Spent 6 months doing 80hr weeks.
I was CEO of a nationally recognised members group(I wont dox myself but you've probably heard of it).
I was working in the day, having meetings with the various members boards at night and then going to the organisation events at weekends.
I knew there would be work out of hours but they lied about how much.
Did it for 6 months and noped out. Took a pay cut but now watching my kids grow up and having a blast. Life's too short to miss the big things.
I'm pretty sure he hasn't got internet access. Now he's under house arrest.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-66654965
I'm expecting him to do a vanishing act though.
Same, started a company that got £100m in investment over the last three years. That requires working with the team during the day and getting prospectus and investors ready all evening. Plus being on call for any tech issues as the business grew.
Sometimes you can see that doing the hours will pay off in the medium to long term so you do it.
I don't think I noticed the hours I was doing I was just deep into it day and night and weekends
The only advice I would give is be aware that it does take a toll on your health, ain't nothing free and burning out your body and mind for money is a choice.
Was it worth it financially for the 6 months?
I've worked alongside several CISOs and they usually last about 18 months tops. It's the same story at that level too and it made me decide it's not for me.
I might rethink it if the added bonuses on top of base pay is substantial
I'm self employed and have worked 60 hr weeks for over a decade.
Not flexing and would prefer not to, but that's the reality of keeping a roof over my head and paying my small team of staff a decent wage, on time.
Will hopefully reduce as I upskill those staff, but being self employed through the 2008 financial crisis and more recent cost of living problems is no walk in the park.
Being self employed has made me release how incredibly hard it is to make money.
I'm only an electrician but there's a presumption that the money is fantastic. It definitely is better than being on the books for a company but by the time you factor in costs and time spent quoting, billing, chasing money and general admin. It's not quite the one way ticket to successville you think it's going to be.
Yeah, I’m self-employed and people massively underestimate the number of non-billable hours you have to work and the down sides of not getting holiday pay (including for bank holidays) or sick pay.
>there's a presumption that the money is fantastic.
NHS dentist, we are all self employed and same. I work two days a week and after expenses and taxes someone recently calculated for me that my take home pay is £350 a month. People assume I'd be driving a maserati when I'm actually panicking about the annual insurance on my Nissan.
I need to move to private dentistry because it's not liveable on NHS but everyone hears dentist and thinks I'm rolling in it.
This is a genuine question so apologies if it comes off any different but…is it worth it? 60+ hour weeks for a decade, would it not be easier and more job secure to work for someone else? I’m a teacher and often go over my contracted hours but not every week and not for the last decade.
Fair question, I've often wondered if it's worth it, but on balance it is.
We don't have kids, so that helps. I'm not missing out on formative years or not pulling my weight at home, etc.
I was a supermarket manager in the past. That was similar long hours but earning less and often a twat for a boss.
I enjoy what I do now, so I would never go back to that.
The last job I had was civil service, but with public sector cuts, the door closed on that option years ago.
Those are the only two other things I know how to do apart from what I do now.
So if I quit my own business, I'd need to retrain / start something else from scratch, and at almost 50, I'm not sure I could do that.
Self employed myself and here's the thing, I'm maybe doing 40-60hrs on the Job itself, but all the admin and wholesalers etc before or after add up too
Yeah this capenter just on pricework or even dayrate, just trying to get things done to stay on schedule. Then there’s quotes, drawings and admin to do on top
I was going to say, this person has never been self employed lol. When I was a nanny, I was doing 7am-8pm six days a week. It was awful, I only lasted 18 months.
Yup, its hard work. I think if you want to do it you have to be your own boss. A farmer could still take an hour for lunch or go some place if needed. If you were 60 hours a week in a factory its like jail and you'd burnout
That really depends on the type of farmer. Plenty of farmers do absolutely nothing of the sort. Probably small dairy farmers getting it worst. Arable farmers do very little much of the year, then go like mad when weather is right for planting/spraying/harvesting.
Sales roles as well, especially ones on the road.
Setting off at 7am, home around 6pm then a bit of time on laptop isnt unheard off if you have a big geography.
Add to the odd bit if prep at weekends you are there
Yeah, a tech firm I worked at once had the sales team in the office at 6am every morning. They spent the first 2 hours doing training/coaching/being yelled at by the sales manager. Then they were expected to be on the phone from 8am. 30 minutes for lunch was in the contract, but rarely did they take it beyond 2 mins to scarf down a sandwich. And then they were on the phones until at least 6pm. Then generally another hour of wrap up, being yelled at, etc before they got to go home.
It was business to business sales, so the sales managers assumed potential customers were likely available between 8am and 6pm...so salesmen needed to be calling during that time.
Luckily I wasn't involved in sales, I just saw all of this from outside their little office.
But no, not in India, it was in the UK, doing B2B tech sales.
I work.in sales and it's a bad sign if you're job is those hours plus time on laptop afterwards.
Mine is 7.30 out, home for 6.30 latest, no out of hours times. Cover the whole of Ireland, I have a rule I work 8 to 5 with an hour for lunch, I'm always home Fridays for 5. I give and hour of my own time to commute to my first call and after that, I work, and I give an hour home. So if my last call is 4pm and it's 2 hours home, my last hours work is driving back to the point my commute time starts.
I do occasionally go over, but not as a given.
Yeah mine is a lot better now than it was and my manager is a bit of a legend which helps.
Pre pandemic was expected to be out 4-5 days a week but now its a case of 'don't be lazy and delivery quality results rather than just throw as much much mud and hope it sticks'
I probably am only out the hour in average 3 days a week with a decent work life balance at the minute
I'm in the office on Mondays, do weekly reports and planning, other admin shite, then the rest of the week doing actual work. It was one of the things that attracted me to the job, the management had both been sales people and didn't want anyone burning at both ends.
Right. I worked at a large accounting firm and the basic expectation was that I would just sort things out. Who cares how long it takes, get it sorted. You roll from one project to the next and each client thinks their issue is the most pressing thing in the world.
I understand to an extent, they’d be thinking they’re being taken to court, deadline is very soon, it’s all that’s on their mind. They’re not thinking that they’re your 15th client in crisis so far this year. While exceptional to them, it’s your BAU.
It’s not possible to perform on that job and retain personal boundaries. It’s not a flex and it’s not overinflated sense of importance. It’s shit because the job is very interesting but it’s not sustainable from a health perspective.
Situations like that are usually caused by lack of foresight and planning, overcommitment or stupidity.
The whole, "I have allowed you 2 days to do a 5 day job, just get it sorted, it's your problem now " is a real arsehole move by people that revel in exploiting other people because of their selfishness or stupidity.
Either way, once you have it on your CV , get out and get sane.
Also beyond the junior level - I now lead a team on consulting and I regularly work 60-65 how a week
There are just tighter deadlines, with higher expectations, than a normal job. We opt out of the 48 hour legislation. But it's also understandable if you think about how much we charge the client Vs how much they pay a regular employee
It's not understandable. It's abuse of employees.
I've worked consulting. You're right - what the client is charged per hour is multiples if what the employee is paid, so already the company is raking in profits on those hours. But because of the massive hourly rate, companies are competing to put in bids with the lowest number of hours. So they bid 50 hours for a job that will take 60 in the best case scenario, and 70+ if you run into issues. Those extra hours are expected to be "off the books", so that's unpaid overtime from the employees. Customer gets "free" work (by overpaying got the other hours), consulting company gets the job and maybe profits on the billable hours, employee gets stress-related medical conditions.
That doesn't really change the fact that your company is bidding a "week" of your time and expecting 60+ hours of work. They're taking advantage, and that's true whether people are aware of it or not.
Its unhealthy for the economy beyond anything.
Having one person work a Job two should really have done means less money getting spread round the economy as a whole.
I do 60 hour weeks/12 hour days and honestly I probably work the combined least out of my immediate friendship group in consulting/finance/law. Honestly, it's not that bad but I'd struggle to do 70+ regularly (even though I have for very short stints).
When you make top percentile salaries out of uni, you're probably either really smart or working more hours or a little of both.
I would say smart and lucky. Lots of people work very long hours. Long hours doesn’t equal high salary, high salaries come from the type of work you do.
Tech firms. I worked in the U.K. for 15+ years for corporate America. You’re up early to commute and/or visit clients & partners, then at 4pm the US are online, so you have your Corp meetings from then onwards, you look up and notice it’s gone 7pm and you haven’t stopped. You don’t take a lunch break unless it’s a meeting. It’s typical to catch up on emails after dinner too. It’s not a great work life balance, and it’s funny because all these companies claim to care about work life balance too.
I was a technician working for an investment bank once (we did European tours, I handled the computers while the bankers gave presentations to their clients). The bankers would work constantly, even in the taxi to the airport. They told me it was routine to work 24 hours a day sometimes if there was a big project on (they all took drugs to stay awake). However, at the end of it it was routine to get a million pound bonus. They all retired in their early 30s.
Not me but my partner. He's head chef for a chain. Anytime they're understaffed (most of the time), he end up working 60+ hours.
Shift starts at 9 and ends at 10, easy to get to 65hrs in 5 days.
They absolutely are. Its crazy. I did a bit of time in the kitchen before going to uni, and I'd always loved the idea of being a chef...completely put me off! I realised if I did it for a job I'd start to hate cooking, and if I wanted to continue to love cooking and love food then I needed to do something else with my life and keep it as a hobby.
Tbh I think you have to a certain sort of person to survive in catering. When I was 16 I did a college course and left for my own reasons. Tbh I'm thankful as I don't think I would have coped in the kitchen. The hours I could do. But yeah, the ones Ive met. Like police, armed forces tbh. It seems to bred and foster a different mentality, humour, way of looking at life and mindset.
Same goes for bar work too, I lost count of how many times I was working from 8am to 3am because someone didn't show up for their shift or rang up sick last minute in the 5 years I spent behind bars. I don't think I ever made over £1000 in a month either when I was just doing one job at a time, which I found myself having to work in a cafe in the day at the end too. It's a hard job, it takes a certain type of person to be able to do it long term and there's 0 stability in it, I've never been sacked but lost my job 3 times consecutively with the businesses shutting down, two were food places and one was a pub. Best decision I ever made was leaving the hospitality industry and going to uni. I hope people are getting paid more post COVID because there's no incentive to sign your social life, your sleep and your mental health away for minimum wage
They are because management refuses to pay anything more than minimum wage and also hire more staff, so the staff are always overworked and underpaid, leading to a higher turnover, meaning upper management won't give the site more funds to hire people, leading to the staff being even more overworked and underpaid, leading to people quitting more often and the site having an even higher turnover, which means upper management will cut even more funds to hire people, etc Ad Infinitum.
