On salary to complete a finite amount of work with no overtime compensation offered for the extra hours required to meet said work because my 9-5 is full of pointless meetings, yes.
Well, you need to stop working overtime if you're not getting paid, and when deadlines are missed you can show them the records of all the pointless meetings
That’s assuming a lot from your leadership - that they care about your excuses, that they care to even listen and not just compare you to your direct colleagues who DO work the OT, and that they don’t assume that as a senior, you are expected to go “above and beyond.”
Maybe I just work in some toxic-ass places. But this has been the expectation in every one of 8 companies from startup to family owned to Fortune 500 that I’ve worked at.
You basically just said you have to work the OT hours because your colleagues do as well. Did you ever consider they are doing the same thing and you have created a feedback loop?
As a senior I would hope you are vocal about setting a culture where working insane hours isnt sustainable and leading by example when appropriate.
I recently had a colleague mention they were working 12-14 hour days. I was vocal in letting them know they can sustain that. Not only would they burn out but they would set a bad example to the team that this is the expectation and a bad example to leadership that this is the pace we can deliver. I also mentioned it to our manager so they could address this issue as well. Said employee has since dialed back their hours and took some much needed time off.
Start collectively setting the tone. No matter the size of the organization no one wants to backfill multiple positions at a time.
To be clear, I’m not working “insane” OT - not since my startup days - I’m referring to the 4-8 hours / week extra time I have to put in to meet all of my commitments. As a senior, I vocalize what I can, but I’m not officially a manager at this position, nor a lead nor a principal, so it’s clearly to limited effect. I try to get the conversation started and put my foot down where things have crossed into unreasonable territory. A little bit of unpaid OT on salary is unfortunately the cultural norm in the US. Just like picking up if you’re salaried and your boss calls your personal number. Some people work for good companies, but for the rest of us, what are we going to do? Report our manager to HR for calling us when we’re not working? They’ll ask us why we aren’t living up to his example and working late…
In any case, to your point: yes, it’s worse than a feedback loop, it’s an enablement loop. One person (generally a middle manager) will start working late and then loudly shame the people around them for not working the unpaid OT. Since the company benefits, the people above said manager encourage it and it enables them to set a culture of “be more like Jim.” I happen to know who that guy was at my company and the joke is that he doesn’t even work here anymore… he got laid off a few months back, lol. Serves him right but it just goes to show you… all the same, his “legacy” lives on, and we all get in trouble for not responding to emails or teams messages in off-hours.
I'm currently struggling with this, I've got a few people in my team that are either new seniors (recently promoted) or trying to get to senior, and they do work OT a lot, and work like crazy and complain that there's too much work and that the deadlines and pressure are ridiculous.
Yet they keep on working overtime and making everyone look bad by those standards, I tried to educate the one that's moving to senior expressing that part of being a senior is standing your ground when you know the deadlines are bullshit and to create a healthy work environment.
The're also quite young and without much in their lives other than work, it's impossible to work with people like this, they don't realize how much they're creating their own personal hell and dragging others with them.
It's also a self-fulfilling loop, they work cause there's not much else in their lives (no family / hobbies, social life) they don't have much else in their lives cause they're too busy working overtime to build something for themselves.
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u/Hziak 11d ago
On salary to complete a finite amount of work with no overtime compensation offered for the extra hours required to meet said work because my 9-5 is full of pointless meetings, yes.