Weekend work advice

Oh god ... The number of times I've heard "but we're a charity" as some lame attempt at justification for unacceptable behaviour.

Why do they even think weekend social media garbage needs an instant response anyway. Nothing there can be so critical for a charity that it can't wait until Monday.

A very firm "no" and she needs to be looking for another job. Or getting a forehead tattoo saying "doormat".
 
If she gets online at 8:30pm on Friday night and takes 30 minutes to respond to all queries until 9pm.

She can then get up at 8:30am on Saturday (11h 30m later) to take another 30 minutes to respond to all queries until 9am.

She'll then be able to go online at 8:30pm again for another 30 minute stint.

Then 8:30am and 8:30pm on Sunday.

In total that's 2.5h work over Friday night until Sunday evening.

Technically "response" doesn't mean "provide solution" so if she's only expected to acknowledge queries and reply to them letting people know they'll be looked at, or followed up, during the week then I don't see the problem (in terms of amount of work)

Trick is, with like anything else, is to do it to the lowest possible standard you can provide without dropping below it :)

Oh, and like others said, stand up for your rights while looking for a company that respects its employees enough to pay you for work done.
 
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RoyMi6 said:
If she gets online at 8:30pm on Friday night and takes 30 minutes to respond to all queries until 9pm.

She can then get up at 8:30am on Saturday (11h 30m later) to take another 30 minutes to respond to all queries until 9am.

She'll then be able to go online at 8:30pm again for another 30 minute stint.

Then 8:30am then 8:30pm on Sunday.

In total that's 2.5h work over Friday night until Sunday evening.

Technically "response" doesn't mean "provide solution" so if she's only expected to acknowledge queries and reply to them letting people know they'll be looked at, or followed up, during the week then I don't see the problem.

Trick is, with like anything else, is to do it to the lowest possible standard you can provide without dropping below it :)

Oh, and like others said, stand up for your rights while looking for a company that respects its employees enough to pay you for work done.
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If it's "only" 2.5hours over a weekend then why can't the company at least offer her those hours back as TOIL that's still only 1 working day roughly every 2 months, they're expecting a bit of flexibility and charity from their workforce so at least offer something back.
Take it or get lost isn't an acceptable answer for something like this.
 
Why not just set up any autoresponder on your Facebook/Twitter that activates at 5PM on Friday and turns off at 8AM Monday basically saying something along the lines of "Thanks for getting in touch, this page isn't monitored 24/7 but someone will definitely get back to you on Monday" or words to that effect?
 
RoyMi6 said:
If she gets online at 8:30pm on Friday night and takes 30 minutes to respond to all queries until 9pm.

She can then get up at 8:30am on Saturday (11h 30m later) to take another 30 minutes to respond to all queries until 9am.

She'll then be able to go online at 8:30pm again for another 30 minute stint.

Then 8:30am and 8:30pm on Sunday.

In total that's 2.5h work over Friday night until Sunday evening.
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And if she wants to go out one night and have a lie in the following morning?

Or if she goes away somewhere for the weekend and doesn't have internet access?

I would imagine it's not so much the number of hours they're asking her to do, more the fact they're expecting her to work 7 days a week.

peterwalkley said:
Oh god ... The number of times I've heard "but we're a charity" as some lame attempt at justification for unacceptable behaviour.
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Indeed, the correct response to that is "well I'm not"
 
tom_e said:
If it's "only" 2.5hours over a weekend then why can't the company at least offer her those hours back as TOIL that's still only 1 working day roughly every 2 months, they're expecting a bit of flexibility and charity from their workforce so at least offer something back.
Take it or get lost isn't an acceptable answer for something like this.
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this is where you need to decide if you're going for the longer term career approach or the 9-5 this is my job to pay the bills approach

if you're asking for TOIL because you've worked a couple of hours more in a particular week then you're perhaps more going for the 9-5 approach

personally I'd view a career, with annual salary/bonus as something you do within reasonable hours with some flexibility and stuff like this is leverage for the big tear up you have at the end of each year when you argue for more money than they're offering* - long term you earn far more by squeezing them for higher raises than you do for a fixed payment or time off because you've worked 2 hours more

then again it is a charity so I'm not quite sure how the whole asking for more money in your annual reviews approach actually works out

but in the private sector I thoroughly recommend it - don't be a 9-5 jobsworth during the year, be productive and make sure to keep track of all the extra stuff you've done but do be a complete pain when it comes to pay rises/bonuses and use whatever extra you've done for leverage - fact is also that if you start handling extra things/taking on extra responsibilities then you become more valuable - over time it makes you harder to replace and they start to get a bit panicky when it sounds like you're really not happy with the pay rise you've been given

*this is possibly a contributory factor in why you get higher earnings for men than women in some sectors and things like taller men earning more than shorter men - being aggressive/assertive(within reason) in your pay negotiations (providing you're good/competent) tends to pay off. A shy short bloke is much more likely to get screwed by a weak manager than someone who is good, popular and likely to kick off a bit if not rewarded.
 
