Would this be a bad social move?

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My boss needs someone to work on the weekends desperately and cant hire anyone till the end of the year. He needs 4-5 hours.


I am going to demand that I stay there a full 10 hour day and get paid to basically do nothing half the time. My reasoning will be that it's not worth my time to go up for a 5 hour day. The reality is, I just want to get paid for nothing for 5 hours.



Am I a douche? My reasoning won't make me look like a douche. I get paid for 5 hours....

Also, he will have to pay me overtime the whole 10 hours. However, if he is REALLY that desperate he will pay me the sum I am requesting.


The risk is he might see that and I would come off as an as*hole at work....

I would angle for more pay for those hours, if it's outside your regular agreed work schedule.

You probably don't want to sit around and do nothing for five hours. What you might want is to be paid at an overtime rate for the time you are actually required.

If it's a one off I'd live with it. If it's regular then push for it as overtime.

I think it would be a bad idea.

Nobody likes being strong armed. So if you insist on this because you can and he gives you the extra hours, you win the tactical and lose the strategic. He will always remember this.

If you just do the 5 hours, you gain a little of that good will NTs are fond of.

I don't think this is a social move at all, it's part of the competition game that we can play with bosses. He wants more for less, so do you. It's a conflict, and who wins will be a matter of luck, skill and power. If your best offer is the best he thinks he's going to get, he'll probably accept it.

The only social dimension I can see to this is in the way you conduct your dialogue with him. Some managers respond better to a friendly, diplomatic approach than to a blunt demand. Others don't care which it is. I always try to reassure them that everything is negotiable, but some of them seem to get upset at the very idea that I can see myself as having a right to negotiate anything at all with them.

I'd definitely recommend pushing for the deal you want, unless he's a powerful tyrant who will just impose his will and/or get back at you later. There's a lot of people doing more for less, for no better reason than they daren't test their industrial muscle-power for fear of a damaging counter-attack. In many cases they would probably get away with putting their foot down occasionally.

I think that it would be a very bad move. Your boss might think that you're only in it, for the money.

It isn't really a social move. Like ToughDiamond said, it's a negotiation move.

He desperately needs somebody for 4-5 hours. You will take that time only if you also get to make it an entire 10 hour shift, at overtime pay for the whole 10 hours.

He may take that deal. However, it is quite unlikely you will be doing nothing for the 5 hour balance. In order to justify that 5 hours of unexpected overtime to his boss, he will need to find some work for you to do during that time. You may very well be able to to negotiate that it be an entire shift rather than a half shift. What you won't be able to do is insist that no work be found for you to do during those extra 5 hours. He may need the extra help but he doesn't need it so badly that he is willing or even able to give away 5 hours of overtime with nothing accomplished during those 5 hours. He will find something for you to do. And if you don't do it, he will find somebody else.

So my advice is go ahead and ask for the entire 10 hours and accept that you will be working rather than doing nothing during the entire shift, not just the half of it. If that isn't ok with you, then don't ask for the entire shift rather than the half shift.

I think it would be a bad idea, but some people who have posted have offered good suggestions. Either ask for a 10 hour day and expect that you will be working the whole time, just work the five hours, or tell him you can't do it. Why should he have to pay you for five hours of doing nothing? If I were a boss, I would think very badly of an employee who even suggested a plan like this, let alone demanded it.

If I was a boss faced with that kind of demand, I would be seeking a new employee (slowly but I would look for someone more ameniable).

If I was a boss told that "I prefer ten hour days, is that possible?", I'd probably be better inclined towards the employee then if I was an employer. Instead of five hours he could try find enough work for you to work maybe seven hours which may suit better unless you just want to be paid double + overtime for the time he's asking you to work, which I view to be unreasonable.

I would never mention to a boss that you are trying to get paid for time in which you are not working. It's kind of raising a red flag that he will not forget.