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I'm part of a massive death march project that really seems unlikely to be finished in shorter than six months. The company has announced a 1% bonus for everyone if this particular project is completed by the end of the year. Most of the people in this project seem on board with trying to accomplish this, and they're setting our work schedule. They're going off the expectation that everyone can go from working 9-5 to 7-7 every work day and take zero PTO other than the Thursday for Thanksgiving, and they're also talking about scheduling stuff on Saturdays and Sundays. The schedule of tasks does rely on me for around 25-30%.

I don't want to participate for several reasons, like having other stuff to do outside of work, the 1% bonus not being enough, and frankly I don't believe that we'll get the project done like this. But this seems to not be a common viewpoint among the rest of the team. I feel certain that if I follow their schedule I'll burn out. How should I proceed?

Joe Strazzere
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  • Are folks being paid hourly or salary? – Pyrotechnical Oct 31 '22 at 15:33
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    Salary, and it's whichever of the non-exempt or exempt types that means we don't get paid overtime. USA. –  Oct 31 '22 at 15:38
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    Well, the obvious answer is to say something like "Thanks for the offer but I'm happy with my current pay, I'll just work my normal hours"... what do you think will happen if you say that? – Philip Kendall Oct 31 '22 at 15:39
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    So they want you to work a 60 hour week for a ONE PERCENT bonus? 60 hours for time and half would be worth discussing. Say normal pay for 6 months = $40k, time and half for 20 extra hours = 75% more pay or $30k, you'd have to ask your wife and kids if not seeing you for $30k pay is worth it. ONE PERCENT? That would be $400 or $800? No way. – gnasher729 Oct 31 '22 at 15:54
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    Knightsterms: "Exempt" means you have to work overtime if it is needed for the businesss. The company not hiring enough people is no reason. – gnasher729 Oct 31 '22 at 15:56
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    You're exempt from overtime pay. See Wages and the Fair Labor Standards Act – BSMP Oct 31 '22 at 15:56
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    @PhilipKendall, I'd guess OP would gain the reputation as "not a team player" since everyone else seems to be on board with the plan. If the team fails, they could blame OP for everyone missing out on their bonus, which could make for some hard feelings. – Seth R Oct 31 '22 at 16:10
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    1% bonus of what? Sounds ridiculous if it would be 1% of your base salary,, but if everybody else is super happy, maybe you misunderstood something and it's a ton of money because it's 1% of something else? – nvoigt Oct 31 '22 at 16:24
  • "The schedule of tasks does rely on me for around 25-30%." Does this mean that work can't get done if you're not there? Meaning they'd need you to be present for 25-30% of this overtime work or it can't happen at all? – BSMP Oct 31 '22 at 16:33
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    I'm thinking the same as @nvoigt. If it's 1% of the base salary, then this offer is ridiculous. On the other hand, if it is 1% of what the company gets for the project, it might be worth taking another look. – Luc Oct 31 '22 at 16:58
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    "massive death march project" If this is really true, then you can't just say 'no', you have to say 'no', because you're going to need all that extra weekend time and PTO to work on your resume and look for a new employer. The key is to make the switch to a new company before the burnout happens. – Stephan Branczyk Oct 31 '22 at 18:07
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    A normal working year is 2000 hours. 1% of that is 20 hours. If the proposed schedule change is accurate, that's how much overtime you'd be working every single week, not including weekends. This is a ridiculous offer, even if you didn't mind the overtime. – Alex Zuroff Oct 31 '22 at 19:52
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    And if the project doesn't succeed, all that extra time put in doesn't even get the 1% bonus? Although, as others say, if it's 1% of your base pay, it's pretty much an insult to even offer, since they are asking for about 50% more work time. – thursdaysgeek Oct 31 '22 at 19:53
  • Who is setting the schedule and who is having these expectations? Because it's different if it's the company in official/unofficial capacity or if it's a team decision, independent from the company expectation. In the second case it's more likely you will face social consequences. – bracco23 Nov 01 '22 at 12:00
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    Maybe you should ask why your coworkers seem to be happy about working OT for a bonus is much less than OT pay that they only get if they complete by an unreasonable deadline. Maybe they drank the Kool-Aid or maybe you missed something. I would love to hear what their reasoning is on here. – DKNguyen Nov 01 '22 at 13:36
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    @thursdaysgeek Indeed, a possible 1% bonus that has perhaps a 10% chance of being paid is almost the equivalent of offering a 0.1% bonus, which is downright insulting. – Nuclear Hoagie Nov 01 '22 at 14:07
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    And if the 1% promised is say 1% of the project payout, make sure you understand exactly what dollar amount you are being promised. 1% of one million is not a bad payout at 10,000. But then if it's split 50 ways, and you only get 3 shares, that's only 600. This is now negotiation. "What's my exact benefit and on what date do I receive it?" Without that answered you can't even answer whether you will or will not participate. –  Nov 01 '22 at 22:26
  • Is the 1% a permanent wage increase? Even if it isn't it still would be a pay cut due to the massive inflation... Even 10% would probably not be enough to cover this year inflation. I would consider this if they forgot 2 zeros, i.e. they meant a 100% wage increase i.e. double your wage permanently from 2023 onwards... and even then it's not obvious that you should take the "deal" – GACy20 Nov 02 '22 at 09:04
  • PTO = paid time off – Peter Mortensen Nov 02 '22 at 17:41
  • I seem to be reading this different from others, I assumed the 1% was additional to overtime pay? – deep64blue Nov 03 '22 at 15:36
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    @deep64blue Could be, but OP deleted his account so no one is likely to get any answers. – pipe Nov 03 '22 at 17:22
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    I think we can take deleting the account as "I completely misunderstood or misrepresented the situation; Never Mind." – keshlam Nov 13 '22 at 10:06

