If you work 45+ hour weeks in an office job, what 'pace' do you work at?

[Flubber97]

Asking because I think I'm getting to the point of burn out but want to know if I just need to get a grip.

I am contracted to work 37 hours a week. I am usually at my desk by 8am and try my best to leave by 5:30pm but often end up staying until past 6pm.

This is me trying to have a work life balance. But the pace I have to work at to get things done in these hours is causing me a lot of stress. I feel like I am having to rush through work all day at a pace which I find exhausting. To the point that if someone stops me in the corridor for a 5 minute chat I feel stressed because I'm not working.

The constant barrage is almost unbearable. All day I'll have 2 or 3 people trying to call me at the same time, 15+ instant chats going and 100s of emails to get through. I'm constantly pulled from pillar to post with priorities and deadlines changing by the hour and I get to 5pm and feel utterly exhausted and brain dead. I hear about people working 12 hour days and honestly don't know how they manage it. I'm always not far from the point of tears and if something goes wrong I feel very stressed, although hide it very well from work.

Am I just being a wimp?

I get stressed. Work 40hrs a week but it s a contact centre
Usually do about 150-170 calls a day plus maybe 40 emails and feel like I never stop! Get to the end of the day and don't want to speak to anyone

No, that sounds insane. I think your workload is way too high if you can't chat for 5 mins once a day! Assuming typical office job etc. Have you spoken to your manager? This time of year my industry is nuts and none of my team feel like that. Stressed/tired yes but not burnt out. I have felt burnt out in the past and it is awful. I think you need a chat with your manager and some very strong boundaries put in place re messages.

Sounds like a nightmare and I have an office job.

Focus on one thing at a time and get it done (or moved to the next stage) and don't deal with other emails or instant chats until it's finished.

I sympathise with you, I am a commercial lawyer at a London based international firm and it is non-stop when working and it feels like other than the weekends we never aren't working. Burn out is very common in this industry.

Lawyer here and that pace would be typical during the week days 9 to 5. It’s why a lot of lawyers do their deep concentration work at night time and weekends.

You need to be assertive

you have more work than you can do, so ask your manager to help you prioritise what should be done

dont fall into the trap of working for free no business values it and working more means they don’t see they need more resource

If I've got a lot on I turn off teams. You don't have to be available to everyone all the time. I also block out an hour in my diary each day as focus time.

Goodness, no job I've ever had has been like that. We chat, have tea, work, have lunch. I have enough to do but not an overwhelming amount. I do an all round accounts role. I wouldn't do a job like that. I wouldn't be happy.

Thanks all. My manager is part of the problem, I get constant messages from him asking me to do stuff, have I done stuff, I should do stuff. Chasing me up. He works very late every night so if I raise it and say I’d like to finish at 5 everyday I can picture the raised eyebrows.

I think realistically I need a new job but I need to stick this one out for another 6 months to ‘tick the box’ so to speak.

Sounds like an awful job, you're being taken for a mug doing that much! Hope you're getting paid a lot of money.

Why are you doing unpaid overtime. You are paid 37 hours. You are at work 8-6, 10 hours. 50 hours a week. Why?
Do you know how much your hourly rate reduces if you work unpaid overtime.

Say you earn £30k. You are paid for 37.5 hours. £15.38 per hour.
If you work 40 hours, an extra 1/2 an hour per day, you are earning £14.42.
You do your maths. I bet your'll be horrified.

@Flubber97 I think these days it's less of an issue to jump ship sooner than you'd like. Have a couple of friends who've job hopped without any negative impact, after six months or so. I think as long as you can explain in an interview it'd be fine.

That sounds like a horrible job op

I've learnt that working really fast and getting the job done, staying late, doing o/t is the wrong way to go about it

Slow down and once all the work doesn't get completed the people above you will realise there's a problem and hopefully look at your workload, get you some help

If you keep ploughing ahead and getting everything done managers won't have a problem. You need to give them a problem or start looking for a new job

I hope your salary reflects your job as it sounds very stressful and demanding

Sorry but if you're as busy as you say and realistically need to do 45+ hours then the workload is too high for one job position. You need a second person in your role, or a secretary.

At the minute you're shouldering it all, to your detriment, and the company reap the rewards. Stand up for yourself and set boundaries.

Nobody thinks back on someone after they've died and says "I do miss Brenda, she really put in the hours at work".

Thanks all, I've gone v teary hearing that others think this is ridiculous too. I'm just close to breaking point.

I'm on circa £50k in a very unionised environment so many of my stakeholders (rightly) just work their hours and won't do overtime without being paid.

I work in a support function and my managers attitude is that working your contracted hours and going home on time is lazy and work shy and people should be prepared to over above and beyond when needed. Being around this sort of attitude is horrid and makes me feel like I'm shirking if I log off and go home at 4pm, especially if I haven't done something that needs to be done (which could be most days).

Maybe I need to let stuff fall over. Problem is that will then impact on my performance and pay/bonus as they will deduce I am not 'delivering'.

From personal experience you need to let something fall as they will keep piling on the tasks and then it will be a you not preforming/crashing and burning as opposed to being an unrealistic environment.

What I did was recorded a week of my activity every quarter hour - this formed the data to support the report and proposal I presented to the manager and their manager! It made interesting reading to them both and they promised more resources.

In the report I set out I was going to work my contracted hours only, that my priorities as I understood them to be xyz and that everything else would need to be completed on a first come first dealt with - inside my hours. I kept a record of what was completed in a xl report accessible by the manager and scheduled a weekly catch up. I scheduled time to have 5 minutes chats occasionally and took all lunch breaks. The key thing is I took control and it released the stress of feeling not in control.

Wishing you the best - things improved for me I hope they do for you too.

I used to be like this and I burnt out. As a result 3 people did my job.

You need to do your hours. If your work doesn't get done management have to either reduce the work or hire more people. Your health will break and your employer will not care.

But just because your manager chooses to work late doesn't mean you should be following suit.

Are you hourly or salaried pay? You are going to burn out, and no one will thank you for it. Your workload is clearly too much for one person.

Your question about pace is very relevant. I work (sw dev) in tech industry for well known company. We're well paid, but the norm is longer hours than contracted, that's just the way in these companies in sw development. I'm starting at 7.30AM, and typically finished at 6.30PM (some colleagues might start at 10AM and finish at 9PM).

Most of the time I find the pace OK, busy but OK. I mostly enjoy my work, but some people just can't handle the hours.

If you are not paid for overtime, stop doing it. Your manager can think whatever he likes, he's the mug! When it gets flagged then you need to be honest and direct that the load is too much for one person and you are not prepared to be working unpaid. And log it with HR.

Plan your day with the tasks that must be completed.

Tell your team/manager you will be setting aside a fixed portion of your day to work without interruptions to improve efficiency and timeliness.

Block out this time in your calendar so staff are aware. Turn off Teams, close Outlook and set calls to voicemail. This will give you breathing space to get stuff done. Even just two hours a day will have an impact.

Set some clear boundaries with your manager. Tell them you will be finishing work at your contracted time and make sure you do it.

If you are treated differently or there are issues, gather evidence and speak with ACAS and HR.