Bang goes that idea

[ailbhe]

Well, Rob and I aren't going to get to go out. He worked late last night / this morning so will have to get to bed early tonight, and tomorrow he's scheduled to work late again.

Keeping track of his overtime doesn't help much because he never takes the time off in lieu for normal stuff, he just uses it for appointments and similar. So the domestic side of things never gets caught up.

WHY is work the ultimate priority for everyone? Even when it's past 1 am and you're expected in work at 8:30 am? It doesn't seem *right* that he can't schedule his TOIL for sleeping in, rather than having to eat into our one realistic chance to go out as a couple since four weeks before Linnea was born.

Plus, I've just discovered that my mother-in-law has a key to my house, without my having known about it.

Comments

[helenprev.livejournal.com]

Oh no.... :-(

Nothing else to say without going off into a big sympathetic rant about work and priorities because it is something we feel quite strongly about in our house and I would probably end up offending someone...

So I'm just sending you lots and lots of sympathetic hugs (and Rob a stern glare...) and I really hope you manage to get out together before the baby is born.

And oh dear re the mother in law key situation - how long has she had that? :-S

[ailbhe]

It's an industry-wide thing, it's not just Rob. Even keeping track of the overtime is a very unusual thing to do really - no-one in his company was tracking it at all, not his boss nor his HR dept nor nobody else at all nor nuffin.

But I do think men have to start demanding a right to a family life (a) so that they can have a family life, and (b) so that it isn't just something women do and it stops being such a big issue with women's employment.

At least he's getting paternity leave.

[da-pol.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree - when I was at BT, at the point I had to start actually refusing to work over my contracted hours I was accused of being unprofessional and uncooperative and they pointed at a line in my contract stating that I was required to work "professional hours" which they apparently parse as "Whatever it takes to get the job done".

I'm a lot happier in this job where I get to work the hours needed to do the work I've got, and even then not at any particular time - I've been running around after friends and family during the nominal work day, and still getting the job done and my social life's never been better.

Men definitely have to start demanding a right to family life - work to live, not live to work.



"Hi, I'm Paul and I'm a Workaholic"
"Hi Paul"
"I haven't worked unsocial hours to the detriment of my family in four months. I still have to work at it one day at a time"

[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<fx:>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

I absolutely agree - when I was at BT, at the point I had to start actually refusing to work over my contracted hours I was accused of being unprofessional and uncooperative and they pointed at a line in my contract stating that I was required to work "professional hours" which they apparently parse as "Whatever it takes to get the job done".

I'm a lot happier in this job where I get to work the hours needed to do the work I've got, and even then not at any particular time - I've been running around after friends and family during the nominal work day, and still getting the job done and my social life's never been better.

Men definitely have to start demanding a right to family life - work to live, not live to work.



"Hi, I'm Paul and I'm a Workaholic"
<group> "Hi Paul"
"I haven't worked unsocial hours to the detriment of my family in four months. I still have to work at it one day at a time"
<FX: Applause>

[uitlander]

Its not just men. Its standard to include the opt-out of the working hours directive in IT employmnt contracts. I always cross it out, and so far no-one has whined. There is also usually a clause saying 'your normal hours of work will be foo however due to the nature of the industry you may be called upon to work in excess of these from time to time'. I have never crossed that out, because I'm not sure of the legality of it. But what is the point of saying 'you have working hours of x' and then saying 'but from our side we don't intend to stick to them'. Perhaps I should add a clause like 'my working hours are normall foo, but from time to time I may feel you have been taking the piss and reduce them as I see fit.'

I have never been given time in lieu of extra hours worked, and have left a number of jobs because of the expectation that I would work excessive hours as this was 'the company ethos and I was not pulling my weight in the team'.

[ailbhe]

My point was that women with families - specifically with children - routinely *have to* fail to live up to "any additional hours as and when requested by the company", and men with exactly the same families routinely put in the extra unpaid time (because their wives are the ones who get home and cook the kids' dinner, or whatever).

Until men *as well as women* refuse to allow work to do this, it will be a handicap for women seeking employment, especially for women who have children, or even women who are obviously cohabiting or married even if they've decided not to have children.

Rob wouldn't be given TOIL for this if I hadn't insisted on his asking for it after he did an 18 hour day in airconditioned datacentres without breaks or proper meals. That made me very very wary of their overtime policies.

[uitlander]

But why shoul this just apply to people with families? The issues here are not whether you have a family or not, its whether it is reasonable for an employer to routinely insist on excessive extra working hours. Thats not a dig at you, or anyone who has a family, but there is an assumption I've seen time and time again that people without families for some reason shouldn't mind this imposition, but it unreasonable if you have a family. WRONG.

People are contracted to work X hours a day. So an employer gets X hours, plus anything else I consider reasonable. What I go home to is none of their business. I'm already told I can;t take my hlidays when I woul like to because 'people with families need to use the school holidays' - in the main this is not an issue because going out of season is chaeper and less crowded, but the assumption that my rights to a break are in some way less important than someone who has a family is unreasonable. I'm utterly fed up of it.

[ailbhe]

Because so far women with families are the only big group with no option but to demand the right to go home when work is over. Everyone else has been sitting in the status quo because it's easier short-term to give in to the employers than to demand the same rights. And there's the weird "work is more important than anything else " attitude.

Employers play into this by claiming that only "necessary" family commitments count, and not, eg, wanting to be able to spend evenings vegging in front of the telly with your family. Rob has had no trouble using time off in lieu for medical appointments - it's only when he wants to use it for *ordinary living* that there's a problem. And ordinary living is what his unpaid overtime eats into.

