To not be certain what people mean when they say they work for 12 hours a day.

[topcat2014]

Now, I get that we are busy - but here is my question.

If people say they work 60 hours a week (say), then do they really mean:

At my desk from 07:00 to 19:30 with a half hour for lunch, every day - or

Leave the house at 07:00 and arrive home at 19:00.

I have never worked anywhere where staff are sat at their desks from 7am to 7pm, so not quite sure.

I have never worked anywhere where staff are sat at their desks from 7am to 7pm, so not quite sure

You've done that thing where you think every person in the world has a desk job, haven't you?

It always humbled me talking to our NICU / PICU / children's nurses, how many of them had children themselves, and in some cases (second admission, not post birth) of a very similar age, and how many wouldn't see them for a day or so at a time because they were there looking after MY child. Same for lots of jobs I know bit sometimes it takes you being I the recieving end to really appreciate it

My working hours are the hours I sit at my desk or am travelling for work (not commuting). So last week I did a 48hr week because I was travelling so there was a 4hr return travel to a client site one day and some long days (8am to 7pm) at my desk on other days.

Most weeks I do a 37'ish hour week which is about 9 - 5. That doesn't include any time I spend commuting.

Eat a sandwich at my desk ! Hahhahahahahahaha oh yeah , I'll just leave that domestic violence victim sobbing their heart out while I chow down on a prawn and rocket salad sarnie

People like me count the Haribos in the car as a meal . And the reason I do 100 mile commute is that I can't transfer as have too much service , and too many DCs to move any closer because we couldn't afford the cost of housing .

Yes, but if they all refused, the employer would have to hire more workers. This is how it works in some countries.

OK so my company did just that recently

Big project, very important for the relationship with the client

Senior team, but company reassigned additional resource from within the company to support the team.

The company over invested £100k worth of resource on top of what the client was paying, to put more people on the project. Because you can't just draft a couple of people in at certain times in the project - it needs the staff to understand the problem, have deep knowledge of the background, to have attended the meetings and workshops etc. You have to staff a wider team from the start.

That's simply not sustainable for a company to over staff a project and absorb the costs for their billable time. It would go bust if it did this routinely

The client isn't going to pay for a much larger team just so the team can all leave at 6.

So if the company doesn't deliver the work in time because the technical director and designer both left at 6 and no one else could pick up their slack, the client will take their business elsewhere.

If the company insists on staffing a team with double the usual headcount for each project, the client will go elsewhere.

And the company will have to lay people off.

My first job in the City was 8 AM - 7:30 PM on a normal day and lunch was eaten at my desk.

My friend works from 7-7 and has lunch whilst working.

If you're aiming for a promotion - it's not going to happen if you're doing the bare minimum.

Of course you could leave your desk at 5:30 leaving parts of an unfinished project, but you'll make stress for yourself, everyone will hate you and you'll never progress. its just life!

Gwen I see the same things at my company as a lot of people say here, and agree with your points.

Companies aren’t allowed to make opting out of WTR compulsory, even if it looks like it is.

I’m currently leading a “revolution”, very minor, of people opting back in and getting it enforced. I have been firm about my hours since I joined - the odd seventy hour week is unpleasant but to be expected, but lots of people do that on a week after week basis.

Honestly, I believe if these companies are so close to going bust that their work force has to work 60+ hours a week to prevent that then their business model has a problem. If no one was prepared to work those hours then society would adjust their expectations accordingly.

I view it as the responsibility of the individual to say no to work - my firm has so much business we are having to stop running tenders. If everyone said no to work we would drop more unprofitable ongoing projects, push clients harder for higher fees, and employ more people. That is what’s happening currently, the issue is that it’s happening at a much higher workload per person than I think is reasonable.

Maybe people hate me for not working insane hours, but mainly I think they respect me for saying no and not taking on more than I can manage. I’ve never missed a deadline, and I’ll take on work from others if they are going to miss theirs, but mainly I’m just honest from the start about what's achievable.

I’m probably never going to make executive level because of this, but I actually have a pretty excellent reputation within the department and am someone who gets turned to if a project has gone wrong and needs pulling back on track.

My DP is working 9am to 10pm tonight (not a typical day fortunately) and he'll have his lunch and dinner at his desk. Other days he'll do 9am - 7pm and will generally have lunch as his desk. I don't count door to door, that would add on another hour each way.

@WhereTheFuckIsMyFuckingCoat

Hahaha spot on! Thanks

I resigned last year. Had a whole day at home on Christmas Day. It was amazing.

Enjoy your freedom! And Christmas, New Years, birthdays, no more cancelled annual leave etc yay!!

@Hilltoptea , moved to ambo so only a bit different. Enjoy your family time xx

@WhereTheFuckIsMyFuckingCoat

Ah I just read your next update. Bad timing

I'm glad you enjoy what you do now. I'm guessing the shifts/situation are similar now. I used to enjoy the job but just had enough in the end.

You're tougher than me!! I admire anybody who still does those shifts.

Oh ambo wow, here take this lot -

I bet you need it

Once a month I work from 9am until 11.45pm.

I get a 45min lunch break at 1, but due to the nature of the work, I eat my evening meal while still working.

So that's 14 hours, with a 45 min break. Plus I have travel time on top, so I would leave the house about 8.30am to start at 9. I'm lucky I have a short, easy journey. I admire health service workers as I am totally knackered the next day.

