Love Your Job?

July 29, 2019 11:43 PM

Someone May be Taking Advantage of You. In Understanding Contemporary Forms of Exploitation: Attributions of Passion Serve to Legitimize the Poor Treatment of Workers, researchers found that people consider it more legitimate to make passionate employees leave family to work on a weekend, work unpaid, and handle unrelated tasks that were not in the job description.

Professor Aaron Kay, the senior author on the research, worked with Professor Troy Campbell of the University of Oregon, Professor Steven Shepherd of Oklahoma State University, and Fuqua Ph.D student Jae Kim, who was lead author.

“We want to see the world as fair and just,” Kay said. “When we are confronted with injustice, rather than fix it, sometimes our minds tend to compensate instead. We rationalize the situation in a way that seems fair, and assume the victims of injustice must benefit in some other way.”

For example, he said, “in past work with John Jost of NYU, I have found that when faced with massive disparities between rich and poor, people can downplay injustice by telling themselves that wealth brings its own set of problems, or that having less money makes it easier to be happy by keeping life simple.”

“In the case of working employees harder for no extra pay, or asking them to do demeaning work or work outside their job description, believing this is fair because these workers are indulging their passions may be a similar means of justification,” Kay said.

posted by Little Dawn (53 comments total)

The word passion means suffering.

Capitalism has no language to describe a labor of love as something other than a zero-sum-game.
posted by Phssthpok at 12:32 AM on July 30, 2019 [26 favorites]

It’s a good point, and I hate the rhetoric of having to be ‘passionate’ anyway - as an introvert I feel it plays to the general tyranny of extrovert values. What’s wrong with ‘dispassionately effective’? But it is nothing more than rhetoric anyway; just wait till your passion causes you to object to corners being cut, or standards skimped to save costs; then you’ll discover how much the bosses really love your passion and value your engagement.
posted by Segundus at 1:45 AM on July 30, 2019 [74 favorites]

“Tell me about your passion for this work.”
“Fuck you, pay me.”
posted by Meatbomb at 2:06 AM on July 30, 2019 [62 favorites]

Both my spouse and I are in professions where we frequently hear, "No one does [X] for the money -- they do it because they love their work!" This always, ALWAYS translates in my head to, "It's OK to exploit you, right? Long hours, low pay, high stress, all good, yeah?"

If I didn't want to get paid for it, I'd be doing it as a goddamn hobby, not a job.
posted by kyrademon at 2:37 AM on July 30, 2019 [28 favorites]

Even in ordinary English, passion means love. It's an intense and obsessive love, a love that sacrifices the lover's interests on behalf of the loved one, an irrational drive.

Anyone demanding that you have passion for their business in order to work for them is really asking you to behave like someone in love with it. They want you to pull an all-nighter writing their program for the same reason you'd stay up all night in high school crafting a gift for your crush and neglecting other responsibilities. They don't just want your mind and your abilities, they want your heart.

Maybe it's reasonable for the business owner to feel that way about their own enterprise. But when I see a requirement for "passion" in a job ad, I read that as: you must be someone who prioritizes this stuff above and beyond the rest of your life.

Heck with that! I don't LOVE this stuff, not in that crazy sacrificial obsessed intense passionate sense of love. If your business can't survive without free labor, it deserves to go under.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 3:27 AM on July 30, 2019 [9 favorites]

*bitter laughter from every teacher in the US*
posted by zinful at 3:57 AM on July 30, 2019 [62 favorites]

I work in a creative field, so folks ALWAYS assume I’m intensely psssionate about it. They say, “You’re so blessed to do what you love for work!”

...Which is silly. My work is a means to an end, like most people. I’m just lucky enough to have developed a skill that the market will exchange money for.

My real passion is for successfully completed mortgage payments.
posted by Construction Concern at 4:13 AM on July 30, 2019 [61 favorites]

I made a transition from a unionized blue collar job to an engineering career about a decade ago. It took a long time to adjust to the constant pressure from management to stay late and work on big, paradigm-shifting projects, even when I'm nailing all of my goals consistently.

