To think 9 to 6 are long working hours

[Coolcucumbers]

For UK standards, office work.

All companies I have worked so far have been 9:30am to 5:30pm

You’ve summed up the trade-off. Better work life balance but lower pay. Or longer hours and better pay. However it is usually those who need to answer an email or two on holiday who can afford the most holidays. Swings and roundabouts.

Yet that start time for offices does exist….

Yup. I do exactly 37 hours as per my contract, no more, no less. That’s because I used to work in education where it’s expected that we work extra hours, which is one of the reasons I got an office job.

What kind of a holiday is it when you have to set up your monitors in your hotel room?

I get 5 weeks holiday a year and not once am I expected to spend a second of those holidays doing work.

Again - how much actual holiday do you get if you’re expected to work during it? It goes down, just like your salary does the more unpaid overtime you’re expected to do. But your employers’ profits go up plenty off the back of that, so that’s nice.

Sure and it’s a choice. One can always quit and do something else. But DH loves his job, he gets a share of the profit he makes and it’s an enormous amount of money.

My dh works 9am till 6pm weekends forced as part of the job barely gets home until 6.45pm most days

Im
in a nursery and some of us do 7:30-6 🙈

there has definitely been an office hours creep though

I can’t speak for PP, but I haven’t had to work all day every day on holiday. It’s been a day or two here and there over the year. I get 8 weeks’ holiday a year (my employer has an ‘unlimited annual leave’ model as a I say upthread). Let’s say I work 1 week of that then I have the remaining 7 weeks off to relax. I am paid very well and literally use all 8 weeks to go on holiday. Seems a good deal to me. But each to their own.

8.30-5.30 with half an hour for lunch here. It’s grim! You basically can’t do anything during ‘office hours’ because the lunch isn’t long enough to pop anywhere other than the Tescos over the road.

I was considering going to 4 days but I think I’d rather lose 90 minutes a day and still do 5 reasonable days with a bit of flexibility. Even if it was core hours.

Apologies if this has been covered already, but what is ‘uncapped/unlimited’ annual leave? How does this actually work? And is it more generous than the typical 35 days that are the norm in UK and most of Europe?

35 days is not typical in the UK.

It’s the same deal really. The rest is basically unpaid.

You take leave as you need it rather than having an ‘allowance’ each year. You’re trusted to manage your work over the year and take breaks as you need them while also hitting your performance targets. I take a total of 8 weeks off per year, which is an increase on the 7 weeks off per year I used to get when I worked in the UK.

I got 35 days when I worked in the UK (27 days plus 8 bank holidays). It didn’t seem unusual? Most people I knew got 25 days plus BH.

Not sure what you mean by “the rest is basically unpaid”. Under an unlimited annual leave model, all leave taken is paid.

I think the legal minimum is 28 days inc BHs and a lot of employers only offer that. (Pro-rata for part time.)

I saw an ad for a job recently where the unlimited element was unpaid over a certain level, will try and remember where it was. 🤔

Yanbu
Yes for a UK office job that would be considered long hours.

9-5 or 9-5:30 are more common/the norm.

There should be a cross reference between the posts on this thread about setting up monitors in hotel rooms on holiday, and the thread where people are saying that anyone earning over £45k is too rich and should be taxed more!

You can take as little or as much annual leave as you want; but the reality is that annual leave needs approval and it is probably within reason. Also as this company already does long hours I feel they are already paying this annual leave somehow.

In theory I have short hours at the big 4 I work for 9:30 to 5:30; but the reality if you have to work more as utilisation is calculated over 40 hours and you are expected to have high utilisation which means you probably need to work 50 plus hours per week; however I do have flexibility on how these hours are worked as long as utilisation is high.

I’m in my fifties, so have been working for 30 years. I’ve never had a job that finished before 6.

9-6 seems unusual. Never encountered it in all my decades of work. 9-5.30 is typical. I've worked places where culturally people worked later, to get things done, but it wasn't mandated. That said if it feels like a slog, maybe you should look around? I work for myself now and typically work 9-5, collect my kid and have family dinner, then work again 9.30-11 after my partner has gone to bed. Feels great, never bother about the hours, because I love what I'm doing. If you don't love your work then 10-4 will still seem long!

DS works 70 hours a week normally, but he can work 6 am to 2 am 7 days a week, when he’s really busy! No overtime or time off in lieu. The day of DGS’ birthday, he had got up at 5 am to work, and he asked his partner if he could take 10 minutes off to watch DGS open his presents. She said no, and the firm would send DGS a present. DS worked until 1 am that day.

A friend of mine was working part time in our profession - 60 hours a week!

So 9 am to 6 pm is by no means long hours!

I hated 9 til 6 as my son was young and in creche. A long day for him. I changed jobs after that 5.30pm finish was better

I work for a GP several staff work 08:00 to 18:30 although I do admit not every day. I only do 16.5 hours per week the youngers ones work 35-40 hours

For office work without extra responsibly, I’d say yes. I’m a teacher and I do 7.30am until 4 - 6 pm and checking emails during the evening. Planning and marking is also done in evening and weekend, if needed. But I have the holidays so it evens out, I suppose.