Poor planning resulting in overtime

1886

I've been in my current job almost a year and on the whole I really enjoy it, the one and only issue I have with the place is the lack of planning.

My role within the company means that I'm the final stage within every job. After me the product goes directly to the customer. This is where the problem starts.

At every other stage of the job people take as long as they like and by the time the final product gets to me I don't have enough time to do my job. I'm more and more often asked to do overtime to compensate for the poor planning.

Last month I did 45 hours overtime. Initially I liked doing overtime but now I feel that it's just 'expected' of me. I have a life and commitments outside of work and a wife that I pick up directly from work 2-3 times a week.

Today for example I did'nt get to start a certain job until after 3.30pm when I finish at 5.00pm. I had already told my manager that I needed at least two hours, once I got to view the job in more detail when it was handed to me I could see that it would actually take at least 2.5 hours.

I've already spoken to my manager about the issues of not having enough time to do a job that the customer will be happy with and he has assured me that he is trying to get things to run more smoothly.

Today I left at 5.00pm and did'nt do any overtime as I had plans after work. There are also three other employees who are meant to help me when they're on site but only one of them ever does, the other two tend to hide. Again my manager is aware of this but it continues.

I don't want to be awkward but the way I feel right now is that after speaking to my manager and there being no changes in the planning my only option is to just work my contracted hours. I get the feeling that they think I'll just stay late to save the day yet again and use this as a buffer for poor planning.

Opinions please

Snakey

Sounds familiar. If you step up, before you know it there'll be an expectation that you'll always do that and people will start to factor it in to their own deadlines, meaning you have to work later and later to pull the sausages out of the fire for them and get less and less appreciation (while back home your wife forgets what you look like and starts to consider her own options). If you don't step up, you're letting the team down.

So it's line in the sand stuff, since you will have to say "no more" at some point there's a lot to be said for doing so right away.

The question is: is your manager actually in the process of doing something about this, or is it empty sympathy in the sense that the bottom line remains that you are expected to just get on with it?

If it's the former, you should ask to be kept informed of what he's up to and when you should expect to see an improvement. That way you can monitor for yourself whether it's doing any good.

If it's the latter, you could consider:
a) getting his support for saying "no", either up front or after a certain number of hours even if it means client deadlines are missed (unlikely - if he had that sort of clout, this wouldn't be happening);
b) negotiating a higher salary in return for an assumed amount of overtime (I'm assuming here that you don't otherwise get paid for it), this will be good if you then don't need to do as much but it doesn't solve your problem of work/life balance it just compensates you for it;
c) negotiating some sort of trade-off, such as flexitime or monthly/annualised hours so that when the quiet times come around you can take extra time off; or
d) leaving - although this comes with the question "in my line of work, will everywhere I go be the same?"