February 1st, 2008 → 11:40 am @ Jay
If you do not ask to be paid for additional hours requested by your employer, they will not pay you. For a relatively significant part of my professional life, I worked an inordinate number of unpaid hours beyond the usual 9 to 5.
In fact, my average work week was between 70 to 80 hours. Consultancy roles often called upon working weekends, lunchtimes, late nights, and even public holidays.
Our employment contracts stipulated that we are not to discuss salary or benefits with other employees. One late evening, this rule was broken. A distinguished colleague of ours revealed that he was indeed paid overtime. Between the seven of us, he was the only one who was able to negotiate this benefit.
Art of Conversation & Occupation & Productivity & Rethink your life & Your Money
January 26th, 2008 → 1:53 pm @ Jay
A concerning statistic in Western civilisation is the rapid increase in average daily work hours. The 9-to-5 schedule has now become a mere guideline by which folks voluntarily stack extra hours.
Personally, I have volunteered unpaid overtime for many reasons. To uplift my professional profile, to reduce the chances of being retrenched, to qualify for upcoming promotions, and for the respect of my managers and colleagues. I have discovered though that working overtime without asking for reimbursement achieves none of these goals. In fact, I will demonstrate why this behaviour will work against you, and your colleagues.
If you are a hard working individual, or have kids who are starting out in the corporate environment, please read through and discuss these issues with them. There is no hypothesis here, I have learned these difficult truths firsthand and I hope you can teach it to others.
I will start with a discussion on young office workers, as they are most susceptible to developing the voluntary overtime habit.
Subscribe to RSS Feed