Do you work unpaid overtime?

cml387

myshirt wrote: »

Typical conundrum is what to call an accountant who is in the office at 8am everyday, and never out before 9pm, Monday to Friday, week on week, every week, month on month; oddly takes lunch, and if does take lunch then takes at most a 20 minute (working) lunch, is in the office at least every second Saturday a month every month, works 9 out of 10 bank holidays, and takes no more than a week off a year, what do you call that guy?

An accountant who never takes holidays and is there all the time is likely covering up a massive fraud.

PrettyBoy

I'm embarrassed to say that I've been doing it for close to a year now. My contract states 40 hours work per week over 5 days but over the last year that has not happened once. I work between 55-65 hours - no less - every single week, usually over 6 days. I feel dreadful when I think about it - why did I crry on with this for so long, trying to convince myself every day that it's good experience and it will stand to me in the future. It's a horrible, unrewarding, thankless job that has cost me a lot in my personal life. I'm very much looking forward to handing in my notice next week.

MadDog76

To those people who say "yes, I do work a few extra hours every week unpaid, what's the big deal?" ask yourself this .......... how would your employer react if you decided to take a few paid hours off every week?

Richard Hillman

I worked about 15 minutes extra twice over he last 6 months and still feel dirty over it. Once was to help a work mate as she had to collect her kids and the other time was out of stupidity of not just leaving it until Monday morning.

I'm far from Left Wing, I would be most certainly Right Wing and proud, but I don't understand the logic of going to extra yard Just how your boss can get a bigger bonus. It is ludicrous.

Sweetemotion

PrettyBoy wrote: »

I'm embarrassed to say that I've been doing it for close to a year now. My contract states 40 hours work per week over 5 days but over the last year that has not happened once. I work between 55-65 hours - no less - every single week, usually over 6 days. I feel dreadful when I think about it - why did I crry on with this for so long, trying to convince myself every day that it's good experience and it will stand to me in the future. It's a horrible, unrewarding, thankless job that has cost me a lot in my personal life. I'm very much looking forward to handing in my notice next week.

I hope 2017 is good for you.

Best of luck.

Mongfinder General

Quite a few of you on this thread are being seriously rode up the hole with a big strap on. You need to walk away from any employer who abuses your commitment

noel100

I would never work for free again.
I leave and start the job on time. Any over time I got this year was paid at 1.5 & double time and it accounted for an extra 6k in pay.

Stealthfins

A lot of you people who are working more than what's on your contact do realize you're slaves to the system.

You're being exploited and shafted,the company is making huge profits and you're getting loose change for your contribution.

Guy's out strumming motorways, planting trees and pulling weeds have a better wage and quality of life.

Think about it.....

Jodotman

Company tried this with me before as I was missing deadlines and not keeping up with the workload and I told them there wasn't enough hours in the week and its impossible to keep up with the workload. Manager replied and said that its not good enough and will be reviewed at the end of the quarter and expects no more slip ups.

Kept missing deadlines and workloads and in the end they ended up hiring someone in a junior role to help me.

Companies are out to exploit you and make every cent they can off you.

If you let them ride you up the ass and be a nice guy they will exploit you every way they can!!!

Of course theres maybe one or two days a month you have to stay back but I get my overtime back in holiday time now!

Senator Palpatine

There seems to be a genuine misunderstanding within this thread regarding how high-end jobs work.

Nobody thinks in terms of 40 hour weeks or hourly rates of pay.

My Dad (now retired) is a decent example. He worked 12 hours a day six days a week for a long time. He simply did his best and the only equation he worried about was his remuneration relative to his outturn for the year.

Some people are taking the attitude and mindset of people who make hundreds of euro a week and assuming that people who make hundreds of euro an hour should think the same.

fg1406

I'm salaried on a 37 hour week and regularly work between 4-6 hours per week in unpaid overtime. Theoretically I can take time off in lieu but all that happens then is the work builds up and I end up working even more unpaid hours in order to clear the backlog.

Wanderer2010

fg1406 wrote: »

I'm salaried on a 37 hour week and regularly work between 4-6 hours per week in unpaid overtime. Theoretically I can take time off in lieu but all that happens then is the work builds up and I end up working even more unpaid hours in order to clear the backlog.

Then management need to step in to solve that issue, they are just using you and you arent getting anything for your extra effort. Tell them straight up you need assistance as you cant commit to 10 hour days.

