To not want to work long hours.

[Ninahaen]

Currently I work 32 hours over 4 days. I’m happy with this: while I want to do my job well, I am not overly ambitious. I’m early 40s with a young child, work is not my priority.

My job is fairly well paid by local standards (not by MN standards though).

Our company was taken over a few months ago. The original company allowed for a good work life balance. The new company seems to want its pound of flesh: all I see are colleagues working ridiculous hours: and honestly, it fills me with complete dread that this is the expectation going forwards.

I don’t mind working a few hours late when there is an urgent deadline: but that I would only expect occasionally. Just now it seems that work is eating up people’s lives: emails into the small hours etx.

I already have MH issues, so have to take care not to get too stressed as this triggers the issues.

Aibu to just want to work my contrasted hours (with the occasional exception)

One of the best bosses I ever worked for had a work smart mantra. If you got all your work done, met goals etc. He would let you go work from home even telling us just stay contactable basically.

It built great trust and we would put in the extra hours willingly when needed.

Sadly he relocated. Great bosses do exist

Oh and from my experience the people who are putting crazy hours (not just needed overtime) are people that have no home life, don’t Want to go home or are going through a divorce and work is preferable to home.

My mum worked in a really demanding job when I was small. Her boss was a bully and DM felt she had to meet her standards or she'd be sacked.
She hugely regrets bothering now she's in her 60s.

Not unreasonable at all. If anyone is being unreasonable it's those who work crazy hours for nothing - giving the company the impression that it's reasonable to expect this and/or that an unrealistic workload is achievable. Ultimately this makes things harder for those who expect to get paid for the hours they put in.

I have very little patience with this work culture tbh. If some of these jobs asked upfront for volunteers to work for nothing they'd get very little interest. But somehow they convince their staff that they're doing them a favour by accepting their unpaid labour.

Some of my colleagues are like this, they email at 6pm on a Sunday night!
I don’t work a second over my hours unless it’s an emergency, and then I will take the time back.
I’ve recently been offered a promotion.
I would do your hours and not get sucked into the competitive emailing. I bet some of these people are only logging on at random times to look busy.

Tell them about your mental health and say no.
No one will thankyou , when you leave whenever it is, work life balance

It doesn't mean it's right, but if you don't want to follow the company's expectations, be prepared to look for another job.

If their expectations are for longer hours, they should have put that in the contract. If the contract says 32 hours, that is what the employer should expect.

I think professional roles where you work just your contracted hours, particularly in a client facing role, are few and far between. Certainly for any kind of promotion or progression in my field you need to going above and beyond. Any bonus is based extras.

If you're not bothered about progression or a bonus then no, YANBU to work just your contracted hours.

There are a lot of factors in peoples productivity at work. That does include hours in the office but also how efficiently they work, how much time they spend on non-work stuff (inc Mumsnet!) and how effective they are at their job. Good bosses try and see people in the round and judge them accordingly. I have worked with some very productive people who left on the dot. However I also saw people who were out of the door like a shot despite having spent a large part of the day on personal stuff, chatting etc

My husband swore off promotions for life after his last job. He worked in a factory. He was a process worker, team leader and mentor. This meant as well as doing his own job, he trained others and was doing the job of a line manager as "team leader". He still got the same wages as his basic job. "Team leaders" weren't managers apparently despite having to deal with staff issues etc.

He then got "promoted" to production controller. He did his normal job half the day including training new starts whilst keeping his machines going, dealing with his team and then in the office for the other half. He was given what equates to about £20 a week pay rise. The issue was, he had to work his arse off and couldn't leave until it was done which meant he was in work an extra 2-4 hours a day. The job he had taken on had been done previously by a full time employee but DH got half the time to do it. Then as an extra kick, he once had to leave 10 mins early for a baby scan (he actually left 6 minutes early) and his wage was docked by 6 minutes of wages.

He got a new job during his paternity leave, doubled his wages and halved his workload.

He later found out that his previous job(s) were now being done by 3 full time workers

So now if his new work has promotions going he puts his head down and gets on with his work. I can't say I blame him one bit. Ambition is only good if it benefits you. Slaving away to save bosses money isn't worth it.

Are you in finance? I qualified in London with one of the big four, and there was a huge assumption that the more hours you put in, the more dedicated an employee you were. I would come in some mornings and people were still there from the previous day.

Supposedly things have changed but the reality is that many companies seem to have the same approach. I work for a large organisation but only manage a team of six and make it clear that regular overtime (ie not just at month end) indicates either poor work distribution or inefficiency. If people can get their work done and log off at the contracted time, that's a huge plus in my view.

Sadly it's hard to change the underlying mindset. I would coast for now and put feelers out for another position.

Project work is the worst for this. Make sure you check the estimates for what you’re doing and if you are being allocated too much work or responsibility, push back and ask for more resources.

YANBU but it may make you unpopular with the business owners, especially if they think your very reasonable attitude may spread to others. Should you find yourself in a hostile environment please bear in mind that constructive dismissal is famously hard to prove.

At the moment you’re just putting pressure on yourself unnecessarily, just step back from that and carry on as you are.

You have to set expectations and make as few exceptions as possible. And also meet as many deadlines within your normal hours.

I think it’s just a massive change in attitude from the old company. I sent an email at 8pm one evening and my line manager asked me the next morning what I was doing working at 8pm, was there anything wrong, etc.

I don’t mind the odd extra couple of hours when needed (eg I logged in on my day off on Friday for an hour or so to catch up) but it’s the expectation that it’s all the time that’s worrying me

That sounds just like my company at the minute. It's insidious and creeps up on you. As you say, you're at home so most folk don't mind putting in a few extra hours when needed or logging in at the weekend for an emergency, or - for those of us who are not full time - doing a few things on our day off. Then you find you're doing it all the time and it's expected.I've just logged in now and thank god, only one email since Friday evening.
I'm planning to get a job in another team as soon as I can as its not an acceptable way for me to live.

When I was younger I worked ridiculous hours because I wanted a promotion and I thought it would protect me. It did not. Employers soon forget the amount of work you do. Work your contracted hours.

No one has asked me to work extra

so what is the issue. no one asked you to work extra. there has been no issue because you have not worked extra.

if your colleagues want to do overtime, let them.

Presenteeism has been shown to make no difference to work output. No, before anyone asks l don’t have the data, but it is well known.

I hate companies that encourage this shite, the world should be moving away from this.

@Pumkinseed the issue is that the volume of work can't be done in normal working hours. Creeps up gradually so you don't notice much at first, for me the killer is that my boss is moving on and my bosses boss thinks I want to do her job as well as my own, despite me saying a number of times that I really, really don't.

From a manager's point of view, I would be concerned about the people who regularly "work into the small hours" for no apparent reason.

Work-life-balance has always been very important to me. There are many companies who just don't adhere to it. That's just a given!