Unpaid Overtime

I work in the private sector (finance) and have historically worked anything up to 2 hours extra each day, through skipping lunch / starting early / staying late.

This is no longer the case. I work my allocated hours, take a lunch break and go home on time. If I am working to an acceptable level of productivity and I cannot complete the work I am being given... they should allocate additional resource to the task.
 
She's clearly having her pasty smashed by her boss in those extra 2-3 hours each day, soon she will be saying how she has to spend the night at work to get some "stuff" done.
 
I remember a workmate telling his wife that he had to work a couple of hours unpaid overtime every night and then she found out he was having an affair.
 
I agree that in salary jobs you are sometimes needed to do extra.
Dad used to do lots extra but when it comes to redundancy, nobody gives a ****, as it is a case of which projects you work on rather than who's (hope I used the correct grammar there!) car is in the car park earliest and leaves the latest.

Personally I would be willing to do 30 minutes extra per day, but I would not expect my manager to go OMGWTF if I asked to leave 1 hour early now and then either.

Doing 2-3 hours extra per day is completely over the top unless you are at some form of senior level manager with your own office and a nice company car. All of this is imo of course and I am from the 'can do' camp of people who aim to achieve things.

ants83 said:
working for free you got to laugh , never done it never will, or ass lick for that matter
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There is no need to ass lick, but if you get jobs that are on higher pay they are almost always salary and as a result you are expected to chip in a bit of extra time here and there.
 
I work in the Private Sector in Film Post-Production and overtime can certainly be quite a sore topic for most people.

First thing is that you are obviously expected to work the hours necessary to get the job done. So chances are you are always going to be working a little bit of what is considered overtime. I'd imagine this is pretty much the case in other Private Sector industries too. I would think it's only Public Sector jobs with the Council or similar where you do a real 9-5 and go home.

In my industry, overtime tends to be based on where you work.
If you work in a post-production facility, i.e. a large company where you are on a permanent contract, they usually don't pay overtime. Instead what they offer is Time In Lieu, so after so many overtime hours worked, you get a half or full day off. The problem with this is that Time In Lieu is always at the employers discretion compared to normal holiday and frankly most people were just never able to take it. Further to this, the department I worked in at one company only awarded Time In Lieu hours for weekend work. There were numerous times where you had to pull an all nighter to get a job finished and our Manager had supposably agreed that we would get Time In Lieu hours for this. It wasn't until the Manager left and they closed the department that HR claimed all the weekday hours people had worked were invalid which led to some very angry people, myself included!

These days I work Freelance or get just hired on for one job with a company. You get treated much better in that respect as you get proper overtime pay, plus time and a half for weekend work. The real difference though is just that you are unlikely to be taking any holiday during the period of that job anyway.

Facilities just take people for granted and they also know that with it being an industry that many want to work in, that they can get away with not paying people for working extra hours. Plus it's not Union protected like the Production (Shooting) side of filmmaking is.
 
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gropingmantis said:
What do you think GD?
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It depends.

If I was low paid, expected to stay unpaid and got docked for having a dentists appointment - they could go jump off a cliff for all I care.

If you're well paid and don't have any problem taking an hour or two out of the day for getting your car serviced or having a tooth filled then that's give an take and is a mature and sensible employer / employee relationship.

It's possible she's a doormat but equally it's possible she has a good job with good prospects.
 
my fiancee works as a trainee solicitor and does extra hours every day but doesnt get paid.

i think its in her contract that if she has to stay then so be it. but a lot of stuff she has to do else things dont go to court etc and the company she works for lose cases and lose a lot of money which would prob end up with her getting fired.

it has seemed to pay off for her as she has worked her way up the company from the very bottom and is now a trainee team leader, so the only people above her are the big wigs.
 
Telescopi said:
It depends.

If I was low paid, expected to stay unpaid and got docked for having a dentists appointment - they could go jump off a cliff for all I care.

If you're well paid and don't have any problem taking an hour or two out of the day for getting your car serviced or having a tooth filled then that's give an take and is a mature and sensible employer / employee relationship.

It's possible she's a doormat but equally it's possible she has a good job with good prospects.
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Well if you look at it from this perspective then yes I agree. Given that the OP has stated other colleagues at her work doing the same thing (I assume by how it's written) and leaving at 5pm, I think it's safe to assume it's a low skilled job. (I don't mean to offend OP here)

utajoker said:
my fiancee works as a trainee solicitor and does extra hours every day but doesnt get paid.

i think its in her contract that if she has to stay then so be it. but a lot of stuff she has to do else things dont go to court etc and the company she works for lose cases and lose a lot of money which would prob end up with her getting fired.

it has seemed to pay off for her as she has worked her way up the company from the very bottom and is now a trainee team leader, so the only people above her are the big wigs.
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That's the difference really when it's a situation like this then I would expect to work additional hours.

But in your average 9 to 5 job with other colleagues within the same team (lets say in a call center or inputting data) then it wouldn't be acceptable.
 
If you're a professional and you want to get on and be chosen for the better jobs I would imagine it is entirely normal.
I work in an industry which has both salaried and hourly rate paid employees. The salaried ones who work the extra hours are the ones offered the opportunity to get on. The hourly rate paid ones who work well are offered the chance to become salaried. If you have the drive you can start up on the shop floor and end up in the board room. One of our current execs started as a fitter, you don't get on without busting your balls. If you're always asking about the money that won't get you anywhere.
 
