Over the years working around in many various studios and on many various projects you of course are going to do a fair bit of overtime.
This is quite normal and understandable in our job and industry. But what if the overtime is pushing you too far? I am faced yet again with this situation. On one hand there is a project deadline, which is in a ridicules time frame, on another your family and personal life is on the line. You do not want to jeopardize the relationship with the studio you work with by refusing the OT…and intern placing the project at risk, and you cannot say no to your loved ones who put up with you not being there.
So where to draw the line? how to tell your boss - this is enough without him thinking that you do not want to coming 100%?
It is Sunday and I am in the office along with few fellow coworkers…
Its a hard one…on one hand you dont want the client to think you arent committed to the job. Have you done much work for the client already…if they think you are good at your job and they would use you again Im sure you could be honest. Im pretty sure clients push and push people (not every client, but some) because they know people wont say no…kind of unfair. I think honesty is the best policy. If I had that feeling where it didnt feel right for you I would estimate how much longer you think you need to work to finish the job and then gauge if you think it is worth saying anything. If it is only a few more days then maybe you could just put up with it and then take a small break with your family after the work. If you feel the client is taking the piss then I guess you do need to say something. Its not nice to have a client have you over a barrel because they know you wont say no because you need the money and work. Im sure you could come to some agreement. I never say no to a client, but I always try and come to some kind of agreement that doesnt always put you in a bad position. Good luck
yeah its the case. More then that, I have a friend who runs his own company, not related to vfx…but he says that they put up a quota for their employees to do by the end of the month, if they do it, then they raise the quota by 10% and see if they can do that, and continue to do so until they cant cope with it, and thats how they know that they’ve reached their cap. How fair is this? to employees its not, but in business world the more profit the better, and in almost every case we are replacable, no matter how good you can be.
It especially sucks when you put in everything you’ve got to finish something, and while your employer may or may not show appreciation, they then consider it the norm that you’ll do that for damn near every job in the future.
here in SA there a successful TV commercial showing what is too far. It is about car sales people. There are 3 different versions. (or 4)
The 1st one:
The guy gets home and arrives late at the dinner table (again) He greets his son, wife and comments on the nice food. Also you see an old man sitting there. (the grandpa) The guy says “this food looks good. So? where’s grandma?” Everybody gets sad faces and you realise grandma has been dead for a while and he missed it.
Second one.
Guy arrives home and gets “greeted” by his doggy. Guy wants to play ball and calls doggy closer. Doggy doesn’t recognise him since he obviously hasn’t been home much and wants to bite him. Guy runs away from dog and hides in car.
3rd one (for the girls)
You see a guy on the phone getting directions from some woman to add this and press those buttons. It looks like he is busy with something very important like maybe disabling a bomb. Woman then says “sorry honey I got to go” and she goes of to see a client who just walked into the car dealership. At home the camera zooms out and you see the guy panicing, he was busy trying to work the washing machine.
Punch line. “Our sales people haven’t been home much since we’ve been running our special sale” blablabla.
If you get anything like this then its time to tell your boss to shove his job where the sun doesn’t shine I think.
It’s tough but family should ALWAYS come 1st, everything else should be a distant second.
I know exactly where you’re coming from (quite literally so…), Dmitry.
I drew a line when i realised the OT was not an accident, but was due -in my personal opinion- to mis-management, when not even to purposeful under-staffing.
The line i drew was, well in character, a deep one, and i left the company.
While i miss most of my co-workers there, i can tell you that THERE ARE companies that deal with OT differently, and in a more humane manner.
Sure, some of it comes with the job description, but losing weight because the OT never ends, project after project, means something is a-whack, to me.
It’s up to what you prioritise the most, i suppose.
Money come and go, credits and glory are as passing as a gust of wind, while the life we live is one and one only.
That’s my line of reasoning, at least.
You have talents, and you shouldn’t be afraid of change, in my opinion.
Keep looking, and you’ll find.
Totally agree with Lele. You are the one with the talent. Be confident of making a decision that is right for you. After everything is said and done, the stuff you will remember is the family and people and similar things, not the work and money…
not only that but…the company looks at its workers much like factory machines. If one breaks down, or becomes funky in any way, it can always be replaced, no matter how many years of loyal service it did.
What I’m saying is, and I would never put my self in this kind of situation, others who committed years of harsh labor in order to make the studio a better place for themselves and better studio name in the industry, once they cross the line with the management they will be easily removed, and all those years of hardship go down the drain. I’ve seen it happen too many times.
Thats terrible company principles. I bet they have a high turnover rate (of employees). When work starts affecting your health like that you know something is wrong. I cant believe they would just shrug you off like that without any understanding after you have given so much.
thanks it always does. As a freelancer I have that freedom of dictating my own terms and drawing the line when I see fit. I have worked in few places where the hours were great, and they treated the team as people and then when they have asked you to come in on the weekend for maybe few hours I was more then happy to do that because of the way I felt about that studio. Too those studios are no more
I can’t figure out why - other than the perceived* financial benefit - companies in creative industries continue to treat their employees like complete crap. As a business owner, I know that my company is nothing without its employees and I want to keep them by all means possible. That means paying overtime, hiring more people when overtime starts to become an issue, and generally trying to allow employees to have as normal a life outside of work as possible. Hell, at the very least it makes me feel more relaxed knowing that I don’t have to worry about sudden resignations or retaliations.
Dmitry, good for you for taking a clear stance. Your health and family happiness is not worth losing for the sake of, what, computers??
* I say “perceived” because I think it is shortsighted to consider unpaid overtime and general employee beat-downs as a “savings”. Eventually, it all catches up and the cost of replacing, retraining and dealing with HR issues far outweighs the original “savings”.
Well, this isn’t the first time by far. Once during a project I worked so much and I had a really bad monitor that I went partially blind for a month! I am not kidding. Ever since then, I cannot see as well on my right eye. And for what? some archviz interior that no one ever going to give a crap about?
