm so there are risks attached. If it were me I would staunchly continue only working my contracted hours and if/when challenged, do a head tilt and leave an awkward silence for the other person to fill. Applies to colleagues and managers! If your manager wants to start formal proceedings let them. You can find another job in the meantime with a less shitty attitude to people's time and goodwill. Good luck.

Is this how office life is generally for most people?

For most people I know through work, yes. Because they're ambitious and they understand that showing commitment and going the extra mile is often what makes the difference when it comes to promotions and/or better opportunities.

If you don't want to do this, that's fine. If you're not ambitious and just there to do your hours, take the money and go home, that's your choice. But be aware that there is also an opportunity cost. Don't start moaning when your colleagues get promoted over your, or better reviews or bigger pay rises than you.

People do it to show willing and then it becomes expected of them. Don’t do it, and if challenged, ask why it seems to be the norm?

Pretty standard tbh. I'm no longer junior but I've been at my work 9 years and started off v low down and the expectation was that pretty much everyone puts in an extra hour per day - maybe coming in early or staying later. There's no one saying we must do this but when everyone your level does it it's easy to spot when someone doesn't. I put in the hours and it's helped and I've risen up slowly through the ranks. Now I put in even more hours though tbf! It's not something they can enforce, but just be aware that it might send a message that you don't want/are not looking for promotions (rightly or wrongly - I can't say I endorse this view at all!)

Thank you for your comments. The other lady at my level feels the need to work from home too. I'm 55 & not ambitious. I've done the managing roles in previous jobs. I'm not interested in taking on the world, just want a quiet life with a bit of money in my pocket to be honest. Have no mortgsge or debts & can afford to wind down a bit; so I definately would not be moaning when the youngsters get promoted. I think I might be due a change in direction..

For most people I know through work, yes. Because they're ambitious and they understand that showing commitment and going the extra mile is often what makes the difference when it comes to promotions and/or better opportunities

If only any of that were true!

You dont have to work unpaid hours to be "ambitious".

Being a doormat doesnt get you promotions ime either.

In my experience, it seems to be the expectation in the private sector that you will either work extra hours unpaid or some how subvert physics and the passage of time to get an impossibly large amount of work done during your paid hours. I often think that if companies actually employed enough people to do the job, instead of having vastly unrealistic expectations of productivity, we wouldn't have an unemployment issue in this country.

I never work past my paid hours. Not least because every hour I work costs me money in childcare and it's pointless working for free and paying someone else to look after my child. But also because it would be masking the fact that my job actually needs two people and an admin support person to do it successfully. Which my management team are determined not to recruit. Can you tell this annoys me a bit?

Exactly how it is where I work. Contract states 37.5 hours although more may be required to get the job done. Most work over those hours, and those who don't tend to get the lowest ratings and therefore minimal pay rises. No one gets promoted who works contacted hours because it's impossible to do well in that time scale.
It's a huge global organisation and they're not stupid. They'd probably go bankrupt if they had to pay everyone for the hours we work.

This is timely as I have had a discussion with my line manager today about additional hours I did over the past 2 months whilst we were short staffed. I’m not talking a few hours here, I’m talking the equivalent of a full week’s hours, not including the evening/weekend work I did, just the stuff in the office.

She told me that at my level ‘technically’ I can’t take flexi (which is bollocks) and that I’m expected to manage my workload/time effectively to get the job done.

I told her next time I won’t do the extra as I don’t work for free.

Sounds horrendous , soul destroying and a perfect environment for stress and ill mental health to thrive.

Some may say it shows ambition. What actually happens in these types of companies/sectors is you become indispensable in certain types of roles. You may end up getting little promotions...woohoo but never enough pay to justify the amount of hours you put in. Meanwhile new guy Tom starts straight away on many grand more than you with very little experience...it won't come as a surprise to you that he found out about tge job whilst on holiday with his parents and the Director of Acquisitions in Barbados (where they ALWAYS holiday together)

Sod em and pathetic worker ants who tell you it will be good for you 'career'

I start as soon as I get to work (usually around 25 minutes early) and have lunch at my desk but it works for me because I have banked some time if I need to leave early for whatever reason and my manager gets that. I don’t logon at home after work though.

