LHS

Do yo want to be like the US or like Germany? I know what I would prefer – a country where workers are seen as people, treated well and are more productive as a result – thats Germany.

You may think its good to work yourself into an early grave and miss out on a family life but most of us don’t

TJ – have you ever worked in Germany?

The current attitude stinks unless you REALLY want to sit back and watch the rest of the world over-take you? In that case, carry on.

I watched my colleagues work themselves into severe illness. I saw them lose touch with their friends and miss their kids growing up. I saw them gain weight, lose weight, blow up in stress, burst into tears from sheer exhaustion. If you think my attitude stinks, spend a few months in my old office and see the mental, physical and social effect unrestrained overtime has on people.

Yup, I’m sure my Grandfather and Grandmother were incredibly lazy and apathetic while they worked many more hours per week than I would dream of cleaning rich people’s houses and doing labouring jobs.
Why didn’t they join a union? The rich people wouldn’t have got their houses cleaned and your grandfather and grandmother could have moaned to their heart’s content about the quality of biscuits they got with their cup of tea. Win/Win. Apparently.

Andy – they did which is why we now have a reasonable working week

It was built on innovation, working hard, and striving to be the best.

The current attitude of people stinks – unless you REALLY want to sit back and watch the rest of the world over-take you? In that case, carry on.

What, working sensible hours is being lazy? 🙄

I work in a cross European team and I can assure you Germany, Benelux, Finland, Denmark, Norway et al. all only expect their workers to work normal hours and holidays (in fact more public holidays than us).
Seem to be managing OK as far as I can see.

There just isn’t a culture of expecting people to get in for 7 and leaving at 21:00 which there seems to be here.

You really are a patronising prick aren’t, you.

LHS – we have a much longer working week than the germans do. We have a very differnt attitude to most similar countries about working hours. Germany does not have an opt out of the WTD. 48 hrs a week is the max

Edit – do you work for a US based company?

TJ – have you ever worked in Germany?

I have for the past 7 years (not actually living there). They certainly get a better deal than I do being employed by the local legal entity than the parent company.

LHS – we have a much longer working week than the germans do

Answer the question, have you ever worked in Germany? I am assuming the answer is no.

Germany actually work longer hours on average than the UK.

http://www.fedee.com/workinghours.shtml

I think the difference is that in most of Europe people actually get paid for the extra hours they work.

BruceWee. I’m not sure if your post with the extraneous comma is directed at me, but in case it is: no. I think you misunderstood my original post. I have no problem with hard-working people, and in no way shape or form would I consider that lazy and apathetic. Taking the mick out of the work-shy rather than the hard-working. If it wasn’t aimed at me….as you were 😉

LHS – That goes against all the usual data produced on this that shows the UK as working far longer. I suspect those numbers are for paid time only not the unpaid overtime and also do not allow for the efect of the greater holiday entitlement

I personally have not worked in Germany but members of my family have

Evidence on average annual hours of work in 2006 (Figure 1) suggests that workers in countries with higher levels of productivity (as measured by GDP per hour) tend, on average, to work fewer hours a year than workers in countries with lower productivity levels, with a high statistical correlation of .693 (rising to .754 if data for Bulgaria are excluded).

Lots of other good data there. Including an analysis that shows Germany working much less as most a data suggests

http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/ewco/studies/tn0803046s/tn0803046s_3.htm

That goes against all the usual data produced on this that shows the UK as working far longer

You’d better ignore it then if you’ve not seen it before.

Yes, it was aimed at you. As for the comma, my grammar and spelling go out the window when I get annoyed. Almost never happens to me in internet arguments so well done.

LHS – Its you that ignores data that you don’t like. I suggest you have a read of the stuff I have quoted and every other survey that shows the UK working longer hours.

this is a bit more definitive I believe – note Germany is much lower annual hours if similar weekly –

The UK data is only for “official ” working hours, in most countries the actual time spent working is recorded. As many posters here have eluded to they are officially on 40 hour weeks but actually working 60+ hours.

That is just not allowed in Germany.

That is just not allowed in Germany.

Tell that to any of my ex-colleagues working in the German offices, or the French.

That was in one of the world’s largest law firms, BTW.

It is illegal in germany to work more than 48 hrs. No WTD opt out

This thread is scary, almost makes me not want to finish my masters go out into the world of “real” work.

