If in an interview for a office job they tell you flat out that you will have to often work on weekends and sometimes till 10 at night how would you respond ?

To me it seems like you made the wrong judgment of them. Not respecting your personal life? I see it as them warning you in advance since they understand many people take the weekends off. I don’t know what the details of this potential job is, but perhaps it’s one that requires weekend attendance for one reason or another. I don’t know if they’re trying to leech your time or take advantage of you, either, so let me know if you have more information on this management.

How would you respond if you don’t really believe in working on the weekends but at the same time find the role interesting?
Again, I guess I’d have to have more information. This job wouldn’t be ideal, as it would go against my beliefs, but what is my current situation? How important is this job to me? Are there other jobs I can consider? It’s not really a black & white kind of thing. If I reached back to them, I’d probably inquire further about work schedules: What weekend times are ideal for the job? How many weekends working a month would be average? How many hours each weekend are average?

I would actually have more respect for the candidate that opposes it as opposed to one that agrees to it. What about you ?
Someone’s work schedule preferences has nothing to do with my respect for them. Feel whatever you want, but the one who agrees is going to be the one with the job.

I would have said, “thank you for seeing me but I don’t think this will work out” and would have left . Rather, this is how I would have reacted if I had access to food, utilities and rent and this was my first interview. But this is coming from a woman who left a job after one day because my feet hurt. Plus, I hated the boss. What a lech.

If you want the job, I would not respond negatively. I once interviewed at Aldus and they told me that 50 hour a week work weeks were the minimum expected. I told them thank you, but I was not at a point in my life when I wished to work those hours.

Depends on the job, salary, prospects, my age, family status, priorities, how much I need the job, the job market etc. If I am not getting help from anywhere and have to depend on my job to make a living, then I would accept with pleasure and do my best till something else comes along. It also depends on qualifications and competition. If there is a slim chance of finding something better, then go ahead pronto!

Seems like they are being upfront and honest with you. If you don’t want to work those hours, don’t take the job. I can’t fault someone for laying out the requirements of the job just because I don’t like them. Accepting a job should be a mutual agreement. As an employer I will lay what I need. As a prospective employee you should lay out what you will or can do. If they don’t match, both should look elsewhere.

^ An interview is a two-way process. They’re telling you the conditions of the job. They need someone who will work weekends and until 10pm on occasions. If that doesn’t work for you, you say thank you but no thank you. They are respecting your personal choice by being honest and upfront with you as @Jaxk said.

Not all office jobs have 9–5 hours.

It would help to give you advice to know more details.

If you have a job where you are working some kind of shift work, and you go into the job knowing your shift is every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night (or day, for that matter), then that is what it is. Now if it’s a regular Monday thru Friday job and they’re also telling you that you will be working most weekends IN ADDITION TO the Monday thru Friday, then that, to me, is a bit much, a bit crazy, and probably not do-able. That’s just me. It also depends (again, to me, my opinion), if it’s all part of your salary, or are you going to be getting overtime (and whether or not that all makes a difference to you depends on the type of work it is, how badly you need the job and money, and the type of job). It also depends on your availability. If you want the job, need the job, and can spare the time, it’s a different situation then if you don’t really need the job that badly or if you have young kids and want to be around for them on the weekends. Again, it depends on a bunch of factors, and some more details from you would be helpful.

A friend of mine is a night nursing supervisor at a nursing home. She works every weekend, Saturday and Sunday nights, 12 hours each night. She took the job knowing that it is every Saturday and Sunday night. That’s what they needed. That’s what she can do. Now, that, to me, is a bit different then them saying we need you to work M-F, 9–5, but you are going to have so much work that you are going to have to come in most weekends.

I never wanted to have to work weekends, holidays, nights, which is part of the reason why I did not become a nurse or do any kind of hospital work.

Can you give some more details?

Hey, at least the employer is being honest and telling you what kind of hours you will expected to work. Just think, if you took the job, had not been told about the hours or week-end work and how angry you would be about it because you hadn’t been forewarned. At least, they are telling you upfront. You have to decide if you are willing to work those hours or not. Some people don’t mind working odd hours, while others find it unbearable. You will have to weigh the pros and cons to the job and figure out if it is a good fit or not. I am betting, that it is not a good fit for you, just a gut feeling.

