To think 'I'm not a nine to five person' is a slightly pretentious thing to say.

[Vintagejazz]

No one is a nine to five person. Yes, some people are more structured than others and can conform better to that regime, - while others will always be running in the door late, forgetting to fill in time sheets and overtime claims and work better with a deadline looming than to a paced schedule.

But there's just something a bit pretentious and 'ooh look how different I am' about someone airily stating 'oh I'm not a nine to five person. I couldn't possibly work at an office job'.
Yes you could if it was the only way to pay the bills. You mightn't be very good at it but you'd bloody do your best if your mortgage and groceries were depending on it.

Sorry, just heard a student, who looked in her early twenties, on the bus coming out with this remark in a very sneery dismissive manner and it riled me

Cartwheelsonthelawn I am totally not a hoovering person, so much so that I gave my ex the Henry in the divorce and got rid of my rugs! I use a broom. (I'm not a broom person, either, but loathe it slightly less.)

I'm also not a picking the kids up from school person, but I'll have to leave work in about an hour to, er, go and pick my kid up from school.

I am absolutely a lying on the sofa reading a book person, but sadly the world hasn't recognised it yet.

ha ha. Ah, it wasn't me then... I did politics with a view to avoiding the dreary 9-5 by becoming the Head of the United Nations.
Sadly for the world, this did not come to pass.

I'm a nurse who much prefers the more 9-5 routine working in clinics than the shift pattern of a ward. So many colleagues say "oh god that would bore me rigid" or somehing like that. I find it really offensive if it's said in a sneery way - I feel they're implying it must mean I'm boring or can't cope with anything out of the ordinary. I just think if we all liked the same then the world would be pretty dull actually!

Sadly for the world, this did not come to pass

just made me actually laugh out loud at my desk, in the office

It's never said nicely. The only possible reason for saying it is derogatory.

I worked in a bank. The amount of times I heard I could never work in a bank was ridiculous. And nobody ever said it or meant it factually.

Because the better thing to say is "I do x" but that doesn't get across the dismissiveness does it?

It's the same as "ooh I could never work in an office"
need to be out there in the real world doing real stuff

^^ this, exactly. I have to bite my lip hard in order not to reply when I hear it.

I disagree Minnie. DH says it because he is a farmer who works many many more hours than 9-5, 5 days a week. He says he would hate to do my job (in an office, customer facing) because he can't bear having to deal with people, whereas I dislike jobs where I don't speak to a soul all day. I would hate to be outdoors (with the exception of about 3 days in May where the weather is nice but not too hot), he would feel hemmed in with just my office to sit in all day. It's not derogatory, it's just people being different.

I'm not a 9-5 person either. I choose jobs where I choose my hours and can mix the work up a bit . I would truly hate a job in an office 9-5. I have kd be it and it wasn't for me. Really don't see what the problem is....,,

Not sure what my phone was doing!

Silly throw away comment

mmm... I dunno. It reminds me of the "I had to do XYZ with my baby because my sleep/sexlife/relationship/whatever is so important to me." Like the rest of us really enjoy sleep deprivation or not having whatever in an ideal state.

Sometimes you have to hear comments as being about them & them alone, nothing to do with other folk.

I'm a civil servant with flexi time so I tend to work 7 till 3 but do 5pm twice one week and once the next so i do accumulate lots of flexi.

Which means i've still got two thirds of my annual leave left half way through the leave year.

Left to my own devices I'd be a can't-be-arsed-to-work-at-all person. But sadly the rent won't pay itself, so I work in an office in a roughly 9-to-5 job with a degree of flexitime. Having worked in a long hours culture place, I love being able to leave round about 5-ish and not feel guilty.

There's nothing wrong with saying "I prefer to work outdoors, I'd struggle in an indoor job" or "I like the flexibility of working for myself" or even "I couldn't be X because I don't have the right skills" (e.g. "I couldn't be a carer because I don't have the patience or people skills, I'd end up murdering someone" - so highlighting their own negative aspects) but all too often the person saying "I couldn't do X/I'm not an X person" are being dismissive of others' choices/necessities and/or trying to flag up their own special snowflakeness.

"It's the same as "ooh I could never work in an office"
need to be out there in the real world doing real stuff

^^ this, exactly. I have to bite my lip hard in order not to reply when I hear it."

