How long is your working week + commute?

Out of interest, how many people leave promptly from work?

I slack off early, a lot.

But, I’m in early quite often, have to work in the middle of the night if something breaks and work about 4-6 weekends a year which is “included” in my salary.

9-5 with an hour for lunch, weekdays I work a little past this often just for my convenience, I work a lot past it sometimes with TOIL. I like my job so it’s no hardship. Commute is 10 minutes by either car or bike.

I used to do the whole long hours, long commute thing, looking back at all the hours I wasted sitting in traffic and all the extra time I put in for no appreciation… Nah.

Out of interest, how many people leave promptly from work?

I do 90% of the time. My day should end at 16:45. My laptop lid normally gets closed at 45 on the dot! I have no issue with doing overtime if required and if I’m getting paid, but theres no way I’m sitting faffing around at the end of the day for no reason.

Work – 40 hours/week
Lunchbreaks – 2.5 hours/week
Commute – 5 hours/week

I walk in though, it’s a 3 mile drive or 1.8 mile walk, neither is exactly pleasant but for an extra 15min each way is worth it.

8 hours a day 4 days a week, commute is 20-40 mins by car or 35 mins by bike.

so 36 hours a week ish, although I have started to do 5 hours on a friday during term time as well.

Edit: forgot about dinner hours, so 40 – 45 hours a week

45-50 a week including commute, unless the weather precludes work. Today for example saw us in for about 4 hours, too much wind to get on the ropes…

Leave home about 6.30. Home between 8 and 10pm. Bonus!

people who seem to think anything less than 11hrs in the office is slacking.

There’s far too much of this around (not so much in my place thankfully). It seems to get ingrained in an organisation – managers do it because they have the responsibility, the lower ranks follow because they want to progress and pretty soon its oneupmanship as too who works the most and who has the least time. People start to boast about how many unread emails they have, how many meetings they have that day and how late they stayed last night. No-one ever boasts about how they managed their time effectively and got home on time, and had time for a ride/to see the kids/whatever you like to do.

As soon as my clock hits 5 I shut my computer down and leave almost* irrespective of what else is happening.

Good! Well done (genuinely – I know this might sound sarcastic but it’s not!) This shouldn’t be remarkable though.

37.5 hours + (10 * 1 hr cycle commute) = 47.5 hrs

Around 50 hours,and with as much flexibility as a very flexy thing.

I generally do 8:30am – 6pm with a 20 min commute by bike each way. Once or twice a week i have to travel so maybe 60-90 mins each way. That’s a lot of time.

approx. 70 hours a week at the moment, including commute of 1:30-2:00 hours round trip, but it’s on a bus so I can work then too…

I work in the office 35 hours a week (including lunch breaks) my commute is 10 mins each way, but that includes the school run. I work from Home Friday mornings to help with childcare costs and so I can spend more time with my Daughter.

I realise I’ve got it very easy now, but it’s not by accident, I used to work 12-14 hour days with a 30 min drive either side, but I learned unless you’re very lucky you’ve got to work to live, but you don’t have to live to work.

I’m usually out the door at 5pm, but not later than 530pm if I’m busy because my Son needs me to pick him up most evenings from his after-school play group. It’s a good way to make sure I don’t go back to the ‘old ways’.

I do have work e-mails (on my work supplied) iPhone and access to everything at home so I do work in the evenings and weekends if I think I need to, or I’m bored – this extends to holidays too, although we officially have no official holiday policy in work over and above you can’t be on holiday at the same time at the guy you share work with (unless you have to) but you can take as many as you like within reason. I’ll be taking my (work supplied) laptop to the Alps with me this summer, mostly to create my awesome GoPro Editzzz but I dare say I’ll be peaking at my e-mails.

People start to boast about how many unread emails they have, how many meetings they have that day and how late they stayed last night.

This will/is happening on this thread too, just watch…
People are odd.