Working long hours including weekends can pay off dividends both in income potential and experience gained while working that job especially if you “find the role interesting”. Paying your dues is what it is all about if you want to achieve career goals you have set for yourself. Right out of college I immersed myself in starting two companies….it was a struggle to say the least. 16 years later I threw in the towel to take a sales position at one of my suppliers in order to pay the bills and have the insurance beni’s…worked my a$$ off and 14 years later I own the company. I set goals and knew it would take a lot of patience, blood, sweat and tears by the bucket full and now can look back over the last 30 years and embrace all the sacrifices, ass kissing and hard work it took to achieve the goals I set for myself. Most jobs are just stepping stones to that next bigger, better and more exciting opportunity….just make sure it is right for you and do not pass on it! Good luck!

If I needed a job, liked the the company I interviewed with and had no other prospects—and if the salary and benefits met my needs—I’d accept the job, weekend work and all. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

ok…. thanks.

I didn’t respond negatively. ( well I don’t think so anyway)

In the same way they were honest with me I made it clear to them that I had never been asked to work on the weekends in any of my jobs and never had a problem reaching my goals and that I appreciated their honesty and I would have to therefore think about it, carefully.

They appreciated my honesty.

Well I really like the company and the job on paper but this is the only thing that was making me a bit unsure. This also was not put on paper. They only said so in the interview.

I am also not the kind of person to just take a job just like that. I think it is important to do what you love. Maybe that might require working long hours but I am not just going to say yes yes yes to everything an employer says.

I think there are many different types of careers. For some people the long hour thing doesn’t bother them and for others it does.

People tell me as it is a great opportunity in terms of pay , experience etc. I should just go for it etc.

The company actually also told me I can have a trial period if I want to. So I think they are being quite honest and open about everything and understanding in a kind of way.

And well also I am a woman so I am kind of afraid it might affect my family life as I am at a point in my life where I am thinking of having a family with my husband . So it is kind of complicated I guess.

I think if it was 10 years ago when I was now starting out and single , I would probably just say yes to everything.

@chinchin31: On weekends, is it salaried or is it overtime?

Also, on weekends, is it “come in for a few hours to work on a project” kind of thing or is it a full shift? Both days on weekends or just one?

it is not salaried. They said this. They don’t pay for over time . It might be full shift or part time. They can’t really say for sure how often it takes place or when . So it sounds adhoc to me

Different strokes for different folks. That kind of schedule is not for me.

yeah. I think I would only sign up for it on a trial basis.
Also it is strange when I first met the HR person , he told me someone was in the role. When I met the people I would be working it , they told me it would be a new role. So I am getting a bit suspicious that someone might have walked out of the role. Ah the joys of the corporate world. You never know the truth until you actually join do you haha

It seems like they don’t know much themselves – how often you will have to work, whatever. I would proceed with caution. If all else sounds great, you may want to give it a go, if the schedule is one you can handle. However, if it was too many weekends, in addition to Monday thru Friday, that would be too much for most people. If they have so much work that you have to work so much extra, that just means they are short staffed and need to hire another person but are trying to get away with not doing so.

yeah or just really disorganised and all over the place.

It sounds to me like “oh hellzz no!” LOL

yeah I am kind feeling this….just from the interview alone….

Usually when you feel like this it is probably 10 times worse in reality.

The fact that they told you that they do not offer salary options nor overtime is a HUGE red flag….do not abandon your position as a human to be treated humanely as no job no matter how much they may pay you to work like a dog is worth that kind of sacrifice. Lay it out what you want and expect from this company and in writing and if they refuse….hit the high road.

All work & no play makes “Jack/Jill” a dull boy/girl.

At first glance, I kind of chuckled as there are times where I’ve had that Saturday morning phone call and others where I wound up staying until 2AM. (That was back when I still did day-shift; allegedly 0700–1530, but it rarely worked out that way). So I saw it as them just being straight-up with you.

