If HR can’t understand that, then it isn’t a decent work environment to begin with.
You can always try to explain it by calculating the cost of you sitting uselessly in meetings. Your hourly wage X amount of hours in meetings. I’m sure they will take your side.
This is definitely a difference between people that believe the work they do is important and people just punching a clock.
I teach at a community college (salaried) and my partner works as staff in the same school (hourly). She works her ass off, but when she gets to the end of the day, she is done and leaves work at the office, so attending meetings is no big deal to her. Meanwhile, I’ve gotten involved enough in peripheral committee work that I regularly stay up working until 1AM because there are literally not enough hours in the day to get done what needs to get done. I could try to leave work at work, but I’d be hanging students and fellow instructors out to dry, so that’s not always an option.
It’s not my fault, but it is definitely my problem if I’m in a position to help people and decide not to. Make no mistake, I raise holy hell while I’m doing it, but the lack of workers doesn’t lessen the amount of work that needs to get done. Maybe it’s just naivete, but I’m idealistic enough to believe that helping students is the most important thing I can do, so I only say yes to things that are directly helping students, faculty, and staff (admin and their busy work can fuck right off with their bloated salaries and support staff)
The university is exploiting your idealism to get you to work without being paid enough. You aren’t “in a position to help people”, you are doing a job for an organization with revenues. They could allocate more revenue to accomplish this work without forcing you to work until 1 AM, but they have made the choice that the work is not worth paying for.
That being said, most good people will go the extra mile if they think it can make a difference, but I see too many who take full responsibility on themselves and “cover” for financially-motivated organizational decisions, which in turn encourages the people who make those decisions to cut even more.
Meetings are the viable alternative to work. Meetings that you don’t need to contribute to are even better. Take a break. Catch some zees.
go to meetings to avoid other meetings
What if you enjoy your work and find value in it; and the meeting is pointless bullshit that just breaks your focus?
Do whatever you want, mate. Decline the meeting?
Problem is, that the work is still there after the meeting
So? Not your fault you had to go to a pointless meeting. Leave at the normal time.
Yeah I’ll tell that to HR when I’m getting laid off again, I’m sure they will totally get it and reconsider
If HR can’t understand that, then it isn’t a decent work environment to begin with.
You can always try to explain it by calculating the cost of you sitting uselessly in meetings. Your hourly wage X amount of hours in meetings. I’m sure they will take your side.
Unemployed or self employed?
This is definitely a difference between people that believe the work they do is important and people just punching a clock.
I teach at a community college (salaried) and my partner works as staff in the same school (hourly). She works her ass off, but when she gets to the end of the day, she is done and leaves work at the office, so attending meetings is no big deal to her. Meanwhile, I’ve gotten involved enough in peripheral committee work that I regularly stay up working until 1AM because there are literally not enough hours in the day to get done what needs to get done. I could try to leave work at work, but I’d be hanging students and fellow instructors out to dry, so that’s not always an option.
Not your problem that your college hasn’t decided to fund enough positions to get things done within the workday.
It’s not my fault, but it is definitely my problem if I’m in a position to help people and decide not to. Make no mistake, I raise holy hell while I’m doing it, but the lack of workers doesn’t lessen the amount of work that needs to get done. Maybe it’s just naivete, but I’m idealistic enough to believe that helping students is the most important thing I can do, so I only say yes to things that are directly helping students, faculty, and staff (admin and their busy work can fuck right off with their bloated salaries and support staff)
The university is exploiting your idealism to get you to work without being paid enough. You aren’t “in a position to help people”, you are doing a job for an organization with revenues. They could allocate more revenue to accomplish this work without forcing you to work until 1 AM, but they have made the choice that the work is not worth paying for.
That being said, most good people will go the extra mile if they think it can make a difference, but I see too many who take full responsibility on themselves and “cover” for financially-motivated organizational decisions, which in turn encourages the people who make those decisions to cut even more.
Never do more than what is in your contract.
It is not like the company is going to pay you more than what is written in there. So why should you compensate when they clearly wouldn’t?
It is not your job to get everything done. But it is their job to make sure there are enough people for the work available.