Context: I work in the construction industry as a superintendent
Just got to a new job site and getting a feel for the project and my team members. During the first day, someone drops “Oh btw we work 10 hours here.” It didn't really resonate with me but I have been here 3 weeks now and there is no explainable reason why we have such a large team dedicating 2 extra hours every day. Our team lead is a veteran member of the company and when asked about it he just said “Thats what we do around here.”
Each day we have a designated closing employee that we rotate so that site is never unmanned. But for the rest of us, those 2 hours are just a detriment to our work-life balance without any compensation. This adds up to nearly 3 months of extra work over the course of a year. We are salaried employees and are forced to put these extra hours as unpaid overtime in our time-tracker. No extra time off, no late starts, just 10 hours a day for no fucking reason.
As someone who has been out in the field for 3 years now, I'm all for putting in the extra effort when it's needed. I've gone plenty of time working 10's or 12's to help people get to the finish line. But this blanket 10-hour business is unfeasible on a project that could last the next 2-3 years of my life. Everyone else seems to be taking it and just rolling with the punches, but I'm not about to sit idly by just because “that's what we do here.”
Imagine if I had a kid? Imagine if I had a family? If I'm meant to get 8 hours of sleep a night, with an hour-long commute each day I'm spending nearly 12 hours of each day dedicated to this job. So for the next few years I get 4 hours a day to live my entire life? Thats not something I'm going to accept.
Scheduled a meeting with my supervisor and will update how it goes.