9 Answers9

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I'm part of a massive death march project that really seems unlikely to be finished in shorter than six months. The company has announced a 1% bonus for everyone if this particular project is completed by the end of the year.

Counting this week, there are nine weeks left in this calendar year. Six months' worth of work is approximately 960 work hours. Spread that over nine weeks, and you'd need to work 106 hours a week, or 15 hours a day (including weekends). Four extra hours a day isn't going to cut it.

Spoiler alert: the project won't get finished, there won't be any bonus, and all of your families' holidays will be ruined for nothing.

I would tell my manager that while I don't mind working a bit of overtime occasionally, the current request is far beyond what you consider reasonable and won't significantly increase your output over the time period. Do the best you can for the rest of the year but don't burn yourself out. This is the textbook definition of "poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part". Your boss isn't going to fire you before the end of the year if, as you said, 25-30% of the work relies on you because that would guarantee that the project fails. Spend the next two months finding a new position with a company that treats their employees better and jump ship as soon as you get a chance. It doesn't sound like there are many options for salvaging your current situation, or that it's worth salvaging at all.

You do actually have a lot of leverage here, if you have the intestinal fortitude to follow through. Your resignation would mean the project is clearly beyond impossible for the remaining team to finish regardless of overtime. Your boss can accept that you'll work the normal hours that were agreed upon, or you can walk and let your boss explain to upper management how he drove off a critical resource and caused a project to fail. A manager willing to work you that hard already doesn't care about you at all, so don't waste energy trying to keep them happy with you. There's a risk that they fire you after the deadline but since it's essentially impossible to meet the target at this point, there's still that risk even if you did work yourself to death. Hopefully, you'll have started your new job long before it gets to that point.

Also, you didn't mention where specifically you are but, in many places, PTO is considered part of your compensation. If your PTO expires at the end of the year and your employer suddenly tries to prevent you from using it without adequate warning, you may have grounds to sue them for denying you compensation. That particular part of the issue would likely be a better as a question for law.stackexchange.com.

