My question for all you 60, 70, 80+ hour workers is, why? Do you work in a field that essentially requires such hours? Do you enjoy your work so much that you actually chose to work that long? Do you work so much just to make ends meet?
I can understand that some lower paying jobs might require such hours just to pay the bills, but there are many Dopers with high paying jobs that also work incredible amounts. How do you even have time to spend all that money you’re earning? Are you planning to retire early.
I am very fortunate in that I have a salaried, well-paying job that is nominally 40 hours per week (though I actually put in about 45 and there are many that do more). We have crunch time just like most jobs, but they only come up once or twice per year. I cannot imagine letting myself get to the point where I’m regularly working 80 hours a week. I like my job well enough, but I can’t imagine it consuming my entire life like that.
I’m not sure that working lots of hours always translates directly to having tons of extra money. That’s not how it works when you’re salaried.
Personally I have historically worked insane hours because that is what it takes to have your own business. In the beginning you work those hours to get your foot in the door and get paid at all; in the middle you work those insane hours to keep your paycheck coming in regular-like; and once your business is solid after many years you work those insane hours to actually start making a profit and living quite comfortably (and paying off all that debt you acquired in the first years of your business.)
When you have your own business, your hours mean a lot more than when you are a small fish in a big pond of someone else’s outrageous CEO salary.
High paying job here that requires, at times, long work hours, sometimes for months, to meet client deliverables and demands. Given competition (always) and the sour market environment (current), you do what you can to keep your client base happy. I’m seriously considering simplifying when my children finish their bachelor degrees (about 5-6 more years).
To add to the questions: How does your family feel about you working all those hours? I can;t imagine such people having any time for loved ones, specially kids.
I could not imagine spending that much time away from my SO, or our hypothetical kids. It’s hard enough now going to school and work right now for me, and that’s just for a couple of years. even so, I feel terrible sometimes and I miss her, to the point where I try to take internet classes whenever possible.
The alternative is not good. In my field, all the other jobs pay considerably (50-80%) less, plus most of them are more dangerous, strenuous, and outdoors. I’d rather be in the office 55 hrs/week and on call the rest of the time than freeze my ass off while swinging a shovel near heavy machinery for 40hr/week and one quarter the money. There really is no middle ground.
It’s not early retirement I’m after, it’s any kind of retirement at all. Several years ago, I realized that if I didn’t find a better job, I’d have to work literally until the day I died. I don’t like work, so I’m going to get it out of the way as fast as possible. Hopefully, I’ll still be healthy enough to enjoy stuff.
Office work is mentally stressful: not knowing when/if you will have time to yourself, paperwork, meetings, disrupted sleep, the need to excercise. With my old job I slept well, got enough excercise while working, and could actually plan ahead, but my body was falling apart, bad weather was misery, and I had no money to use in my copious time off. To me, it’s a no brainer. I would guess that most 40 hr/week factory workers or coal miners would gladly trade with me.
I think the 40 hour work week made sense when nearly everybody did hard, dangerous work and had a long walk home every night, plus time consuming household duties. It still makes sense for some jobs. But a workday in an office is not even remotely equivalent to a workday in a steel mill, so why should I expect parity in work hours.
True, but is the 16ish hours that a steel worker gets to him/herself any more or less valuable than they would be for the office worker? Why should I not expect parity in hours with my family?
Even in today’s much safer (thank Providence) environment, the steelworker has a much higher chance of serious injury or death at work. Plus, a career of physical work is likely to leave him with a bad back and joints when he is retired. Tradeoffs and choices, I guess.
My husband claims he’s working his insane hours (usually 12 per day, including Saturdays) so that he can have a job at all. He got a new boss who has told him that that is what she expects. It’s not for more money–it’s for any money (he is not paid for overtime). He is also going back to school, so he does work less on those days…so that he doesn’t miss class. Oh, and he’s going for his MBA, so I guess this kind of crap will never change since that’s what managers are “supposed to do”.
Yeah, I’m getting tired of it. I would like to go back to school myself…but it’s basically me keeping the household together, and I feel like I can barely do that. We have one daughter who is 12 now, and I work full-time…it has been 40 hours most of the time, but sometimes they like to bump it up to a mandatory 48 just for kicks. I just don’t have the energy. At least I get paid OT, though. I don’t want the money, though. I need the time.
My wife has the same job, so nobody is sitting home, feeling neglected. If one of us had regular hours, it would probably work out well, because that person would have time to take care of shopping and household work while the other was at work. This would give us more time together than we have now.
No kids, so maybe I’m completely wrong here, but don’t children spend about 12 hours/day out of the house taking the bus, going to class, and doing after school stuff. Most parents I know say their kids spend most of their nights and weekends with their friends, playing sports, or doing schoolwork. Seems like hanging out with Mom and Dad is not high on their list of fun things to do. Again, I have none, so it’s quite possible I’m way off.
My SO doesn’t like it, but we need the income*. He doesn’t work, so I have to, and he has to deal with it. It’s not like we spend time together anyway, so it’s not really a big deal.
*I’m salaried, so no overtime, but working a lot is expected in my company and in my position. I have to do it to keep my job.
