The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Welcome and General Discussion => Topic started by: purplish on July 24, 2015, 12:11:14 PM
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Honestly I find a standard 40 hour week to be exhausting and super time consuming! It's hard for me to get everything done in general, once I get home I just want to plop down on the couch and rest. For me personally I know I'm in a good situation though, as I only need to be full time for 1 more year. But the thought of 40 hours a week the rest of one's life sounds super draining. Why as a society did we agree to this?? However I also feel like for some it's perfectly fine and they function great at 40 hours, or even 50-60.
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Didn't Henry Ford figure out that after 40 hours worker productivity declined? Before hand they were working more.
Now that manufacturing technology and productivity has outpaced previous demand, we as a society would rather demand more and work for it than work less and live off less than we could have otherwise.
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I feel like there is no 40 hour work week anymore. I think most jobs expect 45 or 40. Or you have to be away from home minimum of 45 because you have a one hour unpaid lunch. 40 hours is now the minimum, and you don't want to be someone who just does the minimum do you? (Cue Office Space here.) I never quite understood why we all have to pretend we want to be at work rather than elsewhere and then I worked with someone always moaning and groaning that she wished she could go home early. Then I realized how annoying it is to be around unhappy people and why we expect everyone to just pretend they are happy.
Your post just made me chuckle because I was considering posting asking where the 40 hour work week went. I'm glad you still have one and hope you get to escape it soon.
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I am right there with you! By the time the day is done I'm often completely knackered mentally and all I want to do is veg out when I get home instead of doing fun stuff with the kids or get things done around the house.
I've brought up the possibility of going to four day work weeks, but you'd think I asked them for a 150% pay raise given the response. I'm just lucky that overtime is incredibly rare here. Just another reason to push for FI.
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Didn't Henry Ford figure out that after 40 hours worker productivity declined? Before hand they were working more.
Now that manufacturing technology and productivity has outpaced previous demand, we as a society would rather demand more and work for it than work less and live off less than we could have otherwise.
For manufacturing etc, that is true and had been studied not by Ford but was implemented by him. More recent studies show that for more intellectual job the actual time before there is a lack of productivity is 6hr/day/5 days a week. It takes a bit for that productivity to decline (I may be misremembering but I think the study said the average was six weeks).
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Trapped in the 45 hour work week here. Our bosses talk about how great an hour unpaid lunch is. I would just rather skip it and leave at 4. Honestly, my productivity drops exponentially after about 11:30. Something about the morning person in me. I could do my week's work in 15 hours if I wanted. Most of my time is spent waiting on others to make decisions (I am my bosse's B****, he'll spout an idea, tell me to build it and then, I have to wait to see fif it gets his approval).
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My job is technically 40 hours a week, but between lunch and my commute, I am out of the house 11-12 hours per weekday for work related stuff. I do manage to work out and do other stuff, but it makes very little time for anything fun.
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With 280 hours in the week, I don't think that 40 hours is too horrible.
I guess it depends on the type of work you do. For me, no two days are the same. There is definitely time to walk around and take breaks, plus I actually enjoy my job.
Check your math. 24x7 is 168, not 280.
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Whooops, I guess 38 hours at work this week really gave me Friday afternoon fuzzy brain syndrome =D
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We should all be thanking our lucky stars for 40hrs! Don't forget the history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day
But really, a mustachian's working career is only 15hrs/wk when spread over the whole career time (45yrs) that we could have been working, so industrialization and automation really has brought us (smart people) a shorter work week.
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We should all be thanking our lucky stars for 40hrs! Don't forget the history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day
But really, a mustachian's working career is only 15hrs/wk when spread over the whole career time (45yrs) that we could have been working, so industrialization and automation really has brought us (smart people) a shorter work week.
And is it a surprise that with unions getting less power, more and more people are working more than 40 hours (many without OT)?
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We should all be thanking our lucky stars for 40hrs! Don't forget the history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day
But really, a mustachian's working career is only 15hrs/wk when spread over the whole career time (45yrs) that we could have been working, so industrialization and automation really has brought us (smart people) a shorter work week.
Oh it's totally true, we are lucky in that sense. The 9-5 is just mind numbing though.
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The thing is, after 6 hours at work, productivity declines significantly. Work days should be 6 hours long, just to get maximum efficiency.
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I like my hour lunch. I hop on the bus at the depot across the street from my office, do some reading, sketching or sound design on my tablet during the 15 minute (30 minutes both ways) bus trip, and spend the other half hour eating/catching up with my wife and 2 year old (although the boy is usually napping when I come home).
I'm allowed 2 15-minute breaks outside of that (paid) which I usually don't take, but I can walk away from my desk at any point and not have anyone bat an eye if I tell someone I am going for a walk (which is usually what I do with the time, should I need it).
I work a desk job, so I'm never tired when I get home (maybe mentally on an especially demanding day), so I still have plenty of energy to cook dinner for the family, give the boy a bath and play with matchbox cars before he goes to bed. From there I can catch up on some chores and grab a little bit of TV/cuddle time with the lady right before bed.
I really have a great life. 8-5 has been a huge boon to my peace of mind and work-life balance.
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I work a desk job, so I'm never tired when I get home (maybe mentally on an especially demanding day), so I still have plenty of energy to cook dinner for the family, give the boy a bath and play with matchbox cars before he goes to bed. From there I can catch up on some chores and grab a little bit of TV/cuddle time with the lady right before bed.
I really have a great life. 8-5 has been a huge boon to my peace of mind and work-life balance.
Maybe it is my hour long commute each way (spent reading or sleeping) or my bonkered sleep schedule and my getting older (25 now, so not that old). but I find that I have way less energy at the end of the day working the desk job than I do when I spend the day doing yard work, or golfing, or playing hockey. Object in motion and all that.
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HA! I ask myself the same question every day. I dont understand how most people are okay with this. This cant be how we are meant to live. I learned years ago that I can not continue living my life going to the same place every single day, for the same hours doing the same crap. It really drives me crazy thinking about it.
This is the absolute MAIN reason why I am reaching FIRE super aggressively right now. I will do everything I can to get out of this RAT RACE. As of recently, Im finally making enough passive income to pay all my bills but not be able to accommodate food,entertainment and travel which I absolutely need to.
So for now, I will continue working this crap 40 hour work week but Im not excited about it for one second!
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It is worth pointing out that as Mustachians, I think we all feel the 40 hr work week is crap, otherwise we wouldn't want to FIRE.
I do think that it is still pretty cushy, all things considered. That being said, I have thought about leaving commercial banking and going to work as a lineman at the local power company for $40/hr @ 70 hours a week. That would allow me to FIRE in 3-4 years (max) instead of 20 (best case scenario at current savings rate/income).
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Do your best to work more and more personal items into the day to free up time outside of work, that is how most of the working world has evolved to compensate...
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Do your best to work more and more personal items into the day to free up time outside of work, that is how most of the working world has evolved to compensate...
True dat. And also, not always by choice. If I need to deal w/ my doctor's office or insurance company, I need to call during the same hours I am at work.
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In the US we have a work hard, spend hard culture. My understanding is that the workweek isn't quite as long in much of Europe, and they get way more time off than the average American. And I think I saw recently that people in the US don't even take half the time off they are allotted! It's the US culture.
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With 280 hours in the week, I don't think that 40 hours is too horrible.
I guess it depends on the type of work you do. For me, no two days are the same. There is definitely time to walk around and take breaks, plus I actually enjoy my job.
Check your math. 24x7 is 168, not 280.
If there really were 280 hours in a week, 40 wouldn't seem like a lot. :)
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Forty hours isn't that much, but they're usually the best waking hours and they take precedence over just about everything else. If you're spending those 40 hours doing something unenjoyable, then yes, it sucks.
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In the US we have a work hard, spend hard culture. My understanding is that the workweek isn't quite as long in much of Europe, and they get way more time off than the average American. And I think I saw recently that people in the US don't even take half the time off they are allotted! It's the US culture.
Or we at least have to pretend we would rather be working. Few people in my profession use their vacation time just to use it. There are few staycations. Rather we hear reasons they need to use it and they are said begrudgingly rather than with excitement. "Well, the kids are out of school in February so I guess I'll need to take those days off, sigh." Or "Got to make the yearly trek to see the in-laws." Or "It's my anniversary, got to take the wife somewhere nice for a week." Everyone seems to pretend they would rather be at work when we know it is just an act and we are all thrilled to get some time off. I was so happy one boss finally said he loved the weekends and that he only worked them when he had to.
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I was caught up in a project yesterday, and didn't notice what time it was, and I missed my train. No point in going to the train station early, all that would have happened is I would have had a beer or two. So I stayed and worked for another 15 minutes. At 5:03, my boss was leaving and asked "Jeez mtn, you working late?"
I like it here. We also get 22 days of vacation and 10 Holidays a year, and my bosses bosses boss usually tells us to go home at 2PM the day before a holiday--that is really great, because it basically gives me another half day of vacation every time--for instance, normally on Christmas eve I would take at least a half day if not a whole day. But because I know he'll tell us to leave early, I just come in to work and leave at 2, and take a whole day the day after Christams.
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My biggest complaint is that we're keeping track of work hours at all. Shouldn't we be more concerned with results and less concerned with hours? As a manager, if you give me a choice between two employees - one who can perform a task in 2 hours and one who takes 8 hours - I'm taking the guy who can do it in 2 hours every time. If he chooses to go home after his 2 hours of work, then who gives a damn? The task has still been completed. The really crazy thing is that the guy who finishes in 2 hours and goes home is viewed as a slacker while the slow guy is viewed as hard-working.
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My biggest complaint is that we're keeping track of work hours at all. Shouldn't we be more concerned with results and less concerned with hours? As a manager, if you give me a choice between two employees - one who can perform a task in 2 hours and one who takes 8 hours - I'm taking the guy who can do it in 2 hours every time. If he chooses to go home after his 2 hours of work, then who gives a damn? The task has still been completed. The really crazy thing is that the guy who finishes in 2 hours and goes home is viewed as a slacker while the slow guy is viewed as hard-working.
The world would be a better place for workers if more management had your perspective.
Also, are you hiring? :)
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My biggest complaint is that we're keeping track of work hours at all. Shouldn't we be more concerned with results and less concerned with hours? As a manager, if you give me a choice between two employees - one who can perform a task in 2 hours and one who takes 8 hours - I'm taking the guy who can do it in 2 hours every time. If he chooses to go home after his 2 hours of work, then who gives a damn? The task has still been completed. The really crazy thing is that the guy who finishes in 2 hours and goes home is viewed as a slacker while the slow guy is viewed as hard-working.