It’s making feel like i am work shy. I have the attitude that you shouldn’t have to live at work doing more than a 40hr week. Family and relationships come first in terms of life balance, but that’s easy to do if you have a strict 9-5 job. To me, having disposable income isn’t worth jeopardising your health or happiness, i’d rather not make use of my degree and get a 8-4 labouring job for bad pay than do 7am-9pm days for that new carbon hardtail or nice car. but then if i want a well paid job, i have to compete with people who are willing to give up their lives, meaning i’ll be overlooked, fired or not even hired.

I’m a full time student, i work part time too.

Work and uni contact time is normally about 25hours a week. On a quiet week i will normally do about 5-10 hours “homework”, so a slack week will be 30 hours minimum, but that’s like one week in six. A week with many deadlines, i can do anything up to 35 hours home work, so a 65hr week when i have a heavy work load.

So my working week is anywhere between 30-65 hours, but i would say typically a 45 hour week. but i can obviously take breaks and days off riding whether i want, just have to make it up.

From experience I can say that the Germans and French work as many hours as the UK do in the Merketing Services industry. The Dutch aren’t far behind. They all do get much more holiday though, aswell as better family benefits.
The Scandinavians have it best, my other half is Danish and I’ve resisted suggestions of moving there as Denmark is a bit dull but it is becoming more appealing as we are starting to think about a family.

TandemJeremy – Member
It is illegal in germany to work more than 48 hrs. No WTD opt out

And projects are supposed to be tendered fairly throughout Europe according to EU law and guess what they’re not.
I admire your principles (mostly) but you are quite niave to the reality in most businesses in Europe. Whether the reality is socially the right thing is a different matter…

Taking the mick out of the work-shy rather than the hard-working.

This is the issue I faced when I said no to overtime. The accusation of being work shy.

Despite sticking to contracted hours I was among the most productive of my team, and managed to get the most ridiculous levels of work done in a short amount of time. I didn’t get stressed, I got on and did it. I did my job.

Because I left the office at 5:30 while everybody else remained sat at their desks, and because I never looked tired, and because I’d had evenings and weekends to unwind and destress with my friends and loved ones, I was resented by those who’d been conditioned into thinking the only way to successfully compete in the modern marketplace was to dedicate every working hour to their profession.

I was seen as work shy. I really wasn’t. Management knew I wasn’t, which is why I survived waves of redundancies. Those at the top who had Ferraris to pay for loved me. But nobody around me could see that the link between hours worked and actual productivity is a lot weaker than it seems. We should be judged by our work, but we’re not. We’re judged, and we judge others, by how large the bags under our eyes are. Because the world more often rewards signs of merit than merit itself.

It’s so often just a cultural thing in certain industries and companies. Overtime is what you do, because it just is and that’s that. Don’t like it? You know where the door is.

I can’t speak for other countries, but here we too often seem to have this idea that you’re either a grafter who gives it your all, or you’re just a scrounger. I believe in hard work. I believe in doing a good job. I just don’t believe in happily waving goodbye to the rights we’re lucky enough to have had gifted to us by the hard won struggles of generations preceding us.

Great Britain was once a nation of inequality and exploitation, of oppression and imperial domination. It might have ruled the waves and half the globe, but it didn’t do it by being a nice, fair nation of the sort any of us would likely want to be a part of. If ‘keeping up’ with the rest of the world means going back down the pit for 14 hours a day and dying at 35 after living a peasant’s life so as to prop up the earnings of the aristocratic elite, as I would have done at the height of Britain’s supposed Greatness, then I’ll happily watch other countries race ahead. Anybody lucky enough to be posting on Singletrackworld in the daytime should probably think about just where they’d have been arbitrarily born into in that society.

I’m all for working hard, but you can only do your best. Masses of overtime, in my experience, expects you to give better than your best, and that’s impossible. When pushed beyond your limit you can only fall down. Just as my old colleagues did, and no doubt will be doing, long into this very evening.

Usually wake up 7am and I’m working before I get out of bed, checking email etc. In the office for 9am but normally will have spent 1 hour already doing email.

Office from 9am – 7pm, lunch at desk

Some evenings I’ll do a couple of hours as well

Some days I’ll set my alarm for 3am and work through to 7pm

So not sure how many hours a week that is, does it actually matter?

Also working with some Germans and they put the hours in too but I don’t care enough to argue about it and don’t see what it matters?

Brilliant post jackthedog

cheersdrive – I have faimily that work in mainland europe and I have read the figures. we work significantly longer hours that most other European nations – and have less holidays and less employment rights. this is trh reality.

I am sure some companies attempt to circumvent it especially American ones – however worker protection is much stronger in Germany , they work shorter hours and are more productive per hour as a result.

