Context: Senior engineer on £40k based in Edinburgh. Leading a £65m healthcare project with minimal support or oversight. Only chance of hitting deadlines whilst maintaining any semblance of quality would be to pull some epic evening and weekend shifts for a few months, not compatible with 2hrs commuting per day and young family at home!

So, is it unreasonable to expect a more manageable workload for the salary, or should I just count myself lucky and suck it up?

Can manage the stress at the moment but only by ‘disengagement’ i.e. working contracted hours and switching off in the evening and weekends. However this isn’t getting the work done and will only come up to bite me in the ass long term.

Boss is aware and is a decent guy, but doesn’t seem able to help, think whole office is chronically over-stretched.

The only solution I can see is quitting and seeking a similarly paid role elsewhere, but am loathe to do this oit of loyalty if nothing else, and of course there is a risk that a £40k salary comes with expectations attached, i.e. stress and long hours!

How would you even go about applying for an ‘easier’ job without setting off alarm bells with prospective employers?

Ta

The only solution I can see is quitting and seeking a similarly paid role elsewhere, but am loathe to do this oit of loyalty if nothing else, and of course there is a risk that a £40k salary comes with expectations attached, i.e. stress and long hours!

In your industry not much chance of getting out of that!! It’s an industry that is set to permanent fire fighting it seems and having been involved in some major health projects from the other side a massive political animal. There is not enough money to do it right in the project and make money in most cases and the contractors all seem to be based on getting 120% from their people and assets.

How would you even go about applying for an ‘easier’ job without setting off alarm bells with prospective employers?

Gob shut and apply, if everyone is as stressed as you they won’t notice!!
If you want a reality check work out your hourly rate compared to working contracted hours.

Get unionised and refuse to work over yo9ur contracted hours.

In situations like this you are allowing the senior bosses to get away with abusing you and your commitment. People working unpaid overtime allows companies to get away with understaffing. Refuse to do it. Your bosses are making mo0ney off your unpaid overtime

Mind you that is a good salary.

Move to IT. A £40K IT job could never be described as stressful/.

TJ, the Stockholm syndrome is strong with this one, I refuse to believe the company is deliberately taking advantage etc. Think MikeW’s post is closer to the mark, just doing what they can in the market perhaps!

Thanks both for the quick reality checks though, options appear to be suck it up or gun for a lower salary!

Some stress is OK, can be counterproductive though. My view,; speak to your manager, there may be more help for you? Have you spoken to your partner about the situation? If it’s limited, then a bit of weekend and evening might be do-able?

Can you wfh a day a week and safe yourself 2 hours commute, I pretty much work from home 4 days a week now, I go into my local office to avoid cabin fever at times

I have a reasonable boss and far too much work on, I’m sticking to my hours as otherwise output will become expected ..
I am occasionally highly strung and stressed and as you turn off in evenings and weekends. Exercise and eat well, avoid excessive alcohol

Speak to your boss stating you are overworked and stressed and make sure it’s been communicated,
I disagree with others £40k salary is not a position that should be stressful, I’d want to be earning 6 figures if I lived and breathed a company unless I loved/lived the job.. I see them at work they burn out or jump ship before they are found out.
Had my regular call with the team yesterday morning, boss started with I got some bad news to tell you, not another restructure was my first thought , no it was colleague X’s brother died in an accident at the weekend so he’ll be off for a good few weeks ..

Lives too short Carpe diem

Generally I think loyalty for a workplace is misguided. It is a professional relationship which either works or does not. Your company would not think twice in making your role redundant if needed.

Loyalty gets you nowhere IMHO, and £40k pa for leading a £65m project is peanuts.

Think of it this way, a bogo Site Engineer who can set out and mark up as-builts etc will earn £350 per day, so in 22 working weeks they’ve earned (before deductions) £40k, and that job is about as stressful as eating breakfast.

and of course there is a risk that a £40k salary comes with expectations attached, i.e. stress and long hours!

No. It doesn’t. The salary is to buy your skills and experience, not your mental health.

Tell your boss that you need someone to help you and that you wouldn’t want a £65,000,000 project to fail for the want of a proportion of an additional £40,000 a year engineer for a period of time.

Ps. A corporate company will pay you as little as they can get away with, therefore do as a little work as you can get away with

Not sure what field you’re in but are you doing stuff on the project that wouldn’t normally be in your role? Like project management? If so I’d push back hard on that and flag up you think the project is at risk of not meeting deadlines/targets if your time continues to be diverted to tasks you shouldn’t be doing.