However, the “not salaried but don’t pay overtime” bit is a red flag. Many of my co-workers jump on overtime simply because the high base wage makes time-and-a-half ridiculously profitable. One thing I made very clear is that I don’t work for free; if I’m working, I’m getting paid for it. Employers are not the only ones that can dictate terms.

@Cruiser I’m more concerned about the overtime as I cannot see myself ever going on salary voluntarily, at least not for anything that isn’t at least five times what I make now (basically, enough to put me in the 1%), nor can I see any sane person doing it unless there is some sort of agreement as to restricting hours in a way that doesn’t exploit them. Then again, maybe the Navy soured me on the whole salary thing :/

This company that @chinchin31 interviewed with probably needs 80 hours of labor, so instead of hiring two workers, they’re trying to get away with hiring one and just demanding weekends and night work. I say (again, as I said above), helllz no.

I work in an industry where weekends, late nights, and holidays are the norm; so the hours wouldn’t be an issue. The lack of OT pay for hourly workers is a huge red flag though.

It depends on the company and what they do. If their structure and their work calls for it, then you have approached the potential job with an inappropriate attitude. (In my field, I have worked holidays, weekends, and sometimes nights for 30 years – it is what it is.)

Honestly, I have to wonder if you fill a certain generational stereotype when I read you “don’t really believe in working on the weekends”.

@syz: That’s why I was asking for more details regarding pay, etc. It it’s a job where she is hired intentionally to fill a weekend shift, then it’s definitely part of the equation (see my example above about a nursing supervisor at a nursing home). If they are talking about 80 hours of work per week for a small salary, then no, to me, it’s not worth it. In that case, they really need two employees, not one. If they’re talking about overtime pay and/or not that much mandatory overtime, then maybe it’s do-able, depending on the applicant.

You don’t want this. 50–60 hour work weeks with no overtime = slavery, misery and poor quality of life.

@ARE_you_kidding_me And that is also why unions were originally founded and government regulation crept in.

@syz Hard to say. I work with enough kids (18–22) that have no issues working beyond the scheduled 40 so long as they get “major bank” for the OT. I’m not of that generation, and prefer not to work weekends, but both the kids and the adults where I work are equally likely to seek out a weekend shift to add another 15–18 hours to the check for only 10–12 hours work. Then again, the lazy ones don’t last a month in my field.

I work for government (under a union contract) where if you work late, you get paid OT. If you work weekends, you get a certain amount for Saturday and more for Sunday. If you work a holiday, you get double time and comp time, hour for hour. If you work past a certain time of night, you get dinner allowance.

With the additional information about not being paid for these additional work hours, I think you should definitely give this one a big miss. It’s good they’re telling you up-front but unless you’re desperate for a job, I see no reason to agree to slave labour. If it was a salaried position and you were being compensated for the hours, fair enough but otherwise, regular unpaid overtime is exploitation. That they think it’s okay to tell you unpaid overtime is an expected part of the job is a huge red flag to me and I don’t see any point in pushing for better conditions within the interview. Just walk away and be glad they were honest.

I’m still questioning the legality here….

Family is everything and trying to justify a great career/job opportunity is only going to trip you up down the road when you do have a family. Raising kids will demand of you every bit of your time and attention and having a job that will require you to hand off that responsibility to others so you can punch the clock of a job will be chaotic at best especially when you or your child is ill. Find a job for half the pay that will allow you the freedom to be a future mom/wife who can work at your job without the demands of a 70 hour work week.

@jerv Not arguing against that, I’m a member of a small union. It’s corruption, politics and abuse in the large unions that I have an issue with.

@ARE_you_kidding_me I agree. It seems many things that started out great/noble have been twisted.

@Cruiser “Find a job for half the pay that will allow you the freedom…”
I get the feeling that this job would offer half the pay of Walmart if they could get away with it, and I’m not sure you’d want half of that.

I think you were taking it personally. I would agree if they said “You will be the only employee to work these hours.” But they just told you what their policy was.

