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Overtime every once in awhile is fine. It’s also fine when it’s built into the job (ie. work like crazy 2 weeks, take next two weeks off). The problem is when once in awhile turns into all the freakin’ time and there’s no end in sight.
There are two reasons why people work overtime all the time and both reasons suck.
Sucky Reason #1: It’s required for my job
If it takes 60 hours to do the work in your job, then the work in your job needs a person and a half. That’s just the bottom line of it. If your employer doesn’t understand that, then give him a lesson in simple math.
If he still doesn’t seem to grasp the concept, then try this tactic: stop doing it. At 6 pm, pack up and leave. If he says, ‘Hey I need that report by tomorrow morning’ then you say ‘Go to hell’ ‘I can have it for you tomorrow afternoon’.
They may fire you. Of course, they might always fire you, because that’s how it is. But let them find some other sucker to work your 60 hours while you go find a real full time job, not a job and a half. If you’re as valuable as you should be anyways, they will have a hell of a time finding someone you can do your 40 hours of work in 60 hours anyways.
Sucky Reason #2: I have to do it to get ahead
The idea here is that you get more work done, impress the hell out of everyone, and then you get promoted. A few months of 60 hour workweeks might seem worth it to you to get that swanky office.
Except that what happens when you get that swanky office. Do you think no one will notice when you go skipping out at 4 pm instead of 8 pm? Trust me, responsibilities don’t decrease as you move up, they increase. So while you might stay until your usual 8 pm just to get your regular amount of productivity in, you might be pulling late nights now. That was a bad precedent.
Furthermore, what happens when you want the next promotion? Sure, you’re pretty darn happy with this one right now. Let’s be honest though, a little ways down the road, you’re going to start thinking about the next one. If it took 60 hours to get the first one, how much will it take to get the second one, or the third, or the fourth? It’s not a sustainable pace.
So.
Work hard. Get crazy amounts of things done. Make lots of money for your company.
Then.
Go home. Guilt free. Happy as a clam.
Sometimes the job requires overtime. If you don't want to put in the overtime, there's the door, and I'll pay your unemployment insurance and hire someone who will get the job done when we need it done.
A lot of jobs, sadly, do require overtime on a constant basis. They say it's a 9-hour day, but what they mean is, they'll pay you for 9 hours and work you 10. Oh, and if you want to get out of here before seven, you'd better work through lunch.
While I don't agree with this precedent (working long hours does not equal productivity, especially when your brain starts to fry), that's just the way it is. Maybe someday these companies will bust, maybe they won't. Life's a bitch.
If you have to work overtime then ask for a pay rise and use the overtime to your advantage (unless you're working overtime because you're slow and have to catch up on work). By working overtime for free, you're working more hours, being more productive, producing great results resulting in making the company more money. It's only fair that you should be paid more. It's a lot cheaper than getting an additional employee to share the load or replacing you completely.
"If you have to work overtime then ask for a pay rise and use the overtime to your advantage"
Unless you're a superstar, I'm pretty sure their response will be - 'I'll send Jack from security to help you pack'.
"It's only fair that you should be paid more."
There's only two types of fair: State and County. This isn't either of them. :)
@JRandom42 You have the classic confused employer syndrome. I get TONS of work done, I'm just not willing to stay past 6 pm. Totally different things. It's also so fitting that you brought up unemployment. If deadlines are so important to your company, then what you really need are superstars. The thing about us, though, is that everyone wants us, so we get to work for someone who respects our time, and not you.
@Mike Unfortunately, I don't think karma applies to the corporate world quite that way. Sure, the superstars aren't going to work there, but there are still enough suckers out there to keep them going. It's not so much about the companies needing to change as it is about knowing you don't have to take it.
@Kat I think you have a great take on it, especially for people who want to work the overtime anyways. I've always been averse to putting in crazy hours, but especially since I had my son, it's really not even on the table, even for more money. My workaholic husband, though, he uses your approach :)
@Carol You hit the nail on the head. While it's important to be in a field where you have some natural talent, being a superstar is mostly a learned behavior. My ultimate message is that you can be a superstar if you want to and if you do, then you get to write your own ticket.