I work in IT and these days I’ll usually just refuse to pick up tasks that aren’t part of my role, might not sound like a team player but once you start picking up additional stuff (like paperwork the PM should be doing) it just gets assumed you’ll do it from there on in and people keep asking for more and more things.

Get unionised and refuse to work over yo9ur contracted hours.

I’ll hazard a guess and say that, like  every job I’ve had for the last 25 years,his contract contains a clause that says that he needs to work core hours plus as many unpaid additional hours as the company may require to get the job done.

Nickc, agreed, I’ve always said that I can never find top gear at work until under a bit of stress, but the best analogy now is top gear, engine racing but wheels spinning in the mud!

Manager given me all the assistance available, apparently mine is not the only under-resourced and over stretched project in the office!

Partner is grudgingly putting up with hours, ‘fortunately’ she was laid off recently with a reasonable settlement, so can hack the additional parenting duties, but once she’s back working it just won’t fly.

Have three different deadlines in a row coming up, will need to muddle through and take stock once on the other side, meanwhile try and figure out how much of a pay cut we could swallow…

No. It doesn’t. The salary is to RENT your skills and experience, not your mental health.

Fixed.

If your considering making up for your employers time with your own, something is wrong.   There’s “going the extra mile”in the hope for promotion, overtime pay etc, then there’s fixing someone else problem with your time and health.

Let it fail, highlighting this issue upward at every opportunity in writing (email) and if they don’t fix it its their issue.  If they point the finger at you, leave and let some other mug fill the gap.

Sorry to say it but for £40k I wouldn’t be expecting stress and long hours! I also wouldn’t be expecting someone on £40k to be leading a £65m project. You need to ask your boss if he wants the project to succeed or not. If he wants it to succeed then it needs to be properly resourced. If there are no consequences for failure then just crack on, but frankly in that situation it doesn’t matter what hours you work so you may as well chill!!!

Ian ,

Your not alone.

Have similar issues here , with a supervisor from a country where he believe the right thing to do is work till 10pm every night and all weekend – as he has been doing for the last 6 months…. so no sympathy there – the quote of yesterday to the workshop staff was “they will work until the job is done*

As it stands I’ve been managed out of my job and i couldn’t be happier.

I’ve bumped into half the office at interviews for other roles…..

While there is an aspect of extra working to meet deadlines which I’ve always been happy to do – we are talking a couple of weeks ahead of…. but as mike says – constant firefighting is causing the expectation for constant extra hours and people are voting with their feet . seems to be the only way out of the situation

If deadlines are being missed because you have too much work to do then you shouldn’t agree to the deadlines. Additional hours are sometimes necessary to handle the occasional unforseen glitch, not as a matter of course. For £40k a year you should at least have learnt to say “no”  If you don’t have that skill then nothing will change by jumping ship.

Thanks folks, taking this all on board.

Small point of correction for what it’s worth, overall project value is £65m, the portion of that for which we are responsible is approx £6.5m, actual value to company a tenth of that again… Thankfully that particular £65m buck doesn’t stop with me…

If you are determined to stick at it then make proper use of project structures and governance. Flag up a lack of resource as a critical/red risk, make the Project Board or bosses aware and detail suitable mitigation (More time, more resource etc) and then work normal hours at normal stress levels in the knowledge that you have offloaded ownership of that risk to someone paid more than you.

Sounds like you need to spend some time on your Project Risk register and exception reporting.

(edited upon clarity of size of project/workstreams)

Small point of correction for what it’s worth, overall project value is £65m, the portion of that for which we are responsible is approx £6.5m, actual value to company a tenth of that again… Thankfully that particular £65m buck doesn’t stop with me…

Complete change of view from me now the number have changed, so £40k pa to be a Senior Engineer on a £650k project worth, crack on chap that’s naff all, ride the busy times and live the not so busy times.

For £40k a year you should at least have learnt to say “no” If you don’t have that skill then nothing will change by jumping ship

The salary doesn’t reflect what I know or have learnt from previous projects, rather it’s a reward for toeing the company (or perhaps industry) line of just getting on with things and achieving whatever deadlines are imposed upon us. There is little or no negotiation involved in deadlines and the expectation is that resource will just be thrown at a problem until the deadline is met.