My daughter has to be to work at 5:30 in the morning. Are they being disrespectful because most people don’t want to get up at 3:30 a.m. to get ready for work?

@Dutchess_III: Early shift is not the same, in my opinion, as “you will work 80 hours a week for 40 hours of pay.”

Where did you get they won’t pay overtime? I mean, that’s illegal!

@Dutchess_III: From the OP, @chinchin31 above: “it is not salaried. They said this. They don’t pay for over time . It might be full shift or part time. They can’t really say for sure how often it takes place or when . So it sounds adhoc to me.”

“It might be full shift or part time.” There was no suggestion in there of “working 80 hours and only paid for 40.” That might be an issue if they WERE salaried. Salaried people don’t get over time. Only hourly workers do.

It’s illegal to not pay over time for hourly workers who work more than 40 hours a week. My son is in kind of the same situation. He’s hourly. The company he works for doesn’t want to pay overtime, so if, for whatever reason, an employee hits that 40 hours early, they don’t have to work the rest of the their regularly scheduled shift. It’s for this reason he had all of last week off, because he’d worked his butt off on a special project the week before

Both he and his wife work at the same place. They both work Sundays, and his wife works every other Saturday. They have 3 kids. They knew what they were getting into when they agreed to go to work for this company.

Police and medical people work weekends and holidays. It’s not out of disregard, or disrespect for their “personal time.” It’s what is necessary.

@Dutchess_III: Yes, I explained in my posts above that there are some jobs where working nights and weekends is part of the deal from the beginning. Working shifts, like a cop, nurse, sewage treatment plan operator, fireman, ambulance driver. However, in the job that the OP was seeking, it seems it’s regular office hours with this extra OT thrown in. I believe she is incorrect when she says “it is not salaried” because if they’re not paying OT, then it’s salaried. It’s not hourly. She states in the comment I linked “they don’t pay for over time.” Therefore, they can make someone work as many hours as they want to, all for one amount. This type of treatment we’d expect maybe of an employee in upper management, who may make $150k and up but work as much as is needed, but not someone like the OP, who, I doubt is talking about a job such as that.

She said it could be “part time or full shifts.” Sounds like if they work a 10 hour day, then they make up for it by having them come in 2 hours late, or leave 2 hours early the next day. If they have to work on a Saturday, then they get a day off during the week.

If they’re hourly they HAVE to pay overtime. I was salaried at my own job, and that’s how they still did it. If I had to come in for a 4 hour meeting on a Friday (My contract specified I didn’t work on Fridays) I had the option of coming in after noon on Monday. I rarely took it tho. My students needed me

Just have to wait for her to clarify.

I also had another job that I took very seriously that was salaried. I often went in on Saturdays voluntarily to work because my customers depended on me. I also made phone calls from home.

But I’m curious….what kind of office job would expect you to work until 10 at night?

@Dutchess_III: It is not sounding like it means she comes in late if she works late. That would not be overtime. She is not saying anything about getting a day off if they work Saturday. She did not indicate anything about flexible hours. She did say that they don’t know how much or how often the overtime would be necessary, but in the Q itself it says “often on weekends and sometimes till 10 at night.”

It might be an office job for a lawyer (legal secretary, legal clerical), where there are things that need to be typed for court the next day. It might be some kind of administrative position where projects or reports need to be prepared for meetings.

Definition of salaried employee, as per the US Dept of Labor:

http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/fairpay/fs17a_overview.htm

As long as she makes at least $455 per week and meets other criteria, they don’t have to pay her overtime, and can consider her a salaried employee.

But she specifically states it is not salaried. You are basing all of your assumptions on the fact that she was wrong, and it IS a salaried position.

Wish the OP would come on clarify.

I am basing all my assumptions on the fact that if they’re not paying her overtime, and she makes at least $455, that meets the criteria for “salaried.”

You may know more than I do. I assume “salaried” is determined by the company, not the amount.
Either way, if the company ensures she doesn’t make $455 a week, she is not salaried. Refer back to my son’s situation.

