Saying "no" to corporate volunteerism
Saying "no" to corporate volunteerism
Protect your time and your boundaries.
A few weeks ago I got a cold DM from someone asking for a meeting with me. She saw that I was familiar with a particular product and wanted to "pick my brain" about an alternative she was building at a startup. I replied that my consulting rate is $125/hour and asked if she would like to book a call. Not surprisingly, she didn't reply.
I posted about this experience on Threads and one person was shocked that I wouldn't do a call for free. Another person told me that I'm "everything that's wrong with today's world."
There's nothing wrong with protecting my time. As a self-employed person, my time is literally money.
We've become accustomed to giving away our time for free, starting with employers. The 40-hour workweek was established in the U.S. back in 1940. However, many salaried employees are exempt from overtime laws, meaning they can work more than 40 hours and receive no additional compensation. Some are expected to work more than 40 hours. According to The Washington Post, more than half of full-time employees work more than 40 hours per week.
For a long time, some people wore this as a badge of honor. It showed dedication to the company. It might be rewarded with a promotion, someday (at least, that's the carrot that was dangled). Others have felt like they couldn't refuse.
David worked as a business beat reporter for a local news outlet. He was given additional responsibilities to cover crime, education, and local news, each time taking over the responsibilities of another reporter who'd quit. Rather than hiring more reporters, the publication required David to work the equivalent of four jobs — often working 12-hour days — for the same salary.
But the vibe in the workplace is changing, and more people are finding ways to say "no" to more work without compensation.
Employees lack workplace wage protections
TikToker loewhaley (Laura) posts videos about protecting boundaries in the workplace. Her videos push back on the idea that people should have to work above 40 hours without getting paid.
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As Laura implies, managers expect this type of additional unpaid work. Exempt, salaried employees are expected to do additional work, without additional compensation. This paper from Georgetown Law points out that "demanding schedules are increasingly the norm for salaried office workers in the United States today, and there is no legal limit to their workweeks." In the case of David the Reporter, a demanding workload for a low salary could actually put a salaried employee close to minimum wage, if not below.
Unless employees push back. Any number of article headlines will point out that Gen Z is "difficult" in the workplace. In reality, this generation isn't difficult: the employees in this cohort are unwilling to ascribe to the relics of hustle culture. And, according to the World Economic Forum, Gen Z will be more than a quarter of the workforce by 2025. This generation represents a shifting attitude toward work, one that'll likely continue to gain steam.
When I was a manager, one of my employees was offered a bonus to take on additional work (far outside of her job description), for a period of six months. At the end of that time, she was offered a permanent arrangement: an increase in salary in exchange for the additional work. She declined, saying she didn't like the added work and would rather not spend more time on it. The CEO was completely flabbergasted. Who wouldn't trade their time for more money?? He probably would have forced her to take on the additional work, but I pointed out that it was so far removed from the job she was hired to do and would have made her miserable.
Saying no to corporate volunteerism
I was an exempt, salaried employee for many years. In the earliest part of my career, I worked a ridiculous number of hours. It got better over time, but I was just "expected" to do the work, and I did, without complaint. Part of my job involved responding to customer support tickets. The company didn't have enough support reps for the volume of tickets that came in, so I'd work very, very long days.
One of the other reps refused to work additional hours, so his tickets would go unanswered. I was horrified, thinking of the customer waiting for a response. But in reality, his approach was correct: it wasn't his problem that the company wouldn't staff the support line appropriately. The company benefitted from my desire to serve the customer, even at the expense of my own free time.
Later in my career, my work fluctuated and some weeks easily dipped below 40 hours. I talked about this with the CEO of another company and his response was, "If I knew a salaried employee was working under 40 hours, I would find something else for them to do."
With this mentality, companies benefit from both sides of salaried employees. They don't have to pay more for overtime and they can assign more work — above an employee's job description — if they are efficient and work fewer than 40 hours.
People have realized that this is a raw deal. As an employee in this Business Insider article points out, "back in the 80s, an average salary allowed people to afford a decent life, including enough to save for college tuition and buying a home. But now, with inflation and rising costs, wages have also stagnated."
Trading time for money hardly feels worth it. Trading time for no extra money? It's exploitation. You're volunteering your time for the company.
As for me, I'm fortunate to be able to push back on demands for my time. I can write contracts that protect me and say "no" to other people. I'm particularly a fan of Gerard McLean's Threads profile, in which he states: "Picking my brain will cost you a fortune. No discounts."
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