I only have a 15 minute commute, so that’s nice, and I generally work 9:15-5:15 with a variable break for lunch (anywhere from 15 min to an hour) depending on what I’m doing.
I never know what to count as ‘work’-- If I go into school at six, teach/plan/tutor till 4, play cards with students until 7, then go to a school football game until eleven, is that a 10 hour, 13-hour, or 18 hour day? I’m not required to go to the football game, and it’s fun, but it is also part of my job and makes me a better teacher. So I dunno.
During the school year, I actively teach/tutor/grade/plan/sponsor probably 60 hours a week, and spend another 5 -10 at school activities. During the summer, between various part-time gigs and training I probably average about 20 hours a week, but it’s really feast or famine–week long conferences followed by weeks of nothing.
This is like the ugly, depressing, masochistic twin of those “how many orgasms do you have?” and “how big is your dingus?” threads. I can only hope and pray that people are lying as much in this thread as they do in those.
I work 3.5 hours a day and commute about 40 mins (on train) to and fro. I still wish I had more free time.
Life is about doing the things that you actually care about and serving your own causes - work is only the way to fund those things and make them possible. Anyone who loses sight of that is lost.
Some of us have been lucky enough to find those things in our work. Mine (teaching high school) is endlessly amusing.
During the school year I usually work close to 20 hours a week, depending on whether I pick up other peoples shifts or not.
Right now I’m in class for roughly 20 hours a week, plus 25-35 hours of work. Its hard, mostly because the hours are so different (class early in the morning and late closing shifts at work) and I’m constantly driving around throughout the day. I’m definately looking forward to a 8-5 job next summer, a bit more stable than right now.
edit: forgot to add, I love my job and would work more hours if I could. It is easy and the people are great, plus there is a lot going on in the library right now during the summer intercession, so there is always moving/shifting/sorting to do.
I’ve done shifts as short as 2 and a half hours and as long as 56 hours.
Lately I spend about 8 and a half hours at work every day, 5 days a week. I also do some work tasks from home via computer, after work hours.
Sometimes I’ll blow off an afternoon, just to keep things even.
I can definitely understand your viewpoint, because I basically think like that too. But I know for a fact that many people get actual pleasure out of their work, so spending an inordinate amount of time on it is not “wasted” for them. I just haven’t found anything I love that passionately yet, so I’m stuck in the former viewpoint. 
I work an average of 40 hours a week. As a salaried person in the IT, I realize that might be in the minority, but then, I’m on 24/7 call, too. The reality is that I don’t get called that much, but I’m always aware that might be.
I know three people who work comparable hours to the OP. A first-year teacher, a lawyer, and my fiance who is in IT.
The teacher has spend a lot of time drawing up lesson plans, and once she has those I think her hours will be better. She doesn’t like the school she’s at, but she’s been given a lot more responsibility than she would at a better school. As for the lawyer, show me a lawyer at a top-tier firm who doesn’t work insane hours. My fiance’s department has been understaffed for several months so he has to do extra hours to make sure the projects he’s managing run on schedule (he has been charging overtime for anything over his normal workday).
Of my employed friends I’d say those three are the most ambitious. None of them love their jobs but they see 70 hour weeks as stepping stones towards their eventual goals. They all seem to be doing OK - if you want to work crazy hours your early/mid 20s is probably the ideal time.
Dude, you have GOT to slow down. You are going to burn yourself out working that hard. I hope you are at least taking some breaks and some ‘me time’ during that long day.
For the last four months or so, I’ve been doing days from about 8am-6:30pm, with an hour to hour-fifteen commute on each end and an hour or so “lunch” break in the middle (and by “lunch” I mean “an hour exercising at the gym so I have the energy to make it through the afternoon”).
The long days and the fact that I can’t do much at home other than read and sleep actually don’t bug me that much; waking up at 6am in the morning makes me want to kill myself and/or someone else at least once a week. Unfortunately, that doesn’t look like it’ll change anytime soon. Our office is trying to cut everyone back to 8-5 unless there is a major deadline to be hit, but we’ll see how successful THAT particular initiative is.
What I REALLY need is a job that runs from about 10-7, and where my commute is a 5-10 minute walk. Hell, run it 10 to 10, I don’t even care - just let me sleep in and I’ll work as long as you want me to.
Currently we’re in stand down, so it averages out to about 50 hours a week.
If we’re maintaining an average work schedule, it’s usually more like 60-80 hours.
If we’re operating, it’s 108 hours a week. 12 hours a day, 9.333 days a week.