Sorry, no. I'm OK with performance reviews that stop at "successful" or "highly successful" if it means I get to spend time with my family.
posted by TrialByMedia at 5:01 AM on July 30, 2019 [3 favorites]

Miya Tokumitsu "In the Name of Love"

Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life! Before succumbing to the intoxicating warmth of that promise, it’s critical to ask, “Who, exactly, benefits from making work feel like non-work?” “Why should workers feel as if they aren’t working when they are?” Historian Mario Liverani reminds us that “ideology has the function of presenting exploitation in a favorable light to the exploited, as advantageous to the disadvantaged.”

posted by audi alteram partem at 5:02 AM on July 30, 2019 [19 favorites]

"Other duties as assigned."
posted by mfoight at 5:26 AM on July 30, 2019 [32 favorites]

My work life improved greatly when I switched to a career (IT support) where the universal assumption is that no one in their right mind actually likes it (joke's on them: I do enjoy my work most of the time).

My background is in K-12 education and then K-12 educational research, though and ha ha fuck that noise.
posted by soren_lorensen at 5:39 AM on July 30, 2019 [13 favorites]

I hate the rhetoric of having to be ‘passionate’ anyway - as an introvert I feel it plays to the general tyranny of extrovert values.

Our company has at a couple of times in recent history, employed a "business development" person to do... I'm honestly not sure what. The head shaman of a cult that nobody else was invited to, as far as I could tell.

Anyway, one of them personally asked everyone in the company what we were passionate about in our work. I answered truthfully that I'm not. I just get shit done, and that's what they pay me for.
posted by Foosnark at 5:49 AM on July 30, 2019 [2 favorites]

I can see this in my field generally, and in places I've worked specifically.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:23 AM on July 30, 2019

I've said it before - "[X] is a calling" is short for "I'm going to bully you into taking less money for doing [X]".
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:35 AM on July 30, 2019 [2 favorites]

I hope the graduate student on this work was well-compensated for their time.

I expect they weren’t. Graduate students are supposed to be passionate, you see.
posted by nat at 6:39 AM on July 30, 2019 [23 favorites]

I work in marketing and watching people flex how "passionate" they are about fucking Facebook and Google Search advertising drives me absolutely fucking insane. What do you MEAN you're "passionate" about SEM keywords? What the fuck are you talking about sending emails at 10pm at night? Do you work and go home and go live your life.

I feel like I'm surrounded by aliens sometimes.
posted by windbox at 6:47 AM on July 30, 2019 [29 favorites]

It’s a good point, and I hate the rhetoric of having to be ‘passionate’ anyway - as an introvert I feel it plays to the general tyranny of extrovert values. What’s wrong with ‘dispassionately effective’?

Exactly. I am exceptionally good at my job in tech, but I don't have a passion for it. I was actually dinged specifically on this in an interview (that I honestly didn't even want) with a job that, for some reason, wanted me to show that sort of passion before I converted from a contractor to full-time. It's 100% an ego thing for management who otherwise doubt themselves and hate their jobs, or narcissistic leadership who need constant validation of their positions while the rest of the company ignores or neglects them. The funny thing is, because I just wanted some semblance of stability after a year of freelancing, I decided to show more passion by taking on side projects outside of my duties. I was offered the job, but then it was revoked due to budgeting issues that my immediate managers didn't see coming. So now I am back to not caring and doing my normal duties, albeit very well. The take away from that is "passion" is all about making other people feel important and doesn't ever actually lead to anything rewarding for most people. As mentioned above, it's also a survival tactic for people who choose a job they hate simply to survive (I mean who is REALLY passionate about ETL development? It's cool, but fuck it's tedious and honestly nerve-wracking). Of COURSE marketing analytics is my passion! Look at all these LinkedIn blog posts.

My work life improved greatly when I switched to a career (IT support) where the universal assumption is that no one in their right mind actually likes it (joke's on them: I do enjoy my work most of the time).

I wish that was my experience. I actually left academia after my "passion" burned me out and thought tech would be a good haven for "do the work, get money, focus on other things." Again, I've dealt with too many narcissistic, fragile managers even in shitty tech jobs that need me and my coworkers, for some reason, to give a shit beyond being competent at our jobs just so they feel, I dunno, not like a loser who manages an IT team no one cares about.
posted by Young Kullervo at 6:51 AM on July 30, 2019 [7 favorites]

Also I want to add I did try to write a data blog to show employers just how much I love it and couldn't even finish the first post.
posted by Young Kullervo at 6:54 AM on July 30, 2019 [2 favorites]

I wish that was my experience.