I took a work-sponsored class in generational diversity and this was a topic. Seems like younger generations prefer free time to more work.
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In the US we have a work hard, spend hard culture. My understanding is that the workweek isn't quite as long in much of Europe, and they get way more time off than the average American. And I think I saw recently that people in the US don't even take half the time off they are allotted! It's the US culture.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/07/extreme-working-hours
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I won't say I wish I had a 40 hour work week but the reality for me is 50-60 plus hours a week. It's just what is expected. Just last week my supervisor said to me that we need to strategize how to get people out of the mentality that it is ok to leave at 5:30..."they need to be here late into the evening to really be accomplishing anything." I usually get in at 7 and I am suppossed to set an example.
Thats why I want out....
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My biggest complaint is that we're keeping track of work hours at all. Shouldn't we be more concerned with results and less concerned with hours? As a manager, if you give me a choice between two employees - one who can perform a task in 2 hours and one who takes 8 hours - I'm taking the guy who can do it in 2 hours every time. If he chooses to go home after his 2 hours of work, then who gives a damn? The task has still been completed. The really crazy thing is that the guy who finishes in 2 hours and goes home is viewed as a slacker while the slow guy is viewed as hard-working.
This is a very naïve mindset, to be frank. Most places seem to load up every worker so much, that even Two Hour Timmy has 10 hours a day of stuff to do Even if he got more done than anyone else, a bunch of stuff still ISN'T done, and it isn't defensible to go home after two hours in that situation.
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Before I found MMM I didn't know there were any alternatives myself. Today is my first Friday off of working part time. It was amazing how much push back I got trying to negotiate this. It took me 8 months to finally succeed. I guess they were afraid everybody else would ask for the same arrangement (not likely, plenty of X5's and brand new Silverado's in the parking lot and $500K mortgages to go around). I was only successful because of FU money. In the end I mustered enough courage to suggest 4 days a week or 0 days a week. I'm sure I'm on higher ups shit list now, but I'm happy with my new 32 hour work week.
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I hate that I spend most of my waking hours, most days of the week at work! And that we do that for most of our lives. I teach, so I get a lot of weeks off on hols (though the time on can be pretty stressful), but still. I'm hoping to reduce this to 3 days a week from about 45 onwards life is for living! I want to spend my time climbing and exploring and volunteering and drawing and living life!!! I realise how incredibly lucky we are to live in a society where we can save and retire early.
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I am on a flex schedule and work 4 10 hour days and have Wednesday off...I love this schedule
wish more places would go to that type of schedule.
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In the US we have a work hard, spend hard culture. My understanding is that the workweek isn't quite as long in much of Europe, and they get way more time off than the average American. And I think I saw recently that people in the US don't even take half the time off they are allotted! It's the US culture.
I'm living in Switzerland and my work week is pretty long as well. Usually leaving home at 7:30 am and returning shortly before 7 pm and occasionally I would do some work related stuff on weekends as well. It's true about a lot more vacation however and everyone takes it in full.
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Before I found MMM I didn't know there were any alternatives myself. Today is my first Friday off of working part time. It was amazing how much push back I got trying to negotiate this. It took me 8 months to finally succeed. I guess they were afraid everybody else would ask for the same arrangement (not likely, plenty of X5's and brand new Silverado's in the parking lot and $500K mortgages to go around). I was only successful because of FU money. In the end I mustered enough courage to suggest 4 days a week or 0 days a week. I'm sure I'm on higher ups shit list now, but I'm happy with my new 32 hour work week.
Congrats, Woodnut!
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In the US we have a work hard, spend hard culture. My understanding is that the workweek isn't quite as long in much of Europe, and they get way more time off than the average American. And I think I saw recently that people in the US don't even take half the time off they are allotted! It's the US culture.
Not exactly true. In France, home of the 35 hr work week (HAHA), my wife often worked 12 and 14 hour days. On the flip side she got 5 weeks of vacation plus 2.5 days a month for doing things like going to the bank, doctor, etc. Many of our french friends reported working late hours just to be present and look like they were working hard, even if they had no work. They never wanted to leave before the boss. This is in an office environment, not sure how it is for unskilled jobs like cashiers. Speaking of, why aren't cashier in US grocery stores allowed to sit?
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My biggest complaint is that we're keeping track of work hours at all. Shouldn't we be more concerned with results and less concerned with hours? As a manager, if you give me a choice between two employees - one who can perform a task in 2 hours and one who takes 8 hours - I'm taking the guy who can do it in 2 hours every time. If he chooses to go home after his 2 hours of work, then who gives a damn? The task has still been completed. The really crazy thing is that the guy who finishes in 2 hours and goes home is viewed as a slacker while the slow guy is viewed as hard-working.
This is a very naïve mindset, to be frank. Most places seem to load up every worker so much, that even Two Hour Timmy has 10 hours a day of stuff to do Even if he got more done than anyone else, a bunch of stuff still ISN'T done, and it isn't defensible to go home after two hours in that situation.
So, Timmy with four hundred percent effectiveness has 10 hours of work to do a day. The normal worker has 40 hours of work to do a day.
Most places are then obviously understaffed, and in reality need five times their current number of workers.
Places who consistently understaff are naïve.
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Yeah, someone who claims most places have some sort of never ending work and that leaving after getting all your stuff done is irresponsible is either some kind of slow-working efficiency killer with inflated ego or has an extremely shitty grasp of basic management concepts.
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Jurisdictions with the lowest hours always conveniently leave white collar jobs out of it.
Right now I clock in at 35 hours of work + 1 hour lunch (spent reading), unless the situation demands extra hours. So far nobody has complained.
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My biggest complaint is that we're keeping track of work hours at all. Shouldn't we be more concerned with results and less concerned with hours? As a manager, if you give me a choice between two employees - one who can perform a task in 2 hours and one who takes 8 hours - I'm taking the guy who can do it in 2 hours every time. If he chooses to go home after his 2 hours of work, then who gives a damn? The task has still been completed. The really crazy thing is that the guy who finishes in 2 hours and goes home is viewed as a slacker while the slow guy is viewed as hard-working.
Reminds me of this thread: http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/the-art-of-not-working-at-work/
Personally, I'm one of those people who seems to be able to accomplish all of my work in 1-2 hours at the most. Then I hear my coworkers talking about how they're just so overloaded and would never be able to complete everything without OT. It baffles me, because our workload is publicized (for tracking purposes). I know exactly what everyone else is working on, and generally my 1-2 hours are actually more productive than their 8. It makes me wonder if they're all just screwing around all day too, but hamming it up so it doesn't sound like they're lazy.
So I end up spending 7 hours a day surfing the internet. I feel like it's a giant waste of my time. That's usually the part where someone says, "Ask for more work!" Uh, why? I'm not going to get some magical promotion for overloading myself (and in reality, I'm already potentially in line for a promotion; during my reviews I get glowing recommendations which further confuses me because of how little effort I'm putting forth).
I'll just reiterate the other comments above at this point. The 40 hour workweek has pushed me to pursue FIRE more aggressively. I can't fathom spending another 25-30 years doing this.
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I think 40 hours is a pretty reasonable amount, but much more than that and I start to agree with you. The reality is most professionals are putting in quite a bit more than that.
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Yeah, someone who claims most places have some sort of never ending work and that leaving after getting all your stuff done is irresponsible is either some kind of slow-working efficiency killer with inflated ego or has an extremely shitty grasp of basic management concepts.
Speaking only for my place of work as an organization: this=slow working efficiency killer
this=inflated ego= times 10
and this = shitty grasp of basic management skills
I tell all of my direct reports - you know what needs to be done with your work better than anyone else, you know how to get it done, if you need help ask, if theres a problem, then we'll talk...you can make your schedule within reason around those parameters.
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My biggest complaint is that we're keeping track of work hours at all. Shouldn't we be more concerned with results and less concerned with hours? As a manager, if you give me a choice between two employees - one who can perform a task in 2 hours and one who takes 8 hours - I'm taking the guy who can do it in 2 hours every time. If he chooses to go home after his 2 hours of work, then who gives a damn? The task has still been completed. The really crazy thing is that the guy who finishes in 2 hours and goes home is viewed as a slacker while the slow guy is viewed as hard-working.
This is a very naïve mindset, to be frank. Most places seem to load up every worker so much, that even Two Hour Timmy has 10 hours a day of stuff to do Even if he got more done than anyone else, a bunch of stuff still ISN'T done, and it isn't defensible to go home after two hours in that situation.
So, Timmy with four hundred percent effectiveness has 10 hours of work to do a day. The normal worker has 40 hours of work to do a day.
Most places are then obviously understaffed, and in reality need five times their current number of workers.
Places who consistently understaff are naïve.
I'm not in "management," in that nobody reports directly to me. But I do manage a lot of projects. I have a pipeline of projects, prioritized by how much they save, how critical the equipment is, and random bullshit that I don't always agree with, but it is what it is. If I get everything done (Ie, waiting for quotes, drawings, etc) for project #1 in two hours, and go home, I'd be fired in a week. To keep my job, I'm expected grab items from project #2, work it 'till I'm waiting for responses, quotes, etc, then move to project 3. I juggle anywhere from 5 to 10 projects at a given time. When one wraps up, there's always another waiting. In that case, I don't call that understaffed, and I can never finish enough stuff to be "done" in two hours.
If your job entails "Make x calls today" "Assemble y widgets today" then fine, knock it out in 4 hours and go home. But that isn't everyones job, and I wouldn't say I'm an efficiency killer or not understanding of management concepts. I can't make out what Forward is trying to say... can you clarify what you mean?
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I enjoy my job, so 40 hours to me goes by like a breeze, but I am still working on FI just incase I change my mind down the road.
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I work a desk job, so I'm never tired when I get home (maybe mentally on an especially demanding day), so I still have plenty of energy to cook dinner for the family, give the boy a bath and play with matchbox cars before he goes to bed. From there I can catch up on some chores and grab a little bit of TV/cuddle time with the lady right before bed.
I really have a great life. 8-5 has been a huge boon to my peace of mind and work-life balance.
Maybe it is my hour long commute each way (spent reading or sleeping) or my bonkered sleep schedule and my getting older (25 now, so not that old). but I find that I have way less energy at the end of the day working the desk job than I do when I spend the day doing yard work, or golfing, or playing hockey. Object in motion and all that.
a desk job is more draining or it could be the case that after 6 hours, work gets pretty idle.
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I'm a project manager and everyone on my team including myself have been working at least 50 hours per week every week for the last couple of months. I hate it but we have all adapted to it. One guy has worked 24 hours twice - seriously all the through the night and then come to work the next day. I have to manage him to take some time off.
I'm not fine with this however everyone seems to be enjoying it.