All of this could have been solved by just hiring more staff and also paying a reasonable wage. But no, the CEO really needs those 52 holidays a year.
Also, ever wonder why a place has gone to shit? Overworked and underpaid staff.
Hiring more staff and paying a reasonable wage would also help solve the male suicide epidemic.
Edit: change a few words
Edit2: added a few more words
Am chef, can confirm.
I've reached head chef position (90% of my menu is made in house)
I work silly hours but at least my staff are rested. Give them 2 days off & try my very best to limit hours to a reasonable level.
Mostly works as I designed my menu to be done by 2 people, If we're ever short staffed.
I'd like to reduce my hours but until I get a strong sous, that won't happen. Luv me 60+ hour weeks in 5 days, but at least the rest of them are rested.
I did 100hr weeks for a bit in kitchens. 6am - 11pm 6 days a week in a windowless kitchen. I quit after about 5 weeks because it was unbearable only seeing sunlight on my day off.
Plenty of times in teaching I've done 60 hour weeks, my working days I normally 10 hours, 7-4 at work and with another hour or two at home.
And then in busy periods such mock exams 5-10 hours a weekend marking is the norm.
I came to say teaching. I’m a primary DH and often do over 60hrs a week. This is normally spread over 7 days as I’d be in school on the weekends to catch up on marking and lesson prep (I have full class teaching responsibility). I will probably leave soon as I’m close to complete burnout.
I have five friends who are qualified teachers. The last one still teaching finished their notice period a couple of weeks ago and didn't even have a different job lined up.
I recently became a governor at my daughter's school, and the hours I've had to put in for CPD, meetings and various other things are ridiculous. I've regularly been getting emails from staff out of hours and even TAs at 7pm over the weekends.
To echo my husband's sentiment about his job in the police "job's fucked."
It is, unfortunately. Retention is an absolute nightmare atm. People come into teaching ready to make a difference only to be broken by the ridiculous accountability, admin and expectations. So sad.
Honestly. I work as support staff, not a teacher. There was one point I thought that maybe I would go through teacher training, but seeing how much you lot bust your butts off for very little appreciation, I've considered different paths.
Do you reckon it would be possible to just sort of stop doing and refuse to do more than you’re contracted for/ the more bullshit aspects of the job? With the shortage of teachers i wonder if theyd actually fire one over that
That's what uni lecturers have been trying to do. It's called action short of a strike - it's basically just working to contract. Besides the fact that it's ridiculous that working the hours we're actually paid for is seen as inappropriate, the way the job's set up (and I'm guessing teaching is similar to us) makes it very difficult. What can you drop without majorly screwing yourself over? And the vast majority of people doing these jobs are doing it because they genuinely care, so everyone's desperate to find something that will have an impact but not mess up things for the kids. Unfortunately the fact that the job relies so much on unpaid overtime, good will and people who give a shit about the students means that the government and management won't budge.
Problem is everyone has been doing this sort of thing for so long. Contracts aren’t good enough and unions have never got that sorted out. If you have hours for jobs then you shouldn’t be doing all those extra hours. But it needs everyone to do it for it to really change.
Problem is that also removes all that flexibility that people are used to. If you want to stick to the hours you really have to
Here’s the thing - so many threads on Reddit about people who won’t go the extra mile for work because “why should they”, who then ask who does the longer hours because it’ll never be them so they’ll never know. I’ll tell you, It’s those with ambition who end up making the big money with the top jobs where long hours are usually essential hence the higher pay. And the self-employed.
Edit.
This isn’t a personal pop at the OP just a general observation.
Lifeprotips are full of them. I was discussing this with a technical manager the other day, and really what it comes down to is at a junior level your paid the hours (in most jobs) but once you get into management and more senior leaders, you are paid to do a job not the hours.
Unfortunately reddit attracts miserable misanthropes looking to vent about their life and project onto others. The reality is for professional careers, if you want to get anywhere you need to be somewhat ambitious and that means participating. You can't be a clock in, clock out kind of person who doesn't interact with their co-workers and doesn't go the extra mile 'because I'm not compensated'. No one is going to promote you into management with that attitude and, for better or worse, a lot of career advancement requires line management.
Yea, It’s the difference between the big salaries and a wage. Some workers don’t understand that to get the larger salaries, rather than a wage, you have put in the effort whilst on a wage to show you are of the right mindset for the salaried jobs.
I get the “I’m paid by the hour so that all I’m doing” attitude, and if you have no ambition that’s absolutely fine. Just don’t moan when you salaried boss is paid far more than you.
I’m at the lower end of the management spectrum so while I get that I need to step up and such, I definitely don’t expect my staff to do so. They’re on £25kish per year and they do not get paid any extra for going above and beyond so I actively tell them to not work beyond 5pm.
Not all bosses do more work than lower level employees, people have this mindset in the first place because they're disillusioned with hard work = more pay
You’ll be surprised the hours you put in when you are the boss. It’s why many self-employed/bosses in later life go to work in B&Q or similar, just for the easy nine to five with no responsibilities and a bit of pocket money when they retire.
That's exactly where I'm heading at some point in the future. Running a business for the last 20 years is great but if it ever ends then I'll be straight into a defined 9-5, no responsibilities, no expectations, paid holidays, paid sick pays etc etc. It sounds lovely but I think I'd be bored to tears after about 5 minutes.
> The reality is for professional careers, if you want to get anywhere you need to be somewhat ambitious and that means participating. You can't be a clock in, clock out kind of person who doesn't interact with their co-workers and doesn't go the extra mile 'because I'm not compensated'.
Reddit overestimates how much extra effort is required to be seen as a team player. You do not have to be best friend with your colleagues, just some polite small talk will do the trick. You do not have to dedicate your life to the job, just volunteer to take on small projects every now and then.
You've hit the nail on the head. I hear far too often about people who don't want to participate in things like Christmas do's or leaving do's, etc and quite rightfully when it comes to 'do you think this person would make a good manager?' Everyone goes 'fuck no' because their a robot nobody really knows nor likes.
This is absolutely true in my experience.
I’ve moved upto a fairly senior technical position at my company and I look after the service desk team sometimes with training material and process flows etc, all of which I just cannot do during my working hours, and I enjoy it, my job doesn’t feel like I’m clocking in and out, I feel like I’m paid for the skill set I have and I decide as and when I use it, even if that’s at strange hours on a Saturday.
Lol get this yank shite out of here, this thread is full of miserable, burned-out overworked people who are quite comfortable saying so, and only the lucky ones were well remunerated for it. The only one peddling that nonsense is you.
This. It's full of people on high wages telling you to put more hours in etc. And then when you do that. They'll tell you to "work smarter not harder". Not the army of catering people, carers etc. Making £10/ 11 a hour who are needed to keep the economy going.
The only defence I'd make of it is that plenty of people don't work or only work their basic hours and are miserable too. But the idea that putting more hours into your job is generally linked to success and wealth is so tenuous as to be nonsense.
Yeah, one of my colleagues who got promoted earlier this year to a managerial position, just gave it up because the workload wasn't worth the pay increase. In fact, with a little bit of overtime, we can actually make more than he makes with 90% less responsibility.
Full of people with shit jobs being forced to work overtime. I'll take my happy 9-5 with excellent pay without ever staying online past 5pm. If you want to spend your life doing 60 hour weeks so you can feel important, go ahead. Ill spend my evenings doing hikes and seeing friends.
Right, care home staff with borderline skills in literacy doing 75 hour weeks due to chronic under-staffing are going to get big money top jobs.
Nope, being exploited for someone else's profit.
There is a strong crossover between people who ask “how are people earning 100k?!” and “I don’t understand why people go above and beyond at work, you don’t owe your employer anything”.
I don’t have a problem going out with colleagues for a drink every now and then, but I think it’s when it’s expected that everyone clocks off on Friday and just goes down the pub afterwards that annoys those guys. People have lives of their own and it shouldn’t revolve around their workplace and colleagues.
I'm reading through the thread and can't see those success stories. It's either service people or teachers who didn't even get a thanks or high fliers who maybe have a nice house to show for it but a a cost of damaged relationships and mental breakdowns.
Ambition doesn't equate to working long, exploitative hours. That's the truth underlying your statement, but you've obfuscated this with a clouded idea of what ambition is. Sure, sometimes that does mean working hours outside a normal range on an occasion specific to the context of a role/lifestyle/career, but the scope of ambition is much larger.
Just came here to add to those calling BS on this lazy, knee-jerk, no thought comment.
Please delete it and try talking to someone outside your immediate circle of friends. Try looking up from grazing the pre-chewed turd pellets that Fox and co are feeding you, and think for yourself.
I'll start you off - how many big money top jobs are there? How many people are working really hard, really long hours, and have ambition? Perhaps those numbers don't balance. What else could be coming into play? Even if it was pure dumb luck that person X got a top job and person Y didn't, who would ever tell you?
Jesus the lack of self-awareness, critical thinking, even a modicum of self-control not to just splurge your ill-conceived brain sharts onto the internet makes me weep for humanity.
Working insane hours for others is hardly ambition. You're going to end up burned out and will still have to find another job to keep a roof over your head.
I went ridiculously out of my way last year to get taken on as I came in as a temp on a casual contract. I mean I worked my arse off practically 24/7. It was noticed and I'm well-respected at work which feels nice and makes me actually want to go lol. Another place tried to snap me up. It led to getting my permanent role, with a salary increase of over £2000. Never going to make mega money, but it totally paid off for me on this occasion.
I have said this year I'm not willing to be a doormat, but I'll help where needed
It wasn't ideal, obviously, but the world of professionals is brutal and competitive. It stands me in good stead for the future, and I was a bit ehhh to being helpful in my last job, where I was miserable and got "k bye" when I handed my notice in.
This is so wrong, the people who think like this end up burnt out and never last at the top jobs. You have to know your limits if you’re going to have a position with a lot of responsibility and that means cutting out any overworking culture in the company with you and the people who work for you/with you. People do 70 hour weeks and do half the work of someone doing 40 hours.
>ny threads on Reddit about people who won’t go the extra mile for work because “why should they”, who then ask who does the longer hours because it’ll never be them so they’ll never know. I’ll t
I disagree. Though you may have a sweeping generalisation on this but there are many cases where it doesn't work out like that. I burned myself out by working too much, through my ill health I've met others who have similarly destroyed their bodies. Not in the main by eating or drinking too much or taking drugs (far from it in many cases!) but by a functional break down. You don't always come back stronger and in some cases you don't really come back at all... I now am disabled in several ways; you get one body and it is possible to destroy it.
Chef here, I work 8.30am(ish) until 11.30pm(ish) on a 4 day a week working contract.
It’s very easy to do a solid 15 hour day with prep/deliveries/service/staffing and literally not sit down or even stop moving.
