What happened to the 40 hour work week?

[lets-retire]

Yes, I agree.

The solution to long commutes is pretty simple: buy a modest house near where you work (for most people, in the city), rather than a mini-mansion located far away in the suburbs. You can take public transit and save on transportation costs, too.

Don't forget to include the cost of the security system monitoring and home protection (what ever you decide it should be). You're correct though that would solve the long commute issue.

 

[youbet]

I don't know how it was in your area, but in the telecom where I worked, many put in 40 or so in the office, eating lunch at your desk while the phone is on mute. Then you would go home and put in 10-25 hr/week, to do the work you couldn't get done during the day due to meetings, calls, whatever.

I was also in the telecom industry.

It seemed to me that folks in management who had much discretion as to how much and when they worked often worked longer hours than folks who had specific, mandated hours.

For example, I had direct reports in both NA and Asia and therefore worked face-to-face with the NA folks during the day and conference called/emailed/IM'd with the Asian folks in the evenings or early mornings. Somethimes there were a lot of hours involved, but it was my call. If I could have figured out how to achieve the team performance levels, make my goals, etc., with fewer hours, I was free to do so.

My NA team (primarily low and mid-level engineers) had specific hours they were expected to be in the office, typically 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM. Few were in earlier, few stayed later. Some would occassionally participate in evening conference calls with the team in Asia. Once in a while, a project deadline involved some extra hours but frequently it was because the person procrastinated getting the work done earlier. Yet, most of them wailed, moaned and cried about the "constant, forced 60 hour weeks." In reality, while some may have actually put in a 60 hr week at some time in the past, it was hardly common. Apparently, it was just fun to talk about it!

Whenever I hear folks talking about working really long hours, I'm skeptical until I know the details.

Hours you work are sometimes like calories you consume. You don't know how many until you actually write 'em down and add 'em up. For my team, when they actually wrote hours worked down, no one was even near 60 hours. In fact, some had to stretch the facts a little in order to show 40!

 

[harley]

It seemed to me that folks in management who had much discretion as to how much and when they worked often worked longer hours than folks who had specific, mandated hours.
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Hours you work are sometimes like calories you consume. You don't know how many until you actually write 'em down and add 'em up. For my team, when they actually wrote hours worked down, no one was even near 60 hours. In fact, some had to stretch the facts a little in order to show 40!

I agree about the discretionary schedules resulting in more hours. In the early days when I was basically on a timeclock, I did what was required. As my responsibilities and flexibility increased, so did the hours.

And I did track them, and I was overworking. I'm not proud of it. As a matter of fact, it was a tool I used to keep myself on track for ER. I had a bit of a workoholic tendency, or maybe a need to see myself as essential. But I kept myself p*ssed off over how much less I was being paid per hour than most of my coworkers. And as my career came near it's end I was cutting way back, trying to get back some of what I had given away. Sort of retired in place.

No matter what, I wasn't in a healthy place. I freely admit my own complicity in it. I'm managing my ER much better than I ever managed my w*rk life. I'm sort of the inverse of "do what you love and the money will follow". Like that other thread, Get Rich, Get Out. I wish I had thought of that.

 

[FIYes]

Okay, here is it Sunday afternoon, on a holiday weekend. I am checking up on the ER forum as I wait for a process that I am running for work to finish up. Once it finishes I can check for problems and then move on to the next step. So, yeah you point out that it is not every minute tied to work---but on the other hand it is taking up about 9 hours of my Sunday and my compensation for this will be ZERO.

Now fortunately I do not have to put in a lot of unpaid time these days...but it is days like these that make early retirement so appealing.

 

[DangerMouse]

I think perception can often be so far removed from reality. I had hourly people working for me that would complain if they didn't get their full lunch hour and would claim overtime and if they were 10 minutes late leaving the office would claim payment. However these were the same people who arrived 10 minutes late every day,took a 90 minute lunch every second day and the first 15 minutes of their day was spent getting a coffee and chatting to the colleagues.

I also believe that it is up to some of us to manage our work lives better. I found if you are willing to donate the extra time every company would take it. Last year, I worked late every day and most weekends. This year I decided it wasn't going to happen. My last 6 months on the job I am sure I left the office at 5.00 p.m. 99% of the time and never went in on the weekend and everything got done fine because I learnt to delegate and decide what was the most important thing to get done.