When Overtime is Normaltime

[dougiezerts]

This is a subject I've brought up before, but I thought I'd revive it.
Do any of you have jobs where overtime is required? And if so, how do you feel about it?
My job is subject to occasional overtime, although not as bad as it used to be.

[blas]

Everyone knew I was going to chime in here!

We've been on mandatory overtime since July or August. Some departments like my ex boyfriend's have been on more than, say, mine.

We've been required to do anywhere from 6-12 hours a week. That includes sacrificing a weekend night either every week or every other week. That includes staying late/coming in early when you don't have to do it on the weekend.

Have the checks been nice? Sure. But have I lost sleep? You betcha. Have I been screwed out of time with my friends? Did it make my relationship even harder? Sure it did. I feel like I spend every waking moment at that place. I'm ALWAYS there.

That's why I don't have sympathy for people who whine about 8 hour shifts. I'd give ANYTHING to be back on a regular 40 hour a week schedule. Imagine having to work 10 or 12 hour shifts most of your week.

[Gurndigarn]

If you're salaried, and more than 50 hours a week is "standard", you want out. Working that much isn't healthy for you, and since you're salaried, there's no incentive for upper management to cut your workload. If 38-45 is standard, it's not all that bad, even when it occasionally spikes upwards.

Hourly pay is better, as a rule, although nonstop overtime... it's a mistake on someone's part. But at least if you're hourly, you have the benefit of saying "$$$ x 1.5" in the back of your mind, and keeps you a bit saner

[blas]

Exactly. It's a mistake on the suit-wearing puppets we call "upper management" who have no idea how to run their damn factory properly. They don't pay enough to get people to stay, the hours and enviornment are not desirable for most, and the lacksadasical policies and practices are enough to make anyone leave if they can find somewhere where they only have to do their 40 hours a week.

Hell, if I didn't need the insurance and vacation time, I'd quit in a heartbeat.

[dougiezerts]

I agree. If the managers worked our jobs, our hours, and our overtime, I think they'd have more respect for us.
But consider this: A 60 hour (or more) workweek was the norm for workers 100 years ago. So we're heading in the right direction.
Not that I'm justifying forced overtime!

[akilika]

I agree. If the managers worked our jobs, our hours, and our overtime, I think they'd have more respect for us.

That's actually one of the reasons that I've got a lot of patience with mine when I have to work overtime: there are only three of them, and there has to be at least one of them there at all times. Even without the open-to-closes/staying-overnights I've seen some of them do recently (especially when #3 was having his appendix out), they're probably dwarfing my schedule by a LOT.

That said . . . I've had overtime pretty much every week lately. It's kind of annoying, but it's mostly picking up/staying late, so it's at least something I bought into. Kind of tiring.

I've got three days off this week, though, so hopefully this week will be different! (So not picking up . . . no way.) Especially considering I'm recovering from illness and could really, really use my rest.

(Actually, I only had 32 hours this week . . . yay! But most of my off-time was taken up by aforementioned illness. Boo.)

[PepperElf]

Eh. Yeah. Overtime is normal but we work salary so it can suck.

and we have to take turns being on call for the night at work (there's a place to sleep), but at least the schedule is written fairly for it. and they try to let us out early when we work overnight.

[TNT]

I used to work a job where I had two days on and four days off... if I worked Monday and Tuesday one week, the next week would be Tuesday and Wednesday, etc. It took six weeks to rotate through the schedule, so my hours per week would be 35, 35, 35, 50, 50 and 65. My hourly rate was pretty low, so I had to like it... every third paycheck was for 115 hours, and the 35 hours of OT were the difference between being very poor and just poor.

[Girly]

I work at a CPA firm.

To say overtime is normal time is kind of a given from now till April

[Mikaiyawa]

When I was working for a title plant (as in real Estate) as a contract employee (only paid for 40 hours. period) we got a new manager who wanted me to lie to my agency and work 60-80 a week, every week. And she "requested" this After telling me there was no way she could justify hiring me on permanently. My job wasn't "critical" enough for it to be worthwhile. I just scanned all the documents they needed to do title searches and do trivial things like Sell Property.

