Deep Singh

May sound like a strange question, but what I mean is if there is more (paid) work on offer do you take it?
So if there are extra shifts/overtime available will you always take it, or if self employed and already busy will you still never turn down work and then just work evenings and weekends to get it done?
Or do you have a strict limit to how many hours you are willing to work a week and then ring fence the rest for play, family etc
Cheers

hodgy0_2

I don’t get paid overtime, but I work the hours to get the “job” done i.e. if I need to prepare some documentation for a meeting etc then I make sure its done.

But as a rule I don’t work eves or weekends, the rule is work “smarter not harder”

But I do have 5 kids ranging from 12 to 3 yr old twins – so I’d be a fool to work all hours as I enjoy being at home so much

having said that i am fortunate in that our financial situation is such that i dont need to chase money all the time -- if I had to I would (as I have done in the past)

boxst

I work too much and have always been happy to do whatever it takes to finish things. It has got slightly better with age (I'm in charge now!), but will still pick up things that I should delegate and do them myself. I don't get paid overtime.

I have two children and try to spend time with them and my beautiful wife.

Steve

Jamz3k

Don't work half as hard as i should, had a plan, recession basically put quite a big dent in it and i'm not particularly happy with the job i am in. But i'm just getting ready at the minute to travel for 4hours to do a 5hr shift to get my boss out of a pickle so they think i work hard

RA Dunk

I dont live to work i only work to live, there`s more to life than knocking your pan in for somebody else`s buisness, enjoy life its too short to spend working just about every minute of it

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

In my old job (the one that caused me all the physical grief I live with now), there was a stipulation in the contract for forced overtime with 4 hours notice. This mean't that at 2am in the morning, we could be told we were not going home at 6am as per normal, but were to stay until 10am. There was resentment and discontent at this and the company involved didn't usually get the quotas needed for overtime. This would lead to disciplinaries and dismissal in some cases, but workers stuck to their guns and some like me are taking the legal route for various reasons.

But if the company pre-meditated a little better on case figures instead of panicking when customers ordered a little more than usual, the overtime aspect wouldn't have been required on such a short notice basis. they could have simply come and asked, and the usual suspects (few English guys mainly Poles though) would have done it volutarily. I personally refused to do it and indeed had medical evidence to back up my claims. I still lost my job however, so swings and roundabouts.

Kinda put me off overtime in the future though.

Torquemada

Worked my nuts off for ages at the job I'm in now, found that there is absolutely no reward whatsoever and no difference in reward between those that do the bare minumum and those who take pride in their work.
The only thing is that it's pretty secure.
Now I'm just biding my time til something better comes up in a year or two, 'til then I'll just rinse my training budget

ScoobyWon't

Do I work hard? Yes.

Could I work harder? Probably.

Do I work overtime? Show me the money.

There's one guy at work who doubles his salary by doing loads of overtime. There's another guy who only works 6 months of a year and then travels the world for the other six, so there must be some money to be made out of the overtime.

hodgy0_2

on their deathbed few people say

"i wish i,d spent more time at the office"

john banks

Depends on your own individual circumstances, and the conditions of the extra work. For me it would need to be at a higher rate to get me to work more than I do (34 hours over 4 days which is low for self employed but I get a lower income as a result), so we did decide to open for an extra two hours one evening a week, although the attractive headline rate of about double time for less intense working actually is nothing like since half the money was already taken from elsewhere with no work removed. For me personally, I value free time much more than money since our lifestyle is well behind our income, and the spare just goes to savings, but we don't own a house, run cheap cars and only have a cat to support

Most consultants seem to work more hours than they would like, but many do it to fund a lifestyle for them or their families. I would find the NHS commitment enough personally, but increasing private work in your area must be very tempting.

RA Dunk

+1 , as i said earlier, life is too short!!

PaulC72

In the past i have done when I worked the shop floor as pay and small children dictate the requirement. These day I don't get paid overtime and have to put in the extra hours if required as I work to tight deadlines and if I don't do my job noone will do it for me as they have the same time restraints as me. That said if I do extra days, weekends etc I get extra days off which is like being paid I suppose

I think as long as you try to keep a work life balance then you have to be happy with it, it is really down to your personal circumstances I suppose.

spireite

I used to when i was younger ,now i cram 5 days work into 3 and do fek all thursday and friday

AllanB

I always tend to give 100% maybe not all of the time but other times will go crazy doing long hours research at weekends etc. I always think you get out of a career what you put in.

