OK, What do you really work in hours?

I've heard a lot of people say they work 60-80 hours/week in their job. I've seen just a few, literally, in all my 5 years of working. And they're freaks.

Listen, folks, 40-50 is TOUGH. Maybe I say that b/c I work behind a computer mostly and work hard when I do, no water & conversation breaks. BUT, goddamn, I have little else time to sleep, work out, eat, and work, when I'm doing 50 real hours in a week.

I've worked 10 or 12 hour days ONCE in a while, when I'm really into something. The rest of the time I have to eat, sleep, get away from it for a minute or two.....errr, well, there's not much else when you're inspired. My friend on a project once said after a 10 hour day, "Damn dude, you're a machine, you worked 10 hours straight." Yeah, at my most inspired, most productive, most negative health streak.

People that are doing "60-100" hours per week are full of shit, I'm thinking. You've gotta live at the office to do 60. I can see how law oriented folks can get inspired. But the few times I'm inspired are the only times I can do 60. Really, that's 12 hour days working, not including lunch, 5 out of 7 days per week.

I call bullshit, bigtime. Either that or a lot more americans are on coke or speed than we realize. I just can't believe it.

well as of now I work 0 hours a week, which is hard enough... but when I was working, I was only allowed to work 37 hours p/week.
But I was a contractor and it was hard enough to fill those 37 hours with things to do...

and when I say 'work', I of course mean perfect my solitare performance.

I don't even know how a person does 50 hours a week. I work 4 ten-hour days (not including lunch break) which means i get every friday-sunday off which is awesome but it also means that m-th i do nothing but work. but i get no sympathy from most of my friends for this b/c a lot of them are doing those same 4 ten hour days plus having to work on friday. my question is, who set the standard for 40 hours/week, and when did it become acceptable to work more than that without any kind of compensation. our jobs certainly wouldn't let us randomly choose to work 10-20 hours less per week without cutting our pay, so why should we give them more of our time for free?

sue

I probably actually do about 30-35 hours a week, because we have the opportunity to fart around the shop. chit chat, hang out, read the newspaper. It's great!

I work as a software engineer for a healthcare software company in Kansas City, MO. I can only speak for myself, my immediate coworkers, and my friends in the company, but I can tell you, no BS, that there is a near-explicit expectation that software engineers put in at least 20% unpaid overtime each week, which amounts to 48 hours total per week. (When I say "near-explicit," I mean that it's not in writing anywhere, but any manager will tell you about the "20% rule"). Most people I know put in more than the bare minimum.

Usually, people will come in at 8, eat lunch at their desk, and leave at 6. Do this 5 days a week, and boom, there's your 50 hours.

Granted, we're talking about 50 hours of generally productive work time. Nobody stops the clock when they get up to take a piss, get a snack, or chat with friends.

In my 1.5 years with the company, we had one huge project with a nasty deadline that warranted crazy work hours. We pulled together and worked 12-14 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week for about a month. Obviously, this is not sustainable, which is why it only lasted 4 weeks. But it does happen.

I am not saying this to troll for sympathy by any means, just to show that it DOES happen. I will agree that if someone tells you they work 80 hours per week EVERY week of the year, that's hard to believe. But, at least in the software industry, it is not uncommon to work those kind of hours for short spurts.

I "work" 40 hrs a week. No more. I could get paid to do overtime, but I can hardly stand to put the required 40 hrs in. And actually I am incapable of doing even the 40 hrs (because it drives me crazy and I mentally/emotionally cannot work the 40 hrs like I'm supposed to)...so I e-mail, browse BNA, and sneakily play freecell while in the cubicle, and then become robotic if need be, in the remaining 5 hrs, in order to appear to be highly productive. And I take a longer lunch than I'm supposed to.

There are people in the office who work 45-50 hrs a week..especially those who want to move up in the ranks.

I held a job a few years ago that was brutal - 50-55 hrs a week. It really sucked. Big time.

Lynn

NateDoggy-Dogg,

I believe you. I too am SW engineering. But I'd like to know your take on do you have anything in your life other than work and bare biological necessities when you do a 50 hour week?

What's the question, again? How many hours a week do I really work?

I could tell you....but then you'd have to kill me.

Now, if the question was...."How many hours a week do you bill?" I could answer that. See, I'm an "idea guy".....

NTFT

Sure. I dunno, the typical example I described of working 8 to 6 with lunch at the desk seems pretty doable to me. I don't like it all that much (which is part of the reason that I'm quitting in 3 weeks to travel), but it's doable. Once I'm off at 6, I have time to hit the gym, have a decent dinner, and do random stuff around the apartment. I still go out on the weekends. So I think it's possible to do 50 hours a week and still have some semblance of a life.

If you go much more than that, though, I will definitely agree that it turns into "work-eat-sleep-lather-rinse-repeat" ad infinitum. It just doesn't work over the long haul.

I think the question should be, how many of the hours that you are "at work" do you actually "do work." At IBM in the 80's I clocked about 45 a week, but I "worked" about 2 hours per day. It was brutal. This was pre-www (pre-Windows, for that matter, so no Freecell). I once worked on a shipping dock loading freight -- basically a longshoreman without the sea breeze. I clocked about 35 hours per week, but it was a living hell, freezing my ass off on th graveyard shift, stacking 'em "high and tight." We worked every minute.

If I remember high school physics time is only one of the variables in the "work" equation.

I worked construction for six months in Los Angeles... That was the hardest stuff I've ever done. At the site at 6 in the morning, and off at 3 with a 30 minute lunch.... Never been so tired in all my life... I did nothing but dig footing for the first month. Never again!

I officially work 20 hours/week but I am allowed to work as many hours extra as I want as long as I don't exceed 40 since I am part time. I would like to say I have disciplined myself to do as much extra as I can but I haven't. I occasionally do 28 but lately I have really slacked.

I dunno, I just feel like a lot of people are full of it when they state their hours. Kind of like how some people, not a lot mind you, will tell me "Oh, we drove that in 30 minutes" when it takes me 1.5 hours. Bullshit. I don't drive fast, but aggressive driving might save you 10% at best. My personal favorite was "it took us 20 minutes from Milwaukee to Mukwonago". Haha, not even close.

Driving time and working hours are kind of a white lie to americans, apparently.

My work days are variable. But the average? Sixty six. That's five 13 hour days. I have worked up to ninety hours on a couple of memorable weeks three years ago.

Now, that is sickening. The upside is this. The job, while sucking in hours worked when you show up to work, is incredibly flexible in other ways.

I can take as much time off as I want and can return and take up the job as if I was never away at all. In certain situations, I can just not go to work. Someone may phone me and ask me if I would like to come in. My answer, (with an eleven o'clock bottle of beer perched on my gut, and my feet up on the balcony) can be: "Not a chance in hell! Talk to you tomorrow."

So, I gotta take the Bad with the Good.

D

Tuna, I love your optimistic approach to everything in life bro!