Just under 40hrs working (not including lunches) then about 45 mins a day commute
Used to work in leeds with another 2hrs a day commute on top of that

Oh and i never look at emails or work from home, Sod that

If I want to get a bit of time in the gym pre work then I need to leave my house at 6:30am having got both the kids into the car, with their packed lunches, school bags etc, so I can drop them at the MILs 2 miles away and get them set there then onto a train for 7am. Work 9-5 with an hours lunch, then train drops me back to MILs at 6pm, then I get home about 6:30pm.

I am managing to somehow take a 35 hour work week and turn it into 60 hours out of the house. pretty impressive when I live 3.5 miles from work

Without commute about 60 hours on a 4 day week.

People start to boast about how many unread emails they have, how many meetings they have that day and how late they stayed last night.

I find this quite amusing and had a conversation about it with two project managers who were trying to out do each other with how hard they have things.

If you are trying to build a career it can be hard to buck the trend, but now that I’ve been there done that I’m happy to argue their long hours means they aren’t doing a very good job at all. It’s usually not possible to do everything to a high standard in normal working hours and working stupidly long hours is only one possible solution.

55/60 hours.

2 mins bike ride to the station, 55 mins on the train, 15 mins ride the other end. Get to work at ten to nine, leave at 5:30/6, sometimes earlier, sometimes later.

Commute is fine, bit of exercise, comfy seat, wifi, train only stops once or twice. Bit of time to read, watch stuff on the tablet, listen to music, podcasts, or just sleep. I’d rather not do it than do it, but it’s very bearable.

v8ninety – Member

People start to boast about how many unread emails they have, how many meetings they have that day and how late they stayed last night.

This will/is happening on this thread too, just watch…
People are odd.

This was very much the way of things where I used to work, people would boast how early they got in, how late they stay, how they came to work at the weekends etc.

I had two responses depends on how bitchy I felt.

The nice one:

I don’t think it’s wise to admit you can’t do your job in the time allocated for it.

The less nice one:

The special kids used to get extra time to do their work when I was in school too.

Any decent Manager, as in one with Management skills will measure output, not input – someone who’s coming in hours before they’re meant to and sitting on Facebook shouldn’t be getting any kudos for it – some people do work lots and lots of extra hours every day to improve their output, and fair play to them – the world need’s it’s ‘go getters’ as much as it needs it’s ‘plodders’ but in my limited experience 90% of the people doing ‘all the hours’ are gobshites hoping to look good, or genuinely not very good at their job and need the time to do it properly.

Wow. This is a genuine wakeup call.

That’s how I felt. I worked extra hours because that’s what everyone did, I drove miles to get there because that’s what everyone did. It was only after moving to a different field in a different location that it dawned on me that its not normal. Finish early, short ride home, maybe pop to the shops on the way. It gave me back my evenings to do stuff (chores and fun) and completely freed up my weekends.

People start to boast about how many unread emails they have, how many meetings they have that day and how late they stayed last night.

innit. couple of 100hour a week blokes on a stag do bragging about many hours they do. One of them managed 4700 hours in a calendar year (do the maths for a sec – terrifying. Didn’t even take Christmas Day off) and he’s got THREE KIDS. 🙁

funny thing is, they both reckoned they were the big men – but from the outside they just look like useful suckers getting exploited by their directors

Door to door I suppose I was about 50h in my last full time job, maybe 55h when I was busy adn enjoying it. But the commute was cycling, which I basically wanted to do as exercise, and I also had an evening meal at work, so after getting home around 6:30 or 7 and having a shower I was free for the evening.

If it’s a job you like it’s not so bad. It was dragging by the end and I don’t miss it though. One problem with working from home is motivation for daily exercise…

9-5 5 days a week, occasionally slightly longer, occasional travel.

Work in the same village that I live.
Home -> School run -> Work commute = 25mins on foot.
Work -> Home = 3 mins on foot.

I reckon I have the work/life balance nailed!

27 hours give or take

I’m about to go to a new job with a car and train commute (probably 2 hours each way) as opposed to a bike ride in (about 30 minutes each way). So loosing about 3 hours a day over what I have now.

I know it’s a bad idea time and distance-wise, but I’m really eager to get out of my current job, not much else came up locally so the commute option looked more appealing.

I’m reckoning 1 or 2 years before I either look to move closer to the job, or to get a job closer to home again.

