I’m sure the OP isn’t totally rigid about their hours, and that if an emergency came up that merited staying late, they’d do it in a heartbeat to help out. But to expect it on the regular, when there is no emergency, is downright cruel and exploitative. I’m so glad the pendulum amongst workers is swinging so hard toward work-life balance nowadays—-I used to be one of the few who tried to achieve it, and back then it actually hurt my chances for advancement. I saw so many incompetent people get promotions and raises, only to totally f**k up jobs they could not do, but that I could do in my sleep, simply because they goofed off from 9am to 4pm, then managed to look busy when the manager did a walkthrough at 5pm, while I had actually worked all day, when the manager was hiding in their office, and was packing up to leave. And management has the f*****g gall to be totally mystified as to why employees job hop.

I was literally putting my coat on to leave for the day when a coworker, who had seniority, told me that I had to stay late to help her find an accounting error. She said, "Ohhhhh nooooo. You're not going anywhere. We have work to do." ....ah, excuse me? I told her I had plans and I'd need a day notice if she wanted me to stay late. (I had no plans, I just didn't like her power trip.) She started getting loud. The big boss comes out, he agrees with me, and I left. The next morning she says she found the error in 5 minutes. I said, "Oh great. I'm glad I didn't stay late." Always remember: *Your catastrophe does not constitute my emergency.*

Requiring someone to be available an extra hour before and after every shift is unethical . Its two hours of unpaid work. Firemen are paid for the entire 8/12/24 shift, not just the one hour they are actually fighting a fire because that time waiting counts as work.

In my last job I was in a managerial role and there was an unspoken rule in the company that staff stayed late/came in early. I hated this environment and I always made sure my staff only did their hours and no more. The problem was I ended up trying to cover the additional work load that the company expected to be completed during those additional unpaid hours. I ended up leaving in under a year exhausted and burned out. I cited the culture as the reason for my resignation and if course they denied it but like I said it was an unwritten rule there, no one was going to admit it and anyone who didn't follow suit never received any promotion and we're seen as lazy. I've since learned that some employees have taken a case against them for unfair working conditions and I'm so glad. I'm just sorry I didn't have the courage to do more when I was there. Thankfully I'm in a much better job with great conditions and colleagues for the last 2 years.

Once the most obnoxious partner at the firm I worked at asked if I could stay late to assist something he was working on. I told him I could not. He then told me how nice the overtime would look on my next paycheck. I told him my husband was actually a Trust Baby and that I did not need the overtime. As a minority, I could not help but dislike the insinuation that I needed overtime. No matter. He continued all the time as a was putting my coat and gloves on, saying “Really. What do you have to do when you leave the office.” It was no secret that I had a difficult teenager, a pre-teen who was smarter than all her teachers and a 3 year old who all looked forward to me being home by dinner time. I calmly told Mister I’m So Important “I do have plans. First, I’m going to hang out in the parking lot and shoot the breeze with the clerks from the 5th floor and then check out the receptionist’s wedding pictures. Then go home and do some laundry.”

I worked in a nursing home and my shift was seven to three. I had a small baby at home, as did some of my coworkers. Several times the director of nurses hauled us into her office after three o'clock to bully some of us into working the evening shift. Finally no one would volunteer so she said she would draw names and the person who's name was drawn had to work evening shift or they were fired. She pulled a woman's name and the woman said she was not going to do it and went home. The next morning she didn't come back and the nursing director had the nerve to ask where she was! I said, "She thought she was fired." Her answer was "I didn't think she would take it this seriously!" I lit into her and asked her, "What do you expect? You herd us into your office after our shift and threaten our jobs and bully us into working overtime. We are not going to do it! We have families to take care of and by three o'clock we are tired!" She shut up and hid out in her office for half a day.

That was exactly the right way to handle it, but this person's manager probably HATES them now and is going to make their life miserable...

Once upon a time in 1981 thru 2003, I worked as a legal secretary for a prestigious Boston law firm Mon-Fri from 9:00a-5:00p. One of the "official/unofficial" firm rules was all secretaries were obligated to work until 5:30p UNPAID. If secretary worked until 6:00p, s/he was paid regularly hourly rate for the hour. There were attorneys who would wait until 4:45p to give secretary a last-minute assignment taking 15-45 minutes, knowing full well that secretary would not be paid for work after 5:00p. Of course, most secretaries were resentful about working for free, especially if they planned to be out at 5:00p. This went on until mid-1990's when it was revealed that it was against MA law not to pay an employee for time worked. As I always say, employers don't work for free, so why should employees ever be expected to work for free?

I worked crazy hours for a company and the more I gave the more they took. I was paid hourly and milage. Upper management was constantly on me and I was tracked the whole time but still they would under pay me for milage expesially. In June of 2018 I suffered a major stroke that left me temporarily blind in my left eye and all work wanted to know was when I would get back on the road. Jobs are not worth dying for and don't fool yourself in thinking any company out there won't eat you up spit you out and leave you to rot. Good job for him sticking up for himself!!! 👍👍👍👍👍👍

People have families and doctors visits and if your employer doesn't understand that you should go find another employer

I once was forced to go over my manager's head due to the fact that she made a huge scheduling change without notice & at the time I was a single Mom of 3 boys. She (my manager) raised her voice, saying "You and your f**king kids!", in front of a witness (another manager). I started shaking with anger & crying, but said in as calm a voice as I could muster up, "I only asked about the schedule because I would need to make some kind of arrangements for my boys..." I then turned around calmly & left her office. I was mildly surprised to find that I was clenching my fists so hard that I had left 4 bleeding, crescent-shaped punctures in the palms of both hands. After I spoke to the GM, my manager (against the direct orders of the co-owner (manager's boss' boss) talked to me saying, "Why didn't you just come to me about the issue instead of the GM?" I laughed in her face & reminded her that that was exactly what I had done... Surprise, surprise, the other manager had backed up my statement

Wonderfully played. She never lost her cool, never said anything unreasonable, just let the facts speak for themselves.

