Work day

[bladespark]

Today was a good, solid working day. I started work sometime around 11 am, and have just now, at about 10 pm, called it quits. Of course lunch, dinner, and a quick trip to the store happened during that time, plus a few rounds of checking e-mail and forums for messages, but still it was a fairly lengthy work day for me, probably around eight hours of actual work.

And that leads me to wonder how many people actually put in an eight hour workday of work. I don't mean turning up for work, and then leaving again eight hours later, I mean actually working for eight hours. I never really have. Closest I came was doing factory assembly work, where I did actually do work the entire time I was at work, but that was a six hour shift. (No breaks either. Mind-numbingly boring, but not particularly difficult stuff.) I've had an office-type job scanning in bills of lading and entering their info into the computer, which was also a six hour shift, and which I came pretty close to working the whole thing, but there was at least a little bit of standing around the break room, and chatting, and not just working. Hrm. The IRS thing I did was pretty solid work too, now that I think of it, and a full eight hours, so I guess I have had one job where I worked eight hours, but that was only on the days I came in, which certainly wasn't every weekday, or even most weekdays. That was irregular to say the least, and seasonal to boot. And most of my jobs have involved a lot of standing around doing nothing much, really. Being a night watch involved going around every half hour and checking everything, but otherwise was sitting a reading, while working at Treehouse was a ton of work most of the time, but still involved quite a bit of hanging about chatting with the other staff.

I know there are jobs where people do real work eight hours a day, five or six days a week, but it feels to me like they're in the minority, and that most of us, though we may get paid for eight hours, are getting paid for a fair amount of coffee drinking and yakking.

(And I shall add that I don't find anything wrong with being paid to drink coffee and/or yak. Breaks are good for you, they mean you do better work when you are working.)

Comments

[kainhighwind-dr.livejournal.com]

"Breaks are good for you, they mean you do better work when you are working."

Can I take this statement to oh, say, every tightwad regular employer I've ever had since they never seemed to listen? Not to say they ever said 'no breaks!' (well ok, one did) but they sure seemed to find fault with those like myself who would bust ass for nearly eight hours, but be 'caught' taking a 5 min breather during the day (the one time the boss was actually in the office all that time too).

You're probably right and an 8 hr work day is only that in theory for the majority. All I can say is, a full day of work and no breaks 5 days a week and 'expected' overtime leads to severely depressed, stressed individuals who would rather come into work with a machine gun than a bag lunch one day... thankfully I called it quits before that happened (my ticker gave out first, lucky for management). ;)

[susie-que.livejournal.com]

I work 8 hours straight no break on Tuesdays and thursdays starting at 6:45-2:30. I also work Mondays and weds 8 hours long but I get a lunch break at 1pm and start those days at 7:45-5:20

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

But do you do something every moment during those hours? Do you ever have times when you're not busy, or are you completely busy that entire time?

[susie-que.livejournal.com]

if I am not busy with my column i am busy helping someone else who may be behind, catching up on sterilization, doing bleach molds' or calling in appointsments. nope i am always doing something...even if its taking a 2 min break to go to the bathroom. There is no down time in my office

[beetlecat.livejournal.com]

That was always the sucky thing about working for myself. If I don't work, I don't make money.

Not long ago, someone I know was working a job that involved alot of sitting around. And then, for a week straight there was nothing left for him to do, but his bosses told him to look busy because they didn't want him transfered into another department. And he got paid the same regardless of how he spent his time.

I have never worked a normal 9-5 job where I had something to do the entire time. Frankly, I would have prefered that as sitting around but still trying to look busy really drags.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

I like being self-employed. It's nice being able to set my own schedule. It has its downsides, of course, but I find it worth it.

[beetlecat.livejournal.com]

Of course, or we wouldn't do it :)

But that doesn't stop me from getting jeolous over folks (who I know) whose jobs involve siting around and watching tv and cooking BBQ chicken (seriously, at work) because they are there to make sure nothing goes wrong, and they make over 6 figures doing this!