The trick here is to work some kind of help desk, not actually, like, make stuff. I am not getting rich, but no one pesters me about my PASSION for telling people where to click over the phone.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:58 AM on July 30, 2019 [3 favorites]

Being expected to display passion for a job is an implicit threat.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:01 AM on July 30, 2019 [27 favorites]

The trick here is to work some kind of help desk, not actually, like, make stuff. I am not getting rich, but no one pesters me about my PASSION for telling people where to click over the phone.

Yeah I tried that too for about 5 months when I just wanted an easy, low stress job to focus on my art. My program manager was honestly insane and had this idea that we needed to "go above and beyond" to find problems before they were reported to us. She was actually insane though, and trying to overcompensate for her own insecurities, but yeah. Needless to say the turnover there was pretty rapid. Couldn't even have an "easy" help desk job hahahaha.
posted by Young Kullervo at 7:03 AM on July 30, 2019 [2 favorites]

This is what I was told when I was offered a laughably low paid position at a major book publisher. I actually am passionate about writing and I'm a damn good editor. But I refuse to starve for it. I chose survival over the work I wanted to do.

Fuck you, pay me.
posted by emjaybee at 7:04 AM on July 30, 2019 [16 favorites]

*jazz hands* academia!
posted by ChuraChura at 7:23 AM on July 30, 2019 [36 favorites]

Being expected to display passion for a job is an implicit threat.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:01 AM on July 30 [4 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]

This is absolutely true, and its to much higher degrees for women, and then even double that for black women.
posted by FirstMateKate at 7:55 AM on July 30, 2019 [14 favorites]

I'm sure that this applies in any number of fields, but I don't think it applies any more completely than it does to the arts.

This is the DEFAULT setting for comedy, ffs - see any number of threads about UCB's "business" practices.

I've seen any number of bookers and gatekeepers in NYC standup respond to any number of legitimate complaints with "shut up and work harder," or "do more sets." These people also ostensibly support Sanders/Warren/AOC/democratic socialism.

Just last week, a guy backstage told me "I expect my employees to be passionate, and to be in show business because it's a calling. If they want work/life balance, they should have been accountants."

I told him that's what I always hear when I'm being told I won't be getting paid.
posted by chinese_fashion at 8:02 AM on July 30, 2019 [11 favorites]

A bit ago a conversation popped up on a company mailing list about the possibility that early employees who had shares might cash out soon and leave the company. This prompted several people (note, not any of the early employees that this might apply to) to chime in how they were insulted by the suggestion that they would leave the company if they were suddenly well-off.

My response was that I would absolutely leave the company to do my own thing if I suddenly had no more need for employment. Within reasonable parameters, I like my job. If I have to work for a living, it's a hell of a lot better than many of the other options and companies I've worked for. I enjoy much of what I do, within the parameters of work and like many of the people I work with.

But in no way would I choose to do this five days a week if I didn't need the money. I'd spend my time doing things I really am passionate about and volunteering or something to help other people with some of the time I'd have spent working for a living instead.

After that a few people chimed in with "yeah, same" but it was interesting how many people said they'd continue working even if they were rich. I'm totally baffled by that. I would not stop doing useful things with my time, but damned if I would continue spending my time to help make money for other people when there are so many other things to do with the limited time I have on the planet.
posted by jzb at 8:03 AM on July 30, 2019 [21 favorites]

I've seen that at an organizational level as well. There are some organizations that depend on long hours, work on weekends, etc. and they heavily talk about passion, work heroes, work mythologies, and so on. Everyone is expected to pitch in 24/7. On the other hand, I've worked for organizations that were fairly bureaucratic where work was viewed as work and everyone came in at 9 am and left at 5 pm and worked a normal work week.

The passion thing is a red flag. Rock star culture is a red flag. I can appreciate individual sacrifice, but when it's done regularly the result tends to be that everyone on the team feels they need to stay extra hours and work on weekends. Sometimes they don't even have anything to do. They just want to be seen as fitting in with the mentality.

Worst is when you see a colleague sacrifice endlessly and then finally snap. They're usually shown the door immediately. These companies may want their employees to have passion, but at the end of the day they usually have no passion for those employees.
posted by xammerboy at 8:14 AM on July 30, 2019 [9 favorites]

People can get a cheeseburger anywhere, okay? They come to Chotchkie's for the atmosphere and the attitude. Okay? That's what the flair's about. It's about fun.
posted by avalonian at 8:21 AM on July 30, 2019 [17 favorites]

My response was that I would absolutely leave the company to do my own thing if I suddenly had no more need for employment.

