Do all well paid professionals work really hard long hours

[CheshireSplat]

Just feeling a bit battered. Took a step-up to a senior role 4 years ago and am well respected. Have been promoted a couple of times and salary has increased by about 50%. Which is great, but isn't what I planned!!! My responsibilities and workload have also increased significantly.

My DC are 9 and 6 and I'd like to spend more time with them. I'd also like to spend some time doing normal things, like doing more than 1000 steps a day and getting off my chair. I don't have time to tidy the house, which gets me down. I didn't sign up for a Big Job. And it's getting a bit much. I'm managing to resist doing much work at weekends but Monday morning to Friday night it is absolutely full on and I'm working at full pelt, from early til late.

Is this normal? There certainly seems to be an epidemic of busyness, or do people feel they have to say they are busy? I'm 44 and feel my life is passing me by.

I have an interview for a job in the NFP sector, similar role, big pay cut but we can cope, don't have extravagant lifestyle. Am I kidding myself if I think it would be different there?

I'm just rambling. Would love to see what others think..... Thank you. Problem is work is important to me, and I like a challenge.

@wallysally

Dh is on approx 80k... he works 48 hours per 8 days. Overtime is extra. He says his shifts are long yes (12hours) but not stressful and he doesn't give work a second thought when he walks out the door. He also gets a bonus each year, a 2-3% payrise and private healthcare. He doesn't even have a degree.

So, what does he do please??

I would expect someone in a senior position to be well paid because they are an expert in their field and have years of experience.

The problem with this is that these people then shift the expectations of long hours to their juniors on less pay and frequently offer them little support. Their experience becomes outdated, they become unproductive and complacent and wait for retirement. It’s one reason why those in the middle become stressed and burned out.

OK, so I think you need to separate things out a bit.

Where exactly does your stress come from? Lots of households have a model where one parent works long hours and one parent works in a less stressful, less well-paid job but picks up the slack at home. How many hours does your DH work? If it is less than you, is he picking up the slack at home?

Who has the mental load in your house?
Why is it you and not your DH who is worrying about the house being a mess?
Do your kids have one parent (so for instance, your DH) who gets to spend quality time with them throughout the week? If so, you may be missing them but they're not necessarily missing out - they have a parent spending time with them and dad is just as good as mum. Do you share things 50/50 at weekends?

My DH works insane hours (rarely home before midnight), but I wouldn't say he's particularly stressed because he's not 'default' parent and, although he helps when he's around, he goes to work in the knowledge that everything will stay ticking over when he's not here with minimal input from him. In other words, he's not jiggling multiple balls. That is a huge privilege which many men working in stressful jobs seem to have but many women don't. They are trying to do both the stressful job and manage everything at home.

Depending on whether you enjoy your job and on the hours your DH works, my solution would be to get a part-time housekeeper and ask him to manage them so the house is kept clean, organised and tidy. Try to reach a situation where you're focusing on your work and on quality time with your children, but most other things are done/managed by someone else.

@CheshireSplat I think it's worth thinking about @GrandmasCat's comment about Do you care a lot about how people above you perceives you and want to prove you are good and efficient constantly?
IME a lot of women lawyers burn out because of this, not the actual job, which many men manage better, maybe because they don't care as much about what people think of them.

A lot of women working in stressful jobs burn out because they're trying both to do their job and manage everything else in their lives. A lot of men have most things managed for them so they can just focus on the job. That makes a huge difference.

Re your need to “do good” what about taking a NED role alongside your job? I took a NED and a trustee role a few years back and it’s been incredibly satisfying and I’ve learnt an incredible amount about both myself and more broadly.

I’m also going to focus on your comment that you like being in charge so I’m going to push and suggest what you might need is even more responsibility! What would another promotion look like?

A more senior role wouldn’t necessarily add many more hours to your week but you’ll be aware that you could be earning considerably more in an in house legal role and that additional money could alleviate a lot of your stress in terms of buying in support.

