Comment by 39896880

> I just don't reply after hours.

I'm a freelancer/independent contractor.

Every time I start a new gig, I make sure to answer private messages few hours later, and never outside the 8AM/8PM timeframe or during weekends. Ever.

I also make it black on white on contracts that I don't do meetings before 9AM or later than 5PM.

I immediately set a habit for people that I might be AFK and that I never ever answer work-related stuff in the weekends.

As months go by I start answering when I see it/have time, rather than purposefully delaying and occasionally I answer a message or a chat in the weekends if I lurk on the channels. Hell, sometimes I even did some work on the weekends too if some deadlines are close (I am still bound to the success of my clients after all) and make up for it when rhythms are lower.

But in the beginning I make sure to always set a tone where I'm just not there online and ready to answer 24/7.

I did the opposite years ago. I would make it a habit for people for always being up and ready, so when I had to do something (from preparing lunch to bathroom breaks) people would instantly assume I was working less or cared less.

I don't do the mistake anymore. Professional? Always. Connected and ready all time? As little as possible.

I've had that in contracts, but have always crossed it out. I suggest you do the same.

No employer I've seen has ever questioned it, they know it'd be illegal for them to actually force you to opt-out your of your rights. If they put it in writing that it was a conditional part of employment they'd be in hot water.

They're just hoping you just sign away your rights "for free" so to speak.

This is the default in the Netherlands for many office jobs as well. Usually in the form of 'Subclause 2: The nature of the job may demand work beyond the stated hours in subclause 1. If this occurs, no additional payment shall be made'.

Never had a job where that wasn't a clause in the contract.

The limit in the UK is 48 hours. Beyond that they can ask, but they can't legally tie it to an offer.

These kinds of clauses seem toothless to me.

If a potential employee isn't willing to agree to work more than 40 hours they either don't take the job, or take the job but refuse to work those extra hours and risk being fired. Being fired is never fun, but the employee is still better off ignoring the contractual obligation there if it was a deal breaker anyway.

As I understand it, before it went off in a huff, the UK was the only European country which allowed a _general_ opt out of the working time directive (many allow it for medical workers, and sometimes for other emergency workers). Accordingly, of course, many if not most UK employers obtain such an opt-out.

Just not for free, then it wouldn't be work, it'd be an hobby :D

There are contract rates for how much overtime should be paid. Just ask to be paid.

To be fair, I've had the same thing but never had an issue just working my contracted hours

Being willing to work 40.5 hours fulfills this addendum. It doesn't mean anything more than that, nor does it apply to if you are still okay sometime in the future.

It's my personal preference and it has worked for me in the last 25 years, but everybody's different and it might not work for everybody.

Note that doing nothing does not necessarily mean that you relax. Working at home at your own moderate pace might make you recover faster. But again, what works well for somebody might not work well for someone else.

Huh; my org seems to be pretty lenient in that regard - if you are ill or book time off on a day you meant to be in the office it's fine.

That doesn't work for a lot of people due to workload, but that is a separate problem

One factor to consider (depending on your locality) is that "unlimited" time off doesn't allow you to accrue vacation days, that would be paid if you were e.g. laid off.

when I had "unlimited" pto, my boss took three months a year, I got two weeks at Christmas

it is a question of priorities, and every vacation you take suddenly requires review

Congratulations, you work for a very nice company.

The managers will bring it up because they have pressure on them coming from higher up to have their reports all be compliant with the work-from-office policy, and in extreme cases, they would be expected to manage out the people who are flouting it. Not doing these things could easily result in an unsatisfactory performance rating for the manager.

HR will bring it up, because it's a KPI they track. They don't tell you this and you have no idea what the threshold is, so the manager can't help you beyond a vague "HR won't approve the higher rating I want to give due to your in office attendance".

People tolerate this, coz companies fired a lot of them recently.

A lot of ppl on the market means we have no leverage in discussion.

Because employees have no leverage in negotiations. In addition, your job is directly tied to your own well-being, as well as the well-being of your family.

It really depends of when the expectation is set. Amazon right now has a combination of people hired when:

* Teams when working 5 days in office, but nobody checked (other than maybe your direct manager) and you could wfh if you needed it to

* Teams were completely remote

* Amazon was checking you came to the office 3 times in the week

* Amazon was checking you came to the office 3 times a week for a certain amount of time

And now the expectation is completely different to all of those. Again.

companies shouldn’t care the physical location of an employee, only that they’re meeting performance goals.

why do you need to see me to do my job?

It's a cute joke about an unintended interpretation of what the CEO said.

Let's be real, not a single HN comment (and there's nearly 1500 here as I'm writing this one) is going to be "productive" is this discussion, especially with regard to Amazon. The biggest impact is some comment here may convince someone on the fence to quit when they might have waited a few months without it. And this joke isn't going to change that.

That's not how Amazon operates. You have paid personal time that you must use as sick time. You get 6 days per year or whatever the legal minimum is in your state if it's over 6