I am pretty careful with honest replies like these. I have tried saying I don't want to attend the picnic and outings, read the books on the side, take the personality test and add the result to my nametag, am not interested in moving up the ladder, etc. and really it just created more work for me in repeatedly trying to explain myself.
posted by xammerboy at 8:29 AM on July 30, 2019 [6 favorites]

The passion thing is a red flag. Rock star culture is a red flag. I can appreciate individual sacrifice, but when it's done regularly the result tends to be that everyone on the team feels they need to stay extra hours and work on weekends. Sometimes they don't even have anything to do. They just want to be seen as fitting in with the mentality.

Yes, yes, yes - literally every company Ive ever worked with has shared this toxic mentality and it trickles down.

People just accept that a 10 hour workday is the norm, that leaving at 6pm (RIP "9-5" by the way!) means you are loafing. Like if you do an average job at work rather than an exceptional job, but your coworkers see you rolling out of the office at 6pm? That's enough points off to put you into the negative perception zone, buddy. "Fuck that guy, you ever notice how he leaves right at 6? Must be reallll nice. Never seen them stay late once!" If only they were passionate about the organization, about their clients, about this project and this unrealistic deadline that we all said yes to because we are a LEAN organization of passionate people - we may be perpetually, mysteriously understaffed, but our passion makes up for it goddamnit - most passionate people in the entire industry I'm tellin ya!

I hate US work culture so much.
posted by windbox at 8:32 AM on July 30, 2019 [18 favorites]

Hey mister! Going somewhere with that pizza? I know you're operating on very little sleep, but you forgot to thank me!
posted by xammerboy at 8:33 AM on July 30, 2019 [1 favorite]

I don't understand the hold my current office has on a good friend who also works here. Because he has definitely chosen them over the proof I have of extremely unethical behavior in addition to the regular fraud we already knew about like how our timesheets for billing are mostly made up.

I didn't think a friend would choose a company over an actual human, but it must be providing him some sort of identity he needs. It's kind of like he's lost his actual regular identity I knew for so long. And the thing is... he could just easily go to a much better agency. They've actively tried to recruit him! It's really puzzling and has made me question a lot of the moral and ethical things I thought I shared with people. Like the world might be an insane place, but there are a few people I know would do the right thing. I don't know if I still think that.

Trying to maintain hope that I can switch careers and find meaning in my work. It's as soul sucking as dating, but I did finally make that work out.

And a lot of people at my current job definitely drank some sort of Kool-Aid. It's very odd and... not healthy. I think it's close to the definition of a Sick System.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 8:52 AM on July 30, 2019 [3 favorites]

I am pretty careful with honest replies like these.

I respect that and understand that. It's a valid choice. I'm not, because somebody has to be willing to say "nah, really folks - this is a job, it's not a vocation, it's not my life's goal." I'm just the idiot to do that.
posted by jzb at 9:52 AM on July 30, 2019 [5 favorites]

jzb, I would guess that when you speak out, there are a significant number of co-workers who feel the same but wouldn't say so out loud. More importantly, there are at least a few for whom the push-back against the"WORK IS ALL, PASSION-UP EVERYONE!" attitude will spark some self-reflection and maybe (!) steer them towards a healthier view of work as being only a part of a whole life. So, thanks for being the somebody!
posted by coppertop at 10:18 AM on July 30, 2019 [3 favorites]

The push for being "passionate" for your work, is just more of businesses offloading any and all responsibility for having a positive office atmosphere and employee morale on the employees. Not happy here? You just aren't passionate enough, obvs.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:19 AM on July 30, 2019 [3 favorites]

Very weird seeing all these responses to the crap "passion" work environments and at the same time reading the stories about the Japanese killing themselves with overwork.
posted by aleph at 10:22 AM on July 30, 2019 [2 favorites]

I always wondered how passion got the twin meanings of suffering and love, then I was struck one day by the analogy

active : action :: passive : passion

That is, passion is what overwhelms you and makes you an agent of its will, not yours. Which is exactly what we're talking about here, isn't it?
posted by aws17576 at 10:29 AM on July 30, 2019 [5 favorites]