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A lot of people work more than 40 hours a week because they haven't learned to push back appropriately, flat out say "no," or care far too much about what other people might think.
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My biggest complaint is that we're keeping track of work hours at all. Shouldn't we be more concerned with results and less concerned with hours? As a manager, if you give me a choice between two employees - one who can perform a task in 2 hours and one who takes 8 hours - I'm taking the guy who can do it in 2 hours every time. If he chooses to go home after his 2 hours of work, then who gives a damn? The task has still been completed. The really crazy thing is that the guy who finishes in 2 hours and goes home is viewed as a slacker while the slow guy is viewed as hard-working.
This is a very naïve mindset, to be frank. Most places seem to load up every worker so much, that even Two Hour Timmy has 10 hours a day of stuff to do Even if he got more done than anyone else, a bunch of stuff still ISN'T done, and it isn't defensible to go home after two hours in that situation.
So, Timmy with four hundred percent effectiveness has 10 hours of work to do a day. The normal worker has 40 hours of work to do a day.
Most places are then obviously understaffed, and in reality need five times their current number of workers.
Places who consistently understaff are naïve.
I'm not in "management," in that nobody reports directly to me. But I do manage a lot of projects. I have a pipeline of projects, prioritized by how much they save, how critical the equipment is, and random bullshit that I don't always agree with, but it is what it is. If I get everything done (Ie, waiting for quotes, drawings, etc) for project #1 in two hours, and go home, I'd be fired in a week. To keep my job, I'm expected grab items from project #2, work it 'till I'm waiting for responses, quotes, etc, then move to project 3. I juggle anywhere from 5 to 10 projects at a given time. When one wraps up, there's always another waiting. In that case, I don't call that understaffed, and I can never finish enough stuff to be "done" in two hours.
I would not call the described situation necessarily understaffed either. Filling X hours with X hours worth of work seems (barely) acceptably staffed.
However, your argument seems be: Your work is nuanced and cannot be completed in two hours. Thus leaving after an arbitrary time period would be irresponsible, because your job is to juggle N projects.
Which is in agreement with Schaefer's argument that doing your work ought to be more important than the time it takes.
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I agree that the 40 hour work week is unrealistic. With prep time (showering, getting dressed, etc.), drive time, etc. you are gone from home nearly half the day. Assuming you sleep 8 hours you barely have free time; you still have to cook, clean, etc.
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I'm fine with it, provided there's some flexibility.
My normal working hours are 38 hours a week. There's periods throughout the year where I need to work longer. This I'm OK with if I can take a longer lunch or go home early on Friday when it's quieter.
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I hadn't heard the 6 hours a day thing, but it makes total sense. I've frequently wished I could work a 30-hour week, but professional jobs rarely work that way. Even if I'm there 40 hours, I'm probably being unproductive several hours in a typical week and could be as effective working 30, with increased hours when working on a deadline, work travel or whatever. I try to squeeze a lot into my free time and it's pretty draining wedging it all in around the 40 hours. OTOH, telework is getting to be more effective and feasible. Even with a short commute, telecommuting cuts a good hour off my day because I don't have to make myself presentable for the office, pack a lunch, and drive the 10 minutes each way just to sit in a cubicle and get distracted by my co-workers. Plus I can do small tasks at home like taking a break to pull weeds or throw some clothes in the laundry, rather than taking a walk or sitting in the break room reading a magazine. This is one less thing I have to do after the work day is over.
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In Australia, as the leading adopters of the 8 hour day (back in the 1850s), several states actually have 8 hour day as one of their public holidays. As a result, I was a bit surprised that anyone didn't know how it came about. Isn't it a holiday elsewhere?
When I worked, I generally worked more than 40 hours a week, and like many was not paid for extra. However, I found that if I spent an hour or two before going to work each day doing things I wanted to do (in my case embroidery), it really made my working day go faster.
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I'm fine with 40 hours, hell even 50 is cool. What I want is 3 days off in a row. If I'm going to wake up, make myself presentable with clothes and proper hygeine, and then drive to work, I'd be happier putting in 10 hours for 4 days as opposed to 8 hours for five days. Even if it was a six hour day you have to go through the whole routine and still it sucks the most valuable time away.
The two days most people get are the days nothing is open, and whatever is going on is packed (grocery stores, or anything entertainment related). Doctor appointments, banking stuff, personal business? Yeah good luck with taking care of that on Sunday....
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40-50 hours goes pretty fast if you like your job. If you hate your job, any hours is too many hours. Find a job you love! Life is too short for anything less.
We were recently discussing at work the situation with "volunteering for severance" as we have layoffs ahead. Should we keep the guy who is dying for the job 'cuz he has bills to pay, even though he's not such a great worker or keep the better qualified worker who is fed up and wants the severance?
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In Australia, as the leading adopters of the 8 hour day (back in the 1850s), several states actually have 8 hour day as one of their public holidays. As a result, I was a bit surprised that anyone didn't know how it came about. Isn't it a holiday elsewhere?
When I worked, I generally worked more than 40 hours a week, and like many was not paid for extra. However, I found that if I spent an hour or two before going to work each day doing things I wanted to do (in my case embroidery), it really made my working day go faster.
Interesting. Do you mean Labour Day? We have Labor Day in the US (we just spell it correctly ;) ).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_holidays_in_Australia#Labour_Day
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I think the 40 hour workweek was one of the biggest benefits of the industrial age!! Before that, people only had time to work, and sleep. In other parts of the world today, people still have to spend 15-16 a day to just make enough to live.
A lot of people have outpaced that level of production, and could afford to work less in a daY. The up and coming guy may be more than happy to do the work you won't though.
I always thought the ER movement was essentially the next revolution in the shorter working day. It's just we are forced to take it on the backend currently due to less thrifty people competing.
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In Australia, as the leading adopters of the 8 hour day (back in the 1850s), several states actually have 8 hour day as one of their public holidays. As a result, I was a bit surprised that anyone didn't know how it came about. Isn't it a holiday elsewhere?
When I worked, I generally worked more than 40 hours a week, and like many was not paid for extra. However, I found that if I spent an hour or two before going to work each day doing things I wanted to do (in my case embroidery), it really made my working day go faster.
Interesting. Do you mean Labour Day? We have Labor Day in the US (we just spell it correctly ;) ).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_holidays_in_Australia#Labour_Day
Yes - as your URL points out, it is for 8 hour day, and was initially called that here, so, for instance, my grandparents always called the holiday "8 hour day". Because it happened everywhere before federation, it is celebrated on a different day in each state. Just one more useless fact you now know about Australia (like that we are probably the only country in the world to actually lose a prime minister - he went swimming one day and was never seen again). Labor is the name of one of our parties (probably similar to the Democrats).
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HA! I ask myself the same question every day. I dont understand how most people are okay with this. This cant be how we are meant to live. I learned years ago that I can not continue living my life going to the same place every single day, for the same hours doing the same crap. It really drives me crazy thinking about it.
This is the absolute MAIN reason why I am reaching FIRE super aggressively right now. I will do everything I can to get out of this RAT RACE. As of recently, Im finally making enough passive income to pay all my bills but not be able to accommodate food,entertainment and travel which I absolutely need to.
So for now, I will continue working this crap 40 hour work week but Im not excited about it for one second!
Ditto.
Add in a squirrely boss, and then the main boss who will shriek like a banshee one minute (over nothing) and then give you a ghoulish grin that makes him look like a constipated warthog the next...I dunno. I have a contract signed by them that says I can work 4 ten hour days: never happened. They fired someone else, so a 3 person department is two, so no time available.
In reality there's always some mandatory bullshit meeting or something. There's one coming up that I've been informed I "can attend or not come back to work". I gave my boss a pirate grin when he reminded me of it and said, "That works either way for me." and walked away.
Seriously considering it. Only drawback is Obamacare: I should somehow suck it up for this bullshit meeting--it works out to 2-3 weeks a month of 6 day weeks--- and get all my dental/medical crap done while I have work coverage and then quit.
Theoretically I could live off side income...but not if had to pay some huge ER bill. Logical solution is to grow side income gigs.
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I think the 40 hour workweek was one of the biggest benefits of the industrial age!! Before that, people only had time to work, and sleep. In other parts of the world today, people still have to spend 15-16 a day to just make enough to live.
A lot of people have outpaced that level of production, and could afford to work less in a daY. The up and coming guy may be more than happy to do the work you won't though.
I always thought the ER movement was essentially the next revolution in the shorter working day. It's just we are forced to take it on the backend currently due to less thrifty people competing.
In California I knew many immigrants working two jobs to get by. And yes that meant working 15-16/day.
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I think the 40 hour workweek was one of the biggest benefits of the industrial age!! Before that, people only had time to work, and sleep. In other parts of the world today, people still have to spend 15-16 a day to just make enough to live.
A lot of people have outpaced that level of production, and could afford to work less in a daY. The up and coming guy may be more than happy to do the work you won't though.
I always thought the ER movement was essentially the next revolution in the shorter working day. It's just we are forced to take it on the backend currently due to less thrifty people competing.
In California I knew many immigrants working two jobs to get by. And yes that meant working 15-16/day.
I also know lots of non-immigrants who work two jobs, with just bus rides to get between.
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Not fine with it. Those 40 hours balloon to 50-55 when I factor in the commuting time and requisite preparations for work. As for the workday itself I do have busy moments, but for the most part feel trapped in prison until 5pm.
A 4-day week would be more productive, or a reduced schedule from 40 hours to 30-35. It would still provide enough time to get the job done. It drives me nuts when I'm bored during the workday. Here I am trapped in prison while at home the laundry sits undone, dinner is not made, etc. It's a stupid and inefficient way to live. When one of my co-workers returned from her staycation, I'll never forget what she said about it, how it amazing it felt to be able to sit and talk with her family over mugs of coffee, tend the garden, and dawdle over cooking dinner without minding the clock. These should be daily life activities, not something that happens only when you use vacation time. It's a sad reflection of our culture.
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My work week is on average 75 hrs (residency, boo!). Once done with training it will still be around 60 hours. If I'm operating I don't mind it being that long, though. A 40 hour work week sounds nice, but unrealistic for my line of work. With regards to the question, it's normal (in the US) because of various labor laws passed during the Great Depression and afterwards. People routinely worked closer to my number of hours on the farm or in factories before those laws.
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I have a feeling that the 40-hour week was more manageable when that was the total for a family.
I mean, if I had a stay at home spouse, and could come home from work to a clean house, dinner on the table, errands run, etc, how much more peaceful would life be? Someone at home to meet the kids off the school bus, take them to doctor appointments, stay with them when they get sick (instead of negotiating whose work schedule is better able to handle an unexpected day off). Then the evenings are freed up for family time, the weekends are freed up for longer-term projects or family outings or just relaxing. No more Sunday afternoon grocery runs. No more cleaning on Saturday mornings.
