Leaving work on time

[AirHostess]

In my current job in the hospital I work 9-5. Which in my book means I start work at 9, finish at 5. The pay isn't great, the work is admin but I haven't been trained, co-workers are unfriendly and I have a terrible line manager!

My manager expects me to stay longer (unpaid) and give us all piles of work to do. However as I am just on a temp contract there until I return to my old job in Defence (Government job) They are just doing references and vetting enquries at the moment so I should be back there soon! So as you can tell, I don't care about the job one bit but I sit there quietly and do the work I am given.

Do you think I am right in insisting on leaving at 5 every night? My dad always picks me up from work at 5 and I have plans every night. I just think, why on earth should I put in long hours in a job I loathe where I will be leaving soon.

Oh and my reference for my new job is coming from HR so my manager won't get a say!

[Emrld]

As far as my knowledge goes . . .if you are paid hourly . . . then they have to pay you for time worked.
Check with HR but I am not aware of a situation where it is legal for a manager to ask you on a regular basis to stay past your agreed upon work schedule especially if they do not plan on paying you for that time.
If you are Salary then look at the terms of you agreement.

[Zombi]

At my work, we don't get paid overtime, because the managers are always over their budgets, so we just get time in lieu, which works like holiday time. Just give me the bloody money! I never leave on time, though - if I have to cash up, I'm usually 15 or 20 minutes late, and I never get the time back. If a customer comes and asks me something when I'm just about to leave, I can't exactly say 'Sorry, can't help you, I'm leaving', can I?
It's irritating, but unless it's been cleared with a manager first, you don't get anything for staying late.

I would say you're right, though - unless they're going to pay you overtime for the extra hours, they're not entitled to your service. If you've already got plans, it's up to them to let you know in advance if they're going to need you to work late, otherwise, TS.

[Tigress]

I'm paid hourly, but I despise closing when certain managers are on duty. My department takes forever to close (shipping, locking up the small items, putting things away), so we start an hour early, which one of them hates.

Because these managers apparently have no lives outside of work, they love to dick around until after an hour or two after closing. Last night, it was already time for me to leave before the closing manager decided that he wanted to do the nightly meeting. Screw that noise. My department has been ready to go since the shutters closed. I have a day job that I have to get up in the morning for and I'm not going to hang around because you can't get your act together.

[Kiwi]

if your paid until 5pm, then you leave at 5pm

it doesnt make you sucky to want to leave when your pay ends...

[wagegoth]

If you are contracted through an agency, I'm sure they would like to know that you are being asked to work off the clock. Besides the fact that I'm sure it's illegal (I'm not in the UK), the agency is not getting paid for your time, if you're not getting paid.

[Broomjockey]

Not being paid to work = volunteering = voluntary. It is a simple progression that any asshat of a manager should be able to follow. Tell them either the work is voluntary, in which case you politely decline as your ride is waiting, and plans have been made, or the work is paid. And I doubt manager is going to want to start shelling out cash.

[protege]

At one of my last jobs, I was constantly getting out of there late. So I started keeping track of it....and nearly got myself fired for it Turns out that I'd take a measly 5-10 minutes occasionally to pick up the car from the garage (literally right next door...had to go over there before they closed at 5, otherwise I'd have no way home or to work the next day). Boss got pissed when I handed him the sheet, and started going on about how he "was paying me for 5-10 minutes of wasted time" and how I was demanding to be paid for time I "was supposedly working but couldn't prove it."

At that point, I gave up staying late. In other words, if something blew up a minute after closing, I used the NMFP approach. That is, it's "not my fucking problem" until the next morning. If I'm not getting paid to waste *my* time, I'm not going to do it. Otherwise, my labor rate is $100 per hour

[AirHostess]

Yeah I always walk out at 5pm now, my manager glares at me but I don't really care!

[cinema guy]

I always like to finish the task I'm doing. In my current job that means I will get payed a few extra minutes, but that doesn't happen very often.

But by and large, I think you shouldn't be asked to work extra except in exceptional circumstances. And if you have someone waiting to give you a lift home, you should certainly leave on time.

[Andara Bledin]

I'm fairly certain that it's as illegal in the UK as it is in the US to make someone work while off the clock.

Either they pay you to stay later, or you don't stay.

And since you don't need that job to last beyond a certain point, and you work through an agency, then you definitely have no reason to stay one minute past your paid time.

^-.-^

[Tuxian]

I suppose I should point out that when I worked at Jack-In-The-Box, the first store manager we had got fired for, you guessed it, doctoring people's hours in the computer, or sometimes not putting new hires in so they COULD be paid for the training sessions they had to do.

Yeah. And this was someone who'd been with the company for nearly 2 decades, and decided to throw it away by doing this crap. Not to mention all the other book-cooking they found when they sat down and did a store audit (missing food being the main thing, 100 lbs of french fries don't just vanish).

[Buglady]

I used to stay a few minutes late most days, or work into my lunch hour, because I genuinely enjoyed what I was doing and I felt like I was making a difference for people.

Then I got told that my promotion (promised since I was hired 2 years ago) wasn't going to happen.

Funnily enough I've been out the door at quitting time on the bloody dot since then.