Wasted work time?

We all do it. Drink coffee, chat with coworkers, surf the web, etc…

I’d like to know, let’s say at your workplace the shift is 8-5:30. People show up at 8 and are supposed to work until 5:30 pm but in reality, if they show up at 8, when exactly do most people actually START working? Also in reality when do most people “clock out” either in reality or just by doing other things, QUIT working?

Or at your workplace is it pretty tight that when you hit the clock things roll with only scheduled breaks until quitting time?

Also have you worked where people do some work, then can go goof off for a few hours or take a nap or something during a slow time then get busy towards quitting time?

At my workplace, it varies depending on what level of employee you are. The folks who work in the cubicle rat maze pretty much have to stick to a strict schedule of time sheets, scheduled breaks, and 30 minute lunches. From what I see when I am there, they stick pretty close to their prescribed schedule.

I work remotely and travel, so my work schedule is very flexible, depending on what accounts I have going and what stage I am at with contracts, etc…I am results driven.

However, on those occasions a few times a month when I do have to go into the office, I share work space with the cubicle crowd because there is no place else for me to set up, so out of courtesy to them, I stick to their schedule. I don’t want to breed resentment because I have much more freedom than they do.

My boss kinda comes and goes out of this same space (but she has a closed office) as she pleases, but the nature of her job doesn’t keep her chained to her desk, either.

I hit submit too soon, I meant to also add that my only experience of people who disappear for hours during the day have been very low level staff like janitors and nursing assistants who will go off and sleep in closets or in their car. I have worked in hospitals and colleges for most of my career.

I have worked in building maintenance and trust me, we had all kinds of hiding places.

98% of my job is just being here “just in case”. 2nd shift in a datacenter. Spend almost all of my time surfing the net and watching TV. During the day, the TV has to be on news. But after 6pm, everyone is gone and I can watch simpsons. I have a pillow in my desk drawer and I can take it to the couch for a nap if I ever need to. I just have to have the shift phone on me at all times just in case something needs rebooted, or if an CRAC unit springs a leak or some such.

Since you also asked about how long it takes people to actually start working, I will add that I have a friend who works for a local branch of a governmental agency (psst: It’s the IRS), and he says there is this woman who comes in about an hour late every morning, then proceeds to go to the break room and set up a griddle and cook a full breakfast, bacon, pancakes, eggs, the whole nine. Then takes her sweet ass time eating all that, pisses around till about 11am, does about 1-2 hours of “work” then starts planning for lunch, which is another 2-3 hour ordeal, then schlumps around for a couple of hours after that, then goes home around 4pm.

They are supposed to work 8am-5pm.

She does all this because she can.

According to him, she just basically dares anyone to discipline her or call her out on any of this, she is one of only 3 women and the only female minority in the office and she’s convinced she can’t be fired.

My friend, btw, is a minority male, and he can’t stand her. he complains about her to me all the time. I would think something could be done about it.

Two ways to get rid of civil servants in a short time: Time card fraud and travel fraud.

There is a case on record for dismissal for time card fraud of 15 minutes.

Travel fraud can result in jail time.

You just have to have a boss with enough balls to do it.

I too have a job that consists mostly of “being there just in case.” I have two tasks that take about 1/2 hour each time out of a 10 hour graveyard shift and that is about it. I can read books or the internet, watch movies, etc. I just cannot go to sleep though. I call it my semi-retirement job because although I have a job, I am not really working much. See my coworkers briefly at the beginning of my shift and my supervisor for about 20 minutes every couple of weeks, otherwise working alone.

But if “just in case” happens then I am responsible for the safety and security of more than 100 young people until help arrives and at any time I might need to be medic/teacher/parent/counselor/advisor/mediator, or just put a Band-Aid on their problems until morning.

Annually I probably spend more time training for “just in case” than actually doing anything.

Last real job I had I was supposed to start at 8:00. I started at 6:30 when I got on the bus - checking email and reading whitepapers. My day was supposed to end at 4:00 (since I generally had a fifteen minute lunch at my desk) I seldom left the office until 5:00.

There was no facebook or surfing.