The boyfriend does it, and I HATE it, but it’s what you have to do when you start your own business… and he has two of them. I mean, he works until the work is done, and if that’s how long it takes then that’s how long it has to take. He makes no money.
I love my job, and feel like I am doing good in the world. Even so, my work load has really evened out in recent years: my first few years teaching I easily put in 70 hours a week during the school year and 40 a week in the summer. Now it’s more like 50-55 hours a week during the school year (with some crunch times that are worse) and 20 a week in the summer. What changed? At first I was very ambitious to get noticed in order to get certain positions. Now I have those positions and I can rest on my laurels a bit. Second, I’ve simply gotten better at my job: much of the work in those first years was setting up systems and programs that are now in place.
Another reason I worked/work so much is that I don’t change gears very easily. I need my job to be my hobby because once I get home I’m going to be thinking about work anyway.
As far as friends/family go, I don’t have kids because my work is so consuming, and I am ok with that–again, I’m doing good in the world, and get plenty of emotional feedback. And my husband is pretty self-contained.
I strongly believe that most people who work overtime in the US, other than those who own their own business, do so because it’s the American Way. It’s a cultural thing.
When I worked in the UK I occasionally came back to work on the weekend or in the evening. When my boss found out about this he warned me not to do this. I wasn’t earning overtime, so it wasn’t a monetary decision. He thought that “it looked bad for us” if I had to come back to work after hours–that I was being overworked and being unfairly treated. (I also wasn’t a member of a union, so that wasn’t his concern either.)
A few people I knew from other countries in Europe who heard about this situation shared his concern. One guy from Sweden said that in his country they looked down on people who worked late hours because “obviously they weren’t working in an efficient manner during business hours.” His attitude was that if you couldn’t get your work done in 40 hours, either you weren’t working to your full capacity or you had too much work to do, and either way it was your responsibility to do something about it. Working late wasn’t considered an acceptable option.
What happened in the UK made me think about my dad, who often left for work before we got up for school and came back at 6, 7, or 8, sometimes bringing more work home, many times going back to work on the weekend. Every so often he said he’d stop working so hard. He’s 62 now, widowed, and he still works that hard. I talked to him last night at 9:30 and he’d just made it home. I’ve often wondered whether it was worth it for him, to be working 60-70 hour weeks his entire life. It didn’t save him from being laid off more than once. It didn’t stop him from getting passed over for promotions. One of his bosses once even told him to stop going home late because it put pressure on everyone else. Even if he made more money (and I doubt he did), so what? He missed a lot of my childhood. He missed so much time with my mom, who’s gone now. He’ll never get that time back.
You’re thinking about high schoolers, and maybe middle schoolers, Furious_Marmot. Most of childhood is not that way at all. When they are young, either you take care of them or they go to daycare. It’s pretty tough to find a daycare that runs past 6 p.m., so one parent has to be able to tear themselves away from their job by then.
My daughter is in middle school, and even if “hanging out with Mom and Dad” isn’t her priority, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t need us. School doesn’t even take up eight hours, even with the bus ride. She’s OK staying home alone for the hour it takes for me to get home (without OT) but I wouldn’t want to leave her alone all evening. Yeah, she could make a PB&J sandwich and not starve to death, but she does better with a homecooked meal and someone to help her with homework and take her to the library or drive her to a friend’s house. And, well, it’s our job to raise her, to pay attention to her, to make sure she’s OK and doing her homework and practicing her trombone and not smoking or drinking or who knows what else. Yeah, we could let wolves raise her, but what would be the point?
It’s tough to send her to bed when she hasn’t even seen her father all day. I know she misses him. She worries about him when he says he hasn’t had time to eat lunch all week. I know she’s not the only kid who has to do that in the world, but it still sucks. It would be better if we knew it was for a certain goal, or for something temporary. She understands when he has to go to class, but when he’s just working all the time, it’s tough.
I’m doing it for the money. We have a 5 to 7 year plan and if we want to pull it off, we need to pull in more money.
Right now I have a full time salaried job where I work 40 hours a week. I also teach spinning 3 to 4 hours a week and I have a part time job at a clothing store where I work 20 hours a week.
No kids, so it’s not a huge deal right now. The SO doesn’t mind, he works hard too.
It may be an American thing; it certainly is different in the Netherlands.
Most men here have an 38 hour work week, and most women a 32 or 20 hour week. So, one-and-a-half-job per household, which yields enough income to live comfortably. It allows families to have a home-cooked meal every evening (standard here) and time off for hobbies for every family member.
Ditto. My wife doesn’t mind that much anymore but she couldn’t deal with fact that my day ends when the work needed for that day is done and I can push it no further forward. It’s harder when I’m at a remote client site for an extended period.
I work the hours because if I don’t, someone else will, and then I won’t be working any hours. It’s a cutthroat environment, and with Lehman, Bear, Citi, AIG, etc. all laying off, there are a lot of people who would take my job and work the hours if I didn’t, and probably for less money. Now is not the time to be seen as idle or slacking.
How does that work when times get tough and unemployment spikes. If there are 10 people desperate for one job, and one says he’ll work 50 hours for the same pay, the bar gets reset. Does your legislature forbid that?