I'm always first to leave the office. Feel like I'm skiving.

76544567

I worked in a fund administrators.
While i wasn't in the navy dept I sat beside it.
Now those people were totally taken advantage of.
Sh1 t money for long hours. The odd person would just quit, burn out, and then they would pass their funds on to another person.
Some of them would be in on a normal day from 8 to 7. Then when they had to pick up someone else funds could be working 12- 16 hour days for weeks on end. And then could t themselves lucky if they got back to a 9 or 10 hour day.

If there is one job i would tell people to avoid nowadays, that's the one.

ChikiChiki

Its quite depressing the number of people who are willing to work extra hours for nothing. Sure its ok to do it every so often but every day... cmon. Firms are lapping this up and it has become more common over the last decade. Free employment for them and they know how to exploit it.

Lifes to short and you'd be regretting it on your deathbed.

freshpopcorn

I'm not going to contribute to this thread really but I know people in all types of jobs that often stay late. One thing I did notice about them was their job is sort of their life and if they went home early(A lot) or had time off they'd be board out after a few days of doing it.

andekwarhola

I'm in a salaried position. I have a young family and I value my life/work balance so there's no way I would work somewhere where a lot of mandatory overtime was expected.

That said, my job is a very good work environment and they're very good about flexibility (I start - really- earlier than everybody else so I can leave earlier) and being allowed to deal with family issues that might pop up so if stuff comes up that needs to be done, I'd stay back and do it. We log our time to SAP so I know I average about 6-7 excess hours a month, sometimes more.

Depends on the workplace too. We would definitely be judged by the work you produce and your integration in the team rather than sitting at your desk until 9pm hoping somebody senior notices.

limnam

Also some people stay late for all weird and wonderful reasons

A guy I used to work with stayed till midnight almost every night for about 6 months.

When I eventually asked what was up, he said his place was very cold so stayed back as it was cheaper than heating his place :pac:

pilly

It really depends OP on whether you're part of team or separate. If you're part of a team I'd be wondering why others are staying late and I'm not. If you have separate jobs and you've all your tasks up to date then it's not a problem.

Sono

In my job the team is understaffed, work loads completely unreasonable but I still leave at 5. We don't have flexi or get paid over time and whilst others on my team stay late regularly I don't see why we should. We get absolutely no thanks for doing so and like others have said I have a life outside of my workplace.

If you want the team to run more efficiently get more staff or else pay us over time at a reasonable rate.

TrustedApple

Was working for a company before crazy understaffed for the workload but i still left at 5pm everyday but i still would drop online once home if there is major issue to be fixed or need to see a update on something.

Then come in area the philiphans team and you could easy have nearly 100 emails to read over as some people might have been working on your tickets and signing your name ........ And saying to people that they are you are .......

Never get over the day i got a call saying that they spoke to me twice already today and now i am sounding different I was like yah you did not speak to me at all !!!!. I only started working.

120 + tickets in the system and having maybe 3 people working on them and some tickets could take a day to do and some tickets sitting there a few days then you had some teams just closing the tickets if they did not wont to do them ha.
Then you have to keep up with your open tickets could be anything in the 20+ range of tickets.

Unless you worked 24/7 and had no life you would never keep up with the work there.

I came in after a holiday before and none of my tickets where touched or worked on for a week and my god there was angry angry emails from clients.

Now in my new job i start 7.45 leave at 5.15 get a hour lunch i will work no more its busy but tomorrow things can be done once the stuff starts coming in after 4.30.

0ph0rce0

Always leave on the dot. If there's work to be done or not I'm gone. (My daily stuff is done and on time I mean extra work)

We have no overtime no flexibility.

At the start I put in the extra hours here and there due to being under staffed, but they just expect it all the time then. And as someone said already you work your bollocks off put in the extra hours then it comes to your performance review

"Oh I see you were late 2 mins back in July, We'll have to knock off a percent or two for that"

Just recently i was asked on a Friday to work Saturday by two managers, I said no sorry too short notice (Wouldn't have done it anyway)

They started with the You Must Be Flexible.

I put my leg up on the file cabinet (It's Quite High) stretched my arm out and said I'm very flexible. They were speechless. (I have done this a few times now and they still don't get it) And off home I went.

**** them. You never see any of the assholes asking you to work late stay back. And most of the managers do nothing through the day.

beauf

Such are the pitfalls working in a late night yoga studio.

stevek93

5.30 on the dot in this new job. The old site I worked on 3 months into the project they changed our after 8 hours overtime to no overtime but said different in the contact. People said nothing but when team leads started taking the p!ss excepting us to work 10 plus hours we left 8 hours SHARP!

76544567

I'm currently contracting in a company and just read an email this morning that came to everyone.
It's a questionnaire and advice form for the full time staffs performance reviews coming up next month.
One of the lines reads something like this.

Be prepared to speak to your appraiser about the extra hours you put in above and beyond the call of duty over the last year. How has this improved since the previous year. And how do you intend to improve it over the next year.

I laughed out loud at that one.

There are some great ones in there but that one is perfect for this thread.

skankkuvhima

The company I work for is incredibly flexible (at the drop of a hat I can work from home or just wander in at any time or leave at any time) so I would be very flexible in return. But my flexibility depends on theirs, if it wasn't two way I would be out the door at my official clocking off time.

Wombatman

Many of the posts above state that you should leave on time if you have completed your workload for the day.

There is a problem with this, in the many companies will keep piling on work until you feel like you have to stay to get through your daily work load, as determined by the company.

If you stay late to get through it, they will see you can complete the current load and then pile on more. The cycle begins.

You sell labour to your employer as per a contract that sets out your hours. Don’t be giving x% extra free.

You will never see x% extra free in your pay check.

In my experience companies have more respect for people who stick to their contracts. They see workers who give away hours for free as clowns. Free stuff is usually worth what it costs in the long run. Nothing.

Ben Gadot

Wombatman wrote: »

Many of the posts above state that you should leave on time if you have completed your workload for the day.

There is a problem with this, in the many companies will keep piling on work until you feel like you have to stay to get through your daily work load, as determined by the company.

If you stay late to get through it, they will see you can complete the current load and then pile on more. The cycle begins.

You sell labour to your employer as per a contract that sets out your hours. Don’t be giving x% extra free.

You will never see x% extra free in your pay check.

In my experience companies have more respect for people who stick to their contracts. They see workers who give away hours for free as clowns. Free stuff is usually worth what it costs in the long run. Nothing.

Depends on who you mean by "they". I've always found that immediate management are fully aware of who go beyond their remit and will be more flexible if that person needs something that they can ok such as short notice leave and will fight your corner more vehemently when things can go wrong.

They might not be able to ok the raise that you deserve but they will that make person's day to day job and having to deal with crap as easy and kept to a minimum as possible.

People that "stick" to their contract as you put it don't get more respect where it matters as to the people who actually decide stuff like salary, we're all the same dot on the map to them. But people that work hard and understand the concept of an honest day's work will always get more respect under immediate management than someone who is rigid in what they perceive to be a fair work/pay transaction.

And all of that can be done while still working to live rather living to work if shock/horror you actually know how to manage your workload .