To ask about salary and hours in a job

[pickle38]

Can I ask what sort of salary would you expect to be earning to be working hours like these.
Start work at 9am and work through to 6pm or a little after with little time for a break in between. If you're lucky grab a quick bite to eat but generally working through your lunch. Then evening time logging on to do more work around 9pm and then heading to bed about 12am sometimes later if there's a problem. Weekends often mean dealing with the odd phone calls or email.

The person I'm talking about above is my husband. He took on a job a few years ago and recently had a slight pay increase but the hours are through the roof and it's heavily impacting on a lot of things.

Thanks

Completely depends on what the role/level is
In my line of work only pretty senior people are logging on to check up on things at weekends and would be on mid 70s and up.

He would be quiet senior but earns approx 50,000 per year.

I’ve worked in a job where I could work for weeks without a day off because I was always on call (for an ultra high net worth family, not in domestic service) and earned about £45k in my mid twenties. They were dreadful and it wasn’t worth the money.

My DP used to be like this in work. He's a senior manager in private adult healthcare, worked for the company 10 years now and they completely run him ragged. He works 'flexi' so meant to be 40 hours a week. He typically used to work 10am til 6pm with no break, then evenings and weekends too. He's paid £28k plus around £3k mileage. I'm on the same salary in a similar job, and work 37 hours, Flexi, no unpaid overtime or logging on at silly hours. He did these daft hours for 4 years and then when I got pregnant I told him I wouldn't have a baby with someone who's never home. He now works 10-6, answers the odd call outside work and takes PAID overtime, but does not log on at evenings or weekends. For a measly £28k he absolutely should not be doing 70-100 hours a week and realises that now. If he was being paid £60k plus it'd be a different story.

Get your partner to have a discussion about it with work, he's risking complete burnout. It isn't fair on you either. My DP is 100% happier now working his allocated hours.

Those are about the hours I'm working at the minute as a secondary teacher. I earn £40,000 ish as I'm top of the pay scale without any extra responsibilities. BUT, and this is a huge but, I get the school holidays where I don't do much work at all. If I wasn't getting those 13 weeks of school holidays, and was working those hours all year round, I would be expecting a lot more money for it. For me, and for most people I think, those hours are unsustainable long term without a break, or enough money to outsource all the other things that need to be done.

The 9-6 with the odd email/call at a weekend is perhaps to be expected for a role paying £50k (depending where you live) but absolutely not the late evening working every day! I would have to be earning a LOT more than that to consider those sort of hours on a regular basis.

The question is, what can he do about it?

Well, as a senior manager with 30 yrs plus experience who doesn't earn that much, I'm not going to come out and say that is shocking or anything.
How much you earn is based on so many other things apart from your hours though. Nobody can give you an answer to the question.

What he has to decide is if this is the job he wants to stay in, and, if he does decide to move, then where else is he going to pick up that sort of money with whatever qualifications and experience he has. Then, will all the T&C be better? Will the challenge be as interesting? Commute? Workmates? Other benefits ?
OR
If he wants to stay, is he in a position to set better boundaries / change working habits, etc. Indeed, does he even want to? SOme people 'live' for their work and are very invested in it.

@pickle38

He would be quiet senior but earns approx 50,000 per year.

Is he an accountant?

To be honest, where I live if you are earning £50,000 a year then those hours are not really unexpected.

It's a massive salary round here, and I would expect someone to be fairly senior and working daft hours to achieve it.

Also, agree with pp who said it's not unusual for many teachers to do those kind of hours. And earn a lot less.

I earn more than that and work 9 - 6 regularly, with working until about 8 maybe once a fortnight or so.

I never take calls at the weekend, will maybe log on for a couple of hours if I need to finish something off but rarely.

This is senior manager level in the NW.

All sounds ok for 50k but not with the added 3 hours on the evening. That's for CEO level only at my place, and a salary of 100k plus. A 70k salary would work til 7/8 a handful of nights.

Well, I'm on 60k and finish at 4:30. (start 07:30).

I am paid for my work, but they haven't bought my life..

Keep an eye on emails out of hours, but nothing too drastic crops up.

70k min. It doesn't appear to involve international travel otherwise 100k.

I'm on roughly that ( prorated for 4 days). I usually work 8-5.30 with a short break to walk the dog. There is more work to do and before Christmas I found myself working silly hours and logging in on my day off and weekend, but was making myself ill so stooped.

I earn £46k and work 9-5 five days a week and no more. My current role is quite straight forward though.

Surely pay depends on the industry and the job role?
The only people I know who work those crazy hours are investment bankers, auditors and some tech people. In all cases it’s either bonus/overtime compensation or long holidays off once busy season is over. Also junior doctors but it’s par for the course.

The other situation is when people are in a client facing role and need to be at their beck and call. Or technically skilled and do it all because nobody else is capable. In both cases people leave.

Absolutely NOBODY in a generic middle management role should be working those hours! Even senior management don’t work those hours.

I know loads of very unwell people doing this

Earning anything from 40k (teacher) to £450k (financial services)

Huge effect, in the case of the latter 2 failed marriages and alcoholism

Money does not compensate for 100 hours weeks unless it's a very short duration

Dh has often worked similar but it is more tempting when wfh. Did so from around that level. Some jobs demand such flexibility around deadlines.

It's not an easy question to answer. My colleague does those hours regularly and I do it maybe 1 or 2 days a month depending on what's happening. She's gets things done perfectly whereas I get it done to a good but not perfect standard. Both in social care for just shy of 30k.

Salary is linked to the monetary value you add in the role far more strongly than hours worked, certainly for £50K roles.

Not that lower paid roles are less valuable in and of themselves to society though.

So a nurse may get paid far less than a high end salesperson who closes brilliantly for eg. even though the role the nurse does is arguably more important overall.

Jobs that require you to destroy your personal life need to pay a lot more than eg 100k), or be entry level on that salary with the potential to earn a fortune in a few years (eg corporate law training contract at a big firm).

Where I live, this is common in the public sector above a certain grade (these tend to be the higher paid jobs - we're in a northern manufacturing town)
Team manager or senior management which would be between 40k and 60k.
It's not great and it's not officially expected but it's the way it's been for years and not likely to change any time soon. To be honest if it was a corporate job it would feel like a con because it's be just making the CEO richer. In public sector it's more accepted because funding is finite and the work needs doing

Is this is London? £50K would be middle management-type salary in London.

9am - 6pm with no break is not a big deal. Logging on occasionally at 9 pm also not a big deal and maybe once a month 9pm - 12 am not a big deal if something urgent comes up. But working night after night 9pm - 12 am is probably not sufficient to compensation for the disruption to family life. How often does he have to work nights? Occasional calls (maybe 2) and emails on weekends also fine, depending on the job but not constantly such that he cannot go out with his family.

Is he ambitious and looking for promotion? If so, he is doing the time.

His hourly rate is £16 not including weekends. It depends whether that's reasonable for his level of expertise and the industry.
60 hour weeks are illegal though, unless he's signed an opt out. Also he should take his legally allowed breaks. But they can't force him to work over 48 hours a week so he needs to be prepared to stand up for himself or move jobs. To be honest those hours sound incompatible with having a life, it would only be worth it for a short time IMO

That’s ‘they own you money’ £120k+ with perks, bonuses
DP 35 hours a week, £150 k plus bonus benefits etc - real hours 8-6 ish. Some evening calls
Depending and some
Catching up on weekends when big projects on. But always ‘on call’ sort of, an expectation that she checks email on hols, Can drop anything to answer a call when needed blah blah blah...