>Many of the roles folks are discussing here don't offer overtime payments. We're expected to comply with a wee line in our contracts that goes along the lines of "from time to time you may be required to work additional hours....".

Wait, what?? Every single of my employment contracts had a line like this, but I always assumed it was paid work. I can't imagine it meaning "from time to time you may be required to work additional hours for free". In fact all the contracts I remember that had this sentence also had an "overtime" section where there were things like:"if you work over 10h on a weekday every additional hour is at overtime pay rate of 1.5x, all hours worked on Saturday are at 1.5x rate, Sundays and Bank Holidays at double rate". That was pretty much standard in many companies I worked at. So not only the contract stated those additional hours were paid. They were worth more than the "normal time" beyond a certain amount of time worked per day.

In addition one company I worked at even had a section in there that if I work more than 24h straight there must be at least 24h of rest. If I work Sundays I have an option of taking Sunday double pay or having a weekday off no later than 14 days later if I want. Etc. Etc. Good companies exist. Anyone miserable in their work, please do look for a better place. Unfortunately many people just don't like changing jobs. My own sister was "stuck" in a miserable job for 5 years because I couldn't convince her to put real effort into looking for another one.

However, having said all that I have to say I had ocassional situations for various reasons when I didn't claim overtime. There are times one can benefit more by not asking for overtime.

For example I once had a job at a small family run business with a profit share bonus at the end of the year. That bonus was worth a lot more to me than throwing a wrench in the works by declining to work on some emergency in a middle of a night for sake of a few hours of overtime here and there. And during my time there the business went from employing 4 people in a basement to 30 people in a shiny new "office unit" in a business park. I had a big share in this success and I was compensated well there.

Then another job was in a large company that paid me more than double of what I made before as a normal daily rate. I think there was an office move on a weekend once when I never claimed overtime for because my request for an overtime form were met with silence. It was worth more to me to "give up that overtime" than raise stink for my manager risking my contract will not get renewed.

So my point is, you should decide if you want to be paid overtime. Is your free time worth double the money to you or is it unsellable? Perhaps you have family you prefer to spend time with? If you do, look for a job that treats you well.

That is why one of the worst things that can happen to an economy IMO is unemployment. I'll take inflation every day over unemployment. Sure inflation consumes your savings, but high rate of unemployment makes work miserable for everyone. I still remember when we used to have 20% unemployment in the 90s in Poland. Back them the power dynamic was such that when your boss asked you to work overtime you didn't even ask for an overtime form. You pretended to be glad the company offers you great opportunity to spend time with them on a weekend instead of being "bored at home". Seriously, I had colleagues say this to me with a straight face.