People who do the bare minimum will easily stand out in a a well managed business and we're in the process of weeding these deadwood out at present.

In this climate with so many good people out there looking for work nobody can afford to be complacent in my book regardless of how long you've been there


AllanB

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Depends on the deadline

Yesturday I was working until 8:30pm (I usually don't work Saturdays) helping to sort out a guy's accounts as he is due a VAT inspection on Tuesday (and we only had the paperwork dropped off on Friday). However its a small family business, and if I don't do it, nobody else will. Generally, it earns its crust as its ticking along nicely regardless of the recession, and I'm on flexi time so I can bunk off when I like (so long as the job gets done), and can spend any slack time fixing cars next door.

On the flip side, when I worked for a larger firm, I used to work to rule. I stopped doing overtime (seeing overtime pay was shyte) as we seemed to be doing alot of it due to impossible deadlines set by the useless cretin that was our project manage (re: boss's mate). Nothing gave me greater satisfaction telling them as I packed up to go home for the weekend (like making realistic timescales for the projects, and not under-ordering on materials, so they wouldn't be in such a mess). Funny thing was, they couldn't sack me as they desperately needed the man power (truth being I wanted to be sacked...or have a hefty pay rise ). Quite funny looking back at it, I'm amazed I got away with what I did, as I dished out a fair bit of abuse to the management in the process (and made sure clients knew who was responsible for the f**k ups ).

I guess in the end of the day it depends on how much you enjoy your job. If my job was a racing/rally driver; I think I'd have a much more enthustiastic work ethic than what I do now.

LG John

Meh, I could defo work harder but my line of work is pretty stressful. All that said, I work to live...not the other way around. This month I've played 12,000 hands which is basically about 3 days hard work and it's the 19th!! However, I've already made more than I would in my previous job in a month Finger out on Monday until the end of the month and then I'm going to set myself a "10k May" challenge. Basically I want to make $10,000 in may so I'll have to work much harder than ever before to stand a chance of achieving it.

boxst

Wow, you are still playing cards? That has been quite a long time now.

When you say 'make' $10K, that is profit?

Steve

LG John

Almost two years now. Yeah, $10k profit would be the target. It's a big ask, I've come close but never had a $10k month yet. I'm hoping if I work a fair bit harder than usual in May then I might have an outside chance of achieving it.

Jamescsti

I'm the same, did an extra 40 hours last month, that's an extra week more or less.
I know a couple of guys at work taking home an extra 10-15k a year on overtime

Leslie

Don't get the choice in the Services, but it never worried me anyway.

Les

enginemunky

i take all i can, im 22 and saving up for a house and i dont have a missus, i sometimes work 18 hour days and 7 days a week.... but - i love it! and the money is just a bonus.

i dont think enough people are that happy in their jobs. I work as a jointer for the electricity board (when your power goes off, we are there till its on) the job satisfaction is brilliant, even more so when we get cuppas from those not affected *hint*

my plan is to work like a demon now, and reap the benifits when im older and have a family i can spend time with, without worrying about the amount of time i spend at work.

Shane

mykp

last place I worked before I went self employed I worked my nuts off, basically my supervisor was an **** and because of his constant laziness, lying and scheming the rest of us would have to take up the slack, basically he was an *** kisser and the department boss loved it so he got away with being a lazy, lying bas'tard.

what made me change my mind about work was the deadlines we got set by the company and the hours we worked, plus the over zealous time keeping system and employment reviews. it wasnt unusual to be told at 4:50 that we would need to finish a job before we went home, or where presented with info which had to be placed live before we went home. Some nights i'd still be in work at 1am, then i'd have a 1 hour drive home and have to be back in for 9am. If you where late you'd get b0ll0cked! working late wasnt an excuse

I was also branded as being "a none team player" because I lived an hour away and sometimes would arrive late because of traffic.

Anyway I left and shortly after all the other people in the dept did as well, leaving just the supervisor. Company find out how much of an *** he was and he got sacked.