I always wondered how passion got the twin meanings of suffering and love

"Passion" to mean "suffering" is relatively rare in modern English usage and is kept on life support almost exclusively by its use in reference to the sufferings of Christ on the cross. The ambiguity of meaning, however, goes all the way back to the original Greek (which is how, in koine form, we got the Christian usage). "PaskO" means "to experience, to suffer." When you are a young person learning Greek, it appears in the first few lines of a common beginner's text, the Apology. I remember my Greek prof saying "well, you know, he could mean 'what you experienced, gentlemen of Athens, listening to the prosecution's speech' OR 'what you suffered or felt, etc.' Technically, we can't be sure." At that point, I knew the weeds were deep indeed.
posted by praemunire at 11:17 AM on July 30, 2019 [3 favorites]

I'm kind of in the opposite situation, I have a calling and it arose when I was college student, I just don't how to pursue it in a sane way. I don't know how else to describe it other than a calling, it's not just a hobby or interest, it's a very deep feeling of importance like you've been imprinted with it. Meanwhile it's as if capitalism is denying my existing calling unless I make big personal sacrifices to follow through with it.
posted by polymodus at 11:52 AM on July 30, 2019 [3 favorites]

@polymodus: Many ways exist to pursue it in a sane way. (And lots of insane ways as well of course). I've always recommended a dual approach, learn the various ways to live simply/cheaply that save you time and money to be able to pursue opportunities in your calling. Much like the advice they give hopeful Movie people about developing a semi-profitable day job.
posted by aleph at 12:03 PM on July 30, 2019

The best advice I can give on this topic is that when you start a new job, be absolutely firm about taking your breaks and lunch. Be unavailable during this time. Get to work on time, definitely, but also leave on time. I have a small chalkboard on my desk on which I write "Back at ~11:30" or whatever time I am back from break or lunch.

If you're the only one doing this, sometimes it takes awhile to train everybody else, but they will definitely get it. And if this makes you enemies or alienates you, that's the surest sign that you're working in an environment with management that wants to take advantage of you and is frustrated if they can't.
posted by fiercecupcake at 12:14 PM on July 30, 2019 [11 favorites]

Some of these new Hills to Die On have become downright unaffordable! Self sacrifice has become sanitized. And never-ending, galaxy-wide Civil war has become a billion dollar Disney property.

I weep metaphorically. But I'm looking for a job. A job/career that doesn't require as much so-called passion. I sometimes metaphorically weep for the self described passionate crowd in my old career that I've left behind. But I'm in a lucky spot.
posted by SoberHighland at 12:14 PM on July 30, 2019

"Passion" to mean "suffering" is relatively rare in modern English usage and is kept on life support almost exclusively by its use in reference to the sufferings of Christ on the cross.

To draw the biblical reference out a little further, and surely beyond the point of breaking: Passion/Suffer where Suffer -----> "suffer the little children..." in this context, suffer means to put up with.

So remember that since to be passionate is to suffer, and to suffer is to put up with, in this way almost anyone can be passionate about their job.
posted by tclark at 12:30 PM on July 30, 2019 [3 favorites]

When I interviewed for my current position, my (now) manager told me straight up that they were having trouble completing with other companies in the area on salary, despite them offering me what I thought was a pretty generous package. I didn't tell him at the time that between the shorter commute and being able to leave at five every day I would not have been too picky about how much money they were going to offer me.

We have an explicit "40 and done" work week policy; anything over goes in to a flex time bank. I really only ever fill that when I'm out running a test program because the hours can be unpredictable on those trips. But that's, like, twice a year. I much prefer the sentiment that you should be able to fulfill your duties in a normal week of work, and if you can't then more likely than not it's a staffing issue. I've always felt empowered to ask for help and resources, and this is the first job I've actually gotten what I've asked for. I think I'm sticking around for a while.
posted by backseatpilot at 2:07 PM on July 30, 2019 [8 favorites]

This really has me in a jam, too - I left a corporate career path to pursue comedy full-time a few years ago, and comedy has not yet pursued me full time. So I'm looking for a job. And every single interview I get involves some degree of praise/cool points for my (modest) comedic/storytelling accomplishments.

When I try to figure out if I'll be able to keep pursuing standup, or if we will be having contests at the office to see who can stay the latest, it's seen as not being "passionate" about the work at hand.

Which is fucking infuriating because I'm being brought in SPECIFICALLY because they liked my passion for standup and storytelling in the first place.
posted by chinese_fashion at 2:20 PM on July 30, 2019

Straight up though, I do have a passion. I'm a freelancer who gets plenty of steady work and earns enough to survive and more, and my passion?

