Do you give more hours than you're supposed to at work

[mumsthewordi]

Genuine question

My part time hours are creeping up , never worked part time before

Thought I'd get a thanks and a contract extension for my hard work - neither are forthcoming

@warmbath same! It's good to realise this and not get caught up in the working for free gate which so many people seem to enjoy and revere in

Are you external client facing or inhouse? How do you manage client demands?

Senior role. Lots of flexibility but comes with responsibility.

The quid pro quo is no overtime (never had that my entire career!). I manage my own workload and team to get the work done even if I have to work later or on holiday or during weekends. I can take off for long lunches or errands during the day, so it is swings and roundabouts.

My dh is self-employed. He works whenever as well. We don't clock watch.

The junior members of the team can work 9-5 but their career progression is understood to be limited. Mid- to senior members have to be reasonably flexible.

Oh dear,
I used to put in loads more time than I was paid for, in my early days of employment...
Not to get a pay increase or promotion, but coz I loved my work, was youthfully enthusiastic.... and maybe a little bit stupid!

I'm not sure that I'd want to work for an organisation that only looks at you for pay increase/promotion, if I'd need to work for no pay... that says more about them, than it would about me.

I guess I've never worked in a cutthroat org', so I may not know what I'm talking about.

If that's what it takes, and your happy to live like that, then that's down to your choice, and where you set your boundaries.

The last place I ever worked at, was all about targets and wringing you out IF you let them.,,, there was never a chance of either pay increase or promotion for slogging yourself, so I didn't.

After I left that org', and passed by that building afterward, I had an enormous sense of relief and gratefulness that I no longer had anything to do with them.
My income was a lot less, but my sense of freedom grew, and I became much more money savvy with my lesser income.

The way it affected me, was I became poorer in savings, but a hell of a lot richer in self esteem and that (to me) was empowering as well as surprising.

I expect I'm in the minority, but that's cool.

Not any more. I’m a lawyer and have worked in a few organisations, large and small

they will get rid of you in an instant. You are dispensable. Life is very short

No. I used to but when they started stripping back the hours we all thought why should we. Everyone is just a number on the payroll system and no one thinks any better or worse of you if you work what you get paid for.

Dr so yes countless unpaid

Almost on daily basis. I can't remember last time I finished at 5pm which is when I'm supposed to finish

Unpaid labour

What keeps capitalism alive

No. Never have, never will and I have a decent career. I’m now self employed so can pick my own hours to a degree.

My job doesn’t have set hours so difficult to tell. I have very busy and less busy periods so, if I’m honest, it probably balances out.

In my profession almost everyone works overtime, usually unpaid although not always. I do not. Did when I was younger but now no chance. I negotiated my hours in my current job to ensure I never worked until the end of the day as those who do never finish on time.
I also don't give my employer all my time, although they would like me to.
In today's economy it feels safer to have more than one source of income so I work self employed as well which actually brings me in more money (but no paid holidays etc).

See for me this is the dream and the reason I went part time , to focus on my business but not finding the time is hard

I find it completely unrewarding being a slave to the corporate machine, when I can see way more purpose in my own business but can't yet afford to give up my career

One day!

In teaching we all do unpainted overtime to an extent. Teaching contracts are deliberately vague. Schools have a certain amount of "directed time" which they allocate for you e.g meetings, briefings, training, duties etc. Then we are expected to do a reasonable amount of additional work to fulfil our role. Only no one ever wants to have a conversation about what might be a reasonable amount. You also don't get any time back or additional pay for organising and running residential trips that often run over weekends. Or for doing clubs etc. The problem is those extras are craftily weaved into performance management criteria. So one waynor another school leaders manage to get you in a position where you are doing undefined overtime and mountains of work. Its just the culture. I do daydream about a jib where I could just stop thinking about it when I leave at the end of the day.

Only if I get it back in TOIL or paid overtime. DH was regularly giving more hours for free, and in return he'd get a paltry pay rise. The killer was ending up working through our family holiday, while his boss took his family on a luxury holiday. No thanks. No bonus. The company just believes if you're handling the workload you can handle even more.

I'm not working extra hours for free to make someone else rich. However there's no progression opportunities so no incentive.

We have a time bank system so when I've got a lot to do I work longer but I'll get those hours back at some point (I'm probably pretty even with my hours right now as I usually leave early on Fridays but there's a lot of work to do at the moment so I might get ahead)

Yes, but technically not. As Wanda says, teaching contracts have the equivalent of core hours of directed time, which is essentially the school day plus a period before and after. However, the slippery bit is the contractual expectation that one works the number of hours it takes to fulfil the role and discharge related duties. This is entirely unstipulated and regularly amounts to an additional 15-20 hours every week -there is no cut off point. There's no overtime sheet, it's every teacher's contractual obligation. I usually calculate that every 1h lesson taught requires an additional hour/ hour and a half for planning, differentiated resource creation and marking.

Every teacher I know is looking to exit the profession in the next five years. Seniority in education is not reflected in the kinds of salaries one might expect in other graduate professions after 20+ years of dedication and hard work: the main pay-scale tops out very quickly (you can technically achieve the top spine point in 7-8 years), and that's your lot.

Nope. I'm not well paid and there's no scope for promotion in my job. I work my contracted hours as working more for free would have zero benefits.

Nurse (community) . No never, I already work 13 hour shifts and am out the door on time. If on the rare occasion I do have to work over then I get paid for it or take toil. Nearly 30 years in and it has not damaged my career yet.

Yes. We do get time off in lieu in this particular team but i probably do 3 hours a week that I don't record as im trying to wean myself off TOIL. Less than it used to be.

Only during things like the stamp duty “holiday” when all residential property solicitors were working crazy hours. I’ve no ambitions to become a partner, which I accept would require more hours.

I work 4 days a week in tax, so as you can imagine it’s busy at the moment!

Nearly each day I’m doing an extra hour… so effectively half a day of unpaid work. It’s difficult because I have a client book and ultimately, I’ll suffer if I just work “my hours” as the work will just pile up/ clients would get stuff late. I won’t be able to recoup the hours in February as there’s no TOIL. It’s an expectation of the role, maybe one that should change?!

Outside of deadline season - which isn’t just January - I rarely do overtime though.

No. I’m in a different career now which doesn’t tend to have that kind of expectation anyway but I’m my previous career, many of my colleagues would work overtime but I very rarely did - with my opinion being, if I’m having to do that then my work are giving me too much to do. I didn’t want it to be expected of me.

My contracted hours as a teacher are 7.5 hours a day (say 8.30-4pm). So yes as it’s impossible not to work extra hours!

I used to. It got me nowhere and became expected. Now I don't. And if I end up over, I ALWAYS take time back (we don't get paid overtime, and are hourly rate not salaried).

'I don't work for free' has become a very used sentence in my work 😂