Work for myself now and I would say 50% of the time I work to live and the other 50% is working to deadlines. However if I want to get up at 10am, I can or if I want to take the dogs for a 2 hour walk I do! And if everything goes pear shaped, i'll be stacking shelves at sainsburys.

Not exactly a bad situation to be in and beats working for an a55hole!

corradoboy

I used to work every hour offered, but as I was hourly paid and the O/T rates were favorable it was in my benefit. Over the years I have come to realise that no matter how much hard and good work I've put in, I am only as valued as my last b0ll0cking and every employer I've ever worked for will drop me like a stone when the need suits. I've faced redundancy a couple of times and felt mistreated by it, so now I arrive 1 minute before start time, clock off as the second hits finish time, and don't do a minute of O/T. In my spare time I have a self-employed career which is my safety net if redundancy looms again, so **** 'em !

mrs_b4

I work part time with elderly mental health so if I don't work hard it's them who suffer sometimes the people I work with don't alway's pull their weight but that just makes it harder for the rest of us,when it's people who rely on you for their quality of life I think you need to give 100% if not chose another job

SJ_Skyline

it's work to live, not live to work IMHO

stevebt

iTrader: (8)

I work too hard this current climate has me working more days for much much less money But I'm still not that desperate to keep on taking more work

Glowplug

iTrader: (8)

In my old job (before redundancy) i did 70+ hours a week and was well paid for giving 100%, i loved it.
But now this job doesn't require me to give 100% and there are only 40hrs available, i work with 14 other people, most are half my age including the 'supervisors' and as such they think they should do half the work. Its only a stop gap until it picks up again so **** um

Deep Singh

Thanks for the replies but I think some have misunderstood the question. I'm not asking whether you like your job or whether you put in extra time to get a job done or work harder to do it well.
What I'm asking is do/would you take up all opportunities to make extra money by taking on extra work. I realise this may not apply to all jobs, but a factory worker might do extra shifts, or a self employed builder might take on extra jobs and work to 8pm everynight and work on saturdays

john banks

Absolutely not. I would decide based on the T&C of the work and how much I wanted extra money in exchange for less free time.

yoza

The harder you work, the more you earn.....

........the more you earn, the more you spend.

The more toys you have the more expense to you.

Money isnt everything.

15 years ago I would do two jobs, and a few other bits and bobs, single'ish, no kids and I would have all the toys and wads of money under my bed, three cars, motorbikes, three holidays abroad each year, top gym membership, expensive clothes, always out and about etc, I always had cash in my pocket and an untouched wage going into my account.

Now I have one job, no overtime, and currenty no shift allowance and a four day week, I have never earned such low wages.....

I am happier than I have ever been, more time for myself and family, money is not the be all and end all at the moment.

I have been selling off un needed spoils from my previous life, and this along with buying and selling/fixing/renovating watches I have realised that I dont need half the things Ive got...so Ive sold them.

I go out drinking once in a blue moon, and dont miss it at all, I used to drink most week nights Mon-Thur.

Rather than eating out 2 or 3 times a week, we eat out once a fortnight, dont miss that either.

I have found that some of the best things in life cost nothing, sounds naff but its true.

When work picks up I am going to swerve the overtime until I am told I have to do it.

I was offered a 2 year sabatical at 80% pay and seriously thought of taking it up, but for the fact that my job/position/place of work/ was not guaranteed on return, or I would have taken 2 years off.......

I friend I grew up with had the nice house/mortgage/fast car/toys/wife/holidays/watches/ and he swapped it all in the Y2000 to live in a caravan on a friends farm.....he is the happiest man you could ever meet.

He keeps Chickens and Ducks in an old Ford Sierra and grows his own foods, he did keep pigs but could not bring himself to sending them off to slaughter, so now he just has fat pigs roaming around his van.

He helps out on the farm and wants for nothing, he has no debts, and owns everything he has.

He does what he wants, when he wants.

I once asked him why he didnt wear his watch, he replied "Because I dont need to know what time it is."....sounds odd, but he wouldnt swap it for anything else.

Anyway, time for me to light the candle and eat some grass.

Later Yoza