(And before anyone thinks about jumping on me for being antifeminist, I'm a female with a PhD in engineering who chooses to work fulltime, so don't worry, I'm not hankering back to the 50s.)
No, if my spouse and I could split those 40 hours, and each work a 20-hour week, that would sure be peaceful.
But I'm all talk right now. I think my company might be supportive of me going to part-time. There's a decent chance. But right now we are really enjoying the savings-power of a double income. Maybe in 2 years I'll drop to half time or something. So- it is a choice for us to have 2 full time jobs & 2 kids, and therefore we deal with the stress of that, until we are willing to cut the amount going into Vanguard.
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My work week is on average 75 hrs (residency, boo!). Once done with training it will still be around 60 hours.
That was the problem the economist article was talking about.
The developed world is splitting into the un/under-employed and jobs that need 5-10years of education followed by working 60-80 hour weeks ,for high pay, followed by burnout. The regular jobs are dissapearing.
Currently trying to educate DW on FIRE so I can do another 2-3years of this and retire on $25K/year instead of working till i'm 65 to retire on $50K/year.
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I agree that the 40 hour work week is unrealistic. With prep time (showering, getting dressed, etc.), drive time, etc. you are gone from home nearly half the day. Assuming you sleep 8 hours you barely have free time; you still have to cook, clean, etc.
One would assume you have to shower and get dressed (10 minutes tops) regardless of whether or not you are working, so it's not fair to count that as time taken away due to work. A 1 hour commute, 8 hours of work, and 8 hours of sleep still leaves you with 7 hours every single day for other things, and 16 hours a day on the weekends. That's plenty of time.
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One would assume you have to shower and get dressed (10 minutes tops) regardless of whether or not you are working, so it's not fair to count that as time taken away due to work. A 1 hour commute, 8 hours of work, and 8 hours of sleep still leaves you with 7 hours every single day for other things, and 16 hours a day on the weekends. That's plenty of time.
I don't think I'm badly overworked, but I don't get your magical numbers either. My average weekday: wake up in the morning, half an hour for a shower, getting dressed and drinking a cup of tea, then 40 min commute followed by 8 1/2 h of work plus 1 h of mandatory lunch brake plus 40 min to commute back. That leaves about 4 1/2 h for something other than sleep.
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Who was that guy who said (in the 50s or so) that in 50 years we either work so much less OR consume much more. We all know what's happened and that's why people "have" to work 40 hours ;)
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I average over 50 hours a week. I get paid time and a half over 40. Every day of OT I work is 1.5 less days I have to work the way I justify it. Just 949 total days till planned retirement.
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I work at a distribution center, and we have a "4 10s" shift and a "3 12s" shift. Three 12+ hour days is a little rough, but four days off in a row is totally worth it. :D
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I'm deliriously happy with my current 40 hour office job. Our morning meeting is at 0730, and we work until 1530. Knocking off in the early afternoon allows plenty of time to pursue hobbies and cook healthy fare. I feel like I'm living in some worker's paradise. However, my previous position was 100+ hours per week, so my perspective is admittedly skewed.
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I do four 10 hour days. Since all the breaks are paid, I'm at work 10.25 hours a day (I get there 15 min early to organize my crew). So about 11 hours from leaving the house to getting back into the house. Monday to Thursday. I feel fortunate. I work at a pulp mill. We do work overtime once in a while but it's relatively rare. Only during mill shutdowns once a year or occasional area shuts. Overall I fell like I have a good gig. Working for FIRE.
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Who was that guy who said (in the 50s or so) that in 50 years we either work so much less OR consume much more. We all know what's happened and that's why people "have" to work 40 hours ;)
Keynes.
We (FIRE people) have chosen the first path but, as piccione88 above mentioned, we have to take it on the backend rather than a sane 20-30 hours/week during our working life.
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The subject of todays planet money podcast http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510289/planet-money#
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I work way more then 40/week, usually closer to 80, sometimes 100. Some weeks are slow and I will get close to 40, but really the less time off, the more you appreciate when you get time off. I'm all in with work right now, but once I can get to the retirement point, no more.
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One would assume you have to shower and get dressed (10 minutes tops) regardless of whether or not you are working, so it's not fair to count that as time taken away due to work. A 1 hour commute, 8 hours of work, and 8 hours of sleep still leaves you with 7 hours every single day for other things, and 16 hours a day on the weekends. That's plenty of time.
No mention of 1 hour of lunchtime, time to poop/pee, shower, eat, cook, errands, laundry, take care of kids, time to decompress after work, etc? You barely get a few hours a day on the weekdays to just relax.
I'm so lucky to average about 25 hours a week logged in (for the past 2+ years). 95%+ of the time, I'm in (or logged in when working at home 1-2 times a week) at 9:15-9:30, leave at 4:15-4:40, take 2 hour lunches when I run/lift/bike/walk around/errands, and once or twice a week I'll even go outside to read at the park. I have FU money and am 1.5-2 yrs away from FIRE so I just do whatever the fuck I want to do. Still get decent reviews. Go ahead and hate me :)
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I leave for work at 6am and usually get home around 7-7:30. We also work a good majority of Saturdays either at work or at home. Sucks giving up most of my life for a company that could care less about workers. But it is what it is until I am FIRE or can find a better opportunity.
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I get to work at 8:00, generally leave anywhere from 10:00PM - 2:00AM. Suffice to say, hopefully only 10 more years or so on the treadmill.
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I work between 50-65 hours/week on average, but I tend to work them all at once (I work 24 and 48 hour shifts in my job, which includes sleeping). So I do nothing but work from 8am on Monday to 8am on Wednesday, then go home for a few days before I do it again.
On the one hand I have around 9 days off in a 2 week cycle. On the other hand I often work weekends and it can be hard to connect with my kids, or at least harder than I would like. I do get to be the 'at home dad' during the week a lot, which I like.
And it gives me time for my side hustle, which is eventually going to be my only hustle.
All that said, working for 2 days straight is exhausting and logging 60 hours/week in any configuration has started wearing me down.
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I work between 50-65 hours/week on average, but I tend to work them all at once (I work 24 and 48 hour shifts in my job, which includes sleeping). So I do nothing but work from 8am on Monday to 8am on Wednesday, then go home for a few days before I do it again.
On the one hand I have around 9 days off in a 2 week cycle. On the other hand I often work weekends and it can be hard to connect with my kids, or at least harder than I would like. I do get to be the 'at home dad' during the week a lot, which I like.
And it gives me time for my side hustle, which is eventually going to be my only hustle.
All that said, working for 2 days straight is exhausting and logging 60 hours/week in any configuration has started wearing me down.
Seems strange. What exactly do you do that the company allows you to sleep and do such long shifts? If you don't mind my asking.... :)
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Didn't Henry Ford figure out that after 40 hours worker productivity declined? Before hand they were working more.
Now that manufacturing technology and productivity has outpaced previous demand, we as a society would rather demand more and work for it than work less and live off less than we could have otherwise.
That's funny, because at my last company they had an unwritten (except I found it written somewhere) 45 hour policy for exempt employees (which is illegal). Because, and I'm paraphrasing - "we all know that people aren't working 100% of the time, they aren't 100% efficient. But that last hour, you KNOW they are working at 100% because why else would they be there? So it's like getting an extra 20%, not an extra 10%!"
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The thing is, after 6 hours at work, productivity declines significantly. Work days should be 6 hours long, just to get maximum efficiency.
I found this to be true. I was at my most efficient at 6 hrs/ day when I went "part time" after having the kids.
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My work week is on average 75 hrs (residency, boo!). Once done with training it will still be around 60 hours. If I'm operating I don't mind it being that long, though. A 40 hour work week sounds nice, but unrealistic for my line of work. With regards to the question, it's normal (in the US) because of various labor laws passed during the Great Depression and afterwards. People routinely worked closer to my number of hours on the farm or in factories before those laws.
I don't understand why it's unrealistic. Do we really want doctors/ surgeons to be working exhausted? (I assume that's what you are going into.)
I realize there are many aspects to being a doctor, but I'd assume fewer patients = less time.
Of course I understand that hospitals and clinics and offices aren't generally set up that way. My line of work isn't set up that way either, but there's no good reason for it.
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I get to work at 8:00, generally leave anywhere from 10:00PM - 2:00AM. Suffice to say, hopefully only 10 more years or so on the treadmill.
You better be getting paid well for this kind of workload. I would say it should be enough to get off the treadmill in only 5 years if you really wanted to. Or at least downshift like crazy.
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My work week is on average 75 hrs (residency, boo!). Once done with training it will still be around 60 hours. If I'm operating I don't mind it being that long, though. A 40 hour work week sounds nice, but unrealistic for my line of work. With regards to the question, it's normal (in the US) because of various labor laws passed during the Great Depression and afterwards. People routinely worked closer to my number of hours on the farm or in factories before those laws.
I don't understand why it's unrealistic. Do we really want doctors/ surgeons to be working exhausted? (I assume that's what you are going into.)
I realize there are many aspects to being a doctor, but I'd assume fewer patients = less time.
Of course I understand that hospitals and clinics and offices aren't generally set up that way. My line of work isn't set up that way either, but there's no good reason for it.
I think Abe was saying it was "unrealistic" because of the way the profession is setup. Everyone has to do the same thing. There is a big movement in medicine to get away from this absurd schedule. A lot of the older docs resent the younger ones that are moving to limit their schedules. But studies show that physicians make worse decisions when they are too tired.
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The 40 hour workweek never bothered me so much - when it was actually 40 hours.
But it wasn't. Ever.
In my industry - accounting - the 40 hour workweek was actually 40 hours + unpaid lunch - so even on a normal day, it was a 45 hour workweek. Plus we were exempt, so we'd get mandatory unpaid overtime if it was busy - depending on the firm, this could be a 60-80 hour week for multiple months in a row. That wouldn't be so bad if we could bank overtime so that we could use it for extra vacation or shorter days in the Summer, when it was invariably slow. But nope - we had to sit there, for our 40 hours + lunch, even if there was nothing to do.
Interestingly, it wasn't the long hours during busy season that killed me on working a standard job - it was the slow-season mentality that I had to sit there and warm my seat even if I had nothing to do.
I once tried to negotiate a schedule of 4 10 hour days for the Summertime, because I doing nothing at work, anyway - but I was turned down. "We might need you on Friday." No one ever needed me on Friday.
