I had to go to the Post Office to pay some bills. This week, I’m working 9am-5.30pm, and only get half an hour for lunch. No matter when I try to take lunch, there’s always a massive queue in the Post Office because it’s the only one in the shopping centre and everyone’s in there paying bills, mailing stuff, and so on.
This got me thinking: How on Earth did anyone manage to get anything done back when most people had 9-5 jobs? It’s not much of an issue if you’re a shift worker or not working outside the home, but if you work in an office or whatever, it must have been (and be!) a major pain in the neck, especially if you have to wait until Late Night Shopping or Saturday to buy things (along with everyone else who works the same hours as you!)
Even now Government Departments, Banks, the Post Office, and most non-retail businesses/firms are only open Mon-Fri 8.30/9.30am-4.30/5.30pm, so I’m curious how it worked when nearly everyone worked the same hours… And how it works for people out there who do work 9-5 jobs- how do you manage to run all your errands when most things aren’t open until you start work, and close just as you knock off? (And yes, I know a lot of places have more flexible opening hours these days- but there are still quite a few important places that insist on sticking to “Traditional Business Hours”…)
I work 8-5 and for the most part I try to take care of errands on my lunch hour. Thankfully, many businesses stay open until 6, or have hours on the weekends so that helps too. I do all my grocery shopping on the weekends, with mid-week trips for perishables after work.
If there’s something I really have to get taken care of that I can’t do either before or after work I’ll ask to take a longer, late lunch so I can avoid the 12-1 crowds. For the most part, all the employers I’ve had have been pretty accommodating, so long as it’s not a regular issue.
Even now I sometimes have to take off for things like haircuts and doctor’s appointments. I think it’s all those housewives that made it easier, though. When I was a kid and my mom was staying home we were always on the road to the post office or the store or the dry cleaner’s or the water company or somewhere.
In my area of the US, there are very few things that aren’t open evenings and/or weekends. My dentist has night appointments one night a week. I have a doctor’s appointment at 8pm tomorrow. The Post Office and bank are open on Saturday mornings. Retail stores and supermarkets are open as late as midnight. It is only a few things like small businesses and government offices that are not.
Before my wife went back to school I had a non-working, non-child-having wife with a car.
She probably spent 5-10 hours per week running errands for me, picking things up, taking packages to the UPS depot, picking up certified mail, sending out certified mail and running items in for repair, etc
The banks which close at 3pm aren’t exactly helpful, and last night was a bit of a dash to catch the ATM (which for some reason closes at 9pm) for a night of drinking and debauchery.
That said, businesses here often open in the early morning (8am for my bank I think) and services like hairdressers might be open until 7 or 8pm.
This country is light on the old christianity, so in many ways Sunday is just another day. Many people (in shops etc) work Sundays and have another day off.
Dont most people still work 9-5 or something pretty close to that? You seem to be under the impression that something has changed. Has it? I would guess that the majority of people still work those kinds of hours.
I have to be at work at 5:50am. I don’t get off until 5pm. And yea, it sucks. Recently the biggest pain has been with getting a new apartment. They stop showing apartments at 5:30pm. So there’s no time to do that during the week. But it’s not that big of a deal. I can go on the weekend.
Things like Post Office or something that closes before 6pm, I find some slow time during work hours to take care of that.
ah the good old days before the internet and 24h service. My WAG is that less got done partly for those reasons - e.g. it took many weeks to get a phone installed.
Just from my experience in the defense industry, I would say there is much more flexibility than there used to be. Every job I’ve held has been an office job with some policy approximating “flex time”, which was touted as new and innovative in 2000 but was shrugged away as an “of course we have that” feature of my new job. With flex time (in case you’re not familiar with it) you work 80 hours every two weeks on pretty much any schedule you want, as long as you’re in the office during “core hours”. If you plan to be in later than 0900 or leaving before 1600, leave a note and/or notify your supervisor; we call that “missing core hours”.
