to take my 'downtime' during work hours?

[wishfortime]

By 'downtime' I mean nice easy things, like online shopping, coffee breaks, and a bit of random internet surfing.

I work full time and have a 90 minute standing/rushed commute.

Mornings are a rush with early start and nursery drop off etc, My DH picks up DC from nursery between 6 and 6.30 pm, and i reach home about 7pm, spend an hour doing bath, bedtime routine with DC while my husband cooks, we eat at 8.30 then its cleaning kitchen, laundry and general housework, and getting sorted for next day while my DH catches up on work emails. Weekends are also quite jam packed as both our families live far away, so more often than not we either are travelling 300 miles (at least once/twice a month), or family/friends are staying with us.

So I don't get any 'free time' at home, hence i feel i need to take some 'down time' at work. My workload isn't always 100% capacity, but its the type of job where i need to be there and available or it impacts the team. Its paid well and often things kick off i do need to work late into the evening, and sometimes at weekends from home. (I don't get paid for this 'overtime', which is how i justify to myself that the downtime at quieter times during the day is ok).

Our employee handbook permits monitoring of internet usage, and prohibits personal use.

Granted, most of us use it a bit - in breaks- but I wouldn't run the risk of this during the working hours.

My current contract doesn't contain hours, just say hours to get the job done. If your contract is same as that, then the above is fine. However, if there are stipulated hours of work then you should be working in those set hours.

I am a very fast worker and hate being in jobs where I've done all the work before expected, and then have to ask for more work and not get any!

They are paying her to work during certain hours

Well, not really, or not only. She says she's expected to deal with all ‘out of hours’ requests, including weekends. She doesn't get paid for this. Add up the work she does outside of 'work' hours and I'd bet money that she puts in more than she takes out.

The OP addresses the issue of what her boss might say in:
'I don't think boss would 'say' anything directly to me. If he approached me then likely he wants me to do something for him, I think he would be more concerned about me doing whatever he needs which of course i would always turn around as quickly as possible. If, later in the day/evening I hadn't done what he'd asked then I guess he wouldn't be happy as i was clearly free, but that has never happened, as i would never leave anything urgent outstanding whilst i surf the net.'

Which boils down, basically, to: 'OP does the job to the standards and in the timeframes required.'

I'm salaried, fairly senior finance professional, quite well paid. I have targets, I have to bring in, deliver and bill a certain amount of work each month, develop my juniors, manage other aspects of my team. Some weeks/months are manic and I'm working flat out all day, evenings and some weekends. Other times are less busy (although there is never nothing to do) but I can't maintain that pace long term without burning out so when I'm less busy I finish early, take two hour lunch breaks, surf the news websites etc. I'm paid by results not hours, I work smarter so that when I'm not so busy I can work less. That's simply how it works and my employer recognises that. It's not about making up time if I work from home and take an hour for a haircut, it's about managing my time to make sure that I'm delivering the results I'm expected to.

Seriously you need to cover yourself as if you are caught surfing on work computer in work time it would be misconduct. You can cover yourself by emailing employer and asking if it is ok for you to claim time back for unpaid overtime in work time when not busy and see what boss says.Boss may not realise how much unpaid overtime you are doing.

Seriously you need to cover yourself as if you are caught surfing on work computer in work time it would be misconduct

How can people make these statements?? That depends entirely on the employer!

Thank god there are few sensible people on this thread @RhiannonOHara.

When I stayed on a call with a US Developer until 11pm on a Customer project I didn't get paid from 5-11pm. Nope.

Did I have to? Well, contractually, no.

Do I because of my job, seniority and the project really needed it? Yes.

Will I get that time back in full? Probably not. But I did take an hour in the morning for extra time out. Did I clear it with my boss? No. Would I really have needed to? No. I'm often told to ensure I make my work/home life balance.

So as long as I'm not negelcting urgent deadline, missing meetings, or not achieving targets (non commission) then I'm ok. He's happy. I'm happy and we all win.

I go far above and beyond often, because they allow me to have a little flexibility in my work life.

Clearly different jobs/positions/companies have and offer different levels of autonomy. If you're lucky enough to be in a position to manage your own time in order to get your job done (as it seems the OP most definitely is) then YANBU to surf the net for a couple of hours a day.

@DiegoMadonna too.

Clearly some of us are more enlightened.

Depends on your industry. If banking with it’s 6am starts and 9pm finishes, nobody cares even if you work an entire Friday from your mobile. If in government or the NHS you might find managers less likely to flex.

How can people make these statements?? That depends entirely on the employer!

Yep! It was written in my last workplace's standard contract that using the internet for personal use was okay as long as you delivered your work (or something to that affect) and didn't go on dodgy sites or send emails with illegal content etc.

*effect

I need sleep

I grinded in a clock in-clockout environment for years.

I worked my up to management.

I now longer do 9-5.

In return for that, and not a huge pay rise, I have flexibility which is priceless.

You choose.

*I no longer do

Let's add that for a lot of people who have that ability to step down for an hour or so, who manage their own work hours.

If they are anything like me, they often don't 'switch off' outside working hours. They're available for emails where it's important. Need to still be thinking and planning.

I take a 10 minute break every 20 minutes.

Seriously you need to cover yourself as if you are caught surfing on work computer in work time it would be misconduct

Not true. Not in my job.

You can cover yourself by emailing employer and asking if it is ok for you to claim time back for unpaid overtime in work time when not busy and see what boss says.Boss may not realise how much unpaid overtime you are doing

That would be pointless, as my contract stated that I had to do ‘the hours required to perform my role’. That meant no TOIL for overtime, but also meant that I could manage my own workload. As long as I delivered on all my personal and professional targets.

People don’t understand that not all jobs, and not all employers are the same.

Not sure why you've asked, you're obviously writing posts on mumsnet during your working hours and I doubt if this is part of your role? It's wrong on many levels but you already know that and do it anyway.

I have days at work where I barely get time to go for a wee, and I have days at work where I am fannying around a bit online. Peaks and troughs, the work gets done.

I don't get what the problem is. Sometimes you have nothing to do, so you do your own thing? Doesn't everyone do this? At least everyone whose computer is not overlooked I would have though.
When I've worked in places that were not so busy, this was never a problem as long as the work was done.

"if her employer knew they were paying her for 10 hours a week of surfing the internet they would give her more to do, I'm pretty sure"

No, in most quiet jobs, they just can't magic up more work or take it from someone else.

In a lot of industries, work comes in peaks and troughs. You can’t magic up extra work in the troughs, and you have to manage the peaks when they come.

It certainly seems that you have a lot of downtime most days and I wouldn't be happy for anyone on my team to spend anything like that amount of time on non work related stuff. Saying that, it just wouldn't be possible anyway due to the nature of our work.

TBH it sounds like you regularly don't have enough work to fill your day which to be fair is a matter for your employer. Ok, sometimes you have to work late but based on what you've described it seems to me your team is over resourced by one or even two people! So I suppose Op I'd say you might as well enjoy it while it lasts because at some point someone will notice this and decide a restructure is needed.