Not confused at all. Sometimes, the deadline has been moved up, such that overtime is needed to meet it, in the face of financial penalties or operational efficiencies.
There have been times when I and my team have worked on infrastructure projects that just simply run short on time, but are required to be up and running by the opening of business the next day. You leave at 6 PM, and the rest of us stay until 2 AM to get the company's worldwide messaging and engineering collaboration system up and running by Monday, so as not to distrupt business, you'll be escorted out at 6:01 PM with all your stuff and terminated for cause.
There's no confusion at all there.
@JRandom42
"There have been times when I and my team have worked on infrastructure projects that just simply run short on time"
If you read my post, I said that overtime once in awhile is fine. This sounds like once in awhile. My problem is when 50-60 hour workweeks are the norm, and worse, when someone works that all the time and needs to take some time off for something important but they can't.
Your propensity to fire people at the drop of a hat is unsettling. No wonder you have such a hard time meeting deadlines - the people who work for you must be the bottom of the barrel to be willing to deal with your bad attitude.
Working overtime isn't always bad, especially if your employer makes it clear that he/she appreciates the extra time put in. Also, when I'm passionate about the job, I want to work more... The problem becomes getting things outside work done, and not neglecting relationships etc.
@Jason Simon You're right. Despite all my clamoring, I'm always staying past quittin' time. I'm so personally invested in my work that I want it to get done right.
My beef is with mandatory overtime ALL THE TIME and no extra perks, salary or appreciation to balance it out. Personally, I've never worked at a place like that, and I've been very careful to avoid them like the plague, but they're out there.
However, jobs like that ARE out there. If you haven't seen one, then consider yourself a lucky duck. I know because I help people who are in them get out of them.
There's a huge difference between crunch time on a project and perpetual overtime. All jobs require extra hours at various points--but that's not the same as having a 12-hour-workday lifestyle.
I had a job that required that routinely, largely because of management issues. I worked there for a long time, but I don't work there any more.
However, I wouldn't recommend telling your boss to go to hell. The odds are just too good that it will come back to bite you.
@KateNonymous Thanks for your input.
I just read through my post here on Brazen and realized that the "Go to hell" comment is not crossed out. On my blog it is crossed out (sort of showing what I'd be thinking) but the phrase next to it is what I'd really say. Looks like Brazen doesn't show strikethrough formatting. Lame.
I don't recommend telling your boss to go to hell!
@Amber
Do you even have the slightest clue how many Indians are waiting in line BEGGING to do your job AND work overtime EVERY day?
@All
Is it only those who comment on this site that are in touch with reality?
That's a complicated beast.
I hope you understand that value is not a function of time. I can understand taking less money for more time while you're desperate, but eventually they'll demand respect too (and they should)
In regards to outsourcing, so long the value of 1 hour of my time is 10X the value of one outsourced hour, I'm not worried. And right now... yes .. it is.
@Amber, I figured it was tongue-in-cheek, but you never know who's going to take it seriously! Sounds like your intended tone was much more clear in the original.
I can assure you that there are definitely jobs out there where overtime EVERY SINGLE week, and SOME weekends is expected. Like you said, occasionally this is okay, but even still - a 'thank you' would be nice.
What's most frustrating is when you routinely put in all the extra time, and then ask to leave a few hours early on a Friday afternoon to catch a flight, and you're asked to take a half day.
Look, I certainly don't mind working overtime here and there, but if I work til 2:00 am as jrandom suggests to get something out, and want to come in a little late the next morning (or a morning that's convenient with the current ebb and flow of work in the office) that SHOULDN'T EVER be an issue.
CON'T ..
... Con't (Never had a 'Comment too long' on here to my knowledge)
You're going to get so much more out of your employees if you respect their time. Sure, as it warrants ask them to put in the extra hours, tell them you appreciate it when they do, and then let them have next Friday afternoon off. Instead of hating you and going through the motions the following week, they'll come back Monday morning refreshed, working hard and respecting you. It's NOT that hard. In fact, it's common sense and decency.