They will just let you carry on putting the extra time in for nothing, why wouldn’t they? They won’t be able to spot a potential resource issue if you all keep putting extra time in to get the job done 🙄 Like others have said it isn’t the only way to show ambition. Doing your job well and stepping up when asked and contributing ideas shows ambition and will get you noticed!

*You dont have to work unpaid hours to be "ambitious".

Being a doormat doesnt get you promotions ime either.*

^ THIS!

In my office it’s the slowest, least capable people who sit there moaning about all the extra time they do and huff and puff if others leave on time. The more capable ones work hard and quickly within their hours and are protective of their time. Guess which ones management have more respect for? Presenteeism is dangerous bullshit and totally unnecessary.

I would never work for an employer for free

I don't work in an office environment like this but I just cannot bare this expectation of people. Of course people work outside their normal hours occasionally and I think that is totally reasonable. What definitely isn't reasonable is expecting people to do hours of extra work every day and fostering a culture where people who, dare I say it, leave ON TIME are having to sneak out, be tutted at or thought badly of. One hour per day for 8 staff is of course equivalent to one full working day of extra labour.

My first office job near the bottom of the food chain definitely required unpaid overtime. I once got yelled at for not working an entire weekend when one of my peers had a big project to work on over the weekend and I had only a tangential association to the project. Apparently I should have just known that meant my weekend was forfeit. There were countless nights and weekends I worked because of crazy deadlines.

It was just part of the industry. I worked there for a few years for the experience and then got my dream job at a much more rational firm.

It’s presenteeism. Practised by brown noses to bosses who are twats.

I hate hate hate it. It is a moral issue. Stealing someone’s time..

I don't really know if I do my contracted hours or more or less - I just get my work done. Which includes evenings and weekends.

But I would NOT expect my junior staff to be doing the same. I am paid a wedge for a reason which includes my availability. I would expect you to be in on time, do an fair day's work (which yes, includes friendly chats over the kettle and a lunch break), then go home on time, with no worries or undue stress.

If there was a genuine emergency, MAYBE - but annual figures are not in that category.

For most people I know through work, yes. Because they're ambitious and they understand that showing commitment and going the extra mile is often what makes the difference when it comes to promotions and/or better opportunities.

I used to work with a few people who started late and finished late. These people were seen as showing more commitment than people who started earlier in the morning but left “on time” even though the late finishers weren’t actually working longer.

I work in a small office contact centre and no. Breaks and lunches are away from your desk, everyone leaves on the dot, and nothing is done out of hours. Slightly higher salary as commission based. We get to work about 15 mins early to log on which is unpaid but that's it

Exploitation of course, but pretty standard nowadays. At some point your 'commitment' will be questioned and you will need to be very careful when redundancies are mooted.
Corporate life is shit.

My new employer is massive, and the whole organisation is really keen on getting the whole home/work life balance right for their employees, so even the people right at the top don't seem to be responding to their emails after 5pm unless it's an emergency. I'm pretty junior and I don't think I'm expected to work too much extra, but I job share and my colleague/line manager has not been around recently, so I do feel that I need to keep everything going and it often means doing emails in the evening and on my days off. My boss never does it and I feel guilty for doing it, but otherwise my workload would be a bit nuts. I do take some of the hours back by making a point of leaving early sometimes.

In my old job where I was right at the bottom and working for a lot less money I was kind of expected to do emails in the evenings and get in earlier. My old boss used to come in at five just to piss around on Facebook which made me feel like I had to be there early too. I came in early and worked my lunch breaks for free for years. I don't know why. It didn't get me anywhere.

And it’s been shown that longer hours make no difference to employee output.

It’s just pointless