The work system allows a tremendous amount of flexibility; I can work four 10-hour days to get a Friday off, or eight 9-hour days and an 8-hour day to get every other Friday off. I can work two long days Monday and Tuesday so I can leave early to go to a doctor’s appointment Wednesday without having to burn sick leave. If I take a long lunch to run errands, I can just make it up at the end of the day. One of the best features is that an overage in one pay period can be credited to the next pay period, so if I’m burning hard on a Friday deadline, and can’t take my day off at the end of this pay period, I can hand in my work Friday and take the following Monday off.
Back in my days with an office job, I’d often negotiate with my boss to put in some extra hours and take a morning or afternoon off as “comp time” to get errands run. I still put in the time he needed and got the job done, but I had some daytime hours to go to the bank (or wherever).
As a slight hijack, is “nine to five” really common? Everywhere I’ve ever worked, they expected an eight hour day. If you want an hour for lunch, you start at 8:00, not 9:00. If you get a half-hour lunch and two ten-minute breaks, that’s still 8:10 to 5:00. Where are all of these 9-5 jobs, where you only work seven hours a day?
I don’t actually know anyone who works anything approximating 9-5, FWIW.
And as for taking time off during work, I think a lot of that depends on how co-operative your boss is… not everyone can simply take a few hours off during the day to run errands.
Also, even if some places do open at 8, you’ve got the problem of everyone trying to get in there before work, thus rendering the whole exercise largely academic anyway, unless you want to wake up several hours earlier than is really necessary, just to line up outside…
My guess is that there used to be a much greater gap in the life and work conditions of white-collar and blue-collar workers. White collar workers had much more flexibility in taking time off work to get things done – they also had all kinds of people to send on errands on their behalf – secretaries, assistants, clerks, pages, interns, errand boys, tea ladies.
This tradition is alive and well in India, where each office has at least one “peon,” who brings everyone a cup of hot tea twice a day and can be sent on petty errands.
I remember when the legal shop opening hours on weekdays ended at 18:30 here in Germany (now it’s until 20:00). Post offices etc. still close at 18 or 18:30, most bank branches are open only until 16:30 etc.
when I already worked in a full-time office job and shop closing hours were at 18:30 I made more efficient use of the time after leaving work - planned ahead, put in a bit more speed, up to a full sprint when it was 18:29:52 and I needed to get into the supermarket 30 m ahead (that worked but you had to endure dirty looks from the supermarket staff).
Ran some errands during lunch break - still do.
Did some things by mail rather than in person
A lot of shopping, mailing parcels, etc. did/still does got done on Saturdays
Some vital chores like doctor’s visits I did/still do during the workday, some no-so-vital ones after checking with my boss
BTW it seems to me that the same people who rushed into shops a few seconds before shops closing at 18:30:00 now rush into shops a few seconds before 20:00:00 …
A bit of a highjack, but why are “office hours” always considered 9 to 5? I’ve never had a job that started at 9 AM, or knew anyone that did. The conventional job was always 8 to 5, with an hour for lunch, making 8 hours.
There’s probably something really basic I’m missing, and I’m going to feel like an idiot.
I work 9-5:30, one night a week 1-9:00, and every third weekend (and when I work the weekend I have Friday off and get off at 12:15 on Tuesday.) It’s not 40 hours, but it’s full time for my workplace. I’m sure plenty of salaried people don’t actually work out to 40 hours a week.
And there are still plenty of essential services and things that keep bankers’ hours. It is a pain and a half if they aren’t open on Saturday.
It’s still hard to imagine working people being able to leave the factory and go anywhere to run errands during their half hour lunch break. And never mind about actually eating lunch! Especially at a time when few factory workers drove cars to work and instead used public transportation. The mental image I have is the enormous Lordstown auto plant near Youngstown, visible from the Ohio Turnpike. It’s several acres in extent, and it would take a significant chunk of one’s lunch break time merely to walk across it, let alone go catch a bus into town and do banking.
Flex time for workers is a newfangled concept, but getting off work in the middle of the day was unthinkable for most working people in the 19th and 20th centuries. What about unmarried workers who lived alone?
The only thing that comes to mind is how banks often stay open later in the evening on Fridays. When did this begin?