FTA69

myshirt wrote: »

They say there are professions where you are more likely to cheat on your wife. Accountants, solicitors get it in the neck the most.

What yous don't realise is the real idea behind having both a wife and a mistress, and it is this - and there is beauty in the way it works - basically, when you are scheduled to be with the mistress, the wife thinks you're golfing, and when you're scheduled to be with the wife, the mistress thinks you're at a function.

That way they are both distracted meaning you can go into the office and get some work done.

God if being an accountant involves having to listen to men in suits standing around guffawing over this sort of "banter" I'd sooner jump in the Liffey.

Dirty Dingus McGee

Senator Palpatine wrote: »

There seems to be a genuine misunderstanding within this thread regarding how high-end jobs work.

Nobody thinks in terms of 40 hour weeks or hourly rates of pay.

My Dad (now retired) is a decent example. He worked 12 hours a day six days a week for a long time. He simply did his best and the only equation he worried about was his remuneration relative to his outturn for the year.

Some people are taking the attitude and mindset of people who make hundreds of euro a week and assuming that people who make hundreds of euro an hour should think the same.

Most people don't make hundreds of euro per hour so why do you expect this thread would be filled with high flying executives who's job is their life?

If you want to spend every hour alive working that's fine but I don't and most people don't either.

Avatar MIA

I've a pretty happy medium going on.

I probably could get all my work done 9-5, but I don't break my bollix and do have the chats, network whatever (i.e. occasion boards.ie).

I might put in 5 hours O/T due to this each week. If very busy, project type thing comes about I might work the very odd Sat/Sun. But, that's paid time and a half/double time. It's unrestricted and I could take the piss if I wanted, but don't.

I'm also fairly autonomous and as long as my work is done I'm pretty much my own boss. I'm well paid and senior.

I think that's key, if I had someone breathing down my neck and I HAD to do unpaid o/t I'd not be happy.

zuutroy

Only experience I have of the real word is working in Intel where I couldn't believe how supposedly smart people had been so badly brainwashed.
The people doing the manufacturing would be on 12 hour shifts 3 on - 3 off and out the door as soon as their shift ended.
The engineers who were paid 8-4:30 would also work 12 hours a day, but for 5 days a week, and then be on call and have company laptops to work more at home. Probably ended up with a far lower hourly than the manufacturing guys.
All to make money for someone else.
I was out the door at 4:30 every day and left after less than a year.

Avatar MIA

PrettyBoy wrote: »

I'm embarrassed to say that I've been doing it for close to a year now. My contract states 40 hours work per week over 5 days but over the last year that has not happened once. I work between 55-65 hours - no less - every single week, usually over 6 days. I feel dreadful when I think about it - why did I crry on with this for so long, trying to convince myself every day that it's good experience and it will stand to me in the future. It's a horrible, unrewarding, thankless job that has cost me a lot in my personal life. I'm very much looking forward to handing in my notice next week.

I've not read all the posts in this thread, but saw someone reply to a post of yours.

Your company is breaking the working time act, which only allows a maximum of 48 hours worked on average over a 13 week period for each employee. There are fines etc. for non compliance. Might be worth noting

76544567

Company I used to work in I reckon I did about 15 hours overtime every week, simply because I didnt mind.

Then they brought in this clocking system where your log in and out of your pc is recorded every day.
No problem for me I thought.
But then I start getting emails and warnings for being 2 mins late in the morning even though i usually stayed an extra 3 hours.
And emails if i left one minute early.

After enough of that I arrived on time and left on time for a month.
I got called into my bosses office and he told me I was leaving early. What he meant was that I was doing my contracted time now and not staying late anymore.
I explained why and he didnt see my side of it at all. I didnt care. I said fire me for arriving and leaving on time according to your clocking system if you want.

Most of the staff did the same. So they got rid of the clocking system, but it was too late. they had screwed their staff and eroded the goodwill.

Thats a lesson for companies.

Then I was in another company who used to pay you for overtime. But they didnt pay you for the first hour of overtime. So people used to surf the net for an hour and when the company complained people just said, whats your problem, you arent paying me for this time.

Companies need to cop on and treat their staff like adults. Pay them for the time they work for you. This expecting extra work for free can go too far.

Stealthfins

Senator Palpatine wrote:

Some people are taking the attitude and mindset of people who make hundreds of euro a week and assuming that people who make hundreds of euro an hour should think the same.

If I made hundreds of euro an hour ten hours work a week would suit me.