If that’s something that interests you then I go back to considering a NED role which would really support opportunities for further promotion. Woman on Boards is a great starting point.

Senior role, hospital medicine. I'm well paid but the hours are a killer.
I don't see anyone clinical or managerial here twiddling their thumbs on a high salary (or even a low one!)

I work very long hours sometimes. Criminal barrister. Depending on the case obviously. Around half the year I’ll do a few hour before court and after. So easily 12 hour day. Plus weekend work depending on what next case is etc.
Sometimes cases collapse for various reasons and that week or so may then be filled by my clerks by other work or I will be able to take a breather and book ‘reading or prep’ days out of court.
Do not have children living with me.
Always have stocks of food etc as often there isn’t time to shop or eat out.
Sometimes house is ignored and becomes a mess.
It’s the kind of job which really is enabled better if you have a partner who is able to lock up quite a bit of the humdrum cleaning shopping cooking life admin. I don’t live with my partner.
I’ve recently reduced my working weeks in order to manage any kind of personal life.
Although not on a low wage (even after Chambers rent monthly which is rent for premises and employing clerks and can be as much as 20% plus tax and travel and clothing etc etc pensions are often a dream)any weeks my hourly rate given my hours would be close to minimum wage.

Sometimes its not about the hours you work but about how you spend your time. I am now semi-retired but I only ever worked short office hours despite having fee income equal or higher than my contemporaries and very satisfied clients.

I have always been very quick which helps but looking at ways to improve efficiency is something anyone can do. My standards were very high so its not about cutting corners, but it came down to organisation and planning, alongside reading faster, but only reading once, responding to emails immediately, and taking a call is often quicker than calling back/arranging a meeting. The little things you do can add up to a lot and it can also reduce the stress of having things build up. Once I got into a real management role I became a great delegator and my life got even easier.

Not everyone is the same, but it is worth analysing your time to see if there are any areas where you could improve your effficiency to avoid the need to work such long hours.

@bekindbekindbekind he is an operator in a pharma company.

Wow, so much amazing stuff here thank you. I'm going to look at it properly later and really sit down with it, with a pencil and some columns!!!

I'm a TA and also work in the wraparound care facility four days a week. Nearly fifty hours. I bring home less than £1500 per month.

You mention not having time to tidy the house. Can you get a good housekeeper type cleaner who tidies as well as cleans?

Expectation in education is also very long hours, in fact contracts state 'as many hours as the service demands' or words to that effect, yet not the big salary spoken of in some cases here.

I work for a local authority in education, earn £52,000, expected to work 'as many hours as the service demands'. In this role annual leave is in line with non education jobs, rather than schools, but only to be taken during school holidays.
Home working has made it worse, click out of one meeting, straight into the next, 12 hour days and weekend working. Still deadlines are missed. Hate it.

My career was as a consultant in a boutique economics consultancy (I've since taken a 'lifestyle' role elsewhere). Great pay and the job was as big as you made it. I became very good at saying no, signing up only for the stuff I wanted to do and delegating the shittier jobs to others (or just not doing them; the world doesn't end if 'busywork' doesn't happen). The more I set boundaries and suited myself, the more the promotions came. You come to realise that the men at the top are fairly mediocre themselves but have perfected the mutual arts of confidence and bullshittery.

A very interesting read.

I’m in the 125k bracket and up to 6 mths ago have always been proud of my boundaries and work/life balance though was happy to work a typical 48 to 50 hr week.

I’m not sure what has come unstuck but I now find my working week is typically 60 to 65 hrs. Within that there’s a vicious circle - the longer the hours required the less productive/ efficient I am becoming.

I’m taking a lot from pp’s - thanks for posting!

Seriously, if you hate the meetings, you need to assert yourself. Decline and say you've scheduled focussed work. Or just say no, sorry, I don't do meetings on Friday. If they need you there, they'll reschedule. If they don't, they'll crack on.

You know, you have a good employer. The world is full of organisations that load on responsibility beyond the job description and try to avoid recognising the responsibility in pay, status or benefits. There are regular threads on here where the OP’s role has changed out of recognition but she’s still on the same measly salary she started out on.

