Bosses’ acceptance of unrealistic schedules or too many jobs may mean you run short of time and are unable to leave for home at the end of the working day.

How do you react?

• With annoyance/irritation (“he bloody well ought to realise, there’s not enough hours in the day”)
• You feel fed up/cross (“now I’m going to miss football again”)
• Or are you indifferent (“this is probably the way it is everywhere”)?

Have you found that you are unable to stick to schedules, or that the number of tasks you had was far in excess of what you could achieve?

What did you do?

• Did you refuse (and to whom)?
• We got on with the job even though it meant we had to be a bit less thorough
• We worked 14 hours a day for a couple of weeks in a row

Can you talk to the boss about the number of jobs to do?

How much overtime do you think is acceptable?