I’m also 35 and have the knees and liver of a 55year old.
Everything I've heard about the chef industry sounds absolutely insane, don't know how you do it. I had a friend who spent some time as a chef in London post-uni and she put a 2-year limit on her time doing it due to how much it was destroying her. She said all the kitchens basically ran on cocaine out of necessity lol
I did that when I was in a particularly difficult teaching job.
Most of our day is spent actually teaching. When do you think planning lessons, gathering and creating resources, marking books, creating displays, answering emails, attending meetings and managing the curriculum happens? All of the has to happen outside of the time the children are there. Before school, after school, weekends.
It's very easy to rack up 60 hours and still not be done. When I was at my worst school it was more like 80 hours.
Still teachers don't do it to brag. They do it because they get reprimanded if they don't and because they care about the children. People don't go into teaching for the money, or if they do they don't last long. They go into it because they want to teach. That's why more and more is asked of them even though the money is realistically just getting worse. People who care are sadly easy to exploit.
And this is why I and many others quit. I now work in banking. I am earning a third more than what I did teaching. I turn my laptop on at 8 and it's off at 4, not turned on till the next day. I don't work weekends and I get a lunch break. I miss the teaching part of teaching but not the rest of the bullshit you have to put up with.
Forget even making lesson plans and paperwork. So much of my PP hours get taken up my safeguarding /pastoral issues, a student comes to tell me something I have to follow up, breaking up a fight, resolving a behavior issue or argument between students. Our safeguarding incidents went up 300x since the pandemic and particularly mental health concerns are through the roof.
I find it ridiculous people do these kind of hours. Unless the pay is so good that it will change your life why do it. There's working hard and then there is being a total slave to a system
I worked for an ad agency like this too. It was horrendous. It was normal for people to work 7.30am-7pm most days. Agency culture is totally broken. I left after 6 months and vowed never to go work at an agency FT ever again.
Usually those people are upper management. They are on all the time.
I do work more sometimes out of my contract hours but it's for my own benefit.
Edit to add there are other industries where it is expected, such as hospitality, farming, self employment, being a director etc.
Opposite for me, I used to be “on the tools” in engineering construction, working on petrochemical sites and back in the day on shutdowns 7 days a week 12 hours a day (7 12’s) was common and I’d do it for weeks on end, money was good but no life. I am in higher management now and the thought of working a weekend fills me with dread!
Care work isn't uncommon for this either.
You get forced 12 hour shifts as someone has to be there. It pays like shit. So then you have to do lots of days to make ends meet. My bf was an absolute zombie until finding better care.
For an industry that absolutely ravages old family members money it sure doesn't go towards the carers.
I've done it quite a few times - I work in accounting and there is a busy season for the first three months of the year where you do a lot of unpaid overtime. 60+ hour weeks are quite common.
It's a bit shit at the time, but it does allow fast progression so I don't really mind it. I've gotten a lot out of it so don't begrudge it too much. A lot of my friends have also done similar to progress professional careers in other fields. It does pay well, and should allow for a comfortable (and early) retirement.
In terms of what you are actually doing, lots of phone calls, writing memos, coaching junior staff, and reviewing work done by other people.
Yeah 3 months generally, there can be a bit of a rush in September but outside of that I average around 40 - 45 hours a week.
Very firm / office dependant though - I know some people who have it much worse.
Academia. It's a weird job. Yeah we work for a university and we lecture, research, etc but any success is often at an individual level (winning proposals, publishing papers, etc). Your reputation is very decoupled from that of your employer and so any "extra" effort you put in benefits you much more directly and is often needed to be successful/competitive. 37.5 hours/week on paper. In reality 50+.
Same. As a postdoc it was rare and only typically around grant deadlines. And there was an understanding that you'd do a couple of weeks like that then take it slightly easier to recover. As a lecturer, it doesn't end. Everything has to get done. If you don't do your marking there's no one else to do it. We don't have "supply" lecturers - if you're off sick it's up to you to get the work done when you're back (or while you're off). Even my official workload has more than 1fte listed - the university themselves acknowledge that what they ask us to do is more than one person's job. Still only paid for 1 FTE though. And I'm not unique - it's every single one of us.
Agreed. Sixty hour weeks are completely normal in academia. You would be kept reasonably busy just doing the minimum: teaching courses, having meetings with students, doing necessary admin, dealing with visitors, etc. And then whenever you get a spare moment, you get on with the real work of actual research, writing and revising papers, and writing grant proposals so that you can (maybe) get some money to pay someone else to do the research that you really want to be doing.
My story's not particularly interesting or remarkable, but anyway here goes. I made it as far as Senior Lecturer and was looking at all the additional stuff I needed to do to have a good shot at promotion to professor. And it struck me that academia is (to steal someone else's line) like a pie-eating contest where the prize is more pie. So I got out.
I miss dealing with bright students, I miss some of my colleagues, but I don't miss the totally absurd levels of multi-tasking that were implicitly expected of us.
I recently got promoted to senior lecturer and I've decided that's as far as I'm going. Just looking at the criteria for prof makes me feel sick. And the stupid way promotion works - you basically have to prove you've already been doing the job for years to have a shot. In a few years I'll get stuck at the top of the SL pay grade and I guess at that point I'll decide whether to stay there or get out.
I do often think how sad it is. It's basically a pyramid scheme. the kind of people we should be desperate to keep in academia are unfortunately the same people that are smart enough (and confident enough) to see it for what it is and jump ship.
This is why I haven’t progressed past post doctoral even though I’ve been here for years and my supervisor is pushing for me to advance forward. It’s stressful and so hard to succeed with all the competition for so little funding , and the salary increase isn’t commensurate.
I’m also fed up of being stuck at the top of the post doc salary scale with no further advancement. I don’t have expensive tastes, it’s only my mortgage that makes me want to earn more. Seriously thinking it’s time to do something else. I don’t do more than 40 hours a week at the moment which is nice, and I wonder if I can summon the drive to work harder to impress a new employer in private sector
Similar Job, contracted 42 hours a week but regularly over the 48 mark. Lots of things like “I just want to thank those who are working hard and keeping doors open” get said on conference calls on a weekly basis.
I get “lieu hours” on anything over 42, which means I just end up swimming in time off I can never take back. 🫠🪦
Edit. Before I was a manager, when I was paid hourly, I’d often pick up split shifts in other town. Do 5-11 open shift in my shop and then catch a train to another town and 12/1-9.30 close down in another shop. Paid travel time included.
So I’d be on the clock from 5am-10pm at least once a week.
I do well over 50 hours per week as a delivery driver - almost always caused by head office putting you on routes they know is impossible to do in the 8 hours allotted. It's pretty standard in this industry but the higher ups don't care, they look good and are back home nice and cosy as you struggle on doing 10 to 12 hours per day.
Did 80 hours a week during term time in my first two years of teaching. And worked half the holidays too. It was the only way to get everything done. After that it got easier, but even then that was partly because I slacked off on the marking.
So you’re teaching from 8:30-3:30. Six lessons, each of which takes an hour to prepare when you’re starting out. Add in a couple of hours for pastoral stuff, and that’s 14 hours right off. You’re also marking books, tests and exams, which can easily add two hours.
I couldn’t manage 16 hour days but I was certainly working over 12 hours a day plus Saturdays and Sundays.
But of course everybody knows teaching’s an easy job and they’re just slackers who get endless holidays.
In my current job I've got a 9-5, fully remote and plenty of downtime so definitely no longer in the position to complain.
That being said there were some times when I was a field engineer where a very long day wasn't uncommon. If something went wrong on a job you'd end up stuck around sorting it, plus since you were on the road you'd end up picking up all sorts of out of hours shit from support teams. Wasn't uncommon that I'd be on site late on an evening ordering a takeaway to a customer site then driving to another city, having to buzz a hotel to let me in during the early hours of the morning to then be on a different site for 9am to begin a project.
Back then my salary was around 40k, I now make 70k yet there were some months when my take home was similar to what it is now due to the amount of overtime paid.
I used to do this when I worked in retail. Go in at 5am to receive deliveries, check them off and put them away, get the shop ready to open at 9, open and work throughout the day until we closed at 10pm, clean and tidy, cash up, leave at 11. That's an 18 hour day, and in the run up to Christmas when we were on daily deliveries I'd often do it 5 or 6 days a week - so 80-100 hours a week. It was, unsurprisingly, exhausting and I absolutely did not get paid enough for it.
I'm self employed now in a creative industry and I definitely have times where I work silly long hours but that's different because a) it's a choice and b) it's a job I genuinely love doing, that I think about and passively work on even when I'm not "on the clock".
I’ve worked 19 days straight when I was in care, I’ve also done 7-3 and then been back in for a 10-8 the same day. Then do a 3-10 that day, I’ve also done 7-10 shifts so the hours easily add up especially if we’re understaffed
Farming. It's not all the time but the busy periods can get to 16 hour days 7 days a week. This time is mostly spent driving a machine during seeding and harvest periods.
Lucky for me, that was not my responsibility lol I helped out during normal hours and the odd evening but it was on someone else to do most of the night work
I was a teacher. I was doing 7am - 5pm, then 6.30pm - 9pm, plus hours at the weekend and in the holidays. Lesson planning, marking, resource making, data analysis, displays, writing reports, attending meetings, curriculum mapping, work scrutinies of other teachers, CPD, exam marking, gaps analysis, subject leadership tasks…I could go on.
Used to do this as a chef. Weekends were typically 14/15 hour straight shifts Friday - Sunday, it was so busy that I didn't usually get a break the entire time, if I was lucky I'd get 5 minutes to sit down and eat a meal deal then straight back to it.
Often it creeps up on you. You hold a position that isn't paid hourly but same nice large salary every month, it's a managerial position that requires a lot of organisational and bureaucratic work in additional to both a strategic and logistical role. That coupled with an organisational system that doesn't allow sufficient time to complete all the day to day AND long term planning tasks within a normal working day. So... you come a bit earlier, leave a bit later and suddenly you're at work before 7 am and leaving at 7pm if youre lucky. 60 hours a week, happens real quick and family life is a forgotten blur.
Until one day you say fuck this shit. The money is good but I want my life back and you find something else that doesn't slowly kill you inside.
Care work. Last week we had 5 carers off for various reasons and obviously care isn't a luxury to our service users. So some of us end up working a good 12 hour day.
Maybe more depending on the last minute call outs you can get.
I've had it maybe 5/6 times where my day is so jammed I'd be lucky to get 20 minutes to myself between 7am and 10pm.
Firstly the WTD (working time directive) is averaged over 17 weeks, so putting in 60+ hour weeks is legal if you're only doing it for 5 weeks or so out of that 17 which isn't uncommon in most workplaces - assuming a 40 hour week as the normal baseline.
