Americans Won't Relax, Even Late at Night or on the Weekend

[DollarsAndDissonance]

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/09/americans-wont-relax-even-late-at-night-or-on-the-weekend/380146/

Interesting stats about American worklife.  Unclear from the article whether this represents more office workers doing work at night and on the weekends, or if the US simply has more late night and weekend shift jobs.

"On a typical weeknight, a quarter of American workers did some kind of work between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. That’s a lot, compared with about seven percent in France and the Netherlands. The U.K. is closest to the U.S. on this measure, where 19 percent work during night hours. On the weekends, one in three workers in the U.S. were on the job, compared to one in five in France, Germany, and the Netherlands."

[Hugh H]

American here, reading this thread while working on typing a work report. I'm off today of course.

[Elderwood17]

I check my work email multiple times an evening and every few hours on weekends.   It is an unwritten requirement for my level, which I learned the hard way.  And generally on vacations one is expected to keep an eye on things daily too.  This is the first employer I have had that expected it, but even in my past job I found myself doing some work just about every evening. 

I am hoping the work-life balance the younger generation emphasizes will change things back a bit!

[Ian]

This kind of off-hours work is what keeps me away from a lot of conventional jobs. If you count hours worked in an abstract way, including checking your work email and the disruption that comes with that, I think the jobs consume a lot more time than typically calculated.

[Emilyngh]

Yup.   This is exactly why I almost never check email at home (unless working from home during work hours). 

I sometimes feel guilty.   But, I decided to do this a few of years ago (after realizing that unless I completely avoid work in the evenings and weekends i wind up just never winding down, which is bad, bad, bad) and have watched for a concrete example of it hurting anything.   And in at least 3 years, I have not found one time where something I didn't respond on in the evening/weekend was harmed by me waiting until the next day or Monday.

I think part of the motivation behind constant email checking is narcissism.   Like the world will fall apart if we don't have our hands in it constantly.   Turns out that at least in my case, it hasn't yet.

[MoneyCat]

I work between 55-60 hours a week as a schoolteacher, which is usually done over six days during the week.  This is fairly typical for schoolteachers.  I also work on my "day off" teaching martial arts classes for about three hours.  I'm doing all this work in the hope that someday soon I won't have to do any work (other than what I feel like doing.)

[water1974]

I sometimes feel guilty.   But, I decided to do this a few of years ago (after realizing that unless I completely avoid work in the evenings and weekends i wind up just never winding down, which is bad, bad, bad) and have watched for a concrete example of it hurting anything.   And in at least 3 years, I have not found one time where something I didn't respond on in the evening/weekend was harmed by me waiting until the next day or Monday.

I'm getting to the point where I want to delete the email app on my phone - in the last 7 years I don't remember ever receiving an email that would have suffered from a response sent the following day, while on the other hand I have had innumerable enjoyable moments and evenings interrupted by work emails.

[usmarine1975]

When I leave I am done until I return. Of course I make up for it by having rentals.

[soccerluvof4]

The whole cell phone/ email has become a double edge sword. For us who own our own biz its gives us alot of opportunity by always being reachable but for the same reason allows us to never really relax.  I however the last 2-3 years have cared a whole lot less and on weekends now just letting them stack up. Life is to busy i dont need more stress.

[RetiredAt63]

I can relate - when I was a CEGEP teacher our contract said 35.5 hours/week - but in reality that was only for a few weeks in the year.  The rest of the time it was 50-60 - prep, marking, etc.  which meant evenings and weekends. 

E-mail - when I started we had office hours, and my office would be full.  Once e-mail came in, no students, but lots of emails asking the same questions. I ended up having to state in class when I would and would not be checking student emails - i.e. after 9 PM, you will not get an answer until the next day, I check once a day on weekends, etc.  Otherwise it was as if they thought I never slept or did anything, except sit at my home computer any time I was not at my work computer, waiting for them to email me!

Of course the College still expected us all to have office hours - they were great times to get a lot of work done, the office was so quiet.  And for inquiring minds, I always checked my students' availability first day of class when I set my office hours, so there was always a time they could come. They just preferred email, they could email anytime instead of planning ahead.

[GuitarStv]

I don't check email at home.  I don't own a cellphone.  I don't work without being paid for my time.  The company has my home phone number in case of emergency, but I've never ever been called on it.

This hasn't effected by quality as an employee, but has drastically improved my life.  If we're being honest with ourselves here . . . nobody is actually productive for the full time they're at work.  Adding unpaid work hours when you're not at work isn't going to improve productivity either.  There's a limited amount of productivity that an employee can sustainably produce in a week . . . adding hours or unpaid work is mostly for show.

[Chranstronaut]

I've taken my boundaries to another level: I leave at the exact same time every day and no you can't ask me "just one more question" or I will miss my ride home.  Thank you, vanpooling. 

I also instituted a secret two request policy.  If people email me asking for random information that is a waste of my time to find, they have to ask me twice.  Surprisingly, this doesn't seem to upset anyone and weeds out plenty of unimportant requests from people that never follow up.  I will always get a phone call or follow up email if it's actually important.  I got this idea from a coworker and find it effective for both of us.  If your request can't wait a few days and is actually important, you will follow up.  Otherwise, you can wait.

Reading about the four work quadrants in 7 Habits of Highly Effective people helped me here.  Also +1 to GuitarStv's comment on productivity.

[Kansas Beachbum]

I also instituted a secret two request policy.  If people email me asking for random information that is a waste of my time to find, they have to ask me twice.  Surprisingly, this doesn't seem to upset anyone and weeds out plenty of unimportant requests from people that never follow up.  I will always get a phone call or follow up email if it's actually important. 

Definitely.  I've done this for years and it's remarkable the percent of people who never follow up, probably 2/3. 

But, I decided to do this a few of years ago (after realizing that unless I completely avoid work in the evenings and weekends i wind up just never winding down, which is bad, bad, bad) and have watched for a concrete example of it hurting anything.   And in at least 3 years, I have not found one time where something I didn't respond on in the evening/weekend was harmed by me waiting until the next day or Monday.

Yep, also another rule I follow.  I decided years ago that there was nothing that happened on Friday afternoon that couldn't wait until sometime Monday for a response...and no repurcusssions to date. 

Yes, you can go home when you're supposed to and ignore it until the next day...

[fallstoclimb]

Yup.   This is exactly why I almost never check email at home (unless working from home during work hours). 

I sometimes feel guilty.   But, I decided to do this a few of years ago (after realizing that unless I completely avoid work in the evenings and weekends i wind up just never winding down, which is bad, bad, bad) and have watched for a concrete example of it hurting anything.   And in at least 3 years, I have not found one time where something I didn't respond on in the evening/weekend was harmed by me waiting until the next day or Monday.

I think part of the motivation behind constant email checking is narcissism.   Like the world will fall apart if we don't have our hands in it constantly.   Turns out that at least in my case, it hasn't yet.

+1 to narcissism.  I think this is a LOT of it.  Very few of us have jobs where there is any real reason to be available nights and weekends.  I also read some study recently about how if you always work late, your boss starts taking it for granted and not really caring -- that's just what Joe does -- whereas it's more important to a boss if you make promises and stick to them.  I.E., if Marsha says "Boss, I'll stay late on Tuesday to finish X."

But yeah I'm learning more and more work "stress" and optional overtime seem to be mostly about people trying to find meaning in nonmeaningful work.  At least in my field, where people tend to not be *truly* slammed.  If you do have so much work you actually need to work every night....might be time to calculate what your true hourly wage is.