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Nobody should have their mental health put at risk by work.
TBH, that's all the answer this thread really needed.
It astonishes me how some folk are willing to run themselves into the ground for no financial remuneration, out of some sort of misplaced work ethic or loyalty to a company that would in return give zero shits about getting rid of them in a heartbeat. (And as I said, I've been there, I'm not having a pop at anyone.) The notion of "jobs for life" died out two generations ago.
Im not getting paid any extra, I'm on salary. I get a set amount each month. When I say I come in on a Saturday I will literally pop in, sometimes once a month, sometimes never, however I've been in the last 3 due to imminent handover, but I combine it with taking the daughter to work, or going for a ride, I don't mind, I see the job as my baby and actually care about what is going on. Suppose that's what you get working for a very small company, just the two of us.
I've looked at a change in the past then i look at what I've got going on and being in construction and never having to travel is unheard of, probably could have got loads of training and be wherever in a big company but my home life has always took priority. Probably why I'll never be well off, just happy instead.
I work in a consulting engineers so have some experience of the situation. First off 40k isn't a lot even if it's 'only' a 650k job you're leading. I certainly wouldn't be getting stressed for 40k a year. Secondly it depends on how ambitious you are. If you want to climb the ladder where you are then you'll (probably) have to get on with it. Conversely though, it won't reflect well with seniors if you fail to report that you cannot succeed with the resources you have, or if you're becoming stressed which might result in failure of the project. It's a delicate balancing act. The other option is to not give a shit, work your contracted hours even if it means the project going down the pan, give up on progression where you are, and then when you want more money/promotion, get a job somewhere else. If you're lucky you might even be given the push with a nice payoff and a reference.
This is such utter nonsense and an unfair contract condition. Does that mean you are signing away your rights under working time directive to a max 48 hour week? Illegal to make this part of the contract.
Compulsory unpaid overtime is illegal
It’s a fairly standard clause for salaried employees in the Construction industry and it’s only unfair if I let it be, which I don’t.
And yes, like everyone else in my position I have signed my rights away to the max week under the WTD.
There has never been a situation where I have been compelled to work unpaid overtime but I do it quite often to cope with peaks in my workload, because it suits me to do so.
WAs signing your rights away to the 48 hr week a condition of the post? cos that is illegal. Ie if they wouldn't employ you unless you waive the rights
Nope, entirely voluntary.
I can opt back in at any time but I won’t.
There may be many people getting taken advantage of in the construction industry but very,very few of them will be QS’s. 😉
Surely a QS should know exactly how much stress will be involved in any given project?
Surely a QS should know exactly how much stress will be involved in any given project?
I always price that item as “By others” 😉
i’m not even considering work, until i’m walking back in the door the next day. I expect the same from my team
Fortunately my manager has this approach and so I have a rose tinted view of things. In an ideal world, everyone would take this view and resource appropriately. "Ideal world" he says...
tjagain
Get unionised and refuse to work over yo9ur contracted hours.
You know that is almost impossible to orchestrate in a competitive commercial world and would involve many years of increased stress to even try?
Mind you that is a good salary.
I'm not sure it is that good, but have you considered whether your inclination to "work to rule" makes you less likely to be better rewarded?
If you are managing the project can you not do something about it?
If you can't make the plan work on the current resourcing then push out the timeline. What are the consequences of missing the deadline? If the deadline is important to some one then they'll fund more staff to hit it.
With so many projects I've worked on there has been a super incredibly important deadline that we simply cannot miss. We occasionally miss them, the world keeps turning.
A small amount of stress is acceptable, however, the point at which it affects your mental or physical health it is not.
I always price that item as “By others”
😂😂😂😂
lol stockholm syndrome. it's always good to find a new job as loyalty almost never pays off. for stress, asmr helps with me dealing with stress, so you might try that out.
Some stress is OK, can be counterproductive though.
Stress is never OK. I'm not saying it doesn't exist and more so in some jobs. Nor am i saying that we don't have effective strategies for coping with it from time to time. But if we get to the point where we consider stress to be normal, we're missing the point.
PRESSURE - is what we are really thinking of. Pressure can be a good thing, it focuses the mind, extracts the extra 5% of performance and so on. It's when you can't control the response to pressure that it becomes stress.
Quite interesting that comment of pressure over stress. I found myself talking to our client a couple of times during this recent project and I recall saying that I was under a lot of pressure to make it happen, he commented that pressure was a good thing. I'm sure he doesn't gaf either way but I cant recall myself talking of being under pressure before.
I was in a similar situation over the last couple of years - managing multiple projects all with similar deadlines, very little support and one job (the biggest one) which had problems and time extensions (the joys of refurbing a 30 year old building....).
Don't put up with it - try and get some more help or just say you can't meet the deadlines.
Add in to this that my Mom got really ill really quickly and passed away, messed around by Hospital with death cert etc, trying to help my Dad and comfort my two kids - and got back to work after 2 weeks off to find that nothing had been done on any of the projects.
I pushed through and ended up nearly ruining my marriage and then having a breakdown the back end of last year resulting in 2 months off and so far 6 months on meds and counselling.
It's not worth your mental health or causing issues within the family.
I’m not sure it is that good, but have you considered whether your inclination to “work to rule” makes you less likely to be better rewarded?
Not in the slightest. I work in a profession with regulated / government set salaries. I work at the level that suits me best. My salary is what it is. There is no scope for altering it
I used to work in project management, specifically retail industry- so managing the construction and refurbishment of shops and other commercial properties.
It was fine, the company that employed me had 4 of us doing the work and it was just about manageable, rare that I'd do hours on a weekend, but I'd do maybe 4 hours a week over my contracted hours to keep the work manageable.
Then we had a round of redundancy, we went from 4 to 3 with a plan to sub out the work, two years later only one job had been subbed out and I was doing twice the workload. Traveling 4 days out of 5 and never being able to catch up.....
So one Sunday afternoon I just quit.
Luckily the wife and I had bought our own shop so I'd a job to fall back on. so I had a massive pay cut but also a massive boost in quality of life. I still get stressed but it's much more manageable, running out of milk vs running out of time/cash on millions of pounds worth of jobs!