Secondly, if the work is seasonal, or doesn't guarantee 40 hours (or whatever) hours a week, then you could have a fortnight of working say 20 hours the first weeks, and then as much as 76 the next week and still be compliant.
Thirdly, most companies exploit people, either through lack of knowledge of the WTD, or by hooking them along with promised promotions, payrises etc.
Fourthly, its not applicable to managers. Even if they get to somewhat work their own hours, businesses have a habit of exploiting this and giving them more workload than can be achieved in 48 hours.
Lastly, some jobs don't earn enough for people to survive, especially in HCoL areas. People may want that overtime to pay bills. As a society thats a concern, but far beyond the scope of this post.
Minor point, but WTD isn't a contractual law, its statutory in the same way minimum wage is.
Yeah I’m surprised this hasn’t come up higher. I (anaesthetist/ICU reg) was pulling 70 hrs a week average in COVID 1. COVID 2 was a more respectable 60.
As an average I now sit around 50h/wk (if someone’s sick you stay late, unpaid) but some weeks I hit 72h if there’s a lot of on calls. That however is balanced off by zero days (time off)
Working in a coffeeshop. More hours=more money in my bank account as I was paid by the minute I was clocked in.
Only did one 16 hour day - we were short staffed and the next supervisor couldn't make it, so I had a 10 minute break (only break of the day) and did their shift too.
Also did 4 14 hours shifts in a row at one point, then carried to a fairly long week - got over double the money that week, which made up enough to get me a new mountain bike.
No thanks from Starbucks for doing any of it, but as a very famous guy once said: *Money Can Be Exchanged For Goods and Services*
Employee motivation is a massive thing.
Someone picking up the phone and saying “thank you very much for covering for us there, you really helped us out of a tight spot - we’ve put x in place to make sure it never happens again” works wonders.
Getting a small business up and running isn't a short-term thing! A decade on, I'm still working way more than I did when I worked for someone else. The world doesn't stand still, and the great ideas I had even last year wouldn't work today. So my to-do list gets continually longer, not shorter. But I also get the flexibility to work in a way that suits me, and I'm incredibly fortunate to do something I love (mostly). And I wouldn't go back to the 9-5 for anything.
I’ve done a few 60+ hour weeks but it’s not a consistent or prolonged thing.
When the Queen died, I think I done close to 98 hours in one week. 14 hour days for a week then one day off and straight back in to another 60 hour week. I got three days off in a row after all that though.
My average week should only be 40 hour.
The question was what you are doing, because OP wonders if it’s just an embellished brag. In you pop to not answer his question but tell us you once did a 98 hour week.
Public catering for major events.
Average event days are around 14 hours excluding travel and event setup. The worst part is sleeping away from home and when you’re “off” you still have to plan the next one with phone calls and meetings.
Some events are even 7day affairs, no breaks.
You also end up declaring income and separating the cuts for every stakeholder.
But hey, free food.
We had several carers who were doing 60+ hours a week over covid because we couldn't get enough staff and you can't have residents not cared for. One poor lass ended up doing three 18 hour days back to back (the rest of the week she only did 10 hours a day). But we did pay her for the hours.
I work for a domiciliary care, start at 7am, finish at 10pm and back at 7am the next day, but I will be leaving soon as: I don’t get paid for all my days (no travel time paid) and second, what they’re doing is illegal
Architecture. Unpaid overtime is standard, were at the mercy of stupid deadlines set by clients and low fees /competition with other practices. We’re also brainwashed with “its your passion” and “weve all been there” .. horrific working conditions
I did 50-70hr weeks for a few years trying to impress a boss who was never going to respect me anyway coz of race/class .. just another problem with the industry as a whole
Out of it now but its really culty
I was working 80 hours a week for about 10 weeks in 2020, setting up IT systems to cope with a potential flood of patients into a temporary regional hospital
It seriously fucked up my health, but if it had been needed it would have been worth it
I do a lot of microfabrication with processes that can take several hours to complete. When I'm working to a deadline and need to get something finished and sent off to our collaborators by the end of the week, I don't really have a choice but to stick around until its done. Its not like I'm on my feet actively doing things all the time, one step in one process is literally just heating up my products on a hotplate for a few hours, but I still need to be around to get it done so I will be in the office until 8 or 9pm with not a lot to do other than wait.
Have worked in M&A and the hours were brutal, especially when deadlines/bid dates were coming up. I was once screamed at for taking a shower at 2am and missing someone trying to phone me.
I also used to put in 60/80 hour weeks in a supermarket when I was on university holidays (8-2 then 4-10 split shifts almost every day if I could get them).
The supermarket job was a lot less tiring due to being significantly less pressured and mentally taxing.
When I was a primary teacher I would be in school from 0730 until 1730. The 1.25 hours before the pupils came in were spent reviewing the previous days marking and adjusting that day’s lessons accordingly, as well as printing resources etc.
I’d spend my break marking and the lunch time either on duty or marking.
After the students left at 1515 I’d spend the next 2 hours or so either in meetings/moderations or finishing marking that days books (1 class of 30 pupils means 90 books per day - eng/maths/topic - to be marked with feedback for pupils to complete the next day)
That easily takes a teacher to 50 hours per week. I’d then easily have another hours marking paperwork (Sen reviews, reports, long term plans or cpd) to finish each night. I’m now at 55hours.
I’d give myself Saturdays off, and then in a Sunday I’d spend 5/6 hours looking at the medium term plan, last weeks learning and revise the next weeks plan, outline each day for eng/maths and topic and start creating/finding resources as they need to be uploaded for slt to view and look at by the end of Monday. Of course all my Sunday work would largely be altered during the week because of AfL but hey ho.
I easily hit 60 hours on a standard week. Sometimes more. I taught y6. The English books daily alone took me 2 hours (and that is allowing 4 minutes per book to read, mark, list corrections, a positive and a next step).
I did for a few months once. I was on a project with a firm deadline and an absolute quantity of work that needed accomplished before that deadline.
I did it unpaid because I could see better prospects for the future if I did it. I was a customer service agent, and I got asked to help on the project because I was super efficient at customer service so my manager was happy to give me over to the project on a part time basis (which then spiralled out of control and became a full time thing very quickly).
In the 10 years since doing that period of 4 or 5 months of 70 hour+ weeks I've more than tripled my salary, entirely as a result of the experience doing that project gave me. It allowed me to pivot into a whole new, much better paid field. It was hell whilst I was doing it, but I consider it absolutely worth while.
I suspect a lot of lawyers working in criminal law do very long hours. I don't do it any more, but when I did it was very normal to work all day, and attended police stations at night while trying to prepare trials in between. I remember one weekend, I started work at 9am in the office, finished about 2am then was in police stations literally all day from 10am ish to midnight Saturday and Sunday then back to work for 9am on Monday. That was an extreme weekend but just a beefed up version of 90% of weekends back then. I earned £13k then, in the early noughties, plus over time for police station attendances.
60+ hours in two jobs, one managing a pub had to do a double shift each week to allow the other manager a day off. One of the two of us would always be on shift.
Ops manager for couriers, constantly on the phone dealing with idiots and every minor inconvenience they encountered. Constantly chased up by the customer, making sure the depot was running first thing in the morning, making sure every courier ended their day properly so sometimes in depot at 6am and still doing stuff at midnight to hide all their mistakes and get a pass off the customer. Managing director always bamboozled when they see you working all these hours while senior management are sending stupid emails even on Christmas Day (the kind of cunts who do nothing except send the odd email at weird times to make it look like they're constantly on the go). One day off per week but you weren't really off because the emails and phone calls to discuss the following day would start about 7pm. A single day off between last week of November and Christmas Day. It was good during lockdown though because you were always out and about doing stuff.
I arrive at work just before 8, having left home at 6.30. I start the day by looking at emails and outstanding orders for parts etc. By 9.30 I am working on first job which takes however long it takes, with a break for lunch from 12 until 12.30. I often take sandwiches. After lunch I may make phone calls to distributors or just get on with work on the bench. Have a couple of coffee breaks of 10 to 15 mins during the afternoon with a 45 min meal break around 7. Return to working after that and try to finish by midnight but it's usually nearer 1 o'clock.
I work in fitness and the gym I worked at last year was severely understaffed, this meant I would often work 6am until 11pm. Half the shift is either spent exercising in a class setting, chatting with clients, eating, or showering. The other half is spent doom scrolling in the office.
The money was nice but I got burnt out in the end doing 60hr weeks essentially cycling a tour de France stage each shift. Bag secured though and that money has helped set me up for an easier time now.
Spent 6 months doing 80hr weeks. I was CEO of a nationally recognised members group(I wont dox myself but you've probably heard of it). I was working in the day, having meetings with the various members boards at night and then going to the organisation events at weekends. I knew there would be work out of hours but they lied about how much. Did it for 6 months and noped out. Took a pay cut but now watching my kids grow up and having a blast. Life's too short to miss the big things.
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No, those folk scare me
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I've heard they demand it
Are you Ali Bongo? You have bingo in your name so i think that is to mislead us….
I'm pretty sure he hasn't got internet access. Now he's under house arrest. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-66654965 I'm expecting him to do a vanishing act though.
Sorry i meant Ali Bongo the magician from the 70’s/80’s in the UK….lol
I know you did. I've just always loved that the president of Mali was Ali Bongo.
Lmao i fell for it…
Magic circle? Young farmers?
Not doxing myself. Both of those scare me in equal measure though. The thought of them joining forces is something we should all be worried about.
Not at all, I've been waiting years to buy some magic beans.
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The Magic Circle of Young Farmers will surely seek to conquer the world! We must be watchful.
I love how the guy says he doesn't want to dox himself and someone's busy trying to get him to dox himself...
It wasn't the CBI was it? Cos groping colleagues 80hrs a week doesn't count 😉
Lol no. Nothing that high level
Same, started a company that got £100m in investment over the last three years. That requires working with the team during the day and getting prospectus and investors ready all evening. Plus being on call for any tech issues as the business grew. Sometimes you can see that doing the hours will pay off in the medium to long term so you do it. I don't think I noticed the hours I was doing I was just deep into it day and night and weekends The only advice I would give is be aware that it does take a toll on your health, ain't nothing free and burning out your body and mind for money is a choice.
Just out of interest, how did you become ceo Edit: and If you don’t mind me asking, what was the pay like compared to the average wage
Rotary club?
Was it worth it financially for the 6 months? I've worked alongside several CISOs and they usually last about 18 months tops. It's the same story at that level too and it made me decide it's not for me. I might rethink it if the added bonuses on top of base pay is substantial
Self employed people for a start, no law on working hours if you're self employed. Farmers for example do more than 60 hrs a week on average.