But yes, I have also come to suspect I’m under-qualified/over-promoted…

so £40k pa to be a Senior Engineer on a £650k project worth, crack on chap that’s naff all

Haha, bugger, did think I was getting too much sympathy, in fairness it’s not my only project… 😉

The only solution I can see is quitting and seeking a similarly paid role elsewhere, but am loathe to do this oit of loyalty if nothing else, and of course there is a risk that a £40k salary comes with expectations attached, i.e. stress and long hours!

I earn more than that, and very much work on the basis of as soon as i’m our of the door at 5pm on the dot, i’m not even considering work, until i’m walking back in the door the next day. I expect the same from my team, albeit in a sales environment, I do expect a ‘bit’ of stress & pressure to aim for targets set – but that’s partly why we do it. The big but is, it has to be manageable, as soon as it starts to get out of control, the problems start.

This is from experience, of being in a role with a monster commute, long hours and bucket loads of stress (but a hell of a lot more money) – even with that, it’s not worth it. Maybe as i’ve been out of that environment for a while now I can look back & say what the hell was I thinking.

Sorry to say it but for £40k I wouldn’t be expecting stress and long hours! I also wouldn’t be expecting someone on £40k to be leading a £65m project.

You either haven’t worked in construction or outside London then.

Could have got this very wrong but are you delegating enough to the subcontractors? On jobs like the one you describe, your job should pretty much be identifying where other people’s calcs/details/programmes are wrong. If you can suggest solutions all to the good but basically if the fine detail should be down to others.

Only saying this because this is where I fall down all the time.

From experience everyone is in their own little hole of overwork, and stress is often seen as part of the job. Unless you explain to your manager that you are about to go ‘pop’ (as someone I used to work for was fond of putting it), possibly in writing no-one will take you seriously. Don’t explain your situation in terms of family life, that is none of their business and gives them a get out, but in terms of your ability to deliver the job.

Sorry if I’ve got this completely wrong but your description sounds like situations I’ve been in before

Could have got this very wrong but are you delegating enough to the subcontractors?

I think my over-egging project value has confused you a bit, we effectively ARE one of the subs, a sub-consultant if you will, but otherwise you’re mostly right, I should be managing project whilst delegating the bulk of the design downwards, as I can’t spend all day travelling/in meetings, like today, whilst also producing detailed design packages!

Problem is lack of people to delegate down to…

move jobs. lifes too short.

i`m on more money than you and less stress for a less important role in teh same industry. although i was in your boat not long ago.

the company is in the business of making money and will pay as little as it can for as much as it can get. if you get a pay rise you’ll still have all hte stress. the only way to make a difference to your stress is leave. you’ll probably get a pay rise for that too.

the way i see it is there is no point killing yourself for someone elses profit.

Whilst others have said ‘suck it up’ I know from experience that you can’t put a price on your mental health; if the reason you’re able to work the long hours is because your Mrs isn’t working then I would flag this up with your manager, pointing out that she’s looking for employment and your extended hours aren’t sustainable.

Keep track of your hours, if you’re not already, so you can demonstrate how many you’re working. If they seem uninterested in supporting you then it’s not worth sticking around – don’t push on until things start to crack.

Problem is lack of people to delegate down to…

I hear you on FM buddy .

looking at your posts i think i was in a very similar situation. i used to say to my boss i can do the management OR the designs but not both (which is what they needed).

i used to get given staff but they were unskilled and caused more problems not less. and once i’d trained them up they’d get moved in teh business. it was super stressful and it affected my home life. I stuck it out as long as i could for convenience but have actually found that other companies can be just as flexible and actually look after you better.

after doing a days worth of overtime in a week my director said to teh accontant ‘thats part of his role’ and refused to pay me my overtime. I went nuts. i got paid i got better staff and a decent pay rise but within a year it was back to the same old crap.

life is too short – get a different job. prioritise happiness

I should be managing project whilst delegating the bulk of the design downwards, as I can’t spend all day travelling/in meetings, like today, whilst also producing detailed design packages!

Problem is lack of people to delegate down to…

A friend of mine is going through a similar thing with a consultant in the south west. The construction industry lost a lot of good people in the recession – the problem is that when the industry picked up again, we didn’t get those people back. Those of us that were lucky enough to keep our jobs were then loaded with the additional increased workload but with no extra resources or support.

It caused me to leave the construction sector about two years ago. I miss the people, but I’m glad I don’t have the same level of anxiety as before. Life is too short.