I fight with drunken idiots, I've rolled around the floor with a mental health naked man covered in his own excrement more than once, I see dead bodies on a regular basis, I have performed CPR on a woman who jumped from a great height and was dying in front of me, I have attended car crashes where people have to be cut out and surgery performed on them in the street, I stop men beating up their wives, I have to strip search drug addicts with not great personal hygiene... ad infinitum

I could not work in an office, I'd hate it.
I think I am out in the real world doing real stuff.
I don't think exposure to office work, or enjoyment/acceptance of it, marks you out as better than someone who doesn't enjoy it and won't accept it.
I would not be offended by someone telling me they 'couldn't be a police officer'. Most people couldn't.

"It's never said nicely. The only possible reason for saying it is derogatory."
It is not derogatory to say you don't like doing something.

I would say I'm not a 9-5 person but not in a twatty way.

I've always done shift work (nurse) so work weekends and have days off during the week.

I don't get how 9-5 folk get Dr/ dentists appointments, get deliveries etc

After uni then a masters where I waitressed and volunteered in work-related roles as well as study I was DESPERATE for a 9-5 job... the thought of beign able to relax at bedtime without thinking I should be writing a bit more of my dissertation or knowing I could pay the bills without accepting every bit of waitressing overtime that nobody else wanted on a saturday night.... even though my 9-5 job was more 8-7 it was still better than my masters year.

YABU. Although I am often broke from being self employed I am best working late in the day when I can create/work with little distraction so prefer this lifestyle. My whole family are night owls; I think it's a genetic body clock thing. I've tried getting up early to be tired earlier but all that happens is I'm even more knackered for my PT job in the mornings as my brain whizzes round at 1am. Luckily my job is a post 9am start and I can get by on 4-5 hrs sleep.

I agree this sounds like a twatty and naive comment. But, like others here, I understand where it's coming from. We do have choices in life - admittedly some people have more than others, due to luck/privilege. I was working in an office and truly crap at it, v unhappy too. So I started up on my own and made it pay. It wasn't easy, it would have been easier to stick it out where I was. But I work far more efficiently to my own hours - early mornings and late nights - and I don't feel that's pretentious, just another sign of how human beings don't all follow the same pattern

Hotfuzz (cool name) I think we're both saying the same thing. Working in an office clearly doesnt suit you. It does suit me. I'd fine the unpredictable nature of your job very stressful (assuming I had the skills to do it in tbe first place - I can roll around on the floor when I'm drunk, does that count?).
I dont think there's anything wrong with saying a certain working life doesnt suit you. But I hate it when it's phrased as something lacking in the lives of the people who do work like that.

But give me a nice spreadsheet or some data that urgently needs analysing and im your woman

It's not always meant in a derogatory 'get me and my specialness' kind of way. But a lot of the time it is.

There are a very small number of people who genuinely could not work in a regular hours office set up. I mean people who would literally rather live in a cardboard box than go into a nine to fiveish type job every day. They must be an absolute tiny number.

There are lots of people who hate the idea of working the same hours every day in an office/factory/shop set up - including an awful lot of the people who actually do it. They are not people who couldn't work in an office.

I am one of the latter type. I don't want to work hours decided by someone else and that conform to other people's preferred work pattern. But when I have to do it I manage.

Exactly Stealth. It's the implied superiority in the expression a lot of the time that's very annoying.

I was once told by a Magic Artist (? No, I don't know what that is, I was living in Brighton at the time) that he "couldn't bear that corporate game, it wouldn't suit his temperament" (on hearing what I did for a living, which is pretty corporate). Hahahaha. You get a lot of that sort of thing in Brighton.

I would love to be a 9 - 5 person. In fact I am a 9 - 5 person, unfortunately most of my jobs are more 24/7. Not that I'm in work all that time, but they tend to require more than 8 hours in the office and then constant email/text connection and a lot of out of hours thinking. I think of 9 - 5 as meaning people who do "just" a job rather than have a career. As I've got older the idea of "just" a job is much more attractive!

Slightly off point, but given the amount of technology available today I suspect a lot of workplaces could actually be a lot more flexible in the way they allow their staff to work. Teleworking, for instance, could surely be allowed in a lot more places than it is; also hot desking, working irregular hours as long as you're contactable by phone or email when you're needed etc.

I do think a lot of people are being unnecessarily tied to regular hours in a communal location when it isn't always necessary.