"under no circumstances do I work more than 40 hours a week."
Should we take him at his word or assume that he isn't precise when speaking? Both are bad signs.
Should we take him at his word or assume that he isn't precise when speaking? Both are bad signs.
Look I can't speak for the OP, maybe ze would quit the first week ze's expected to work 40hours and 1 minute. Saying "no more than 40 hours, unless a tornado hits the data center; or my close friend and co-worker's mother dies and he asks me to stay a little late to finish some of his paper work; or a bomb will go off killing a dozen orphans if we stop coding" might be more precise, but it's also less accurate because by listing off every one of a billion unlikely situations in which OP might be willing to work over time it creates the impression that 40 hours is a much more flexible limit than it is.
"under no circumstances will I work overtime" has a very clear meaning.
And that even a supposedly more precise phrasing suffers from the problem that the listener may not interpret the words the way the speaker intended them to be.
I personally feel that a categorical statement such as yours is less amenable to misunderstanding than a equivocating one. Thanks.
Anyway, we're generating heat rather light in this subthread.
As I said, you could simply have said, "I will only work OT in exceptional cases, and these cases should be rare". It doesn't take an entire paragraph to get this point across. You get the idea.
The OP said "under no circumstances will I work overtime". Someone says that he really meant "i will sometimes do overtime".
I said, "he could have said I will rarely do overtime, only for exceptional cases".
And you claim that this isn't more precise? Did you pass reading comprehension in grade school?
Think about what numerous people are arguing here. OP said, "under no circumstances do I work more than 40 hours a week" and a number of people insist that these words mean "sometimes I will work OT", and that it's perfectly clear. That's stupid.
Also, I absolutely would not tell a company that I want to work for that "under no circumstances" will I work any overtime. Nor will I hire someone that says such a thing.
Life is about living, not about working, after all.