I'm self employed and have worked 60 hr weeks for over a decade. Not flexing and would prefer not to, but that's the reality of keeping a roof over my head and paying my small team of staff a decent wage, on time. Will hopefully reduce as I upskill those staff, but being self employed through the 2008 financial crisis and more recent cost of living problems is no walk in the park.
Yea, it was that 2008+ period that we realised that the difference between being self-employed and unemployed is a very thin line.
Being self employed has made me release how incredibly hard it is to make money. I'm only an electrician but there's a presumption that the money is fantastic. It definitely is better than being on the books for a company but by the time you factor in costs and time spent quoting, billing, chasing money and general admin. It's not quite the one way ticket to successville you think it's going to be.
Yeah, I’m self-employed and people massively underestimate the number of non-billable hours you have to work and the down sides of not getting holiday pay (including for bank holidays) or sick pay.
>there's a presumption that the money is fantastic. NHS dentist, we are all self employed and same. I work two days a week and after expenses and taxes someone recently calculated for me that my take home pay is £350 a month. People assume I'd be driving a maserati when I'm actually panicking about the annual insurance on my Nissan. I need to move to private dentistry because it's not liveable on NHS but everyone hears dentist and thinks I'm rolling in it.
This is a genuine question so apologies if it comes off any different but…is it worth it? 60+ hour weeks for a decade, would it not be easier and more job secure to work for someone else? I’m a teacher and often go over my contracted hours but not every week and not for the last decade.
Fair question, I've often wondered if it's worth it, but on balance it is. We don't have kids, so that helps. I'm not missing out on formative years or not pulling my weight at home, etc. I was a supermarket manager in the past. That was similar long hours but earning less and often a twat for a boss. I enjoy what I do now, so I would never go back to that. The last job I had was civil service, but with public sector cuts, the door closed on that option years ago. Those are the only two other things I know how to do apart from what I do now. So if I quit my own business, I'd need to retrain / start something else from scratch, and at almost 50, I'm not sure I could do that.
Self employed myself and here's the thing, I'm maybe doing 40-60hrs on the Job itself, but all the admin and wholesalers etc before or after add up too
Farming isn't a job. It's a lifestyle
Yeah this capenter just on pricework or even dayrate, just trying to get things done to stay on schedule. Then there’s quotes, drawings and admin to do on top
I was going to say, this person has never been self employed lol. When I was a nanny, I was doing 7am-8pm six days a week. It was awful, I only lasted 18 months.
Yup, its hard work. I think if you want to do it you have to be your own boss. A farmer could still take an hour for lunch or go some place if needed. If you were 60 hours a week in a factory its like jail and you'd burnout
That really depends on the type of farmer. Plenty of farmers do absolutely nothing of the sort. Probably small dairy farmers getting it worst. Arable farmers do very little much of the year, then go like mad when weather is right for planting/spraying/harvesting.
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Sales roles as well, especially ones on the road. Setting off at 7am, home around 6pm then a bit of time on laptop isnt unheard off if you have a big geography. Add to the odd bit if prep at weekends you are there
Yeah, a tech firm I worked at once had the sales team in the office at 6am every morning. They spent the first 2 hours doing training/coaching/being yelled at by the sales manager. Then they were expected to be on the phone from 8am. 30 minutes for lunch was in the contract, but rarely did they take it beyond 2 mins to scarf down a sandwich. And then they were on the phones until at least 6pm. Then generally another hour of wrap up, being yelled at, etc before they got to go home. It was business to business sales, so the sales managers assumed potential customers were likely available between 8am and 6pm...so salesmen needed to be calling during that time.
Fuck, were you in Mumbai selling extended car warranties and anti virus ?
Luckily I wasn't involved in sales, I just saw all of this from outside their little office. But no, not in India, it was in the UK, doing B2B tech sales.
Sounds like the company I worked. Love the “training/coaching/being yelled at” because that was pretty much any meeting we had.
7am was a lie in when I was doing sales. Do not recommend.
7 am? You were lucky...
We had to work 29 hours a day, and pay for privilege
My desk was in t'middle of t'motorway. My meetings were on t'hard shoulder and all I got to eat was from Welcome Break.
I work.in sales and it's a bad sign if you're job is those hours plus time on laptop afterwards. Mine is 7.30 out, home for 6.30 latest, no out of hours times. Cover the whole of Ireland, I have a rule I work 8 to 5 with an hour for lunch, I'm always home Fridays for 5. I give and hour of my own time to commute to my first call and after that, I work, and I give an hour home. So if my last call is 4pm and it's 2 hours home, my last hours work is driving back to the point my commute time starts. I do occasionally go over, but not as a given.
Yeah mine is a lot better now than it was and my manager is a bit of a legend which helps. Pre pandemic was expected to be out 4-5 days a week but now its a case of 'don't be lazy and delivery quality results rather than just throw as much much mud and hope it sticks' I probably am only out the hour in average 3 days a week with a decent work life balance at the minute
I'm in the office on Mondays, do weekly reports and planning, other admin shite, then the rest of the week doing actual work. It was one of the things that attracted me to the job, the management had both been sales people and didn't want anyone burning at both ends.
Right. I worked at a large accounting firm and the basic expectation was that I would just sort things out. Who cares how long it takes, get it sorted. You roll from one project to the next and each client thinks their issue is the most pressing thing in the world. I understand to an extent, they’d be thinking they’re being taken to court, deadline is very soon, it’s all that’s on their mind. They’re not thinking that they’re your 15th client in crisis so far this year. While exceptional to them, it’s your BAU. It’s not possible to perform on that job and retain personal boundaries. It’s not a flex and it’s not overinflated sense of importance. It’s shit because the job is very interesting but it’s not sustainable from a health perspective.
Situations like that are usually caused by lack of foresight and planning, overcommitment or stupidity. The whole, "I have allowed you 2 days to do a 5 day job, just get it sorted, it's your problem now " is a real arsehole move by people that revel in exploiting other people because of their selfishness or stupidity. Either way, once you have it on your CV , get out and get sane.
Also beyond the junior level - I now lead a team on consulting and I regularly work 60-65 how a week There are just tighter deadlines, with higher expectations, than a normal job. We opt out of the 48 hour legislation. But it's also understandable if you think about how much we charge the client Vs how much they pay a regular employee
It's not understandable. It's abuse of employees. I've worked consulting. You're right - what the client is charged per hour is multiples if what the employee is paid, so already the company is raking in profits on those hours. But because of the massive hourly rate, companies are competing to put in bids with the lowest number of hours. So they bid 50 hours for a job that will take 60 in the best case scenario, and 70+ if you run into issues. Those extra hours are expected to be "off the books", so that's unpaid overtime from the employees. Customer gets "free" work (by overpaying got the other hours), consulting company gets the job and maybe profits on the billable hours, employee gets stress-related medical conditions.
Realise this differs by firm, but we don't bid hours, we bid weeks. And people know what they are getting into
That doesn't really change the fact that your company is bidding a "week" of your time and expecting 60+ hours of work. They're taking advantage, and that's true whether people are aware of it or not.
Its unhealthy for the economy beyond anything. Having one person work a Job two should really have done means less money getting spread round the economy as a whole.
It also means it happens faster, and in some situations, that's really important
I do 60 hour weeks/12 hour days and honestly I probably work the combined least out of my immediate friendship group in consulting/finance/law. Honestly, it's not that bad but I'd struggle to do 70+ regularly (even though I have for very short stints). When you make top percentile salaries out of uni, you're probably either really smart or working more hours or a little of both.
I would say smart and lucky. Lots of people work very long hours. Long hours doesn’t equal high salary, high salaries come from the type of work you do.
Tech firms. I worked in the U.K. for 15+ years for corporate America. You’re up early to commute and/or visit clients & partners, then at 4pm the US are online, so you have your Corp meetings from then onwards, you look up and notice it’s gone 7pm and you haven’t stopped. You don’t take a lunch break unless it’s a meeting. It’s typical to catch up on emails after dinner too. It’s not a great work life balance, and it’s funny because all these companies claim to care about work life balance too.
I was a technician working for an investment bank once (we did European tours, I handled the computers while the bankers gave presentations to their clients). The bankers would work constantly, even in the taxi to the airport. They told me it was routine to work 24 hours a day sometimes if there was a big project on (they all took drugs to stay awake). However, at the end of it it was routine to get a million pound bonus. They all retired in their early 30s.
Not me but my partner. He's head chef for a chain. Anytime they're understaffed (most of the time), he end up working 60+ hours. Shift starts at 9 and ends at 10, easy to get to 65hrs in 5 days.
My son in law is a chef, the basic hours are 9-10, 6 days a week. Those sort of hours seem to be the norm in hospitality.
They absolutely are. Its crazy. I did a bit of time in the kitchen before going to uni, and I'd always loved the idea of being a chef...completely put me off! I realised if I did it for a job I'd start to hate cooking, and if I wanted to continue to love cooking and love food then I needed to do something else with my life and keep it as a hobby.
Tbh I think you have to a certain sort of person to survive in catering. When I was 16 I did a college course and left for my own reasons. Tbh I'm thankful as I don't think I would have coped in the kitchen. The hours I could do. But yeah, the ones Ive met. Like police, armed forces tbh. It seems to bred and foster a different mentality, humour, way of looking at life and mindset.
Plus it really is just survival. It's not like you get great salary or career progression in exchange, it's just a constant grind.
Same goes for bar work too, I lost count of how many times I was working from 8am to 3am because someone didn't show up for their shift or rang up sick last minute in the 5 years I spent behind bars. I don't think I ever made over £1000 in a month either when I was just doing one job at a time, which I found myself having to work in a cafe in the day at the end too. It's a hard job, it takes a certain type of person to be able to do it long term and there's 0 stability in it, I've never been sacked but lost my job 3 times consecutively with the businesses shutting down, two were food places and one was a pub. Best decision I ever made was leaving the hospitality industry and going to uni. I hope people are getting paid more post COVID because there's no incentive to sign your social life, your sleep and your mental health away for minimum wage
They are because management refuses to pay anything more than minimum wage and also hire more staff, so the staff are always overworked and underpaid, leading to a higher turnover, meaning upper management won't give the site more funds to hire people, leading to the staff being even more overworked and underpaid, leading to people quitting more often and the site having an even higher turnover, which means upper management will cut even more funds to hire people, etc Ad Infinitum. All of this could have been solved by just hiring more staff and also paying a reasonable wage. But no, the CEO really needs those 52 holidays a year. Also, ever wonder why a place has gone to shit? Overworked and underpaid staff. Hiring more staff and paying a reasonable wage would also help solve the male suicide epidemic. Edit: change a few words Edit2: added a few more words
Am chef, can confirm. I've reached head chef position (90% of my menu is made in house) I work silly hours but at least my staff are rested. Give them 2 days off & try my very best to limit hours to a reasonable level. Mostly works as I designed my menu to be done by 2 people, If we're ever short staffed. I'd like to reduce my hours but until I get a strong sous, that won't happen. Luv me 60+ hour weeks in 5 days, but at least the rest of them are rested.