My DH used to work as a journalist in London. Would usually be in for 8 or 7am on print day, work until 6ish, and then about 4 nights a week be out at events, awards, dinners, drinks etc for stories and contacts. He often left the house at 6am and came back at 1am. I found it hard to believe he was ‘working’ when it was all award do’s at The Ritz etc and lots of free food and drinks (I was alone a lot at home and we didn’t have much money so I was jealous!) But it wasn’t as if he had the choice to leave at 5pm, he’d never get any stories, and he was so tired and hungover a lot but he was young so managed to sustain it for a few years. but he shifted his focus (it was a specific area of journalism and now he’s in finance) and works a normal 9-5, 3 days a week with two days working from home. And gets a lot more for it. But working like that for a while was what he wanted. it was his passion and his dream and he loved it while it happened! He just got older and wanted more home life.

I've done 12 hour shifts.

However only really done 12 hour days at a desk once - did lots of overtime before and after that most weeks.

US boss company to hit deadline wanted us to do 12 hour days for two weeks. UK bosses weren't keen as they said productivity would hit the floor - it did.

But we were at our desks 7.30 till 7.30 or 8 depending on if we worked through lunch and a few nights till 10 and 11 in last week though by Friday we were allowed to finish on time. Luckily I’d moved, company office had move few months before adding to my commute, so didn’t have 2 hour commute of top.

Time in the workplace working I'd say. I'm often in work at 8am and leaving well after 8pm. Lunch breaks are variable depending on workload - up to one hour, but possibly no break at all.

I'm self-employed PA and my jobs vary so some weeks I do over 40 hours (and this is actual hours worked - I don't get paid for any breaks and tend not to take any if it is a busy job) and other weeks 25-35 hours. My commute is 1 hr 15 mins to 1 hr 30 mins each way. Unfortunately, a lot of my acquaintances don't quite understand why I am so very tired and don't want to go out/meet them all that often (I need SLEEP, to do the laundry, occasionally vacuum clean before the dust suffocates me and SIT ON THE SOFA and do nothing! - Oh, joy!).

People saying that you should only work your contracted hours about office jobs are not understanding something essential (I mean professional office jobs here not more admin type ones) . In these jobs, job descriptions can be vague and are often changed depending on what the business needs at that time.

I spent over 20 years in a business service industry (from 21 years old to 44 years old) . My job consisted of managing projects of work for clients (usually several at once) to deadlines set by the client which were often not in any way realistic. As a service company we needed the business so we would quote for a project and set a timeline, the client would then move them and ask for things more quickly. Or something would go wrong , not our fault but we would still need to fix it within the original time frame.

If we didn't deliver on time, we would end up losing the client. The volume of work was also difficult to predict so we would sometimes spend ages pitching for large projects and then if we were awarded the work, we would be woefully understaffed to complete it on time as it wasn't cost effective to take on staff until the project was won. It would take ages to staff up properly and often was not worth it as the work we did usually took a maximum of a few months to complete so the project would be completed before new staff could start.

I always had mixed feelings about winning large new projects as it always heralded 12-18 hr days for 6/7 days week for me until the project was done (usually anything between 2 weeks to 3 months) . Of course there were quiet periods too, though we never had official time off during these times as were were expected to continue working you basic 9am to 5pm hours on on-going work and also to spend time trying to get new business in if we could. Though if your boss was reasonable you could usually come in/finish a bit early occasionally if you needed to.

You are being paid to get specific projects/tasks done not to work a certain number of hours. The problem is that the tasks you need to do change and can often be too many to achieve in the time if more work is needed than you have staff for.

In the end I left for and afet a bit of a break I took a much more junior admin job. Now I only work set hours and it is fine, albeit less well paid.

DH leaves at 7.30am, work is 25 minutes away, he returns at 10.00pm straight from work, he has about 20minutes for lunch. His job is notorious for long hours. He works six days a week and it is really hardcore, he writes several thousand words a day.

He is self employed but in a traditional profession.

People saying that you should only work your contracted hours about office jobs are not understanding something essential (I mean professional office jobs here not more admin type ones) . In these jobs, job descriptions can be vague and are often changed depending on what the business needs at that time.

Every contract I had in my profession stated overtime as needed was part of my job.

My Dad who had a professional job always got paid for his overtime when they had project deadlines so couldn't understand why I was having to do so much for no extra pay.

My Dad as they were paying, though he was always up for more money when we were all young, did a lot less overtime than I did mainly as company had to pay for it they monitored it better and cared if it happened to often on certain projects.

The day when one wakes up and realises that in all too many occupations “being dedicated to your job” means the same as “being taken for a fucking mug” is quite the epiphany.

Occupations I have in mind here focus around legal and financial services. The amount of complete rubbish I have seen in both of these, produced by people working far longer hours than they can handle, is depressingly large.

The client isn't going to pay for a much larger team just so the team can all leave at 6.

This is key. I love the idea of leading the revolution, but in reality, you'd need to lead a sector wide revolution, not just within your own company.

If your company can't service the work in the timelines and budget that the client expects, there will be someone else who can.

Some companies/individuals are better than others in making sure that people don't waste time on busy work and play to their strengths. But ultimately the work needs to get done in the timelines allotted. It's a rare job that ends up taking less time than budgeted.