14th Dec 2007
Ms. Theologian critiques the culture of overtime
Dear Ms. Theologian,
I have just finished grad school with an MDiv and am sending resumes out into the world like mad. I was thrilled yesterday to have a wonderful interview with a major activism/advocacy organization, and I’m excited about the possibility of working for them. The job seems to be right in the middle of my skills, my experience, and my passions.
There’s just one catch. When I asked the interviewer (my would-be boss) about the day-to-day work environment at this organization, he informed me that his “team” tends to work a lot of nights and weekends. As a parent of four children (ages three to eight), the prospect of being away from home so much–on the heels of working full time and going to school full time for three years–is definitely not something I would look forward to. I really feel like it’s time for me to give a little back to my family.
Based on how well the interview went, I feel confident I’ll be invited to this organization’s headquarters for a follow-up interview. Do you have any advice on how to deal with my concerns?
Thanks so much,
-Hesitant to work weekends
Dear Hesitant,
First, congratulations on your degree!
Background According to the Mayo Clinic in Work-life Balance, we work so much for a lot of reasons: We have 24/7 hour electronic availability in a global economy; we want to keep our jobs; we may be doing the job of two or three people; and our bosses may expect it of us, which is what makes Ms. Theologian slightly squeamish about this job as you described it.
Working overtime is very stressful for all of us, including (possibly especially) parents who want to leave promptly at five and go home to their families. According to Working Overtime: A Bind for Parents, requests to work overtime are one of the most stressful moments parent-workers. So consider that a Red Flag was raised when your boss-to-be says that there is a culture of working evenings and weekends.
Warning: Huge Generalization Ahead.
Expectations of overtime are fairly common in nonprofit culture. Typically nonprofits are staffed by well-meaning passionate people who are called to this sort of work. Yes, called, and, yes, in a very similar way to how ministers are called to ministry. This nonprofit calling translates into a lot of hours and (sometimes) a lower salary than in the for-profit sector. Just like ministry. And there are many self-care challenges in nonprofit culture. Just like ministry. Read Q and A with Joan Lloyd at work for a description of a very similar situation at a nonprofit with unpaid overtime. So know that this expectation of overtime is common within nonprofit culture (And within business culture. And within academia. So basically it’s rampant in white collar jobs.)
Practical Advice So what can you do? Here are the options as Ms. Theologian sees them (and readers should feel free to chime in if there are others:
a. Run for the hills. This seems self-explanatory.
b. Pretend that you didn’t hear your boss regarding working nights and weekends. This doesn’t seem like a great idea for those of us who attempt to be mindful of the world around us, but we’re looking at all your options, and Ms. Theologian bets a fair number of people would choose just to ignore this sort of information.
c. Explore the time commitments more in the second interview. Now this is tricky because you don’t want to come off as lazy, so avoid saying things like, “How many nights must I slave away in unpaid labor serving the needs of everyone other than myself and my family?” But it is fair to stress how committed you are to this sort of work, and to ask more about a typical work week, and how many nights might be involved, and about how many hours total, and whether there is a sort of flex time that compensates you for those nights in some fashion (see that Joan Lloyd article above for one flex time scenario). If you ask this within a larger body of questions to do with the job, it should not come off as lazy.
d. Be upfront about your own expectations for time. Ms. Theologian has had a lot of luck with this with a corporate employer in which she stated her commitment to the job, and then asked if she could arrange for flex-time in order to attend classes. She negotiated this at the first and second interviews, and it should be said that one of the ways she arranged to leave during the day time was working at night. Friday night. Joy was not hers. A better time to negotiate how you use your work time is the moment of the offer or when you counteroffer.
e. Try to negotiate with your boss and the workplace culture once you are hired. Supposedly you can train your boss not to expect overtime. Ms. Theologian is not actually clever enough to do this, but read the article and see if there’s something you can use.
Readers, did I leave out anything? I know from a survey that almost half of you work in nonprofits. Do you want to add something?
-Ms. Theologian
P.S. If you’d like to write to Ms. Theologian, send an email to ms dot theologian at gmail dot com.
Run, run, run for the hills. From my experience, whatever is said in the interview about overtime is 50% of how much overtime you’ll be expected to do.
And it’s not just nonprofits. Big Bidness has the opinion that they own you, 24/7, and that it’s a special treat when they allow you to go home or have a non-work weekend.
Grump.
You’re too funny. I have to admit my instinct is to run as well, but I’ve worked in four (five?) nonprofits.
I’ve been trying to figure out if the non-profit overtime is a result of using big business strategies (or a result of non-profit passion). Possibly both.
It’s really sad about non profits. I agree with Ms T - big business strategy + non profit passion. And, I think there is another mentality at play: Good work/making the world better is its own reward. Umm, sure, that’s true. But I think that’s largely used to undervalue work that could be construed as nurturing (e.g. much of the work of women). At least, that’s what Riane Eisler says.
If it were me in this position, I’d do D (minus the first sentence) and E.
That’s a good point. The “good work is its own reward” plays prominently in nonprofits, and it is often used to undervalue work that women do. I’m thinking of my mom’s work as a social worker, in particular.
Yeah, I’m going for option A.
My company sort of has a culture of OT. Some people do it, some people don’t. My boss is on the “don’t” side. Several people I manage are on the voluntary “do” side. The odd part is, it’s the people with families.
I made it clear to my people that it wasn’t expected, and that I wouldn’t be doing it either unless it was necessary–and that if it was constantly necessary, we needed to hire more people.
It’s one thing if you are passionate and want to do it, but the passionate ones should never be given the ability to create guilt for those who are more passionate about their family time. That’s a management issue.