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My work week is on average 75 hrs (residency, boo!). Once done with training it will still be around 60 hours. If I'm operating I don't mind it being that long, though. A 40 hour work week sounds nice, but unrealistic for my line of work. With regards to the question, it's normal (in the US) because of various labor laws passed during the Great Depression and afterwards. People routinely worked closer to my number of hours on the farm or in factories before those laws.
I don't understand why it's unrealistic. Do we really want doctors/ surgeons to be working exhausted? (I assume that's what you are going into.)
I realize there are many aspects to being a doctor, but I'd assume fewer patients = less time.
Of course I understand that hospitals and clinics and offices aren't generally set up that way. My line of work isn't set up that way either, but there's no good reason for it.
I think most people "working" more than 12 hours a day are not really working during the whole time! Or at least not on a regular basis! What I've heard from young lawyers or investment bankers is that they basically have to be there and wait for stuff someone else (from around the globe) will send them or something like that. It's just impossible to concentrate during such a long time.
Also doctors with that long shifts are allowed to sleep as long as there is no emergency. However, if there is one (what might be the case quite often) they actually do work that long. Another example might be quite complicated operations that might last several hours but I doubt you do those every day.
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One of my all time favorite blog posts over at Raptitude covered this topic:
http://www.raptitude.com/2010/07/your-lifestyle-has-already-been-designed/
The money quote:
The ultimate tool for corporations to sustain a culture of this sort is to develop the 40-hour workweek as the normal lifestyle. Under these working conditions people have to build a life in the evenings and on weekends. This arrangement makes us naturally more inclined to spend heavily on entertainment and conveniences because our free time is so scarce.
I’ve only been back at work for a few days, but already I’m noticing that the more wholesome activities are quickly dropping out of my life: walking, exercising, reading, meditating, and extra writing.
The one conspicuous similarity between these activities is that they cost little or no money, but they take time.
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I get to work at 8:00, generally leave anywhere from 10:00PM - 2:00AM. Suffice to say, hopefully only 10 more years or so on the treadmill.
You better be getting paid well for this kind of workload. I would say it should be enough to get off the treadmill in only 5 years if you really wanted to. Or at least downshift like crazy.
I mean, to be fair, this is only during the week. I can normally get away with only working 4-8 hours a day on Saturday and Sunday.
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I get to work at 8:00, generally leave anywhere from 10:00PM - 2:00AM. Suffice to say, hopefully only 10 more years or so on the treadmill.
You better be getting paid well for this kind of workload. I would say it should be enough to get off the treadmill in only 5 years if you really wanted to. Or at least downshift like crazy.
I mean, to be fair, this is only during the week. I can normally get away with only working 4-8 hours a day on Saturday and Sunday.
Yeesh. I would save 80-90% of my salary and GTFO.
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A lot of people work more than 40 hours a week because they haven't learned to push back appropriately, flat out say "no," or care far too much about what other people might think.
I use to be on site installing cabinets as a subcontractor from 7-5. Unpacking tools and packing/cleaning up taking up about 45 mins a day. I wouldn't take a lunch, and would wolf down snacks at exactly 10 am and 2pm. I would work Saturdays, and Sundays (only when trying to beat a deadline.)
Guess what? I burned out. Found MMM, got a decent stache, and am no longer living paycheck to paycheck. Started to work shorter hours, would take an hour lunch, said "Hell no!" to weekend work, and started charging more per job (as an installer.). End result, the jobs still seem to get magically done on time, and I make the same amount per year. I have found a lot of deadlines to be completely Fucking arbitrary. Don't give me this bullshit that you want to be in your kitchen before Thanksgiving. We all know what time of year it is, and its not our fault you dragged your feet while making selections. Yes, I'll push hard to make your deadline. But I'll be damned if I'm working past 5 just so you can have your picture perfect Thanksgiving. <end rant>
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I tried to drum up some sympathy at work for once working 21 days straight @12hours/day.
Bad move. Got topped with 30 days.
It feels like such a fast day when I'm back in the office working 8hours.
My normal week is 40 hours 0700 to 1530
hours 41-48 unpaid, <--- boss thinks this is mandatory, I don't think so. I win.
other time is "comp time" deferred time off.
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I do four 10 hour days. Since all the breaks are paid, I'm at work 10.25 hours a day (I get there 15 min early to organize my crew). So about 11 hours from leaving the house to getting back into the house. Monday to Thursday. I feel fortunate. I work at a pulp mill. We do work overtime once in a while but it's relatively rare. Only during mill shutdowns once a year or occasional area shuts. Overall I fell like I have a good gig. Working for FIRE.
Same here I love 4 10's if I ever were to leave and go back to 5 8's its going to suck.
I love having wed off because it breaks up the work week.
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When you factor in commuting times, it's even worse! Although as others said, it's still better than before the modern working era and many other parts of the world.
I think most people haven't even considered that anything less is possible. Also the american value as someone else said that you need to be perceived as a "hard worker".
I look at my mother who is healthy and can continue working for quite some time. Her husband can barely walk and works in manufacturing. I've tried to discuss many times that he could cut back to lower paying work that's less demanding. Or part time work. She maintains that they can't afford it, meanwhile they just bought a brand new custom home and she's constantly shopping. In her mind, they still live more frugally than their peers (which is true), so this is totally fine!
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I work 9 hour days in a 37.5 hour week. 36 hours are worked Monday to Thursday, and the remaining 1.5 hours that are owed accumulate and are worked every 4th Friday (6 hours). Therefore, I get 36 or so Fridays off every single year.
Hourly pay only, 30 minute unpaid lunch, no "salary" (unpaid hours)...I start at 7:00 and am out the door 4:30 without fail. My commute is about 10 minutes each way.
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I would prefer to work less than 40 hours of course (30 hours/3 days sounds good off the top of my head), but I dislike the lack of flexibility most of all. I would be fine doing 40 hours in 3 or 4 days and having a 3 or 4 day weekend. Or not coming in some days and working on projects after hours at night or weekends instead. Unfortunately every time I take a day off because I worked all day Saturday or all night Wednesday I get grief for it... So I come in with only a couple hours sleep and end up doing the minimum all day which could be an hour or two of work and 6-7 hours of seat warming while browsing the internet or chatting up coworkers, simply because I'm tired from working all night and can't focus enough to be more than minimally productive.
I don't get it, but I'm paid hourly and get OT so I suck it up and warm my seat most times. I mean I understand to an extent they want me there in case anything comes up but it's insane to pay me my OT rate for basic BS items when they could just call or email if something comes up since I can do about 99% of my job remotely. Which brings me to my next irritation, why the hell do I have to go to the office at all? I'd rather work remote in evenings/weekends when projects or maintenance demands and come to the office once or twice a week. Or better yet relocate to a more pleasant low cost of living area and do a week in the office every month or two.
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At least you get paid for it - some of us work all-nighters or saturdays and it's just part of "perpetual crunch time".
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I work between 50-65 hours/week on average, but I tend to work them all at once (I work 24 and 48 hour shifts in my job, which includes sleeping). So I do nothing but work from 8am on Monday to 8am on Wednesday, then go home for a few days before I do it again.
On the one hand I have around 9 days off in a 2 week cycle. On the other hand I often work weekends and it can be hard to connect with my kids, or at least harder than I would like. I do get to be the 'at home dad' during the week a lot, which I like.
And it gives me time for my side hustle, which is eventually going to be my only hustle.
All that said, working for 2 days straight is exhausting and logging 60 hours/week in any configuration has started wearing me down.
Seems strange. What exactly do you do that the company allows you to sleep and do such long shifts? If you don't mind my asking.... :)
I'm not the OP but I'm guessing firefighter or EMT.
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My work week is on average 75 hrs (residency, boo!). Once done with training it will still be around 60 hours. If I'm operating I don't mind it being that long, though. A 40 hour work week sounds nice, but unrealistic for my line of work.
I don't understand why it's unrealistic. Do we really want doctors/ surgeons to be working exhausted? (I assume that's what you are going into.)
I realize there are many aspects to being a doctor, but I'd assume fewer patients = less time.
Of course I understand that hospitals and clinics and offices aren't generally set up that way. My line of work isn't set up that way either, but there's no good reason for it.
Also doctors with that long shifts are allowed to sleep as long as there is no emergency. However, if there is one (what might be the case quite often) they actually do work that long. Another example might be quite complicated operations that might last several hours but I doubt you do those every day.
During training we do have calls that are 24 hours and are allowed to sleep if nothing is going on overnight. Otherwise we are working 12-14 hours a day without being able to sleep. When we are done with training, the usual schedule is 1-3 days of operating (which can go for 12-14 hours/day, potential longer if on call), 2 days of clinic (about 10 hours/day). Then we take home call for varying amounts of time that in a busy practice leads to coming in and operating 1-2 times a week (another 4-6 hours). We do try to do only a few long operations per week to preserve our sanity.
Why is it so busy? Mainly because of 1) patient demand...no one wants to wait 5 months for their operation! 2) we have multiple obligations (patients we operated on and are recovering in the hospital, patients we are operating on that day, and patients in clinic/home) and people do not like being stood up by their doctor, so no putting off a project until tomorrow because we're tired! I would gladly work half as much as the average surgeon and make half as much, but no practice would hire me because those patients would find someone else to operate on them. That's how medicine is in the US; our society is sicker than average and also more demanding than average.
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I've got a pretty sweet deal with my main job- 35 hours a week with the understanding that I work weekends as needed. It has never been needed as long as I've been with the company.
But between my two other jobs, an off-hours legal assistant and server/bartender/barback I clock in anywhere from 50-75 hours working a week. Usually rounds out to 60.
I dream of the day I work a professional job that pays me enough I can work 1 40 hour week job. However I don't see that happening anytime soon.
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I dream of the day I work a professional job that pays me enough I can work 1 40 hour week job.
Employment Standards Regulation - Exclusions for High Technology Professionals
"The hours of work provisions of the Act, including those governing meal breaks, split shifts, minimum daily pay and hours free from work each week, as well as the overtime and statutory holiday provisions, do not apply to “high technology professionals”.
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I dream of the day I work a professional job that pays me enough I can work 1 40 hour week job.
Employment Standards Regulation - Exclusions for High Technology Professionals
"The hours of work provisions of the Act, including those governing meal breaks, split shifts, minimum daily pay and hours free from work each week, as well as the overtime and statutory holiday provisions, do not apply to “high technology professionals”.
My employer and and myself do not fall under this because we are professional services and I'm paid hourly despite my professional title.
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It was more the irony - one day I will be a highly valued professional and be free from all this fixed hours and overtime sh*t ;-)
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I've been self-employed for 17 years. Depending on the week, I might work 20, 40 or 60 hours. Years ago, I would work more. The trick is that when you're self-employed you itemize your time. Thus if I'm working 60 hours, I'm getting paid accordingly. (Average is 20-30).