Brief thoughts:

Firstly it is very obvious the job is under-resourced.

It is your job to make the consequences of this clear, ie failure to meet deadline equals costs blowout etc.

That’s what a good manager should do, a supervisor just keeps trucking on into disaster.

The trick is doing it in such a way that you don’t offend the upper management who often seem to be operating on “If I say it is so, it must be so” and are under pressure to squeeze the last penny out.

It’s a good idea to find out what is their pressure point and frame everything around exploiting it in your solution, ie make them aware of the problem, but accompany it with an acceptable solution.

Along the lines of “This is at risk of going to shit, but if we do this we can fix it”

You need more staff etc by the sound of it, but you’re in the box seat so you’ll know best. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of old-fashioned empire building if it’s justified. 🙂

Successful life in a hierarchal system is about making the boss above you look good to his bosses. Present the solution in such a manner.

And having solved the problem and now having more resources and responsibilities to manage, you deserve more remuneration.

What sector are we talking? Is it construction and if so what are you designing?
I manage up to £7million jobs on a day to day basis single handedly, with my boss, owner of the company placing 75 percent of the orders and me 25 percent, however as mentioned above we have a core team of subbies to complete the works. My industry is shed building and the infrastructure that comes with it, roads and sewers, power etc.
We also use an independent structural engineer, and architect who to be fair it would seem just draws nice pictures and gets it through planning and final certification for his 1.5 percent of pv 😂

I went through something similar a number of years ago. It made me very ill astonishingly quickly and wound up costing me my job. I vowed never again.

What it boils down to is simply this: would you work for free? If you’re contracted for 40 hours a week and are working 60, you’ve effectively just agreed to a 33% pay cut.

I’m more than happy to work back half an hour on a given day so long as a) it’s atypical and b) the door swings both ways. Ie, if I then want to leave half an hour early next week no-one will bat an eyelid. If you want me to work to rule then I will and you won’t like it.

If you’re regularly working extra hours week-in, week-out then you’re being taken advantage of. In this situation I’d be looking to manage expectations – doubly so if your job is actually to manage time! Set deadlines or explain that they can’t be met and why. If you need more manpower then the business should be providing that, if they don’t and the deadlines are missed then they only have themselves to blame.

I’ll hazard a guess and say that, like every job I’ve had for the last 25 years,his contract contains a clause that says that he needs to work core hours plus as many unpaid additional hours as the company may require to get the job done.

Unfair contracts are unenforceable. To my mind this sort of clause is intended to cover what I mentioned above – putting in extra hours occasionally in exceptional circumstances. If it becomes the norm and expected / demanded then something is wrong, they’re taking advantage.

I’ve just spent the last six months working 9 to 10 to 11 hour days and doing the work of two people because they sacked the guy that worked with me out of the blue for no apparent reason.

I should have seen it coming really, guess what happened to me yesterday, out of the blue and for no apparent reason 🙁

Loyalty goes one way with work, we’re just numbers on a balance sheet and one stressed out employee is cheaper than two with reasonable workloads.

I’ll hazard a guess and say that, like every job I’ve had for the last 25 years,his contract contains a clause that says that he needs to work core hours plus as many unpaid additional hours as the company may require to get the job done.

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

You cannot sign away your other rights under WTD including minimum rest periods etc.

13th – indeed the Stockholm syndrome is strong in you. Of course they are deliberately taking advantage of you. If you refused to work unpaid overtime then they would either have to hire someone else or miss the deadlines. If you work the unpaid overtime and hit the deadlines you ave just saved them tens of thousands

sustainable development isn’t it. Agile methodology.
extended hours, mental health, that’s not sustainable.

At what point in a salaried job is overtime compulsory? I’m here at 7.30, but some days I’ll come in at 8.30 for say kids birthday etc. Sometimes I’ll come in on a Saturday, more to see the lads and who’s turned up. I don’t get paid any extra, does that make me a bit of a mug?

Oh – and on stress. Someone said you shouldn’t have a stressfull job at £40 000. Try telling that to public servants! My missus almost broken by stress in a job not much more than half that. Teachers, policemen, Nurses, paramedics etc etc. These are properly stressful jobs with a salery much lower than £40 000 😉

Wrightyson “sometimes” is a key word and also the ability to take time back. Averaging your hours over weeks is fine so long as it is your choice and long hours are only for exceptional situations