News: 1611732734

whose inmates are Subjects of a Norman Yoke.

Ironically, in ostensibly cutting ourselves off from the Normans, we Britons seem voluntarily to have taken up their yoke again in a deranged act of masochism.

Weren't they discussing revoking the working time directive post Brexit?

Been on call for the past eleven years. First as there was no one else, and when there finally was someone I had to train him. Took ages to bring someone up from scratch. Yes, sins committed by me and only I knew about were part of the problem. Left the company last year, and all out of sudden the tendovaginitis disappeard and I lost 15kg.

Lads, don't go there, have a rest. And a life.

Yes. Well said.

In my past life I worked as a scientist, which is in fact to live as a scientist, which means that this is what defines you entirely. Every minute you think about your job, which is something you really enjoy, are enthusiastic about, and in fact is what you are, not just a job.

You work at night.

You work on weekends.

You think about the next big project when on holidays

- and finish writing the bloody paper while on holidays.

I did love my job, some of the best years of my life, met lots of interesting, intelligent people all around the world, from many different countries. There were downsides, ooh yes, and I began to feel them.

From a health perspective my current job, dull as it may be at times, is much better. I disconnect outside office hours (a select few have private contacts, but those are friends, who would not abuse this for work). And now I know how much I have abused myself in the past. Never going to happen again.

Same here. I was on the MD's "break glass in case of emergency" list. I took satisfaction from being first in and last out. I loved my first Blackberry because I could respond to emails and have a crap at the same time. I was bloody good at my job and I loved it.

Then I retired and, hopefully not too late, realized what a twat and a mug I was. Now? - my health's better, I sleep better, no more heartburn and my eczema's gone.

What a twat I was.

I've been doing the same for around the last 15 years, I do get paid, quite well paid , for it though. It's simply become part of my working life.

There are four of us in the same boat, you can be sure that any of the four will answer a call immediately, or respond to an email with the half hour, regardless of the day of week...

I am on holiday at the moment, and I have just finished doing my emails for the morning and resolved a small SQL problem. It ony took 30 mins or so , so not a major problem ( whilst waiting for the wife to get out of bed)...

Some days it annoys me but most of the time I just take it in my stride.. Salary does make a huge difference though, if I was running on an entry level it would out of the question..

Yup. On call every other week.

Eventually had a break down due to always worrying about when it would go off, being called on Christmas day and Boxing day and on and on and on.

Now doing a piss poor paid day job. Wouldn't go back to that for £100k a year.

Make a contact by telephone or email during time off count as 1 hour of work time - to be paid at overtime rates (time and a quarter if overtime rates are not defined by a contract). This would rapidly cut down the amount of work interruptions to time off.

They just render you "on call" or exempt as part of your work contract. Don't sign, don't work, and then you find out everyone does the same thing...

If it's in your contract, you're being appropriate informed and compensated, right? Or do you just sign any new additions to your contract?

"On call" does not mean "work for free". It means that you are the guy who will make themselves available when it's necessary to do so. Not that you'll work unpaid.

I agree, I'm senior tech in a specialised field and have been on call for the last 8 years, 24x7x365.25; I'm in the middle of an extra-special on-call where I have to be at my desk within 5 minutes of a call for a customer activation. Total remuneration for this? Zero.

So not just an hour minimum per call, but also a minimum payment for on-call hours.

There are so many abuses especially in the IT world that such a law is welcome, and overdue.

Wage slaves, revolt! Having a life outside of work is a basic right, for you and your family!

Whenever I've been looking for a new role in the past and therefore actually answering the numerous emails I receive from scalpers, "what is the on-call expectation for this role?" is one of the first questions in my reply.

Assuming that the scalper comes back with "none/minimal" and I then go to interview, when we get to the "do you have any questions?" bit, I always follow up with something like "the scalper said you have minimal on-call requirements - can you tell me how often someone in my role is expected to be on call and how often issues have come up?"

So far, the three times I have been asked to work outside of office hours in my 20+ year career have all been paid back by extra holiday...

In the interview for my current job I asked if there were any on-call requirements and was assured there weren't any.

Once I started and my boss found out I'd been told there were no on-call requirements he wasn't too happy.

But it wasn't my problem.