I was contracting so I did bill 50 hour+ work weeks.

I did spend probably half an hour or more a day talking to coworkers on non-related to work issues. And another half an hour a day in the act of running to the ladies room or getting coffee.

I burned out and haven’t had a real job in a year.

It depends a lot on the job.

I’ve had jobs (or periods of jobs) where we barely had time to go pee.

I’ve had jobs where a certain amount of “wait until you need to hurry up” was expected and there were built-in ways to deal with it. Companies where bringing a book to read or study was not only accepted but encouraged (if the studying led to a degree or better language skills, you could get a partial reimbursement for the costs); places where if you had a lull in between your hurry-up periods you could take comp time.

And I’ve had jobs where the reward for being efficient was getting bored out of your mind. A boss who yelled at me for reading legislation at work (it was related to the job, but I’m not a lawyer, I’m in IT) and who got mad at me when he found out I was several months ahead of schedule (sorry! But I already was ahead when you joined and you’re making us work 12h days!).

Right now, the current job doesn’t have much for me to do but it’s mainly because I still don’t have the accesses I need. I expect it to change next week, when I should get those accesses.

I work in network support. We have 8 hour shifts, and have a 2 hour phone shift during the day. During phone shift, I cannot do anything that would impact my ability to take a call. So I can review cases, answer emails, run reproductions, but I can’t call out to customers. I could browse the internet or read a book if I have nothing else to do, at least until the phones goes - and it may not ring. Generally I just grab easy (no-call) cases from the global queue or add notes to unassigned cases to assist the next engineer.

We have specific targets for closed cases, and if I have reached those goals, I could back right off and take a break. Of course I don’t - I keep working to relieve pressure from my colleagues and get ahead for the occasional quiet day where case closure does not happen.

And some day the tickets keep coming and I am just working flat out until I am so washed out by midafternoon that I have to stop and divert my attention. And I don’t feel bad for having to do so - I am always performing well above requirement.

And I shift cases to the next support team at the end of the day if I have to, and walk out of the office in time to catch the train without looking back.

I work a regular 9:00-5:30 office job. I get to work around 8:45 but it’s blurred lines when I start. When I get there I put my stuff away and get coffee, log into programs, eat breakfast and read work emails, wash my dishes, then get down to the regular work. What I do (accounting, money) needs to get done and if I don’t do it, it gets backlogged, but on a day to day basis my workload varies. If things get interesting, meaning if I find a problem to wrestle with, I will stick with it. If it’s the same old stuff it gets boring real fast. I can surf the web but my company limits what I can see. I can’t got to Facebook or eBay but I can read the SDMB or check out Ravelry or the Psychology Today blogs. Cell phones are not allowed for security reasons, so I keep it stashed in my desk. I use it only for emergencies but I have to take it to the cafeteria.
I take my lunch at my dask and it’s supposed to be a half hour but I have stretched it to an hour if I was reading something good. Lunch is MY time and I ignore anything work related. I always seem to work up until 5:30 and I’ve stayed later at times if a Sales Rep needed something from me.
I’d say overall I work about 7:00 hours everyday. I’m quiet and don’t talk to many people, not that there are many around anymore (layoffs 2 years ago).

Oh, boy! I’ve got a good one.

One summer when I was in college, I worked as an assistant groundskeeper at a well-known historical site that had “gardens.” (I can’t be too much more specific, but think of a rotunda.) I was an employee of the state.

Our official schedule was from 8:00A until 5:00P, with an hour for lunch. We would meet at the “shop” (an off-site building) and get on a truck at 8:00A. The truck would take us around and drop us off at the gardens, which took about 30 minutes. At 11:15A, we would head for the drop-off point and be picked up in the same truck to be taken back to the shop, where we had at least the full 1-hour lunch break. I think you see how the day would progress. We were actually at the gardens less than six hours each day.

In addition, there was a mandatory break each morning and afternoon, but we stayed at the gardens for the breaks.

When it rained, we would do no work at all. We huddled in the storage shed (which was about 10’ x 12’) and shot the bull.

When we actually DID work, we would mow some small patches of grass, trim some ivy, and rake the gravel paths.

