To be sick of this, think it is utter bollocks and the next generation are actually bang on?

[Usunshine]

I’m in a professional role. Historically this career (like many others) is stay late, keep working, do absolutely everything you can for your job. I had a conversation with my manager in a 1:1 review meeting where he said I was doing fine, couple of bits to work on but all good and happy with performance etc. A normal review meeting really.

He then proceeded to say next I want to really mount the pressure, I want you to be feeling you have too much work and have to say to me ‘(Eric), I can’t take this on, it’s too much.’ I want you to almost feel like there’s so much on that you are non stop. That will mean next year we can talk about more money. It will mean late nights of course. We want to keep building more and more.

I have worked hard in my life. I’m late 30s and I’ve actually done the whole putting your life on hold to pass professional exams, worked late and weekends. I’ve done all that. I watch younger versions of me clocking off at bang on 5:30 and be called snowflakes by older members of the team. But I think good for them. For fucks sake why am I being told I have to have so much pressure I can’t manage the workload?! Why is that necessary? In my opinion the younger generation has it right. It’s not lazy logging off at half 5 to play tennis or go for a drink. It’s sensible. There’s no prizes for working yourself to the bone. Interested in others thoughts on this as I had a completely different view a few years ago.

Eric needs to wake up to the fact it’s 2024 and burn-out is no longer trending.

My organisation introduced agile working after the pandemic. We are encouraged to have a work-life balance that suits us. Long days are completely behind us and it’s perfectly fine to put a hair appointment or golf in your outlook calendar! Success is measured on goals achieved and those goals are realistic. It makes for a very happy workplace.

"Before I give my response to that Eric, can you tell me when the time comes to discuss money next year, that the money will be backdated from the time I took on this additional work?.....oh, it won't be backdated.....well then, that will be a hard no from me. If we have more work than the current staffing levels can cope with, we clearly need to get more staff!"

Imagine yourself on your deathbed. Are you going to wish you’d worked longer hours and had no life? Or are you going to be proud of yourself for telling Eric to shove it up his arse?

I told an Eric to shove it up his arse (for this and another thing) and it’s literally the proudest moment of my life.

This is so old fashioned and terrible management.

I left teaching after I was told off for eating my lunch in the staffroom rather than being in my classroom working through lunch. This was a school that managed to schedule a late working day (up to 7-7.30pm) once a week. And no overtime pay in teaching of course.

Bollocks to that. I let my class run wild with paint and other crafty stuff and planned my route out that afternoon. I never looked back.

Depends on your job doesn’t it? I tend to avoid these “work unpaid overtime you’ve no right to leave at 5” type jobs as I’m sure I’d swiftly be fired 😬

This sounds like when I did my training as an accountant in practice. Although since I was a trainee the pay was diabolical and the hours horrendous! But it was all supposed to be 'doing your dues'

I'm 36 now, no I will never be a partner in one of the big 4. Nor do I want to be. I work in industry. The work life balance is beyond better.

I am retired now, but when I was working in a salaried post (I later moved into self-employed arts/music outreach) as a social worker specialising in brain injured people, I used to work my hours, and if I had worked over I would take that time off as TOIL. I did not allow myself to do any unpaid hours outside my contract without compensating myself via TOIL. This was a matter of principle for me - how do the bosses know whether they are adequately staffed if everyone is doing unpaid overtime?

This creeping American attitude of the "the job is your life" is grossly unhealthy. I do not know why people put up with it. It is basically illegal - you have a legally binding contract to work certain hours, and your employer has a legal duty to make your workload fit those hours.

I am afraid this attitude gets inculcated from about 4 years old when little people find themselves with targets and homework that impinges on their home life. Then all through school life it is work, work, work both in school and out to get the relevant bits of paper. There is this constant driving forward and a devaluing of living in the moment, stopping to look around, focussing on family and relationships etc.

The concept of work/life balance is late to the party and long overdue. And good luck to all those younger people who have taken this on board and are placing a value on being a rounded citizen and having time outside of work.

Eric needs a kick up the arse. Do you belong to a union or professional association who might back you in limiting your hours to those in your contract.

After 20 years of having given it my all in the same role, it was time for the annual evaluation. My manager asked me "and what will you do more this year ?" I answerd that after 20 years of doing more I was to do much less and said I was to go part time. Her mouth fell open and she said "but what will you live on?. I laughed in her face and said I would find food in bins (I don't[. Best decision ever.

Eric sounds like a twat.
Glad I work in my public sector role, hours are logged for fully Flexi but if you pull more than two 45 hour weeks you are spoken to and reminded of the importance of work life balance and that work will still be there in the morning.