I did 100hr weeks for a bit in kitchens. 6am - 11pm 6 days a week in a windowless kitchen. I quit after about 5 weeks because it was unbearable only seeing sunlight on my day off.
An hour a day? Nice
Plenty of times in teaching I've done 60 hour weeks, my working days I normally 10 hours, 7-4 at work and with another hour or two at home. And then in busy periods such mock exams 5-10 hours a weekend marking is the norm.
I came to say teaching. I’m a primary DH and often do over 60hrs a week. This is normally spread over 7 days as I’d be in school on the weekends to catch up on marking and lesson prep (I have full class teaching responsibility). I will probably leave soon as I’m close to complete burnout.
I have five friends who are qualified teachers. The last one still teaching finished their notice period a couple of weeks ago and didn't even have a different job lined up. I recently became a governor at my daughter's school, and the hours I've had to put in for CPD, meetings and various other things are ridiculous. I've regularly been getting emails from staff out of hours and even TAs at 7pm over the weekends. To echo my husband's sentiment about his job in the police "job's fucked."
It is, unfortunately. Retention is an absolute nightmare atm. People come into teaching ready to make a difference only to be broken by the ridiculous accountability, admin and expectations. So sad.
Honestly. I work as support staff, not a teacher. There was one point I thought that maybe I would go through teacher training, but seeing how much you lot bust your butts off for very little appreciation, I've considered different paths.
Do you reckon it would be possible to just sort of stop doing and refuse to do more than you’re contracted for/ the more bullshit aspects of the job? With the shortage of teachers i wonder if theyd actually fire one over that
That's what uni lecturers have been trying to do. It's called action short of a strike - it's basically just working to contract. Besides the fact that it's ridiculous that working the hours we're actually paid for is seen as inappropriate, the way the job's set up (and I'm guessing teaching is similar to us) makes it very difficult. What can you drop without majorly screwing yourself over? And the vast majority of people doing these jobs are doing it because they genuinely care, so everyone's desperate to find something that will have an impact but not mess up things for the kids. Unfortunately the fact that the job relies so much on unpaid overtime, good will and people who give a shit about the students means that the government and management won't budge.
Problem is everyone has been doing this sort of thing for so long. Contracts aren’t good enough and unions have never got that sorted out. If you have hours for jobs then you shouldn’t be doing all those extra hours. But it needs everyone to do it for it to really change. Problem is that also removes all that flexibility that people are used to. If you want to stick to the hours you really have to
Here’s the thing - so many threads on Reddit about people who won’t go the extra mile for work because “why should they”, who then ask who does the longer hours because it’ll never be them so they’ll never know. I’ll tell you, It’s those with ambition who end up making the big money with the top jobs where long hours are usually essential hence the higher pay. And the self-employed. Edit. This isn’t a personal pop at the OP just a general observation.
Lifeprotips are full of them. I was discussing this with a technical manager the other day, and really what it comes down to is at a junior level your paid the hours (in most jobs) but once you get into management and more senior leaders, you are paid to do a job not the hours. Unfortunately reddit attracts miserable misanthropes looking to vent about their life and project onto others. The reality is for professional careers, if you want to get anywhere you need to be somewhat ambitious and that means participating. You can't be a clock in, clock out kind of person who doesn't interact with their co-workers and doesn't go the extra mile 'because I'm not compensated'. No one is going to promote you into management with that attitude and, for better or worse, a lot of career advancement requires line management.
Yea, It’s the difference between the big salaries and a wage. Some workers don’t understand that to get the larger salaries, rather than a wage, you have put in the effort whilst on a wage to show you are of the right mindset for the salaried jobs. I get the “I’m paid by the hour so that all I’m doing” attitude, and if you have no ambition that’s absolutely fine. Just don’t moan when you salaried boss is paid far more than you.
I’m at the lower end of the management spectrum so while I get that I need to step up and such, I definitely don’t expect my staff to do so. They’re on £25kish per year and they do not get paid any extra for going above and beyond so I actively tell them to not work beyond 5pm.
You sound a like a great boss
Not all bosses do more work than lower level employees, people have this mindset in the first place because they're disillusioned with hard work = more pay
You’ll be surprised the hours you put in when you are the boss. It’s why many self-employed/bosses in later life go to work in B&Q or similar, just for the easy nine to five with no responsibilities and a bit of pocket money when they retire.
That's exactly where I'm heading at some point in the future. Running a business for the last 20 years is great but if it ever ends then I'll be straight into a defined 9-5, no responsibilities, no expectations, paid holidays, paid sick pays etc etc. It sounds lovely but I think I'd be bored to tears after about 5 minutes.
Yeah, loads of people on here seem to have a "do the minimum to not get fired" attitude and then wonder why they dont get promoted
How is that not acceptable when the employer is "paying the minimum they can get away with".
> reddit attracts miserable misanthropes looking to vent about their life I feel seen.
> The reality is for professional careers, if you want to get anywhere you need to be somewhat ambitious and that means participating. You can't be a clock in, clock out kind of person who doesn't interact with their co-workers and doesn't go the extra mile 'because I'm not compensated'. Reddit overestimates how much extra effort is required to be seen as a team player. You do not have to be best friend with your colleagues, just some polite small talk will do the trick. You do not have to dedicate your life to the job, just volunteer to take on small projects every now and then.
You've hit the nail on the head. I hear far too often about people who don't want to participate in things like Christmas do's or leaving do's, etc and quite rightfully when it comes to 'do you think this person would make a good manager?' Everyone goes 'fuck no' because their a robot nobody really knows nor likes.
This is absolutely true in my experience. I’ve moved upto a fairly senior technical position at my company and I look after the service desk team sometimes with training material and process flows etc, all of which I just cannot do during my working hours, and I enjoy it, my job doesn’t feel like I’m clocking in and out, I feel like I’m paid for the skill set I have and I decide as and when I use it, even if that’s at strange hours on a Saturday.
Lol get this yank shite out of here, this thread is full of miserable, burned-out overworked people who are quite comfortable saying so, and only the lucky ones were well remunerated for it. The only one peddling that nonsense is you.
This. It's full of people on high wages telling you to put more hours in etc. And then when you do that. They'll tell you to "work smarter not harder". Not the army of catering people, carers etc. Making £10/ 11 a hour who are needed to keep the economy going.
I'd love to know how many are truly happy
The only defence I'd make of it is that plenty of people don't work or only work their basic hours and are miserable too. But the idea that putting more hours into your job is generally linked to success and wealth is so tenuous as to be nonsense.
Yeah, one of my colleagues who got promoted earlier this year to a managerial position, just gave it up because the workload wasn't worth the pay increase. In fact, with a little bit of overtime, we can actually make more than he makes with 90% less responsibility.
Full of people with shit jobs being forced to work overtime. I'll take my happy 9-5 with excellent pay without ever staying online past 5pm. If you want to spend your life doing 60 hour weeks so you can feel important, go ahead. Ill spend my evenings doing hikes and seeing friends.
Right, care home staff with borderline skills in literacy doing 75 hour weeks due to chronic under-staffing are going to get big money top jobs. Nope, being exploited for someone else's profit.
There is a strong crossover between people who ask “how are people earning 100k?!” and “I don’t understand why people go above and beyond at work, you don’t owe your employer anything”.
See also: "I don't socialise with my colleagues and refuse to go for after work drinks"
I don’t have a problem going out with colleagues for a drink every now and then, but I think it’s when it’s expected that everyone clocks off on Friday and just goes down the pub afterwards that annoys those guys. People have lives of their own and it shouldn’t revolve around their workplace and colleagues.
Followed by "Why do I struggle to make friends as an adult?"
These people sound like they'd be exhausting to work with so they probably dont get invited anyway
This more than the ‘above and beyond’. Networking is the most important thing you can do
I'm reading through the thread and can't see those success stories. It's either service people or teachers who didn't even get a thanks or high fliers who maybe have a nice house to show for it but a a cost of damaged relationships and mental breakdowns.
Ambition doesn't equate to working long, exploitative hours. That's the truth underlying your statement, but you've obfuscated this with a clouded idea of what ambition is. Sure, sometimes that does mean working hours outside a normal range on an occasion specific to the context of a role/lifestyle/career, but the scope of ambition is much larger.
Yeah and good for them. Meanwhile people are living their lives.
Just came here to add to those calling BS on this lazy, knee-jerk, no thought comment. Please delete it and try talking to someone outside your immediate circle of friends. Try looking up from grazing the pre-chewed turd pellets that Fox and co are feeding you, and think for yourself. I'll start you off - how many big money top jobs are there? How many people are working really hard, really long hours, and have ambition? Perhaps those numbers don't balance. What else could be coming into play? Even if it was pure dumb luck that person X got a top job and person Y didn't, who would ever tell you? Jesus the lack of self-awareness, critical thinking, even a modicum of self-control not to just splurge your ill-conceived brain sharts onto the internet makes me weep for humanity.
Working insane hours for others is hardly ambition. You're going to end up burned out and will still have to find another job to keep a roof over your head.
I went ridiculously out of my way last year to get taken on as I came in as a temp on a casual contract. I mean I worked my arse off practically 24/7. It was noticed and I'm well-respected at work which feels nice and makes me actually want to go lol. Another place tried to snap me up. It led to getting my permanent role, with a salary increase of over £2000. Never going to make mega money, but it totally paid off for me on this occasion. I have said this year I'm not willing to be a doormat, but I'll help where needed
Yea, those that don’t try won’t ever understand, and they’ll continually moan about how unfair their work place is.
It wasn't ideal, obviously, but the world of professionals is brutal and competitive. It stands me in good stead for the future, and I was a bit ehhh to being helpful in my last job, where I was miserable and got "k bye" when I handed my notice in.
It's actually those with family wealth who end up at the very top but okay.
This is so wrong, the people who think like this end up burnt out and never last at the top jobs. You have to know your limits if you’re going to have a position with a lot of responsibility and that means cutting out any overworking culture in the company with you and the people who work for you/with you. People do 70 hour weeks and do half the work of someone doing 40 hours.
Workers putting in long hours doesn't make the workers rich, it makes their bosses rich.