I was getting married that summer and she told me I couldn't have ten days to get married and have a honeymoon. I quit with full agreement of my agency. Now they can't keep a person in that position.

Mieka

[GolfCart34]

Overtime is a rarity where I work. Next week is one of the few times where I will actually get overtime (we have a bank meeting that everybody has to attend). At least they are paying for dinner since the meeting is after work hours.

The place where I would occasionally get "mandatory" overtime was in Williamsburg. That was mostly just for people who wanted extra money during busy times. Other than that we only got about 32 hours a week.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Well, it's not overtime in the sense that it caused me to go over 40 hours for the week (most of the time), but it pissed me off just the same.

Under my thankfully long-departed manager Harry, we got only 4 people to unload trucks. One person in the truck throwing boxes on the conveyor belt, two people sorting hardlines boxes to pallets, and one person taking care of softlines. Now we have a crew of 6 or 7 to do this. If somebody called in sick, management would try to find somebody to come in and cover, but if they couldn't get anybody we were just expected to soldier on with no complaints.

The result is that it would take much longer to unload a truck than it should have. A 1200 or 1300-piece truck would take at least 3 hours to unload, not counting bulk and furniture which got done last. And nowadays that would be a low carton count for us.

However, we were still expected to get everything done that's expected to be done now. Furniture had to be off the truck and put away. Bulk pallets of paper products, detergent, water, or whatever else had to come off the truck and be put away. All the pallets of freight had to be staged to the salesfloor. The backroom floor had to be swept up and empty cardboard boxes and plastic from softlines had to be thrown away. This was all non-negotiable and had to be done that night OR ELSE. And we were expected to stay late to finish all this if (or more appropriately, when) we didn't get it done by quitting time.

Problem was, all the unloaders were high school kids who could not be made to stay late because of school and labor laws, except for me and one other person who had to get home to her kids right away. So guess who ended up staying late all the time?

That's right. I cannot tell you how many times my 5pm to 10 pm shifts turned into 5 pm to midnight, 5 pm to 1 am, or even later, and then I'd sometimes have to be back in at 7:30 or 8 the next morning. I would offer to work on the truck the next morning to avoid staying late and always get shot down. It had to be done THAT. VERY. NIGHT.

When we remodeled and I had an opportunity to talk with people from other stores and ask them how many people they got to unload trucks, they told me they had at least 5 people and here we were struggling along with 4.

So yeah, it isn't 10 or 12 hour days for weeks on end, but it's still pretty frustrating when you don't know what time you will finally be done and you know it's just because your manager is cutting staff to earn bigger bonuses and look good to corporate because of all the payroll he's saving.

[dougiezerts]

I work at a CPA firm.

To say overtime is normal time is kind of a given from now till April

April 15, right?

[Gurndigarn]

I work at a CPA firm.

To say overtime is normal time is kind of a given from now till April

And it's going to be rough. But when management expects an extra amount out of you, it's always easier to bear when either there's a good reason for it that you understand (and probably should have understood when being hired— like in this case, or working retail around Christmas), or they give you some reason to believe that both they really understand what you're going through and that they're trying to get the problem solved.

It's an absolute bear, however, when they tell you essentially "tough noogies, you're not making enough money for us yet", even if they use politer language. Which has happened to me. By the guy who's recently been promoted to director of company operations.

[blas]

I totally agree.

When I was first hired, we were never told about overtime. Then as I got in there and got some experience, I was told as soon as I was trained it, I was to do overtime.

And it's been like that ever since, off and on, but more on than off. And there is no real reason.

Winter time is a very slow time in manufacturing. The reason they justify overtime is because since we consistently have been making our goals, they just increase our goals to unreachable lengths, and then force overtime on us until we make that goal, and then when we do, they increase it again. When our goal is way more than it should be, and they just keep forcing overtime, it's NOT fair and it shows real lack of knowledge of running a company on upper managements' part.