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tom_e said:
If it's "only" 2.5hours over a weekend...
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Haggisman said:
And if she wants to go out one night and have a lie in the following morning?
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Woah woah woah, I totally agree with everyone else - I was simply stating a possible solution to actually carrying out the work wouldn't necessarily be as bad they might imagine.

Sometimes people get carried away with the thought of doing extra work that they talk themselves out of helping without considering the actual work that might be involved.

I absolutely agree that a good company should compensate people for the work they carry out and totally understand that if people have other commitments then they should be in a position to say no.

BUT if she doesn't have plans for the weekend and DOES decide that talking to her manager about possible amount of hours of work that would be expected to be carried out, with an agreed amount of payment, then she's got some number to work with that still meet the requirements that we've been made aware of.
 
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dowie said:
this is where you need to decide if you're going for the longer term career approach or the 9-5 this is my job to pay the bills approach

if you're asking for TOIL because you've worked a couple of hours more in a particular week then you're perhaps more going for the 9-5 approach

personally I'd view a career, with annual salary/bonus as something you do within reasonable hours with some flexibility and stuff like this is leverage for the big tear up you have at the end of each year when you argue for more money than they're offering - long term you earn far more by squeezing them for higher raises than you do for a fixed payment or time off because you've worked 2 hours more

then again it is a charity so I'm not quite sure how the whole asking for more money in your annual reviews approach actually works out

but in the private sector I thoroughly recommend it - don't be a 9-5 jobsworth during the year, be productive and make sure to keep track of all the extra stuff you've done but do be a complete pain when it comes to pay rises/bonuses and use whatever extra you've done for leverage - fact is also that if you start handling extra things/taking on extra responsibilities then you become more valuable - over time it makes you harder to replace and they start to get a bit panicky when it sounds like you're really not happy with the pay rise you've been given
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I'm actually in a slightly similar position with having to do the odd bit of out of hours support which means I'm effectively on call 365 days a year, it's not in my contract but it was discussed at my interview and I didn't push for any more money because it effectively makes me completely invaluable to the company no one else has that knowledge and this stuff needs to work because the first people that know when it fails are the board of execs.

Come next years annual review when I've been here a year then I'll start to see what I can push them for, it's minimal work but when it goes wrong it needs fixing pretty much instantly.

Basically what I'm saying is I'm completely ignoring my own advice to push myself up an already decent pay scale.
 
NeverWinter said:
It's a charity and the load can vary, they are getting more tweets and Facebook posts every week so it will escalate. If it was just one query I'd also be telling her to suck it up but it's likely to be more and increase over time.
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A lot of charities act like this; expecting employees to put in a lot of extra work for free, not covering expenses and not even showing appreciation for the work done.

If she doesn't push back now, this will be the tip of the iceberg.
 
RoyMi6 said:
If she gets online at 8:30pm on Friday night and takes 30 minutes to respond to all queries until 9pm.

She can then get up at 8:30am on Saturday (11h 30m later) to take another 30 minutes to respond to all queries until 9am.

She'll then be able to go online at 8:30pm again for another 30 minute stint.

Then 8:30am and 8:30pm on Sunday.

In total that's 2.5h work over Friday night until Sunday evening.

Technically "response" doesn't mean "provide solution" so if she's only expected to acknowledge queries and reply to them letting people know they'll be looked at, or followed up, during the week then I don't see the problem (in terms of amount of work)

Trick is, with like anything else, is to do it to the lowest possible standard you can provide without dropping below it :)

Oh, and like others said, stand up for your rights while looking for a company that respects its employees enough to pay you for work done.
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Legally, she needs a 24 hour break in a 7 day period.
 
I would do one and see how time is required. If its just the odd one or two then that's one thing but if she spends the weekend constantly replying to people - tally up the hours and go in and ask how she claims the O/T against this. If shes met with a blank stare that's the last one she does - just make sure she has plans on those weekends
 
She should raise her concerns and stop worrying about any possible consequence.

If she's afraid that raising concern would cost her the job then she isn't in the right place of work, it will get worse.
 
I've had friends mentioned this sort of thing to me in the past.

If you 'agree' to it or work a couple to see how it goes, it could be deemed to have been implied contract and therefore hard to get away from.
 
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