But I'm all in favour of everyone refusing to routinely work unpaid overtime. I think it's a great idea. (When I was a manager I used to send my team home firmly at the end of the day. It was shocking.)

[alicephilippa.livejournal.com]

I had one occasion when confronted with the "you'll be expected to work late as required, but we don't pay overtime" situation that I responded (along the lines of "if you don't pay overtime, don't expect me to work late".

They were, to say the least, not impressed. After some umming and ahhing, they agreed to TOIL. Although the implication was there that I was being unprofessional.

There was on incident that caused a storm when I booked traveling time from a site in Scotland to home (Wales) on a Saturday. I was informed that I was not allowed to count it as part of my working week, as I'd had the opportunity to travel back on the Friday night. The obvious fact that it was impossible for me, due to train times, to get home on the Friday was as far as my line manager was concerned irrelevant. Yet this very same manager would only work about 32hrs a week even though he was contracted for 37.5hrs.

Alice.

[ailbhe]

I've asked it in interviews - "what are the working hours? And do people actually go home then, or is it normal to work much later?"

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on all of this. And my reaction to the key situation is a big "!" I mean, we're fairly relaxed about handing out keys to our house, but I'd still never do it without checking with djm4 and aegidian first. We like to know who might suddenly appear in the hall while we're walking around in a towel!

[ailbhe]

Rob thinks he loaned a key to his dad one day and it wasn't returned and his dad gave it to his mother. Ever since she came to our flat in Wapping unannounced to use the loo and have a snoop around, she has not been allowed her own key to our house; he certainly didn't give this to her deliberately.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see. Apologies for misunderstanding :-)

[ailbhe]

Oh, and she came while were were out at work, not while we were there. We found out when she called to comment on the state of the housework.

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

We found out when she called to comment on the state of the housework.

AGH!

n.

[cherade9.livejournal.com]

I can't tell you how ikky and horrible that makes me feel for you. My parents had a key for my first house, and misused it a few times, going through our bills and complaining to me about the state of the house etc. When we moved they didn't get another key, and had to phone whenever they intended to visit.

None of my in laws have or will ever have a key for our house!

Does your MIL have problems accepting your boundaries?

Liz A.

[barakta]

That is shocking! We only have two keys for our house and are wary of getting more cut cos of rental agreements.

I still have a key to my mum's house, but ALWAYS phone her in advance if I want to stop off en route to Manchester, or borrow her driveway, or fix stuff for her or use her toilet en route somewhere or rest there. If I don't know in advance that I wish to use her house I always SMS her to say "Can we use your house please". If SMses aren't replied to, I always leave a note to say "We were here, did X (fixed X) and will phone later, thanks".

[kiya]

But I do think men have to start demanding a right to a family life (a) so that they can have a family life, and (b) so that it isn't just something women do and it stops being such a big issue with women's employment.

Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes. Yes. Gods, yes.

[flybabydizzy.livejournal.com]

yup, have been there, done that with my dh working all hours, disrupting family plans and routines. I have to admit, though, I am sure he used to pull a fast one, and arrange to work so we didnt get to do something he didnt actually want to do. Once, when kids were 1 and 4, I insisted we went away for a week's holiday - when he got back, someone else had their feet under his desk, and he'd been moved to another site, 60 miles away. That, of course, was my fault, as I was not playing the game.
I also suffered when I worked a few years ago. I got a part time job as deputy manageress of a charity shop. Then the boss left 2 months later, so I had to cover his job, on my hourly rate, but without a deputy to work my day off, and not properly trained. I was very short of volunteers in the shop, many had special needs, so I was having to look after them while doing my own job. I ended up working 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, on minumum wage. Eventually I was given the job as manager, so a pay rise of 50p per hour, but still no deputy. Eventually I was sacked, because I was not keeping the shop tidy enough, despite having increased turnover by 50% on the previous year. I haven't worked since.
As for the keys...
Holy Shit!!!
That is SO not on!
It would be one thing to accidentally take a key home, but she should have told you immediately that she had it. It is a damn cheek, an invasion of privacy and respect. etc, etc, I know I'm singing to the choir here!
2 suggestions

either, at the end of her stay, ask for the key back as you need it to give to xxx, as she will be popping in to zzzz, if you have to go in to hospital
or - and this is what Les did to someone once who had an illicit key to his office -
identify the key while she is out of the room, asleep, or whatever, then take a file to it, file off one lug, just so it will not open the door. She will still have the key, but oh dear, it doesnt work...

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I think that there's a strong cultural meme over here about work that I'd kind of hoped had not set in in other parts of the world, but perhaps that was naïve of me. Anyway, there seems to be a whole cluster of really potent concepts that collude to make people feel as if they have to work as much as required at any time at any sacrifice and that makes employers feel that it's okay or even necessary to take advantage of that. It's something I tend to get very ranty about, so it's probably best not to talk about extensively for me this morning. You have my sympathies for your loved ones falling victim to it, though (and for the ways in which that's impacting you).

The key thing is kind of alarming. That would be a pretty big breach of trust to me, if okoshun gave someone a key without mentioning it to me. We've given keys to lots of people, but we always mention it, and we have a sort of standing policy about it.

[ailbhe]

"Give" or "loan for an afternoon"? Rob thought he'd done the latter, apparently.

[firecat]

Ew. Now you have to change the locks. And it sucks that Rob isn't pushing back on the demands for overtime.