Answer to bolded is yes, there are different rules for hourly employees vs salaried professionals (which, I assume, is what you are). But there is a good chance you already knew that and I am answering a question that you weren’t asking.
Most in US for salary just get set amount and you are expected to work the amount of work required to get the job done
This rings true to me. When I joined the labor force (over 20 years ago now!) I worked very hard as a young analyst because there was an understanding that if I billed a lot of hours, got my license (I’m an actuary) and stayed at the same company for 10 years then I would get promoted into a decent mid level role that paid well enough to justify the “investment” of hours in my 20s. And that’s exactly what happened.
I don’t think younger workers today, even in a solid white collar profession like mine, have anything like the same effective social contract with the employer. A new grad joining my old company now in the exact same role I had as a new grad would be better off spending three years polishing their resume and job hopping for straight cash homey. These days someone who worked as hard as I did 20 years ago and stayed at the same company would risk getting laid off at a moment’s notice or languishing in the role forever because the company would rather capitalize the hard working sucker than bring them up.
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If you are talking about people on salaries, then they generally fall into the bolded category. The only salaried people who I know fall into the first category are ones who have something negotiated into their contracts for specific extra work. But that only goes so far as you would have to have somewhat specifically anticipated the extra types of things that might come up so that you could negotiate a mechanism for additional compensation in advance.
One other common way this is pulled off is by having a contract where there is a base salary and then additional compensation if certain targets are met. These targets are often not perfectly correlated with increased amounts of work, but that’s the goal and most of the time there is at least some correlation between staying later, working harder, and meeting the target.
I absolutely busted my ass and went wayyyyy above and beyond early in my career. The guy who owned the first agency I worked at had assistants drive him to the airport - it was considered a privilege because of the facetime with him.
But, as above, the payoff was expected to be great. Perhaps more importantly, we were badly paid but could still pay rent and eat, and had insurance.
In big organizations this promotions and big pay jumps are given to loyalists and ass kissers. Since so one person can meaningfully move the needle financially, it just becomes a political game.
For every person busting their ass in a huge corporation, there’s probably 3 future VPs taking credit for their work.
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Most every “high paying” job for young people pays terribly adjusted for the time commitment (and also adjusted for the intelligence and professionalism of these people). BigLaw associates making $250k are making less than $100 per hour to be on call 24/7, same with investment banking analysis and associates. Almost nobody makes partner in these firms they use the illusion of that payoff to keep the worker bees going.
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Unless you can get your work done in less than 40 hours, then you’re still expected to somehow fill 40 hours. Funny how that works.
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And those might be two of the best examples of going above and beyond making a difference. In other environments, instead of “almost nobody” it is “nobody”.
Yep. If you’re great as like an insurance adjuster or bank teller your boss will probably go out of their way to keep their boss from knowing who you are so they can take credit for the performance bump.
This was more or less why I decided to become an actuary. You have to work a lot in your 20s to meet job expectations and pass your exams, but nothing like what an investment banker or big law associate works. And the ceiling is lower than big law partner but the baseline career of an actuary is very good pay for reasonable hours. The dullness of the profession is a feature, not a bug.
Yes, exactly, I’m in commercial banking which is similar.
As a computer programmer, whenever I’ve worked more than 40 hours/week it’s been a big interesting project that I knew would learn a ton on and better my career in the long run.
I’ve probably been lucky, but I’ve never been expected to work more than 40 hours on boring maintenance stuff. That wouldn’t fly for very long with most programmers.
I like to say have a really good 3rd gear and great 4th gear, but 1st and 2nd gear not so much.
All of my job now is thinking based. I’m a back of mind worker in that mode-it’s churning in there. So what looks like 5 hours of bullshit and 1 hour of work is really just everything coming together.
Makes it hard to bill hourly as a consultant.
When i was more hands on I was fast. I’ve done 100 hour weeks during crunches and plant startup. Averaged probably 55 the first 20 years. Glad I’m more like 15-20 now.
I’ve been fortunate to be be rewarded for accomplishment.
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I was going to post this. Super busy week? Have fun screwing up all your family plans to put in 80 hours.
Oh slow week? If you’re only going to work 20 hours make sure you put in for 20 hours of PTO.
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Wfh has blown that out of the water. I’ve worked about 5 hours/week for the last six months.
This is now the 3rd time in my career I’ve worked from home full time and had nothing to do. I quit the first two and I’m getting close to quitting this one.
If it’s truly only 5hr/week, then don’t quit. Just get another regular job. Getting paid 2X for 45 hrs a week (probably less if job 2 is anything like job 1) seems pretty sweet.
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Same, now for me. But the folks still working at my old firm are putting in lots of hours, in the office or at home.
I did that for a year. It gets stressful.