Work hours are a contractual agreement, not something that should be changed on a whim.

In practice, it is pretty common for people in all kinds of jobs to work more hours than they were initially supposed to. They need to help clean up after their shift, or some kind of emergency necessitates that they stay a little longer. Although it is not ideal, many will accept the need for this every now and then.

However, things get uncomfortable when an occasional favor turns into an expectation, and no consideration is shown for an employee’s schedule outside of work. Even the biggest workaholic needs a break sometimes, and is going to suffer if they are always doing marathon shifts that they get signed up to at the last minute. There comes a point when such a system stops functioning.

Still, exploitative managers are going to keep on making their employees work for longer than they should, so long as they can get away with it. Standing up to this can feel like a challenge, but it is something that is important to do. It is not fair to be constantly shouldered with unexpected overtime, whether it is paid or not.