Along with their job description, salaried employees get paid to sit in meetings and on conference calls and "work" when there really isn't much to do. Tack on commuting, idle office chit-chat and the rest and there's just a lot of lost time.
It's like when Peter Gibbons was being interviewed by the Bobs in Office Space. When he was being honest about how much he actually worked, it wasn't that much. But he had to be physically in the office 40-plus hours a week because it was expected.
When you have the incentive to work more efficiently, you do so.
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I work between 50-65 hours/week on average, but I tend to work them all at once (I work 24 and 48 hour shifts in my job, which includes sleeping). So I do nothing but work from 8am on Monday to 8am on Wednesday, then go home for a few days before I do it again.
On the one hand I have around 9 days off in a 2 week cycle. On the other hand I often work weekends and it can be hard to connect with my kids, or at least harder than I would like. I do get to be the 'at home dad' during the week a lot, which I like.
And it gives me time for my side hustle, which is eventually going to be my only hustle.
All that said, working for 2 days straight is exhausting and logging 60 hours/week in any configuration has started wearing me down.
Seems strange. What exactly do you do that the company allows you to sleep and do such long shifts? If you don't mind my asking.... :)
I'm not the OP but I'm guessing firefighter or EMT.
Actually I work in a group home for adults with behaviour issues. Sometimes it's great, fun even, other times it's hell on earth. Mostly it's just tiring.
The pay is nothing special though.
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The really crazy thing is that the guy who finishes in 2 hours and goes home is viewed as a slacker while the slow guy is viewed as hard-working.
This is so true. The person who had my job for 35 years refused to use a computer. She took work home every night and worked until late; worked on weekends and holidays and basically had no life. Management thought she was fabulous and such a hard worker. When I took over, I had a major battle getting them to allow me to use a computer to do my work (the firm's accounting!!!!) My predecessor made $15,000 more five years ago than I do now. When I requested a raise, all they cared about is that I don't work more than 40 hours. Doesn't matter that I have innovated, made things more efficient, and now they get nice Excel spreadsheets instead of handwritten, sloppy reports. The hours are the only thing they care about.
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The really crazy thing is that the guy who finishes in 2 hours and goes home is viewed as a slacker while the slow guy is viewed as hard-working.
This is so true. The person who had my job for 35 years refused to use a computer. She took work home every night and worked until late; worked on weekends and holidays and basically had no life. Management thought she was fabulous and such a hard worker. When I took over, I had a major battle getting them to allow me to use a computer to do my work (the firm's accounting!!!!) My predecessor made $15,000 more five years ago than I do now. When I requested a raise, all they cared about is that I don't work more than 40 hours. Doesn't matter that I have innovated, made things more efficient, and now they get nice Excel spreadsheets instead of handwritten, sloppy reports. The hours are the only thing they care about.
That is completely absurd. :( Sad for you.
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The really crazy thing is that the guy who finishes in 2 hours and goes home is viewed as a slacker while the slow guy is viewed as hard-working.
This is so true. The person who had my job for 35 years refused to use a computer. She took work home every night and worked until late; worked on weekends and holidays and basically had no life. Management thought she was fabulous and such a hard worker. When I took over, I had a major battle getting them to allow me to use a computer to do my work (the firm's accounting!!!!) My predecessor made $15,000 more five years ago than I do now. When I requested a raise, all they cared about is that I don't work more than 40 hours. Doesn't matter that I have innovated, made things more efficient, and now they get nice Excel spreadsheets instead of handwritten, sloppy reports. The hours are the only thing they care about.
Same as my job. Im a dentist in an institutional setting and we get perfect external audits every time due to the quality and efficiency of the work we do but our supervisors cant stand the fact that we often times get our work done early and end up chatting for 15-20 minutes here or there. Other departments are uncoordinated and sloppy and every employee in that department is running around in confusion but since they never stop, they are viewed as the better employees, even though our professionally audited quality, is always at least equal to and almost always superior.
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The really crazy thing is that the guy who finishes in 2 hours and goes home is viewed as a slacker while the slow guy is viewed as hard-working.
This is so true. The person who had my job for 35 years refused to use a computer. She took work home every night and worked until late; worked on weekends and holidays and basically had no life. Management thought she was fabulous and such a hard worker. When I took over, I had a major battle getting them to allow me to use a computer to do my work (the firm's accounting!!!!) My predecessor made $15,000 more five years ago than I do now. When I requested a raise, all they cared about is that I don't work more than 40 hours. Doesn't matter that I have innovated, made things more efficient, and now they get nice Excel spreadsheets instead of handwritten, sloppy reports. The hours are the only thing they care about.
You found another job or are actively looking, right?
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Actually I work in a group home for adults with behaviour issues. Sometimes it's great, fun even, other times it's hell on earth. Mostly it's just tiring.
The pay is nothing special though.
That was the reason I stopped being an academic physicist as well.
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The really crazy thing is that the guy who finishes in 2 hours and goes home is viewed as a slacker while the slow guy is viewed as hard-working.
This is so true. The person who had my job for 35 years refused to use a computer. She took work home every night and worked until late; worked on weekends and holidays and basically had no life. Management thought she was fabulous and such a hard worker. When I took over, I had a major battle getting them to allow me to use a computer to do my work (the firm's accounting!!!!) My predecessor made $15,000 more five years ago than I do now. When I requested a raise, all they cared about is that I don't work more than 40 hours. Doesn't matter that I have innovated, made things more efficient, and now they get nice Excel spreadsheets instead of handwritten, sloppy reports. The hours are the only thing they care about.
You found another job or are actively looking, right?
Looking while at the same time, throwing every dollar at the FIRE goal.
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The really crazy thing is that the guy who finishes in 2 hours and goes home is viewed as a slacker while the slow guy is viewed as hard-working.
This is so true. The person who had my job for 35 years refused to use a computer. She took work home every night and worked until late; worked on weekends and holidays and basically had no life. Management thought she was fabulous and such a hard worker. When I took over, I had a major battle getting them to allow me to use a computer to do my work (the firm's accounting!!!!) My predecessor made $15,000 more five years ago than I do now. When I requested a raise, all they cared about is that I don't work more than 40 hours. Doesn't matter that I have innovated, made things more efficient, and now they get nice Excel spreadsheets instead of handwritten, sloppy reports. The hours are the only thing they care about.
This almost makes me physically ill. How on earth do any businesses like this succeed?
God bless you
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We were recently discussing at work the situation with "volunteering for severance" as we have layoffs ahead. Should we keep the guy who is dying for the job 'cuz he has bills to pay, even though he's not such a great worker or keep the better qualified worker who is fed up and wants the severance?
"Adverse Selection" My office is covered up in it. Anybody worthwhile leaves because of all the BS. Only reason I stayed as long as I have is because ER is right around the corner, and I didn't want to bother going through interviews and learning new systems just to quit a few months down the road.
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I work in healthcare, in direct patient care. Supposedly I work 40 hours a week, in 4 ten hour shifts. But we also have a 1 hour unpaid lunch, and technically we cannot leave until we've completed our entire patient load for the day so it frequently turns into 11 or 11.5 hour days. Also, they schedule many of our meetings over lunch....we do get overtime when we work through our lunch, or when we work past the end of our shift....but the overtime pay is scarecely worth it.
Supposedly I get 2 twenty minute breaks...but there is no system in place to make sure we actually get those breaks...so most of us just use that break time to catch up on everything else that needs to be done. Since they barely give us enough time to actually treat our patients, all the "extra stuff" that needs to be done just comes out of our breaks, or we stay late, or both. Honestly, maybe half the time I feel like I've been given enough time to complete the patient care that is needed. The rest of the time I'm either running late, cutting corners or praying that somebody no-shows. Cutting corners makes me feel icky, so I run late a lot.
it is brutal and scary what is expected from healthcare workers these days. I'm surprised there aren't more medical errors.
I have repeatedly asked to work 20 or 30 hours and they practically laugh in my face. we have 2 options: work on-call as needed with no benefits, or work 40 hours a week with benefits. management won't hide their strategy, they will tell anyone who asks that they want to spread out the cost of benefits and training over as many employee hours as possible. Thank God we got a "no mandatory overtime" in our contract about 10 years ago. Before that I am told it was not uncommon to be forced to work 60+ hours because they claimed it was some type of staffing emergency, when really they just did not want to spend the extra money on training and benefits to hire more people.
Believe it or not, I work at one of the most employee friendly, family friendly healthcare companies. other places are much worse....I know, I've worked at them and have friends who still do.
I daydream of the day I can simply afford to go on-call and work whenever I feel like it, because despite all that whining I just did....I actually enjoy the patient care part of my job. I just don't like being out of breath on rollerskates for 40+ hours a week.
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My work week is on average 75 hrs (residency, boo!). Once done with training it will still be around 60 hours. If I'm operating I don't mind it being that long, though. A 40 hour work week sounds nice, but unrealistic for my line of work. With regards to the question, it's normal (in the US) because of various labor laws passed during the Great Depression and afterwards. People routinely worked closer to my number of hours on the farm or in factories before those laws.
I don't understand why it's unrealistic. Do we really want doctors/ surgeons to be working exhausted? (I assume that's what you are going into.)
I realize there are many aspects to being a doctor, but I'd assume fewer patients = less time.
Of course I understand that hospitals and clinics and offices aren't generally set up that way. My line of work isn't set up that way either, but there's no good reason for it.
I think most people "working" more than 12 hours a day are not really working during the whole time! Or at least not on a regular basis! What I've heard from young lawyers or investment bankers is that they basically have to be there and wait for stuff someone else (from around the globe) will send them or something like that. It's just impossible to concentrate during such a long time.
Also doctors with that long shifts are allowed to sleep as long as there is no emergency. However, if there is one (what might be the case quite often) they actually do work that long. Another example might be quite complicated operations that might last several hours but I doubt you do those every day.
Nope. Nurses, CNAs, Medical assistants all work pretty damned hard the entire 10-12 hour shift. There's little to no "downtime" waiting for something to happen. Doctors possibly have some down time they can use to sleep....but they are often quite slammed.
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My work week is on average 75 hrs (residency, boo!). Once done with training it will still be around 60 hours. If I'm operating I don't mind it being that long, though. A 40 hour work week sounds nice, but unrealistic for my line of work.
I don't understand why it's unrealistic. Do we really want doctors/ surgeons to be working exhausted? (I assume that's what you are going into.)
I realize there are many aspects to being a doctor, but I'd assume fewer patients = less time.
Of course I understand that hospitals and clinics and offices aren't generally set up that way. My line of work isn't set up that way either, but there's no good reason for it.
