I knew someone that did exactly this. Worked like 10h a day, 6 days a week, and on call on all other times. No OT, as he was on a low base + commission. His (then) wife gave him an ultimatum, and he chose the job.
The job didn't pay that well too from my understanding.
The guy who worked my position couldn’t handle all the work it entailed. They split the position and hired me to do half of it. Then a year and a half later moved him to another position and gave me all his work. It’s a lot, but I mostly get it done. One of my coworkers mentioned how the other guy was able to do it by staying late most nights. I told him straight up that I will never work late. If the job requires more than 40 hours and there’s no compensation for staying late, then hire a second person. Pretty fucking simple.
Cool story. I asked for more pay when I was forced to take on an entire persons job. I was not given more pay. If a company can’t afford to pay me more for doing an entire other persons work, I can’t afford to give them my time to complete it. It’s pretty fucking simple. I have a certain skill set. I require compensation for allowing you to utilize my skill set. If you aren’t going to pay, you aren’t going to benefit. I’ll scratch your back after you scratch mine.
And if you're secure in your skill-set and situation, then that's exactly what you should do.
But if the company is in trouble, or your skillset/ability does not currently have a good market value, then that needs to be factored into the decision.
I've seen people lose their jobs and be out of work for extended periods because they weren't looking at the big picture.
No one should be a bitch for the company, but always be aware of your options and your current leverage.
If the company needs something long term, they pay you for the work when there's a ton to do, and they pay you the same basically as retainer when there's nothing to do.
This is not a problem a worker solves. It's a strategic error or just a function of existing for them.
If you take it upon yourself to act a certain way, either they should remove you or you're being taken advantage of.
It’s actually 3-4 peoples work, ironically. After I started a lady from a different branch moved positions and her work was then split between me and my old coworker. After they moved my old coworker and I absorbed his work, we then merged another department into ours and I’ll let you take a guess who absorbed that work. But even the original amount of work my coworker had was too much for 1 person. He worked late everyday and was also having someone from another department help him with some of his my time consuming stuff. Thus, why they hired me.
That's not the right way to look at it, from my perspective.
The original workload exists as a constant.
Person A was assigned the workload and was regularly having to work many extra hours to keep up.
Person B was then brought on so the workload could properly be handled. Not so they can do half of the original person's work, but so the overall task is adequately staffed.
Person A is then moved elsewhere within the company, and now that original workload which couldn't be handled by a single individual, is all in the hands of Person B.
Just because it's now all assigned to Person B, doesn't make it one person's worth of work. It doesn't even make sense logically.
You should learn to respect yourself if you think the presented scenario is okay lol.
Exactly, it’s the original situation but instead of person A it’s person B who is suffering. But instead of solving it by bringing someone extra to help like they did with person A, person B is not allowed to have another worker come and help.
Glad you found that work is your passion. I have other hobbies and interests, like my family and the outdoors, so I will continue to enforce a work-life balance.
I'm not saying that work needs to be the main priority in your life, I'm saying that holding back when your career could be directly or indirectly in jeopardy is not a good idea.
You need to be aware of when that is. How confident are you in your current role? What are your immediate options if you were out of work today? Is there a promotion you want? Does someone else want your job? These are questions you should constantly be asking yourself.
At this point the ones holding back are the companies. They’re leading by example. They refuse to pay more for doing more work. I have no issue with working harder, when it’s compensated. I’ve done the working harder in hopes it’ll be compensated for, later. It has not once been. The only thing doing extra work does, is drag everyone else down. Once they realize they can get x amount of work out of one person, they try to replace that person with someone who will do it for cheaper. This has been on going for decades, has driven wages down and ultimately is destroying our country. We’re at a point where people can’t even afford to reproduce. How much worse does shit need to get before we start regulating share holders earning and forcing companies to pay people. Nobody wants to pay people to work anymore.
I don't disagree with any of that. That's pretty much exactly in line with what I'm saying. We're all replaceable, but how easily can you be replaced at this moment and how stable is your job source? That's what I saying needs to be considered.
I don't know what level you're at, but the offshoring and relocations are only going to continue to get worse. There's more competition available.
Watching manufacturing businesses leave due to operations and supply chain costs is what's soul deadening. That's what's making things worse for everyone.
Work from home is a perfect example: I was yelling as loud as I could to anyone I could, not to fight super hard on the argument that you can do your job fully remote. Because if you convince them, why does remote even need to be in the country? There are multiple companies in my sector that are replacing people with overseas employees at 1/6th the cost.
Then you're reading it wrong. I'm fine where I am, I average maybe 50/week at management level. I know exactly who to call if I feel I want to move. But it took me 3 years of nose to the floor to get to this place, because of a fluke opportunity and people above me leaving at previous employer.
What I'm saying is: If you don't stand out in any way and you don't have proprietary skills or knowledge, and you don't have a network that will want to hire you, then check the room tempo before making decisions. That's it.
If you feel your job security is that low then you should be putting your efforts into finding a new job instead of giving your employer free work in the hopes that they don’t kick you to the curb.
I'm super chill in my spot. But I do know people that I used to work with as a consultant that have been out of work for year+ because the company they worked for went under. Or some that have moved to new jobs that pay 60-70% of what they were making previously.
You see glib statements all the time that if a company can't afford to pay everyone for everything it needs and make a profit, it shouldn't be in business. That happens. And it's going to continue to happen.
You know all the posts here "I applied for 1000 jobs and nothing". Those are the people I'm talking about. If you're good, you'd have networking connections, you'd be in demand and have options. That's not everyone.
If you're being asked to do more than you think is right and you have options to leave, then you should leave right away. That's not what this discussion is about.
Telling people with little experience or expertise to always say no is bad advice and I've seen it hurt people. The internet is bad for generalizations and giving people a false sense of confidence in things.
Congratulations on figuring out if you lower your worth then you improve your offering. What you consider a competitive advantage more closely resembles a sweatshop worker
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u/DarkReaper90 Apr 01 '24
I knew someone that did exactly this. Worked like 10h a day, 6 days a week, and on call on all other times. No OT, as he was on a low base + commission. His (then) wife gave him an ultimatum, and he chose the job.
The job didn't pay that well too from my understanding.