Nine to five

Well worth a listen. Lots of evidence that UK productivity is on the floor because work for many is inefficient, unnecessary or we’re just skiving – leading to unnecessarily long hours.

Thought it was appropriate for STW 🙂

I do like Lucy Kellaway, she does some good stuff on the World Service.

Her voice has got that David Mitchell ‘always on the edge of taking the piss’ quality to it.

Did they look at the private sector as well?

brooess

Thought it was appropriate for STW

It’s comical how active the forum is during office hours as opposed ….not.

Well yesterday I was working form home and accidentally spent the afternoon moving and stacking this lot…

[url=https://flic.kr/p/AzwcYs]3 cubic metres of hardwood logs[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

9-5 at the other end – I worked for a while in Tokyo and the amount of hanging about looking busy until it was acceptable to leave (which was, essentially, not before your boss, so more like 7, 7.30) was a shocker. Didn’t apply to me so that was OK…

It’s comical how active the forum is during office hours

That’s generally the only time I’m stuck in front of a computer instead of doing something considerably more interesting (like riding my bike!)

have worked with Huawei quite a few times, they normally supply lorry loads of engineers ‘free’ with every network they sell, most of whom are completely useless and just spend days like this:

[url=https://flic.kr/p/7TvMvx]Huawei engineer hard at work[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

I walked past this guy’s desk every day for three weeks, he was always asleep….

Not listened yet.

Was ‘presenteeism’ mentioned?

Was ‘presenteeism’ mentioned?

Yes.

I’ve had jobs in recent years where I’dve been quite happy to do some work but I simply wasn’t asked to do anything and there wasn’t anything to do. I did create a few bits and pieces but as nothing was really required it just got put in a drawer. I realised that to ask for more work would’ve upset the game which a lot of people were playing, so spent my days on t’internet and having interesting chats with colleagues..

It’s no wonder the economy’s in the doldrums!

We’re, uh, quality not quantity. When we work we work like mother******s and we’ve got to have a presence 9-5 so there’s an understanding that we don’t do good work by sitting at a desk punching buttons for 8 hours, we do good work by bending and stretching.

Let’s face it we all did a lot more work before the internet was available in the office. I’ve worked at a major international company where the CEO felt working from home was a waste of time, he based that on his own experience where he said he was never a diligent or productive when he was at home.

I can’t believe you’ve all wasted my time with this shit. I’m a busy man.

where the CEO felt working from home was a waste of time, he based that on his own experience where he said he was never a diligent or productive when he was at home.

That’s why I don’t WFH (unless I’m waiting for a delivery), just end up mowing the lawn etc….

I can do my day’s work in a morning and anyway my export customers are an hour or two ahead of me so by lunchtime I’ve done most of it. There’s sometimes a brief evening flurry when they get home and remember something then message me.

It’s ok. Most of your jobs will eventually be outsourced to India or wherever, and you’ll have loads of free time to waste on the internet! 😀

I don’t need to ‘work’ full time, but I still find it staggering the amount of time some of you seem to spend on here alone. 😯

I used to work 9-5 in a bank and it drove me slightly mad and I got very fat, took a fair amount of time off sick too so it doesn’t surprise me at all. Even stopped riding bikes for a year or so 😐 Soul-destroying would sum it up! My work takes me to loads of offices and I always see loads of people sat down doing mot very much or wandering off to the coffee machine/shop so it definitely doesn’t suit a lot of people.

Now work outside the vast majority of the time and have recently dropped down to 4 days a week, never been happier 😀