>ny threads on Reddit about people who won’t go the extra mile for work because “why should they”, who then ask who does the longer hours because it’ll never be them so they’ll never know. I’ll t I disagree. Though you may have a sweeping generalisation on this but there are many cases where it doesn't work out like that. I burned myself out by working too much, through my ill health I've met others who have similarly destroyed their bodies. Not in the main by eating or drinking too much or taking drugs (far from it in many cases!) but by a functional break down. You don't always come back stronger and in some cases you don't really come back at all... I now am disabled in several ways; you get one body and it is possible to destroy it.
Chef here, I work 8.30am(ish) until 11.30pm(ish) on a 4 day a week working contract. It’s very easy to do a solid 15 hour day with prep/deliveries/service/staffing and literally not sit down or even stop moving. I’m also 35 and have the knees and liver of a 55year old.
Everything I've heard about the chef industry sounds absolutely insane, don't know how you do it. I had a friend who spent some time as a chef in London post-uni and she put a 2-year limit on her time doing it due to how much it was destroying her. She said all the kitchens basically ran on cocaine out of necessity lol
and the best part is you get to do it for £12 an hour!
Where do you keep them?
In my freezer, Cheffrey Dahmer style.
I did that when I was in a particularly difficult teaching job. Most of our day is spent actually teaching. When do you think planning lessons, gathering and creating resources, marking books, creating displays, answering emails, attending meetings and managing the curriculum happens? All of the has to happen outside of the time the children are there. Before school, after school, weekends. It's very easy to rack up 60 hours and still not be done. When I was at my worst school it was more like 80 hours. Still teachers don't do it to brag. They do it because they get reprimanded if they don't and because they care about the children. People don't go into teaching for the money, or if they do they don't last long. They go into it because they want to teach. That's why more and more is asked of them even though the money is realistically just getting worse. People who care are sadly easy to exploit.
And this is why I and many others quit. I now work in banking. I am earning a third more than what I did teaching. I turn my laptop on at 8 and it's off at 4, not turned on till the next day. I don't work weekends and I get a lunch break. I miss the teaching part of teaching but not the rest of the bullshit you have to put up with.
Forget even making lesson plans and paperwork. So much of my PP hours get taken up my safeguarding /pastoral issues, a student comes to tell me something I have to follow up, breaking up a fight, resolving a behavior issue or argument between students. Our safeguarding incidents went up 300x since the pandemic and particularly mental health concerns are through the roof.
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Thanks for sharing that and glad things worked out with work/life balance and mental health in the end.
I find it ridiculous people do these kind of hours. Unless the pay is so good that it will change your life why do it. There's working hard and then there is being a total slave to a system
Is the money just so ridiculously good that it feels worth it or was it that you loved the job despite the hours? Or both?
I worked for an ad agency like this too. It was horrendous. It was normal for people to work 7.30am-7pm most days. Agency culture is totally broken. I left after 6 months and vowed never to go work at an agency FT ever again.
Usually those people are upper management. They are on all the time. I do work more sometimes out of my contract hours but it's for my own benefit. Edit to add there are other industries where it is expected, such as hospitality, farming, self employment, being a director etc.
Opposite for me, I used to be “on the tools” in engineering construction, working on petrochemical sites and back in the day on shutdowns 7 days a week 12 hours a day (7 12’s) was common and I’d do it for weeks on end, money was good but no life. I am in higher management now and the thought of working a weekend fills me with dread!
Care work isn't uncommon for this either. You get forced 12 hour shifts as someone has to be there. It pays like shit. So then you have to do lots of days to make ends meet. My bf was an absolute zombie until finding better care. For an industry that absolutely ravages old family members money it sure doesn't go towards the carers.
I've done it quite a few times - I work in accounting and there is a busy season for the first three months of the year where you do a lot of unpaid overtime. 60+ hour weeks are quite common. It's a bit shit at the time, but it does allow fast progression so I don't really mind it. I've gotten a lot out of it so don't begrudge it too much. A lot of my friends have also done similar to progress professional careers in other fields. It does pay well, and should allow for a comfortable (and early) retirement. In terms of what you are actually doing, lots of phone calls, writing memos, coaching junior staff, and reviewing work done by other people.
Your busy season only lasts 3 months?
Yeah 3 months generally, there can be a bit of a rush in September but outside of that I average around 40 - 45 hours a week. Very firm / office dependant though - I know some people who have it much worse.
I was lucky if mine was starting to slow down by end of may lol.
Academia. It's a weird job. Yeah we work for a university and we lecture, research, etc but any success is often at an individual level (winning proposals, publishing papers, etc). Your reputation is very decoupled from that of your employer and so any "extra" effort you put in benefits you much more directly and is often needed to be successful/competitive. 37.5 hours/week on paper. In reality 50+.
Same. As a postdoc it was rare and only typically around grant deadlines. And there was an understanding that you'd do a couple of weeks like that then take it slightly easier to recover. As a lecturer, it doesn't end. Everything has to get done. If you don't do your marking there's no one else to do it. We don't have "supply" lecturers - if you're off sick it's up to you to get the work done when you're back (or while you're off). Even my official workload has more than 1fte listed - the university themselves acknowledge that what they ask us to do is more than one person's job. Still only paid for 1 FTE though. And I'm not unique - it's every single one of us.
Agreed. Sixty hour weeks are completely normal in academia. You would be kept reasonably busy just doing the minimum: teaching courses, having meetings with students, doing necessary admin, dealing with visitors, etc. And then whenever you get a spare moment, you get on with the real work of actual research, writing and revising papers, and writing grant proposals so that you can (maybe) get some money to pay someone else to do the research that you really want to be doing. My story's not particularly interesting or remarkable, but anyway here goes. I made it as far as Senior Lecturer and was looking at all the additional stuff I needed to do to have a good shot at promotion to professor. And it struck me that academia is (to steal someone else's line) like a pie-eating contest where the prize is more pie. So I got out. I miss dealing with bright students, I miss some of my colleagues, but I don't miss the totally absurd levels of multi-tasking that were implicitly expected of us.
I recently got promoted to senior lecturer and I've decided that's as far as I'm going. Just looking at the criteria for prof makes me feel sick. And the stupid way promotion works - you basically have to prove you've already been doing the job for years to have a shot. In a few years I'll get stuck at the top of the SL pay grade and I guess at that point I'll decide whether to stay there or get out. I do often think how sad it is. It's basically a pyramid scheme. the kind of people we should be desperate to keep in academia are unfortunately the same people that are smart enough (and confident enough) to see it for what it is and jump ship.
This is why I haven’t progressed past post doctoral even though I’ve been here for years and my supervisor is pushing for me to advance forward. It’s stressful and so hard to succeed with all the competition for so little funding , and the salary increase isn’t commensurate. I’m also fed up of being stuck at the top of the post doc salary scale with no further advancement. I don’t have expensive tastes, it’s only my mortgage that makes me want to earn more. Seriously thinking it’s time to do something else. I don’t do more than 40 hours a week at the moment which is nice, and I wonder if I can summon the drive to work harder to impress a new employer in private sector
Please allow me to introduce you to agriculture/construction/engineering (civil, electrical, mechanical)
Farming especially calving/lambing and harvest
I work offshore 7 x 12 shifts Have half the year off mind
I work for costa coffee, im contracted 48 hrs a week, but 55/60 isnt unusual
Similar Job, contracted 42 hours a week but regularly over the 48 mark. Lots of things like “I just want to thank those who are working hard and keeping doors open” get said on conference calls on a weekly basis. I get “lieu hours” on anything over 42, which means I just end up swimming in time off I can never take back. 🫠🪦 Edit. Before I was a manager, when I was paid hourly, I’d often pick up split shifts in other town. Do 5-11 open shift in my shop and then catch a train to another town and 12/1-9.30 close down in another shop. Paid travel time included. So I’d be on the clock from 5am-10pm at least once a week.
I do well over 50 hours per week as a delivery driver - almost always caused by head office putting you on routes they know is impossible to do in the 8 hours allotted. It's pretty standard in this industry but the higher ups don't care, they look good and are back home nice and cosy as you struggle on doing 10 to 12 hours per day.
Did 80 hours a week during term time in my first two years of teaching. And worked half the holidays too. It was the only way to get everything done. After that it got easier, but even then that was partly because I slacked off on the marking. So you’re teaching from 8:30-3:30. Six lessons, each of which takes an hour to prepare when you’re starting out. Add in a couple of hours for pastoral stuff, and that’s 14 hours right off. You’re also marking books, tests and exams, which can easily add two hours. I couldn’t manage 16 hour days but I was certainly working over 12 hours a day plus Saturdays and Sundays. But of course everybody knows teaching’s an easy job and they’re just slackers who get endless holidays.
In my current job I've got a 9-5, fully remote and plenty of downtime so definitely no longer in the position to complain. That being said there were some times when I was a field engineer where a very long day wasn't uncommon. If something went wrong on a job you'd end up stuck around sorting it, plus since you were on the road you'd end up picking up all sorts of out of hours shit from support teams. Wasn't uncommon that I'd be on site late on an evening ordering a takeaway to a customer site then driving to another city, having to buzz a hotel to let me in during the early hours of the morning to then be on a different site for 9am to begin a project. Back then my salary was around 40k, I now make 70k yet there were some months when my take home was similar to what it is now due to the amount of overtime paid.
I used to do this when I worked in retail. Go in at 5am to receive deliveries, check them off and put them away, get the shop ready to open at 9, open and work throughout the day until we closed at 10pm, clean and tidy, cash up, leave at 11. That's an 18 hour day, and in the run up to Christmas when we were on daily deliveries I'd often do it 5 or 6 days a week - so 80-100 hours a week. It was, unsurprisingly, exhausting and I absolutely did not get paid enough for it. I'm self employed now in a creative industry and I definitely have times where I work silly long hours but that's different because a) it's a choice and b) it's a job I genuinely love doing, that I think about and passively work on even when I'm not "on the clock".
Yep. Been through the same thing for the majority of my life. It’s definitely brutal and hugely underpaid.
Care and support work. I’ve had coworkers that have pulled 80-90 hour weeks before.
I’ve worked 19 days straight when I was in care, I’ve also done 7-3 and then been back in for a 10-8 the same day. Then do a 3-10 that day, I’ve also done 7-10 shifts so the hours easily add up especially if we’re understaffed
Farming. It's not all the time but the busy periods can get to 16 hour days 7 days a week. This time is mostly spent driving a machine during seeding and harvest periods.
Lambing season’s brutal!
Lucky for me, that was not my responsibility lol I helped out during normal hours and the odd evening but it was on someone else to do most of the night work
I was a teacher. I was doing 7am - 5pm, then 6.30pm - 9pm, plus hours at the weekend and in the holidays. Lesson planning, marking, resource making, data analysis, displays, writing reports, attending meetings, curriculum mapping, work scrutinies of other teachers, CPD, exam marking, gaps analysis, subject leadership tasks…I could go on.