Christ, they don't usually say the quiet part out loud. I'd start looking for another job somewhere else, and then when you hand in your notice you can say to Eric, "Your comments during my performance review about working myself to the bone before we can even discuss a pay rise, as if I have not already been working myself to the bone for the last 15 years, made me realise I needed to leave and work for someone who actually respects me as a human being rather than treating me as a resource to be exploited to the max."

Actually you can work a lot more hours without it becoming a "legal" issue. There is no legal requirement for employers to make the workload fit the hours, and how would you prove that anyway when every person is so different.

And most contracts have a vague clause about working more as is needed, which is what gets people.

Even when there was the EU working time directive, employers could force you to opt out of it by refusing to give bonuses and pay rises until you switched to the new contract that included the opt-out, mine did.

My immediate thought.

Oh and another thing (if no one else has said it) - if everyone refuses then this expectation will go away!

Oh yes. Work twice as hard to make you richer Eric, for the vague carrot of a conversation about more money? You want more work now, you pay more now. Your young colleagues are spot on. Unlike us millennials and gen X they have entered an employees market where opportunities often exceed suitable candidates. They know they don't have to be exploited and contribute to a culture where others are exploited. People like Eric haven't caught on yet and still think they hold all the cards. We should applaud and support our young colleagues by following their example, because if no one is prepared to do it employers will have no choice but to wise up and pay people fairly to work reasonable hours.

I'm no good at this sort of conversation with bosses because at the time I'm so astounded that I can't think of a coherent answer. I cannot think of one positive outcome from giving an employee more work than they can reasonably do.
I'd want to go back and ask what the purpose of such an action would be. Eric sounds idiotic and with zero duty of care for his employees.

I'd nod enthusiastically and then do the opposite.

When you inevitably fall behind on work, tell Eric just as he suggested. There won't be much he can say to that.

Eric is jerk and no job is worth sacrificing your life for. Everyone should work their contracted and paid hours and if overtime is regularly needed then more staff are also needed and/or overtime pay for those extra hours. I think the younger generation have a lot to teach older workers. They value their health and their time and they expect others to do the same. Dinosaurs like Eric will probably die of a heart attack at their desk - and for what?

I'd be looking for another job if my manager said that to me.
TBF I'm not in a high-stakes professional career, but we do get very busy at certain times and my manager always said if you need to do extra hours, just invoice for them (I'm part time), was always checking on me that I wasn't too overwhelmed, etc.
Maybe it's different in the white collar world (I have worked in charity/education for years), but it's not right.

Eric is taking the piss.

I very much stick to my hours and always have. I work damned hard when I'm at work but I'm paid 830-5 and that's what I work!

If I work longer I'm working for free and making management believe that the workload is reasonable for the hours.

If I'm asked to work overtime - I put in a timesheet.

It's not because I'm lazy. It's because I'm paid to do a job within 40 hours and therefore I will work those 40 hours.

In the week I started work (20yrs ago) a girl who'd been there for a few years said she never left earlier than 1930 for the first year. I thought that sounded awful.

I only worked late a handful of times when there was a true need. There usually wasn't. But I'm not very driven in my career and went part time as soon as I could.

Eric sounds like he has an employee/employer kink. Ugh

I'd send him an email today and ask him if he'd send me a summary of what he'd discussed with me in the review and what was agreed for my records. I'm presuming he'll leave out his intention to torture you and force you to leave by overworking you. Stick to his written points and say no to extra work. I'd write my own account of the meeting just in case you end up in an Employment Tribunal. I'd also start looking for another job, though I know things are tough atm in finance and legal and that there have been lay-offs.

TBF I am mid 30s and never ever understood the mentality of working yourself to death.

My mam was a hard working work your way up career woman before getting ill. She dedicated her life to it (went straight back after having me, I barely knew her as a baby/toddler) until she couldn't and she had climbed the ladder at exceptional speed to be the highest in her field in the company by her age.

When she couldn't work anymore she got a severance payout then her boss and coworkers etc... ditched her like a hot stone. None where at her funeral and throughout all the years and health scares I never saw one visit or call.

It gave me a very set view for a young age about how I won't ever kill myself to be just another worker bee and that my worth is in no way tied to a job/career/money/title.

There is the narrow view which says you should look after yourself only.
Then there's the wider, more socially responsible view, that says we need to increase productivity so that society can pay its way and create the NHS and services more generally that we all aspire to. That money comes from government and there's a relationship between GDP and the amount of money government can spend.
What I see is people putting their work/life balance ahead of productivity - that's the situation you describe too.
It's reasonable up to a point but after that point it becomes an empty soundbite to attract votes. Work/life balance should be improved where it is consistent with the society we want to create (good services, etc.). As long as people are trained to think only in the narrow view of what's good for them, no government, no matter what political orientation, will be able to afford the society we want.
The balance comes when people develop resilience consistent with their focus on work/life balance. When the priority is work/life balance alone, that's not great.