I was actually pretty concerned about the whole thing, as there were two of us and it was obvious that it wouldn’t require even one person’s full-time attention to do the little work we had.

To top it off, the senior guy I worked with actually took me aside after two weeks to talk with me. He seemed pretty serious and I thought for sure that I was going to be laid-off. Instead, he told me that I was working too hard and that I was making the other groundskeepers look bad. He suggested that I stretch things out a bit more, like taking longer to mow a certain patch of grass.

What can I say? I decided to go with the flow. Can’t say I felt too guilty.

Sounds like my place.

A technician who works for me spends 90% of time time sitting in offices and laughing at jokes. I hear him cackling all day. He will sit in one office for an hour, laugh at jokes, sit in another office for an hour, laugh at jokes, etc.

He is completely useless. I shudder when I realize how much he is paid.

I was forced to hire him. He kisses everyone’s ass (except mine), so he’s untouchable.

Another person I was forced to hire socializes all day and talks about all the money he’s raking in from retirement (he’s a triple-dipper). Every now and then he will participate in a conference call where he’ll share his “expertise” on electronics. (I put expertise in quotes because he knows enough buzzwords to make himself look smart.)

And there are many others… :frowning:

My last job, there were some definite slackers. One talked all the damn time, deep in the throes of anecdotage. The other was a younker, and spent all day texting.

I guess I’m just an old fart, but I strongly reprehend this kind of non-productivity. It’s close to theft, in that they’re getting paid but not doing their job.

Ah, and get off my damn lawn, too.

My brother used to work in an auto plant and once described to me how everyone had their own ‘bed’ way up in the catwalks, complete with sleeping bag and pillow. Guys would disappear for 2-3 hours at a time for a mid-shift nap.

This was 10-20 years ago, I doubt that it still goes on now.
mmm

I do a paper route that’s been calculated to take 5½ hours and that’s what I get paid for. Given we get the papers at 1:40 am and the work must be done by 6 am I only have 4 hours 20 min to do it and since we get to go home once we are done there’s not much point in taking breaks. You end up optimizing every part of the work: reading subscription app on your phone while walking briskly, taking careful look where to park the car for minimal walking distances, sending elevators to floors you know you need them next and so on.

I take about 90s off to eat a banana and drink some juice at about mid-route point so my blood sugar won’t crash before I’m done, that’s all the time I waste on an average morning.

My first office job, I was ready to start at 7:00 am and I walked away from my desk at 3:00 pm. No lunch and breaks for bathroom only. That was my choice. My last office job, walk in the door at 7:59 and get coffee before going to my desk. Usually started work about 8:15 am with a break both morning and afternoon and a 1/2 hour lunch. I left promptly at ,4:30 pm. Now, I work public service. Computer must be up and ready to go at 9:00 am, so I arrive early enough to log on and fix coffee. Lunch is 12:30 to 1:30, but if we have customers in the door at 12:30 lunch is shorter because we must reopen at 1:30. We lock the door at 5:00, finish any remaining customers, close out the computer and cash drawer. Leave anywhere between 5:20 and 6:00. Time is wasted if we have no customers or other work (including cleaning).

I get in and turn my PC on, then make a drink while I’m waiting for it to log into everything I need. Usually have a chat with the rest of the guys in the office (I am assistant team manager) just to be sociable, and a talk with my boss to make sure we don’t have any major problems to deal with.

After that, it’s a question of working through to lunch with breaks for drinks etc. We are not huge clock-watchers but I am aware that one or two of the team don’t work to capacity and also have been known to use the internet for personal stuff in work time. It’s something we monitor but often don’t challenge because sometimes 10mins on farcebook or the Dope is a bit of thinking time and that’s good for all of us.

My business is open 9 - 4. I arrive sometime between 9 and 10 and stay until 2ish.

There are days when it is crazy busy and everyone works through breaks. There are also days when severe weather happens (or is falsely predicted to happen) when there is little to do. Everyone is on Facebook, we bullshit, we’ll get a pizza delivered and I’ll break out a six pack and breath mints.

In the long run it all works out.