bta
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    "Also, you didn't mention where specifically you are but, in many places, PTO is considered part of your compensation. If your PTO expires at the end of the year and your employer suddenly tries to prevent you from using it without adequate warning, you may have grounds to sue them for denying you compensation." Assuming that a workplace like this isn't trying for the scam that is "unlimited time off". – nick012000 Nov 01 '22 at 10:19
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    The OP will also need to understand and accept that their leaving will likely be pointed to as a major factor of why the project ultimately failed. The company will look for excuses and they need to be prepared to handle being thrown under the proverbial bus like this. – spuck Nov 01 '22 at 15:08
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    So long, @spuck, as the OP already has a new job lined up, being thrown under the bus is irrelevant. Most places I've ever worked, current shortcomings and failures are always blamed on the most recently departed employee, whether he had anything to do with it or not. It's just easier to blame someone who can't defend himself than accept responsibility for something... – FreeMan Nov 01 '22 at 15:42
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    Sad I can only upvote this once. So many up-worthy points... – G. Ann - SonarSource Team Nov 01 '22 at 15:54
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    @FreeMan, agreed. Since we spend so much of our lives at work, we often form close friendships with our co-workers, sometimes lasting longer than the job itself. The OP needs to be prepared to deal with the idea of not making everybody happy, which is what we are (mis-)trained as children to do. The "intestinal fortitude" phrase from this answer prompted me to think along these lines. – spuck Nov 01 '22 at 16:37
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    I doubt that a manager would "explain to upper management how he drove off a critical resource and caused a project to fail". He would use the resignation as an excuse for not getting it done. "user137408 promised this was going to be done then quit when it was due." – Hannover Fist Nov 01 '22 at 17:11
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    My concern is that Project Management will expect this kind of effort for all future projects. The Project Management needs to learn from this fiasco and reschedule or replan. – Thomas Matthews Nov 01 '22 at 18:27
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    @HannoverFist Part of a manager's job is to ensure that the team's bus factor remains sufficiently high. Claiming that one employee's departure doomed the project would be admitting that they failed to plan for one of the most common and predictable types of team problems. The manager would have to explain why he let one person be a single point of failure for such a large portion of the project, plus why he hasn't staffed, equipped, or cross-trained the team to be able to handle a single person's absence. – bta Nov 01 '22 at 21:51
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    @HannoverFist don't worry, there is standardised language to lay blame on someone you want to get rid of. "Lack of team spirit", "not committed to the company", etc. etc.. And HR will happily work out the termination paperwork and come up with more fake narratives to convince any agency needing to approve it. – jwenting Nov 02 '22 at 04:07
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    If 25-30% of the work relies on the questioner, then they are probably greatly underpaid. Unfortunately this time of year isn't great for job hunting, but being ready for January doesn't hurt. – user Nov 02 '22 at 12:01
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There is a very good way to deal with things like this when you are being asked for Additional hours that are unreasonable:

"Sure - can you let me know what Cost Centre I can bill my Overtime Hours to, to complete this project?"

If they (invariably) say that your contract doesn't allow Overtime or that there is no cost centre - then at that point, you advise them that you are not a charity and don't work for Free and you will be finishing at your normal time.

If they raise a big stink, point out that a 1% annual bonus is not guaranteed, even if everyone was onboard with completing the project and that 1% is likely to be a far smaller amount than the compensation you'd get from OT rates at 4 hours a day for the next 2 months.

I'm not 100% sure on what your labour laws are like in your area, but I imagine that asking all employees to increase their work hours by 50% for several months with no increase in remuneration would not be considered reasonable for a Salaried employee.

TheDemonLord
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    then at that point, you advise them that you are not a charity and don't work for Free and you will be finishing at your normal time. --> this doesnt work. Companies where overtime is the way of life, you will face a lot of weird looks from the team. – chendu Nov 01 '22 at 08:17
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    @chendu One interesting thing about being an adult is that you have the opportunity to value principles over whether or not people give you weird looks. Granted, far from everyone makes use of that opportunity, but it's there at least. – Will Nov 01 '22 at 08:44
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    @Will. to be fair, not everyone is fortunate enough to be in a position to use that opportunity. I feel the majority of questions on The Workplace lack the critical detail of how desperately the asker needs the job in question. The advice one would give a senior staffer with an in-demand skill set in a major urban centre is very different from the advice one would give a single parent of three with no savings working at the only employer in their remote town. – Parker Coates Nov 01 '22 at 11:45
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    The compensation would definitely be less than OT pay. At most, yearly rate is 2080x hourly rate, so 1% bonus is at most 20.8x hourly rate. OT at 4 hours extra a day is already 20 hours over in 1 week, assuming 1x OT pay. This is the most conservative reasonable estimate, and it has 1 week of overtime just under 1% yearly rate. – Alex Jones Nov 01 '22 at 11:46
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    @ParkerCoates I understand that, but there's not a whole lot you can say or do in a situation where standing your ground isn't even tenable as a worst case scenario. I mean, I'm not sure how useful it would be to reframe answers as "normally you should do X, but in your situation you probably better just suck it up". – Will Nov 01 '22 at 12:42
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    The problem with this answer is that it presumes that the pressure to work overtime is coming from the manager you're requesting the extra payment from. The dynamics are different when it's coming from coworkers -- you'll be viewed by them as not a team player, making things even harder on them, etc. Rather than just refusing, you should try to get them to understand why they shouldn't capitulate, either. – Barmar Nov 01 '22 at 13:24
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    I don't think agreeing to such an overtime request would be a good idea even if management is willing to pay you every single hour of overtime at say 150% your usual hourly rate. They are trying to go from 40 hours a week to somewhere between 60 and 80 hours a week with zero time off for 2 months. That is not ok regardless of how much they are offering to pay. – quarague Nov 01 '22 at 18:36
  • @ParkerCoates - whilst I agree that there's differences in personal situations. The Majority of questions in here are focused on those of us in the Corporate world. – TheDemonLord Nov 01 '22 at 18:51
  • I can't tell how serious this answer is meant to be. While I'd agree with trying to communicate the general gist of what's recommended here (but a lot more gently), if one says exactly what's recommended here, I can't imagine many employers where you'd still have your job by the end of the day. If your employer is treating you poorly, politely decline requests that ask too much, find another job and resign professionally. All that being passive aggressive achieves is to give you a momentary nice feeling, while making your situation worse in basically every other way. – NotThatGuy Nov 02 '22 at 10:02
  • @ParkerCoates "the majority of questions ... lack the critical detail of how desperately the asker needs the job" - it's perfectly reasonable to tell the asker what options they have, and the pros and cons associated with each of those. It's much less reasonable to expect to know the exact priorities of some random person on the internet (regardless of how much information they put into their one post), to be able to know which option is best for them. (They did, however, ask how to opt out, so it seems reasonable to point out the cons of that specifically.) – NotThatGuy Nov 02 '22 at 10:13
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    Asking salaried employees (aka exempt employees) to work beyond 40 hours per week without extra compensation is standard operating procedure in the US. "Exempt" means the employer is exempt from paying overtime. Some employers abuse this concept and expect their exempt employees to work 60 hours per week (or more), year round. There is no "Cost Centre" to be queried. (In the US, we would call it a "Cost Center".) – David Hammen Nov 02 '22 at 11:07
  • It's really terrible idea except you're honestly willing to work overtime for the same rate as normal working hours. Normally overtime is paid 50% or 100% more. – Danubian Sailor Nov 03 '22 at 14:54
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A big part of the problem is if you don't work the hours, and the project fails, people are going to point to you as why it failed.

