I have a problem with people doing overtime. I don’t mean the occasional necessary overtime that some jobs require due to labour ‘flash floods’. I mean persistent overtime in order to show the boss how good a worker you are; staying back half an hour late to get that one little job finished; eating lunch at your desk while you work; coming in for a short shift on a Saturday to clear the backlog of work. That sort of overtime.
And I’ll tell you why.
I have a problem with people doing overtime because by and large it is unnecessary. If you don’t have enough time in the working hours you are given, and yet you are hard working and diligent, chances are it is simply a matter of there being too much work for one person to do.
So instead of challenging the boss about this, and letting them know that there are not enough hours in the day to do what they are asking of us, we make up this convenient little story for ourselves to avoid the confrontation. We say to ourselves ‘it’s only half an hour’, or ‘I didn’t feel like going out for lunch’.
And ‘hassle’ is all we think of it; that it’s a bit of a bother, but one of those things we put up with, because that’s what work is about.
Well, I disagree.
I am paid a salary. Along with that salary comes a set of rules, and set working hours, and set break allowances. Very occasionally I might be expected to work late because of a sudden last minute, highly urgent piece of work, and I can understand that. But because of you, you hard working diligent overtime-slave, my boss does not expect me to stick to those working hours in work agreement I signed.
No, my boss expects that I will stay back late quite often; that I will come in on Saturdays occasionally to catch up; that I will instead of lounging in the sunshine for half an hour, continue to stare at my computer screen while I have lunch.*
My boss expects this because you, and her next to you, and him over there, and the person opposite you, have all created a culture of overtime. You have created the expectation that to be a good worker one should be willing to give up any of one’s free time just because the boss will throw some extra money your way (or maybe not even that).
Now you might be sitting there thinking I’m just lazy and that is why I don’t want to do overtime, but I assure you this is not my motivation here. I work hard when I’m at work. I’m diligent, and proactive in my job. But I’m only paid for it to a certain point, and beyond that I will not be a slave. So I’m not coming at this from a point of laziness, but from a point of freedom, of expectation of having my own time outside of work.
And this is relevant to both paid and unpaid overtime. Because not only are you creating a culture of slavery to the boss, but you are keeping others from being employed.
If you weren’t willing to do so much overtime, the boss would realise that there was too much work for the one person, and would perhaps employ someone part-time to take up the additional work.
So next time you sit at your computer at lunch, or stay back late, or agree to come in on Saturday, perhaps you should rethink it. Is it really necessary, or is it just because your boss is asking you to do more than one person is physically capable of?
And I bet you’re sitting there thinking ‘but if I tell that to my boss, he’ll just get someone else to do it instead!’
And do you know why?
Because we have created a culture of overtime.
*note: my specific boss doesn't actually expect this, he's a very good boss, but others do...