Also doctors with that long shifts are allowed to sleep as long as there is no emergency. However, if there is one (what might be the case quite often) they actually do work that long. Another example might be quite complicated operations that might last several hours but I doubt you do those every day.
During training we do have calls that are 24 hours and are allowed to sleep if nothing is going on overnight. Otherwise we are working 12-14 hours a day without being able to sleep. When we are done with training, the usual schedule is 1-3 days of operating (which can go for 12-14 hours/day, potential longer if on call), 2 days of clinic (about 10 hours/day). Then we take home call for varying amounts of time that in a busy practice leads to coming in and operating 1-2 times a week (another 4-6 hours). We do try to do only a few long operations per week to preserve our sanity.
Why is it so busy? Mainly because of 1) patient demand...no one wants to wait 5 months for their operation! 2) we have multiple obligations (patients we operated on and are recovering in the hospital, patients we are operating on that day, and patients in clinic/home) and people do not like being stood up by their doctor, so no putting off a project until tomorrow because we're tired! I would gladly work half as much as the average surgeon and make half as much, but no practice would hire me because those patients would find someone else to operate on them. That's how medicine is in the US; our society is sicker than average and also more demanding than average.
My mom is an OB/GYN. I had a mild inclination towards medicine, but the intense training and the (completely batshit insane) hours convinced me to go into Computer Science. Sure, I could make more as a doctor, but I make way more than I need, get 5 weeks vacation, all the benefits I could ever want, and get to go home after 37.5 hours a week.
I'm not super happy in my job at the moment, but I'm working on opportunities to switch specialties within the same University, because the benefits and hours are too good to pass up.
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Interestingly, I considered computer science instead of medicine (and ultimately surgery) but ended up liking medicine more. Still work on side projects for tracking surgical outcomes with my (rapidly aging) programming skills. The hours one gets used to, and in fact when I was doing research for 2 years found it somewhat slow and covered the cardiax ICU part time. That's when I knew this was the right decision for me, despite the hours.
That being said, most financially smart older surgeons stop taking call and slow down their practice by age 55-60, which is what I plan to do.
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yeah, 40 hrs suck
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Personally, I'm one of those people who seems to be able to accomplish all of my work in 1-2 hours at the most. ..........
So I end up spending 7 hours a day surfing the internet............
Pretty much.
I also have a lazy job.
same here, paying me a lot to do very little and at review time rating me as exceeds expectations.
i'm reducing to 3 days/wk soon, no later than first of the year, maybe earlier.
i work from home. not sure what i will do with those other 2 days off. i keep thinking and thinking and just blank so far. all i can think of is working out.
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Personally, I'm one of those people who seems to be able to accomplish all of my work in 1-2 hours at the most. ..........
So I end up spending 7 hours a day surfing the internet............
Pretty much.
I also have a lazy job.
same here, paying me a lot to do very little and at review time rating me as exceeds expectations.
i'm reducing to 3 days/wk soon, no later than first of the year, maybe earlier.
i work from home. not sure what i will do with those other 2 days off. i keep thinking and thinking and just blank so far. all i can think of is working out.
Hobbies, Second job to decrease time to FIRE, reading, spending time with children or retired parents, take a class online, tv/movies
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I have to admit, I'm having a bit of an emotional reaction to all the people stating that they are desk warmers, have easy jobs that could be completed in 6 hours a day or 3 days a week or something like that.
It's not resentment or jealousy as I actually like what I do (patient care, health care)....but it just gets me to thinking about my job. The clinical staff works our asses off day in day out and we are constantly being hounded for "more productivity" "utilizing downtime" "seeing more patients in less time" etc. etc. and it just occurred to me that some of the people coming up with these ridiculous slogans and schemes probably have some of those "easy jobs".
I mean it is so rare that I actually only work 40 hours, even though I'm scheduled for 40....but because they have like 45 hours worth of work crammed into 40 to make sure there is no "downtime" we end up working through our breaks and STILL get overtime because we are literally still working our asses off after our shift technically ends.
grrrr.....
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http://blog.crew.co/why-you-shouldnt-work-set-hours/
This article claims Henry Ford picked 5 day 40 hours a week because he thought it was max time people could work and still have enough time to shop thus growing consumption.... MMM is fighting a long history hahaha
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Personally, I'm one of those people who seems to be able to accomplish all of my work in 1-2 hours at the most. ..........
So I end up spending 7 hours a day surfing the internet............
Pretty much.
I also have a lazy job.
I had a job like that and felt guilty when things were slow. Now, I still work fast, so I just get all of my boss' work too. I miss the down time.
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What a wacked out world! It is just like the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy scenario where there are the thinkers and doers (patient care included) and the useless (sales advisors, decorators, hair dressers, military commanders). Those needed for human life are not paid as well as those set up to be paid well.
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I probably work 20-30 hours a week averaged out over the year. I'm efficient, very good at my craft and despise the idea of appearing busy or harried without accomplishing much vs. busting it out and going outside to play. I think if more people didn't fuck around so much they could do the same thing. This might sound harsh, but really examine what you do in a day and think that if you had the chance to work pretty much unsupervised aside from accomplishing a goal (how I work) would you be able to be done with work most days by noon?
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I recently left a job where I worked 40 hours a week as a worker bee to move to a management position where I now work an average of 45 hours per week. The reality is I have a mountain of work in front of me and I could easily work a 60 hour week there. And I do not mean pushing papers by mountain of work, there is legitimate work that needs to get done by both myself and my team. My predecessor was not very good at his job and I am cleaning up a lot of that mess. I am pacing myself however, and to follow up on what a previous commenter said, the quality of work is more important than the quantity of it. My boss has no problems with the hours I work because she is happy with the quality. I am lucky in that I have a very good boss who sees the big picture.
So for me at least I have no problem with the 40 hour work week. I am well compensated for what I do, and quite frankly 40 hours would not be enough for what my responsibilities entail. Although I would like to have more free time, I comfort myself with the fact that by putting in this extra time on the front end (and the extra compensation that camme with the move) I will get it back on the back end.
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I just don't like being out of breath on rollerskates for 40+ hours a week.
As a veterinarian who works in a busy corporate practice (located inside a national pet store chain), I love this quote SOOOOOO very much. We've had a couple of slow weeks recently, with everyone gearing up for back to school, but most days I can completely relate to the "praying for a no-show so that you can actually have a second to get caught up" sentiment. I only work 40 hrs/wk, but it is SO exhausting and draining that I just don't know how much longer I'll be able to stand it. That's 40 hrs/wk on my feet, holding my bladder because there's no time to pee, not able to conduct any of my personal life business because phone calls and cell phones are strictly forbidden on the clock (which became incredibly annoying when I had a recent car insurance claim to deal with!), etc. Plus plenty of time outside of work for answering work emails, researching cases, reading medical journals, etc (because there certainly isn't time to do any of that at work).
Currently 9 years into my career and debating whether to put in another 3-5 years and then go PT or whether to attempt to transition to medical writing ASAP.
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Didn't Henry Ford figure out that after 40 hours worker productivity declined? Before hand they were working more.
Now that manufacturing technology and productivity has outpaced previous demand, we as a society would rather demand more and work for it than work less and live off less than we could have otherwise.
For manufacturing etc, that is true and had been studied not by Ford but was implemented by him. More recent studies show that for more intellectual job the actual time before there is a lack of productivity is 6hr/day/5 days a week. It takes a bit for that productivity to decline (I may be misremembering but I think the study said the average was six weeks).
I'm right there with you about productivity being around 6 hours a day. Now I've been doing my day job a very long time and I can seriously crank out the work! In all truthfulness I could do the same job part time. I don't mind going to work and I actually enjoy it but being tied to it 9 hours a day including lunch seriously gets to me. It's not something I want to do forever! Otherwise we wouldn't be pursuing financial independence :)
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I have to admit, I'm having a bit of an emotional reaction to all the people stating that they are desk warmers, have easy jobs that could be completed in 6 hours a day or 3 days a week or something like that.
It's not resentment or jealousy as I actually like what I do (patient care, health care)....but it just gets me to thinking about my job. The clinical staff works our asses off day in day out and we are constantly being hounded for "more productivity" "utilizing downtime" "seeing more patients in less time" etc. etc. and it just occurred to me that some of the people coming up with these ridiculous slogans and schemes probably have some of those "easy jobs".
I mean it is so rare that I actually only work 40 hours, even though I'm scheduled for 40....but because they have like 45 hours worth of work crammed into 40 to make sure there is no "downtime" we end up working through our breaks and STILL get overtime because we are literally still working our asses off after our shift technically ends.
grrrr.....
I think a big reason for this is computers have made a lot of office workers jobs a lot easier. A job that required 50 hours without a computer can be finished in 30 with a computer but corporate culture dictates that you still have to stay for 50 hours. These people are still contributing a lot more than their salary in productivity to the company but are forced by corporate rules to waste a ton of time at the office.
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I have to admit, I'm having a bit of an emotional reaction to all the people stating that they are desk warmers, have easy jobs that could be completed in 6 hours a day or 3 days a week or something like that.
It's not resentment or jealousy as I actually like what I do (patient care, health care)....but it just gets me to thinking about my job. The clinical staff works our asses off day in day out and we are constantly being hounded for "more productivity" "utilizing downtime" "seeing more patients in less time" etc. etc. and it just occurred to me that some of the people coming up with these ridiculous slogans and schemes probably have some of those "easy jobs".
I mean it is so rare that I actually only work 40 hours, even though I'm scheduled for 40....but because they have like 45 hours worth of work crammed into 40 to make sure there is no "downtime" we end up working through our breaks and STILL get overtime because we are literally still working our asses off after our shift technically ends.
grrrr.....
I think a big reason for this is computers have made a lot of office workers jobs a lot easier. A job that required 50 hours without a computer can be finished in 30 with a computer but corporate culture dictates that you still have to stay for 50 hours. These people are still contributing a lot more than their salary in productivity to the company but are forced by corporate rules to waste a ton of time at the office.
right....so with that extra time they are forced to be there....they dream up schemes how to make the rest of us work harder (....so they don't have to....?)
I swear sometimes it feels like upper management is 12 guys standing around a hole watching 4 guys dig and arguing with eachother about different strategies to make those guys dig faster, harder, more efficiently. Duh! grab a shovel and pitch in.
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A job that required 50 hours without a computer can be finished in 30 with a computer but corporate culture dictates that you still have to stay for 50 hours.
And thus PowerPoint was invented
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A job that required 50 hours without a computer can be finished in 30 with a computer but corporate culture dictates that you still have to stay for 50 hours.
And thus PowerPoint was invented
bwahahahaha this comment wins the thread.
