I've never had a "contract" with an employer which specified the number of hours I was to work in a week. At most tere might be a verbal agreement on "core hour

I've never had a "contract" with an employer which specified the number of hours I was to work in a week. At most tere might be a verbal agreement on "core hours" in the office to be available for meetings, but there was certainly no upper limit on the number of hours to be worked and no concept of overtime. This idea of a detailed employment contract is something I've only heard about from europeans, and I'd love to see what the contracts look like. Generally employment in the USA is "at-will" and either party can terminate the arrangement at any time for any (or no) reason, without further obligations.