Yup. You pay me eight till four, I work eight till four. You want more work, you pay me more.

'On call' is work *even if I am doing nothing*.

If it's anything like the working time directive they'd have us all sign waivers anyway*. Not that I suppose this matters in the sunlit uplands of the UK...

(*This was way back when, shortly after the WTD was introduced. I did initially refuse but it was pointed out that it would be career limiting to do so ... I left soon after, but still.)

In the last place I worked, I noted that our new contract (which we all had to sign) automatically included an opt-out from the WTD. I pointed out that this should not be A Thing and people should have to choose to opt out. Their solution? To offer an opt-out to the opt-out for those who wanted to opt out of opting out. At least half the company signed it. HR didn't like me after that. Now I work for myself.

Literally illegal to even suggest that it's "career-limiting".

Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has confirmed his department launched a review into EU workers’ protections post-Brexit, but insisted there will not be a “bonfire of rights”.

[1]https://www.cityam.com/kwarteng-confirms-uk-review-into-scrapping-eu-workers-rights-regulations

Nor did he say that there wouldn't be a "slow burn" of workers rights either.

[1] https://www.cityam.com/kwarteng-confirms-uk-review-into-scrapping-eu-workers-rights-regulations/

We have the "WTD opt-out force push" at work too - here they frame it as "You can sign this, or you can account for every 15 minutes of your working day".

Part of the problem I have as a software developer is that I actually really enjoy software development and problem solving. When I'm really into a problem I'll happily work 16+ hour days, and I'd rather write unit tests than watch Netflix, talk to people or make dinner. Even if I'm doing those things, I'm still thinking about the problems I'm working on and coming up with plans.

This isn't conducive to a happy and functioning relationship, so most nights I force myself to stop by about 7 PM, make dinner and socialise, but she knows sometimes I'd rather be working away. When she goes to bed, I'm usually back online for another couple of hours.

I know this isn't universal - I know plenty of people for whom it is a job, they work their hours, and when their day finishes they are totally happy to switch off and stop thinking about it. Probably healthier that way...

Are they the hours in the main building or are they the hours where you are sitting? Suppose you are doing technical support and they send you to Australia or elsewhere to install a system for a customer ... and if you run into any problems during the installation will nobody be at the home office to talk to?

If the company needs to provide support outside normal office hours then it should pay people to do it, not assume you can call them outside their working hours. So, in the example you quote then the company should have someone either in the office or at least on-call for a shift which covers Aus working time.

I've always had a simple agreement with my bosses (who were usually in a very different timezone). If they needed me out of hours, they can call or email me. If I don't want to be called I turn my phone off or ignore the message. I'd usually much rather spend 10 minutes sorting out an issue than come in to work the next day to find a festering pile of email conversations which have to be individually cleaned up, but the choice is mine. I wouldn't work somewhere where I needed a law to protect me from my boss.

The problem is not everybody is the position to decide when to answer or not. I too can ignore calls late in the day or in weekends, without any issue. Other people are not so lucky and do need a law to protect them.

I wouldn't work somewhere where I needed a law to protect me from my boss.

There are very few countries left, if any, where there aren't laws of some sort or another protecting you from your boss.

I've always gone to lengths to ensure that most people at work did not have my mobile number. It was only given to my line manager (who required it as a point of contact), the Director of IT, and one or two colleagues, all of whom I trusted not to abuse it. All of whom were also made aware of that reasoning. By and large, they didn't abuse it.

Then Covid and mass working-from-home happened. My phone number was included in a Whatsapp group, and suddenly I was getting messages from the Head of Marketing and Head of HR. The former came to me in a flap, asked for a super-urgent update to the company website and gave some justification that made sense on the face of it. I dropped what I was doing, did the work, then went and did some digging on the reasoning behind it. There was none (A 20% impact on our sales, quoted by HoM, turned into less than 5% impact on traffic and less than 1% impact on sales for less than 8 hours overnight. Statistically, 0% impact). The Head of HR wanted me to add a job vacancy to the website on a weekend. She was pointedly ignored, then told to keep that kind of thing to work hours the following week.

If it's an emergency, I've made it known I will be available. If it's not, then I'm not.

Marketing and HR - we all know they're evil.

