Working more unpaid or underpaid hours does not make you cool. It does not make you tough. It does not make you virtuous. It just means your employer has extracted even more surplus value from you.
Working more unpaid or underpaid hours does not make you cool. It does not make you tough. It does not make you virtuous. It just means your employer has extracted even more surplus value from you.
"You think I want to be here? You think I want to work all these hours? I have a wife and new kid at home, you think I don't want to be spending time with them?!"
That is a direct quote from a former coworker at a well-known manufacturing company notorious for overworking their people on the floor. He was ranting about how offended he was by other people not volunteering to take overtime.
I was... confused by his statements. The overtime he was referring to was entirely voluntary, no one had to volunteer. The company was facing a nasty downturn and there was barely enough work to go around as it was. But he was furious at the idea of people refusing to work literally pointlessly, taking time away from their loved ones. The absolute contempt in his voice was striking, and I remember it clearly years later.
I wanted to turn around and tell him, "No, it doesn't sound like you do?" but I felt he was already hurting enough.
Couldn't it just be that he "had" to be there because he needed the money? I mean I don't know why whether other people also did over time mattered to him at all.
Every one I know who's been in a similar situation of needing all the extra hours they can get for bill paying, especially during a downturn in business, has always been grateful for people who went home early/on time.
They'll be there shuffling people off, "Oh yeah, go home and rest, no problem! I've got this! Go ahead!" Hell I've done that myself a time or two when money has been tight. Being mad at people who don't take those precious hours is ... Odd.
You're a big person, to keep your empathy in such a situation over your temper. Don't know that I could've done the same.
That's not what my last boss told me though, why would he be motivated to lie?
Do you really think someone would do that? Just go up to their employees and tell lies?
Arguably, working more unpaid or underpaid hours is actually actively detrimental to other workers and to the value of labor in the market.