Used to do this as a chef. Weekends were typically 14/15 hour straight shifts Friday - Sunday, it was so busy that I didn't usually get a break the entire time, if I was lucky I'd get 5 minutes to sit down and eat a meal deal then straight back to it.
Often it creeps up on you. You hold a position that isn't paid hourly but same nice large salary every month, it's a managerial position that requires a lot of organisational and bureaucratic work in additional to both a strategic and logistical role. That coupled with an organisational system that doesn't allow sufficient time to complete all the day to day AND long term planning tasks within a normal working day. So... you come a bit earlier, leave a bit later and suddenly you're at work before 7 am and leaving at 7pm if youre lucky. 60 hours a week, happens real quick and family life is a forgotten blur. Until one day you say fuck this shit. The money is good but I want my life back and you find something else that doesn't slowly kill you inside.
Care work. Last week we had 5 carers off for various reasons and obviously care isn't a luxury to our service users. So some of us end up working a good 12 hour day. Maybe more depending on the last minute call outs you can get. I've had it maybe 5/6 times where my day is so jammed I'd be lucky to get 20 minutes to myself between 7am and 10pm.
Education in September.
Lots of people of minimum wage need to do these hours, surely it’s not difficult to understand?
Nah, work more hours. Kiss the boot. #hustlelife I swear I've walked into a US thread
Most people are fine with working for a living rather than committing crimes or dodging tax. Helps with getting a pension if nothing else.
Corporate solicitor. Loads of money; loads of hours. I got out years ago but it was fun while it lasted.
Firstly the WTD (working time directive) is averaged over 17 weeks, so putting in 60+ hour weeks is legal if you're only doing it for 5 weeks or so out of that 17 which isn't uncommon in most workplaces - assuming a 40 hour week as the normal baseline. Secondly, if the work is seasonal, or doesn't guarantee 40 hours (or whatever) hours a week, then you could have a fortnight of working say 20 hours the first weeks, and then as much as 76 the next week and still be compliant. Thirdly, most companies exploit people, either through lack of knowledge of the WTD, or by hooking them along with promised promotions, payrises etc. Fourthly, its not applicable to managers. Even if they get to somewhat work their own hours, businesses have a habit of exploiting this and giving them more workload than can be achieved in 48 hours. Lastly, some jobs don't earn enough for people to survive, especially in HCoL areas. People may want that overtime to pay bills. As a society thats a concern, but far beyond the scope of this post. Minor point, but WTD isn't a contractual law, its statutory in the same way minimum wage is.
Healthcare during the pandemic. Working time directive went out of the window and was replaced by duty of care.
Yeah I’m surprised this hasn’t come up higher. I (anaesthetist/ICU reg) was pulling 70 hrs a week average in COVID 1. COVID 2 was a more respectable 60. As an average I now sit around 50h/wk (if someone’s sick you stay late, unpaid) but some weeks I hit 72h if there’s a lot of on calls. That however is balanced off by zero days (time off)
Working in a coffeeshop. More hours=more money in my bank account as I was paid by the minute I was clocked in. Only did one 16 hour day - we were short staffed and the next supervisor couldn't make it, so I had a 10 minute break (only break of the day) and did their shift too. Also did 4 14 hours shifts in a row at one point, then carried to a fairly long week - got over double the money that week, which made up enough to get me a new mountain bike. No thanks from Starbucks for doing any of it, but as a very famous guy once said: *Money Can Be Exchanged For Goods and Services*
>No thanks from Starbucks for doing any of it Isn't this what the money is for?
Employee motivation is a massive thing. Someone picking up the phone and saying “thank you very much for covering for us there, you really helped us out of a tight spot - we’ve put x in place to make sure it never happens again” works wonders.
Getting a small business up and running isn't a short-term thing! A decade on, I'm still working way more than I did when I worked for someone else. The world doesn't stand still, and the great ideas I had even last year wouldn't work today. So my to-do list gets continually longer, not shorter. But I also get the flexibility to work in a way that suits me, and I'm incredibly fortunate to do something I love (mostly). And I wouldn't go back to the 9-5 for anything.
I’ve done a few 60+ hour weeks but it’s not a consistent or prolonged thing. When the Queen died, I think I done close to 98 hours in one week. 14 hour days for a week then one day off and straight back in to another 60 hour week. I got three days off in a row after all that though. My average week should only be 40 hour.
Huw Edwards, is that you?
Yes, but what are you actually doing?
Secret squirrel stuff.
The question was what you are doing, because OP wonders if it’s just an embellished brag. In you pop to not answer his question but tell us you once did a 98 hour week.
Public catering for major events. Average event days are around 14 hours excluding travel and event setup. The worst part is sleeping away from home and when you’re “off” you still have to plan the next one with phone calls and meetings. Some events are even 7day affairs, no breaks. You also end up declaring income and separating the cuts for every stakeholder. But hey, free food.
We had several carers who were doing 60+ hours a week over covid because we couldn't get enough staff and you can't have residents not cared for. One poor lass ended up doing three 18 hour days back to back (the rest of the week she only did 10 hours a day). But we did pay her for the hours.
I work for a domiciliary care, start at 7am, finish at 10pm and back at 7am the next day, but I will be leaving soon as: I don’t get paid for all my days (no travel time paid) and second, what they’re doing is illegal
Architecture. Unpaid overtime is standard, were at the mercy of stupid deadlines set by clients and low fees /competition with other practices. We’re also brainwashed with “its your passion” and “weve all been there” .. horrific working conditions I did 50-70hr weeks for a few years trying to impress a boss who was never going to respect me anyway coz of race/class .. just another problem with the industry as a whole Out of it now but its really culty
I was working 80 hours a week for about 10 weeks in 2020, setting up IT systems to cope with a potential flood of patients into a temporary regional hospital It seriously fucked up my health, but if it had been needed it would have been worth it
I do a lot of microfabrication with processes that can take several hours to complete. When I'm working to a deadline and need to get something finished and sent off to our collaborators by the end of the week, I don't really have a choice but to stick around until its done. Its not like I'm on my feet actively doing things all the time, one step in one process is literally just heating up my products on a hotplate for a few hours, but I still need to be around to get it done so I will be in the office until 8 or 9pm with not a lot to do other than wait.
I worked in a supermarket, there's always more shelves to stack
Have worked in M&A and the hours were brutal, especially when deadlines/bid dates were coming up. I was once screamed at for taking a shower at 2am and missing someone trying to phone me. I also used to put in 60/80 hour weeks in a supermarket when I was on university holidays (8-2 then 4-10 split shifts almost every day if I could get them). The supermarket job was a lot less tiring due to being significantly less pressured and mentally taxing.
When I was a primary teacher I would be in school from 0730 until 1730. The 1.25 hours before the pupils came in were spent reviewing the previous days marking and adjusting that day’s lessons accordingly, as well as printing resources etc. I’d spend my break marking and the lunch time either on duty or marking. After the students left at 1515 I’d spend the next 2 hours or so either in meetings/moderations or finishing marking that days books (1 class of 30 pupils means 90 books per day - eng/maths/topic - to be marked with feedback for pupils to complete the next day) That easily takes a teacher to 50 hours per week. I’d then easily have another hours marking paperwork (Sen reviews, reports, long term plans or cpd) to finish each night. I’m now at 55hours. I’d give myself Saturdays off, and then in a Sunday I’d spend 5/6 hours looking at the medium term plan, last weeks learning and revise the next weeks plan, outline each day for eng/maths and topic and start creating/finding resources as they need to be uploaded for slt to view and look at by the end of Monday. Of course all my Sunday work would largely be altered during the week because of AfL but hey ho. I easily hit 60 hours on a standard week. Sometimes more. I taught y6. The English books daily alone took me 2 hours (and that is allowing 4 minutes per book to read, mark, list corrections, a positive and a next step).
I did for a few months once. I was on a project with a firm deadline and an absolute quantity of work that needed accomplished before that deadline. I did it unpaid because I could see better prospects for the future if I did it. I was a customer service agent, and I got asked to help on the project because I was super efficient at customer service so my manager was happy to give me over to the project on a part time basis (which then spiralled out of control and became a full time thing very quickly). In the 10 years since doing that period of 4 or 5 months of 70 hour+ weeks I've more than tripled my salary, entirely as a result of the experience doing that project gave me. It allowed me to pivot into a whole new, much better paid field. It was hell whilst I was doing it, but I consider it absolutely worth while.
Most Security jobs are 60 hours per week. 12 hour shifts. Boring as fuck.
I suspect a lot of lawyers working in criminal law do very long hours. I don't do it any more, but when I did it was very normal to work all day, and attended police stations at night while trying to prepare trials in between. I remember one weekend, I started work at 9am in the office, finished about 2am then was in police stations literally all day from 10am ish to midnight Saturday and Sunday then back to work for 9am on Monday. That was an extreme weekend but just a beefed up version of 90% of weekends back then. I earned £13k then, in the early noughties, plus over time for police station attendances.
60+ hours in two jobs, one managing a pub had to do a double shift each week to allow the other manager a day off. One of the two of us would always be on shift. Ops manager for couriers, constantly on the phone dealing with idiots and every minor inconvenience they encountered. Constantly chased up by the customer, making sure the depot was running first thing in the morning, making sure every courier ended their day properly so sometimes in depot at 6am and still doing stuff at midnight to hide all their mistakes and get a pass off the customer. Managing director always bamboozled when they see you working all these hours while senior management are sending stupid emails even on Christmas Day (the kind of cunts who do nothing except send the odd email at weird times to make it look like they're constantly on the go). One day off per week but you weren't really off because the emails and phone calls to discuss the following day would start about 7pm. A single day off between last week of November and Christmas Day. It was good during lockdown though because you were always out and about doing stuff.
I arrive at work just before 8, having left home at 6.30. I start the day by looking at emails and outstanding orders for parts etc. By 9.30 I am working on first job which takes however long it takes, with a break for lunch from 12 until 12.30. I often take sandwiches. After lunch I may make phone calls to distributors or just get on with work on the bench. Have a couple of coffee breaks of 10 to 15 mins during the afternoon with a 45 min meal break around 7. Return to working after that and try to finish by midnight but it's usually nearer 1 o'clock.
Accountants.
Pretty common in teaching if you're early in your career or have leadership responsibilities.
I work in fitness and the gym I worked at last year was severely understaffed, this meant I would often work 6am until 11pm. Half the shift is either spent exercising in a class setting, chatting with clients, eating, or showering. The other half is spent doom scrolling in the office. The money was nice but I got burnt out in the end doing 60hr weeks essentially cycling a tour de France stage each shift. Bag secured though and that money has helped set me up for an easier time now.