Has the work life balance shifted and I didn't notice?

[forinborin]

A very first world problem, interested in your experiences.

All my friends seem to have an incredible amount of flexibility in their working schedules. For example, if we're meeting for a lunch during the week, they often offer to do something in the afternoon as well (shopping, cinema, some art exhibition or drinks etc). They are able to attend all school events, volunteer somewhere during the office hours, take their parents to medical appointments, have long weekends with leaving early on Friday or starting late on Monday, never mind mid-day gym, or dentist, or vet, or physio appointments.

I am very happy for them (genuinely), but I just can't understand how on earth it is possible. We are roughly at the same level of seniority (and not at the level where our working hours are timetabled), different industries though. All of us working full time, but all my days are usually back to back, I can't even carve out more than 30 mins for lunch without playing tetris with meetings and deadlines, and if I do make some space for personal needs, I have then to work late or super-late, or catch up over the weekend. Posting on mn is pretty much the only leisure thing I can fit in 5 mins here or there that are under occupied for some reason (mainly when travelling between offices).

Am I doing something wrong? Has the working culture just shifted and I am terribly out of date?

What industries are your friends in? I suspect that answers your question.

Your friends are taking the piss and are in jobs that clearly aren't actually needed. It's one of those ones made up to give someone a job. Maybe they aren't good at anything else. I'd be embarrassed by that, not pleased.

Not all jobs are the same though.
I don't fill out time sheets or have core hours. As long as my work gets done then nobody cares when I do it.

I have no meetings or commitments today. I've done a few hours of work this morning but this afternoon I'm taking DS out for a couple of hours. I'll do some more work this evening.
That doesn't mean I work in a made up job and I'm not embarrassed!

I have quite a bit of flexibility in my job - I work in marketing & since Covid am permanently Wfh now (office was closed last year).
I can do most of the school pick ups & drop offs, can attend school events - I just make my hours up later.
Although I have roughly set hours it is more about getting the work done rather than being sat behind my laptop between x-x. That means some days I finish early as there isn't anything to do or staying online till past 6pm as something needs to be completed.
No commute is great & I can do bits round the house when I have a break.
The greater flexibility works both ways - so before I was much more of a clock watcher, & resented staying past my hours, now I accept it as give & take on my working week & finish earlier or take a longer lunch another day.

Someone sounds jealous

I think with more WFH we can be much more flexible with when we work. Certainly DH and I can. It's great.

I'm still in the office 3 days a week but can come in late, finish, early, work evenings or weekends to catch up etc. I still have the same workload (more actually due to staffing issues) but work are much more flexible about when we do it. At DHs male dominated environment, they don't schedule meetings between 8.30&9 and 3-4 because most of the dad's do the school run.

I think WFH has really shown how much time people waste in the office. Many can get through the same amount in half the time at home because they're not dragging stuff out to fit in with their rigid working hours, or sitting through meetings that have little relevance to their work, or getting caught up in politics and drama, and of course there's also not the long soul destroying commutes.

Absolutely - working from home made us realise just how many of those meetings could actually have been an email. My work gets done (plus additional projects so it's not like I'm doing as little as possible!), I'm available during core hours, so what does it matter if I use my breaks to pop to the shops, have a shower or flex my hours to finish early?

If Covid spelled the end presenteeism, it will be one of the few silver linings to come out of the whole shit show.

Meetings all day are often a sign of lack of control, whether this is by the business or by the individual not being able to say no.

some people though make a career out of being professional meeting attenders.

dont get sucked into having a meeting about a meeting, and then have a meeting why you are not getting enough done and another meeting about how you will claw back time.

Also don’t feel you have to attend every meeting if there is someone else you can get the summary from and there isn’t something being discussed that is relevant to you

In my industry it seems to have been established that as long as you're fulfilling objectives and producing work of a good standard, you don't need to be at your desk at every moment of every day.

I realise I'm in an envious position, but I love it. The work life balance is great and I've never been so productive. I like working on Sunday nights, for example, so I know if I work plenty on Sunday night I can have a much easier Monday. It's been great for my mental health and I wish this kind of attitude was present across more industries.

It's not about being at work. It's about the work you do. That's logical, surely?

I'm the opposite - WFH but no flexibility at all

I control my own diary and my own annual leave, so I can be flexible around things like appointments.

The flip side is that I will work late in the evenings if necessary because there's a big deadline. It's about give and take.

When you get to a certain level, the employer is paying for your scarce skills, knowledge and risk management/ decision making capabilities. They are not paying for your time, but your impact. Some people are able to deliver impactful outputs very quickly.

Its the 80/20 rule in action.

You can’t walk into these roles, you need to climb up and spend a lot of hours getting there. Many won’t get there.

In a weird way, we’re going back to how our ancestors lived.