"Marketing and HR - we all know they're evil"

That is my default opinion, but I made a point of thanking the lady in HR who negotiated our medical insurance package. I knew she took it seriously, and I have needed it over and over.

In the early years of my career I suffered a major stress-related collapse which took me almost three years to fully recover from. One of the first things I remember thinking when I woke up was 'nobody is doing that to me again'. Since then, work has simply been a means to provide money to do what I want. I walk out the office (or as it is now, close the laptop) and that's me gone until start-time tomorrow. Career? I decided I didn't want one after that. In the fifteen years I've had my current job my manager has called once out-of-hours and apologised profusely before asking the question. It took longer to listen to his apology than it did to answer the question.

As so many above have said: it ain't worth it.

Oh yes....do you live to work or do you work to live. In the early stages of your working life it will be the first but once you have been round the block a few times you realise the second option is the way it has to be to survive

I'm sure people will find ways around this, but it's important to at least send the message that attempting to get people to do work out-of-contract is *bad*. I've got friends who are frankly being abused this way. Meetings getting scheduled for 9 PM, getting flak for not answering emails on Sunday, that sort of crap. It has to stop. You want this kind of availability, then pay consultant rates.

My current and former Principals have as part of there email signature...

"I am sending this communication at a time that suits me. I understand that this may not be during standard working hours and do not expect that you answer until standard business hours." And they actually reply with a light slap on the wrist if you do respond out of hours

The boss was very apologetic when in the last week of the just concluded school holidays (NSW Australia) he sent out an all hands email with information on the new Wuflu restrictions at school.

I tend to keep my eye on things in off hours, but do not react unless it I determine it is an emergency. I like to know when I'll be walking into a shit storm on Monday morning too.

I've been "on call" 24/7/52+ for about 25 years, it's inevitable managing a very small department for a company based on 3 continents*.

However I choose whether to respond to an email or call and almost never answer the phone if it's ringing; this has never been an issue with my line management.

The additional stress of refusing to respond to an urgent call is far greater than actually dealing with it, when it's usually a simple problem**,

*Our NZ plant did have the decency to wait until about 06:00 UK time to call me a while back.

**Although it helps if management then listen. Many years back**** a previous employer called me on holiday to say there was an issue with the Unix box backup. I told them not to do anything but wait until I was back in the office. Instead they called in our parent company's PC support people, the engineer having no knowledge of Unix just switched off the box with no attempt at a controlled shutdown. Of course this also meant the backups were a few days out of date. It took about 5 days on my return to get everything up, configured and with as much data recovered as I could manage.

***So long ago the "mobile" was a car phone attached to a huge lead acid battery pack.

+1 for "24/7/52"

When I were a lad... 1 (It is in fact more than half a lifetime ago.)

My first permanent & pensionable job included the work hours defined as Thirty seven and a half hours per week taking one week with another. 2 What was extra in one week could be balanced out the week after. A couple of hours this week for an external reason could be made up next week.

My then manager took me aside after a couple of months and explained, that if the job didn't broadly fit the hours defined in the contract then one of two things was wrong.

Either the role (including tasks and time) was badly defined.

Or the employee's approach to the role and the work as wrong 3

Figure out which it is and address it

Has stuck with me since - to the extent that when work mobiles became common place I'd power down the phone shortly after getting home. Out of hours was not categorically ruled out - but it is the exception not the rule and it involves a quid pro quo.

1 Takes brief diversion for Monty Python sketch....

2 Those of a certain age and/or background may recognise the phrase

3 Including the possibility that they just didn't have the requisite skills

A company added an on call requirement. I agreed as long as it was paid back in overtime, three hours off for each hour worked - and each interruption an hour long. So, a one hour or five minute call, that's three hours off when it suits me. A one hour and five minute call, that's six hours off when suits me.

I wasn't married so didn't mind working outside hours but I deeply resented having to stay sober. ish.

I worked for a global group and the French and Belgian employees were a joke, the only times you could contact them was 10am to 11:30am, plus 2pm to 4pm. And good for them.

Surely it is well known that there is an optimal level of blood alcohol for coding?

... did not have a minimum number of hours to work. They grinned when they said that if they came in only an hour a day the their boss would have a word. Thinking about it now, that is actually giving the management rather a lot of licence.