I’m well paid - same salary bracket as you, though in London so it doesn’t go as far - and I don’t think I have a bad deal. I work 40-50 hours a week, plus time on call in the evenings and at weekends (sometimes very disruptive, but not regularly). But the trade off is a lot of flexibility and control: I’ll do some work this morning because next week is going to be bad and I want to get a head start on it, but I can get a haircut in the working day if I want to, and I often knock off at lunchtime on a Friday if there’s nothing urgent.

Can't resist popping back. There are much broader things for me to think about, but to answer a couple of quickies, DH is awesome, all the mental load, meal planning, cooking, children's packed lunches, spellings etc. He works 4 days.

I did nearly get a cleaner but she pulled out just before she started in August. Haven't got round to getting another!

I'm not addressing the really important points, as they need time and I'm rushing around trying to sort out a community apple pressing. My problem is I want to do everything, the kids, work is v important to me, I want to spend time with DH and do good things, and read a book! Perhaps I have to accept that isn't all possible.

I think part of this is my character, I worked long hours as a jnr because I was jnr and now I work long hours so as not to out my jnrs through that!!!!

For the lawyers, I'm an Assistant GC, responsible for my region (EMEA) but there is now a global GC who is very supportive. I have an erratic boss (regional CEO) the whole leadership team is burnt out, business in turnaround!!

Part of me is thinking I want to stay and fix it. Interesting.

I would need to change things. One problem is I agree with DH that I'll do school drop off on, say Wednesday and Friday, and then the previous evening I get meetings with Aus dropped in my calendar at 7.30 so DH picks up the slack again because I won't say no...

Finally, the reason I said well paid is because I don't feel I can compare to eg nursing where it's stressful short staffed and not paid much. Not fair to compare.

Roghty, I'm off to supervise some children press some apples and I'm excited to come back to this thread later and look into my soul.

Thanks everyone, some posts are so thought through, I really appreciate it.

I work in the NFP sector and there is absolutely a culture of busyness. I suspect it may be just as bad as in many much higher paying roles because you're supposed to be committed to THE CAUSE. Having said that, the organisations I have worked at have balanced that with a decent understanding of need for employee well-being/ensuring people take their leave etc. And I've always had no problem pushing back against the culture of busyness - I just think about what's important in the bigger picture and stand my ground/don't get caught up in the competitive who's working harder game. But that's probably a personality thing - you have to decide if you'd be able to do that (and if so, maybe you can in your current job)

I think industry and culture is so important here. I work in a team where over working your core hours is actively discouraged. P
Most people get paid decent £40-80k salaries depending on position and many work part time. It is also acknowledged that no one gets to the end of their to do list, so you have to be allowed to say I haven't got to that yet and it be OK. Some personality types just can't cope with that so put in loads of extra hours when it isn't expected at all. Anyone working on the weekends gets pulled up on it unless it's instead of, not on top of their weekday hours.

OP, I’m obviously a tech/STEM person and not a legal bod, but from what I understand from my friends, long hours are somewhat par for the course in a law career. There also seems to be a bit if present-eeism (sp?) too; is that the case for you?

Can you, to use a cliché, work smarter not harder? Are you fully focused when working, i.e. not multi-tasking, not checking emails every 10 mins, not glancing at your phone or thinking about community apple bobbing! or whatever?

My job is technical and I have to be strict about these things otherwise I lose focus and potentially make errors. But it has the added bonus of making me productive. Hence I don’t work long hours.

I can't help but feel that, if I were on £125k pa, my expectation would very much be a sixty-odd hour week.

You need to stop taking so much on @CheshireSplat

At the risk of creating an outrage, you are not well paid for an assistant GC in an EMEA role in an MNC. So I’d get job hunting.

I totally get the wanting to fix it response but you’re not getting paid enough to risk the burn out from that.

I very much relate to wanting to do everything (and not making my juniors work long hours ) but you can definitely have balance.