Is it time to tell the boss to get “*&*@##$” 

Is it time to tell the boss to get  “*&*@##$”.   I don’t like using foul language but with some employers, that is the language they understand. 

Lady Gaga is being sued by her former best friend and former personal assistant Jennifer O’Neill, who claims that Gaga owes her nearly half a million dollars in overtime because she was forced to do menial tasks like unpack the singer’s luggage and stand by her side as she vomited in a hotel toilet.  O'Neil claims she worked 7,168 unpaid hours during her time on the road with Gaga on her Monster Ball tour in 2010.   

Lady Gaga stated in her deposition that O'Neil was a 'fucking hood rat' and claims she failed in her duties as a PA by making her carry her own luggage, which she found stressful.  

In other incidents,  an intern has launched legal action against rap artist P Diddy alleging underpayments,  while a group associated with Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg was criticised for advertisements for unpaid internships. 

An intern of a major US bank died in London and it is reported that before his death, he’d worked for 72 hours straight. 

In another UK case, an employee successfully sued his former employers in the County Court for breach of ‘duty of care’.  The employee had repeatedly complained to his employers that he was overworked but the employers took no action. He had no assistant manager and other staff members, who left, including two chefs and an administrative worker, were never replaced. 

Apple’s Supplier Code of Conduct limits work weeks to 60 hours except in unusual circumstances, and all overtime must be voluntary. Unfortunately, work weeks in excess of 60 hours have historically been standard rather than exceptional. In 2011, Apple took a more basic approach – they tracked work hours weekly at a handful of suppliers, and when they found excessive hours, they were able to address the problems quickly with the supplier. For 2012, that program was expanded and they now track work hours weekly for over 1 million employees, publishing the data every month.  

In a recently released report by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, (ABS) it is reported that In November 2012, there were 3.4 million employees (excluding owner managers of incorporated businesses) whose hours varied weekly or they were usually required to be on call or standby in their main job. Of these, 12% had less than one day's notice about their work schedule while 34% had four or more weeks' notice about their work schedule. 

The ABS found over a third of employees usually worked extra hours or overtime and more than a quarter of these employees were not compensated for this work.   Although more men usually worked extra hours or overtime than women (38 per cent compared to 30 per cent), one in three of these women (33 per cent) were not compensated compared to one in five men (21 per cent). 

There was a time,  in the not too distant past, that when you said goodbye to your work colleagues and started on your homeward journey, you left your work behind. 

Then came mobile phones.  As big as they were, we still managed to juggle them on the drive home with answering calls from colleagues still at work, or from clients.  We ignored the danger to ourselves and other road users as it was not yet a crime. 

Then came smart phones and we could take and answer emails out of work hours, hopefully not while driving home, because now, using the phone while driving, is a crime.  Then the boss gave his staff laptops or tablets to make it easier to keep them on a string. 

But what about taking and answering calls or emails while having dinner with the partner or family.  Standing around the BBQ and fielding an enquiry from your manager about an early morning meeting.  Do we book these minutes – minutes that can quickly add up to hours – as overtime and take of time in lieu?   

A recent report on the Bloomberg website reported a survey than found that adults who worked 11 hours a day or more had a 67 percent higher risk of developing coronary heart disease than those who worked an 8-hour shift.   

Has the time not come to reclaim our lives,  to be able to say that today is “me” time and I am not available, or must we wait until our nurse does it for us when she takes away our telephone, while we are on a stretcher being wheeled into the local hospital intensive Care unit.