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.

Some days I will do 830-530 in the office then put another couple of hours WFH in during the evening after dinner/kids in bed

I'm a teacher. At desk by 7:30am, tend to leave around 6:00pm, sometimes later, then a few hours of work in the age evening or early morning. Plus a few hours at the weekend. I guess it adds up to sixty to seventy hours most weeks.

I would count it as time at my desk. I normally get to work about 7.30am and then leave around 6.30pm and eat lunch at my desk so it isn't quite 60 hours but almost.

I leave home at 6.30, at work for 7.30. Often work till 8pm or so without a proper break (grabbed sandwich at desk; too many biscuits in meetings) and home by 9pm. So 50 hours in 4 days in a normal week.

Years ago I worked in retail. I had to be in for 7 am and finished at 6 but wasn't allowed to leave until everything was done, so left about 7pm. I got 30 mins unpaid lunch break and two 15 min breaks in the day. It was living fucking hell (I worked this 6 days a week for around £600 a month, that shows how long ago it was).

In the autumn term when everything is really busy, I'm often in my classroom about 7 and don't leave until 7. Not every day but a lot.

Even if I'm out of the house from 6.30 and get home before 7, it's still a very long day compared to a 9-5.

Yep, 12 hrs generally means 12 hours.

Before the working time directive (european) was applied to our trust, our long days were 14hrs.
7am till 9pm, 1hr unpaid break.
Often meant leaving the house at 5.30-545 And getting home 10.30ish.
If the busses were on time lol!
I soon learnt to drive and not long after out shifts were changed to fit with the wtd which insists on 11hrs break between shifts.

I don't think it would ever occur to me that someone would include travelling time when talking about hours worked.

I was doing 14 hour days this week. 7am-5pm with lunch at my desk. Having a break until about 6.30pm then back on until midnight(ish)

When I was still a practitioner I regularly worked 9am until 10/11pm and would often eat my lunch at my desk catching up on paperwork when I wasn't with service users, this didn't include commute. DH still does that every Monday to Thursday and works Fridays 9:30 until either 2 ish or half four latest, he has however spent all of today on his laptop writing reports. My new job involves a lot of travel so today I drove for five hours to get to a hotel, am doing some prep work tonight and will be in an office 8-6 Mon to Thurs 8-1 Friday then a five hour drive home. Lunch is always a sandwich or some fruit and nuts while working. It's unusual you've never come across someone who works long hours.

I used to be a nanny.
It was often 12-14 hours a shift - and that meant no breaks as when the babies slept I either had jobs to do or older children.
No commute with those jobs though as I lived in.

Slippermaiden: “Nurse... start work 0715, finish 1945, if I'm lucky. Unpaid 1 hour break”
Is that your standard daily hours?

When DBIL does a week of shifts/nights that long (if dYs I think it’s slightly more hours) it’s usually followed by a week off. So it’s 2 weeks compressed into a week so then he is owed a week off.

Not totally sure as I can’t recall but I remember SIL moaning he was never there and annoying me because I have a DH who works long hours but doesn’t have a week off coming every time he does a week like that!

I'm a stay at home mum for the time being, but used to do 12-1 most days of the week

Nurse here. Start at 7am and finish at 7.30, if I can. I’m supposed to have an hour unpaid break, I have a break if and when I have time, sometimes never.

Junior doc here. Yesterday I was at work for 13.5 hrs (no break) and didn’t piss once - does that count? :D lots of industries require people to work 12/13/more hour shifts (but not >5 days/7 or at least not all year round - in the case of oil, etc.)

I mean hours at work. Last week I worked a few days from 7am to 10pm so when I say I worked a 15 hour day I mean hours at work. Then I have an hour commute either way...

Used to start work at 6:45am and finish at 6:30pm. Left the house at 6:20am & got home at 7pm(ish). Half an hour paid break if my diary allowed it (my fault if it didn’t).

So actual work was 11hours 45mins (or 11hrs 15mins if break taken) and out of the house for 12hours 40mins or thereabouts.

My dh is a farmer his hours vary a lot depending on the time of year. Always 7 days a week but at quiet times it might be just 7 or 8 hours a day with Sunday afternoons off. We have just finished lambing which is a 7am start until about 6pm, another check at 10pm which might be 5 mins or an hour depending on what's happening then hopefully a full nights sleep but possible another trip to the lambing shed at 3am if a ewe is labouring. In the summer when we're hay making on sunny days it can be 5am-10pm and I take his meals out to eat on the tractor. Breaks are taken when it rains. I think a lot of self-employed people do paperwork in the evenings and weekends so if you count all that it's not hard to clock up the hours.

Reading these comments I consider myself really fortunate to work where I have to put a minimum of 40 hrs so I do at the max 42 hours a week , ie 8 hrs a day plus 2 hrs commute. In fact, for various reasons working beyond 7 pm needs extra special permission for security reason. Most come at 8/8.30 and leave at 5/5.30 and rarely does one take home the work. Really fortunate to land into this sector.

Many people do not work at a desk or in an office. Dh's previous job involved 15 hour days some weeks, due to the travel involved.

Used to work in retail, 8am to 11pm 5 days a week, two short days 8-3 or 12-11. A choice of either an hour unpaid for lunch or ten mins to go loo and get food to eat at the till, because they had to bring in a staff member from another shop. Looking back I don't know how I did it, particularly the one loo opportunity a day! Seasonal work because a tourist place so you work to death in summer then have nothing over winter.

Worked as a nanny for a long time which was usually 12-13 hour days, because you have to be there when parents leave for commute until they get back. No breaks unless you happen to have nap-age children, so a rest but not an actual complete break.

I've never worked a desk job so I have no idea what that would be- in my mind everyone goes to a skyscraper and sits in a cubical like on American tv shows and type numbers into old fashioned computers and flirt in the toilets. I may be wrong about this though.

My Dad works a 12 hr shift in a factory. I'm sure there are mini breaks/lunch in there. But, he clocks off after he's been on the job for 12 hrs.

I regularly do long long shifts. Im a chef and if I do a double then I can be in at 6am to do the breakfast and lunch, and then stay on doing the dinner shift. My day could be 6am til midnight.. without any break.

I can’t speak for others, but in my case it meant at my desk at 8.30am (having already checked and answered emails on the train), eating lunch at my desk, leaving at 6.30pm then probably 1-2 hrs when I got home. Plus some hours eat the weekend, generally 60-65 hrs a week as standard. Month end would add on a few more hours, quarter end the same again, and all bets were off at year end. But this was a West Coast US company so there were time zones involved too.

So many people working long hours. You must be loaded! Why else work such long hours?

I worked 9am-11.30pm/midnight. Law. Plus commute. Now I do 7-7 but that includes the commute #worklifebalance