I was with you until you cited working 3.5 hours a day. Unless you are some kind of megaboss derivatives trader who leverages the hell out of those 3.5 hours, I can’t see how you manage to fund much more than your commute and your living expenses working just over 20 hours a week. And do you have any ambitions for the future? Working a part time job to pay for your living expenses and beer/pizza money is fine when you’re in college or maybe fresh out. But if you think that’s a lifestyle for life, you’ll end up being 40 years old and still living in a studio apartment (or in your parents’ basement) with an Xbox and a mattress for your company. And what about raising a family? How will you feed and clothe and put your kids through college working 3.5 hours a day?
On the other hand if you’re basically semi-retired 'cause you’re done with working for a living, good for you, I hope to get there someday. But I find it hard to put together “work to live, not live to work” with “working 3.5 hours a day” otherwise.
I myself work somewhat harder than I might otherwise prefer, but I’m certainly not killing myself. I’d say I work a little over 50 hours a week now, which is pretty normal for someone in the financial sector, even on the low end. Occasionally “crunch time” requires up to 14 or 16 hour days, but not generally more than 2 or 3 days like that at any given time, and only a few times a year. I get plenty of vacation/holiday time, and the pay is well over what I would make in a “standard” 40 hours a week, 9-to-5 type of job doing similar type of work in another sector (being as there are no 9-to-5 jobs in the financial sector).
The work itself is challenging and interesting to me, and I feel respected and rewarded in my workplace, which is all anyone can really ask for. My time is at least a little flexible; I can show up a little late or leave a little early every now and then without logging “half days off” or something with HR.
I work compressed shifts. The official schedule alternates three and four days per week, twelve hours per day. The actual shift is still close to that, but I’ll sometimes work into the evenings to catch up on things or come in for a few hours on one of my off days, along with sometimes covering for someone’s vacation. I guess that I average about 45 hours per week which is less than I have worked for any full time job. It takes me 10-15 minutes to get to work in the morning.
A lot of my work is repetitive: making charts, putting numbers into tables and yammering out orders like a chimp on bennies when helping out the techs. I’ve described as the engineering equivalent of being a floor trader in a stock exchange. I don’t know how many other people would like it, but I like to stay busy at work and there’s a real sense of comraderie between everyone here.
Operating… ? 108 no joke?
I have no free time. Well, I lie, sometimes I get *all day *Sunday to myself. I don’t date. I haven’t even had time to make a single friend around here. My barber doesn’t count, but she is actually the person I see most outside of work - a half hour every other week!
I miss my leisure time. When I didn’t have a job, I used to spend all day going to the marina for lunch, or drinking a beer at the park, or playing catch with my friends and looking for cool new restaurants and bars… oh it was so nice.
Somehow I’m still happy. I guess it’s because life is moving so fast and the only thing I have to worry about is work! Don’t have to worry about money. No drama with a girlfriend, no friends asking if I can stay out late and drink, no freaking kids! I hate kids. So, life is good. Could certainly do with a good lay every now and again… fuck, I really could do.
Any of you girls looking for a boyfriend who’s never around? 
Someone asked if I do anything other than work and sleep. Basically, no. I eat, but that only takes 10 minutes three or four times a day.
And this is *totally *different from the big penis thread. I started that thread just to brag, but I started *this *one because **I’m honestly looking for opinions about whether I might be setting myself up for a big burnout here. ** I think that is the question of the day. Sleep tight, I am going to bed.
I should add, the time I spent here tonight should have been spent sleeping, but it is kinda fun getting all your opinions.
12 hour shift, with at least another hour devoted to travel. One night each week I only work 6 hours.
6 hours On-Watch. 6 hours Off-Watch. 6 hours for sleep. 18 hour days. 9.1/3 days a week. Indefinitely. Go Navy.
Yes. Unless you’re one of those oddballs who thrive on that sort of thing, you really need to start working less. My rule is that I don’t allow anyone to work more than 12 hours a shift (unless it’s completely unavoidable), because after that, mental sharpness is not what it should be, and mistakes go up and productivity goes down. Your body and mind both need rest.
I work 8:30-5:30 most days, except I stay until 7:30 on Monday and about 2:00 on Wednesday. With 30 minutes for lunch, it works out pretty close to 40 hours a week.
I’m also on call every other night through the week and every fourth weekend. I don’t get a lot of sleep on those nights because of the phone calls, but I don’t have to go in very often. I work about five hours a day on the weekends that I’m on.