Ontario Legal Work Week
Ontario legal work week is 48 hours long. The maximum is 60 hours – if you sign an agreement to that effect. 60 hours must be spread out as:
- 12 hours / 5 days, or
- 10 hours / 6 days
A friend of mine – at a creative, white-collar job – routinely works 80-85 hours per week with no overtime pay of any kind (he’s on salary). I looked this up for him, not that he’s going to do anything about it. It can be hard to stand up for yourself in a workplace, especially if you like the people you work with and your boss.
I’m not sure how this kind of abuse is prevalent in other industries, but it seems to be the norm for a lot of creative firms in Toronto. Not just crazy hours, but also no extra pay?! Know your rights, and talk to your boss about it!
I’ll spare you my rant about North American work culture versus that at home, but wouldn’t you agree it’s genuinely very tough to finesse the “I don’t want to be overworked any more”? All offices seem to be understaffed yet full of early career employees who don’t know any better, genuine workaholics, people supporting spouse & kids willing to do anything not to get let go, and people too timid to complain. It’s hard to stand up for yourself in such dispiriting environments.
Most professionals make a sort of bargain withe the devil which I read someone else articulating well recently – we are not clock-punchers, we are well paid to accomplish all necessary tasks within a certain range of responsibilities for the company ( which in THEORY, without fires to put out, will roughly take 40-45 hours a week to complete … but a week without any fires … ha ha). Agree?
Unfortunately, most people (and I’ve been guilty of this too) let it stew and fume silently, and only admit we need more time for ourselves when at breaking point. Because most bosses could care less.
My aim for the next couple of years is to take all I can (bucks, bonus, RRSP matching, resume-enhancing CPD) from my employer, and spend all my savings buying a pub. At which point I’ll probably be squandering my savings, but no more 7am conference calls!
You’re right, it’s easy to say “Stick up for yourself!”
When I just came to Canada, I actually did just that. My boss was a jerk and after 3 months of his mood swings, I walked out. That was the only job I ever held in Canada (not counting self-employment).
We had about $4,000 of savings at the time, and we spent $1,100 on a new computer the week I quit. But I had no fear, maybe I was really young and stupid but I’m so happy I did it THEN and not later. The plan was always to quit the job and start the business, just not at that particular time.
If I were in that situation now, I’d still quit, but it would’ve been harder: I can see that a lot of people are being treated as commodities, everyone is becoming more replaceable and that’s a confidence-killer, for sure. It’s not just happening with the employed people either, it’s a reality in our business, too.
In part this commodization is due to the fact that a lot of new workers are 1) immigrants who truly are not in a position to pick and choose, and possibly came from countries with much worse work conditions; in comparison it may not be so bad here; 2) and yes – as you said, a lot of younger workers (we all know the general population is aging), and these people think being mistreated is the norm.
I hear a lot of people gripe about their work. I don’t have any good advice for them, but I think your strategy is good. It’s a plan out. Work and save to put yourself into a position where you can quit and not be sorry.
For the first 3 years, my husband kept working, while I was trying to get this business off the ground. It was incredibly hard (for many subjective reasons), but just the sheer THOUGHT of going back to full-time work for someone else brought me to tears. Literally.
I had a 5-day contract with these very nice people, but they wanted to me to work on-site, so on the first day of the contract I made up some lame excuse to go home and cry. After that little shock to my self-employed system I refused all on-site jobs that lasted over 1 day.
Have you seen this? I thought this was interesting and shocking in a way: http://www.canadianbusiness.com/my_money/investing/article.jsp?content=20060704_150040_5240
I could never do it myself, or rather, I wouldn’t want to do it and hopefully I won’t feel desperate enough but it’s another quick way to independence for some 🙂
Sorry for a cliché, but it’s your life, and if you spend 1/2 your day being miserable, What’s the point? Who wants to live for the weekends?