Oh Nooooo, the AH is the manager who got her tail yanked in a knot by OP. Kudos

I have the reputation at my work as a 9-5er, which is unjustified as I have worked weekends, 50 hour weeks (infrequently) and stay to help out when there is an emergency. I won't work late just to do regular work. And that is where my reputation comes from. The owner of the company told me I will never move any higher in the company unless I am willing to work 70 hour weeks. I told him if you want to renegotiate my salary to include 70 hour work weeks, we can discuss it. He told me no, I would have to prove I deserve the better salary for at least a year. Guess who is never going higher up in my company. Which is too bad, because 99% of the job and company is awesome.

This was handled beautifully.

"They have changed 'unwilling to be exploited' to 'lazy and unethical'". No THEY didn't change anything. Their ancestors were using almost the exact same words for serfs and slaves. people should read up on how slave-owners considered a slave to be lazy, if the slave wasn't willing to work all day long for nothing at all, while being beaten and starved. It's not just capitalism either. Under communism, managers would/will force low level workers to work longer hours and harder, from which only the management would benefit. Part of being a psychopath is the need to be in a higher position, so nobody should be surprised that so many people in higher positions are psychopaths. The feeling that you inherently deserve that others should do stuff for you or give you stuff without any recompense on your part is a basic characteristic of a psychopath or sociopath.

Never let your company squeeze extra hours out of you without compensation. They are essentially getting free work. My company did this to the lower rank staff for years until a fellow cowworker buddy of mine filed a class action lawsuit against the firm. He ultimate won and every employee that was impacted by it (many) was rewarded backpay along with interest and along with a nonretaliatory clause preventing anyone from getting fired for claiming the settlement. I was paid roughly $30,000. That's a whole lot of free hours I gave them. They paid out I think 3 5 million in total. My buddy got 30k as well on top of an additional 50k for being the class representative.

I have an issue with the way companies take advantage of their "salaried" employees. They make you work so many extended hours with no extra compensation. I think that this needs to come to an end. I once worked at a company where I was so disrespected. My administrator literally told me to just "sit there and look pretty". She also would keep us at work until the middle of the night when a patient would elope. I worked at a long term care facility and was the Director of Social Services. Instead of calling law enforcement to find the person, she would make the staff look all over the city of Denver for them, sometimes until 2am...I'm not kidding, true story....just horrible

Thankfully, I now work a public sector job with a strong union, so bosses can no longer pull that last-minute overtime b******t on me anymore.

I don't even remember how many times I had to work extra (2-3) hours unpaid. I even had to wake in the middle of the night to go to work because of an emergency (there was no emergency and I was working in a print house). The first two years I got paid less than the initial agreement. It took 5 years to get out of that company and get the f*ck away from that m*f* SOB of an employer. I've never hated anyone so much in my life than my ex boss. His way of taking advantage of someone's good will and dedication was enough to make me feel pure soul-blackening dark hate and disgust. I'm happy I left that company.

When I graduated from college I apply for a job at a lumber company. The district manager interview me, got the job. Next day store manager told me just because I had college, doesn't mean I'm better than him. The second the day I was told I had to put the company bumper sticker on my car. I said, " I don't put bumper on my car. I was told I could be fired. The third day, I quit the job. That was 34 years ago. Never forgot what happen.

Oh look, a labour dispute on BP. I wonder if-- yup, yanks again.

I run the physiotherapy practice in a private hospital in the UK. My contracted hours, as well as those of the other staff that work in the physio department are 40 hours per week to be worked between 0830-1830 Monday to Friday. Our appointments start at 0900 and end at 1800. This gives the staff who are starting work at 0830 and those finishing at 1830 time to complete any admin and prep work before and after their appointments so there is no need for them to work beyond their contracted hours. I would not work more than my contracted hours and I do not expect any of my staff to work beyond theirs. You work the hours you are paid and that is it, outside of working hours your time is your own. If any staff do wish to work extra hours, they can do so with prior arrangement with me and they will be paid pro-rata for the extra time they work. All of the staff that work here are salary paid, we have no hourly paid employees.

The check rents. It does not buy. Every offer letter I have gotten for a salaried position has been based on a 40-hour work week. Anything more than that is me working for less money, so...yeah, no.

I once had my manager from a major tech company run into me after work on motorcycles he tried to talk business I refused he tried to tell me my job depended on me talking shop he was trying to show off in front of his buddy and my girlfriend. He was a t urd still is.

Human beings are the single biggest obstacle in our professional work life's. Their personal power trips and egos are cancer to work environments. Jobs are typically not that hard, these individuals make jobs miserable,harder and turnover shows. People usually don't want to leave their jobs. They seek to depart from over bearing, egoistical a*s hat management. These people are always seeking your "free" time and labor. Then a guilt trip for saying "No". Smart companies would identify these people in regards to turnover and weed them out. Companies should have a management review yearly by their workers. If these people are hard to deal with and create a toxic environment for workers. The obvious individual needs relieved of their management position. Management that doesn't value your time, doesn't value individuals. Therefore failing at a key component to lead people.

Beware of the newbies... they are trying extra hard to prove themselves and will do so at anyone's expense