Fuck you, pay me. <--- Right here. My hobby, passion, and love is convincing people to quit their jobs and/or demand more money. My passion is watching blatantly evil fuckers squirm. My passion is getting up in a company and unionizing them, getting to know entrepreneurs and then preaching socialism to their star employees. My favorite bar conversation is "you should ask for higher pay". I do this on my own time, for fun, and I sleep well at night.

Good times.
posted by saysthis at 3:27 PM on July 30, 2019 [16 favorites]

Fuck you, pay me indeed. Hell yeah.

I had worked in IT for large and small companies for years before I ended up going to work for a university for what I thought was going to be a couple of years to destress and then go back to private industry. Instead, I stayed for 8 or 9 years and counting. I have a short commute, comparatively low work stress, I still get to play with fun toys because there's an expectation that the university will provide high end IT infrastructure (whether for high performance academic computing or kids watching porn^H^H^H^H^H streaming media). And there's a culture - at least among my group and a couple of levels of management above me - that supports sane work hours and flexibility for personal issues. I am told this is not unusual for academic staff.
posted by rmd1023 at 3:48 PM on July 30, 2019 [2 favorites]

Pretty much the entire restaurant industry is built on exploiting people who can perform the arcane ritual of creating food from ingredients, and paying them as little as possible to do so. It builds up a mystique of the chef as a suffering, probably damaged artist who couldn’t do anything else if they tried, and self-reinforces the bullshit through a macho culture of “that’s just how this job is” when no, it doesn’t need to be like that.

The only people who can make a living in a standard restaurant, like an actual living where savings can be amassed for when the body can no longer handle the physically demanding labor of a kitchen, is the owner. If an owner making money while convincing laborers that it’s okay to accept subsistence wages because they “love” the work isn’t exploitation, I don’t know what is.

But hey, something something, bullshit about passion, and it’s all okay.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:03 PM on July 30, 2019 [5 favorites]

Early in my career, I worked a non profit. I was regularly asked to "volunteer" evenings and weekends for my employer, which I declined. In 3 years, no one ever got a raise, though at least I wasn't asked to take a pay cut when we had a short year (some of my colleagues were).

I finally quit in the middle of the 2008 recession because stressing about money sounded better than continuing to work there. A few months of emotional detox later and I increased my salary by half again on top of what I'd been making by finding a job as an executive assistant at a tech company. When I was asked to stay late, it was explicitly stated that I could take the comp time to balance it out, and raises happened every year.

I was staggered by the difference. I knew corporate jobs paid more, but I hadn't really considered HOW MUCH more, and what a difference that could mean to me.
posted by spindrifter at 6:16 PM on July 30, 2019

YOUR ENTHUSIASM IS A HARNESSABLE RESOURCE.

- (not actually) Jenny Holzer
posted by Barking Frog at 9:17 PM on July 30, 2019 [1 favorite]

From personal experience, when pay and autonomy increase, genuine passion can reveal itself a bit more. (I take profound delight in my job. It is a privilege.) Or the worker can have more freedom to acknowledge they don't love their job, but could use the money, and can make a freer choice about what to do for it. I was taught a hierarchy of motivations, moving from money --> fame --> power --> pleasure --> other people --> [something spiritual]. I think faking pleasure for money belongs at the bottom of that, below money itself. What a steaming pile of bullshit to be expected to have "passion" for enriching your boss.
posted by sillyman at 9:21 PM on July 30, 2019

And there's a culture - at least among my group and a couple of levels of management above me - that supports sane work hours and flexibility for personal issues. I am told this is not unusual for academic staff.

Seconded. I work for a university too, and oh my GOD, it's so much saner. Maybe it's just that I was mostly used to the US work culture and now live in the UK, but it's so low-key here. I can just email my boss and say "Hey, gonna be in late, got a last-minute plumber coming over" or whatever, and it's no problem. If I get in a little late because of the bus or whatever, no one bats an eye. I have an officially-mandated-by-contract 35-hour work week.

I may retire from this place.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 6:22 AM on July 31, 2019 [4 favorites]

Also, I was told last month that all the weekends/nights I had put in that were BILLED TO CLIENTS did not count against PTO. God, fuck this fucking place.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 9:03 AM on July 31, 2019 [4 favorites]