To ask, how hard do you work at your job?

[Countrymouse1]

Curious as to how hard you find your job?

Do you do a lot of unpaid extra hours, work through lunch? Is your workload manageable?

What is the most stressful thing about your role?

I am going through a rough time with my work situation, and am eternally grateful to MNetters for just being there with me when I was panicking (a LOT) about it all this morning and over the last few days. I am sorting that with my doctor and going to find a new job. I need to do some serious thinking about what move will be right for me, my confidence is a bit low, and want to make a good decision and see what the norm is for levels of job stress.

Sheesus, this thread is enough to make me wanna be a hippy.

I work really hard because firstly, the job is too stressful if you don't, and secondly, because I love it and get a real buzz from it!

Am on mat leave now and, whilst waiting for my overdue baby (come one FFS!!!), I indulged myself by doing some work today for my return in a year's time!

Super-geek, I know.

I'd love to have ever had a job that you get a real buzz from . Or even one that doesn't bore you so much that you feel like crying. That must be wonderful.

I do an IT based role and it is like a conveyor-belt of work, where no sooner has one project been delivered, another is being planned for approval.

I never feel any peaks and troughs, all peaks, in my industry you can't afford to "relax", so you keep up the appearance of high activity otherwise there may come a time when your job looks unnecessary and ripe for the chop! That has been the case for the past 15 years so not just a recent thing.

Any troughs are planned so that I can take time off and completely switch off. My manager leaves me to book and record my leave as and when - it's a use it or lose it policy.

Rules for my work life balance:

Take all annual leave allocation
No company mobile so they can't call all the hours of day and night
Don't logon during evenings *
Try to block out 30 mins in my calendar each day which = lunch and get away from desk.

• my biggest failing, because on days I work from home it is too easy to extend the day beyond 6pm and then people get used to and take advantage of me being available

in office hours, I slog away, sometimes 5 or 6 emails on the go at once because I keep thinking of things and start a new email so I don't forget to write it! DP calls it being on my hamster wheel.

It is treaclesoda
I feel very, very lucky, particularly as it's a second career for me.

Very hard!

Work as a response police officer so can get my rest days cancelled at any point , as I did last week when I did 80 hours over 7 days straight because of the strike action . Plus 4 hours travelling each day .

These days , we tend to hit the ground running at the beginning of the shift , and keep going without a break until we hand the vehicles over to the next shift . We don't have any right to a refs break at all , so if we're lucky we might pick up a McDonald's on the way in to do our paperwork , or if it calms down at about 3am , might get a kebab if we're lucky , but probably won't finish it . I've thrown away more hot food at work than I've ever eaten .

I'm a teacher. I work very hard, taking no breaks or lunches (often not even eating or drinking). I do a lot of hours at home, despite only actually being employed part time. BUT my time management is terrible, I flit from half finished job to
half finished job, all the while panicking about the length of my to do list. If my anxiety was lower and my personal organisation skills were better, I would manage much better.

Nonie241419!! Are you me?? I'm the Queen of Procrastination! I had a really "down" spell a few years ago and one of the tips I got from a very wise teacher was not simply to write lists/cross jobs off/throw list away...repeat to infinity but to keep a list, in a notebook to give it "importance" of every job that you have completed. I still do this and it makes me feel like I really AM achieving rather than constantly running on the spot. Plus those lists are handy to go back to and see the order that you tackled things/the time of year a job was completed etc.

Go into work, do job, leave work, go home.

Today was Manchester. In via Woodhead, out via the Snake. Lovely autumnal colours, when I dared take my eyes off the road. Manchester though...swear to God the one-way system changes on a daily basis.

Yesterday was less fun. Tachographs needed to be adjusted when the clocks change. The obscure Finnish unit in my vehicle was a mystery to everyone, until we found a manual online. Unfortunately the site had been hacked so there's now an enquiry into porn popups and exposing the intranet to Trojans. Gah.

I am a student nurse, that is a nurse type person (as perceived by the public) who has to impress the nurses too. That is a big ask!

I cannot even meet my expectations of my role, let alone anyone elses!