If the goal is to make sure employers don’t abuse employees regarding after hours work time, then make a rule about after hours on-call type work being spelled out in employment contract.
But making a “one size fits all” rule like this is just plain dumb because there are many situations where both employee and employer are just fine with it.
I’ve worked in the computer industry my entire career, I’ve taken my share of after hours calls, but guess what, I’m ok with it and I manage it and I get paid well for it. It doesn’t happen that often, but when it does the impact to the business can be very significant and as a person that enjoys the benefits of that business (salary, bonuses, etc.), I don’t want anyone telling us when we can communicate.
Life’s a bitch. If your company doesn’t allow you to turn things off after hours, work somewhere else or become hourly. You’re salaried specifically because you are not expected to punch a clock.
Back when my dad started a job – the last job in his long career as an engineer – he was given a pager on his first day. That evening he dropped it in a drawer and never looked at it again. As he put it, only a life-and-death emergency would necessitate calling him after hours, and since he wasn’t a doctor there wasn’t anything he could do in such a situation anyway. Anything else could wait till the next business day.
He kept that job until he retired, on a date of his choosing.
It’s simple. If your boss is reasonable and takes care of you (financially and emotionally), then you don’t mind going out of your way to read e-mails after work. Knowing that he or she appreciates it, it’s not a big deal.
So the real question is: do we let the multitude of bad apples spoil the whole bunch?
It doesn’t sound like you boss is calling you at dinner-time to ask for a report first thing in the morning; it sounds like you are committed to your profession.
I guess I am not seeing the difference. My boss emails me after six sometimes, or (more often) we sit at work and talk about work stuff well after six. She doesn’t “expect it” in the sense that she will fire me if I don’t, but I get a lot of special consideration because of what, to me, looks like “dedication”. However, I can really see how the guy who works 40 hours a week sees it more like “punishment” for having reasonable boundaries: because he’s not willing to do stuff like that, he’s given less control over his job, he makes significantly less money (probably in the 10-15% range) and he will be a lot less protected if we have a cycle of lay-offs. I am just not sure how one fairly reconciles that contradiction.
I think the difference is very clear; it’s about what one chooses to do and what one is threatened and brow-beaten into doing.
You and your co-worker have both made choices based on your priorities, but neither of you lost a job. For some people the choice is to put up with unreasonable demands on their time (typically for bullshit flash projects of no real value) or joblessness.
Not for failing to respond to an emergency, but for complaining about being assigned work at eight o’clock at night, on a valueless project designed only to stroke your boss’s ego, not because of any sudden change in the situation, but only because it was poorly planned, or because someone with a little more favor decided not to finish it.
We don’t all live in a world with pleasant chats with our bosses. Not by a long damned shot.
I do envy you a job where the higher-paid staff are not laid-off first, though.
If you don’t think that employers will gradually change the entire market to remove your options one by one then you’re dreaming. If your choice is between acceding to demands that you work around the clock in order to stay in your profession or living your life in minimum wage retail to get your own time to yourself then that’s no choice at all. The employment market is not a free market for employees and pretending that it is will so nothing but facilitate the race to the bottom for employment conditions. Employers hold too many cards as it is. They need to be kept in check by every means at our disposal, including employment law, union representation, and social disapproval.
The rights of workers in this new digital age is just now coming to the forefront. It may even take a few more years before enough people get fed up and demand a change. For now, we just have to put up with after hours email and hope that we have a decent boss. One that doesn’t expect you to drop everything and spend the night on your new project assignment.
I don’t object to after hours email if I can deal with whatever it is the next morning. For example, my boss might email me that a staff member’s pc has a virus. I’ll see that in the subject header and won’t bother reading it until the next morning. Fixing that pc will be my top priority the next morning.
btw, I’m not referring to a broad law. I think this thread shows the problems with that approach.
It’ll have to be some polices set by the Dept of Labor. Something an employee can use if they file a complaint about their employer’s work conditions.
Those kinds of policies already exist. A homeless guy craps on the sidewalk by the building’s front door. A boss can’t tell his secretary to get some paper towels and pick it up. There are basic guidelines of what can and can’t be asked of an employee.
Proof that my post was right. Work for free or don’t get the promotion. I’m curious what Smapti would do if I were in the mountains and didn’t get the message until late Sunday? Is the expectation that I need to be able to get to the office part of the arrangement?
And Smapti’s post shows why we need the law. Yes, if you call me on my time to discuss work issues even if it’s “Where’s the light switch in the file room?” then I am working.