FTA69

The other thing of course is that no good deed goes unpunished. As a poster above outlined, if you're regularly doing unpaid overtime it starts to become expected after a while to the point that custom and practice dictates you've basically changed your own contract for the worse.

If the job regularly requires overtime then they can alter the pay scale to reflect that, anything else is basically just subtle and overt coercion into forcing people to work for free.

Football Friend

FTA69 wrote: »

God if being an accountant involves having to listen to men in suits standing around guffawing over this sort of "banter" I'd sooner jump in the Liffey.

I'm an accountant and I can tell you attitudes like this are rife in the profession. My boss is constantly switched on, Emails on the personal phone, I once got an email at near midnight on Christmas Eve and often get some at 4-5 in the morning.

You've got to remember that these are the kind of people that attach social status to having bigger houses/cars so need to work the extra hours as the money is needed for car repayments or bigger mortgages. It's easy to see the bigger salary and assume richer but for the most part they just have bigger expenses and are as well off as the person doing minimum wage. It's the culture of today that's the problem, how would people know I'm earning lots of money unless I show them which becomes a self defeating proficy. A lot of people need to realise what the idea of work actually is and not become wage slaves...the key word being slaves.

I get on very well in my job, early on I could see the amount of inefficieny in the way most people worked, a lot of people are shown a way to do something 10 years ago and trundle along because it works. I did several advanced excel courses which in accountancy makes me able to do 2-3 times more work than my peers as every task is done with maximum efficiency.

In the original posters opinion I'd be classed as a lazy accountant but I believe 'Choose a Lazy Person To Do a Hard Job Because That Person Will Find an Easy Way To Do It'

Not having a dig at the original poster, maybe they do not fall into the criteria but from my experience most accountants and professionals in general do.

PistolsAtDawn

Most people have done all they're ever going to do:
They raise a family, earn a living and then they die...

The Royal Scam

I used to when times were tough but stopped doing it when I realised it was never recognised or acknowledged. I work as a service engineer on the road so some days are tough and I work late and some can be handy and finish early. I can take the ups and down as it's recognised that end times vary and we don't get hassle but I can claim overtime after 6 o clock if I want.

My big issue though is daily lunches and breaks. If I am working under pressure I normally skip lunch and sometimes any kind of a break during the day. Some days it involves eating on the fly while driving between jobs and some days it can be 15mins for the whole day. The people in my office get 15mins and then 1 hrs for lunch and that it really unpaid overtime if you add up the missed breaktimes I do.

Avatar MIA

Zaph wrote: »

That may be the case, but if you have someone in a salaried job who is entitled to be paid for their overtime then an hourly rate still has to be calculated. Where I work it's annual salary divided by 1,820 (or something like that - I haven't been entitled to overtime for years so I'm not 100% sure).

7hrs a day, it looks like you're contracted for the proverbial 9 to 5 with a half hour lunch unpaid. Of course, that could be 9:00 to 17;30 with an hour lunch unpaid.

76544567

I went home at 4 pm one day, normal finish time was 5 and heard the next day that the managers were complaining about me going home early and where was i.

To shut them up, same managers had to be informed by a workmate that I hadnt gone home in 3 days and was working the last 70 or so hours straight.
They just said, well he should have told us why he was leaving early.
I got nothing, not even a thankyou, the opposite actually, for the work I had done help that company keep running in those 3 days solid.
I left within a month.

I have no time for this unpaid overtime BS anymore.
If you want me to work extra, make me an offer, and dont cry if i refuse the offer.

andekwarhola

I'll work over my normal salaried hours now and again for something like a project deadline and to help out colleagues. My employers are good in terms of flexibility and I appreciate that so don't mind occasionally repaying it.

You're a bit of a mug, however, if you routinely work extra hours (especially so if you neglect your family to do so) in a normal professional context and expect a merit badge for it.

Any job will give you the bullet in a nanosecond if that's an economic imperative for them or they can get somebody to do it cheaper, regardless of your extra effort.

Avatar MIA

Football Friend wrote: »

Not having a dig at the original poster, maybe they do not fall into the criteria but from my experience most accountants and professionals in general do.

Right, so you're the only accountant/professional to do an advance excel course?

If working efficiently through the use of advanced excel you must be fairly low on the totem pole.

Parchment

LMAO!.....no!

Football Friend

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Right, so you're the only accountant/professional to do an advance excel course?

If working efficiently through the use of advanced excel you must be fairly low on the totem pole.