But still *shrugs* I'd love to have that kind of money, but I love doing what I do even more. Especially since (due to the oil boom) I could go out right now and get a job at a fast food place for $12 an hour.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it'd be nice to make a lot for doing not much. But ah well.

I've never worked fast food. I don't think I could stand it.

[harliquinnraver.livejournal.com]

i work 10 pm-7 am (sometimes almost 8) and with the exception of a 1 hour lunchbreak, i work nonstop. and i work HARD. as does most everyone employed by walmart.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Your job really, totally sucks, from everything I've heard.

[harliquinnraver.livejournal.com]

XD yeah it does.

lots of heavy lifting, stocking, stopping theft, getting yelled at by customers, managers asking why im not going faster while im working my maximum speed. XD

damn assholes.

[graydown.livejournal.com]

I work between nine and ten hours a day, with no official breaks. Still, there are conversations, and time for making tea, and other distractions. And meetings. Meetings aren't work. ^_^

[silveradept]

When I painted houses, I worked a nine or ten hour day, one of those hours which was taken for lunch. It exhausts you, even though you get to see your progress pretty easily. When working for the library, which had a lot of "sitting", there were still tasks to be done that could be done while sitting around - so I could work an eight hour day without too much for break, but things never conspired to get me from beginning of shift to end of shift on those days.

So I've seen both ends of it. I rather like the library job better - I get to talk with people more.

[jilinn.livejournal.com]

I've had one job where I worked for at least 10hrs a day and occasionly a full 12 and except for two 15min breaks and a 30min lunch, yes we were up doing something constantly...and still getting bitched at for not being fast enough. That job is one of the few things I don't miss since I moved.

[web-dragon.livejournal.com]

please define work?
I come in usually at 8:45 and i have to act pleasant from 9:00 to 5:30, most the time i don't get a real lunch break, i have to eat at my bench.

More than once it was a real challenge cause i was in pain or i was sick on top of having to try to figure out how the customer had messed up their computer, a majority of the time i go home with a major headache.

What i consider a good day of work is a day I get to set down at my bench and actually work on a computer, not a day when i have to keep having to go out onto the sales floor to talk to a customer.

[jtbeckett.livejournal.com]

The vast majority of my jobs have been part time... however, when I was a set designer/lighting tech for some theatre productions, there was a period of about two weeks out of every season where I was working 100+ hours a week... and not getting much sleep at all. It was creative work, though, and it involved prop design, carpentry, painting, and scaffolding... so never a dull moment, and we all know that you can tolerate working that long if you're really into what you're doing, which I was.

[jtbeckett.livejournal.com]

btw, did the grey fur get there? was it the same stuff you were thinking of? hancocks had two different kinds, and i got the softest one.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Yup, it came just fine. It wasn't actually what I'd been thinking of, but it will do just as well, so that's fine.

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

Hm... nope. Science involves a lot of sitting around waiting for stuff. Sure you could be doing data processing or reading papers, but even then, there're a lot of breaks. A busy week, though, may

That said, I was in the office 6 days a week and about 10 hours a day, so I probably pulled 40 actual hours of work regularly.

[kainhighwind-dr.livejournal.com]

Cripes. What kinda science are YOU doing?? j/k ;D

I had to go out in the field for weeks and traipse across the landscape collecting rocks, measuring rocks, talking about rocks...

... and then we'd be back in the lab spending all day processing rocks, sifting rocks (sediment), looking at rocks (microscope), writing about rocks...

My god I hate rocks... 0_0

[dexam.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm officially required to work a minimum of 37.5 hours a week (not including breaks for lunch), but that really means I have to be available for that time (and it has to "office hours" as well i.e. 8am to 5pm)

My hours of actual working vary quite a lot, depending on deadlines, how many projects I'm currently working on, and if there are any production support issues. At the moment I've nearly wrapped up two projects and I'm waiting on user testing results, so things are fairly quiet. But that's usually a good indication that three new projects with short deadlines are about to hit me all at once...

[justplainbob.livejournal.com]

...eight? Please, oh please, can I get an eight-hour workday? Pretty please? Anything but this twenty-hour workday stuff!