If you are like most normal people, then spending extra hours actually decreases your efficiency: you're tired, you make mistakes, and the next day, you have to spend the morning fixing those mistakes. Which is repeated each day, with less actual progress as the team gets more tired. And all that for a negligible chance at an insult of a bonus. (Because, it sounds like if you don't make that goal, you don't even get the bonus for all that work.)

Like others have said, I would tell your team you have appointments* after work that can't be changed, and things in the morning as well. That they should contact you if there are show stoppers where you are needed, but you won't be able to do that schedule except in rare cases. And then, work well and efficiently when you are at work. If possible, make it so you're the one who is actually making the best progress, because you're not wasting half of each productive day fixing the errors from the day before. And make your progress be very visible, so it's obvious that the well-rested employee is the better employee.

*A date with your tv and couch is still an important appointment.

thursdaysgeek
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    no need to make up explanations, like an appointment (even with your couch). That only invites argumentation on details, distracting from the core of the problem (the ridiculous amount of overtime, the shady promise of a ridiculous bonus) – njzk2 Nov 01 '22 at 16:30
  • @njzk2 Oh for sure! Do not tell people your couch appointment! I'm just saying that an appointment with the couch is perfectly valid and important, so it is completely ok to say you have a hard stop time because of other things to do after work, when you're just going home to rest. – thursdaysgeek Nov 01 '22 at 18:06
  • agreed, I would not mention it as "appointments", though, I would just say "no thanks, I have a life" – njzk2 Nov 01 '22 at 19:11
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    @njzk2 and if you want to be a little more subtle, then "no thanks, I have things I have to do right after work, and I can't stay late most days." – thursdaysgeek Nov 01 '22 at 21:38
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Some coworkers are committing to work overtime for a 1% bonus. How can I best opt out of this?

If someone "schedules" you for your off hours you simply tell them that you can't make it. You do not need to give them a reason for not being able to work outside of your contracted hours.

If they bring up the 1% bonus, you remind them that even if you were able to make those odd hours/days, the 1% bonus is insufficient to make up for all of the unpaid overtime that you are being asked to do.