Pre industrial revolution, people didn’t tend to work long hours each day, perhaps just 4 max. There was a lot of rest time and this is true of hunter gatherer societies today.

But during the industrial revolution employers exploited the workforce making them work 6 days of 12 plus hour days.

It wasn’t until Ford created the concept of 2 days continuous rest and the 40 hour week, that western society fell into a pattern of the working week we know today. His motivation was to create leisure time and demand for motor cars!

This article is super interesting as it compares the hours humans have worked in different societies during history:

www.lovemoney.com/galleries/amp/84600/how-many-hours-did-people-really-work-across-human-history

Such an interesting thread! I'm a teacher so no flexibility - but that is ok. What does piss me off is that my school contracts us to stay til 4.30. This is obviously fine on the days when we have a meeting or training but really irritating when we don't!

I also have that degree of flexibility. I wfh most of the time and also visit client premises, but that tends to be very early morning visits so I often start work at 6am and finish at 1 (work a 35 hour week) I love going to local indie cinema. Tickets are a few pounds, and I can have a nice walk on the beach after. A lot of my friends retired in late fifties so there's always someone to hang with if I don't fancy going alone.

If I am actually wfh and not going out, I start at 8 and can have two hours for lunch if I fancy, and still be finished by 5.

My job is like this I just have to get the work done and done to a high standard.

I couldn’t pop out for half the day or anything but could attend a school event or run an errand or go for a run during the working day and make up the time in the evening.

@forinborin
mainly when travelling between offices

Apart from all of the obvious WFH stuff, I think it's also things like this.
A lot of meetings that would have required inter-office collaboration have been teams-based now.

I've got a 4 hour train journey, followed by a plane flight back on the same day.
That's almost a standard working day of travelling for a meeting of a few hours that genuinely has no value-added by not being on Teams.

I find it interesting when people bring up presenteeism as the only reason an employer might want you to work between certain hours and use phrases like "as long as the work gets done".

I guess that is true for jobs where you are really in a silo, maybe something very technical.

But in the majority of jobs, having people work super flexibly (not just running the odd errand or having a run in the middle of the day, but taking entire afternoons off to then work late evening or weird hours) slows everything down. I work across multiple disciplinary project teams and if I had to wait a 24 hr Window for every answer to a question or couldn't just call someone up or schedule a quick call to go through something or a technical matter because they'd swanned off for the afternoon and would "get it done in the evening or weekend", the projects and industry would grind so slowly. Or, worse, it puts pressure on people to also reply at odd hours and never be able to switch their phone off and we all become way more reactionary in the moment rather than just waiting for the next working day.

@Sandinmyknickers this is a really good point. The majority of my projects are very technical and I am therefore in my own silo so can be completely flexible.

Where others are also working on a project then obviously I don't have that same degree of flexibility although in reality most queries I can answer from my phone so it isn't too restrictive and I'm always happy to answer calls / texts / emails when I'm out and about. But it is difficult to make sure more junior staff don't feel like they have to also be "on" constantly.

I think as it becomes more of a norm it will work itself out but it is a balancing act.

Insightful comments.

I agree with all of this.

I WFH f/t in a full-on role supporting front line public sector profession, and whilst I have some flexibility in that I could go to a GP appt, run teenage DCs about if needed, put a wash on, walk my dog in 30 mins break at lunchtime, I'd never, ever watch TV or go to the cinema/out for lunch - that's totally taking the piss.
If I do nip out I take my work phone, so am contactable, and am online from 8am even tho expected start time is 9.

Designer for a high end Interior Design company

Yep and I’m loving it. For decades things have got worse, constantly told you should be grateful for a job:
jobs went from 9-5 to 8-6
work can contact you when you’ve left the office/ on leave/ out sick

gaining back some life, whilst still meeting goals- hell yes!

For me it varies.....
I'm an academic and during term time the only day I have this type of the flexibility on my research day. I'm not expected to be in touch or contactable on those days so how I structure my day is completely up to me.
During the summer I can go weeks without needing to see/speak to anyone urgently so I have an immense amount of flexibility which is really beneficial for childcare!

This.

@forinborin whether at home or in an office, you definitely get the worker and the shirker mentality. I don’t need to be watched to work but I know plenty of people who do. We don’t have core hours but working with different time zones mean sometimes I’m free in the middle of the day. Plus I’m not commuting for 4 hours a day so I can start and finish late/early etc. We get generous holiday, can buy more or sell. I would not ‘pretend’ to work and don’t need to, but I do move things about if I need to, but that works both ways. Pretending to work while doing nothing is stealing in my book. But I’ve worked in an office with one bloke who was the master of ‘looking busy’ while doing chuff-all. He got the sack in the end for doing it once too often. I have taken a long break to meet someone, but in fact went home and then worked until 9.30pm in parallel with US.