Cheer up buddy, doubt I'm the only one but I am in my workplace. No need to get so worked up about the internet, just relaying my experience.

Maybe my salary isn't huge but I own my own home and car, have a nice family, good work life balance, decent savings. Might not be high up on the professional totem pole if that's a thing but I'm happy with my life one.

Happy new year

Avatar MIA

Football Friend wrote: »

Cheer up buddy, doubt I'm the only one but I am in my workplace. No need to get so worked up about the internet, just relaying my experience.

Maybe my salary isn't huge but I own my own home and car, have a nice family, good work life balance, decent savings. Might not be high up on the professional totem pole if that's a thing but I'm happy with my life one.

Happy new year

I'm grand, friend. It was the use of most, degnigrating fellow professionals that jumped out at me.

I started off as an accountant, and myself and nearly all of my accountant friends used it to progress into general management type jobs. None of us do mad overtime, maybe once - for a period - early in our careers.

The lot working with you seem fit only to sharpen pencils, and not too sharp in case they poke their eyes out.

padd b1975

I legally can't work any overtime whatsoever, the fines are pretty hefty (£100 sterling for being 15 minutes over my allowed driving time because I couldn't find safe parking) and ultimately can result in a prison sentence.
I have a set amount of working hours per day with a minimum daily rest period of nine or 11 hours.

Any phone calls or email arrive during my daily rest-well I'm straight on to the MD and whoever sent them can expect a verbal warning.

International trucker here.

Avatar MIA

padd b1975 wrote: »

International trucker here.

Not even with the new electronic tachographs

Only joking, now if they could apply the same logic to doctors in public hospitals. Who wants to be worked on by drunk with sleep medic.

peasant

Question for all of those regularly putting in extra hours:

How is the quality of all that extra work? Are you sure you're really doing good work in all that extra time?

Personally I find that after the usual eight hours of actual work (i.e. not dossing) I'm pretty much done for the day and the brain is tired and wants to go home.

In case of urgent/complicated stuff ...work that might take me an extra hour or more tagged on in the evening can be dealt with in 15-20 mins in the morning when I'm fresh and rested.

Avatar MIA

peasant wrote: »

In case of urgent/complicated stuff ...work that might take me an extra hour or more tagged on in the evening can be dealt with in 15-20 mins in the morning when I'm fresh and rested.

100% agree with this. Actually, that's why I normally go in an hour early, just to work on something without distraction.

padd b1975

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Not even with the new electronic tachographs

Lol.

Let's not pull on that thread....

Seriously though, a good working relationship with the enforcement authorities is worth more to a genuine haulier than burning out drivers and running the gauntlet of getting caught.

The Rape of Lucretia

76544567 wrote: »

They just said, well he should have told us why he was leaving early.

They were quite right. You should have told them. It was reasonable of them to expect you to be there from 4 to 5 if that is your normal day, or even after 5 if you are normally there after 5 and they are used to that instead of potentially leaving them with a problem caused by your unexpected absence.
You need to improve your communication with your managers. They probably would have acknowledged you effort and overtime and happily waved you to take an early finish had you done so rather than just leaving and leaving it to a colleague to explain your absence and extra hours over the previous days.

perrier

I work for an American Co. The culture of unpaid overtime is officially not expected, but if you cannot manage your workload "do we need to put a plan in place to help you" blah blah blah.

The engineers in the company work 7am-4pm but to see anyone leave at this time is very unusual. Working into the evening and later is not uncommon, taking evening and weekend calls and emails is the norm.

We had an Engineer work 35 days in a row this year including many nights. No one batted an eyelid as he closed out what he was working on.

My area works shift so overtime isn't needed, but to go home without closing out an issue is unheard of.

Lia_lia

No, we get paid for overtime. Rarely do it though.

The Rape of Lucretia

peasant wrote: »

Question for all of those regularly putting in extra hours:

How is the quality of all that extra work? Are you sure you're really doing good work in all that extra time?

Personally I find that after the usual eight hours of actual work (i.e. not dossing) I'm pretty much done for the day and the brain is tired and wants to go home.

This may be just habit. There is nothing magic about 8 hours.


If someone is doing the extra hours because they really want to work, then I would have no doubt that is productive time. 10 or 11 hours is no problem at all if you are really working. 11 or 12 would be the standard with all our top level people. They are seriously productive at 8 or 9 at night after a 7 or 8 am start and the company benefits from what they give it.