30 hour week over 4 days.

45 min drive each way on nice quiet B-roads over the moors.

once I’ve built an extension I reckon a 3 day week is in order.

thenorthwind – Member

People start to boast about how many unread emails they have, how many meetings they have that day and how late they stayed last night.

Weird isn’t it. The overtime self harmers are the ones that really get me; I used to work with a woman who did a half hour at the start and end of every day, without fail, but refused to claim for it because “It’s just part of the job”. And insisted that this was normal, even while we were all saying to her “Hell no, I claim for every damn second!”

Scumbag boss of course didn’t say a word, because scumbag boss.

innit. couple of 100hour a week blokes on a stag do bragging about many hours they do. One of them managed 4700 hours in a calendar year (do the maths for a sec – terrifying. Didn’t even take Christmas Day off) and he’s got THREE KIDS.

Depends what you count as “work”.

I once got chatting to the CEO of a $400billion (thats $400,000,000,000) turnover company who said he ‘only’ works 65 hours a week, and when he broke that down it didn’t seem too bad (secretary filters his e-mails so he gets the important ones sent to his phone and read them over breakfast, 1st class travel so can actually work productively on the train, 8 hours in the office, plus an hour lunch meeting, work on the commute home and do his organizing for the next day on his phone whilst there’s nothing on TV).

When you look at it like that it’s not a difficult day at all.

I once got chatting to the CEO of a $400billion (thats $400,000,000,000) turnover company who said he ‘only’ works 65 hours a week, and when he broke that down it didn’t seem too bad (secretary filters his e-mails so he gets the important ones sent to his phone and read them over breakfast, 1st class travel so can actually work productively on the train, 8 hours in the office, plus an hour lunch meeting, work on the commute home and do his organizing for the next day on his phone whilst there’s nothing on TV).

When you look at it like that it’s not a difficult day at all.

Depends how you look at it…

Seems massively excessive to me.

4 shifts on, 4 off (12hrs). If I had to commute I would end up doing a 15hr day so I stay over between shifts. Not ideal but all that will change next April due to new job/area so I will get to commute from home!!

Hmmm

I tend to leave home around 7.30am, and get home about 6.45-7pm

That means around 57 hours per week away from home. My cycle commute is 45-60 minutes per day, depending on which way I go, and then you have to add on time for getting changed in and out of cycling kit

an hour each way reliably on the bike or 45 minutes on a good day in the car.

as little time as possible actually in the office as is needed in order to fulfil the technical support required by ongoing operations….

How ever i travel at short notice for extended periods and work 12-24-36 hours at a time when im away…..

On the whole im happy with the balance at the moment. I think i will take bad when i go into a propper 9-5.

Depends how you look at it…

Seems massively excessive to me.

Yup. I’m on about the same amount of hours as weeksy – sometimes more, sometimes less. Feels about right, in general I get a bit restless if I do less, bit stressed if i do more.

I leave home at 0800 and either arrive at 0815 or 0845, depending on whether I need to drop Junior at college. Normally leave at 1800, but earlier/later as required, like tonight as it’s a night-riding so off for 1700. Usually take 30-45 mins for lunch.

I’m a contractor, so bill every hour.

But when a perm I use to, leave at 0600 for a 0730 start, and then out at 1700 for a 1830 home – unless I was travelling/flying, and then could be more plus travel out on Sundays if long-haul Well paid, and enjoyed it – so no problem.

When you look at it like that it’s not a difficult day at all.

Still sounds rotten to me. When do you do all of the things which aren’t work?

Still sounds rotten to me. When do you do all of the things which aren’t work?

When you retire at 55 because you have 3 million quid in the bank 🙁

But they don’t seem to do they. Plenty of directors worth that where I work, working till late 60’s etc… after having spent countless hours/weeks jetting round meetings, working till 11pm… I just don’t get it.

In the end I don’t think many people lie in their death bed and think “I wish I’d spent more time at the office”.

9am to 6pm daily, lunch at my desk… which happens to be in my home office so all in, 45 hours per week.

One day I will have to get a proper job and I will look back on these days through teary rose tinted glasses.