Overwhelming life I suppose?

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>I'm having troubles balancing life this semester. I have an on-campus job that seems to think I'm inhuman (to say the least). By college policy, I can't work more than 19 hours a week. However, my job supervisor has me scheduled as much as she can because she has told me I'm the only person she can trust to actually show up for work. I tend to work about 23 hours a week. That doesn't sound like much, but it's worse than it seems:</p>

<p>I work 12 hours on Monday, 10 hours on Wednesday, and like an hour and a half on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Did I choose my schedule like that? No. My employer has learned that I'm a trustworthy student worker who has never shown up late or never NOT shown up like half of the other staff. (Typically, our student staff will just not show up without notice, or will just call in sick. If you're calling in sick twice a week every week, I'm going to say you've got worse problems than needing to worry about keeping a job). So therefore, she wants me to work as much as possible because she doesn't have to worry about there not being anyone to cover. Especially when the building first opens up: I'm usually the only person that opens the building in the morning despite 2 other people being scheduled at the same time who don't show up until 10-20 minutes after the building opens.</p>

<p>Usually, you'd think you'd be rewarded for doing what you're supposed to be doing, but rather, it seems like intentional employee abuse by trying to pass off all her own problems on me. I don't have class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but it's still incredibly excessive in my opinion. So excessive that I have not been sleeping normal hours. I sometimes don't even sleep several times a week. I typically get less than 20 hours of sleep a week. (College life, right?) </p>

<p>The one and a half hours that I'm expected to be there on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday are just total bullcrap in my opinion. No reasonable job would have an employee just come in for an hour and just leave. And again, those days, I'm only there just to open since no one can show up on time, or at all.</p>

<p>But the job isn't the only reason I've got troubles balancing life. I also go to school full-time. All of my required classes just decided to fall on Tuesday and Thursday. </p>

<p>Does anyone have any advice on how to best improve my situation? Quitting my job is not the way to go, seeing as how it's the highest paying on-campus job students can get. I pay for my school using the money I get from this job, so quitting definitely would make things worse. Plus, I've already invested over a year of my life at this job. I was hoping to get a good job reference later in life because of how thankful my employer is all the time. I've never had problems with this job before with the schedule until this semester.</p>

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<p>Have you tried talking to her about switching your hours to work better for your convenience? Let her know that you need to also focus on school and you can’t do that when you work 12 hour days and also have class. Usually on-campus jobs are very flexible and understanding about class schedules moreso than non-campus jobs. You also never mentioned talking to her. </p>

<p>Do you get overtime for this as well?? I don’t see why she’s deliberately scheduling you 12 hour shifts in the first place because that’s an intentional 4 hour overtime pay. Most employers avoid OT like the plague.</p>

3

<p>i know for my school at least, your only allowed to work a certain number of hours for on campus jobs and no more than that, and you don’t get paid for overtime. so this must not be the case at your school? it does seem excessive so maybe you can ask for your hours to be cut back.</p>

4

<p>You need to tell your supervisor you can’t work that many hours regardless of what she wants you to do. Tell her how many you can work, and stick to it. If you are really her most reliable employee, she will want you for 12 hours/ week instead of 19 if it is all she can get. And if you can’t work on certain days at all, let her know. As long as you tell her ahead of time, she will probably work it out. You are allowing yourself to be treated like a doormat.</p>

5

<p>Go to HR. From my understanding at several jobs, one of the reasons I’m not allowed to work over 19 hrs a week (or 19.5 or 19.9, depending on the institution) is based on employee status. If I went higher on a consistent basis, I could potentially argue for benefits (or something else in that vague realm) and it could definitely create problems.</p>

<p>From my count (12+10+1.5+1.5+1.5), you’re working 25+ hours consistently, which is ridiculous if you didn’t sign up for it. Most on-campus jobs (all the ones that I have had) understand that you are a student first and employee second, and you need sleep!</p>

<p>Tell your supervisor no, and start looking for another on-campus job. If she persists, it’s definitely time to involve her supervisor or HR.</p>