Enjoyed this post and your confidence in yourself to walk away if put in this scenario.
R
Interesting point about setting precedence.We automatically assume the "right" precedence to set is burning the midnight oil, but all that does it set the expectation that you will always be there--regardless.
But I really wonder how many people are truly working those ridiculous hours out of necessity and how many do the whole face-time thing. Face-time is overrated and only means one of two things: you are not efficient or that there is literally no other place you'd prefer to be. For some people who combine work and their passion, that's great, but for me, I'd rather have a job that I enjoyed but also interests, relationships, and a life outside of the office.
I think Sucky Reason #2 is the worstm especially for those just starting their careers. After a few years, most of us get the hang of work and personal boundaries and know when to say enough is enough. I see a lot of young kids starting at their first underpaid professional job, and they don't know how to put their foot down and think "if only I work really, really hard, I'll be indespensible and get a huge raise and a promotion."
The only thing that happens is they burn out, and another young start comes along with same mentality. Those poor kids never win any awards, never survive long enough to get promoted, never get a huge raise or a bonus befitting to the hours they clocked after hours. A lot of employers know that from the start.
Actually, there's also Sucky Reason #3: I am not efficient.
In the job I mentioned in my first comment, I was always amazed at the fact that I could get my work done with significantly less overtime than my colleagues, even though I had just as much work as they did. Why? They weren't efficient.
I sometimes have to work long long days and weeks. When we're commissioning a project in Oil and Gas, we want to get it done as quickly as possible. (Commissioning is where we implement the system on site and check everything.) Its not unlikely to work 5-6 12's in a row. Every day the system is not online past the original start date, the client is losing millions of dollars...its freakin nuts.
While I'm salary, our clients are billed hourly. In this way, if we work over 40 hours a week we get to bank overtime as straight time because its being paid for by the client. So if you work hard over a long projects, banking 100 hours, once it is done you are given the chance to take 100 hours vacation essentially to recoup from the project. Its a good system to protect burnout of employees but unfortunately encourages slow work.
"I'll come in early tomorrow but I can't stay late tonight" worked wonders for me early in my career. If everyone stays, the work just keeps expanding because everything's up for discussion. If you leave me a post-it note on a pile of papers on my chair, I will get in at 7am and have the whole thing finished by the time all the sleepy worked-too-late-last-night people get their coffee and boot up their computers.
Freelance and contract work also have a tendency to creep into the late night hours if you don't write it into your billing structure that overtime is going to cost the client at a much higher rate. Suddenly things can wait till morning, and you get to have a life. Just make sure that the client is completely happy with your work before you hand them the bill.
@Ryan Stephens You're right, it all comes down to respect.
@Jennifer Curtis Thanks for your comment. I can't stand the idea of face time!
@Anonymous You're right, they're headed for burnout!
@KateNonymous Nice addition!
@Travis Power I worked in O&G for a few years, so I know a little bit about their crazy schedules and big bucks. I think an alternative schedule is fine, so long as they're up-front about it, and also protect people from burnout, like you said.
@GenXMom I love your response, because it turns a "no" into a "yes"!
Overtime doesn't bother me much. Worse is when there is a project that NEEDS to be done, but I've already hit 8 hours for the day and the project is not approved for overtime. Then I get the person that's asking me to do it (not my boss) giving me a funny look like I'm supposed to stay and work on my own time without even getting paid. I guess it could be worse, if I wasn't hourly they WOULD expect me to stay because there IS no overtime!
So in my mind, I'll work all the overtime anyone wants as long as I'm getting paid for it. It could be a LOT worse.
@Miles Good point - it's a whole different ballgame for hourly employees!
Even for hourly employees, relentless overtime can be just that--relentless. Mr. Nonymous learned that a couple of years ago. He brought home more money, but he also found it to be extremely draining. In the end, he doesn't think it was worth it.
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