.Lethal said:
Well if you look at it from this perspective then yes I agree. Given that the OP has stated other colleagues at her work doing the same thing (I assume by how it's written) and leaving at 5pm, I think it's safe to assume it's a low skilled job. (I don't mean to offend OP here)



That's the difference really when it's a situation like this then I would expect to work additional hours.

But in your average 9 to 5 job with other colleagues within the same team (lets say in a call center or inputting data) then it wouldn't be acceptable.
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No offence taken. It is pretty much just one up from the call centre. They are basically the stop gap between the call centre and the proper loss adjusters so the call centre takes the call and if it is contents related it goes to her team and if it is over £2500 then she passes it on to the loss adjusters. It just annoys me that whenever I try to talk to her about it she gets her back up and say I don't understand because I have never worked in the private sector (true).
 
This is the thing people are seeming to assume that she is on 25k+ or middle management. She has been there for 6 months now and is on 17k and she is having to do overtime because they have lost a load of people from their team and by the sounds of it it is her and the other new girl taking up all the slack.
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Well to be fair you didn't specify that in your original post.
 
gropingmantis said:
It just annoys me that whenever I try to talk to her about it she gets her back up and say I don't understand because I have never worked in the private sector (true).
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I've worked in both the public and private sector and I don't see how this changes anything with regards to her doing additional unpaid work - whilst others get to go home.

You might want to bring this up with her in a sensible manner, rather than argue about it; and discuss why she feels the need to work longer hours than the rest of the team. Otherwise you're going to have to accept her decision to continue doing it.
 
We always get paid overtime if we have to work over our usual hours.

I think your GF is being taken advantage of to be honest. Once in a while to get things done is okay but every day? Nah.
 
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One thing you need to bear in mind is that sometimes doing overtime can reduce stress levels (in the short term) because you aren't worrying so much about things. Example:


Got a task you need to get finished by midday on Tuesday, say a presentation.

Scenario 1:
On Monday night you stay an hour or two late and complete the task. You return home for the evening with a weight lifted from your shoulders, knowing that you will meet the deadline. You enjoy the rest of your evening and stroll into work the next day feeling on top of the world, knowing that you are going to nail your presentation.

Scenario 2:
You walk out the door bang on on 17:00. All evening you have thoughts running through your head about what you need to do to finish the task ready for lunchtime the next day. Maybe you won't be able to finish it at all! Your bf gets annoyed that you seem distracted and you end up having an argument because you can't switch off from work. The next day you arrive at work stressed out, the emails are piling up but you've still got to get this presentation ready.

In the long term of course, some might argue that overtime isn't sustainable, and that you are setting yourself up for a fall because the expectation becomes that you will always do this work.

I used to be very anti unpaid-overtime but over time I have come to find that in some ways it helps me because I am less stressed about things and find it easier to keep the boss happy. My advice is to let her take the decision herself and support her in that.

Finally in some corporate environments doing extra unpaid work MAY get you ahead (in terms of future prospects) but it isn't guarenteed.

As for the public/private sector thing, my wife works in the public sector but due to the nature of the work (specialist healthcare) it is very difficult for her to just walk out the door bang on finishing time, as this could potentially put children's lives at risk or at the very least lower the standard of care their receive and/or leave her colleagues in the lurch. She doesn't get paid for staying late and probably does on average an extra 30mins per shift.
 
No way. 2-3h a day ? I used to think it would be advantageous show i was keen and committed, then the penny dropped. Shes probably seen as a pushover.

If shes doing extra hours cos she cant manage her work load there might be more at concern.

Only time id work overtime is if its deadline time - and ive pulled 48h in the past to get things all tidy and presentable, that was usually our own faults tho.

ITs a tough call its better to have a job than no job.....Put in a better climate id tell them to hire another person and/or stuff themselves.

More to life than 12h+ work days... trust me.
 
May be worth her shopping around for another job, if she's working approx 30% longer hours then getting another job on the same pay would represent a significant increase in effective hourly rate.

£17k for one step up from call centre doesn't sound too bad to me though, assuming she doesn't live in an expensive part of the country or have to commute far.
 
I probably work 1 - 2 hours extra a day and I don't really take my lunch "hour" either. Why do I do it? To show commitment in hope that it's recognised and rewarded somehow.

Maybe your gf does it for similar reasons or maybe she just doesn't like spending time with you.

Oh look, an elephant.
 
All my employees sign out of working time regulations and sign a contract expecting unpaid overtime as required by the business. Having said that I try to be fair. If they have to work a few more hours here and there then nick off early when it's quiet on another day or come in a bit later. If they have to do evening or weekend work that is planned well in advance then I offer TOIL or overtime - their choice. I have issues with people who can't work felxibly like this unless there are family circumstances (childcare etc.) that hinders their ability to work with the demands of the business.

Me? No overtime for me and I have to be contactable 24 hours a day. Comes with the territory.
 
Even with my 10+ extra unpaid work hours I'm not allowed to leave 'on time' twice a week for National League basketball. I only go to training once a week. Fortunately games are on Saturdays.

I accept the circumstances because I love the work, we get food perks, very odd meals out. The people I work with are great. Everyone is about my age (24). It's better than no job and I don't believe I have enough experience to work anywhere else. Some of the people there do 20+ unpaid hours.

What grinds me a little is the fact my bosses are multi millionaires and there's only about 20 of us in the company. :X. But they earnt it, they were smart enough to start the business and clever enough to build it.

I get 25k p/a.

It is 'expected', just how much is expected that varies IMO.
 
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