If it carries on go on the long term sick. Shouldn't be to hard to get signed off for a twinging back or signs of depression, check the depression thread for authentic symptoms.

n0face wrote:

Join a union.

What he said.  Really Moto, this is a no-brainer.

Anyone can join unite, it costs £11 a month but it's worth it if you want to know the rules and have proper legal backing if it comes to a head.

http://www.unitetheunion.org/default.aspx

Moto70 wrote:

My issue is about working unpaid hours over those stated in my contract, if I work 48 instead of 40 then I have effectively lost either a day with my family or £96, I don't see how any company could expect that if their employees.

Because you are on a salary, not wages.  There is a difference.  A salaried job means you get paid X amount a year to do your job.  If you have to work extra to get your job done, you have to work extra to get your job done.  You are not losing £96.  If you are losing a day it is because you are failing to get enough done, or they are expecting too much.

You've been a bit daft to go into the job assuming things about your contract, and not chasing up an amended contract.  At a company where the bosses response to you not signing a contact is "we'll see how it goes" you've either found one of the best companies to work for, or one of the worst.  Crazy lady suggests it's the latter.

I hope you can get something worked out.

I bet you literally did.

Well, not literally, mainly cos I could never find it.

I really feel for you on this one mate.
Gazelle is correct you really need to speak to someone who is experienced in this situation.
I do find it incredible that in todays workplace that you can be bullied or forced with the threat of losing your job to work extra hours for no renumeration or time off in lieu and there is not much you can do about it.
Being asked to do an hour here or there is fine but some people ask for several hours a day or even extra days, without even a thank you (it's happening where I am freelancing right now to contracted employees).
I am a bit black and white in attitude in these situations, A boss pays me to do 'x' amount of hours per week. I do them.
If I work extra, I want extra or time off, if I don't get it and they are being unreasonable/hard nosed then I decide how badly I need the job and would probably suck it up until I could find another one.


I remember in one place we clocked in and out and for 10 months I didn't have a single lunch break as it was so busy. I also did overtime nearly every night (paid) and I would ring mrs panty's mobile to tell her I would be home late.
One day the general manager walks in and says that the owner of the company has trawled through every phone number in the recent bill and singled out all numbers he thinks are private and "If people pay for those calls, then there will be no further action.", seriously.
So my calls came to £11.60 (or something), I went into the bosses office with £12 put it on his desk and told him he could keep the change. I then took every lunch break, took anything that was of any use to me consumables wise (back in the day when CDRWs where expensive) and sat behind every night on the internet and clocked up overtime, until I found another job.

Oh and because I had only worked there for 11 months I was not allowed to go to the xmas party.

Some of us put in 60-80hr weeks for a lot less than £25k.

That's all very well unless you don't actually work in an office job.  I'm freelance and get paid by the gig and will quite easily clock up 12hr+ days purely because I have to spend time not only preparing for and doing the work in question but also travelling all over the place to do it.
I'm doing a gig in London next week for which I'll get paid about £150 (+expenses).  I'll leave the house at 8am and get home again at about midnight.

Elmlea wrote:

I don't understand the obsession with hours.  Surely you're paid salary X to do job Y; and if you happen to be an astonishingly capable guy and can get it done in half the time, bully for you.  If you're a bit low-average, and need longer, well you either work longer or you get a job more suited to your abilities. Even if it's "crunch time," how can they arbitrarily say "work 60 hours this week!"  Surely it's just "get this work done by this day!" and you choose what you need to work? Much more efficient to just tell people to produce the work rather than being so specific about precisely when they need to be in the office.

I agree in principle but some comapnies, especially in design, see it is a free ride to take the absolute piss.

 Quite often the man hours were never there in the first place, sometimes down to greed, more often down to shit planning out of the hands of the person doing overtime (said shit planner is also often first out the door at 5 o'clock).

It's a nice concept, Do job A by deadline, start job B. However it leads only to hard working people being taken for a ride.

My boss's boss tried to get me to work 8 hours on a Saturday for about 17 quidpounds sterling.

Hah.

For a few of the posts here the idea of an internal SLA should suffice or already be in place

Agree with Igor there.

The flip side of the shite OVT for me is the fact I work with genuine mates (lived with 2 of them).

...but by your own admission you are not contracted to work forty hours per week. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you have never signed any contract at all since starting this job. If this is indeed the case then I think you'll be lucky if they don't just fire you and get some other poor bastard in to do the hours they want. You seem to be on rather a sticky wicket here.

good luck

g.man

You shouldn't need anyone to tell you that a verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's not written on.