@Dutchess_III: If you look at the link I put, the definition of “salaried” is definitely determined by the amount, plus some other criteria. Definitely not by title (as we all know, different places may give different titles to what is the same job). If she is making a bit more than $11 per hour, at 40 hours per week, she will hit $455. If the company wants to get many hours of labor out of her for the same price, it’s more advantageous to do it that way then to have her be an hourly worker and then have to pay overtime. Let’s say they chose to pay her $9 per hour. If she worked 40 hours she would make $360. But then they’d have to pay her OT. They’re better off paying her more so she makes $455 and then they can have her work 60 hours or more for the same price, if they want to.

As far as your son’s situation, as I said before, nowhere in the OP’s details or comments does she mention flex hours or getting time off to keep her hours below 40.

One reason I’m glad I don’t do office work

“The exemptions provided by FLSA Section 13(a)(1) apply only to “white collar” employees who meet the salary and duties tests set forth in the Part 541 regulations. The exemptions do not apply to manual laborers or other “blue collar” workers who perform work involving repetitive operations with their hands, physical skill and energy. FLSA-covered, non-management employees in production, maintenance, construction and similar occupations such as carpenters, electricians, mechanics, plumbers, iron workers, craftsmen, operating engineers, longshoremen, construction workers and laborers are entitled to minimum wage and overtime premium pay under the FLSA, and are not exempt under the Part 541 regulations no matter how highly paid they might be.”

@chinchin31 Was it a salaried or non-salaried position?

@Dutchess_III
It is not a shift job. It is a fixed salary position. If you work over time i.e outside of 9–5 you do not get paid. SO I think it is a bit weird. I think if you tell me you don’t pay over time there is no obligation for me to work overtime.

@Dutchess_III It is a fixed salary position in Finance.

It IS salaried. I was confused because here you said it was not salaried. Well, salaried positions have an up side, and that is they can’t dock you if you’re late or need to leave early.

Also, why would you have to work weekends and until 10 at night in a financial office?

@chinchin31, if it’s a salaried position I wouldn’t expect to be paid for overtime. I don’t get paid overtime and I do plenty of it. However, my pay rate is set to a level that’s supposed to compensate any reasonable amount of additional work required. In some jobs, it’s just accepted you will work long hours.

You need to determine a. whether the pay rate sufficiently rewards the additional hours you’ll be expected to work or if the pay rate is inadequate. And b. how much overtime will be required and whether you’re prepared to work those hours.

I don’t think an occasional weekend or late night is unreasonable in any job. If it’s excessive and your pay doesn’t reflect the hours your working, then don’t accept it. As to whether there’s an obligation for you to work the extra hours, if you accept the job under those conditions and it’s a salaried position then yes you are obligated to work extra hours. They’re telling you up-front what the job requires. You can hardly say later ‘but I don’t want to do that’. Some jobs require more than a 9–5/38 hours a week commitment. If that doesn’t work for you, look for a different job.

And again, it is in no way disrespectful of you.

cool .. I don’t mind doing overtime every now and again but if it is every week I think it would be too much for me.

If I am working seven days a week every week then where will I find time for my family ?

I don’t mind every now and again but not every week.

They told you you have to work 7 days a week? This just sounds like the squiggliest job ever.

@Earthbound_Misfit My rule of thumb is to never even consider a salary for less than 60 hours for a laid-back place or 80 hours if weekends are a possibility or there is any “on call” aspect to it. In other words, make it cheaper for them to keep you hourly. Either they’ll give you reasonable hours, or prove that you’re better off turning them down.

@jerv, the OP hasn’t indicated how good the pay deal was/is. My sense is, however good the pay is, she doesn’t want the extra hours of work.

Plus it doesn’t seem like there’s a good idea of how often the extra hours of work can occur. Is it “a few times a month” or “a few times a week” or is it “almost every weekend” or is it more random – “here and there when there’s a big project, which is a few times a year?” I don’t think I would like that either. It’s hard to factor anything when you don’t know. Also, if the OT is unplanned or planned – if it’s unplanned it’s hard to have a life, if it occurs a lot.