"i am willing to work more than 48hours"

[roachcoach]

It's called office politics. In a large enough organisation with a big and complex enough project it's almost unavoidable. There will be those that want a project to fail Sometimes competence and reasoning have little or no effect on the deadlines being set.

This merits repeating - I've seen it a lot. It's an utter disgrace that it happens, but happen it does.

[Biscuit]

in the current environment i don think they are leaving you with an option really. If its between someone who will work only the contracted hours and someone who will go beyond that then (assuming the other qualities are similar) i don't see them choosing the contracted only hours.

I had to agree that i will work past the standard hours but honestly, i dont really think about it that much. Some days i work way more, some days i work way less, if i work weekends or bank holidays i get it back. Its pretty flexible and i have no real complaints.