I feel really sorry for you people that work long hours and defend it as a good thing. Will you really be glad you worked all those hours when you are older?
turkeys voting for christmas comes to mind

Will you really be glad you worked all those hours when you are older?

Yes

When you have taken years of your life expectancy and have missed out on so much? Like watching your kids grow up. like lazy days with your partner?

I work to live, I don’t live to work

Will you really be glad you worked all those hours when you are older?

When I retire at 50 and won’t have to depend on any government hand-outs or worry whether i can afford to do the things I love. Yes.

Not allowed to do more than 37 a week with out taking it back as flexi which suits me, time to see my wife, kids and ride my bike. Like to think I am productive in those hours and much longer and my mind would wander.
Dad worked 70 – 80 week in high stress job and father in law the same they both died this year at 61 and 66, if I am unfortunate to not make it to or past that age I would like to think I had not spent the majority of my life at work behind a desk.

I’m amazed at the hours some people are putting in here. I have never worked in any office where people have worked these kind of hours, and I have worked in many different companies.

Its partly the reason why I have never ultimately pursued the career ladder to earn say over £50k I really dont see the point in spending my life in work, and besides whatever work you do beyond 9-5, no company ever thanks you for it. I think its scary that people are prepared to spend so much time in a place they dont want to be for no benefit to them…

Also I’m sure there has been lots of research done that shows productivity drops off massively the more hours you do, and it doesnt benefit the individual or company.

Ah well – I prefer to live my life when I am younger. From simple things like riding my bike to spending years travelling the world.

Is that really worth your family growing up without you? The reduction in your life expectancy?

Your still working now, I have no intention of working past the age of 40 other than receiving passive income from investments.

We’ll see how we get on but all on track at the moment. Still got 6 years to go though.

‘Living’ is not answering every post on a pointless internet forum 😉

When I retire at 50 I think my life expectancy will be far greater than those who retire at 65.

All those things you describe TJ, you can have whilst working hard during the week. They’re not mutually exclusive!

Its interesting to see others opinions on this and attitudes to working. I see a general concensus on two issues:

1. There is no point doing overtime just for the sake of it.
2. Contractual hours do not neccessarily tie up with hours work (and for most people this is not always a problem).

In my case I am contracted 42.5 hours a week. I start aroud 8 and finish around 5. I say around as I do what is needed to do the job. Right now I’m doing my contractual hours as I’m not that busy, about 6 months ago I was doing between 80 and 100 hours a week. Thats the job but realistically its also not sustainable.

In terms of OT I have a rule. I work midweek OT at no cost. If I have to work W/end that is paid (Double time).

I also have another rule which I make at every interview. And that is that I will work whatever it takes to get the job done. It is however a two way thing, when times are quiet or I can fit in I have the morning off to ..take Dave to the vets, go to the dentist, meet a repair mechanic for the washing machine etc.

This has always served me well.

The only people I have a problem with are those that refuse to help and give that little bit extra when work demands. People who clockwatch and are off at 5 every day whether the job is done or not. Yes it may be your contractual right but its a piss poor attitude and you are letting the team down.

And lastly …yes it is about performance and results and not the hours worked.

LHS – they are completely mutually exclusive. Don’t kid yourself. You cannot work 70 hr weeks and have as much time to do stuff as you can working half that.

LHS – they are completely mutually exclusive. Don’t kid yourself. You cannot work 70 hr weeks and have as much time to do stuff as you can working half that.

I think that’s called a difference of opinion.

Should be 35 hours. 9-5 with an hour break in between.

on a 4 day week now, so 28 hours, 9-5, lunch from 12-1.

I could go and find an extra day working somewhere, but tbh, stuff that, a 28hour week is magic! I’m half tempted to ask to stay on it when we do go back up to a 5 day, I’ve zero dependents, so not as if i can’t survive on less.

I also work contracted hours only, no free OT from me. That’s just insanity.

I forgot to mention that I’ve also worked alot with the Japanese and they are a very good example of why working long hours is not efficient.
They work 12-15 hours a day all through the week, when they fisnish work they eat and drink with there collegues, go home to sleep for a few hours and then get up and do it all again. At the weekend they spend a saturday doing domestic duties then on Sunday prepare for work again. It’s not a life. The crazy thing is that they do it out of some duty to be at the office and to work for the ‘company’, it has nothing to do with actual work done as they are generally very ineffiecient and most of the day is wasted procrastinating and making decisions by commitee.