to be surprised at how slowly people work?

[seoid]

I work 24 hours a month, so essentially three working days. In that time I produce almost an entire 24-page magazine from scratch, including sourcing, editing and laying up articles and writing about 3,000 words. Within that time I also MN a bit and go on facebook. I can be a bit stressed coming up to deadline but mostly it's fine, easy to do.

I've always been quite hard on myself, but actually I'm realising that many of the people I've worked with have been incredibly slow in comparison to me. Does anyone else find this? I've always thought I'm a fairly average worker but actually as time goes on I'm finding that simply getting the job done actually puts me a fair bit ahead of the people I work with, who seem to faff and miss deadlines and be totally unreliable. I had a meeting with our new CEO yesterday and he was full of praise for me, which was nice. Once I would have been surprised at his praise and felt a bit of a fraud but actually now I think there is quite a high level of incompetence out there, such that if you actually know what you're doing and get it done then you're already ahead of the game.

AIBU?

Yes I know :) I did used to struggle when I 'only' had 20 days' vacation but that was a long time ago [old gimmer emoticon]. I have shown some loyalty I guess, obviously the days have built up over many years' work. I know quite a lot of private sector places have similar policies, I had friends working at banks who got to 30 days long before I did.

My mum likes to tell me about her work in 1961 when she only had two weeks' holiday a year. But more offices closed then I think for a good week at Christmas so that would be in addition.

[selflessly happy for others emoticon] Sounds lovely, and much more supportive of hard work while at work, if that makes sense. Wish we had the same here (US, of course).

To return to the topic, I think a feeling of ownership can have a lot to do with efficiency. Agree with PPs that a project you mostly do alone is more conducive to swift efficient performance than other types of work are. And if you are on a project you are invested in and/or have a feeling of responsibility for, you're also going to work more efficiently b/c you care about it.

Interestingly, if it is your job to create feelings of ownership and investment in your colleagues re: their projects, and to make sure their ideas are regularly heard and made good use of, that takes time and can't be done fast

I do a similar job and work part time, 21 hours a week. I also work really fast and can't understand why people can work so slowly. I do think it helps working part time, although I do go on the internet more than I should. I just get bored waiting for my pc to load files...

have I gathered correctly that for people in the UK a FT job is 37 hours a week and you get 5 weeks of vacation a year?

Read this and weep, 5.6 weeks is the minimum (this can include the 8 bank holidays). I work part time (4 days a week) and this year I had 34 days annual leave (inc bank holidays). And that was after just over a year of maternity leave (because we accumulate annual leave when on maternity pay so the last few weeks of maternity leave were actually annual leave).

[selflessly happy for others emoticon] Sounds lovely, and much more supportive of hard work while at work, if that makes sense. Wish we had the same here (US, of course).

Bet you wouldn't fancy the property prices much - a 1 bed flat where i live will set you back the best part of $200,00

Sorry, what i was trying to say was we may not work as many hours but it's swings and roundabouts

seoid those points were addressed by aermingers and I agree with what (s)he said.

Keastie, I came from the US to here, and when I got my contract I had to call up a UK friend to get confirmation that the 30 days holiday was actually working days. I could just barely imagine the concept of a month of holiday a year, assuming they were counting consecutive days thus weekends too. But no, it was really 6 whole weeks!

My previous position in the states had 9 days holiday and 9 days sick leave, and I had been encouraged when I first started to save up my holidays just in case I got pregnant, as they would roll over years.

thank you, EU legislation and 100 years of unions

up to americans how they organise their working lives but i think its crap.

You are using those hours to the full as pp says. Presumably you just wouldn't count any hours spent faff ing into the total?

Also people engage is presentee ism in a lot of jobs, ie just being there counts!