Reply to: "Can you work a bit longer please."

[Sysman]

Swings and roundabouts. I have had gigs where the client was happy to pay for you to work as many as hours as you liked ie 70+ hours per week. As for expecting you to do it and not offering to pay, time off in lieu then it risks becoming the norm.

Some of the stuff I do has to be done outside normal working hours (installing new hardware etc), so I bring the subject up at interview time.

Places on a strict budget will usually accept time off in lieu, others are a lot more generous in the amount of overtime you can clock up.

Time off in lieu is great for fitting in appointments with dentists, accountants etc.

[weemster]

Swings and roundabouts. I have had gigs where the client was happy to pay for you to work as many as hours as you liked ie 70+ hours per week. As for expecting you to do it and not offering to pay, time off in lieu then it risks becoming the norm. Tell him him to feck #ff.

[2BIT]

Just had one of the Middle Office managers that I work with, nice bloke, ask me if I can put some more hours in as we have a high workload at the moment.

He isn't the person who approves my timesheets.

My contracts says my rate is "per professional day" and elsewhere implies this is counted as an 8 hour day, and that there is no overtime payable.

I'm on average doing about 9 hours a day already.

What would you do?

Asking my approving manager to sign off a few additional days has been muted as an option.

I would work the extra hours and tell them ill be taking a day off paid when I've accrued 8 hours OT, literally had the same thing recently where i was doing sometimes over 12 hours a day - they were more than happy for me to take a day off when the dust settled and pay me for it

[configman]

Some clients still do hourly rates but cap it at a number of hours per month.

This annoyed my last agent as it looked like I was doing more than my allocated hours per month when in fact I was doing other business on the client site. The PM didn't mind as long as I did the work I said I would do in time.

Where I work now it is standard practice to pay 15 months for every 12 months to compensate. You automatically without condition get tax free 3 months for completion of each year.

[SueEllen]

There was a time pre Y2K that most of us got paid by the hour for every hour then lots of newbie contractors started accepting daily rates from agents that still wanted all hours worked on the timesheet so the agents could claim hourly but pay contractors daily Alas, it has all ended with daily rates and no overtime - nobody wins now.

Some clients still do hourly rates but cap it at a number of hours per month.

This annoyed my last agent as it looked like I was doing more than my allocated hours per month when in fact I was doing other business on the client site. The PM didn't mind as long as I did the work I said I would do in time.

[SueEllen]

If you work in one of those offices where they track your calls you will soon find out that the bobs are using other poeples phones to make long distance calls after hours. Lock your phone if you can.

One client site I worked at blocked 0800 numbers as well as 0845 and 0870 numbers because the bobs where using calling cards on the office phones. They then made all contractors on the floor the bobs where on share one phone between 4 as they still spent all day on the phone.

[Notascooby]

I've had a very busy month, on the last month of my current contract. I've been expected to be on call pretty much 24/7 and work weekends including some super shifts of over 20 hours. The fatal flaw that I've made was not to negotiate overtime beforehand, something I will learn from in the future. Funnily, in this very contractor heavy team, no one seems to have had the balls to take this to a very over-bearing PM.

I've therefore submitted my timesheet with a covering letter stating where and why I've charged overtime i.e where the day was over 12 hours - 1.5 days charged, where it was 20 hours - 2 days charged etc. On the whole I'm still giving away a lot of time but if i attempted to bill every hour over 8 then I think the clientco would have a fit.

Anyway, I await with interest as to their reaction, worse case is I get stiffed and I live and learn, best case they realise its small beer compared to the consultancies that have a proper contract and will not only be charging every hour but being charging multiples for unsociable hours.

[configman]

I couldn't agree more and that's exactly what I'm doing now. I'm always surprised by the number of people on here who say to keep working for more hours per day than the contract. I'm not a clock watcher but there's no way I'd work 9-10 hours per day if the contract states 8. As for the "Professional Working Day", this should be clearly defined in the contract so all sides know exactly what they are working to.

SueEllen's point about giving 2.5 days per month is a really good one. It's scary to think that over the course of a 6 month contract this equates to 3 working weeks!

There was a time pre Y2K that most of us got paid by the hour for every hour then lots of newbie contractors started accepting daily rates from agents that still wanted all hours worked on the timesheet so the agents could claim hourly but pay contractors daily Alas, it has all ended with daily rates and no overtime - nobody wins now.

[ShandyDrinker]

Your professional day is 8 hours.

Working 9 hours consistently (unless you waste an equivalent of an hour or more a day doing your own business whether that be web surfing, training or talking on the phone) is giving them 5 hours free a week or 2.5 days of your time for free a month.

Think of what else you could do with those hours as even if you are stuck in a hotel you could do an open university module with that time.

I couldn't agree more and that's exactly what I'm doing now. I'm always surprised by the number of people on here who say to keep working for more hours per day than the contract. I'm not a clock watcher but there's no way I'd work 9-10 hours per day if the contract states 8. As for the "Professional Working Day", this should be clearly defined in the contract so all sides know exactly what they are working to.

SueEllen's point about giving 2.5 days per month is a really good one. It's scary to think that over the course of a 6 month contract this equates to 3 working weeks!

[configman]

They don't work until 10pm. They're merely in the office until then. What they do, once everyone has gone home, is compare notes, and work on consolidating themselves within the client.

If you work in one of those offices where they track your calls you will soon find out that the bobs are using other poeples phones to make long distance calls after hours. Lock your phone if you can.

[NotAllThere]

One problem in the Bobs who are working till 10pm for half your rate making you look bad...that is until they look at what they have produced.

They don't work until 10pm. They're merely in the office until then. What they do, once everyone has gone home, is compare notes, and work on consolidating themselves within the client.

[SueEllen]

As I said the contract states "professional day", and they pay a professional day's rate for 8 hours.

Where does being professional become being a mug?

Your professional day is 8 hours.

Working 9 hours consistently (unless you waste an equivalent of an hour or more a day doing your own business whether that be web surfing, training or talking on the phone) is giving them 5 hours free a week or 2.5 days of your time for free a month.

Think of what else you could do with those hours as even if you are stuck in a hotel you could do an open university module with that time.

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

One problem in the Bobs who are working till 10pm for half your rate making you look bad...that is until they look at what they have produced.

depends on the line. Some lines have no bobs, some have a lot. Even with the bobs, market not too bad atm for most lines.

[russell]

I think the market is currently strong enough (for most types of roles) for you to be the boss in this kind of a situation. Normally in this kind of a situation the worst they can do is not renew (big deal if you can line up another contract). The absolute worst they can do is tell you to go home (which I doubt they would do if the workload is already really high).

Look at it this way: you only live once - the extra hours your spending at work - are they really worth it? Unless you live to work then I really doubt it.

Unless you would struggle to get your next role I can't really see the problem with you taking charge in this situation.

One problem in the Bobs who are working till 10pm for half your rate making you look bad...that is until they look at what they have produced.

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

I think the market is currently strong enough (for most types of roles) for you to be the boss in this kind of a situation. Normally in this kind of a situation the worst they can do is not renew (big deal if you can line up another contract). The absolute worst they can do is tell you to go home (which I doubt they would do if the workload is already really high).

Look at it this way: you only live once - the extra hours your spending at work - are they really worth it? Unless you live to work then I really doubt it.

Unless you would struggle to get your next role I can't really see the problem with you taking charge in this situation.