Do the majority of Americans still typically work 9:00 - 5:00 (+/- an hour or two either direction) and Monday thru Friday?
I’ve been in the restaurant business for most of my adult life, and restaurant shifts are very different from “normal” working hours. Breakfast cooks and servers have to be to work before everybody else, so all of you can eat before you go to work … night restaurant workers need to be there after you get off work. A typical 24-hour restaurant will have a day shift of 6:00 AM - 2:00 PM, swing shift of 2:00 PM - 10:00 PM, and a graveyard shift of 10:00 PM - 6:00 AM. And hardly anybody in this business is lucky enough to have both Saturday and Sunday off.
I ask because it seems that most extracurricular activities/services are set up to cater to the 9-5, M-F crowd. Movie theaters, live music, public transit (locally starts at 6:00 AM and stops at 7:00 PM - and doesn’t run on Sunday - neatly surrounding and providing for the 9-5 crowd, but mostly useless to anybody else). Baseball games usually start at 7:00 PM on weekdays, so that the 9-5 crowd has time to get home from work and then get to the ballpark.
I could find various statistics on how many hours a week people work, but nothing on start/stop times. As a middle class guy in the tech industry I don’t know anybody who works exactly 8 hours a day, five days a week except federal employees. But I would say that 9-5 are fairly core hours. Most people I know (which is far from most people) are at work between those hours though most people I know also arrive earlier and/or leave later. I would say that most office workers in general work something like 8:30-5:30, but I don’t know how big a proportion of the population that is. As you noted, people in retail and service work just about any day of the year, any hour of the day.
I think the 9 to 5 days are over and will never be seen again on a [B]consistent basis.* * The nick name of 9 to 5 is called bankers hours.
Profit margins are so tight that workers have to over compensate with either more hours or more flexable work schedules and work outside the 9 to 5 time frame.
I have been in a wide variety of careers such as a Engineer, Mortgage banker, a Plant Manager, Vice President and Sales Manager and have never figured out how to fix a schedule to 9 to 5. I’ve done it a couple times a week but never consistent, because something is always changing requiring service. I have been scheduled 9 to 5 but worked 8 to 8 because I wanted to make some serious hay. Yes I have chose to go home at 5 pm but it cost me because my prime time to make money was 5 pm to 9 pm.
If I have to do personal business between the hours of 9 to 5 I just take off and do it. Everything has a cost.
It’s a matter of priorities. Does someone want a flexable schedule with easy hours or do they want to make hay?
Actually, bankers’ hours denotes a short working day. 9-5 is an 8-hour day.
I’ve never worked 9-5 or any other 8 hour shift, because I’ve never had a job that included a paid lunch. My day was either 8.5 hours or 9 hours, depending on whether I got a 1/2 hour or hour unpaid lunch.
Hmph! This federal worker (and none of my colleagues) does not work just 8 hours from 9 to 5. I work from sometime around 8 to 6 or later on weekdays, leaving for lunch only irregularly. I’m in for a few hours on many weekends, and am on call 24/24 for one week (a very, very long week) of every ten. I don’t know any colleagues who punch the clock at 40 hours a week.
9 to 5 is eight total hours. Everywhere I’ve worked in the corporate world asks for eight on-the-clock hours. So if you eat lunch, you need to stay longer. Everywhere I’ve seen, 8 to 5 or 9 to 6 is more standard.
Just a note: I’m not asking about total hours worked in a day, or specific start and stop times. What I’m asking about is the Monday - Friday, “day shift”, whether that means 8-4 or 9-5 or 8-5 or 10-6 or whatever. Saturday and Sunday are still called “the weekend”, and events are usually scheduled for “the weekend”. This is despite the fact that in many industries, a particular person’s “weekend” might be Monday-Tuesday and there’s absolutely nothing to do on a Monday or Tuesday night. And you always hear about “girls’ night out”, but not about a “girls’ day out” for the women who work the night shift.
So what I want to know is, is it still appropriate to schedule almost all events in such a way that attendance is really only convenient for the M-F day shift crowd. How do people who work “alternative” schedules ever go out to a movie with their friends who work a different schedule when they only show movies at night?
Is that true though? You can see movies in this area starting as early as 11:00 am every day. I have never seen a nights only movie theater other than a drive-in. If anything, people that work unusual schedules have advantages over those of us that do. There are many things that are only available during the day but only a few at night such as theater and concerts. They even have baseball games during the day.
Those that work 9 - 5 M - F shifts are only a subset of the population. In the other corner we have housewives, minors, students, retired people, and workers with other shifts. Some things may be slanted towards evening but that is because they are evening type activities such a plays and fireworks displays. Each has its advantages and disadvantages but I would say being cooped up during the core hours of the day presents bigger issues.