To think there is often a perception of not working as hard as others when your hours don’t match Monday-Friday 9-5

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As an approximate.

I finish at 330 and I get lots of comments about how lovely it is to finish early - but that’s because I start early!

When I did shift work I’d get ‘ooh lucky you’ comments about being off Monday but I’d worked Saturday. Worst of all the attitude that if you’d worked a night shift then you were free all day.

Is it just me?

Yep! I got told I was part time the other day as I finish at 4! I start at half 7 and work from home. Plus I do over time was weeks!

Not just you! I worked permanent nights for years and people just failed to realise that you're awake and active all night, it's not like being woken a couple of times with a child, or having a bad nights sleep, you have to be as awake and alert during the night as you would be during the day and you still need sleep.
I also got lots of comments about '

9-5 is such a misnomer anyway. Even when I worked in a fairly standard office job, my fixed hours were longer than that.

You don’t need to justify your working hours to anyone. “Working hard” or at least being seen to “word hard” is overrated.

It's just as bad if you are part time tbh.

Work

yes. I condense 38 hours into 3.5 days (out of the house, not from home, so commute in top) it’s exhausting but it means we only have to pay for 3.5 days of the extortionate nursery fees and I have more time with baby DS.

DH refers to the weekday and a half I am at home with DS as my ‘days off’ and constantly says things like ‘do you think you can do this on your day off, or are you well rested after your day off’

makes my blood boil.

I think this depends on the workplace. In previous places yes, but I can honestly say that I don't currently see this in my current job. And that is because of a good management culture. I know it exists in other teams in the organisation though

I used to get this all the time when I worked in the office! I started saying "well, yes, i was here at 7.30 while you were still rotting in bed".

I don’t hear it from colleagues as they work the same hours, it tends to be friends or family. Or even on here to be honest, where it’s assumed that it you work say forty hours over four days you are part time (as per PP.)

Yanbu!

I used to get this all the time from family "oh but you only work 3-4 days. I work 5 days per week"

Yes but my days are 15-17 hours (depending on if I get my break or not, or if night staff turn up). I'm still full time. Ffs.

I work 40 hours over six days to fit around school times so I only get one day a week off. It suits my family.

There is a bizarre misconception from 'office 9-5' workers in general that shift workers/compressed workers aren't as hard working or are worth less. I noticed this in years of pub/supermarket work. I'd get looked down on and told I should try harder and then they'd act all suprised and offended when I reminded them that if people like me didn't work shifts other than 9-5, they'd never be able to buy food, have nights out etc.

I work 44hrs over 4 days, and my team are forever getting snotty remarks about being part-time, from the 8 til 4.30 Mon-Fri lot 🙄🙄

I agree. In a 9-5 environment it should be referred to as nonstandard hours. I think that would help shift perception

WTF is going on with this site? Page jumping all over the place.

Anyway, as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted!
I got a lot of comments about 'only' working 3 days and having 4 off - they were 14 hour days which topped out at 42 hours - full time and quite often I'd do an extra half shift on one of those days off too, pushing me towards 50 - more than your 9-5 Mon to Fri.
For those 3 days I ate every meal at work if I was lucky to get enough time to eat, I left the house before most people were up and got home as they were going to sleep, I literally worked a full weeks hours in 3 days, doing nothing but working and sleeping on those days, when they were getting up, getting breakfast, traveling to work I was already there, when they were picking the kids up, going home, cooking dinner, relaxing in front of the TV, having a bath, going to bed- I was still there.
There was a thread a little while ago about HCPs and people were banging on about how some 'only' work 3 days and get 4 off and should be doing more because most people work 5. They're either that wrapped up in themselves they can't comprehend that different jobs require different availability or more likely, wilfully ignorant.

Yes! I used to work 12 1/2 hour shifts, 13 shifts a month plus a couple of bank shifts. My OH who worked "builders" hours ie 8am until 2/3/4 pm Monday to Friday considered me part time.
Probably thought I slept through a night shift too.

I work 17 hours pw. One of my colleagues is always having a moan about how I'm never at work when he needs to speak to me, to which I reply that he should try ringing when I'm actually working. He still makes digs about me not working after 2.30 and how I'm "never here".

At our last team meeting, he complained about his "massive caseload" and how he has X clients.

His caseload is lower than mine and he's f/t - 37 hours. But he still seems to think my job is some sort of massive skive.

I work in a supermarket. It was suggested yesterday that I stayed to help prepare for stocktake rather than go home early at 12:30pm. I'd started at 4am and managed a 15 minute break because I was short staffed. I work in home delivery and we have very strict deadlines to get everything out and are penalised if we are late so it's really full on.

I said no obviously 😊

For what it's worth, I don't think you work less at all. Just different hours

YANBU. I worked in retail so shifts then 5/7 inc Saturdays as standard when I became management. Yes, I did get weekdays off and yes it had perks but I was also tired, had sore legs and usually had loads of chores etc to jam in. I'd have to start at 6 or 7am (6am meant being in for more like 5:45) to be on an early finish and whilst a late start meant a lie in, one boss slapped me on permanent nights to "learn the closing routine". I barely saw any friends or family and dropped out of all hobbies due to my rota. My MH nose dived.

I work in an office now and start quite early to in turn leave early- and I do approx 2h overtime on an average week, both to accrue toil and because occasionally I stay to finish off stuff and rightly get time back. I still finish quite early. I do it so I can have some sort of an evening. I'd go in earlier still if my body clock/stuff that happens in the evening made it sustainable.

You cant win 🤷‍♀️.
On nights my days were seen by a friend as days off and she couldn't understand why I couldn't look after her toddlers while she worked.
Worked in an office full time 9-5 , family member thought it was hilarious that I was tired at the end of the week because I " sat on my arse all day "
Promoted so needed to change my hours to 8-6 but still 37.5 per week so 4 longer days and one short one. Yup, colleagues referring to my " part time " hours when I left on my short day.

Funnily enough I've only ever heard these things said to women. My DH actually did go part time to cover childcare and no one in the family ever mentioned it.

We run an online course with several thousand students enrolled. But because it’s work from home with mostly flexible hours that equates in my parents mind to us sitting in our pyjamas all day watching TV and they often try to repress smirks/disbelief at any mention of us being “busy”. Pretty infuriating.