Obviously, there will be team members who will say you are not a team player and attempt to blame you and anyone else who decides to work normal hours if the deadline is not met. Just be mentally prepared for this because there is no way to avoid it.

sf02
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    @JoeStrazzere They are separate, unrelated arguments. The bonus being insufficient is only to counter the bonus argument. – sf02 Oct 31 '22 at 18:20
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    The 1% follow up is prefaced with "even if I was able to make it". The fact that OP can't make it is consistent regardless of the 1% – sf02 Oct 31 '22 at 19:29
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    For a "salaried, exempt" employee, what are "contracted hours"? – brhans Oct 31 '22 at 20:25
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    @brhans What the company needs. Not having hired enough people doesn't create a need for the company. – gnasher729 Oct 31 '22 at 23:39
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    @gnasher729 for any US employee working "at-will" in a "salaried, exempt" position, "contracted hours" are a figment of the imagination. There is no contract, and your hours are whatever your manager says they are. I'm not saying that I agree with this in any way - I'm originally from a civilized country with some labour law protections - but it is what it is ... – brhans Nov 01 '22 at 00:46
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    My hours are whatever I work. No problems finding a job elsewhere, especially now. – gnasher729 Nov 01 '22 at 10:35
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    @brhans The Man can change your working hours outside of the customary and agreed upon 40/week only if you let him. – Tony Ennis Nov 01 '22 at 19:43
  • @TonyEnnis so what do you call "getting fired"? is that "letting him" or "not letting"? – Esther Nov 02 '22 at 18:23
  • @Esther If a company fires you for not working 50% more hours for 1% more pay, then they're doing you a favor. – Tony Ennis Nov 03 '22 at 14:42
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Just...don't commit to the crazy hours.

The work that needs to get done before the end of the year is a major crunch for the company. I totally get that leadership would want people to work a bit more to have a chance at success, but the reality is that you need to have a work-life balance associated with this.

Make your assessment clear to the business that you can't commit to these hours. No need to delve into specifics, but state that you have other commitments outside of work and you would like to maintain a healthy work-life balance during this project.

What I'll say next is that they could look to terminate you, since there's probably a clause in your working agreement that stipulates that you could be asked to work overtime without compensation, but it's really up to you if that's worth it - having a job but working insane hours vs needing to find a job and working better hours.

Makoto
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Do the Minimum Overtime and Get Out!

Been there, done that but without even the teaser of a bonus. This is always a major sign of a badly run business that has absolutely no problems taking it out on their employees.

This is a situation to run from, not stay and endure. There are many, many other companies that are much better run than this. Find one and go to work for them. Many will emphasize work/life balance as part of the description of their culture.

In the meantime, put in as little overtime as you can manage without standing out too much. That hopefully means you are able to "work from home" outside of core hours.

This is the tail end of one of the hiring seasons for workers so hopefully something will come up quickly.

V2Blast
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  • Doing overtime is exaclty what the OP is willing to avoid. – Danubian Sailor Nov 03 '22 at 14:56
  • @DanubianSailor - that's unlikely to be an option in cultures like this. They are based on intimidation of the average employee into doing the usual death march. The best you can do is mime the march while actually avoiding the worst of the overtime while finding a new job. –  Nov 04 '22 at 11:56
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Tell your boss you're not doing it, and that they can of course keep the 1% bonus.

And you don't have to justify why you aren't doing it. You aren't a serf or a servant.

It really is that easy.

Tony Ennis
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The answer to your question depends on several variables, such as whether you are hourly or salaried, union or non-union, location, culture, company culture, etc.

The plain truth is both management and your co-workers expect you to work the extra hours.

The best way to deal with this, if you decide to do otherwise, is ignore it and wait till someone approaches you.

If someone approaches you, you essentially have three options

  1. work the extra hours
  2. find a new job (I'd keep current one until then)
  3. hope that you are an 'all-star' who they won't let go, even if you aren't doing the extra hours.

Note: In the case of (3) there will be resentment, no matter what. The exception would be if you have some obvious life-critical situation such as cancer in the immediate family, but apart from that, you will experience resentment.

To me, work-life balance is important, and it is with sadness that I give this answer.

Where I currently work, work-life balance is good, but this is the exception, not the rule.

My other answer would be "I wish I knew."

Andrew Leach
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JosephDoggie
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If they are willing to give you 1% it probably means that the downside of not completing the project is worth ~10% of whatever.

You are basically getting a tip for doing all the hard work so that they can reap the benefits. This happens all the time but simply behind the scenes, I have been on both sides of the equation.

Now, having said all that. Being a leader in a situation like this can attract positive attention and can propel your career ahead by years in a matter of months.

Since they are trying to entice the workers it is obvious that it is highly visible project and "git-n-r-dun" and making sure people know that you were heavily involved can be seen as an opportunity.

sm14
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