On the other hand, there are some lower level clockwatchers who are only there to be seen to be there. And no they are not productive. But not because they couldnt be - but because their motivation is wrong - they are there to kill time and tick along rather than really focused on being productive.

Lau2976

I'm self employed so overtime doesn't exist. I take a client on and work until the project is done. Depending on the deadline we have set that could mean working on that for 1 hour a day or for 12 or 13 hours.

I have done a few all nighters to get things done but I work in a creative job not a life threatening one so me working tired or groggy isn't going to affect anything major.

Donal55

Do people work overtime for free because the boss wont pay it or is it because they wont ask for it?

the purple tin

No. I used to in previous jobs but like some posters have said already trying to get ahead and advance in a company by working long and free hours is like pissing into the wind.

Mr_Muffin

I'm kinda new to my job so i don't mind staying back a half hour or so to get something completed or when learning something new.

As soon i get the hang of it i'll be out the door at home time. Life happens when I'm having fun with family and friends or partaking in a hobby that i love - not in work.

76544567

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

They were quite right. You should have told them. It was reasonable of them to expect you to be there from 4 to 5 if that is your normal day, or even after 5 if you are normally there after 5 and they are used to that instead of potentially leaving them with a problem caused by your unexpected absence.
You need to improve your communication with your managers. They probably would have acknowledged you effort and overtime and happily waved you to take an early finish had you done so rather than just leaving and leaving it to a colleague to explain your absence and extra hours over the previous days.

Well .... You must have been one of them
Yours is the attitude Im talking about.
"The Rape of the worker, would be nore like it"

So happens everyone except the two gobsh!tes who were off having an extended lunch knew. They werent back until 5:30pm and asked where I was. Someone said he went home at 4. Then they kicked off, without knowing anything.

Self employed now so I dont have to deal with the like anymore.
You should see how personally some of them used to take it once I grew up and stood up for myself.

--"Oh you are staying til thats done."

"Ive been working on it since 5am, its now 5pm, get someone else to do it."

--"There is noone"

"And how is that my problem. Tell you what make me an offer of extra pay for all the hours I did and am going to do if i stay and if its enough i'll do it"


--"We dont pay OT, where is your loyalty. There has to be give and take .. blah blah blah."

"Whos doing all the giving here?"

IsMiseMyself

Not a hope. I really like my job and I'm paid quite well to do it. The minute half five comes I'm out of there - although very occasionally I might hang on an extra half hour to help out.

It's not unusual for colleagues to stay an extra hour or two a couple of times a week. One guy routinely works an extra five to eight hours a week, unpaid. He has his own set of keys for locking up. The boss makes jokes about it but he's happy to take advantage - and on some level, yer man is happy to let him.

I get paid to do set hours. I don't care how long other people are hanging around. It's quite insidious in some ways, with bosses seriously taking advantage of staff and letting them log stupid overtime without paying them.

peasant

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

11 or 12 would be the standard with all our top level people. They are seriously productive at 8 or 9 at night after a 7 or 8 am start

I seriously doubt that.
Once or twice a month ...maybe.
Every day...no way.

But then again ...maybe those are the bright minds who came up with brilliant ideas like (for example) zero deposit 110% mortgages and credit default swaps late at night ...that might explain things

ct5amr2ig1nfhp

Does anyone work overtime for the love of the job?

Subcomandante Marcos

My personal email is a gmail address, my work email uses outlook. I don't have outlook on my personal phone and the data connection on my work phone gets turned off the second I leave the office. Took years to start doing it this way though, used to read emails at all hours and then totally forget to reply to them.

76544567

Henley Tinkling Typhoid wrote: »

Does anyone work overtime for the love of the job?

I used to, because I could learn by doing the work and I enjoyed it. They got used to it and then started assuming I was doing it just for them and that I couldnt go off on a tangent and look up other ways of doing it that interested me. Then I decided that I was actually giving away my time to someone that was benefiting for it for free but that they didnt appreciate it at all.
Then I put value on my time and decided never to give it away for free anymore. I can do good work for you during overtime, but you gotta pay for it too. Amazing how many, when they found they couldnt threaten me, asked me not to do overtime then. As soon as they realized they had to pay for it.

As my old man used to say. The man who works for free will never be short of work.

pauliebdub

I get paid overtime but lose half of it in tax so the benefits are very small, about 20 quid an hour net. I value my free time more. Some people I know work savage hours without question.