Overtime in small firm

[Telecaster]

What is the opinion of overtime in the forum's opinion, is it purely down to employees desire/availability or are their other considerations?

I don't earn much, so overtime to me is barely worth it, in fact when I do agree to it then it's purely just to help out the firm not for self interest, if left to me I'd just do my basic hours as OT makes me hardly anything worth bothering with.

I already do 10 hours a week unpaid, so to get into OT I have already done 50 hours, so to me I'd rather have my weekends to myself, but then the boss is getting jobs and asking for weekend work- like this week I had to work late Fri because the job couldn't start until after 14:30 and then it needed finishing off today (Sunday) same deal, after 14:30 until finished.

I only agreed because we're a small firm and if I didn't do it then there wasn't anyone else to do it, in which case if I'd refused presumably he would have had to cancel the job which doesn't do us all any favours in this climate when work is slow.

I'm not lazy and already go above and beyond during my regular mon-fri working week including no proper break times or lunch breaks, 2 hours a day unpaid, very short notice long distance travelling and staying away. I don't seem to see much benefits in return for putting myself out, I was always lead to believe hard work was the key to getting on, but it's never done me any favours as people just seem to take you for granted and keep taking more.

 

[Telecaster]

We don't get annual raises or bonuses.

Overtime is either in the week or weekend.

The 10 hours a week unpaid is because I'm a mobile worker with no fixed base/office so the boss classes an hour each way unpaid. Overtime is basically anything over my 8 hours in the week (10 hours in reality once this 2 hours is taken into account). So when I do a 13 hour day door-to-door I get 8 hours+ 3hours at OT rate (13 hours -2 hours) which I think is time and a quarter or time and a half, I'm not sure.

Like I said, I don't really want the OT, I'd rather not be doing regular 13/14 hour days, or if I have to then I'd want to be paid for the full 13/14 hours, but if he did that he'd probably go under in a few months.

 

[Telecaster]

If I had any qualifications or skills I would, as it is I'd probably only get something on min wage or similar.

 

[Telecaster]

I didn't have the skills to get my current job, boss is a family friend of sorts and just set me on as a 3 month trial a few years back, I'm just time served with no qualifications. Not much call for that these days, people want the right bits of paper not people who can do the job.

 

[Telecaster]

Yeah that's pretty much how most of us see it, he will get it back elsewhere.

We can't organise the jobs in any other order apart from most urgent first, we do try to get them in area groups but it's not very often, I regularly do 300+ miles a day driving and that's just to get to/from the bloody job, never mind the work on top.

In my mind we should only either do our 8 hours door to door or he pays us whatever hours we work door to door. I don't leave the house at 5am because my first job is 2.5 hours away just for the fun of it, that's purely for him so IMO we should be paid for it all.

 

[Telecaster]

I just don't like being "that guy", the one in every firm that always rocks the boat and says no when asked to do stuff outside of regular hours, because everyone just hates him.

 

[Telecaster]

Just searched for same jobs out of interest and the first one read like this;

"The role will pay up to c£32k per annum (depending on experience) working a 40 hour week (door to door pay), together with a 5% performance related bonus per month. Other benefits include a company vehicle, fuel card, phone, tablet, generous pension, other bonuses and company share scheme. There is also standby allowance and potential overtime which will increase the overall package. As part of the role you will be required to be on call out one weekend on four."

That is dream land compared to where I work, sadly I don't have the qualification they require.

 

[Telecaster]

It's nowhere near me, I was just using the job description as an example of the first one I came across in a search.

The qualification is pretty compulsory for the job, you can't work on gas equipment without it.

 

[Telecaster]

Not possible as you need to complete an on-job portfolio proving you've done 12 months on job training alongside a current gas safe engineer.