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I have to admit, I'm having a bit of an emotional reaction to all the people stating that they are desk warmers, have easy jobs that could be completed in 6 hours a day or 3 days a week or something like that.
It's not resentment or jealousy as I actually like what I do (patient care, health care)....but it just gets me to thinking about my job. The clinical staff works our asses off day in day out and we are constantly being hounded for "more productivity" "utilizing downtime" "seeing more patients in less time" etc. etc. and it just occurred to me that some of the people coming up with these ridiculous slogans and schemes probably have some of those "easy jobs".
I mean it is so rare that I actually only work 40 hours, even though I'm scheduled for 40....but because they have like 45 hours worth of work crammed into 40 to make sure there is no "downtime" we end up working through our breaks and STILL get overtime because we are literally still working our asses off after our shift technically ends.
grrrr.....
I think a big reason for this is computers have made a lot of office workers jobs a lot easier. A job that required 50 hours without a computer can be finished in 30 with a computer but corporate culture dictates that you still have to stay for 50 hours. These people are still contributing a lot more than their salary in productivity to the company but are forced by corporate rules to waste a ton of time at the office.
right....so with that extra time they are forced to be there....they dream up schemes how to make the rest of us work harder (....so they don't have to....?)
I swear sometimes it feels like upper management is 12 guys standing around a hole watching 4 guys dig and arguing with eachother about different strategies to make those guys dig faster, harder, more efficiently. Duh! grab a shovel and pitch in.
Your post reminded me about this joke about American management:
http://joshkaufman.net/friday-joke-the-canoe-race/
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I have no problem with 40 hours a week, but I hate facetime. I am an accountant so naturally my workload peaks at month end and no amount of organisation and front loading work can get me through month end without at least 5 hours of overtime (in a good month, can be a lot more). But the following week I am still expected to be at my desk 7.5 hours a day. Grrrr...
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40 hour a week is good for me. I never do more than the 40 hours, and it feels like I have plenty of time outside of work.
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40 hour a week is good for me. I never do more than the 40 hours, and it feels like I have plenty of time outside of work.
The second you start going over that 40 hours (or 37.5 as is the case at my work) it starts to bite pretty hard into your life. It's only Monday morning and I have already done 4.5 hours of overtime so I will be monitoring myself closely for the rest of the week. Since the redundancies happened I know I could work a 65 hour week and still not meet expectations so I am making sure my weeks cap off at 45 no matter what.
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40 hour a week is good for me. I never do more than the 40 hours, and it feels like I have plenty of time outside of work.
The second you start going over that 40 hours (or 37.5 as is the case at my work) it starts to bite pretty hard into your life. It's only Monday morning and I have already done 4.5 hours of overtime so I will be monitoring myself closely for the rest of the week. Since the redundancies happened I know I could work a 65 hour week and still not meet expectations so I am making sure my weeks cap off at 45 no matter what.
Yeah I guess my work is technically 37.5 hours a week because we are not paid for lunch breaks.
If people do stay late, management gets a little angry, and tells you to leave. I normally get my work done on time quite easily. Thus I have plenty of time to surf the net and visit websites like this one!
Best job I've ever had!
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Are you hiring? Lol ;-)
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Are you hiring? Lol ;-)
Lol yes!
But the commute might be a bit too much considering it is in Canada! ;)
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Didn't Henry Ford figure out that after 40 hours worker productivity declined? Before hand they were working more.
No, not true. The 40 hour work week was a by-product of unionization before and after 1900, particularly the railroads. Mass production is actually most productive with a nine hour work day.
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I have no problem with 40 hours a week, but I hate facetime. I am an accountant so naturally my workload peaks at month end and no amount of organisation and front loading work can get me through month end without at least 5 hours of overtime (in a good month, can be a lot more). But the following week I am still expected to be at my desk 7.5 hours a day. Grrrr...
Accountant here too....yup I got you. Most month ends require abit of extra time but that only takes 5 business days. The remaining 15 days in the month can be painfully slow - of course we are required to put in the 40 hour work week nonetheless. PLUS an hour per day of unpaid lunch....i never understood that concept. Let me wolf down my lunch in 5 minutes so i can go home 55 minutes earlier.
I leave at 4:30 98% of the time yet the other accountants are very much into the face time thing and work til 6 or 7 - I know their jobs and it is completely unnecessary. Pretty sure they A) hate their wives and B) have nothing better to do with their free time
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The rest of my month is still pretty busy due to the nature of my role (operational accountant in a hybrid accounting/cost control role) but I have just left that role so things should be better going forwards as the workload in my new role doesnt involve a month end but is constantly busy and my co worker is one of the "other accountants" you described, so I will let him be the hero who does all the over time. I am making a personal mission to cap my over time at 5 hours a week. Whatever I can't get done in that that can't be that important, so I will have to be brutally effective at prioritising and pushing back where required.
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The rest of my month is still pretty busy due to the nature of my role (operational accountant in a hybrid accounting/cost control role) but I have just left that role so things should be better going forwards as the workload in my new role doesnt involve a month end but is constantly busy and my co worker is one of the "other accountants" you described, so I will let him be the hero who does all the over time. I am making a personal mission to cap my over time at 5 hours a week. Whatever I can't get done in that that can't be that important, so I will have to be brutally effective at prioritising and pushing back where required.
Does you employer pay for overtime? What rate do they use?
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Before I found MMM I didn't know there were any alternatives myself. Today is my first Friday off of working part time. It was amazing how much push back I got trying to negotiate this. It took me 8 months to finally succeed. I guess they were afraid everybody else would ask for the same arrangement (not likely, plenty of X5's and brand new Silverado's in the parking lot and $500K mortgages to go around). I was only successful because of FU money. In the end I mustered enough courage to suggest 4 days a week or 0 days a week. I'm sure I'm on higher ups shit list now, but I'm happy with my new 32 hour work week.
I need your attitude woodlink. I just asked for (1) work from home (WFH) day a week and got the spiel that everyone will want that if they grant me it. Yet in another functional dept, there are folks who WFH 5 days a week! Hmm. Maybe they are right. But wow, I can't get one day?!
I definitely had a funny look on my face when I got the news and then got the 'well...different depts might allow for that, but not this one'. Umm OK, you must know what will happen now.
So now I am biding my time to get the balance of my vesting (in another month), and the next stock ditro at year end. I then will plan to deliver the ultimatum in January and it will be a harsher version....maybe 2 days WFH or maybe even 4 days work or zero like woodlink!
I do have nice (but not quite my goal of) FU money built up. I would prefer another year or two working/savings, so I may need to switch jobs to hit that. I'll be working the backup job option in parallel over the next four months.
I continue to be amazed at how companies tend to shoot themselves in the foot with this crap.
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I show up late, goof off most of the day, and leave early. Leave my laptop at the office. No one says anything. Coming up on 9 year anniversary here.
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I show up late, goof off most of the day, and leave early. Leave my laptop at the office. No one says anything. Coming up on 9 year anniversary here.
Good to meet you Mr Congressman
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I show up late, goof off most of the day, and leave early. Leave my laptop at the office. No one says anything. Coming up on 9 year anniversary here.
Good to meet you Mr Congressman
I wish! I don't get a pension here.
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I show up late, goof off most of the day, and leave early. Leave my laptop at the office. No one says anything. Coming up on 9 year anniversary here.
LOL, kudos to you. I'm the same: show up 9:15-9:30, leave 4:15-4:30, never take work home. Been working here 12 years and gonna FIRE in next couple years (could do it now, but I want that cushion). It seems I'm the only one out of 12 in my group like this. I don't understand how everybody is working so much, maybe I'm just really efficient.
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I show up late, goof off most of the day, and leave early. Leave my laptop at the office. No one says anything. Coming up on 9 year anniversary here.
LOL, kudos to you. I'm the same: show up 9:15-9:30, leave 4:15-4:30, never take work home. Been working here 12 years and gonna FIRE in next couple years (could do it now, but I want that cushion). It seems I'm the only one out of 12 in my group like this. I don't understand how everybody is working so much, maybe I'm just really efficient.
I know. When I have project tasks that need to be done, I lock myself in a mtg room and knock them out quickly.
The shitty part is, I actually hate this job. There's not really much opportunity to move into a new role. I can move from having Senior in my title to Lead instead, but then I'd have to put on training presentations and get involved in the "political game". I'd have to become an expert at some part of the job that people could come to for help. Not sure if the post-tax bump in pay would be worth the time and effort. LOL.
Not sure I'd be able to find anything else I would like that could at least pay me what I make here. And I get 5 weeks paid vacation a year on top of the normal paid holidays, personal days and sick days.
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The rest of my month is still pretty busy due to the nature of my role (operational accountant in a hybrid accounting/cost control role) but I have just left that role so things should be better going forwards as the workload in my new role doesnt involve a month end but is constantly busy and my co worker is one of the "other accountants" you described, so I will let him be the hero who does all the over time. I am making a personal mission to cap my over time at 5 hours a week. Whatever I can't get done in that that can't be that important, so I will have to be brutally effective at prioritising and pushing back where required.
Does you employer pay for overtime? What rate do they use?
God no. Hence why I am trying to cap it it off. (To be fair paid overtime is very rare here in Australia but a lot of companies at least offer time off in lieu of overtime pay). There has been a sustained hiring freeze combined with redundancies but the workload is exactly the same as it was three and a half years ago when I started there but there are now about 15% less people to do said work. The expectation is that we all just work our asses off. There is also an intentional strategy of managing people out (from what I can tell) a number of people who have always received average performance appraisals have been getting written warnings. (Going from average to a written warning is a long way to fall as there is a below average category in there for those who might be new at roles etc. ) so the pressure to do the overtime is strong.
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One of my all time favorite blog posts over at Raptitude covered this topic:
http://www.raptitude.com/2010/07/your-lifestyle-has-already-been-designed/
The money quote:
The ultimate tool for corporations to sustain a culture of this sort is to develop the 40-hour workweek as the normal lifestyle. Under these working conditions people have to build a life in the evenings and on weekends. This arrangement makes us naturally more inclined to spend heavily on entertainment and conveniences because our free time is so scarce.
I’ve only been back at work for a few days, but already I’m noticing that the more wholesome activities are quickly dropping out of my life: walking, exercising, reading, meditating, and extra writing.
The one conspicuous similarity between these activities is that they cost little or no money, but they take time.
Thank you for this blog post!
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My engineering job supports a production line. When the hourly workers are scheduled to work, somebody from my team has to be on-site to support them. Right now we are working (5) 12 hour days plus 8 or 10 hours on Saturday. I am looking for a new job where I don't have to work the same hours as the factory.